“You can only shut down one of us at a time, then,” Pelkaia said, and though he couldn’t see it her smirk was palpable.
Aella sighed and gestured toward her arrayed guards. “And yet you are hopelessly outnumbered. Please, do not debase yourselves by attempting to fight. You are welcome here, could even come to be treasured here. I can offer you knowledge and training beyond whatever small truths you’ve been forced to scrape together.”
“Knowledge earned with a whitecoat’s scalpel,” Detan snapped.
She inclined her head to him. “Yes. My methods, however, are not that of my adopted mother and her colleagues.”
“The way you treat your mother tells me all I need to know about your methods.”
“And you disagree with my treatment?”
Detan winced. From the little smile quirking the corners of her lips he could tell she’d seen his momentary pleasure at Callia’s pain. “She deserves punishment, not cruelty.”
“I do not see the distinction.”
“Then we will never be in agreement.”
“You will change your mind in due time. Kneel, all of you. I’m afraid chains are necessary until I can come to trust you all.” Aella flashed a truly pleased smile. “Though I hope they will not be needed long.”
“Begging your pardon,” Tibs drawled, “but it occurs to me to mention that I’m a square peg in your round hole.”
Detan stifled a frantic giggle.
“Guilt by association, I’m afraid, Tibal. Now kneel.”
The six stepped forward. Detan took an involuntary step back, hands held palms-out toward them. “Hold on a tick, we were just starting to get friendly, I’m not ready for you to bring the ropes out yet.”
Pelkaia said, “Coss, now.”
Vertigo washed over him. The room shifted, the atmosphere thickened, as if the whole of reality were bunching up, dragged toward the pinprick of stability that was Coss. Tibs’s fingers dug into Detan’s shoulder, minute sparks of pain grounding him, keeping him upright. He gasped for air like a starved fish and bent over his knees as sparks of white light encroached upon his vision.
The world around him lit, nacreous brilliance falling like a curtain, cutting him off from all those around him. Sel. All the tiny bits of it drifting through the air. All the miniscule intrusions it made upon their world every day, too small to be noticed or made use of, brought to brilliant flaring life.
For the barest of moments terror shook him. He was transplaced, pushed back to that terrible moment a year ago when Callia had thrust a needle in his arm and allowed him to see the truth of what he saw now – and what he’d done with it. The heady control as he fine-tuned his power and shattered the table beneath his back. Pelkaia had said he was capable of harnessing that finesse still. Had seemed certain of the fact.
Black skies, but he wanted that power back.
The glittering tore away from his eyes, coalescing around Pelkaia, and perverse jealousy shot through him – how dare she strip his treasure from him. How dare she command that which was his birthright. Coss dripped sweat, his narrow face slack with effort.
Detan’s ears popped. All the sel pulled away from him, a receding tide that he wanted to wash him away. Someone screamed, and the sel began to splinter – to fling outward from Coss as if it were broken glass. Detan reached out for it, fingers trembling. Tibs shook him, punched his arm. He hardly felt it.
He pushed out, stripped the sel away from whoever held it with the force of his will, slammed it against those shuttered windows, and let loose.
His ears rang. His eyes filled with grit and his mouth felt stuffed with wool. He lay on his side, Tibs blanketed over him, a burning ache in his legs and a dull throb racing from his head down to his toes. Blackness encroached upon his vision and then he was standing, Tibs grabbing him by the collar, jerking him along as if he were a marionette. Dust filled the air, acrid, choking. He coughed and spluttered and they heaved themselves over the stone rubble of the wall, out into the cold breeze and the annoyingly cheerful sunlight.
Somehow he gained control of his feet and staggered alongside Tibs to the other side of the rubble. He expected to feel light, free of his burdens, as he had after Aransa.
And yet hunger still consumed him.
“Not your best plan.” Tibs brushed chalk-white dust from his coat and slapped his hat against his thigh. Somehow the ties had torn off his wrists during the blast, leaving rashy smears across his skin. A thin trickle of blood leaked from his temple. Detan looked away, stomach clenching. It was all he could do to ignore the siren call of the sheet of sel blanketing the building. Whatever Coss had condensed from the air, the raw mass of Aella’s defensive measures remained. He suspected, though the memory was hazy, that it’d been Aella’s ability that cut him short before he made use of that thick cloud.
