We took shelter in an empty lookout enclosure just as a flash of lightning streaked across the sky and struck the outstretched hand of one of the marble kings at King’s Gate. In an instant the bolt shot through the statue and into the wall, splitting into a million tiny streaks of blue-white light that ricocheted across the invisible barrier above the stone, crossing and recrossing one another as they circled the city in a cylinder of light that led straight up into the sky.
“How is this possible? How was it done?” I asked breathlessly.
“Blood and sacrifice,” Zan answered. “As it is with all power.” Raggedly, he said, “This is why Falada is important.”
“You want to kill her . . . because of wind?”
“Yes. No. I mean . . . not exactly. Six weeks ago we would have been watching the storm out there with the sun beaming down on us and blue sky above.”
“What changed?”
“Simon Silvis,” he said, “my father, is the only known blood mage of real power left in Achleva. Before he left to attend the princess on her journey, he had been worried for a while that there was a plot in the works against the kingdom and wanted to go investigate some of his suspicions on his way to Renalt, taking a longer route that ran up the coast, giving him time to do some digging as he went. The king had been adamantly against such a journey before, so when Simon got the go-ahead this time, he left in hurry. He was supposed to send word when he arrived safely, but he never did. I wasn’t sure that he had even made it there in one piece until you told me so.”
“Have you heard anything else?” I asked intently. “Anything at all about him, or the queen, or the state of Renalt?”
“Not much more than what the princess herself relayed. Just that he’s being held in Syric with the queen, as political prisoners of the Tribunal. I’m relieved that he’s unharmed, out of danger . . . but because he’s not here, we are not. Several days ago we woke up to frost in Achlev. It was on our windows, encrusting the leaves and trees. Everything sparkled.”
“Frost? What’s so dangerous about—”
“It was the first time since the wall went up that the temperature within Achlev had ever fallen below freezing. It was the most beautiful and troubling thing I had ever seen. Two days after that, we woke up to wind.” He leaned against the battlements, facing the wind. “The changes seemed to have no correlation except one: on each of the nights before these climate shifts, a horse was found slaughtered in the streets. Different ages, different owners, but Empyreans both times.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Do you know what ley lines are?”
I shook my head. I’d seen them mentioned, once or twice, in the scraps I collected over the years, but I’d never found any substantial description or definition.
“The old writings state that when the Empyrea left her home among the stars and gave up her wings to run free across the land for one night, the paths she ran were lit with her white fire, and even after she returned to her place in the sky, the fire remained and became the ley lines. They are, essentially, rivers of energy.
“When Achlev built his wall, he harnessed those rivers of energy and rerouted them into a perfect circle, then pinned them there by erecting three gates. Each of the three gates was spelled with three drops of blood from three symbolic donors, and each of the spells was sealed and rendered indestructible with the donors’ eventual deaths. High Gate—”
“Three white horses.”
He nodded. “Forest Gate: a maid, a mother, and a crone. And King’s Gate: three of royal Achlevan blood.”
I remembered the children’s rhyme I’d heard in the square. It begins with three dead white ponies . . .
“You’ve seen what the wall does—it doesn’t just repel the energy that comes up against it, it absorbs it. Now, imagine the power of every storm, every thorn, every marauding invader for five hundred years, still carried inside the wall. What happens when such a wall comes down?”
The breath came out of me in a rush. “Cataclysm.”
“Annihilation. Likely, the entire city would be leveled. There would be casualties—death on an unthinkable scale.” His eyes were dark. “And someone who knows how the wall went up is now going to a very great effort to bring it down, using sacrificial stand-ins for the figures that helped erect it.”
It couldn’t be Toris, I thought—he was busy at the time, whistling irritating folk songs and plotting my demise.
Zan let out a slow breath. “The original spells were each done in ten-day stretches over the course of a month, in concert with the moon’s phases, beginning with a new moon and ending with a black moon. The gates can be brought down only by undoing the spells the same way, beginning with a new moon and ending with a black moon.” He cleared his throat. “This month began with a new moon and ends with a black moon. Only one more Empyrean sacrifice is needed to destroy the seal at High Gate, and if my calculations are correct, it must be done before the tenth day of the waxing moon cycle.”
I stepped back. “That gives you two days. That’s why you wanted Falada. So that she wouldn’t fall into the hands of the person trying to break the spells.”
“This whole thing would have been much easier if you’d just sold her to me like I wanted.”
“But then you wouldn’t have known about my . . . my . . . ability.” It wasn’t the right word, but magic still felt unnatural and shameful somehow. “That’s why you are telling me all this. Why you showed me Falada and the passage, why you haven’t just put her down to keep someone else from doing it for you. You need blood magic to fix the damage that’s already been done, maybe even find out who is doing it, and with Simon gone . . .”
“There’s only you. When you cast that spell in the hedge, I felt hope—real hope—for the first time since that frosty morning eight days ago. I scoured the city looking for you afterward, because you’re right. We need you. Black moons are relatively rare—only happening every few years. If you and I can keep the next sequential sacrifice from being completed on the timeline, it will be a while before another black moon enables them to try again. Enough time to find and punish the perpetrator and undo whatever damage he’s done.”
