She held his breath in horrified anticipation. But when the groups met, they merged like two rivers, one clear and one muddy. They didn’t intermingle, but they flowed side by side and while the uprisers screamed her mother’s name, the guards chanted something else.
“For Variena and Decebal!”
“Decebal Zi’fen!”
“House Zi’fen!”
She felt like her eyes might dry out they’d gone so wide. She couldn’t close them in her shock. Tamerlan’s mind reached around hers, taking back control, pulling her back from the edge.
Both our families have brought disaster on this city.
She’d missed so much when she was in the clock. None of this seemed to be a surprise to him.
It is and it isn’t all at the same time. Etienne warned me. I just wasn’t listening.
She and Tamerlan had to fix it. She could see that. That’s what he was going on about – fixing gouges and repairing wounds.
She sank into his mind like into a comforting hug as he slid down from the roof to a balcony and into the street, still racing toward the palace. They could do this if they worked together. She might have lost her sense of everything else, but that was the one thing she was certain was true.
33: All is Ever Lost
Tamerlan
WARMTH AND TENDERNESS filled him. If he could preserve her from this hell, he would. Anything she needed. Any solace. Any help.
He was the only one who should go mad for this.
She was already plunging him through the crowds toward the palace, weaving between guards and revolutionaries. One of the Yan guards grabbed Tamerlan by the front of his shirt.
“Whose side are you,” he began with a growl, but his words cut off as he glimpsed Tamerlan’s face. “You look like him.”
“I am Tamerlan Zi’Fen,” Marielle said with his lips. It felt strange how she said his name – gently, like she was worried about breaking it.
The guard dropped him like a hot coal. “My apologies.”
As they filed past, the other guards all shot him worried looks – earned, no doubt, by his father’s behavior – but he was soon past them, as Marielle hurried through the streets and tried not to slip on the sticky peels and ruined fruit all over the ground. Any other Autumngale the feasting would start soon and the old rivalries would melt into one big feast and dance. Any other Autumngale, he’d have the day off to spend with friends.
But not today.
Today they hunted.
Marielle chased through the streets, skidding around a group of revolutionaries. Something big was going on by the palace. The crowds thickened as they approached it, but there was no fighting here. It was almost as if the fight had almost been won.
So easily?
So quickly?
That troubled him. Even as Marielle directed his body into the thick of things, he was watching. The signs of his father were here. Only Decebal would turn a population from their rulers after marrying one of his children into the ruling family.
Marielle was focused on the scent of the Grandfather. She was sniffing the air with his nose. But he was watching the crowd. Watching their faces as they drew closer to a crude platform still being constructed and a knot of somewhat better-armed refugees. Had he seen these faces before? They looked familiar.
They leapt forward as Marielle followed the scent, so obsessed that she didn’t seem to realize they were headed right into the knot of the revolution’s leaders. She was excited, like a dog hot on the trail.
He’s close. He’s close.
She needed to pull back. They were too close to the ringleaders. One of them was already snarling at him, pointing to him with a leather-gloved finger.
In front of them, another moved to shield a woman in a heavy cloak with her back to them. His arm whipped up, stopping Tamerlan at the same moment that the woman whirled to face them, the hood falling to reveal her face.
Variena.
Shock reverberated through Marielle. She must not have believed it, not really, not until now. The blood seemed to drain from his face at her reaction.
“You. The one who brought food,” Variena said, looking at him with calculating eyes. “You seem to always arrive at just the right moment.” Her smile was predatory. “Timeliness is a welcome trait in a man.”
He tried to clench his jaw as he pulled in a puff of smoke from the roll of paper still hanging from his lips. Marielle was frozen with shock, like she’d been hit by a pole between the eyes.
Let me take over, Marielle. He pulled at her grip on him, sliding it from her mental hold.
“I’m afraid not,” he said smoothly. “My appointment today is elsewhere.”
“If you think to foul this up – you and that worthless piece of ruler scum – ”
He hadn’t realized she knew about Etienne but he was smooth in his interjection. “This has nothing to do with you. Not yet. I’m just trying to prevent what happened in Jingen from happening here.”
She leaned in close so that he could smell her clove-scented breath. “What happened in Jingen worked out just fine for me, pretty boy.”
“But now you’re on top,” he said smoothly despite the sweat forming on his brow. She was a formidable woman. She had all of Marielle’s assurance and none of her morality. “And those on top have the most to lose when the tables are flipped.”
She grunted. “Don’t get in the way or I’ll carve that pretty face to ribbons.”
Tamerlan gave her a crooked smile and pushed away, hurrying out of the crowd. Marielle – inside his mind – was upset. He felt her emotions ricocheting from one to the next as he drove them toward the palace. How was he going to get in there without her abilities to guide him? Could he use the same technique he’d used when Lila was guiding him? That seemed unlikely.
Just give me a moment to catch my breath.
He didn’t have to worry. The bridge stretching across the canal to the palace doors was busy – but unguarded, the doors flung wide open.
Be careful. All is not as it seems.
This was worse than he’d thought. No one guarding the Palace? Had that ever happened before?
