Creatures of Light, Book 3

by Emily B. Martin

  I sniffed. “All right. Yes, if that’s what you want.”

  “It is.”

  Silence settled down on us again. The cold seeped in from all sides—the floor, the wall, the row of bars. I thumbed the tears from my eyes. I didn’t want to leave. Despite the bare loneliness of the prison, I didn’t want to go back to Blackshell, back into the heart of the mess I’d made. I put my head on my knees again.

  “Gemma,” Colm said.

  “What?”

  “May I touch you?” His voice was soft. “I should have asked when I did it before.”

  My eyes prickled, and I felt a new surge of guilt, though I wasn’t sure what for. I searched the emotion for its root and returned with no justification other than I knew it was what I should feel. It was right, for me to shy and bow away from such a question. This sound logic wasn’t strong enough, though, to overcome the sudden, encompassing desire to simply be touched by someone who didn’t—miraculously—despise me.

  I laid my hand down on the stone floor between two of the cell bars.

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  His fingers slid forward, and his big hand closed around mine. He had callouses on the ridges of his palm, and one at the end of his middle finger—callouses both from working and writing. His hands were cold, like mine, but the feeling of skin against skin sent a thrum through me that eased the knot in the pit of my stomach. I bit my lip, struggling to keep my tears in. It didn’t work. The stone walls magnified my first gasp.

  Colm’s fingers tightened over mine. I tried to wipe at my eyes with my other sleeve.

  “Sorry,” I whispered.

  He shifted, and his free hand snaked partway through the bars. It didn’t fit past his wrist, but it was far enough to reach my knees. He pulled gently, drawing me closer, right up against the metal. The bars were freezing cold, but they were overwhelmed by the heat from his body. He pressed forward until our bodies touched in the spaces between, and he leaned his forehead against mine.

  “You cry as much as you need to,” he murmured.

  We stayed that way, pressed against the bars of his cell, for a long time—long enough that I forgot about the cold floor and biting metal. His thumb occasionally traced the back of my hand, but more often it was still. The silence between us was a comfort—it carried no secrets in it, no animosity or frustration. It was just peace.

  After a length of time, the door at the far end of the corridor groaned on its hinges. We both shook ourselves, leaning back from each other. A set of boots tromped down the passage, and his fingers slipped out of mine. An unfamiliar soldier strode into view.

  “The queen is requesting you return to the palace,” he said.

  Mona would be furious. I held in the sigh I wanted to heave, and I got stiffly to my feet. Inches away, Colm did the same. In the presence of the guard, faced with the reality of having to go back into that swirling fog where everyone was angry at me, I suddenly felt timid again. I bunched my cloak in my fists, hesitantly meeting Colm’s eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ll try to talk to your sister.”

  “It’s all right,” he said. “Be gentle with yourself, Gemma.”

  He unfurled his fingers between the bars, and despite the guard, I rested my hand briefly in his. It was cold.

  With a rush of inspiration, I drew my hand away and fumbled at my throat. I unpinned my cloak, making sure the guard saw me put the pin in my pocket, and stuffed the fabric through to him.

  It would be too small, and hardly sufficient to keep away the persistent chill. But he gathered it wordlessly in his hands and drew it close to his chest, as if I’d given him something precious.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  The guard cleared his throat, gesturing for me to follow him back up the corridor. I hurried in his wake.

  Outside, a sharp, stealthy wind blew off the lake. I bowed against it as it sliced through my clothes, my arms wrapped tightly across my chest. We passed back along the outer edge of town to where the high stone wall loomed around Blackshell. I followed the guard through the gate and almost took a step back—the grounds beyond were a cacophony of clattering hooves and running boots. I dodged out of the way of a stable hand hurriedly leading a chestnut horse away, draped in forest green livery.

  “What’s going on?” I asked the guard as we neared the palace doors.

  He didn’t answer.

  The entrance hall was no less busy. Folk rushed to and fro with an air of agitation—almost panic. I picked up my pace. It was just reaching noon—I hadn’t been gone that long. What had happened in the short period of time to throw things into such disarray?