“But . . . but . . .” I sputtered, “surely there are more people who can do this than just me.”
“There could be. But after the demise of the Assembly, those who have the talent for blood magic don’t know they do, or deliberately choose not to practice.” He took my hand and turned it over, revealing the wealth of tiny cuts in various stages of healing. “I know it’s painful. I wouldn’t ask you—or anyone—to do it if I weren’t so afraid of what will happen to my people if the wall goes down.” He placed his other hand on top of mine, obscuring the cuts from view. “It isn’t an easy gift you have, even here in Achleva. But it is a gift. Think what you can do, how many lives you can save.”
The last time I was told I’d been given a gift, Emilie was burning to death on the stake. I stared at his hands on mine. “I’ve never been taught or trained. You saw what I did to those men. I don’t know how to control it. What you’re asking . . . it could be dangerous. I could make things worse.”
His gaze was intent. “You could have killed them both—no one would have blamed you—but you let them live.”
“I stopped only because you shook me out of it. There have been other times when I thought I was doing something good, only to find out later that what I’d done had . . . had hurt other people. Innocent people.”
“I’ll be with you every step of the way this time, too.”
“And what if you’re the one I hurt? What if you die?”
He stifled a snort, as if the idea that I could be dangerous was inherently funny. “If I die, then I die. It’s a risk I’m willing to take to keep that wall standing and the people inside it safe.” His mouth quirked to the side. “I would like to add that if I don’t have to die, I’d prefer not to.”
“I make no promises.”
I looked to the sky and shook my head. “Why does this great responsibility fall to you? Should not the king and prince be involved?”
“The king doesn’t want to hear problems, only praise. And the prince . . .” He looked into the distance. “The prince is a coward. Spends all his time hiding from the world, too feeble and ineffectual to be of any real use to anybody.”
Simon had spoken so highly of Valentin, Zan’s critique seemed especially sharp. “Do you hate him so much?”
Zan’s eyes softened, just a little. “I don’t hate him, not really. He means well. He’s just weak.”
I sighed. I was caving. “I’d need to see whatever records you have of the original spells, just to give me somewhere to start.”
“I’ll get you to the castle library as soon as I can arrange it. I swear to you, if you help me do this, I will return the favor to you tenfold. Whatever you wish. I will find your family in Renalt, and I will retrieve them on a galleon ship and bring them here to be regaled with tales of your heroism. If you want your weight in gold, I will have it . . . melted into a sculpture of your likeness, with opals for eyes, rolled into the top of the eye sockets. Yes, just like that.” Quieter, he said. “Whatever you ask. Please.”
He was still holding my hand.
“And if all I wanted was to tell you something secret, something important, and have you believe me, would you do that, too? Could you promise me?” I imagined how that conversation would go: Hello, Zan. Surprise! I’m the real Renaltan princess. Please don’t execute Lisette; she only committed a little bit of treason.
Slowly, he said, “Yes. I think I could.”
If I meant to combat Toris and save my family’s rule, I’d need enough clout in Achleva to convince them to join me in my fight against the Tribunal. This could be my best—perhaps only—way to acquire it.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll help you.”
* * *
That night, after Kate and Nathaniel were asleep, I donned Kellan’s blue cloak and crept out, retracing the steps to Zan’s passage. The storm had dashed itself to pieces on Achlev’s invisible barrier, and when I broke from the tunnel onto the shore, the still fjord and sky were both a glittering cauldron of stars, one above and one below, making it hard to say which was reflecting the other. The castle windows were dark, and as I approached the western side, I wondered if any of them belonged to my brother. I knew he’d be long asleep, but I looked up wistfully, hoping to catch a glimpse of him.
I crept across the quiet terrace gardens and into the midnight fields on the other side. Falada whinnied at me as I approached, and I patted her head fondly. “Hello, my sweet,” I said, mimicking the way Kellan used to speak to her. “You thought I forgot about you, didn’t you? But how could I forget such a pretty horse as you?”
She nickered in reply, and I ran one hand down her sleek face while I pressed my nails into a half-healed cut on the other, wincing as it reopened and let out a tiny bead of blood. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” I confessed to her as I let three small drops fall onto her forehead. “But I need to practice, and this seems like a good place to start.” I placed my hand over the blood and closed my eyes, searching inside myself; I knew the feel of magic well enough now to recognize its presence, like a constant low heat radiating from somewhere inside me. In order to access and direct it, however, I had to discover the source of it—I had to find the coals.
After several fruitless minutes, I felt my frustration growing. “What am I thinking?” I asked aloud. “How am I going to help Zan if I can’t even do this?”
She gave a placid whinny, as if providing me with an obvious and sensible answer. “I’m very sorry, Falada. I’m not Kellan. I don’t speak your language.” I reached into my pocket and removed the bloodcloth. His faded drop of blood seemed darker somehow—a trick of the light. When I touched it, sadness welled up in my center, pushing into the dark corners inside me; I could feel it in my every cell, from my crown to toes and into my fingertips.
