The Fiery Crown

by Jeffe Kennedy

  “Not yet,” I replied.

  “Ambrose?” he asked.

  Ambrose was slowly turning his staff, the emerald catching the sun and scattering prisms of light as Merle danced atop it, muttering. With a sharp nod, Ambrose’s eyes focused on it. “Anure has followed the bread crumbs. Even now the sea carries his ships to Cradysica.”

  “Can he alter his course?”

  “He is committed.” Ambrose’s gaze settled on me, and he gave me an apologetic smile. “I tied a magical suggestion to his obsession with Your Highness. He will not be swayed at this point.”

  “When will he reach Calanthe’s waters?” Con demanded.

  “Soon.”

  Con squinted at the sun, calculating. “Lia, can you keep them from entering the mouth of the harbor until high tide, later this afternoon?”

  “Yes.”

  He nodded, mind going to the next steps.

  “And then what?” I asked. When Con hesitated, I let my nature shine through my skin, in warning and declaration of my intent. “Tell Me now, Conrí, and I will work with you. Keep Me in ignorance and I may foil your strategy.” Accidentally or on purpose, I left unsaid.

  “We let him sail into the harbor and box him in with our ships,” he said. “They’ll be trapped in there, and we can blow them apart, one by one.”

  “While they lob vurgsten at the shore,” I clarified, “and also blow your ships apart.”

  Con nodded. “But not for long. If we time it perfectly, they won’t have much time before the tide turns, and Cradysica’s monster chews them from the bottom.” He said it quietly, and in a code, as if still concerned about Anure’s spies.

  The understanding hit me with such force that I wanted to kick myself for not realizing his plan before this. “Clever,” I acknowledged. “It just might work.”

  “It better work,” Con replied with a snarl in his voice. “The trick will be isolating which ship Anure is on. I want to make absolutely sure he’s dead. The sea can’t have him, not until I’m done with him. Well, and to minimize the blood shed in violence, of course.”

  He didn’t fool me for a moment. Con gave lip service to that promise—and he’d make what he thought was a reasonable effort—but that wasn’t why Con wanted to kill Anure personally. Arrested by the glimpse of darkness in him, a level of obsession I hadn’t quite grasped before, I caught Con’s eye. “Does it matter?” I asked him, levelly, but with insistence. “As long as Anure dies, it doesn’t matter how it happens.”

  “Maybe not to you,” he snapped. “I vowed to see him dead by my own hand. Nothing else will silence the voices of those who cry for justice.” He paused, looking unsettled, as if he hadn’t meant to say that last aloud.

  Madness. “Be careful, Conrí,” I gave him the warning as potently as I knew how. “Don’t let how Anure dies become more important than that he does.”

  “Don’t presume to lecture me, Lia,” he growled back. “We have something else to sort out, too.”

  “Yes, we do. What is your backup plan?”

  “Excuse me?”

  Bright Ejarat, Con sounded just like me, arch and regal. “What happens if you commit all your ships and vurgsten to this trap and he escapes—what then?”

  “He won’t escape. That’s why we’ve done all this planning.”

  “Then you should also plan for the poss—”

  “Plan for what, Lia?” he nearly barked. “Plan to fail? That’s a great way to lose. I plan to win.” He signaled for Sondra to approach, clearly done with that conversation.

  “Yes, Conrí.” Sondra saluted. He updated her, and her face took on the same taut excitement, her gaze the same mad gleam. The pair of them, so excited to wage war.

  “Today,” she breathed. “I’ll gather my team.”

  “See you on the battlefield.”

  She saluted again and jogged off, blond hair waving like a banner when the sea breeze caught it.

  Ambrose met my gaze, knowledge in it, and Merle dug at his wing. He plucked a feather, black as the polished rocks from Vurgmun, and I watched as it drifted lazily to the ground in the still, warm air of the courtyard. The vague dread that had lingered from the nightmares intensified. Ambrose studied the feather’s fall as if it communicated something. For all I knew it might. Fortune-tellers, before Anure killed them all, had once claimed to read the future in all sorts of things. The dropped feather of a wizard’s familiar made more sense than a rabbit’s entrails or a collection of tea leaves.

