Red bubbled between her toes.
Her stomach tightened, and the sudden high whine in her ears told her to run, but, as before, when she tried to move, she stayed right where she was. Her feet were pinned to the soaked carpet. When she tried to cry out for help, only silence emerged.
Then, with a great slam, as if from the drop of some unseen mammoth blow, the door nearest her shuddered in its frame.
Eliana stared, her skin an icy shell of sweat.
The sound came again, and again—faster, louder, until it was a pounding heartbeat, and then the rhythm degraded, and it was a hailstorm of two frantic fists, then a dozen, then two dozen, all beating against the locked door.
Eliana pulled at her legs, desperate to dislodge them from the floor. Silent screams lodged in her throat like food too sharp and hot to swallow. And still the door shook, rattling in its frame. A scream began. Distant, deep, and rising, it joined the cacophony of fists until it drowned them out entirely, and the door was shaking then, not from the weight of hands but from the sheer anguish of the wild, furious howl now bearing down upon it.
Eliana stared, her vision watery, her legs stinging from the scratches of her own fingernails. Not long ago, she had summoned a storm from the skies and used it to sink a fleet of Empire warships. On that frosted beach in Astavar, in the cold shallows of Karajak Bay, her blazing fingers had crafted angry wind and furious waves, and every muscle in her body had bloomed with pain as a strange new power ricocheted up the ladder of her bones.
But here, in this corridor, the world remained unremarkable and closed to her eyes. Her hands shook and her knees trembled, and she couldn’t gather her thoughts well enough to reproduce that terrible moment on the beach, her mother dead at her feet, when her scream of grief had torn the world apart.
The door would fly open at any moment, and when it did, whatever was on the other side would find her, sweating and barefoot and defenseless and alone—
Eliana awoke.
Her eyes flew open. Five ringing seconds passed before she was able to catch her breath. The alien angles of the world slowly turned familiar—the vaulted ceiling above her, painted a rich dusk-dark violet and spangled with silver stars. The thick, beaded quilt of her bed. The arched sleeping alcove lit quaveringly by an inch of melted candle.
She was in her bedroom, in the Astavari palace called Dyrefal—the home of Kings Tavik and Eri Amaruk, and of their son, Malik, and three other children, working to aid Red Crown in distant waters, far from home.
And their youngest daughter, Navi.
Navi.
Eliana pushed herself upright, swung her legs out of bed, and padded across the midnight-blue rug toward the far wall. She peeked through a door that stood ajar, and at the sight of Remy sleeping peacefully in the adjoining room—embers glowing softly behind the fire grate, fur-trimmed blanket pulled up to his chin—some of the tension in her shoulders abated.
Soon, she would have to tell him about their mother’s death—some of the truth, if not all of it. He deserved to know, even if she couldn’t find the courage to tell him how Rozen had died.
But not yet.
She pulled the door closed, slipped on her boots, threw on a heavy velvet dressing gown over her sleeping shift, and steeled herself before opening her bedroom door.
The two guards stationed in the corridor, standing against the opposite wall, snapped to attention and bowed their heads.
One of them, a short, solid woman with dark-brown skin and close-cropped white hair, stepped forward.
What was her name? Eliana searched her memory for the answer, but could only think of dream images: A scream behind a locked door. A soggy carpet foaming red between her toes.
“Is there anything we can help you with, my lady?” asked the guard. “Shall we send for the captain?”
At the thought of seeing Simon in her current state, Eliana blurted out, “God, no!”
Then, collecting herself, she managed a polite smile. “I simply wanted to go for a walk. Please, as you were.”
But as Eliana walked away, the guards followed her.
She turned to face them. “As you were, I said.”
“Begging your pardon, my lady,” said the guard, “but we’ve been ordered to accompany you, should you need to leave your chambers.”
Meli. That was the woman’s name.
With considerable effort, Eliana softened her expression. “Meli, isn’t it?”
The woman straightened, clearly pleased. “Yes, my lady.”