I closed my eyes and placed my hand on Falada again, this time focusing the power with words. “Tu es autem nox atra.” Where there is white, they’ll see only night. Then I opened my eyes.
In Falada’s place stood a night-black mare. It was a rough illusion; if I squinted just the right way, I could see her true color layered underneath. But anyone passing by would never look twice. The relief I felt was immediate and immense; Falada would come to no harm now that no one could tell that she had ever been an Empyrean.
I brushed her gleaming black coat for a while, whispering sweet things to her and periodically slipping her pieces of the carrot I’d pocketed from dinner at Kate and Nathaniel’s table. She kept looking over my shoulder, as if waiting for someone.
“I know,” I said. “I miss him too.”
But she wasn’t anticipating Kellan; she was watching the Harbinger, who was standing in the circle of bloodleaf with her back to me, facing the base of the tower.
When I ventured into the perimeter of the creeping bloodleaf vine, my shoe snagged on one of the twisting tendrils and it snapped, oozing a viscous, black-red sap onto my foot and hem. I brushed it furiously away, unsure of whether the poison could be absorbed through the skin or if it had to be ingested or enter the body through a wound to work its evil. I went forward with extra care, though each step crushed more of the red-shot leaves and left behind a bloody stain in the shape of my footprint.
Bloodleaf was a ground-cover vine, but here it had coiled into the stones and climbed to the highest point of the tower. There was no door—or if there was, it was impossible to find beneath the thick tangle of leaves. It must have been growing there for a very long time, because the new growth of the vine was laid over a brittle skeleton cage of long-dead shoots.
I picked my way to the ledge overlooking the fjord, where I experienced a familiar pricking on the back of my neck, starting at the nape and running down to the tops of my shoulders. The Harbinger was still facing the tower, staring up at the spire.
I took a step toward her. “What do you want from me? Why have you brought me here? How does Toris know you?” I gulped. “You used to show yourself only when someone was about to die. Is that still true? Is someone going to die?”
She was stock-still, save for the drag of her hair in an invisible wind, blowing in the opposite direction of the cold gust at my back.
“Aren?” I asked, trying her name aloud for the first time. She turned at the sound of it, and I had to stifle a scream.
It wasn’t the Harbinger at all but the spirit of another woman entirely, one whose visage was so bloodied and broken as to be rendered completely unrecognizable. She gave me a long, assessing stare, then shambled on oddly angled bones straight into the bloodleaf thicket and disappeared, as if she’d dissolved into the tower itself.
16
“You should have seen it,” Kate said, laughing as we walked the bustling market district the next morning. “Nathaniel looked like a big startled bear, standing there staring at his empty hands, the fish lifted right out of his grasp and up into the trees above him.”
She’d invited me to come along while she delivered finished sewing commissions to customers closer to the center of the city, and had spent the entire early morning animatedly recounting the story of how she and Nathaniel met. Though I still felt shy around her, I was rapt. “That’s when you fell in love with him? When a little boy hooked his fish and pulled it up into a tree?”
“Well, not at that exact moment,” she replied amiably. “Nathaniel chased the thief back to his home, hollering the entire way. He was all set to box the boy’s ears, too, when he caught him, but that’s when he saw the family waiting for him; a mother was bedridden and sick, and there were two younger siblings who’d been without food for days. Needless to say, Nathaniel and I did not retrieve the stolen fish. It was cold beans for us that night.”
“So that was it, then. It was when he gave your dinner away.”
She purs
ed her lips and shook her head. “Not then either, really. But after that, we stopped at that house every time we passed, leaving baskets full of fish on the doorstep. Also milk, cheese, bread . . . Nathaniel paid for all of it with his own wages. He did it for weeks, until the mother was well again and could go back into the village for work. And somewhere along the line, back and forth between my fiancé’s holdings and my family home, I fell in love with Nathaniel. My escort. My fiancé’s best worker, his ‘most valuable asset.’ I was the daughter of an Achlevan lord, and Nathaniel was the son of a traveling swordsmith. Our paths never should have crossed. But once I knew him, I wanted him, and I decided I’d do whatever was necessary to keep him. If that meant leaving my old life behind—so be it. So one day, on my way to my fiancé’s, I asked him to take me to the nearest Empyrean sanctorium and marry me instead.” She smiled at the memory. “We just walked away from our old lives and never looked back. We came here, and Nathaniel started working with Zan while I took on mending and sewing projects to help us get by. And now this.” She smiled blissfully down at her round stomach. “This isn’t the life I imagined for myself as a little girl. It’s so much better.”
“How did your fiancé react?”
“With great relief, actually. I liked him very much—it’s hard not to like him—but there was never anything more than friendship between us. The union would have been a savvy one, in terms of position and property, but I’m afraid Dedrick would have found matrimony incredibly tedious. He enjoys conquest. Commitment? Not so much.” She laughed fondly. “We’re both better off. We exchanged a couple of letters after I left, and he said as much himself.”
“And you haven’t seen your family once since then?”
“Can’t say it’s much of a loss.” She played with the end of her braid as we walked. “The only one I miss is my mother. She and I were close.”
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