by Callie Bates
It’s impossible to feel at ease, though at least I don’t have to endure the Butcher’s company. He went with his most trusted men to Montclair in the dead of night; he knows of a little-used exit on the southeastern wall, through which his informants have been smuggling information since yesterday afternoon. Rambaud, it seems, is waiting for us; according to our intelligence, he’s spent several days in Montclair. The mayor responded to my acceptance of her invitation with apparent delight.
So here I am with a scribbled map of Montclair in my cuff, and a burning determination in my stomach. I tug down the sleeves of my long scarlet riding coat, and adjust my little black hat, trimmed with a gold tassel. Even in the carriage, I’ll stand out for a mile—which is supposedly a good thing.
Doors and windows open as we pass, the people of Laon emerging to stare at our small, gleaming party. Children call to me. I wave at them, forcing a smile. At least my people can see that I am alive and well—even while so wickedly bearing an illicit child.
We cross a bridge over the river Sasralie and emerge into the countryside. The day is even more brilliant here, a blush of warm southern air stirring the red buds on the trees. Eren’s fertile green hills roll out from the city walls, while to the west the Hill of the Imperishable slopes up above the gray roofs, a heathered monolith. Farmers emerge from their fields to lean against the stone walls and watch us pass. A few cheer—“Long live the queen!”—though some are silent.
No one riots or throws produce at my head, and it feels entirely surreal. My forced smile makes my cheeks ache.
We skirt a small hamlet, where commoners are emerging from humble thatched houses to watch us pass. Some join the tail end of the party, having heard that the queen will be speaking in Montclair. They shout after me, calling for the blessing of a favor, or at least a glance from me. It’s a strange counterpoint to the riot of two days ago, and my muscles tense even as I wave to them.
The road curves, climbing a hill above the Sasralie, and the sharp peaks of town roofs punctuate the horizon. As we draw closer, walls of severe gray stone differentiate themselves from the town’s silhouette. I draw in a breath—the walls are thick, ancient. No wonder Rambaud has cultivated a friendship with the mayor, and is trying to ambush me here.
The horses snort at the hill’s steep grade. Riding beside the carriage, Rhia points. “Looks like a welcome party has arrived.”
I squint. I can just make out a blur of figures crowding the ramparts, and more standing in the maw of the town’s gates, watching us come. A trickle of sweat runs down the neck of my riding coat. It’s hot under the sun.
“Flowers,” she adds. “And bunting, from the looks of it.”
“You can’t be serious.” I squint harder. The people are carrying bright objects, softening the forbidding stones. It looks as if I’m being not only welcomed, but celebrated. Tension pinches the back of my neck. It seems the mayor is taking her part in this charade seriously, too.
Rhia snorts. “It’s a bit much, isn’t it?”
We’re approaching the gates now. All looks just as the Butcher marked it on my map. The street slopes upward on the other side, thronged with people in their finest clothes—all bright colors and wide smiles. They throw flowers at the guards and shake the cheerfully colored bunting. The guards glance at me, and I nod for them to smile back at the people, even though it feels like madness. I wonder if they’re all hiding weapons under their clothes, or whether the mayor has simply played on her people’s love of pageantry.
Now I’m passing under the shadow of the gates, a gasp of cold in the warm spring day. For a moment, I’m blinded, and my heart kicks with sudden panic, the certainty that I should not have come. Then sunlight flares into my eyes, and a shout rises from the people gathered on the street.
“The queen!”
“Queen Sophy!”
“Long live the queen!”
Rhia and the guards fall back, and I lift my hand. Somehow, through an effort of pure will and Ruadan’s training, I smile and wave. A child tosses a bouquet of early-spring flowers at me, and I catch them clumsily, spilling meadow rue all over the carriage.
“Long live the queen!” they call again, insistently, as if expecting an answer.
