Realm of Ruins

by Hannah West

  She stared, unblinking. “He’s gone.”

  I wanted to point out that Fabian could have materialized away at the last second, but I didn’t want to tender false hope, and I couldn’t seem to muster any sound besides a gasp of horror. Kadri bolted, her sandals clacking on the walkway.

  “Be careful, Kadri!” her brother yelled after her.

  Some buildings had been leveled by the wave, but the customs house and other stone structures stood intact. Rescuers braved the debris to seize victims beyond help. Queen Jessa used her gift of weightlessness to walk upon the surface of the water and search for her son. Another elicromancer used phenomenal strength to pull beams and planks from the bay and pile them on shore. My Neutralizer was helping overturn a capsized fishing vessel.

  I jogged down vast steps and through another set of gates, arriving at the hub of the devastation. Steeling myself, I joined the soldiers sloshing through the rubble-ridden water that steeped the docks.

  I hauled a dead young man to dry land by his elbows. As I waded through a mass of oranges and empty crates, haunting images of the red moon and black clouds drifted through my mind’s eye.

  Loud hollering drew my attention back toward the palace. “The prince!” A distant figure waved from the wet beaches, calling, “Prince Fabian! He’s alive!”

  Kadri stumbled out of the water. Relieved, I nearly followed, but knew that if I left, I wouldn’t muster the will to return to the scene of the disaster.

  So I aided the recovery efforts until nearly nightfall. Every man or woman, boy or girl with ghostly skin and dead eyes pierced me with a memory of Ivria until I could more easily recall her face in death than in life.

  By the time I’d towed half a dozen corpses to the docks, watched loved ones’ hopes turn to sorrow upon recognizing the dead, and saved a sorry-looking gray cat from drowning, my every muscle protested. The rosy sun burned at the edge of the world, and I wondered whether I would be permitted to sleep for days—sleep until time chipped away at the wretched feeling in my chest.

  I sat on the remains of a dock and finished wiping the muck off some tightly sealed jars of spices and preserves I’d been able to salvage. With their rightful owners burdened by news of far greater losses, I had taken the liberty of offering some to grieving families and to an Erdemese employee of a wealthy merchant from Volarre whose ships had been destroyed. The Erdemese man had refused the meager gift, saying he could easily find work rebuilding docks and ships. “But I pity the old merchant,” he added. “Three daughters to care for and now he’s lost all his ships and fortunes. It’s a good thing they’re beauties, especially the youngest. They even call her Beauty. They’ll still marry well without dowries, at least.”

  I’d watched him wander away, his hands deep in the pockets of his dripping coat, before he vanished among the broken hulls and tattered sails.

  “It will be too dark soon. You’ll injure yourself amid the rubble.”

  I looked up to see Jovie Neswick silhouetted in the night, the breeze flirting with her blue-and-gray skirts. The dock lanterns should have already been lit, but the nearest ones had been plucked up and tossed aside like weeds.

  “It’s no more than I deserve,” I muttered. My stomach scraped at itself with hunger, and I deserved that too. “What are you doing down here?”

  “I don’t want to be the coward who can’t bear to look tragedy in the face.” Moonlight glinted in her long-lashed amber eyes as they gazed upon the ravaged port. Then, gravely, she peered down at me, clasping her hands at her navel. “But you’re here because you fear you’re responsible for this. I too believe this wave is linked to the awakening spell.”

  “But how?” I looked at the cool water lapping against the broken dock, carrying a cloud of ruined, ghostly linens. “What have I done?”

  She gripped a post as the dock dipped with the tides. “I believe this is much bigger than you and Devorian. The very foundations of Nissera are trembling with some eldritch power.”

  A tremor worked its way up my spine. I suddenly wanted nothing more than to shuck off my wet clothes and crash headlong into a mattress. My thighs ached as I stood, a jar in each hand. “I suppose I should—”

  “I understand why you don’t enjoy my company.” Jovie stepped over a broken board to block my path. “I mirror the parts of you that you do not want to see. We clawed and climbed our way through the academy like invasive ivy and wielded knowledge like a shield to compensate for magical shortcomings. But you don’t have to resent me any longer. You have what you wanted.”

