by Amy Raby
“You’ll not find her this way,” said Lornis.
“I don’t know how else I’ll find her.” He wished he’d learned tracking skills in his youth. Was there someone he could call upon who was an expert at this? A hunting master, perhaps?
“You’re running out of time,” said Lornis. “We’ve got to get you to the plaza.”
“First we find Celeste.”
“There’s no time!” cried Lornis. “Rayn, this is the culmination of everything we’ve worked for. Think about it—as king of Inya you’ll be able to search for her more effectively.”
“If they haven’t killed her,” snapped Rayn.
“They’re not going to,” said Lornis. “It doesn’t benefit them.”
“You don’t know that.”
A servant ran up to them and bowed. It was a man Rayn had never seen before. “Your Highness.”
“Is this important?” asked Rayn.
“I think so, sir. I went to Aderyn’s room to deliver her midmorning meal and found Kima flat-out on the floor, unconscious. The baby’s nowhere to be found.”
“Aderyn is missing?” Surely these two events had to be related. Someone had taken both his lover and his daughter.
“Yes, sir.”
“Is Kima all right?”
“She’s breathing, sir. I called a Healer. I believe she’s been drugged.”
“Thank you. Come back if you learn anything else.”
“Yes, sir.” The servant dashed away.
“It’s the same people,” said Lornis. “You know it is.”
He nodded. “I’ll bet they also drugged Celeste. If I find her, I find Aderyn too.”
A voice called down to them from the balcony. “Your Highness?”
Rayn looked up. It was one of Lucien’s Legaciatti. “Yes?”
“Councilor Worryn is here.”
“Let’s go,” he said to Lornis, and headed for the Hibiscus Tower stairs at a run. Worryn surely knew something about what had happened to Celeste and Aderyn.
Celeste’s rooms were crammed with Legaciatti, at least twenty of them, all in their signature orange uniforms with the sickle and sunburst. Emperor Lucien stood among them, as did Empress Vitala. In the middle of the Legaciatti, spitting mad and held firmly with his arms behind his back, was Councilor Worryn.
Worryn flung words at Lucien. “You cannot do this. I am head of the Land Council. This is an act of war.”
“The act of war was your abducting the Kjallan Imperial Princess,” said Lucien. “This is merely my response.”
“I did not abduct or harm the princess!” cried Worryn.
“If you are truly innocent, you’ll submit to a truth spell and tell us everything you know.”
Worryn hesitated. “The use of truth spells is restricted by law. First you must bring official charges, then—”
Lucien gestured at one of the Legaciatti, who brutally twisted Worryn’s arm.
The councilor shrieked in pain.
“Tell me again about Inyan law,” said Lucien. “I find that subject so fascinating and relevant.”
“Why would I kidnap your sister? There is no benefit to me whatsoever—”
Lucien gestured.
The Legaciattus twisted Worryn’s arm more sharply. There was a sickening crack.
Worryn bent over, screaming. He would have fallen, but the Legaciatti held him up.
“Get him a chair,” said Lucien.
Someone shoved a chair under Worryn’s rear. The Legaciatti released their grip on him, allowing him to sit and cradle his broken arm, rocking back and forth.
Rayn said nothing. He had the creeping horrors just watching this.
“Truth spell?” said Lucien.
“Yes,” said Worryn softly.
A woman stepped forward and crouched beside him, placing her hands on his uninjured arm. Her eyes went distant, and she said, “Ready.”
“Where is Celeste?” asked Lucien.
“I don’t know,” said Worryn.
“Truth,” said the mind mage.
“Who took her?” said Lucien.
“I don’t know.”
The mind mage hesitated. “Half-truth.”
“Explain yourself,” said Lucien.
“I don’t know who took her,” said Worryn. “But I think it was very likely a group of Riorcan assassins.”
“Is Zoe one of those assassins?” said Lucien.
“Yes.”
“Truth.”
Lucien turned to the mind mage. “Report only if he tells a lie or half-truth. Otherwise you may remain silent.” Then to Worryn, “Did you order the attack?”
“No.”
“Do you know where these assassins are?”
“No.”
“What is your association with these assassins?”
Worryn hesitated. A Legaciattus stepped forward and punched him in his injured arm. Worryn howled, and when the Legaciattus pulled his fist back for a more serious blow, he spoke rapidly. “I hired them initially—paid them for a number of tasks. But they’re out of control. They don’t take my orders anymore.”
Rayn moved to Lucien and whispered in his ear about Aderyn having gone missing and her nurse being drugged unconscious. Lucien’s brows rose. He asked Worryn a series of questions about Aderyn and her nurse, but the councilor knew nothing.
Rayn had seen enough. He backed out of the crowd, found Lornis, and pulled him aside. “Worryn didn’t take them,” he said in a soft voice.
“So I hear.”
“Then this gets us nowhere.”
“I told you, you’ve got to go to your ratification ceremony,” said Lornis. “If you don’t leave now, you may be late, or we’ll have to reschedule. And you have no idea how that might affect the vote.”
Rayn ignored that. He stepped away from Lornis and returned to the interrogation.
