“Get going, darling,” my mother says. I tug on my uniform, dressing completely in less than half a minute’s time. With a final tug on the belt that holds my throwing knives, I take off for the Tower.
I land with the others, greeting sleepy-eyed members of my cohort as we gather in front of the other warriors-elect. I spot Bel fly in, hastily stuffing a half-eaten meat bun in his mouth. He sees me notice and shakes his head, embarrassed. I wave it off with a smile before finding Vera at the edge of the room.
“Hey, Ro,” Vera says. “How’s your mother doing?”
“Okay, I think. All the kids are staying home for now. Let’s hope this is some good news,” I say, inclining my head toward the front of the Tower where Shirene and Sentinels Renna and Carrick have just walked in.
Vera leans in. “I heard the sky in the east was gray when the sun came up,” she says. “Gray like smoke.”
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“Not sure,” she says. “But I don’t think it’s good. Who’s that?”
A pair of figures dressed in pale blue come in and take their places alongside the sentinels. Their attire is so simple, yet they stand with our most respected leaders. Both wear capes split in two, trailing down their backs and onto the floor. Almost like …
“They must be sea-folk,” I reply. “I’ve never seen them on land.”
“Each of the other kingdoms has representatives here. I’ve met Lord Cambor of the horselords once,” Vera says, nodding her agreement. “He came to watch a training. But I’ve never seen the sea-folk.”
The chime sounds, and we kneel. For a brief moment, I forget why my view of the sentinels is so much better this time. Nearly a third of the warriors are gone.
“Honored warriors,” Shirene says. “With our numbers depleted, we must shift our tactics in case the humans try to attack Vyrinterra by sea before the teams return. The other kingdoms have agreed to ready their defenses at the coast and send additional metals for us to forge extra weapons. As warriors and warriors-elect, you already are asked to be ready at all times to fight. Starting today, each of you is asked to remain in the Warriors’ Hall unless on official duties, as to eliminate any delays if you are called to arms. No one should be leaving the Hall unless given permission.”
Sentinel Renna steps forward. Her gray-blue eyes sweep over the room like a winter storm. “I know the warriors-elect are eager to take the oath.”
I suck in a hopeful breath. Is it just me, or did Shirene’s eyes seek me out as Renna spoke? Did she speak out for us? For me?
“However, as you can imagine,” Sentinel Renna goes on, “the king’s days are long, and he doesn’t have room in them to speak the oath over each of you.” Sentinel Renna lets the disappointed murmurs make their way through the room before continuing. “For now, our focus must be on the sick children and keeping the disease from spreading. You will each be assigned a section of the city to inspect for more signs of infected birds. The scholars say even a touch can spread the disease.”
Not the scholars. Noam. My sister made it clear that they were relying on Noam for information. If the scholars had a clue of what to do about the disease, the sentinels wouldn’t have gone looking for a deserter. But why don’t they share that with us? We’ve already been tasked to keep one secret. What’s one more? Leaving Noam out of this conversation is a choice.
My curiosity nags at me as Renna continues with the instructions. “Once found, you will carefully gather them. From there, teams of warriors will take the bodies and bury them on Balmora. That is your mission.”
At least we’ll have something to do, I tell myself. I know it should be happy to serve, but wandering around the city doesn’t feel like enough. Sentinel Renna takes questions, and my heart drums as some warriors in the front speak up.
“Do you know how long the disease takes from first signs until death?” asks a blond-haired warrior I don’t recognize.
“Ten days, according to the scholars,” answers Sentinel Renna.
One of the younger trainees goes next. “And is there no other medicine? Nothing works?”
“The healers are doing everything they can to keep the children’s symptoms at bay,” the sentinel replies. “But the scholars are confident in the cure from Balmora.”
One after another, Sentinel Renna’s answers lean on the knowledge of our scholars. I keep waiting for her to mention Noam, or to mention at least that we got help from outside the Heliana …
But the moment never comes. Renna dismisses us to get our assignments. My peers rise around me, but I am frozen to the ground as if a frost has seized my limbs. Something isn’t right. I press my fingertips harder into the floor as my body tingles with uncertainty and doubt.
The sentinels are lying to us. And I’m the only one who knows.
* * *
I wait with the others to hear what section of the city I am to search. I’m matched with Bel and another warrior of our cohort whom I don’t know as well. Before I go, I let Sentinel Carrick know of the bird I found yesterday.
“Thank you, Warrior-Elect,” he says. “I will let that group know.” Something in my gut roots me to the spot, and when Carrick puts his tired eyes back to me, he raises a brow in question. “Yes, Warrior-Elect Rowan?”
“Sorry, sir,” I say. “I’m just wondering how the scholars determined it was a human disease if it’s never been seen before on the Heliana.”
Carrick scratches his ruddy-colored hair and gives me an almost imperceptible shrug before regaining his composure. “The scholars’ libraries are extensive. Thank the skies they found any answer.”
I fake a satisfied nod and move out of my place in line. Vera, waiting for me by the front doors, tilts her head in question. I wave off concern. “Just making sure he knows where I found a bird yesterday, before I met up with you.”