  I scoffed. “What I wanted? This is an illegitimate, insidious cousin of elicromancy. I’d rather have nothing at all.”

  “The Water chose you,” Jovie insisted, excitement or envy scintillating in her amber eyes. “You were the last one it honored before it expelled the remainder of its power in a tired breath. If you judge yourself by the standards of elicromancy, try to play by their rules and use their spells, all while considering your magic some sort of lesser strain…you will be a failure as you’ve always feared.” Despite the swaying of the dock, she stood erect and raised her chin. “No, you must brush all expectations aside, claim this with pride, and judge it by what it is rather than what it’s not.”

  “Claim it with pride?” I nearly shouted. “How, when everyone believes I didn’t deserve to survive, much less possess magic?”

  My voice cracked, and with it both of the jars I held. A maniacal cry of frustration dislodged from my throat. I tossed the jars into the sloshing water and blinked at the sticky fruit preserves on my fingers.

  Jovie stepped closer, speaking to my profile, her breath stirring hairs that had slipped loose from my plait. “The Water has always made the ultimate choice of whom to destroy and whom to exalt. And despite everyone’s expectations, it destroyed Ivria and exalted you. You must accept what it has given you.”

  “How do I accept it when I don’t understand it?” I asked, facing her. “When no one does?”

  “I understand it.” Hints of an exhilarated smile flitted across her face in the moon’s silvery glow. “I’ve been pondering it for days. Instead of a trinket, the Water gave you what remained of itself: its power to destroy…and its power to transform.”

  I listened to the sounds of the sea and imagined it was the Water itself lapping against the inside wall of my sternum.

  “Destruction and transformation,” I whispered after a moment. And when the two powers collide…

  I couldn’t finish my thought, recalling Devorian the way I had left him: beastly, both terrifying and terrified, his beautiful palace in shambles.

  “Just like the Water, you are an unpredictable and unruly creature. You are equipped to thrive even when the rules that govern our world change. You shouldn’t care what they do to you, where they send you, what kind of punishment they impose. All you need worry about is mastering this power.” Her fingers wrapped around my elbow, molding the cold, damp fabric to my skin. “Master it so it does not master you.”

  Jovie released me, pinched her skirts, and strode back down the unsteady dock into the shadows.

  HE morning ought to have been gray and misty. But just as on the day Ivria floated downriver in a shower of blossoms, the sun flaunted its full glory, penetrating the sumptuous curtains in Kadri’s chamber.

  Hoping to slither away from yesterday as if shedding a hollow snakeskin, I writhed under the sheets and came nose-to-nose with Calanthe. Ivria had made her sleep on her own pallet, but as the silver deerhound stretched her long limbs and yawned with excessive relish, I didn’t mind her disregard for Ivria’s training.

  “She’s a gentle giant,” Kadri said, stepping into view in a salmon-pink gown and archery gear from an early practice. She unfastened her leather arm guard and deposited her bow and quiver in the corner.

  A maid offered me a glass of melon juice while another mopped up my muddy tracks and collected my wet garments. I brushed a wiry gray hair off the pillow and accepted the glass. “We’ve com
mandeered your whole room, haven’t we?”

  Kadri plopped down on a cushion by the window. “You can’t commandeer what’s been freely given.”

  As the haze of sleep cleared, I recalled my conversation with Jovie Neswick, as well as a fading dream in which I used my power to defeat whatever horror the spell had unleashed on this realm. Melkior, of all people, had presented me with a medal of honor. He had pricked me with it as he pinned it to my collar, drawing blood, yet I had felt no pain.

  “How many are dead? Have you heard?”

  Kadri stared at the rug, gliding her thumb along the rim of her glass. “Nearly three hundred presumed dead, but some may have survived like Fabian.”

  I might have guessed as many, but it was devastating to hear aloud. “How is Fabian today?” I asked, swinging my sore legs over the edge of the bed to reach the tray of cheese and honey-drizzled fruit on the nightstand.