  We made for the grand sweeping staircase that led up to the floor above, and I realized the guard was taking me to Mona’s rooms. I started to flick through possible approaches to facing Mona’s inevitable anger. Should I stand defiantly before her? Attempt to reason with her? Ask meekly for forgiveness?

  Should I simply turn around and see myself into a prison cell?

  The landing above was flanked by intricately embroidered tapestries and capped by an arching timber-framed ceiling, but my gaze was drawn to the doors along the left side. We passed the first, and then the second, carved with the country’s crossed rushes. I studied it until I couldn’t do so without craning my head. Colm’s room.

  His wife’s little ring.

  I continued after the guard, trying to resist the urge to open the door right then, until we arrived at the end of the hall. One of the double doors was propped open, and three guards stood in the anteroom beyond. We passed by them—me avoiding their glares—and into the next room.

  My first impression of Mona’s parlor was that it suited her perfectly. Elegant blue and white hangings covered the walls, flanked by silk-covered chairs. A painting of the Beacon, shining in the morning sun, sat over the crackling fireplace. And then there were the pearls—pearls everywhere, big robins-egg pearls studding the doorknobs, miniscule ones sewn into pillows, gray ones tiling the mantelpiece, white ones roping along the draperies. The whole room glimmered.

  To the left was a closed door, presumably to a bedroom. The guard led me to the opposite wall, where another door stood open, revealing a long polished worktable and a stately writing desk. Both were currently scattered with stacks of paper and maps. I leaned out of the way as yet another person rushed past, realizing at the last second that it was Arlen. I drew in a breath, hastily preparing myself for his anger, as well, but he barely looked at me, despite me being on his right side. He shuffled the packet of parchment under his arm and practically ran across the parlor into the anteroom beyond.

  Filled with swirling trepidation, I followed the guard’s gesture into the study.

  Mona and Rou were standing at opposite ends of the long table, and for once I didn’t seem to have interrupted an intimate moment between them. Their faces were both tense, their postures rigid as they faced each other. I sidled inside, and they broke their sparking gazes from each other to me.

  “Gemma,” Mona stated.

  I glanced over my shoulder as the guard closed the door behind me, giving me the distinct feeling of being trapped like a rabbit in a cage.

  “What’s going on?” I asked them. “If this is about . . .”

  “Whose side are you on?” she asked sharply. “Tell me quickly—I have decisions to make.”

  “Wh . . . what?”

  “Your folk are coming,” Mona said. “Six triple-masts are sailing up the waterways, flying Alcoran colors, armed with ballistae and some kind of mounted trebuchets. A contingent of Mae’s scouts showed up an hour ago with the news.”

  My mouth opened and closed like a fish’s.

  “Oh,” I said.

  “How many soldiers on each of those ships, would you estimate?” she asked.

  I looked between the two of them, my breath quickening as I processed this news.

  “I . . . don’t know,” I said. “It would depend . . . on how many they could have mustered
in such a short period of time, and how many are still in Cyprien.” The council must have acted immediately upon Celeno’s disappearance for ships to be here this quickly. Shaula must have made executive decisions . . . my heart pounded. What did that mean for my mother? Had she made it back to Callais at all?

  Rou dragged his hand over his face and behind his neck, without any trace of levity. “I need to get back to Cyprien.”

  “There’s no point in that,” Mona said with emphasis, and I got the sense this was the subject of the tense discussion I’d walked in on. “If the Wood Guard saw the ships when they say they did, they’re well past Cyprien.”

  “The Alcorans may have staged more ships in Lilou,” he said. “They may be waiting on more to sail around the coast. We need to communicate with the Assembly, Mona.”

  “We’ll get word to them when we can,” she said. “Right now, we need whatever information Gemma can give us before trying to communicate.”

  Rou turned to me, his voice heavy. “Are your folk moving a force overland in addition to up the river?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Are they planning to fight through the Cypri lines or circumvent them?”

  I flushed hot. “I don’t know.”