“As it is willed!” I call back, although I have always found the traditional Ereni words uncomfortable. Who wills the queen to rule? Not the gods, certainly; I don’t have that kind of arrogance, to believe I have been placed on the throne by divine right. No, I rule thanks to the will of the people. These people.
And the people who control their lives, whether they know it or not.
The street climbs past tightly packed old houses, up and up, toward a wide stone bridge. I force myself to breathe. This bridge is our control point; our opponents, if they suspect our trap, will most likely anticipate we’ll attempt to control the gate behind me, and the street. But with his southeastern entrance, the Butcher doesn’t need to control this side of town. He plans to surround the square and blockade the bridge from the other side with the very carriage I’m riding in.
I just have to assume he and his men got into place.
The coachman urges the horses across the bridge. I lean up, fisting my sweating hands in my skirts. Rocks shear down on either side to a river boiling white below, a tributary of the Sasralie, which shimmers in the distance, visible now from the height of the bridge, twining through the farm fields on the other side of the town.
On the far side of the bridge, at last, spreads the wide-open town square, surrounded by a small pillared temple and several solemn, aged buildings that must be used for town governance. Only two narrow streets lead off it, and a small dark alley darting past the temple.
A deputation occupies the temple steps: a woman in a long, old-fashioned black mayoral robe, and a party of perhaps ten others, all finely dressed. Behind me, the guards stop in the middle of the square, on the Butcher’s instructions; from their vantage point, they can signal to our hidden soldiers. My carriage sways over to the temple steps.
I glance up at the building, thinking I caught movement, but I see only the triangular-shaped frieze in the Paladisan style, gray with age. Below it are three low, square windows like black eyes. A humming tension rises from the very stones, and I know I didn’t imagine the movement above. The Butcher suspected they would use the temple. At least his predictions have been accurate so far.
“Your Majesty,” the mayor calls from the steps. “Welcome to Montclair.”
The carriage halts, and I stand. Rhia has already dismounted, leaving her horse with a groom. I glance back. None of the festively dressed people have crossed the bridge. Rather, they seem busy on the other side, hauling heavy objects through the crowd. A blockade, presumably. My palms itch with sweat, even though it’s exactly as the Butcher and I anticipated.
Around me, in the black windows surrounding the square, I feel the press of eyes watching my back. Some must be Rambaud’s, but the rest, I am sure, are ours.
I climb from the coach as slowly as I can. I don’t have to fake the deliberation in my movements; my legs still ache from yesterday’s burns. Rhia falls in at my shoulder. The coach is guided away. I stay where I am, looking up the steps at the mayor. The Butcher told me to remain out in the open as long as I could.
The mayor frowns at me. Her silvered hair is teased into a small tower on her head, and jewels wink beneath the high collar of her black robe. Even the sound of her is frosty. She doesn’t bother with an obeisance.
“Mayor Faustine, I presume,” I say coolly. “Thank you for this generous welcome.”
“You honor us with your presence, Your Majesty.” Her gaze flickers to my stomach. “I trust the journey wasn’t too much for you, in your delicate condition.”
“Not at all.” I feel an edge to my already forced smile. Where the hell is Rambaud? “I feel better than I ever have in my life.�
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“How marvelous,” she remarks. “Will you not come into the temple?”
I make a show of glancing over my shoulder, in as foolish a country-bumpkin manner as I can manage. “Should I not address the townspeople? They seem to have been waylaid.”
The cool glint in her eyes lifts the hair on the back of my neck. “We meet in the temple first, Your Majesty.”
“But I must speak to the people,” I insist, as innocently as I can. “It’s what they expect!”
The mayor casts an exasperated glance toward the others flanking her.
“Perhaps you can introduce me to your colleagues,” I press.
Rhia shoots me a look. I give her a minute shrug; I need to play this along as far as I can. Around us, the humming tension has grown even more taut, plucking at the hairs on my neck like a high-pitched string. The entire square is trembling with it.
There’s movement again in the temple windows above, and this time I sense the bright vibrating scarlet of the men who hide there.
