by Jeff Wheeler
From the corner of her eye, she saw the ravens had started to drop from the air, their bodies suddenly gray and stiff as stone. The Wizrs had overcome their shock and were fighting back.
“Eliac!” one of the Wizrs shouted, a word of power Trynne didn’t know, and a flash of blinding light exploded in the hall.
Trynne couldn’t see.
Rucrius struck his staff against the floor and the entire castle shuddered. The floor heaved and buckled, and chips of rock and stone began to fall from overhead.
“Must I bring this entire palace down to convince you?” Rucrius shouted. “Must innocents perish for your stubbornness, waif? I command you, yield!” The staff struck Trynne’s ribs and she bent double. She hadn’t seen it coming because of the spots dancing in her eyes. “Grab her!” he ordered.
One of the Wizrs seized her from behind, pinning her arms to her sides, making the sword useless. She arched her head back and smashed it into his nose. Pushing her arms out to loosen his grip, she dropped low and elbowed him in the groin. The Wizr collapsed in a heap on the floor, writhing in pain.
“You fool!” Rucrius barked in frustration. He swung the staff down at her and she twisted, feeling the wellspring come to her aid. Rucrius’s staff hit the fallen Wizr, exploding with power and knocking him unconscious.
There were two left.
Trynne lunged at Rucrius, arcing her blade toward his greatest vulnerability, his throat. His eyes widened with fear as he jerked backward, then countered with the staff and caught her on the shoulder with it. He was incredibly quick and skilled. She’d never faced someone who could meet her reflexes. The blow sent her spinning, and she had to roll to prevent the staff from striking her again. As it hit the tiles, they cracked apart. She swept her leg out to trip him and he deftly evaded her before twirling the staff around and bringing it down at her again.
Trynne rolled once more and the staff struck a decorative urn, shattering it. She rushed forward and grabbed for the end of the weapon. Rucrius tried to pull it away, but she managed to close her fingers around it. Raw power raged inside of it—a supply that far outstripped her own. The two of them careened, wrestling for control of the staff. As they lurched, the end of it struck one of the supporting pillars of the room and shattered it.
“Rucrius!” the other Wizr shouted in panic. “She’s an Urdubegis! We must flee!”
Rucrius kicked her leg, swinging the staff around to shake her off, but she would not yield. She brought her knee up into his stomach. His teeth were bared with rage and pain, and his long hair whipped around, slapping her face. He was stronger than her and swung the staff up and over, trying to force her onto her back. Clinging to it, she put her weight on it and kicked him with both feet.
He lost his grip on the staff as he fell backward. Trynne landed on the broken ground on her shoulder—a painful fall—but she had what she needed.
The other Wizr blanched when he saw Trynne holding the staff of power. She sensed him untangling the ley lines hurriedly, and she rolled on her feet and swung the staff around in a full circle, trying to hit his head. The Wizr vanished along the ley line just before the end of the staff made contact with his skull.
It left Rucrius alone to face her. Trynne whirled and brought the staff up behind her, locked against her arm and her shoulder blade, preparing to swing it around to attack him.
“That is mine,” he snarled.
The magic of the staff had revealed the hidden layers of the world around her. She could sense the fissures in the mountain on which the castle stood. Feel the ridges and clefts of stone far beneath it that opened into the harbor of Ploemeur and a vast underground chasm full of the ocean. This was an ancient weapon of destruction, as powerful as any she had ever seen. It was of the Deep Fathoms. In her mind, she felt the rifts in the land beneath the water. She could jar them loose, causing an earthquake.
“No,” Rucrius uttered in horror as he stared into her eyes.
Trynne twirled the staff overhead and struck the ground with it. She directed the magic to the underwater rifts.
And the earth moved.
Rucrius’s eyes widened with utter fear before the first tremor even struck. He reached to his waist and grabbed a brass cylinder, the twin of the one Trynne had seen at Chandleer Oasis.
Then he vanished.