He picked up the pace, trotting up the bridge and dodging tattered refugees as they intermixed with Landholds. None of the Landholds looked happy. Their eyes kept flicking toward the Yan Palace Guard. And the Guard was everywhere. They weren’t preventing movement and they weren’t stopping anyone. One of the guards in a rumpled uniform lounged idly at the highest point of the bridge, looking leisurely over the people moving in and out of the palace. He seemed to be at his ease until his eyes squinted and his hands flicked out, grabbing a whey-faced Landhold from the bridge and hauling him over the rail and into the water with a single burst of energy.
There had been no warning. When he was done, he returned to seemingly lounging along the bridge. No one was fooled. The crowd moved like a group of rats surrounded by large cats.
The guards smell of madness.
But so did Tamerlan, according to Anglarok.
No one helped the gurgling Landhold from his place in the moat. The walls of the moat were slick and steep. His only hope would be to find a passing boat or to be a very strong swimmer.
Tamerlan swallowed, hurrying through the door with the rest of the crowd. It was hard to move quickly through the press of bodies.
He’s just ahead! I can smell him! He’s close!
He almost thought he could see what she meant, like a swirl of colored smoke up ahead. The more he focused on it, the harder it was to see. Perhaps, it was only his imagination.
He saw the scarf first – the red scarf waving in the wind. Like a dog with a fresh scent in his nose, it gave him a new burst of energy. He put his head down and ran, thrusting every ounce of power he had into long, powerful strides.
He was gaining. He could tell. He pushed past a screaming maid in the door of the palace, dodging the white linens she threw in his face in her terror. He was the least of her problems. He’d
be gone before she could blink. She should be more worried about the guards on the bridge.
The Grandfather was only strides ahead as they raced up a shallow flight of stone stairs and then down a tapestry lined hall. Screams and cries of surprise rang out down the hall where the Grandfather ran ahead of him as Palace servants rushed away from the commotion. Tamerlan dodged past a wide-eyed man dressed like a butler – his hands full of silver candlesticks – and then as he ran into a pack of maids on their hands and knees scrambling for the dropped cutlery, he placed a hand on one of their shoulders and vaulted right over their bent heads. No time for civility. A woman dressed like a Landhold stood before him with her hands over her mouth, surrounded by shards of broken vases and a mirror that used to line the hall beside where she stood. He sprang past her without a second look.
The Grandfather cared nothing for the health or property of anyone. Like Time the ever-rolling stream, he carried all those things away – eventually.
The Library doors were wide open when Tamerlan finally skidded around the corner to them, panting and heaving with exertion. She was there again. Amaryllis.
His eyes caught on his sister standing with her back against the door. Caught the slight shake of her head. She didn’t want acknowledgment. Or she didn’t want him there. And either way, it stung.
Isn’t that Amaryllis? The one you meant to save when you saved me instead?
Yes. No time for that.
He burst through the door.
I feel the great sadness in your heart at the sight of her.
She was well and she had a future. Asking for anything else was just selfishness.
And isn’t love selfish sometimes? Doesn’t it want to know that the beloved loves, too?
Not real love. Real love wanted what was best for the other no matter what the beloved thought of the lover.
What a cold approach. It doesn’t sound like you at all.
He didn’t want to think about it.
Because it stings.
And he didn’t have to.
There was the Grandfather! He was grabbing a book off the shelf.
Tamerlan leapt, flying through the air arms reaching out. He knew without having to say anything – the Grandfather was about to jump through time and space again. The old man was already whirling, sparks pouring off him like water from a falls. His eyes met Tamerlan’s as Tamerlan fell short, hitting the stone floor of the library with an oof as the breath was knocked out of him.
“You fell short,” the Grandfather laughed. “In the end they all do!”
And then he vanished with a pop.
34: Whisper of Rebellion
Marielle
THE PAIN BIT AT HER. He held so much pain inside. So much rejection and hurt. When he thought he was hiding it, it oozed out of him like sap from a tree. No wonder he wanted so badly to save everything. No wonder he took refuge in the smoke with all that hurt building inside like thunderheads. He’d been such a beautiful boy with a sweet, artist’s heart. She’d seen that again and again in the past.
But it was the fragility of his very sweetness, it was the vulnerability of his compassion that made it possible to shatter him. And he was shattered. She felt it as he tried to bury his pain at his sister’s lack of acknowledgment. She felt it as he stuffed his loneliness past the shards of who he’d once been. Now, he was all loneliness and guilt in one rolled up murky ball.
Not all.
No, she was mistaken about that. Because even now as the Grandfather disappeared and he thought he’d lost him. Even now as frustration frizzled through him and he reached in his pocket and withdrew another roll of Spice – even now his thoughts were of her. His thoughts were of her in the clock and of the people of the Dragonblood Plains who would suffer because of him. Who would have expected such selflessness – such a sliver of sweet compassion under so much tangled bitterness, guilt and hurt?
She could smell it all woven through the honey and butter golden scent of him, twisting through like colored fibers in a golden rug.