Great bells rang out, clanging from atop the towers of the Remnant’s five buildings.
“Desperate times.” He tried to keep his voice light, but it creaked over the dusty dryness in his throat and his grin was limp.
Pelkaia staggered out behind them, Coss’s arm thrown around her shoulders to keep her upright. Detan looked away from the anger in her eyes, tried to stifle the firestorm of guilt building in his chest. He’d been careless, as usual. Throwing around his power to suit his need. Could have been a load-bearing wall, he realized. Could have brought the whole thing down on their heads.
“Sirra,” Tibs said, and the use of his nickname brought his head up sharp. Tibs was frowning at him, the blood from his temple having found a smeared path through the stubble on his chin. “Still with me?”
“More or less,” he grated, looking around at the disaster he’d wrought. Stone groaned, the ominous, grating sound loud to his ears even above the peel of the Remnant’s alarm bells. The whole windowed face of the yellowstone house was blown clear off, the rectangular shape of Aella’s desk the only stick of furniture left standing, its presence made ridiculous by its normalcy.
Through the drifting clouds of dust, figures began to stir. He was a little disgusted with himself as relief washed over him. They were his enemies. He should crow victory at their defeat, be angered that they still lived. But he didn’t want them dead, not really. Didn’t want any more blood on his hands. He glanced to Tibs, to the guilty smear down the side of his head, then sharply away. Too late for clean hands.
Pelkaia and Coss stumbled up alongside them, and they all knelt down behind the false shield of the rubble he’d wrought, praying to the sweet skies Aella hadn’t spotted them yet.
“What now?” Pelkaia hissed, all business, not willing to delve into a finger-pointing match until they were safely away and she could take her time clobbering him.
Behind them, the Remnant’s doors began to disgorge a stream of disheveled, confused guards. Detan dared to hope the distraction was at least enough to give Ripka a clearer path to safety.
“I suggest you put the mean face back on,” he said.
“Why bother? She can yank it away at any moment, blasted girl has grown too strong.”
Detan caught Coss’s eye. The rumpled man’s brows shot up as understanding passed between them. Coss nodded.
“Not,” Detan said, “if we can keep her busy, and hope Ripka can get the Larkspur pointed our way in a hurry.”
“Bad plan,” Tibs said.
“Only one I got.”
“Honding,” Aella’s voice rang out, sing-song, through the dust and destruction, “you’ve been a very naughty boy.”
He gathered himself, and stood to face his fears.
Chapter Forty-One
Ripka took a step backward, giving ground to Kisser and her guards. They herded her back until her thighs pressed against the low, thick edge of Nouli’s worktable. Honey lingered to her left, fingers tapping against her hip to some internal song. She had to diffuse this, quickly. Before it grew into a bloodbath they couldn’t escape drowning in.
“He wants out,” Ripka said, tipping her head
toward Nouli without taking her gaze from Kisser. “See? All packed and ready to go. Wants to take you with him. We can do that. I can get you out of here, Kanaea. Back to the mainland.”
She snorted and kicked a crate out of her path. “You think I want to stay here forever?”
“You didn’t sell us out?”
“To the sand munchers? I might have whispered in their ear. But make no mistake, I want off this rock as much as you do, lil’ Miss Leshe. I’ve just got my own methods, my own loyalties, and you’re not on that list.”
“Loyalty?” Nouli clutched his bag to his chest, cheeks red. “You lecture on loyalty, child? Child of my sister? What do you know of it save that you scorned it?”
“Whoa,” Ripka held her hands out to Nouli and Kanaea, standing sideways between them. In the corner of her eye Enard slipped to the side, angling himself nearer the biggest of Kanaea’s pet guards. “I don’t know what blood’s gone sour between you two, but I know it’s not Nouli running around with the Glasseaters.” She jerked her chin at the two bruisers.