“Well, Meli, while I do appreciate your devotion, surely, after everything I’ve done for your people, you can allow me this one small thing?” She placed a gentle hand on Meli’s forearm, which made the woman flinch. She stared at Eliana’s hand as if it were a star that had fallen expressly for her to enjoy.
“Of course, my lady,” Meli said, bowing her head once more. “I apologize.”
“I don’t need your apologies. I simply need an hour or so to roam the halls undisturbed.”
With that, Eliana left the guards behind. She felt the press of their awestruck gazes upon her back long after she had turned the corner and tried to stifle her annoyance. If they insisted upon looking at her that way—as if she really were some long-awaited queen come at last to save them from the world’s evils—then they could do so. Their adoration did nothing to change the truth: the power she had summoned that night on the beach had not returned.
And she was in no hurry to find it.
• • •
After three-quarters of an hour, having wandered through the palace’s corridors, each one dark and velvet soft, dimly lit by candles from within and the night from without, Eliana stepped into the windowed gallery that connected the palace proper to Navi’s tower. The ceiling arched high overhead, bracketed torches throwing shivering arms of light across the polished stone floor.
She hesitated.
Then, in the corner of her eye, a flutter of movement. A flash of color against the obsidian glass.
Eliana turned, and a body slammed into her, knocking her to the floor. She managed to twist, landing on her side, but then a fist connected with her jaw. Her head snapped back against the floor.
She lay there, gasping. Once, she would have been able to clear her vision with a swift shake of her head and launch herself to her feet, but now she remained breathless and immobile. Bright stars sparked across her eyes. Pain reverberated through her skull, sharp and hot. She touched her scalp; her fingers came away red with blood.
Remy’s words from the previous week returned to her: Your body could heal itself, and we never knew why. But it was because all that power was trapped sleeping inside you, and it didn’t have anything to do, so instead it fixed you up whenever it could.
And now?
She tried to push herself up, but her head was spinning viciously, an unfamiliar and utterly disorienting sensation, and she stumbled back to the floor.
A wild shriek cut the air, just before a weight slammed into her once more, smashing her flat. A body straddled her; two hands closed around her throat.
Eliana blinked until her vision focused on Navi, glaring down at her with glittering eyes, her face rage-twisted.
“Navi?” Eliana gasped.
Navi’s hands tightened around her neck, her fingernails digging into Eliana’s flesh. She growled gibberish words, and Eliana clawed at her friend’s arms, tried to push her off, but the pain in her own head was a spreading fog, dumbing her senses. Her head filled with blood; her face felt ready to burst.
Running footsteps approached. Someone seized Navi, yanked her away. Eliana gulped down air, coughing and gagging. She looked up, eyes watering, and saw Navi crouched several feet away, teeth bared in Simon’s direction. He circled her slowly, hand hovering at the holster hanging from his belt.
“Don’t,” Eliana croaked. “
Don’t hurt her.”
His gaze flicked sharply toward her, and that beat of time gave Navi her opportunity. She launched herself off the floor and flew into Simon. He slammed into the nearest window, cracking the glass, then staggered away, shaking his head with a slight snarl.
Navi ran back for Eliana, but she was ready. She let Navi pin her once more to the floor, keeping her arms still at her sides.
“Navi, it’s me,” she said. “It’s Eliana.”
Navi’s gaze flickered across Eliana’s face, animal and unseeing.
Simon lunged for Navi once more, but Eliana shouted at him. “No, wait!”
He obeyed, fists clenched at his sides.
“Listen to me,” Eliana said firmly to Navi, blinking away the black crowding her eyes. “‘Tell me something real.’ Remember?”
A wave of recognition shifted Navi’s expression.
Eliana clung to the sight. “I came to you, in Sanctuary. I’d had a nightmare. You held me. You comforted me.”
Navi’s grip loosened. The scowl on her face uncurled.
“You told me to tell you something real. I told you about Harkan.”