  From Ambrose’s uncharacteristically sober and resigned expression, the die had been cast. Con had set our path and whatever lay ahead, it would be terrible, indeed.

  Con met my gaze, his face neutral and grimly controlled, the face of the hero who never flinched from the portents, forging ahead with bold determination. Nothing of my dimpled, passionate lover remained. He’d become all snarling wolf. “Will you wish me well?”

  “Do I have your leave to clear out My people now?” I returned smoothly, then realized I stupidly still held the sweet tree-finger. Motioning to Ibolya, who hovered within easy distance, I handed it to her, then took the lemon-scented damp cloth she proffered, wiping my hands clean of the sticky candy.

  “Yes,” Con said, watching me with an odd expression.

  I spun on my heel, calling out orders for my ladies, for the priest of Sawehl, for the governor and head family. I would set evacuation of the human noncombatants in motion, then find a place quiet enough for dreamthink so I could send the animal populations on their way. The animals could move faster than the people anyway.

  “Lia!” Con shouted, and I paused, looking back at him. “No kiss for luck?” He tried to add a cocky grin, but it failed to find traction on his harsh face.

  “If you’re lucky, I’ll kiss you when you come back to Me,” I answered, and turned away from his disappointment. Never had I been more pressed to contain my true feelings. I wanted to hold on to him and never let him go. I felt hollow inside, afraid and full of dread. If I kissed him now, if I touched Con, I’d likely end up clinging to him, weeping and pleading. They’d have to drag me off him, and what a sight that would be.

  Not behavior befitting a queen leading her people in a battle for their homeland. We would fight for Cradysica, even knowing what it meant to spill that blood on Her soil and waters. A paradox of the worst sort, dooming our homeland by trying to save Her, but intention matters. We could hardly stand back and do nothing to protect Her.

  I took a step and gasped, my stomach clenching, head spinning. The sensation of looming dread intensified to a sharp peak. With a wrenching pain, I felt Anure enter My waters.

  “Lia?” Con had his hands on my shoulders, and I realized I’d hunched over, clutching my belly, the orchid ring a firebrand burning through my blood.

  “He’s in Calanthe waters,” I said, watching the black and bitter lust for murder flood his countenance, completely replacing that lingering hope for a farewell kiss. Would Con’s hatred forever eclipse whatever tender feelings he might nurture for me, for Calanthe, his new home?

  “Where?” he demanded.

  “Close. Two hours’ sail for the lead ship to the mouth of the harbor,” I replied crisply, feeling like one of his soldiers more than ever.

  “Can you hold him for eight hours?”

  “You won’t be here to tell Me when?”

  “In case I’m not.”

  “Yes, I can.”

  This time, he strode away from me, Vesno at his side. I watched him go, regretting that I hadn’t kissed him goodbye.

  17

  My team had set up on the point, hiding in the lush, tropical foliage. Across the water, on the rocks forming the other side of the harbor, Sondra waited with her team. Kara, along with our entire navy, hid in some nearby bay, ready to sail in behind Anure’s fleet. Over the last few days, Kara had landed people and equipment in surreptitious batches on the nearby beaches. Lia’s map had come in extraordinarily useful for finding good hiding places, and they’d
used the intervening time to set up installations at well-camouflaged points all around the bay. I knew—trusted—that they were all in place, though I couldn’t detect any sign of them.

  Then we all waited. That was the thing about war—long stretches of tense boredom while you waited and waited, punctuated by the utter raging blur of battle.

  Not that the waiting seemed to bother the wizard. Ambrose sat on the branch of a large tree nearby, Merle on the branch just above. The wizard kicked his heels idly as he stared out to sea, working his will in some invisible way, the raven busily preening, sending the occasional black feather wafting down.

  I’d passed into that surreal state of alert awareness that came from not sleeping. I often didn’t sleep the night before a battle, and last night had been no exception. After I’d nearly told Lia I loved her—which would’ve been a huge mistake, awkward for her and humiliating for me—I’d lain awake all night.

  Sleep simply hadn’t been possible. I understood why Lia had said she’d sleep when she was dead. With my death—or, worse, hers—looming so close, I wanted to savor every moment, not waste it in sleep. With Lia’s lithe form against me, I’d studied her face by the light of the single candle until it guttered out. She looked somehow even wilder and lovelier in sleep. She’d discarded the scarf and the fuzzy vines had showed on her scalp, some curling, a few sporting tiny new leaves. Even what might be flower buds.