The warm summer winds rush over the both of us, our matching uniforms waving in the breeze. Vera wrinkles her face as we turn for the balcony.
“What a glamorous duty we’ve been assigned,” she says. “Necessary, but … ick.”
“The faster you find them, the less gross they are,” I say. “Where are you covering?”
“I’m at the fields,” she says, referring to the small area of vegetable fields on the eastern side of the Heliana. “You?”
“I’m near Storm’s End, actually. Northern district along the Crescent.”
“Okay,” she says. “See you later? You can come to my room and commiserate once we’re done.” She pulls me in for a hug. “I know you’re worried about your mother and the girls. Even if you don’t say it.”
I nod into her shoulder. “Thanks, Vera. I want to stop at Storm’s End once we’re done looking, but I’ll find you before dinner.”
“I heard it’s all the leftover festival food,” she says. “All the food, none of the prices for us warriors-elect.”
“That’s the dream, isn’t it?” I say back, forcing a grin.
I take my lioness form and glide down to the northern district, but my mind stays in the Tower. I’d pressed Carrick for a reason. He backed up Renna’s lie, which means the sentinels planned their explanation of how they learned of the disease. But why not tell the truth? Even the loyalest of citizens would be hard-pressed to hate a deserter who helped our city in her hour of need.
There has to be something else.
Finding a clear spot in a nearby street, I land and retake my human form. Bel will tease me for being late, but I need a moment to think. Callen said the sentinels do everything for a reason, and I agree. Which means lying to the select group of Leonodai to whom you have already trusted with the secret of the disease is … not good.
I rack my mind, wishing I could have someone to talk this out with. There isn’t any way Shirene will be able to find time for me again, and I’m still really hurt by what she said. Callen and Ox are gone, and my mother has too much on her mind already. I’d have to put the pieces together myself.
As I walk,
citizens mill about, tidying up after the festival and trading stories of what new clothes they bought … or who they spent High Summer with. It isn’t an official tradition like staying up all night or lighting candles in every window, but it’s inevitable that I will hear of new couples and passionate flings in the coming days. Dances, wine, and the day off from warrior training tends to do that.
I blush, thinking of how Ox and I never got our dance. I’m not sure I would have been able to after what Callen said, anyway.
Skies, he had terrible timing. I hadn’t lied to him—I had thought about us before. Callen is as handsome as any other Leonodai warrior, his tanned frame lean with muscle. His messy gold-brown hair is longer than how most of the other male warriors keep theirs, but it just feels right for Callen.
Since he is a year older, he began his training ahead of me. He changed so much and was so busy in that first year that our off hours together were precious. That was when the first rays of a sunlit crush rose inside my chest. Once I wasn’t seeing him every day, I started to notice how much better everything was with him around. Still, he never made any sort of move. He was my best friend, and that was all I really needed. Now his confession is making me wonder: What is it that I want?
At last, I spot my fellow warriors-elect waiting in the shade of a tree near our assigned location. As I expected, Bel shrugs off my tardiness once I make up an excuse about going to Storm’s End first to check on my mother.
“I’m glad the sentinels told your mother and the other schoolmasters,” he says. “It’s important they know what’s going on. I think the whole city should.”
We split up to search our assigned area. The sun beats down on my back and neck as I pore over the ground, but the sound of the nearby Crescent River helps me focus.
If the sentinels aren’t telling the truth, I’ll have to go find it myself. And in order to do that, I would have to find who they were talking to—the deserter, Noam. He must be somewhere hidden in the palace, close enough so that the king could call for him at any time but not anywhere that would draw attention.
I’ve never gone into the palace by myself. It is off-limits unless you are assigned a post there, and those are reserved for fourth- or fifth-year warriors. A warrior-elect like me would have no business there. I could lie and say I was looking for Shirene, but on the chance someone took me seriously and found her for me, what would I say then?
Thankfully, the skies see fit to interrupt my nonsense. Bel calls me over to a pair of sparrows just a few feet apart from each other. Using a shovel, we place the birds and dirt beneath them into a tightly woven sack. Bel offers to fly it up to Carrick, and I go back to the Warriors’ Hall. After washing up in my room and changing into a fresh uniform, I head to Vera’s room as promised. We get an early lunch and talk for an hour or so before I make up an excuse to go to my room.
“I’m exhausted for some reason,” I tell her. “I’m going to take a nap.”
“Sleep tight,” she says before turning for her own room on the other side of the Hall. First- through third-year trainees share rooms, partly to strengthen connections and partly so everyone fits in the Hall, but as a fourth-year trainee, I have my own space.
All the rooms in the Hall are the same. Next to a simple bed, I have one square window, a washbasin, and a trunk to store my things. Over time, I added a rug to keep my feet off the cold stone and a few other trinkets: books from my mother, a collection of candles for light, and a speckled ceramic cup I bought one year at High Summer. But none of that is as important as what I keep hanging on the wall, ready at all times: my armor.
Leonodai believe that every warrior should have one piece of armor that is crafted specifically for them. For me, that is the vambrace for my right forearm—my throwing arm when I use my knives. My breastplate, helmet, knee guards, and everything else were crafted for anyone. But the vambrace is for me.