  “He’s distraught over his friends and his ship, but he’s the image of health. He keeps prattling on about a girl who saved him, a girl with white hair and crystal eyes.”

  I wrinkled my forehead in confusion.

  “I know. I thought he’d hit his head, but the elicrin Healer said he’s fine.”

  “Didn’t he materialize to safety?” I asked.

  Kadri shook her head. “He was prepared to go down with his ship, but someone intervened. I’m grateful to whoever brought him ashore, but if he’s found a girl who can swim like an eel and loves the sea, my days as future queen may be numbered.” She popped a grape into her mouth.

  “But Fabian had the freedom to choose his own bride. He loves you, doesn’t he?”

  “We’re friends. But from the day I met him, I knew he loved the sea more than he could love any woman. And the sea makes my stomach churn.”

  “Why did you agree to marry him?”

  “Don’t judge me.”

  “I would never.”

  “I’m marrying him so I can be queen. My country is beautiful, at least as I remember it, but Erdem doesn’t have elicromancers who can heal diseases or grow healthy crops in a week. My people come to Nissera expecting equality, peace, and a life without sickness or hunger. But when they arrive at these shores, they don’t know much of the language and have nowhere to live. They get lured to the pleasure houses or break their backs laboring for dismal wages. And when they get too old for either, they have to beg in the streets. When I’m queen, I want to make certain they can thrive here. Though I may never return to Erdem, I will be loyal to its people.”

  “I had no idea it was so difficult for them,” I said, nibbling a bit of cheese. “It’s good of you to make sacrifices for your people.”

  “It’s hardly a sacrifice. Fabian and I don’t burden each other with expectations. His life as an elicromancer will be far longer than mine. Who could expect him to pledge unconditional loyalty to a woman who will grow old before his eyes?”

  Thoughts of mortality elicited the familiar pang of growing panic, but I dismissed it. Only time could prove my immortality, or lack of it.

  “He doesn’t expect me to remain devoted either,” Kadri continued with an affable shrug. “He chose me because I never minded that his heart belonged to the sea. His amorous affections are shallow compared to his love of adventure. And to think how hard some have worked to win his favor…” She shielded her eyes from the sunlight and grinned crookedly at me. “I know this isn’t very romantic. You probably think me too pragmatic for my own good.”

  “No, I…” I trailed off. In truth, I was flattered she would confide in me. I could feel our friendship probing its roots into richer soil. “I’m far from idealistic when it comes to romance.”

  “When I last saw Ivria, she said a fellow pupil was smitten with you.”

  I half-laughed, but my stomach tied itself in knots at the thought of Knox. “That might have been true before I ruined his future.”

  She looked thoughtful for a moment. “I don’t know if you ruined anything. Maybe the Water was always a finite resource, and you just took the last of it.”

  “But Devorian—”

  She dismissed my protest with a wave. “He deserved his fate.”

  “I suppose,” I muttered, and washed down my breakfast with the melon juice. Through the cracked door leading to the outer chamber, I caught a glimpse of Brandar gazing down at the seaside through curtains striped the yellow and maroon of the Erdemese flag. “Do you know if I’m expected today?”

  “Rayed said the Alliance won’t summon you until afternoon.” Kadri propped her chin on her fist. “And I won’t be attending the memorial ceremony this morning, as it takes place on a blasted ship they somehow managed to round up. Unless you want to go, the morning is ours to do what we like with. We could explore the markets—”

  “The wounded boy!” I said, recalling him with a start. The wave had washed yesterday morning from my mind. “I promised to return and see if he’s faring well.”

  “I’d nearly forgotten about the stray you took in!” Kadri leapt off the windowsill, suddenly animated as she exchanged her grass-stained boots for bejeweled sandals. “Shall we?”

  * * *

  “He could at least attempt to look less dour.” Kadri glanced back at Brandar as we meandered through the market on the northeastern outskirts of the city.

  Calanthe blazed an erratic path for us through stalls of seafood, flowers, and trinkets, investigating every distinct scent. I tried to steer her in the direction of the inn, but I didn’t know one building from the next and the pressing crowds didn’t give me much time to orient myself.

