by Morgan Rice
“The question is where we go after that,” Will said.
Emeline wished she had an answer for him. How could anywhere be safe against an army that could take Ashton so quickly, in spite of all the forces there? The best they could do was to run and keep running, hoping to stay ahead of the enemy. If Stonehome were open to them, they might have a chance, but Emeline could guess Asha’s response to that. They would find themselves shut out, lost in the endless mist, waiting to be hunted down.
They were already being hunted, of course. Already, soldiers were racing after them. Whatever had happened when the baby touched the Master of Crows had stunned them for a few moments, but now men were gaining on them. Already, a group of the fastest was gaining on them, racing after them with swords drawn, ready to cut them down.
A second group of men, wearing the colors of Ishjemme, slammed into them from the side, cutting them down with brisk efficiency. Emeline recognized Hans from the taking of Ashton, and she was glad that he was there, because she knew just what a good soldier he was in a crisis. This definitely counted.
“Sebastian,” Hans called out. “Those men we have are trying to reform, and are waiting for your orders. Should we try to get to them?”
“Where?” Sebastian asked.
Hans pointed down toward the outer city, and again they were running. Emeline could see fires around them now, and smell the smoke of burning buildings. Even compared to the damage of their invasion, this seemed like total destruction. How many people had been killed already in the carnage? How many more would be, once the New Army really started its slaughter?
They rushed through into a square, looking around for their people.
“It should just be a few more streets,” Hans said. “I’ve had them regroup on the old training ground.”
It was then that Emeline saw the crows above them.
“Ambush!” she yelled, just as men started to pour into the square. There were only perhaps fifty, which seemed like nothing compared to the huge numbers who had entered the city, yet compared to their small group it would be more than enough. At the very least, it would be enough to slow them until more of the Master of Crows’ men could show up.
“Form a ring!” Hans ordered his men, and they spread out around Emeline, Cora, Violet, and Sebastian. Will stood next to Hans, looking ready to sell his life as dearly as possible. Against so many of the enemy, would it make any difference?
Then a whisper sounded in Emeline’s mind, and Emeline recognized Asha’s voice. We seem to be making a habit of saving you from your stupidity.
They came over the roofs, arriving in a chaotic wave of violence coordinated by the constant buzz of messages running mind to mind. Some leapt down, like Asha, hacking and slashing with more than human speed. Some stayed up high, like Vincente, who shot down into the mass of opponents with lethal precision. Emeline saw men standing dazed as Stonehome’s warriors gripped their minds, and even saw a couple turning on their friends.
In a matter of moments, the group of enemies lay dead or dying, but Emeline knew that there would be more. There always seemed to be more.
“King Sebastian,” Asha said, “the people of Stonehome bid you welcome. We saw a vision of the violence to come, and—”
She reeled in shock as Cora slapped her. It shouldn’t have gotten through, because Cora wasn’t fast enough for that. Emeline saw Asha bristle, and probably only the fact that Cora was still holding Sebastian’s child stopped her from striking back.
“You saw everything that would happen, and you didn’t come!” Cora said.
“You think you can strike me?” Asha demanded. Emeline moved to get between them. So did Vincente. “We came to save you!”
“And we should be grateful?” Cora demanded. “Aidan is dead because you weren’t here!”
Emeline saw Asha freeze in place. “Aidan is dead?”
“He died fighting the Master of Crows,” Emeline said. “I managed to distract him, but it wasn’t enough alone.”
She didn’t quite make that into the accusation that Cora had leveled, but it was close enough that she saw Asha wince.
We didn’t know… Asha began, and Emeline could feel genuine pain there.
You saw enough, Emeline sent back.
“There is no time,” Vincente said. “More of the enemy will be coming. King Sebastian, I wish to offer you and your friends sanctuary in Stonehome. After all that has happened, it is the least we can do.”
Emeline made a sound of disapproval. You’re right about that, Vincente.
What do you mean, Emeline?
“It is the least you can do,” she said aloud. She gestured to the city. “How many people are there still out there who’ll be killed once the Master of Crows decides that he has time to spend on it? How many will die because you’re not prepared to help them?”
“We cannot hope to save everyone,” Vincente said.
“Why not?” Sebastian put in. He gestured to the warriors who had come. “We’ve seen the power you have, and we still have troops, because the walls fell so fast that many survived. If we delay the enemy, we have a chance to evacuate the people of Ashton.”