I pick it up now, feeling its familiar weight and letting the metal warm to my hands just a little bit. I’ve dreamed of wearing it into battle so many times. And I will, still.
But first, I have to go find the deserter.
14
SHIRENE
The sight of so many small bodies in the sizable beds of the palace sickroom is almost more than I can bear. This place wasn’t meant for them.
Afternoon air swirls over the sound crying and coughing, bringing a chill to my skin. Beside each bed, parents curl protectively over their children. Here and there, I see the cobalt uniform of a warrior, their head hanging low.
So far, not a single person over twelve has gotten the disease, despite the children living in larger households. Noam had said as much, that it only affects the young. Cruel, cruel, cruel, I think. But at least it means the children’s families can be here. The room next to this one has been prepared for the parents, so they are never more than a few steps away. The healers, too, sleep in shifts nearby. I feel the heaviness in their hearts whenever they speak to me, and sometimes from a look alone. They’ve trained for years to help others, but in this moment, there is nothing to do but keep the disease at bay.
It isn’t healing. It is stalling.
But duty is duty, and being the King’s Voice meant my presence here brought some reassurance with it. With an exhale, I walk over to a young mother holding her son’s hand. I crouch down next to her, and for a moment, she’s startled—then she’s right back to tired.
“Is there anything I can get for you?” I ask her gently.
“No, my lady. Thank you,” she replies. She pulls at the sleeves of her shirt. Fresh tears slide down her face as she blinks rapidly. “He’s my only son. It took us so long to have a baby, almost as long as we waited for an heir.”
I get her meaning. With the magic of the Heliana sustained by the royal line, kings and queens usually waste no time expanding their families. For King Kharo and Queen Laianna, it took nearly eight years. The bells that sounded Tabrol’s birth seemed to push the very Heliana higher into the sky.
The young mother before me suddenly puts her face to my shoulder, a guttural sound escaping her throat. “I don’t know what to do. I feel so helpless.”
I bring a hand to the back of the woman’s shoulders, curling her in a moment’s safety like my mother used to do for Rowan and me. “Being here is all you have to focus on,” I reply. “Each time he wakes, he’ll want to see his mother’s face.”
She sits back up, wiping her face. “Do you have children, Lady Shirene?”
“No,” I answer honestly, missing Seth so badly it is as if he’s been gone for years. “But I want them.”
“I thought raising a child was the hardest thing one could do in their lifetime,” she says quietly. “But this is. This is the hardest thing.”
“Hold fast to hope,” I say, though my words feel hollow as a burned-out tree. “The warriors have been sent. They know their mission well. They will return in a few days’ time, I swear it.”
When I part ways with the woman, I turn to find Hammond watching me from across the room. The Second Sentinel smiles softly, the kind of smile I imagine my father would give me in that moment. “How are you holding up, Lady Shirene?”
“As well as I can be,” I reply.
“You are doing very well.”
“Thank you,” I say. “I wish I had your confidence.”
A shuffle of movement at the door, followed by the slam of it banging against the stone wall, makes me jump. Sentinel Renna stands in the doorway, her expression flooded with alarm.
She doesn’t need to say a word. Hammond and I cross the room, joining Renna in the hallway. One of the more practiced healers is beside her, a basket of healing herbs and tonics gripped tightly in her left hand.
“Come,” Renna says. “Hurry.”
We wind through the hallways of the palace. Maids and other palace workers duck out of our way, sensing the urgency in our steps. We pass the generals’ quarters, whizzing by a pair of girls who must be daughters of someone on the king
’s war council. As thanks for their service, generals and their families are given living spaces here in the palace, the same way sentinels are.
Only we are not allowed to have families, I think bitterly, remembering the young mother’s question from earlier. It was the hardest part of volunteering myself to be selected as a sentinel. Seth and I talked for hours, but we both knew the incredible honor it would be to serve the city so intently. I can serve as long as I want, and we’ll have our family when we are both a little older.
“Renna, what’s this about?” Hammond asks as we continue to climb staircase after staircase to the higher levels.
“Not yet,” she replies curtly. Then she adds, “The king has called for us.”
* * *
The rules don’t allow for Leonodai to fly while inside the palace, though there are emergency exits built into the walls in case of a fire or other disaster. My legs burn, but it isn’t my first or last time climbing from the lower levels to the royal family’s quarters below the Glass Tower.
At long last, we pass the guards on either side of the one staircase that provides access to the royals’ wing. Normally, they’d have stopped the healer, but when flanked by three sentinels, anyone would be let by.
Catching my breath, I trail behind the others as Renna turns left toward the queen’s quarters. The scent in the air changes from the honey warmth of the palace candles to the light smell of jasmine, the queen’s favorite. A handmaiden dressed in pale purple and pinks nods to Renna as we approach, and we’re let in without being announced.
The queen sits on the bed with her head in her hands, sobbing.
The king kneels before his wife, speaking in soft tones, but I don’t make out what he says. Both of the royals snap to attention as we bow our heads in respect. The healer gazes around the room in awe. While the opulence of the palace has become normal to me, I forget how it feels to witness it for the first time. I reach my hand and touch her free arm to give her some assurance.
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