The mayor sighs. “Your Majesty…”
There’s a rustle in the colonnade behind her. “Were you waiting for me?”
Aristide Rambaud saunters out onto the temple steps, his hands in his pockets, the cut-glass sound of him more brilliant than ever. He smiles right down into my eyes.
I stare back at him. “Yes,” I say, “as a matter of fact, I was.”
He just laughs and snaps his fingers.
Something scrapes in the temple above us. I glance upward, to the three black windows directly overhead. Finally, the movement above has resolved.
Long metallic objects protrude from the windows. Three—six—nine—
They fire, and I whip around in time to see my five guards collapse, thrown from their horses. Rhia shouts, throwing herself in front of me despite her broken arm.
More shouts echo behind me, but before I can turn, the people flanking Rambaud and the mayor are running down the steps, toward us. A volley of shots erupts across the square. I risk a glance backward. Our coachman has blockaded this side of the bridge, but he’s being shot at. The snouts of muskets press through the broken glass windows of the buildings behind us, trained on Rambaud and his people. The Butcher’s soldiers are in place.
A shot bursts out, spraying into the cobblestones near my feet. I’m not sure who fired. Our would-be assailants seem uncertain, too. For a moment, everyone pauses.
Into the silence, there’s a shout. “Duke Aristide! You are surrounded. Surrender now!”
It’s the Butcher. He’s stepped from the building behind us, shouting with the stridence of a man used to making himself heard on battlefields. I can see our men in the windows above him, their faces fierce.
Rambaud stares from the Butcher to me, to the carriage blockading the bridge. Then his gaze drifts a little farther down, toward the wall just beyond the carriage.
The wall, over which a man is climbing.
Rambaud smiles. “My friend is, as they say, a crack shot.”
“Lord Gilbert!” I cry.
But the man has already swung himself over the wall. He’s ten yards from the Butcher, no more. He raises a pistol, setting it on his arm, sighting down the length of it. He’s pulled a second one, smoking, from the front of his coat. I’m pointing, frantic. The Butcher turns toward the assassin.
The man shoots. Once. Twice.
At such close range, he doesn’t miss. The Butcher catches the shots full in the chest.
His mouth opens. He’s staring, shocked. Blood bleeds through the pale fabric of his coat.
Someone slams into me—Rhia. I stumble.
“Seize them!” Rambaud shouts.
Rhia shoves me again, but I’m staring. Stricken. Up at the broken windows.
Our men are falling. A blow to the head; a dagger plunged to a throat. One drops to his knees, throwing up his hands in surrender.
Rambaud knew. His people have swarmed into the building behind the Butcher’s soldiers, claiming their lives.
Rhia drags me, one-armed, across the square, but there’s nowhere to run. Blood slicks the cobblestones, a deep crimson. The five fallen guards lie before us. Two are still alive, struggling to move their wounded limbs.
Something is rising in me. A deep, humming bellow. My rage is bigger than this square, bigger than our attackers. Bigger than this damned town.
A hand grasps me from behind. I’m wrenched backward. Rhia lets me go, fumbling one-handed for her dagger. I spin around, bringing my fist with me. It connects into my assailant’s face. The man stumbles backward, clutching his nose.
But others are coming after him, held at bay only by the sweep of Rhia’s dagger. Her teeth are bared, a fierce, furious battle grin. Somewhere, Rambaud and the mayor are watching, and across the square the Butcher’s lifeblood is seeping out. Rambaud’s people pour from the temple and from the buildings, into the square to surround us.
And I’m trembling with fury—not only that, but with the sound of all these people. The scarlet hum of their blood and their fear thrums into my own body.
I’m shouting. Roaring. I reach out with my mind, and I pull.
A gasp, like an indrawn breath. Bright, thrumming panic spirals into my mind.
I let go. Open my eyes.
The square lies silent. Around us people have collapsed to the ground. Our attackers slump over the feet of the fallen guards. The men who emerged from the building have collapsed, too. Even Rambaud and the mayor. All of them, except Rhia, and me.