Trynne stood still, breathing hard, as the ground bucked and swayed. She wobbled, nearly falling, but remained standing. Her magic was still not depleted, although it was starting to drain more quickly. She stared at the people sprawled across the floor, the warriors who had watched her face down and defeat three Wizrs. Their expressions were full of fear and joy.
“You are the Duchess of Brythonica,” Thierry breathed, rising to his feet. He bowed.
“Sound the horns,” Trynne said, knowing they didn’t have long before the tidal flood came. “Everyone must flee to higher ground.”
The horns and trumpets of Ploemeur were still bleating when the waves rushed in. It was already high tide, and Trynne watched mutely as the moonlight revealed the monstrous series of waves that had engulfed the piers and razed the shores. Most of the homes of Ploemeur had been built on higher ground. The desolation of Leoneyis had persuaded the ancient rulers of Brythonica to take certain precautions.
There was a certain irony to Trynne’s situation—to fulfill her duty to protect her realm from floods, she had summoned one in an act of defense. But it was the Fountain itself that had given her the idea. While her mother undoubtedly knew the word of power that could have caused an earthquake, Trynne did not, but Rucrius had unwittingly brought her the very tool she’d needed to do it.
She shivered as she watched the ocean rush across the horizon from the balcony window, surrounded by the guards who had witnessed her confrontation with the Wizrs. Shops that had stood on the lowland for generations were completely submerged. The cracking noise of snapping timbers and debris was followed by screams and cries of terror from the people of Ploemeur. Trynne squeezed the staff, hardly able to bear watching the devastation she had unleashed. This was the power of a Wizr. It horrified her.
“The ships,” Marshal Soeur exclaimed. Trynne looked up and saw Gahalatine’s fleet, lit up with lamps and torches, bobbing and bucking as the waters dragged them into the coast of Brythonica. Trynne stared helplessly as the ships were crushed against the rocks. One of the massive treasure ships struck the Glass Beach head on, wedging into the sandy surf, its hull breached and torn apart. It was the worst series of shipwrecks that Brythonica had ever experienced. The shrieks of the doomed warriors filled the night sky.
Trynne’s heart wrenched with compassion. These warriors had come to defeat her people, but they’d done so on the orders of their emperor. They deserved a better fate than this.
Too many had already died.
“Thierry,” Trynne said, nearly sobbing as her emotions overwhelmed her.
“Yes, my lady?” he whispered, staring awestruck at the wreckage below. One of the ships had rolled upside down before crashing into the shore.
“Summon all the people,” she said. “We must search for survivors. We must bring them into our homes.” She put her hand on his shoulder. “All of us.”
“But what about the water?” Thierry replied. “It will take days for it to subside!”
She remembered how Rucrius had overturned the river outside Kingfountain. How he had used his staff to destroy the ancient Wizr set. Her mother had summoned the excess water into the sanctuary of Our Lady.
Trynne shook her head. “No, it will not. Mother taught me how to calm the sea.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Wreckage
The rising sun revealed the full extent of the devastating wreckage. Trynne was exhausted from the all-night labor. Not only had she pushed her body to the limits of its endurance, she had used nearly all her reserves of Fountain magic to drain the floodwaters from the city. There were carrion birds circling overhead, as well as flocks of screeching gulls. So many
had perished in the night. But even more had survived.
She walked along the beach of sea glass, now strewn with crates, debris, and broken planks of teak wood from the treasure ships. It would take weeks to clean up the mess. The horizon was full of ships, the ships of Brythonica, which were still rescuing survivors who had fallen into the water.
The receding tide had made the rescue effort easier. Dinghies ferried the survivors to the shore, where they were wrapped up in blankets, fed soup and berries provided by Trynne’s generous people, and taken to shelters to rest. The able-bodied soldiers of Gahalatine’s army had immediately joined in the rescue efforts, working side by side with Trynne’s knights to save as many as possible.