Worryn was crying and confessing his crimes freely as Lucien peppered him with questions. But it was becoming increasingly clear that the man knew nothing about Celeste’s abduction, or Aderyn’s. He had hired the assassins initially. He’d brought them to Inya and harbored them, and ordered them to kill Rayn on foreign shores. But they’d grown tired of his restrictions and stopped following his orders.
Lucien asked Worryn whether anyone else might know where the assassins were. Worryn could not think of anyone who would know. “Hold him for now,” Lucien ordered his Legaciatti. He gestured to Rayn and Vitala and Lornis, and they retreated to a corner of the room for a council.
“We’ve got nothing,” Lucien said. “It’s clear this man has committed crimes against Rayn and against the state. But he doesn’t know where Celeste is.”
“Rayn has to get to his ratification ceremony,” said Lornis.
Vitala, ignoring that, said, “If the Riorcan assassins have Celeste, and they’re now operating independently, they might very well kill her. They won’t care if their actions spark a war.”
“We have to find her,” said Lucien. “There’s no other way around it.”
“Rayn can’t stay any longer,” said Lornis. “He’s going to be late.”
“I don’t care if he’s late,” said Emperor Lucien. “The Inyan people shouldn’t care either—we’ve got a mountain of evidence that a criminal conspiracy is afoot. They’ll understand if he has to reschedule.”
“They may or they may not,” said Lornis. “Some of them will have spent their life savings to be present for the vote.”
As Rayn listened to them bicker over what ultimately must be his own decision, he felt increasingly ill. This was his fault. Celeste had loaned him two of her three guards, and so the attack had targeted her instead of him. He’d laughed off her security concerns, even knowing a group of assassins was after him, because he didn’t want to believe that Inya had
turned into this sort of country—the sort where rulers had to be escorted everywhere and couldn’t mingle freely with the townsfolk. He didn’t want Inya to be another Kjall.
But corruption was not limited to nations like Kjall. It had come to Inya. He hadn’t wanted to believe that, and now Celeste was in danger. Aderyn too.
They could not be far away. The kidnapping had been recent, and the note from the assassins implied they had their eyes on him. Celeste could be found. She would be found, if he had to knock on every door in Tiasa.
The others were still arguing.
“Enough!” he cried, loud enough to silence them.
All eyes turned to him.
“I’m not going to the ratification ceremony. I’m going to find Celeste. She cannot be far. We’ll track her down.”
“But Rayn—” began Lornis.
“No arguments,” he said. “I’ve made my decision.” It tore him up inside, knowing that after all he’d been through, all he’d done to oppose the abuses of the Land Council, he might lose his opportunity to rule Inya. But what sort of king would he be if he let the woman he loved die for the sake of his political power? Celeste’s safety had to come first.
“I’ll get Justien. He can look at the baby’s room and see if there are any clues there.” Lucien squeezed Rayn’s shoulder in passing, adding, “Good man.”
“Let’s get down to the garden,” Rayn said to those who remained, “and see if we can pick up her trail.”
• • •
Down in the garden, Rayn had no more luck than before. He tried following the boot prints again, and again they led him nowhere. Only to the walkway, and at that point he could discover nothing, not even whether they’d turned left or right. He tried to think which way it most made sense for the kidnappers to go. Either way made sense. The walkway meandered through the palace grounds, spawning a number of side walkways and ultimately joining up with itself. The side walkways led to other buildings or into the city of Tiasa. The kidnappers could have gone anywhere.
Where might they have taken her? Somewhere on the palace grounds? Certainly there were enough outbuildings, and many were not heavily used. There were plenty of places to hide. Or she could be in Tiasa. Perhaps he could organize search parties. They’d look inside every building, fanning outward in an ever-broadening circle, until they found her. That was a last resort, however. It could take days, and the assassins might kill her first.
Justien’s team and some of the Legaciatti had looked through Aderyn’s room and found nothing. Now they were searching here, looking for any clues that might have been dropped. A thread from her robe, a long black hair. Patricus was sniffing about the walkway.
“Poor fellow.” Rayn rubbed the dog’s ears. “You know something’s wrong, don’t you? But you don’t know what.”
Patricus looked at Rayn quizzically, waving his long tail.
“I bet you’d find her if you could.”
Patricus licked his hand.
A wild idea occurred to him: could Patricus find her? He’d never heard of a hunting dog tracking a person before—only wild game—but surely the concept was the same, if the dog could be made to understand what was asked of him. And Patricus knew this game already. Celeste had told Rayn they played hide-and-seek with Patricus at home.
“Patricus,” said Rayn, suddenly excited but trying to keep his voice calm. “Where’s Celeste? Find Celeste.”
Patricus’s ears flew up. He gave a happy bark and bounded about the garden, sniffing wildly, looking everywhere.
Rayn’s spirits fell as he watched. The dog thought they were playing hide-and-seek here in the garden. He didn’t understand that this was serious. Patricus wasn’t going to find Celeste here. He had to pick up her trail and follow it.
“Here, Patricus,” he called, moving to the footprints below the balcony. He directed the dog to the footprints. Patricus sniffed diligently. Rayn waited until the dog had his fill of the scent and said, “Find Celeste. Go on, find her.”