Kanaea snorted. “You think these men are Glasseaters? Are you crazy? Those rats are taking cheese from Radu’s hand, not mine. Not the empire’s. We all know it. Been traipsing around here like they own the place, getting freedoms no one else has to go tend their mudleaf crops. Radu thinks the inmates don’t notice, but they do. Guards do, too.” She tipped her head to the man standing closest to Enard. “That’s why they help us – help the empire–” her lip curled over the word, “because good men and women don’t want to bend knee to Radu and his scheming.”
“And yet you set them on us,” Ripka snapped.
She rolled her eyes. “Poorly, it seems. Thought those dogs had more teeth.”
“You sold them out!” The satchel squeaked in Nouli’s grip.
“Yes, Uncle, I did. For your own good.”
The guard nearest Enard stepped forward. Enard caught her eye, a question, and she gave a slight shake of the head. Best not escalate the situation until they had no choice. Nouli was a frail man, addled by age and addiction both. And she still held out hope of taking Kanaea and her chemical genius with them. If not for the saving of Hond Steading, then at the very least to keep her out of Valathea’s hands.
“Master Bern,” the guard said, “is it true that these two have devised a way for you to escape the Remnant?”
“Yes. These people, they’ve brought a way.”
“A way that is rapidly losing viability,” Ripka said, trying hard not to glance at the window she’d crawled through and think of the confrontation brewing in her wake. “We must go, now. If you both do want to leave, then–”
“I can leave whenever I want,” Kisser said. “The empress may want Uncle on lockdown, but no one cares what his sweet niece is up to. Not even Warden Baset would hold me here if I requested it. I’m just not ready yet. I don’t need you.”
“And would Radu let you walk if he knew about this?” Ripka waved a hand over Nouli’s worktable. “He’s hunting the source of Nouli’s experiments. It’s only a matter of time until he has you both hung for dipping into his profits.”
“Profits?” Nouli’s voice was tight, barely restrained. “You told me the subjects were addicts seeking temporary relief from their suffering. You said nothing about profits!”
Kisser spit and jerked her head to one of the guards at her side. “Protection doesn’t come cheap, Uncle, and I couldn’t let Radu know what you were up to until we had solid footing, not with the way Thratia has him wrapped around her fingers. The stuff works. My leaks via the guards into Petrastad are proof enough of that. We could make a fortune, selling it on both sides of the war. Me to the empire, and Radu to Thratia. Think of the gold. We could rebuild the Bern estates anew. You could rebuild your library.” Her eyes shone with genuine, if sickening passion. Ripka looked away, unable to stomach the stark fanaticism in her face.
“You mean this? Truly?” Nouli asked, his voice firm, even. Ripka admired him for that.
“You’ve earned it! This exile is a farce and everyone knows it. We need only the grains to restore you to your proper place.”
“To restore the Berns to their proper place,” he echoed.
“Yes!” Her fists clenched over her chest and she leaned toward him. Hopeful, vulnerable.
“No,” Nouli said.
“What–”
He kicked the leg of his table, a practiced jab, and the whole workstation collapsed in a rain of broken glass and spilt chemicals. Ripka jumped away as the many-colored fluids began to pool together. To fume wisps of cobalt smoke.
“Idiot!” Kisser hissed. “Honey, restrain that one.” She flicked a hand at Ripka and advanced upon her uncle. Nouli stepped backward, hesitant, his eyes glued upon the swirling puddles of his concoctions. Sweat sheened his brow, and Ripka realized he was waiting for something she didn’t want to wait around to see.
Honey didn’t say a word to Kisser. She slipped forward, smooth as a viper, stuck her knife in the neck of the guard closest to her, humming a soft tune as she danced away from his crumpling, spasming body.
Kisser whirled toward her once-accomplice, eyes wide. Honey grabbed her hair, yanked so that she bent over backwards and fell hard to the ground. The other guard turned toward them. Nouli’s eyes bulged.
“Get out!” Ripka barked, leaping over the felled guard and Kisser to grab Nouli’s arm and haul him out into the hall. Shouts and stomps and curses echoed behind her but she pushed on, shoving Nouli ahead, praying to the blue skies he knew where he was going.