  “Are we getting close?” Kadri asked.

  “I don’t know. I think so.”

  “Are you sure you can’t recall the name?”

  “Something to do with a ship, or fishermen, I think,” I said.

  “So, every establishment in Beyrian.”

  “We were in such a rush and he was badly hurt. I didn’t even think to look. Perhaps Brandar recalls.”

  “Beautiful bride of the magnanimous prince!” A vendor bellowed at Kadri, trotting from his stall with showers of bracelets and necklaces displayed on his arms. He drew too close to us, his breath reeking of garlic. “Does anything strike your fancy? You have endured much, worrying for the well-being of your noble prince and your loyal citizens. You deserve to comfort yourself with the finest, purest pearls.”

  While Kadri summoned a beneficent response, I spotted the back of a sandy brown head inside a nearby doorway. The inn looked familiar, but sections of the walls had been lifted and propped open, enabling patrons to enjoy the fair weather. The name Anchorage Alehouse and Inn seemed as right as any, but the young man couldn’t possibly have recovered enough to sit upright and toss back a pint.

  “I think that’s him,” I said to Kadri. A gaggle of vendors had worked their way between us, and now her personal guard, who had been following at a respectful distance, stepped in to disperse them. Kadri grabbed my wrist and caught up to me. We laced through stalls of exotic fruits and approached the tavern.

  This careless boy was my companion from the journey, to be sure—even Calanthe recognized him and beat her tail in greeting—but he was slurping down oysters without a single bruise on his face.

  “You seem mighty well, considering you were on death’s doorstep this time yesterday,” I said, leaning an elbow on the counter.

  He scratched behind Calanthe’s ear and turned acorn-brown eyes on me. Without the swollen violet pocket around his eye, he was even more striking. “Good day to you, savior,” he said. “The Healer they fetched turned out to be an elicromancer. Speaking of, we owe him three silvers.”

  “We?” Kadri echoed, lifting her eyebrows.

  “Why?” I demanded. “I left nearly enough aurions to buy you the whole inn.”

  “I didn’t ask to be brought to Beyrian and handed over to the most expensive healer in the southern kingdom.” He licked sauce from his finger and tugged up the hem of his loose off-white shirt, exposin
g perfect skin without the slightest suggestion of a scar, stretched taut over healthy muscles. “Magic doesn’t come cheap.”

  Disappointment dragged a scowl across my face. I dug through my purse, slapping three coins on the table. “Why are all elicrin Healers scoundrels? It’s twisted. And why are you sucking down oysters if you’re in debt?”

  “You paid for my meals, remember?”

  “Yes, I remember that and saving your life. How did you find yourself the victim of such an attack, I wonder? Was it perhaps your spirit of ingratitude that rankled someone enough to make them want to stab you?”

  “I don’t remember much.”

  “You don’t remember how you were almost murdered?”

  He shrugged. I looked at the gray-green jewel around his neck. Most elicromancers hung theirs on gold or silver chains in ornate settings, but his was set in crude, tarnished metal and tied with a leather strap.

  “Well, now that we see you’ve managed to escape your tragic fate, we’ll be going,” I said. “Can I trust you to apply those aurions to your debt?”

  “Why don’t you beauties stay and help me polish off a flagon of wine? Then you can come along and make certain I pay my debt.” He lifted a finger to flag down old Piers, who hobbled over with alacrity he hadn’t bothered to demonstrate for me.

  “This beauty is the future Queen of Yorth,” Kadri said, pointing at herself. “And that beauty took the time to save your skin even though she was due to testify before the Realm Alliance.”

  “Testify? That sounds intriguing.” The young man gave a subtle smile. I was bothered to notice the groove between his nose and top lip, the lips themselves, and the neat lines of his jaw. “Is the outlaw princess in legal peril?”

  “You were more charming half dead,” I said, turning my back on him and tugging Calanthe along. Kadri harrumphed and followed me.

  “I know the language!” he called after me.

  “What does that mean?” I asked over my shoulder.