The Soul of Power

by Callie Bates

  I suck in a breath, and hear Victoire do the same. “Is there any chance—”

  “Perhaps, if we act fast enough.” She pauses. “They’re also going to execute a man convicted of espionage. A traitor to the nation.”

  “Who?” I whisper.

  She meets my eyes. “The minister of public works. Philippe Manceau.”

  Philippe. My stomach flips over; I’m gripping Alistar’s arm, I realize, far too fiercely for a man who has taken such an injury. “He should be able to flee,” I say. “He knows all the routes out of the palace—he has spies—he knows—”

  I’m babbling, and I force myself to stop.

  “He knew the risk he took,” Victoire whispers, but her hands are clapped to her lips, and she’s gone white. Perhaps she and Philippe took some time to get acquainted after we escaped the warehouse. Her concern seems too great for a reluctant ally.

  I close my eyes. Maybe my arrangement with Rambaud was for nothing; perhaps we will lose everything here and now. I suppose it’s even possible that he never truly meant to ally with me—yet somehow I don’t believe he was lying.

  Footsteps scrape behind us. It’s Jahan, with his younger brother on his heels. He drops down beside Elanna, putting his hand to Alistar’s throat, checking his pulse. “What happened?”

  “He took a shot to the leg,” I say numbly. I can’t stop thinking of Philippe and the others waiting in some cell for my father’s orders. We need to act fast enough to stop them.

  We must hope Rambaud is on the other side to help us.

  “…Sophy played him back to life with that flute,” Victoire is saying to Elanna and Jahan. “I swear it. He was gone, and—and then—”

  I look up to see them all staring at me. A flush rises in my cheeks.

  El and Jahan exchange a glance. “The land’s awakening the magic in you, Sophy,” she says softly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “It’s no good,” I say, almost angry. “I can’t heal him.”

  “But you kept him alive,” Jahan says. He’s frowning a little as he studies Alistar. “I’ve knit together bone and skin. This is farther gone than most things I’ve done, but I’ll try.”

  He leans forward, and I feel it humming out of him—his magic, like a sure current, wrapping around Alistar, pouring into the wound, into Alistar’s inflamed, infected skin. As we watch, Alistar’s skin becomes less flushed, the area around his wound paler, no longer so deeply reddened. The green pus softens into a clear fluid. The very sound of him grows stronger. He takes a slow, deep breath.

  Then Jahan pitches forward with a grunt. I hurry to him. He looks up at me, a hand at his ribs, as though he has a stitch in his side. “It’s taking a lot out of me,” he says ruefully. “It’s been a long month, and the magic here…it’s harder to use than I remember. Did you really bring him back from death?”

  “He was gone,” Rhia says. “He’d stopped breathing.”

  “I couldn’t feel his pulse,” Victoire confirms.

  “His soul had gone.” The words choke my throat. Elanna grips my hand and squeezes it hard.

  “Maybe that’s why I can’t quite heal him completely,” Jahan says. “It feels as if something’s not quite right.”

  My blood runs cold. “Something’s wrong?”

  “All the parts of him seem to be there, and working. But the spark that puts it all together—call it his soul—it’s as if it hasn’t engaged yet. It’s there, but it’s…slow.”

  I draw in a hard breath, feeling the hum of Alistar’s resonance. Jahan’s right—it’s there, hovering inside him, yet it doesn’t seem to have fully animated him yet. Is this my doing—the consequence of summoning Alistar’s soul back from wherever it had gone? What if he doesn’t come back; what if he can’t? Perhaps in trying to save him I’ve only made things worse.

  Jahan pats Alistar’s wrist and manages a smile at me. “He will heal, Sophy. He’ll wake. It’s only a matter of time.”

  “Are you certain?” I whisper.

  The corner of his mouth tucks in and I can tell, from the eddying sound of him, that no, he isn’t. But he looks at me firmly. “Nothing’s ever certain. But we’re going to hope.”

  There’s movement behind Elanna: people are emerging from the caves—Juleane, Hugh. I stand up, and Hugh holds out his arms, and I rush to hug him like a girl. “Thank goodness,” I say through a choked throat. “You made it here.”