“With respect,” Vincente said, “that is not what we came here to do.”
“No,” Emeline guessed. “You came here to save Sebastian, or was it Violet?” A horrible thought came to her then. “That’s what it was, wasn’t it? You saw how powerful she could be.”
“She belongs with her own kind,” Asha said.
Emeline saw Cora glare at her. “Try to touch her and I’ll kill you,” Cora promised.
“And if she doesn’t, I will,” Emeline added.
“There is no reason to fight,” Vincente said, holding up his hands. “We are your allies.”
“Then prove it,” Sebastian said. “I am the king of this land, and I will not leave my people behind to be slaughtered. Help me to get the people of Ashton to safety in Stonehome, and I’ll come with you, along with Violet.”
Emeline didn’t pick up the silent conversation between Asha and Vincente, but she knew that there would be one.
Think of it this way, she sent over in the direction of the pair, every person who dies is another those damned crows can eat. It’s more power for the enemy.
They didn’t reply. She wasn’t even sure if they heard her.
“Very well,” Vincente said at last. “Our people will assist in the evacuation, alongside your soldiers. We will get as many people out as we can, and we will seek to hide the refugees until we get to Stonehome. I just hope that this plan doesn’t cost us all our lives.”
“Thank you,” Sebastian said.
Yes, Vincente, thank you, Emeline sent.
“Don’t thank me yet,” Vincente said, and Emeline couldn’t tell which of them he was saying it to. “We still have to survive this, and with what’s coming at us, it will be anything but easy.”
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
Sophia trekked on, following the silvery line of the footprints through deeper and deeper sand. They were far away from anywhere that their guides might have led them now, but still Sophia was certain that it was the right way to go.
Then she saw the golden door, and she was certain.
It sat, incongruous and alone, in the middle of the sandy waste, shining with the reflected sunlight so brightly that it almost hurt to look at it.
“We’ve done it,” Kate said, breathlessly. “We’ve found it.”
“But where is the rest of the city?” Lucas asked.
Sophia had to admit that he had a point. The idea of finding the golden door wasn’t just for its own sake. It was to find the Forgotten City, and their parents within it. If there was no city, then none of the rest of it made sense.
“I don’t know,” Sophia said, “but there must be a reason that my vision led us here. We should investigate, at least.”
She led the way down there, Sienne following at her heels. Closer to it, Sophia could see that the door was carved with sym
bols, three great circles set upon it, along with words that seemed to shift even as Sophia looked at them, so that she could read them with ease.
“Three shall stand, and two shall pass, but one shall fall,” Sophia read aloud. “Your heart is the key.”
“Sounds kind of ominous,” Kate said.
Sienne didn’t seem impressed by any of it. The forest cat moved close to the door, sniffing at it, then sitting down in front of it as if waiting for it to open. Sophia wished she had the forest cat’s confidence, because she couldn’t see any way to open the door at all.
“Look,” Lucas said, bending down to brush away some of the sand around his feet. “I think there’s something underneath the sand. Help me move it.”
Sophia and Kate did their best to brush aside the sand, and even though there was plenty of it, they quickly managed to clear a space in front of the door. A smooth, black surface lay beneath, so flat it could have been the surface of a lake. Three lighter circles stood in front of it, looking far too much like the ones set on the door.
“Is it stone?” Kate asked.
Sophia shook her head. “I think it’s glass.”
“Sand can become glass,” Lucas said, “with enough heat.”
“And what would give it the big circles?” Kate asked.
Lucas shook his head. “Nothing I know of.”
“Magic,” Sophia said, looking at them, then at the door. The silvery footprints of her vision led right up to it. “I don’t know how it can be, but I’m pretty sure that the Forgotten City is behind that door.”
“I thought the guides knew the way to the city,” Kate said. “That it was some old place full of treasure.”
“Perhaps they are mistaken about where the real city lies,” Lucas said. “I agree with Sophia: I think we need to go through this door. To do that, I think we need to stand on those circles.”
Sophia nodded. Everything about this place seemed to suggest it. What was the alternative? Turning back and making their way through the desert once more?
“I think we have to do it,” she said. She went to stand on one of the circles.
Lucas nodded, and then stepped onto another. They both looked over at Kate.
“If this is what we have to do to see our parents,” she said, and stepped onto the third.
A shimmering wall of light sprang up around Sophia, glittering in all the colors of the rainbow. She couldn’t see beyond it, and when she reached out with her gift, she couldn’t even feel her siblings’ presence, let alone contact them.
