by Caitlin Seal
“So Valn’s manipulating the investigation to frame King Allence, but we don’t have any way to prove it to the king or to get a message out to the other Powers. Is there any good news?” Corten asked.
“Some. The Council has allies among the city guard. They’re working to figure out how far Valn’s influence extends. Captain Terremont is working with Valn, and we suspect he may be in on the plans to frame the king. Terremont commands the guards in the city’s northwest sector, but three squads of his men have been reassigned to the investigation. They’ve been involved in all the arrests so far, including Lucia’s.”
“How many people have they taken?” Corten asked.
“Three other necromancers, one of whom they’ve already released.”
Corten’s expression brightened. “They let someone go? Who?”
“Marsco Ceravace. He was taken shortly after Lucia. We’re not sure yet why they released him. Alejandra is looking into it. Hopefully she’ll be able to bring him to tonight’s meeting.”
The rest of the day Naya tried to draw hope from Jalance’s words. But with each passing hour her unease grew. By the time Salina came to fetch them, Naya was practically humming with the need to escape. Even Corten looked relieved as they climbed the stairs up to the garden.
Jalance waited for them in a carriage outside the garden gate. Naya’s hand throbbed with each step as she climbed into the carriage. “Have you heard anything new?” she asked Jalance as she slid onto the bench across from him and Corten took a seat next to him.
Jalance shook his head. “No, but I’m sure those at tonight’s meeting will know more.”
The carriage stopped a few minutes later in front of a large house with an elaborate iron balcony overhanging its double doors. “This is where you scheduled the meeting?” Naya asked.
“Of course not. Stay inside. The driver will take you around and I’ll meet back up with you in a few minutes,” Jalance said as he stepped out of the carriage.
“What—” Naya began, but he was gone before she could finish the question. “What is he doing?” she asked Corten instead.
Corten glanced out the window, a furrow appearing between his eyebrows. “I’m not sure.”
The carriage began to move again, turning at the end of the street. A minute later the driver stopped next to an inn. Naya bunched her fingers in her skirt and craned her neck to peer out the window. “I don’t see him,” she said. “Maybe we should get out.”
“I’m sure he’s fine,” Corten said.
“That’s not what I’m worried about.”
Corten propped his elbow on the window and rested his chin on his fist. “If Jalance was going to betray us, he could have done it while we were sitting in that vault.”
“How can you be so calm?” Naya asked.
Corten made a snorting sound that might have been a laugh. “Oh, I’m terrified, just not of Jalance.”
“Of what, then?”
Corten met her eyes and his gaze turned thoughtful. “I’m scared of what we’ll find at this meeting. There’s a reason Matius and I have steered clear of the Necromantic Council. Jalance’s views on Talmir are mild compared with what most of the Council thinks. A lot of the older ones lost friends and family during the war, or during the purge. I’m worried about what they might try to do.”
“Then why did you insist we go to Jalance for help?”
“Because I knew we couldn’t get to Lucia on our own and I didn’t know who else to ask.”
Naya forced her fingers to untwist from the fabric of her skirt. “Well, thank you,” she said after a long pause. “I’m not sure how I could have gotten anyone to believe me without you.”
Corten turned back toward the window. “This city is my home. I’m not going to let Valn ruin it.”
Silence fell between them, but it was interrupted a few minutes later by the carriage door opening. Jalance shuffled inside, followed by another wealthy-looking man with broad shoulders, thinning hair, and a round gut. The shirt under his black jacket dipped just low enough to show the ring of runic tattoos encircling his neck.
“Well,” Jalance said cheerfully, signaling the driver by knocking once on the ceiling of the carriage. “That should be enough to confuse anyone who might have been watching us. If we’re lucky, they’ll assume I’ve gone out to share a cigar with an old friend and won’t think to look further.”
“Who’s this?” Naya asked, eyeing the new man warily.
“Antinole Salavastre.” The man extended his hand, the gesture awkward within the confines of the carriage. “And what’s your name, my dear?”
“This is the girl I told you about,” Jalance said.
“Ah.” Salavastre withdrew his hand. “A pleasure. I didn’t realize you’d be joining us tonight.”
Naya wasn’t sure what to say to that, so she just nodded. Jalance took the silence as an opportunity to draw Salavastre into a conversation about the prices of various metals used in forging rune plates. It was the sort of conversation Naya’s old self would have listened to eagerly, hoping to pick out details about the local market. Now she found her thoughts wandering.
She turned toward her window, watching Salavastre out of the corner of her eye. He was undead. But unlike her and Corten, he still had a body. When she used her sight to view the living, she saw them wreathed in aether, the aura of energy shifting with their emotions. Aether drifted from the tattoos on Salavastre’s wrists, ankles, and neck, but the emotions in it were shadows, almost overwhelmed by what she felt flowing from Jalance. She wondered why that was. From what she’d heard, undead with bodies led lives far more normal than those of wraiths. They could eat and sleep, though like wraiths they lost the ability to bear children.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the jolt of the carriage stopping. “We’re here,” Jalance said, his expression serious. Naya followed him out onto a dark and grungy street. Blocky warehouses rose in front of them, the lines of their roofs visible where they blotted out the stars. Drunken laughter drifted from one of the streets behind them, and up ahead she could just make out the murmur of waves against the shore.