  “We weren’t about to let you down.” He smiles at me, though there’s a grief caught in his eyes. “Teofila made it to Baedon—she spoke to me by mirror last night.”

  “Good,” I say, relieved. Perhaps she tried to speak to me as well, but I was so busy searching for Alistar, and then confronting Rambaud, that I didn’t hear the whisper of her voice.

  In the crowd behind Alistar, there is Lord Aefric and Alistar’s sister, Oonagh, a female doctor I know named Sorcha Kerr, and more Caerisians yet. I see Fiona and my mountain women. Behind them come the Ereni—Brigitte and Eugenie, and more. So many of them, all crowding out into the main cave. There must be a hundred. Two hundred—maybe even three.

  Yet are we enough? Is my plan with Rambaud secure enough? Will he speak to the palace guards, to the Ereni nobles, and convince them?

  I’ll have to trust him. We have little other choice.

  The ground quivers, and we all stumble. I look at El. Her face is pinched. Strained. She must feel the land aching in her own body. Realization hits me. “Rambaud said Phaedra contacted him—and she seems to be interested in sorcery. She asked me about it when I was imprisoned in the palace.”

  El’s shaking her head; she looks dizzy. “If it goes on much longer, the land—” She stares at me, her eyes wide. “It feels as if it could break apart.”

  I stare from her to the gathered crowd, wetting my lips. Philippe and the others are depending on us to save them—and Rambaud is depending on me to arrive so he can enact his part of the plan.

  But Elanna doesn’t look as if she can hold on much longer. The tendons are standing out in her neck. The land is thrumming through her, green and aching, its beat so strong her body is rocking with it. It looks as if not only the land is going to break apart, but she, too.

  She gasps, cries out. “It’s cracking—all the way up to Barrody—the whole land!”

  Jahan and I both reach for her, instinctively, at the same moment. I hear it roaring through her—the buckling, raging land. I hear not only the earth here in Laon. It’s as if there’s a shining, blackening line running from the ground at our feet all the way north, arrowing into Barrody, past it, up into the rugged teeth of the Tail Ridge, all the way to the northern sea. The land is pulling, puckering, shifting. It’s loosening from its moorings, like two great planes dragging apart—and ready to crash back into each other.

  I open my eyes, staring speechless at Jahan. If the land pulls apart like this, if it buckles—this is a greater catastrophe than a few people facing possible execution in Royal Square. If we don’t find a way to stop this, we could all die.

  Between us, El is shaking, shrinking into herself, whispering unheard words. Jahan tucks her against his chest, holding her tight. He’s murmuring something to her, but whatever it is, it’s not enough.

  I grip her hand. “El. Who’s doing this? Where do we go?”

  She stares at me, her golden eyes enormous and blank. “The Hill,” she whispers.

  “The Hill of the Imperishable?”

  But El’s eyes have fixed at a point beyond me with an uncomprehending horror. She cries out, and Jahan hugs her tighter. His hands are wrapped over her chest, and one of hers comes up to tentatively curl around his forearm. I notice that a bit of twine has been wrapped around both of their ring fingers. So they’re planning to marry.

  I know what we must do. It must be Phaedra Saranon on the Hill—doing what, I don’t know.
But I am going to find her.

  I turn to the crowd. “It’s time for us to move,” I shout over the groaning of the earth. “I want you all to march into Laon—knock on doors, shout for more people to join you. I want the city, the entire kingdom, to rise up and demand Euan Dromahair and the Saranons depart forever!”

  There’s a ragged cheer, but most people look more afraid than bold.

  “No one’s going to come out in this mad weather,” Juleane protests.

  “We’re going to stop it.” I look fiercely at Elanna and Jahan. Her eyes are closed now; she seems entirely unaware of her surroundings. But he nods back at me. “We’ll go to the Hill of the Imperishable, but you must go into the city as soon as the land calms.” If the land calms, I think, but don’t say. “Gather everyone you can into Royal Square. Make them ready to take the palace!”