A concussive whump sounded against the stone wall, the ground shaking as rivers of mortar streamed from cracks between the stones. She stumbled, fell to one knee. Enard was beside her in an instant, pulling her back to her feet, urging her forward while Honey sang a lullaby to herself somewhere behind them in the hall.
“Was that–” she began, but Nouli cut her off, shaking his head so hard sweat flew off him. “Wasn’t mine, not yet, hurry.”
Enard mouthed, “Lord Honding.”
She shivered and forced herself to run on, praying all over again that Detan and the others were safe. That whatever that was, he’d been in control of it.
Light fingers brushed the back of her neck and she almost jumped clear out of her skin. She whirled to find Honey pressed up close against Enard. “May I lead? The way behind is clear.”
Ripka looked back down the narrow stone hall, and saw no sign of pursuit. “How?”
“I closed the door.” Honey hummed.
The great wooden beam, used to keep Nouli tucked safely away.
“You locked them in?” Nouli demanded.
“Yes?” Honey cocked her head to the side, not understanding the horror writ upon his face.
A soft hiss echoed from down the hall, rising in pitch until it became a wail. Human voices joined the screaming, indistinguishable from the roar of the chemical firestorm Nouli had set off. Someone pounded upon the door, heavy, pleading thunks that echoed down the hall, and then the great brass alarm bells of the Remnant drowned them out. Nausea gripped Ripka. She swallowed bitter bile.
“Nouli – I… I’m so sorry.”
His expression hardened, his shoulders straightened. “She did this to herself.” He shuffled away, turning his back on his niece’s cries. Honey took the lead, and Ripka was happy to let her do it. She’d had enough of blood. Of suffering. Kisser may have betrayed them all, but that only earned her a place in a cell. Not a molten, screaming death.
The hissing shuffle of chainmail echoed ahead. Ripka tensed, preparing for a fight, and edged in front of Nouli. He may know the way better than she, but he was no use in a fight that didn’t involve rhetoric. He grunted, squeezing himself against the wall to let her pass, but by the time she’d gained the position Honey had done her work. She stood in the crossway of two halls, blood dribbling from the tip of her blade, humming a gentle tune and swaying as the man at her feet spasmed and choked on his own blood.
Ripka c
leared her throat, then felt perversely guilty that she could do so while the man at her feet could not. “Which way?” she asked no one in particular.
“Left,” Nouli answered, voice cracking. He cleared it. “To the stairs at the end, then up and right. You’ll find servants’ stairs at the end of that hall. If you need guidance, ask, otherwise...” He glanced at the guard, now grown still, and swallowed. Ripka caught Enard’s eye over his shoulder and he nodded. Enard would guard the rear, Honey would be their spearpoint, and Ripka would shield Nouli from any more trauma, if at all possible. It would work. It had to. It could not be that far to the roof. Enard relieved the guard’s body of a cutlass. No one commented.
Honey started off, humming softer now as to not draw attention, and Ripka wished she’d go ahead and sing already. Any sound would be better than the suffocating silence of the stone walls, the frantic thundering of her heart, and the ragged breath of her companions. Detan damn well better hurry with that ship, for she was not certain they could make another stand if it came to it.
She wished they could pass through the halls like shadows, slipping through the dark corners of the prison unseen. Instead, they stumbled and shuffled and dragged themselves creaking and groaning and swearing at the occasional stubbed toe. Nouli whispered course corrections in her ear when necessary, Honey’s bright hair bobbed before her like a light. Like a ghost lantern leading her into the deepest dark.
At last they came across a ladder and Honey shimmied up the rungs without effort, throwing open the top hatch to spill cloud-greyed light down upon them. Ripka hesitated, remembering with a sense of foreboding the last time she’d climbed a ladder to a sun drenched roof in Aransa. That should have been her death, but she’d cheated it. She’d cheat it again, if it came to that.
Muscles burning in protest, she slung herself up after Honey and scrambled onto the dusty tiles of the roof. Her heels rang out against hard ceramic. It made sense, the part of her that gathered details and analyzed them thought wearily. Ceramic was light. She’d seen plenty of stone roofs collapse in the poorer districts of Aransa. Roofs thrown up by people who didn’t have the grains for ceramic, or the ability to weave sawgrass thatch.
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