Patricus left the footprints and went bounding around the garden.
Pox it, he couldn’t communicate what he wanted.
Lucien came up beside him. “What are you doing with my dog?”
“I had a crazy thought,” said Rayn. “I thought I could convince him to pick up Celeste’s trail for us. But it’s not working. He doesn’t understand.”
Lucien straightened, his eyes going wide. “Three gods, man, that’s a superb idea. Even better if you’ve got a trained tracking dog. Do you?”
Rayn shook his head. “The royal dogs track rabbits and foxes, not people.”
“It’ll be up to Patricus, then. Let’s keep trying. Surely he’ll get the idea if we keep at it. Patricus!”
The dog raced to the emperor and skidded to a halt in front of him.
“Find Celeste,” commanded Lucien.
Patricus bounded away again.
“No,” said Lucien.
Patricus halted in midstride. His ears fell, and he looked sheepishly back at Lucien.
“Here.” Lucien indicated the footprints with his foot. “Here.”
Patricus ran to the footprints, sniffed at them a moment, and looked up at him with cocked ears.
“Find Celeste,” said Lucien.
Patricus lifted a foot, torn between an obvious desire to run around the garden and his understanding that Lucien didn’t want him doing that.
Lucien indicated the footprints again. “Find Celeste.”
Patricus returned to the footprints and sniffed. He looked up at Lucien.
“Find Celeste.”
Patricus continued to sniff. He made his way to the walkway and sniffed in one direction, then the other.
“Good boy, Patricus,” said Lucien. “Find Celeste.”
Patricus angled one eye up to Lucien and resumed sniffing. The path leading to the right seemed to interest him more than the one leading to the left. He worked his way along it a good ways. Then he gave a bark and began to lope down the path.
“He might have it,” said Lucien. “Let’s follow him. Justien, Nalica, Fenius, Orissian!” he called. “Come with us. Patricus may have her trail.”
Patricus was moving fast now, much of the time at a dead run, occasionally slowing to sniff a patch of ground. Rayn and Lucien and a horde of guards followed him. Quite suddenly, without pausing to sniff, Patricus veered off the walkway entirely. Rayn worried that he had lost the trail or even forgotten what he was doing. But even as he moved over the grass, he seemed to still be sniffing and tracking.
Vitala caught up with the group, puffing with exertion. “What are you doing?” she asked Lucien.
“Patricus may have picked up the kidnappers’ trail,” said Lucien. “We’re following him.” He glanced at her. Running was awkward for her in her pregnant state. “Look, you stay behind. I don’t know how long a chase he’s going to lead us or whether it will amount to anything. I’ve got enough people to handle this.”
Vitala nodded and stopped running. The group went on without her.
They’d left the Hibiscus Tower behind. Then they passed a greenhouse and the Melati Tower. Now they came to the stream that ran through the palace grounds, and Rayn worried that Patricus might lose the scent here. The dog followed the bank a short ways, came to a bridge, and led them over it. At the far end of the bridge, he sniffed the area thoroughly, moving from left to right, then nearer and farther from the bridge.
“Come on,” muttered Rayn, worried the trail had gone cold. There was no use scolding the dog. It was clear he was working as hard as he could.
Patricus took off again. Rayn and the others were hard-pressed to keep up with him.
“If I’d trained him to do this,” Lucien panted by his side, “I’d have taught him to go a little slower.”
Rayn just hoped their destination wasn’t far
. He could keep up this pace for a while, but not forever, and if they faced a battle at the end, he needed his strength.
They’d reached the outskirts of the palace grounds, an empty field that was periodically mowed down with scythes. It was reserved for future buildings, since the Tiasan Palace had a tendency to expand over the generations. Patricus crossed the field. There he came to a storage building, one of many that lurked along the edges of the grounds.
Patricus ran up to the storage building, sniffed along the bottom of the door, and flopped into a sitting position. He turned his head to bark once at the men following him and then stared at the door as if willing it to open.
36
Rayn hurried to the door, but as he was reaching for the lever to open it, someone grabbed his arm.
It was the Kjallan emperor. “Stand back,” he said. “Guards first.”
Rayn withdrew, and the Legaciatti crowded into the space where he’d been, weapons drawn. They opened the door and went inside. Almost at once, someone fired a gun. The Legaciatti scattered, spreading out in the wider space of the building’s interior.
Rayn reached for his sword and found nothing—his ceremonial garb did not include one. But his fire magic had some value in a fight. He darted in behind the Legaciatti. He couldn’t see at first; it was too dark. When his eyes adjusted, he took stock of his surroundings. The interior of the storage building was cluttered, with stacks of crates breaking up the room’s otherwise clean lines. Gun smoke drifted upward beside some of the crates. Several Legaciatti charged toward the crates and around them. He heard shouts and the clang of swords clashing. And something else—a baby crying. Aderyn?
Uncertain whether there might be other enemies in the vicinity, Rayn stood where he was, scanning the room. The Kjallan emperor had come inside. He stood on Rayn’s right, and Nalica, the archer, was on his left, with her bow in hand and an arrow nocked.
“Move,” said Lucien suddenly, shoving Rayn hard to the side.