  “What if they fire on us?” Brigitte demands. “They massacred the crowd two days ago!”

  “That’s why we’re marching on them again,” I say. “Hundreds of us—thousands, if they’ll hear the call.”

  “Thousands?” Victoire echoes. “But there are only a few hundred of us, Sophy.”

  “I know.” I reach into my pocket and pull out the bone flute. “I’ll call them. I don’t know who will answer my song, but I will play it for them. For all of Eren and Caeris.”

  They’re listening now, all of them, looking from the bone flute to me.

  “You are a sorceress,” Jahan murmurs.

  “We’ll march without weapons,” I tell them. “We will march with the power of our magic, and the power of our hearts. Our sorcerers will break their guns, and our allies inside the palace gates will let us in. We will show that we’re not afraid of Euan Dromahair, or Phaedra and Augustus Saranon.” I look around at their brave, frightened faces, and I press my hands to my stomach. “I don’t want my child to grow up in a world where men and women slaughter each other for crowns. I want her to grow up knowing her mother fought like a mother—with the potent weapon of her love.”

  There’s a moment of silence. Then Juleane Brazeur puts her fist to her heart, and so does Hugh. Then Brigitte and Eugenie and Annis. Fiona and the mountain women. Rhia and Victoire. I echo the gesture; my heart feels too wide. Soon we are all standing in the cave with our fists to our hearts and the earth roaring about us like a living thing.

  I take up the bone flute and play a note. With deliberation, I build a swift, interlocking melody. I weave the song around us in pulses and curls, a wall of sound that envelops the cave and the hill, creating an island of sanctuary in the bellowing land. The roaring of the wind softens, until I hear it only in the distance, beyond the cave entrance. We are cupped in the cool protection of the cave. Safe, until we step outside.

  I lower the flute. My limbs are trembling, and a hot sweat has run down between my breasts. It took effort, fighting the land with each note, but now that the protection has been created, I plant my legs, aware of my own power.

  “Plan your approach to the city,” I tell them, for now they’ll be safe in here, “and we will join you as soon as we can.”

  If we can.

  Juleane and Victoire immediately set to work, organizing everyone by streets and sectors. “We need to get to Philippe before they take his life,” I hear Victoire saying to Juleane, “even if he knows the risk he took.” I allow myself a smile, though part of me feels I’m letting them down by not joining them.

  Well, we will soon enough.

  I turn to Jahan and El. The protection I wove around the cave seems to have helped—she’s breathing more deeply, though her eyes are still closed. She’s still tucked into Jahan’s arm.

  “Let’s go,” I begin, but he shakes his head.

  “Let me see that.”

  I hand him the bone flute. He studies it, his eyes narrowing slightly, then hands it to his younger brother. Lathiel’s lips purse, and he says something to Jahan in a language I don’t know. It must be their native Britemnosi. Jahan replies, and Lathiel says something emphatically.

  “It’s powerful,” Jahan says, handing the bone flute to me. “It must be tied to some source of magic, yet it carries the magic with it.”

  I think of the spring outside Barrody Castle, and the woman I followed there. I think of the magic that runs like seams through our land, the thin veil between past and present, the wavering division between history and myth. But I simply tuck the flute into my pocket and nod. “I think so.” I glance at Lathiel, then say to Jahan in Ereni, so the boy can’t understand, “Is he coming?”

  “No.” Jahan turns to his brother, explaining something in swift Britemnosi. Lathiel looks mutinous.

  I start toward the cave entrance, but Demetra is crouching there beside Alistar. She gestures for me to kneel beside her. “I’ve been trying to work on him,” she says softly. “He’s coming to.”

  I lean over Alistar and draw in a breath.

  His eyes have opened. He blinks once, twice. Then he looks up at me, his eyes creased with confusion, as if he’s woken in a foreign land. “Where did they go?” he says. Even his voice sounds strange—not his own.

  A shiver runs up my spine. Perhaps Jahan was right that something is missing, though the sound of him seems to fully inhabit his body now. I find I can’t look at Demetra, even though she’s reached over and clasped her hand atop mine. “Who?”