She just wanted to hold him and let him cry until it had all leaked out of him in hot salty tears.
“Well, that’s that then, isn’t it?” he said aloud before taking a long pull on his fresh roll of spice.
Admit it, she prodded. You’re disappointed.
“Devastated,” he said aloud again. It was almost as if he were afraid to speak with his thoughts to her – as if he was shying away from the intimacy.
Can’t you just let someone hold you and help you for a moment, Tamerlan? Can’t you just cave in for a single second instead of carrying it all yourself?
“You don’t understand,” he said – aloud again in an empty library.
What didn’t she understand?
If I give in, even for a moment, even for a fraction of a moment ...
This time he spoke with his mind. And it was oddly intimate. Like the touch of two friends. Like the words of a long-time lover – so few, but so full.
...I’m afraid I’ll break.
And what if he broke? Maybe that would be best?
Then who ... He almost seemed to choke on the thought – as if it were too hard to think. As if just thinking it was already breaking him ... will put me back together?
She reached with her mind for him. Reached the only way she knew how – in a way with no barriers and nothing denied. She reached with all her heart. She shouldn’t. She already knew how dangerous it was to give all of yourself to anyone, never mind someone who was ...
Insane? Hopelessly addicted? Guilty?
But she felt him taking her embrace, drawing all her mind and soul in like a puff of that smoke until she was swirling in his mind like it swirled in his lungs, until she didn’t know where her longings ended and his started. Until she could touch where his heart was raw and his personality aching. Touch it with healing hands. Kiss it better – or at least try.
It was only the space of a single breath – and yet a world passed between them in that breath. He trembled under her touch – strong, powerfully strong, and yet so delicate in his pain. She couldn’t heal it all – didn’t try. She just sat with him in it.
I understand, she tried to tell him.
Understand what?
Understand everything.
And when he breathed out, she breathed out with him.
I’ve lost the Grandfather, he said eventually. And that means that I can’t get you out of the clock.
Not quite, Marielle said. Do you still have my shell?
He pulled it from his belt pouch and she felt him smiling as he looked at it.
Would he mind if she took back control?
Before she could ask, he was letting go and the authority over his body returned to her. She lifted the shell to his lips and blew gently. She’d seen this in the ages upon ages in the clock and now she knew what it was – knew how a great of a gift she’d been given when Anglarok gave it to her.
It was a shell of echoes. Other shells might echo the sea but this one echoed magic. And she had the power to trigger it. She blew again and yellow and purple sparks began to rain down on them. Blew a third time, and they began to spin.
I had no idea it had such power.
It was just an echo. An echo of what had been here a moment before.
It was hard to let the moment in the library go. Hard to go back to the chase when there was still so much for them to settle.
If you don’t, then you’ll be stuck in the clock forever. Do you really want that?
Of course not. But she’d grown used to his mind. So used to it that she didn’t want to leave.
Then don’t. His invitation was a mental whisper, lifting every hair up along the back of her neck. Stay with me.
With a pop, they left the Library and with another, they landed in the square of the palace in Xin. Marielle recognized it immediately, and even if she hadn’t she would have known where they were when she saw Allegra standing on the battlement addressing the crowd in just the s
ame way that Lady Saga had only months ago when she’d been here with Etienne and the Harbingers.
She scanned the crowd for the Grandfather as Allegra’s words boomed over the crowd.
“It is finished. The Whisper has taken Xin City.”
Oranges formed a pulpy sludge beneath their feet and the people around them were streaked in sticky juice and blood, huddled in thick cloaks against the sea winds. Flies were already beginning to buzz, drinking in orange pulp and human blood with the same voraciousness. What a horrific celebration.
Here, too? Will any city be left?
Choan had fallen to the Retribution, Yan to Variena and Decebal, and Xin to the Whisper. That left only H’yi.
H’yi is a burnt-out hulk – barely a city at all.
Worry filled her, rising up like tidewaters. Were they ruined? Were they all ruined?
And then she caught sight of the Grandfather in the crowd, pushing through with a snarl on his face and a book in his hand. He seemed almost mad as he forced his way through the crowd. She took off running while Allegra’s words followed her.
“We are your rulers now and we hereby declare an end to the nonsense that has ruled this city. There will be no more religions. The Smudgers are already gone. The Timekeepers are not welcome here. You will clear the Temple District immediately and it will be refurbished for industry. For long years, Xin city has been chained by superstition and ancient customs. Those end today.”
A cheer burst from the crowd. Marielle barely managed to squeeze Tamerlan’s body between the roaring people as they forced themselves forward, squeezing against the palace as if proximity alone could grant them a sliver of Allegra’s power. But tattered clothing, blood-soaked bandages, and ruined fruit spoke a different story.
“There will be no more sacrifices. No more feast days. No more holidays that honor the Legends. If you see a shrine, a plaque, a statue, a tribute OF ANY KIND dedicated to a Legend, I order you to destroy it!” Allegra’s words blazed across the wind that carried them through the square. “I am Allegra Spellspinner. I sell cures. And I am here to cure Xin!”
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