“This way.” Jalance led them down one of the wide streets running straight between the warehouses. Naya walked slowly, wary of the dull throb still pulsing from the cracked bone in her hand. In the dim light it was hard to tell if her skin was fading.
They came to an intersection, and Naya’s neck pricked with the sense of being watched. She checked the aether but couldn’t sense anyone outside of their small party.
A clump of shadows moved away from the wall of a nearby warehouse. Naya tensed, catching the gleam of eyes from under what she’d assumed was a pile of rags. “Spare a coin for the damned?” a woman’s voice asked.
“Alas, I have only fellowship to spare,” Jalance whispered. “Tonight we’re all damned.”
Naya thought she saw a flash of teeth. “Welcome. Quite a crowd tonight,” the woman said as she huddled back under her rags.
Jalance motioned them forward. “Guards?” Naya asked under her breath.
“Watchers. Wraiths mostly. There will be more on the roofs. If anyone unwelcome arrives, they’ll give us the time we need to clear out.”
They turned at the next cross street, and Jalance stopped in front of an unassuming metal door set in one of the warehouses. He knocked—three quick raps, then a pause, and two more knocks. Naya drew in a sip of aether and felt the dense pulse of many people’s emotions mingling.
Jalance’s smile sharpened. “Now, Miss Garth, if you’ll follow me, I’ll introduce you to the Council.”
Neat stacks of crates filled the cavernous warehouse. Jalance led them down a narrow aisle to a spot where the crates had been shifted to form a circle of empty space. Here a crowd had gathered, its members dressed in everything from fine silks to rough sailcloth.
Elbows jostled
ribs as people shifted to clear a path for Naya’s small group. Jalance walked with his head high and his mouth set in a confident smile. Aether pressed in against Naya. Fear, excitement, and anger swirled together, making it impossible to tell one person’s emotions from the next.
The crowd surrounded an improvised platform. On it stood two men and a woman. Naya was sure she’d never seen the men before, but the woman looked familiar. She appeared to be in her middle years, with almond-shaped eyes and black-and-silver hair spun up in an elaborate bun. Her lips were painted a bright red and there was something unnerving about her smile. The café. That was where Naya had seen her. This was the woman Lucia had snuck out to meet shortly after Naya’s resurrection.
“Marsco was obviously terrified,” the woman was saying. Her voice was edged with exasperation as she answered some question Naya hadn’t heard. “He claims the guard spent hours questioning him and examining the records of everyone he’s resurrected in the past four months.”
“That’s why you should have brought him here,” one of the men said. He was bald and his sleeves were rolled up to show muscular arms and wrists banded with rune tattoos. “We need to know exactly what they asked.”
“What good will that do?” the second man asked. He was the youngest of the three and had a rich voice that made Naya want to listen even though his simple clothes and bland face gave him the look of a shop clerk.
“A moment,” Jalance said, stepping up onto the platform.
All eyes turned to him. “Ah, Earon, I’m glad you were able to join us,” the woman said.
“Alejandra,” Jalance said with a nod.
“We were just discussing Marsco’s release,” the younger man said. “I personally think this is the best sign we’ve seen since this mess began. It’s possible we’ve misjudged the severity of the situation.”
“Ranal here thinks we shouldn’t dare interfere with our fine Talmiran lords,” Alejandra said. “Apparently Marsco’s release is proof of their good intentions and we should all go home and sit on our hands until they decide who to lock up.”
“Better than risking more bloodshed on the word of a self-proclaimed spy,” the younger man, Ranal, said.
“You think the girl is lying?” the bald man asked. “So far all the evidence supports her story. It’d be risky to dismiss that and hope for the best.”
“Her story provides one possible explanation,” Ranal said. “But we’d be fools if we didn’t consider other possibilities.”
“At this rate we’ll all be long dead before you run out of possibilities to consider,” the bald man grumbled.
“Don’t misunderstand me, Denor,” Ranal said with a glance at the bald man. “I know we’ve all suffered under the Talmiran oppression. But does it really make sense that they would risk their position in the Congress of Powers just to institute another purge? And if this is a trap, then what’s to say the girl isn’t part of it? Even if her intentions are good, someone so young could easily be misled. Perhaps they sent her to spread false information, to bait us into doing something that would allow them to destroy the Council.”
A chill spread through Naya. “That’s not true.” The words left her mouth before she could stop them, and she felt the crowd’s eyes turn toward her. She wanted to shrink under that collective gaze. Instead she forced herself to step up onto the platform next to Jalance.
Alejandra raised one eyebrow. “I take it you’re the Talmiran spy?”
“I was.”
“You shouldn’t have brought her here,” Ranal said, scowling at Jalance.
“I thought you would want to hear her story from the source before you made any decisions.” Jalance’s voice was calm, but standing next to him, Naya could feel his unease.
“You have something to say, little spy?” Denor asked.