Navi’s eyes brightened, twin candles flaring to life in a dark room. She scrambled away, shaking her head.
“No, no, no.” She raised shaking fingers to her temples, drew her knees to her chest. “Oh, God, what’s happening?”
Unsteadily, Eliana crawled toward her. “It’s all right. I’m here, I’m right here, I’m fine.”
“What did they do to me?” Navi huddled against the stone pillar dividing the cracked window from its unbroken neighbor. Shivering, her face drawn and hollowed from fatigue, her shorn head still bearing the marks of Fidelia’s knives, she turned imploring eyes toward Eliana. In the silence, her single sob broke like the crash of glass.
“What did they do to me?” she cried.
Down the gallery, past Simon, four guards turned the corner and hurried toward them, but Simon—hair tousled, weapons belt hastily thrown on over his trousers and sleep shirt—stopped them in their tracks with a single icy glare.
Eliana approached Navi as she might a wounded animal, her neck still throbbing. Blood trickled down her cheek. She wiped it away, realizing with a sick lurch, belly to throat, that, for the first time in her life, a wound wasn’t closing.
But then Navi looked up and cried out, and Eliana forgot everything but the sight of her friend’s tear-streaked face. Navi reached out for her, and Eliana gathered her tightly against her chest.
“Send for Princess Navana’s healers,” Simon instructed the guards.
Eliana tucked Navi’s head under her chin and met Simon’s furious blue gaze. She could see the reproach there—and the pity.
“Don’t say it,” she told him quietly. “Not tonight.”
He inclined his head and turned away to stand watch until the healers arrived.
But Eliana heard his unsaid words as plainly as if he’d whispered them against her ear: there is no hope for her.
The Navi we knew will soon be gone.
3
Rielle
“Saint Grimvald the Mighty was the first to tame the great ice dragons of the far north, though in those days he was neither saint nor mighty. He was a dreamer, a metalmaster whose heart had not yet been hardened by war. He traveled the dark slopes of the Villmark, determined to see a godsbeast with his own eyes, though the creatures had not been seen in half an age. And it was this wonder, this purity of spirit, that brought him to their nests hidden high in the ice, and spared him his life.”
—The Book of the Saints
They had been in the air for the better part of an hour before Rielle’s mind cleared at last.
Behind her, Audric called out over the wind, “Where are we?” He sounded startled, groggy, as if just woken from a hard sleep.
Too angry to speak, Rielle guided Atheria into a small woodland lining a ridge of low hills. The godsbeast responded at once to even her slightest movements, and as soon as Atheria’s hooves hit soil, Rielle slid off her back, jumped to the ground, and rounded on Ludivine.
“How dare you? You forced us to leave. I didn’t want to, and you entered my mind without my permission and forced me.” She watched Audric dismount. He looked a bit dazed, but still managed to shoot Ludivine a glare of his own. “You were in Audric’s mind too, weren’t you? Lu, I’m so angry I can hardly look at you.”
Ludivine dismounted last, and once she’d stepped clear of Atheria, the chavaile snaked her head around and hissed, baring her sharp mouth of teeth and fluffing up her great black wings to look twice their normal size.
Smoothing down her skirts, Ludivine hurried away. “That’s a bit dramatic. You could have stayed, if you’d wanted to. I would not have forced you to do anything.”
“Perhaps,” Audric said, his voice tight and low, “as we’d already agreed, you could refrain from entering our minds unless in moments of absolute necessity. Such as giving us ample warning when people are approaching with the intent to kill?”
“There’s something to be said for theatrics,” Ludivine replied, unperturbed. “I wanted everyone gathered to see an unrehearsed demonstration of your power.” She glanced at Rielle. “Both of you, together. The people of Celdaria need to be reminded of your strength and your friendship as often as possible.”
Audric’s mouth twisted. He crossed his arms over his chest. “They need to be reminded that Rielle is loyal to the crown, and that the crown trusts her.”
Ever so slightly, Ludivine’s rigid posture relaxed. “Precisely.”