She’s staring at me, her good hand still outstretched, blood bright on her dagger. A vicious hum whines through my ears.
“Sophy?” Rhia whispers.
I can’t speak. I didn’t kill them all, did I?
No—over on the temple steps, Rambaud is moving. Pulling himself shakily to his knees. He leans down and touches his fingertips to the mayor’s throat. Her head moves ever so slightly.
Rhia’s gone, if possible, even more still. “We need to go. Now.”
I start toward my fallen guards. “Two of them are still alive—”
“No, Sophy.” She grabs for me, drops her dagger, swears. Across the square, the mayor lifts her head. “We need to run.”
Still, I hesitate. Perhaps even the Butcher is still alive. We have time—
Rambaud looks up, and his eyes meet mine.
I stare back at him, unflinching.
Rhia grabs my arm; she’s got her dagger put away now. I let her pull me along, refusing to drop Rambaud’s gaze. “Sophy!” she hisses.
I pull my gaze from Rambaud’s, and we run.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“They’re still looking for us,” Rhia says.
I squint at the sun, lowering over the western road that makes a ribbon along the Sasralie. When we left Montclair, we ran for the southeastern exit, marked on the Butcher’s map. But in the unfamiliar streets, we lost time determining the route and almost missed the narrow gate itself, tucked deep into the wall. By then, distant shouts—and a few shots—told us the people in the square had come to. We threw ourselves through the gate, out onto an unfamiliar path beneath a plunging waterfall. It brought us out into a dense, ancient forest, and by then more shouts echoed, closer to us. They guessed, of course, how we planned to get out of the town. So when the path descended to the road, we kept to the forest, hiding as best we could. Now from our vantage point on a rocky overlook, Rhia spots riders moving north along the Sasralie.
“We don’t know they’re from Montclair,” I point out. The riders appear to me as nothing more than fuzzy spots on the horizon.
“They’re armed. Not wearing royal colors.”
I chew at my lower lip. The rolling hills block our view of Laon, though it can’t be more than five miles distant. The riders will certainly arrive in the city before we do—if that
’s where they’re going. If they’re searching the countryside for us…
“We have to wait until nightfall,” I say at last. We can’t risk getting caught—even if they are heading for Laon. Whatever I did in the square didn’t keep them out for long enough, and soon it’ll be dark. Teofila and the others will know something’s gone wrong, since we failed to return. I just have to trust that Teofila and Hugh have taken whatever measures they must to protect our people.
Rhia flops into the lee of the outcropping, and I lower myself more gingerly onto a mossy spot. It’s slightly damp, but cushions my aching body better than the bare rock. I’m glad I wore sensible boots; my gown is torn and muddied. I rub my hands over my face.
“We should’ve taken water from that falls,” Rhia says. She digs in her coat pocket and produces a flask, which she tosses to me.
I unscrew the lid and can’t suppress a smile when I sniff the contents. “You can always tell a true Caerisian by whether or not they carry whiskey.”
“The smell reminds me of home.”
It does me, too. Peat bogs and long lakes and the scent of oak woods. I blink back the sudden pressure of tears, and swallow a mouthful of the liquid, letting it rest on the back of my tongue before it slides, burning, down my throat. I never thought I would miss Cerid Aven so much. And Rhia’s mountains are even farther away. Did either of us understand that this was what it would be like, when we said we wanted to rule Eren and Caeris?
I hand the flask back to her. The whiskey gives me the courage to say what I haven’t yet. “I don’t know what happened.”
“That you’re a sorceress?” She presses her lips together.
“Maybe I am. But I don’t know what I did. It just…happened.” And in retrospect, it sends shivers of both excitement and terror through me.
Rhia crosses her good arm over her chest, and scowls. I tense for the verbal assault, but instead she just blows air out of her mouth. “Why is everyone a sorceress except me?”