Trynne had hidden Rucrius’s staff in the waters of a palace fountain. It radiated so much magic that she couldn’t hide it anywhere else without it being discovered, and she didn’t want it to be stolen. Horrified though she was by its magic, it had been the means of saving Ploemeur. She rubbed her weary arms as she trudged through the sand and debris. The foodstuffs that had been stored aboard the vessels were likely all ruined, but they were salvaging whatever they could. They would need extra stores to help feed everyone.
Thierry marched up to her, winded from a long walk. His sleeve was torn and his face was haggard. He’d been helping all night as well.
“My lady,” he said with a wheeze. “Come quickly. We found him.”
“Who?” she asked in concern.
“The Wizr who attacked you,” he answered. “He was among the survivors.”
Trynne looked at him in confusion. “He didn’t return to Chandigarl?”
Thierry shook his head. “Apparently not. He was found comatose next to a corpse—a woman in very fine attire who looked to be of his own race. They’re both unnaturally tall and pale, unlike the rest of the Chandigarli we’ve seen wash up on shore.”
“Take me there,” Trynne said. Then, turning to one of her captains, she gave orders for her people to continue clearing debris from the beach before the next tide came in late in the afternoon.
They walked together briskly, Thierry leading the way. “One of the soldiers brought a series of maps to me,” he confided as they went. “They had navigation charts that show the entire coastline of Brythonica, including the secret coves. There were even charts revealing the tides based on the moon phases of the year. They knew exactly when and where to strike. I do not know how they obtained such detailed maps, my lady. They were written in a foreign hand but show an intimacy with our seasons and borders that no foreigner should have been able to access.”
The implications sent a chill down Trynne’s back. “What you are saying is that the maps were copied from ours.”
Thierry nodded. “My lady, it implies there is a traitor among us.”
“The Espion don’t have any maps of Brythonica,” Trynne said. “They’ve never been allowed inside the duchy other than to deliver messages.” Though she hated to suspect him of something so ugly, Fallon had been raised in Ploemeur as a boy. He knew her people and had won their trust. He had also recently visited her. Another possibility was Morwenna. Hadn’t Trynne spied her copying something from the library? What had it been? Her mind struggled with the memory. Would the king’s sister have betrayed them?
Trynne’s mind shot to something Gahalatine had said to her in the oasis while trying to stop her.
I know of you.
That statement had troubled her. What did it mean? Had Gahalatine heard rumors about a Fountain-blessed girl at the court of Kingfountain? As far as Trynne knew, she and Morwenna were the only two. Had he heard of the poisoner or the duke’s daughter? What did it all mean? If Rucrius was captured, there was a possibility he could provide some much-needed answers to her questions.
“I hadn’t considered it being the Espion,” Thierry said. “The Genevese come here often enough. Surely they have created their own maps.”
“That’s true,” Trynne said, walking more briskly. Would that the maps had come from them. “How far is it?”
“See that treasure ship?” he said, pointing. “He was found near it. It’s almost exactly where a whale was trapped on the beach when your mother was a child.”
The massive ship with the shattered hull hulked before them. There were carpenters at work dismantling it, and the commotion of their hammers and saws could be heard against the rush and hiss of the waves. A group of knights wearing the Raven stood in a circle, and it was toward these men that Thierry took her.
As she approached the group, she recognized Marshal Soeur among the gathered men. He had the Wizr’s sword scabbard in one hand and his brass cylinder in the other. He offered them both to Trynne.
“My lady, we took these from him. He’s unconscious, not dead.”
The soldiers parted and Trynne saw the crumpled Wizr resting on the sand, his chest rising and falling. His long hair was bedraggled and his fancy clothes were ruined. One arm was draped across the stomach of the dead woman. A fly came and touched down on the lashes of her open eyes. They didn’t blink. Her skin was pale. She’d been a beauty in life, her hair dark and luxurious.
Trynne approached the Wizr and knelt by his side. He wore a medallion similar to the one Gahalatine did, the circle with the sunrays coming from it. Gahalatine had looked at her through that circle.