  He nodded, expecting my answers, and started to gather his papers. Mona’s parchment ruffled at the sudden shake in her hands—I had never once seen her hands shake before.

  “There’s no sense in going down the river if Alcoran ships are sailing up it!” she said.

  He straightened his stack and tucked it under his arm. “I can set out when it’s dark and hope to slip by them.”

  “I’m not sending you back to Cyprien!”

  Rou’s chest heaved with a deep sigh, and I could see how much effort it was costing him to stand against her. “I’m not asking you to send me back, Lady Queen. Yours isn’t the only country in harm’s way.”

  Under her silent stare, he headed for the door. I bit my lip as he moved past me, gazing straight ahead until I heard the soft click of the latch.

  Mona’s eyes were on fire as she stared at the door over my shoulder, to the point that she looked slightly wild. A terrible moment of silence slid by, and then she slapped the papers in her hand onto the table. She rested both her fists on the wood, head down, as if physically corralling her surging emotions. When she spoke, her voice was low and curt.

  “Your folk will be here in less than a day,” she said. “I need whatever information you can give me.”

  I wavered. “Celeno would be a better—”

  “Celeno is gone,” she said, looking up.

  My heart froze. Gone? Gone? What did that even mean?

  “Gone where?” I asked numbly.

  “Up the Palisades,” she said. “He left not five minutes after you did this morning. Mae and Valien went with him. They’re taking him to Scribble Cave.”

  “Both of them?”

  “I don’t think either of them wanted the other alone with him,” she said. “They took a handful of guards, too.”

  “And . . . you let them?” I flicked my head. “It’s just . . . I thought you wanted him in a cell . . . I thought Ellamae wanted him in bed . . .”

  “I’ve come to understand that what you lot do is well beyond my control,” she said flatly. “And Mae . . . it was her idea. She unlocked the ankle cuff. She had the messenger wait to tell me until they had been gone for an hour. And now your folk are coming and I need to know if you’re going to help me or not.”

  The sudden anguish in her voice made everything lock into place. I straightened slightly, comprehension dawning. She’d been betrayed, one by one, by the people she thought she could count on, leaving her with only her youngest brother struggling to pick up the slack. Colm had shattered the trust between them and was left sitting in a cell, waiting to be tried for treason against her. Ellamae had freed Celeno from her iron grip and left—left, to bring him to see the cyphers she hated so much. Valien would always be loyal first to his wife and second to his allies. And now Rou, choosing his own country over her.

  Leaving her with one final option.

  Me.

  Under her piercing stare, I moved forward to look at the maps scattered on the tabletop. I studied the detailed illustration of the shore along Blackshell.

  I pointed to a little peninsula jutting out from the island near the river’s mouth.

  “That was a strategic staging place for us last time,” I said. “The flagship was meant to berth there to keep visibility with the rest of the fleet.”

  She gave a short, clipped nod and circled the peninsula on the map. She straightened, affording me a view of her red-rimmed eyes as she fought to keep her emotions dammed back. Her jaw was set in a hard line.

  She gestured at the map.

  “What next?”

  Chapter 16

  We worked until well after dark, talking until our voices were cracked and raspy. I answered questions from her council and generals. I walked Arlen through the layout of the invasion plan three years previously. We calculated exactly when the first ship might make its appearance, based on wind conditions and ship load and the configuration of her rigging.

  We also marked the exact spot along the river mouth where Celeno and I could most feasibly wave down the flagship and halt the attack before it began. This was my most desperate hope, because every other option carried the sharp, broken feeling of finally, fully betraying my country. Because the Lumeni weren’t just going to defend themselves. They meant to fight back. They meant to take the lives of my folk who were sailing to take theirs. And I was helping them do it.

  Treason, treason, treason.

  Mona cut us all off before the night got too late, knowing the ships would be on the doorstep come morning. She sent us all away with a steel-edged glint in her eye—I doubted she would sleep tonight. I wondered if she would go find Rou. He’d been in a few of the sessions, taking careful note of the strategizing taking place so he could bring the news back to the Assembly. But he and Mona hadn’t spoken, and I wondered if he planned to slip down the river in the dark early morning before the ships had arrived, or after they were moored at the entrance to the lake.