  That book that Rhéiane and I had loved … I wished I could remember more about it. I couldn’t stop thinking about Rhéiane, too. Something about the stark honesty of night, and all the ghosts it brings, had me revisiting old memories. I’d been so sure she was dead. Had she been Anure’s prisoner all this time, waiting for me to rescue her? Sondra’s words had circled round and round my brain, bruising and leaving open sores behind.

  I hope she’s dead, because the alternative doesn’t bear contemplating.

  Rhéiane. Now that I’d spoken her name, it wouldn’t leave me alone. Rhéiane. And Sondra was right: The alternative didn’t bear contemplating.

  But if I killed Anure, and Rhéiane was his prisoner at Yekpehr—such a big if—then would I be losing my only chance to save her? Surely not. Anure’s death would liberate them all.

  Regardless, I definitely couldn’t contemplate Anure laying hands on Lia. I couldn’t stay back with her and guard her myself. Not because I had to be sure to capture the toad in my own net—I wanted that, I did—but because I didn’t dare let him get so close to Lia. The thought of him even touching her sensitive skin, inhaling that green living essence of her. Of how she’d suffer at his hands. Her delicate skin bruised. Her generous heart shattered. It drove me mad to think about it.

  No. I’d stop him on the water. At first opportunity, I’d kill him.

  Nothing mattered more than keeping him away from Lia. I’m so sorry, Rhéiane.

  I could set all that aside now that the ships were arriving on schedule. Our scouts had spotted them. Lia had known the moment they’d touched Calanthe waters, and she’d been uncannily accurate. I wouldn’t be sitting here with my thoughts much longer. Merle dug at his breast, plucked out a feather, then cocked his head to watch as it drifted to the soil below.

  “Why is he doing that?” I asked.

  Merle gave me a sharp look, but Ambrose took a while to respond. “Hmm? Oh, the feathers? Seeding.”

  “Seeding?” I repeated, unsure if I’d heard the word correctly.

  “Yes. Exactly.” Merle clacked his beak and Ambrose looked away again, attention far away.

  I decided trying again would do me no good. Instead, I studied the landscape, making myself be patient. The tide was high, the water smooth and glassy. Alluringly lovely. The town peaceful and quiet at the far end of the bay. Only the fighters remained—those the Calantheans had in Cradysica—and they’d hidden themselves. Fighters, and Lia and her ladies. Hopefully she’d be smart about exposing herself to danger.

  I didn’t delude myself that she would be that circumspect. You’d think a woman who’d lived this long—and ruled the last remaining intact kingdom—and had done it by keeping a low profile, would be willing to hide. But no, not Lia. Something had changed in her. She’d grown fatalistic in some way. So certain of doom that, though she said she believed we could win this, she ultimately didn’t. I could see it in her eyes.

  I would prove her wrong.

  Today Anure would die and Lia would be free. Even if I died doing it, I could give her that last gift. I only wished I’d kissed her goodbye.

  No sense thinking about regrets. Focus on what I could control. I surveyed the area. There wasn’t much to see because our people had done an exceptional job of hiding themselves in the verdant foliage. Any moment now …

  Right on schedule, the lead ship of the emperor’s fleet nosed around the rocks, Anure’s flag high. Black jagged rocks on a field of gray, the citadel worked in a red dark as liver blood. Another ship followed. And another, then five more. A dozen more. Excitement and triumph sparked through me. It had begun. I idly weighed my bagiroca, as if I could smite them from here.

  More ships glided into the big tranquil bay, then still more. Anure had brought the best of his fleet, and the bulk of it. All to capture and punish one woman. The man was mad.

  One of my lieutenants made a sound. “So many. We’re outnumbered ten to one.”

  “Probably worse than that. But we’ll destroy them anyway. We have a few tricks on our side.”

  I went to Ambrose. Reached up and shook his foot when he didn’t respond to his name. “Which ship has Anure on it?” I asked when his unfocused gaze turned in my direction.

  “I’ll tell you when I know.”