“A message that no doubt lost much of its impact when we fled five minutes later,” Rielle snapped, “leaving the people of Carduel to fend off whatever danger approaches on their own.”
“The danger in Carduel was for you, not for them,” said Ludivine, regarding Rielle calmly. “That was the first time Corien has spoken to you since the fire trial. Isn’t that right?”
Rielle felt Audric’s eyes upon her, and her face grew hot. She lifted her chin, meeting Ludivine’s gentle gaze without blinking. “Yes. He’s been completely absent from my mind.”
Which was the truth—and one that left Rielle’s chest knotted with too many contradictory emotions to untangle.
“And that he chose to speak to you through that man today is an announcement.” Ludivine touched Rielle’s hand. “He is proclaiming his return. If not an immediate return, then an impending one. So, no, I don’t regret fleeing. Putting distance between you and Corien is one of the most important things I can do to protect you, and everyone else.”
“Even though fleeing may have given him the impression that I’m frightened of his return?” Rielle pointed out. “That I’m vulnerable and easily affected by him?”
Aren’t you? Ludivine said gently.
Rielle walked away before the fury building behind her eyes manifested in a fashion she would regret.
She placed her hand against the trunk of an oak with shivering leaves and looked out over the riverlands below them—empty and verdantly green, save for dark clutches of woodlands, a lonely road, and a small village on the horizon, huddled on the banks of a narrow river. In the distance, the Varisian Mountains, at the southern end of which sat the capital of me de la Terre, reached solemnly for the afternoon sky.
For a long moment, no one spoke.
Then Audric cleared his throat. “Though I don’t condone your actions, Lu, it’s possible this is working in our favor. I was wondering how we would slip away from the others without causing a terrible scene. And,” he added wryly, “without Lu having to interfere.”
Rielle glanced over her shoulder as Audric withdrew a piece of paper from his pocket and unfolded it.
“What is that?” she asked. Then she remembered. “Your page came earlier with a message for you. From the north, he said.”
A few paces away, Ludivine stiffened. Her gaze turned hazy, then cleared. She looked sharply at Audric.
“Yes, from the north,” he said before Ludivine could speak. “A message from Prince Ilmaire of Borsvall. He and I have been corresponding in secret since Princess Runa’s death. About her death, in fact, among other things.”
Ludivine watched him closely. “Is that wise?”
“I’m surprised you didn’t already know we’d been talking,” Audric said, a note of bitterness in his voice.
Ludivine’s shoulders squared. “I told you I don’t go rifling around in your mind unless it’s absolutely necessary, and I meant it.”
I’m sorry, truly. Ludivine’s voice came to Rielle abashed and muted. Directing you away from Carduel was a misstep. I was frightened to see Corien on that man’s face. Forgive me.
But Rielle lacked the patience to coddle her. “Why is Prince Ilmaire writing to you about his dead sister?” she asked Audric.
“Whatever is attacking our border outposts is attacking Borsvall’s as well,” Audric replied. “He wants to stop the bloodshed and determine its cause as much as I do. Though our countries are not the allies we once were, Ilmaire and I both want that day to come again. He therefore thought it wise to begin a correspondence and pave the way for future friendship.”
He glanced first at Rielle, then at Ludivine, seeming to steel himself. “There’s something else. Violent storms have been ravaging Borsvall’s western coast for weeks now, and with increasing severity. Their cities and ports are in ruins. They’re sheltering as many citizens as they can in the capital, but even their food stores are running low, with most of their trade ships damaged and merchants avoiding Borsvall waters at all costs.”
Audric paused. He glanced at Rielle. “In his latest letter, he’s asking us for help. He’s asking you for help.”
Ludivine made an incredulous noise, but Rielle ignored her.
“Can he be trusted?” she asked.
“I believe he can. Everything I’ve heard about his character has been confirmed through the contents of these letters, the style of his writing, the ideas he communicates. His passion for peace.”
Kingsbane Page 3