  Outside Mona’s room, I loitered briefly in the hallway. As the last few people filtered away down the hall and her double doors latched shut behind me, I crept out of the shadows and went to the door carved with rushes. I put my hand on the knob, half expecting it to be locked. It gave under my push, and the door edged open. Drawing in a breath, I slipped into Colm’s room.

  There was a pilot lamp burning next to the door, its flame low and blue. I turned up the wick and let the light wash over the room. Colm had a foyer, smaller than Mona’s parlor—barely big enough for a tea table and two armchairs clustered around the hearth. But there were bookcases, and a wide window bench under the darkened panes. There were two other doors set into the far wall—studies or breakfast rooms or something else . . . one had probably been Ama’s. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I crossed to the door in the opposite wall and turned the knob.

  It was dark and quiet, hung with the subtle scent of ink and beeswax. I lit a few of the candles and set my lamp down, gazing around. There was a canopied bed, the curtains drawn back, and a fireplace with an oddly low mantel. The room was tidy, with just enough oddments out of place for it to look lived in—a book askew on the bedside table, its pages marked with ribbons, a set of boots cockeyed on the floor, a solitary glove resting on the trunk under the window. I went to the trunk first, moving the glove and setting the lamp down on the floor. There was a wooden frame tucked behind the trunk that I had to shift to make room for the lamp. I opened the trunk and peered inside. I picked carefully through packed summer clothes until my fingers brushed the copy of Our Common Origin. I pulled it out and opened the spine to find pages of my handwriting, neatly creased. I removed them, replaced the book, and closed the lid. I set the glove back on top—perhaps running the empty fingers through mine briefly befor
e feeling foolish and setting it back down.

  Drawing up my courage, I went to the bedside table. Behind the book and the candelabra was the little wooden box, its mother-of-pearl fish winking. I opened the lid, tipped it to its side, and caught the ring in my palm.

  It was small, but no smaller than my own finger, with a graceful bloom of pink pearls on top. I ran my thumb around the circle, the metal barely worn.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered to it. I looked up around the room, a room which had once housed a happy couple but was now full of ghosts. “I’m sorry,” I said again. My gaze lit on the mantel, and I realized what was so odd about it. It wasn’t the mantel itself that was strange—it was the blank wall above it. The open space stretched conspicuously to the ceiling, topped with a thick nail in the plaster, as if it used to house a large painting.

  I had a jarring image of the mantel in my own parlor back at Stairs-to-the-Stars, the wedding portrait replaced by a map of Alcoro. Slowly I turned back to the trunk under the window, where the wooden frame peeked out from behind it. My feet moved forward of their own accord, and I stood in front of the trunk again. I pushed it aside until I could slide the frame out and turn it around.

  Ama had a heart-shaped face and twinkling brown eyes, her lips curved upward in a smile that suggested it was her easiest expression. Her wedding dress was the same pink as her ring, and her chestnut hair was twined with roses and ribbons. I clutched the little ring in my fist. She was lovely, confident like Mona, but without her cold edges and hard outer shell.

  But it was Colm who drew my eye. When had this painting been made? Mona said they’d been married a year before my folk invaded, which would put it at just over four years old.

  It may as well have been forty.

  The artist portrayed Colm’s face with a buoyancy to it, an unabashed light that was extinguished now. His smile was bright and fully reached his eyes, not shuttered or sheltered. He held his bride’s hand with both of his, looking guileless and boyish, even more so than Arlen, even though he must be around the same age as when this portrait was made. I found myself reaching to brush the pigments of his face and altered my course at the last second, landing instead on the deep gold of his hair. Ochre, I thought, picturing the painter choosing the colors to mix on their palette. Deepened with a little sienna and brightened here and there with cornsilk. My cheeks heated slightly—Colm’s image laughed merrily at my embarrassment.