  I bet Lia would be able to point it out. Vesno paced beside me, a faithful companion indeed. Studying his brown eyes, I wondered if Lia looked through them even now. “Which ship is Anure on, boy?” I asked. Vesno woofed a reply. Possibly the correct answer, too.

  A cannon belched fire, the boom following after, echoing off the water and curve of the hills. It landed in the water of the bay, near the harbor docks and pretty fishing boats anchored there, but falling short. Not for much longer. Their range was even better than the last time I’d seen them. The familiar stench of vurgsten rose through the air, crowding out the floral fragrance of Calanthe, making my throat tighten and my lungs ache. Fucking foul stuff.

  Two more cannons boomed, the vurgsten bundles exploding midair, making a show of fire. It rained down, almost floating, and I crawled to the edge of the rocks, staying down behind the scrub vegetation and straining my eyes to see. The fire whirled, then drifted. I’d have said by an errant breeze, but it went too deliberately to the docked Calanthean boats, settling on them and setting them instantly ablaze.

  Had to be magic. Anure’s wizards at work. I threw an annoyed glance at Ambrose, who seemed to be doing nothing to assist us that way. He never even noticed.

  A roar of fury echoed across the water. People, fighters and others supporters, poured out of hiding, bearing buckets of water and creating a chain to pass them down and douse the fires. They might as well spit on a bonfire, but you could never persuade the locals not to try to defend their own. They never did understand how much of Anure’s tactics were designed to create surface damage initially, to soften them with fear and despair. He had an uncanny knack—or his wizards did—of pinpointing what they couldn’t bear to lose, then destroying it.

  As if triggered by my thought, a tongue of flame and smoke shot out from the leading ship. The golden domed temple on the hill exploded in a fiery burst of fury. Oily smoke billowed into the sky, followed by the wail of people. I felt a momentary pang for the beautiful temple, where I’d held and kissed Lia, feeling that divine love and light.

  Sawehl, though, was a powerless god against the might of vurgsten. Or whatever old spirit the people thought they worshipped here. A sad reality that the people of Calanthe would have to face along with the rest of the world. And temples could be rebuilt, if only we cou
ld get free of Anure.

  Anure’s fleet wouldn’t cause too much other damage yet. He wanted Cradysica broken and afraid. To teach them that their gods had no power and their monuments could be swept away. Then he’d land—or land his people, but I was betting he’d do it himself—and pluck Lia from their unresisting arms. Then he’d level the place.

  But I intended to stop him well before that point.

  Another boom, from cannons on several ships. The explosions landed square in the chain of water carriers, sending bodies flying, obscured by smoke and flame. Regret stabbed me like a knife to the gut. I’d brought the fleet here, knowing they’d destroy this beautiful place. A deliberate sacrifice. Not even the worst in a long career of terrible acts. But I felt the worst about it. Probably because I cared about Lia, and through some transference had developed affection for what she loved.

  That wouldn’t stop me. I would do it all again, I told myself. The end justified the means. It was worth whatever it took to trap Anure exactly this way, and finally remove his blight from the world. One little town on a small island was nothing compared with all that Anure had decimated.

  Turning my back on the bombardment of the town, I studied the ships, speculating on which carried the emperor. Would he sail straight up to the dock? Maybe. Depended on how confident he felt. Or how his obsession drove him.

  “Conrí.” Bert, once Kara’s squire, acting as runner for this battle, came up, out of breath. “Should we fire on the ships?”

  “Not yet. Hold all fire until my command.”

  “Yes, Conrí.”

  More ships entered the bay, a seemingly unending chain of them. How many had he really brought? All the while, the ships at the front bombarded the vulnerable village along the bay, the docks falling into the water, the houses on their stilts crumbling into flame and ash. For a while, some of the broken dome of the temple shone on the hilltop, but smoke eventually obscured it.

  We did nothing as Cradysica shuddered under the relentless barrage—maintaining the illusion that the peaceful place had no defenses to mount—and still Anure’s ships entered the bay. We had to get them all in before we could attack. At least they so crowded the bay now that they’d have trouble maneuvering. With anticipation, I watched the tide. It would be turning soon and then we’d have to act regardless. If some of Anure’s fleet escaped the trap, we’d run them down.