“Take off the medallion,” she said, nodding to one of the soldiers. She summoned her magic, what little she had left, and felt it flicker to life. When she reached out to Rucrius, her suspicions were confirmed. His reservoir was completely empty. He must have passed out using the last of it. From the way his arm draped across the woman, even in sleep, she deduced the answer well enough. Rucrius loved this woman and had tried to save her from drowning. After finding her, he’d probably tried to bring her back to life by using the word of power even though it was against the Fountain’s will.
The soldier lifted Rucrius’s head, pulled free the medallion, and handed it to her. Accessing the dregs of her Fountain magic, she held the circle up to her eye. When she looked through the circle, she saw the weblike ley lines that stretched all around them. They were like strands of spider silk crisscrossing in the air. People walked through them, unseeing, as they worked on the rescue effort. The strongest of the ley lines stretched all the way from the island sanctuary of Our Lady at Toussan to the castle on the nearby ridge. It was awe-inspiring to physically see something that she’d only seen written on a map. This device was one of the ways the Wizrs traveled the ley lines. And by taking it from Rucrius, she was depriving him of an easy escape.
“He’s rousing,” Marshal Soeur said blackly.
Trynne gripped the medallion in her hand, staring at Rucrius as he rolled slowly onto his back. His energy was completely wasted. “I hear you,” he said in a guttural tone.
Trynne knew through her magic, which had probed him, that he’d struck his head on a timber and swallowed too much seawater. He was injured enough to not be a threat to them. Yet. She wondered how he regained his power. Was it through games of strategy, skill with the staff, or some other habit he possessed that was unknown to them?
“We saved as many as we could, Rucrius,” Trynne said.
He opened his eyes and stared at her with eyes full of loathing. “You. Won.”
Trynne felt a shiver of fear, even knowing he was helpless. “Well, if this is but a game of Wizr, then your piece comes off the board, I suppose. One of your fellows escaped. The other you killed with your staff while trying to strike me. You are our prisoner, Rucrius.”
He turned his chin away from her and his head lolled to the side. He blinked, staring at the dead woman lying beside him.
“I will have my revenge for this,” he whispered thickly, his cheeks quivering with grief.
It wasn’t until later that day, after Trynne had some time to rest, that she decided to face Rucrius again. Her mind still felt as thick and tangled as fleece from lack of sleep. The tide was starting to come in again, bringing with it more
debris from the wreckages. The navy of Brythonica was on full alert, for some Genevese ships had arrived that day with news that Legault had been conquered and a squadron of treasure ships and support ships were anchored in the harbor there. The victory at Ploemeur had not ended Gahalatine’s threat. Trynne dispatched ships and riders to Kingfountain immediately with the news.
The palace had no murky dungeon full of torture equipment. Though infrequently used, the cells were clean and well kept by the palace staff. Trynne had never considered it before, but they were positioned away from the ley lines that ran through the palace.
As she walked to the place where prisoners were kept, she fingered the brass cylinder. She remembered Rucrius had called it a Tay al-Ard and she surmised from his words that it worked without the help of ley lines. It was a piece of curious workmanship, very similar to the type of looking glasses sea captains used on their vessels to spy distances. But instead of curved glass at the end, there were brass fittings bedecked with gems. The cylinder contained Fountain magic. She knew how to break the bindings of the device, but while it could be unmade very easily, she had no idea how to recreate it. The talents of the Wizrs of the East were clearly superior. Stuffing the cylinder into her girdle, she nodded to the guardsmen at the door and they opened it for her.
Inside, there was a corridor lined with cells. None were occupied except for Rucrius’s. After claiming the armor and weapons of Gahalatine’s army and bringing them to the palace, she had made sure that each survivor was assigned a place to stay. She had entrusted the leaders to the noble families in Ploemeur, who would keep them separated but treat them with courtesy and respect. But Rucrius was an enemy who needed to be kept nearby.
As she approached, she found him pacing in his cell, hands clasped behind his back. There was a stack of folded clothes on a chair, a new tunic and pants in the Brythonican fashion, but Rucrius still wore his ruined vestments. His jewelry and weapons had all been taken away. She summoned her magic and reached out to him, trying to sense his stores.