  “The light people.” He frowns at me, as if he can’t quite place my name, and the shiver bursts all over my body. I summoned his soul back—I kept him in his body on the journey here—but for the first time, I wonder not whether I should have done it, but what I brought him back from. “They were singing.”

  “No, Alistar.” My voice breaks. “I was singing.”

  “Oh.” Comprehension spreads across his face, and I feel a pulse of relief. Surely, now, he’ll be all right. But then he says, “You’re the one who brought me back here. I wanted to stay, but I had to follow your song.” He scowls. “They said so.”

  He sounds like a child. I don’t know what to say, or even whether I dare to touch him. Tentatively, I put my free hand over his. He looks blankly down at it.

  I’m blinking hard. I pull away and move to rise. I can’t bear this.

  Alistar says, “Sophy.”

  I whirl, but he’s still got that confused look on his face. Doubtfully, he says, “That’s your name?”

  “Yes,” I whisper, “it is.”

  He looks at Demetra, now. “I feel strange.”

  “You’ve suffered an injury. You need to stay here and rest.” Demetra glances at me, firm and reassuring. “I’ll keep an eye on him. You go.”

  I look one last time at Alistar, and swallow. But I don’t have time to fear for him, or for what I’ve done.

  I rise. Jahan and Elanna are waiting for me in the cave entrance. Her eyes are open, and she’s shuddering.

  “Can you walk?” I ask her, worried.

  She manages a nod. “I’ll walk, Sophy,” she says in a small, hard voice. “I’ll run if I have to. I’m not letting these bastards tear apart my land.”

  I glance at Jahan. “Lathiel promised to stay here with the others,” he says. “He’ll march with them and break the guards’ guns when they arrive at the palace.”

  Rhia comes over and gives Lathiel a nod. “I’ll keep an eye on him.”

  “Good.” I tuck the bone flute away and push up my sleeves. “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  We emerge from the cave, and the wind nearly flattens us. The sky is churning from boiling black clouds, to staring blue, and back again. The earth buckles, nearly pitching me to my knees, and I throw my arms instinctively around my stomach, as if that can protect the child.

  There’s a deafening crash. I look up. An old oak tree at the top of the ridge thunders to the ground, split into two ragged pieces.

 
; “Run!” I scream, and we all pelt forward just in time. The logs slide past where we were standing, slipping down the hill as if they’re running downstream.

  What is Phaedra doing? Assuming, of course, that it is her. Yet who else could it be? Euan hasn’t demonstrated much interest in sorcery—or anything aside from cruelty. Across the rooftops, the Hill of the Imperishable leans up, as tranquil as a cloud.

  The earth bunches and buckles again, and we begin to run, the three of us, Jahan and I holding El up on either side. We plunge down into the city. The streets are empty. A crack snakes through the cobblestones before us, coming to a stop at our feet. We press on all the same. The wind tosses shutters off the sides of houses, and more tiles from rooftops. The earth is groaning and Elanna is groaning, too, or maybe it’s the sound of the land pouring through her. It seems long, too long, through the streets, past the palace, to the city’s southwestern edge where the Hill of the Imperishable rises.

  We reach the last street, and stagger between the final houses onto the narrow, heathered path. The baby kicks hard in my womb. A flight of birds has scattered up from the oaks and elms. The tree branches fling about like arms, swinging at us, breaking off and crashing to the ground. Behind us, there’s an enormous shudder as the soil flees from underneath a house and the entire building collapses into a pile of rubble.

  El sways. “Run!” I shout, and we do, Jahan and I half lifting her between us. The path rises, curving onto the little ridge that leads up to the Hill of the Imperishable. At the crown of the Hill, the ragged stones rise from the earth like quartzite specters.

  The roaring land eases as we approach—perhaps because the Hill is the eye of this particular storm. Yet the sound of the stones themselves is utterly changed. Ordinarily their magic creates a kind of melody, but now the music is fractured. Shards of song scratch down the pathways of my mind. The broken pieces make no unified music. Instead they jar against one another, fragments of a disagreeing, shattered whole.