Naya drew in a small breath of aether. With the full weight of the crowd’s attention on her, she suddenly wished she hadn’t argued to come here. “I swear, I wasn’t lying when I told you about Valn’s plans. If you sit back and wait, you’ll only be giving him exactly what he wants.”
“And what is that, exactly?” Ranal asked. “Dalith Valn’s been ambassador here for five years. If anything, life has gotten better for our communities under his watch. Do you even understand what you’re involved in, girl? Why should we trust the word of a child who claims to be both a spy and a traitor?”
“I’ll vouch for her,” Corten said, his voice ringing over the growing murmur of the crowd. Naya’s lips parted as she stared at him in shock. Corten looked surprised himself, but his expression soon shifted to one of determination.
“Who are you?” Ranal asked.
“He’s Lucia’s old apprentice,” Alejandra said. Her expression turned calculating as she surveyed Naya and Corten.
“I’ve known Naya the longest out of anyone here,” Corten said. “It’s true she was a Talmiran spy, and you have every right to question her. But I think she’s being honest when she says she wants to help.”
“Corten—” Naya began, but she was interrupted by a burst of noise from the crowd behind them. A figure in a red-and-white guard’s uniform shoved her way through to the platform. Naya took a step back, ready to run. But no one around her seemed frightened.
“Officer Selmore, what’s happened?” Denor asked, his voice snapping sharp as a whip.
Officer Selmore paused, smoothing one hand over the front of her uniform. She was a small woman with short hair and lean features. “Sir, I’ve found information regarding the captured necromancers.”
“Well then? Speak up!” Denor said.
Officer Selmore snapped a quick salute. “Sir, I managed to gain access to Captain Terremont’s office when he was called away to deal with some sort of emergency regarding the prisoners. I found a stack of papers on his desk. They were signed confessions claiming Dalton and Elmaron have confessed to kidnapping and murdering Talmiran sailors to perform necromantic experiments. Their confessions implicated Laroke, and…” The guard licked her lips. “And they claim all of them were acting under the king’s direct orders.”
There was a moment of stunned silence in the room. “Did anyone see you?” Denor’s voice was soft, but it carried easily through the big space.
“I don’t think so. I left everything as it was. It was near the end of my shift, so I told my captain I was feeling ill and got an early dismissal.”
“Well,” Alejandra said drily, “it seems the girl was telling the truth.”
Ranal shook his head. “We can’t jump to conclusions,” he said, but there was a high note in his voice now that undermined the former tone of authority.
“What we can’t do,” Denor said, his voice gaining strength, “is continue to act like cowards.” His shoulders straightened and his eyes took on a new sharpness.
“He’s right,” Alejandra said. “We can’t risk letting them execute our own over false charges.”
“We still don’t know they’re false,” Ranal said. His lips curled into a condescending smile. “You’re hardly an impartial authority on this, Alejandra. I think maybe you’re letting your feelings for Lucia blind you. For all we know—”
“We know she isn’t a murderer,” Alejandra snarled. “Would you have us sit by while they kill her?”
“I would not,” Denor said. “Ranal, I understand your desire for caution. I agreed to follow Delence’s lead and try to show the world we are not the monsters Talmir fears. But the events of the past week have proved something. No matter how much ground we give, Talmir will always want more. Even when we give them no excuse, they will still seek to destroy us.”
Naya could almost feel the crowd’s attention focusing on Denor. “I died protecting the people of this city,” he continued, “and as thanks I was stripped of my rank and thrown out of the city guard. All because the Talmirans don’t think someone like me is human eno
ugh to trust with a weapon.”
He let his eyes sweep over the crowd. When his gaze met Naya’s, he stopped. “Tell me, little spy, did your masters treat you any better?”
Naya froze as their attention focused on her again. The room grew quiet, so quiet she could hear her father’s words echoing in her mind. That thing. She thought about how Celia had kept the truth of their work hidden. How the other spies had scorned her. How Valn had had her killed. “No,” she said. “They’ll never see us as anything but monsters.”
Murmurs rolled through the crowd, and Naya felt the anger in their aether rise. Denor nodded. “Then I say, enough!”
“Enough!” Voices echoed through the room.
Denor’s voice rose to a shout. “I say we show this upstart Talmiran ambassador that we’re not afraid to fight back. This country is ours, and those northern bastards have no right to decide what we do with it.”
The cheers were louder this time. Anger pressed against Naya like heat from a roaring fire. Ranal’s forehead glistened with sweat. He took a step back from Denor but didn’t raise his voice in protest.
“Tomorrow,” Alejandra said, her voice cutting above the din. “Valn’s making an announcement at the palace tomorrow. If we go after him there, we can rescue the prisoners before he executes them.”
Again the crowd cheered. Naya exchanged a wide-eyed look with Corten. She saw his lips move, but the words were drowned out by the excited voices around them.
The planning began almost at once. Alejandra and Denor drew Naya aside, along with an older wraith and two undead who seemed to have some sort of authority. They asked question after question about Valn, about her father, about his spies and what he knew. Naya’s voice came out flat. She tried to answer their questions but her thoughts were muddled. When they finally finished interrogating her, she stumbled away, finding a corner between two stacks of crates where she could sit without being disturbed.