She wasn’t alone though, because a voice spoke, in words that seemed so cracked and dusty that they might have seen a thousand years.
“Welcome, Sophia of the House of Danse. Three travelers have come, but only two shall pass. It falls to you to decide which two will pass through the gateway, and which shall be the sacrifice to fuel its power.”
***
“Sacrifice?” Kate said as the words came to her. She pressed at the walls with her hands, but they were as solid as steel might have been. “What do you mean ‘sacrifice’?”
“Everything has a price,” the disembodied voice said. “Passing through the gate takes power, and that power must come from a life. You know this. I have seen your mind. You have studied this.”
Kate had, in a mountain cabin under a man who had preserved his life long past anything normal, and who could take the life from a flower to heal a wound. The principle of it sounded all too real. The idea that she would choose to sacrifice her brother or her sister to go through a door…
“You’re insane if I’m going to choose to kill Sophia or Lucas,” she said. She banged on the wall of light. “Let us out of here. We won’t go through your stupid door if that’s what it costs.”
“Once the process has begun, the price must be paid,” the voice said.
A disembodied voice that wanted her to kill and talked in terms of prices. “I don’t suppose you’re related to someone called Siobhan, are you?” Kate asked, then shook her head. This wasn’t the time for jokes. “Never mind.”
“Why is it so hard for you to choose?” the voice asked. “You have it in you to kill without remorse. You have murdered people in cold blood and in hot. Will one more stain on your soul cost so much?”
“They’re my brother and sister!” Kate snapped back.
“A brother you barely know,” the voice pointed out, its tone never wavering. “A sister who abandoned you at the first opportunity to go and play at being a noble. They look on you with pity now, because you don’t have real power like them. They would sacrifice you in a heartbeat. What is one of them, compared to seeing your parents again?”
Automatically, Kate’s hand went to her locket. For as long as she could remember, seeing her mother had been her only dream.
“It doesn’t have to hurt them,” the voice said, its tone so reasonable, so seductive. “It could be Lucas. It could go back to being just you and Sophia. You could be the one protecting her. Unless you want it to be her?”
Kate could feel tears falling from her eyes now. She didn’t want this. She’d never asked for this.
“You asked when you stepped into the circle,” the voice said. “Choose, Kate. Choose, or the door will take them both, and you too. Isn’t it better for just one to die?”
Kate swallowed. It was. It was better for just one of them to die, rather than all three. And it would mean that the two survivors got to meet their parents. Wouldn’t it be worth it? Wouldn’t it give some meaning to that death?
“Choose, Kate,” the voice said.
Crying while she did it. Kate chose.
***
The door spoke to Lucas with Official Ko’s voice, in a reminder of the past that made his heart ache with it.
“The Way of Virtue tells us that when a choice cannot be avoided, the wise man makes the best choice he can,” the voice said.
“You are not Official Ko,” Lucas said.
“No, I am not,” the voice admitted, “but he was wise in all things, and this is advice from your memories.”
“And you wish me to choose one of my sisters to die?” Lucas said. He folded his arms. “I will not.”
“Are they really sisters to you?” the voice asked. “They share your blood, but how much else? They were raised as commoners. Less than commoners; little more than slaves.”
“And does that make their lives worth less to you?” Lucas countered.
“It means that they do not have your potential,” the voice said. “You have all the training of your youth, along with talents for both seeing and fighting. Sophia has one of those talents, while Kate… poor, useless Kate.”
“She is not useless,” Lucas snapped back. He struck at the wall of light, but nothing happened.
“The wise man does not fight uselessly against that which cannot be defeated,” the voice said.
Lucas shook his head. “Stop doing that.”
“What have your sisters done for you?” the voice continued. “They have dragged you into a war that was not of your making. They have delayed your search for your parents, first until Kate could have a witch taken from her head, and then so that Sophia could have a child. All you ever wanted was to find your mother and father, but they have held you back.”
“I will not do this thing,” Lucas roared at the wall, all thoughts of decorum or self-control forgotten.
“If you do not, they will die anyway,” the voice said. “You will all die of thirst and heat in this place, unable to leave until you are bones. It has happened before. Or maybe one of them will choose you? Do you trust them that much, Lucas?”
“I trust them,” Lucas insisted.
“Why, when you know them so little?” the voice said. “Do you know that Sophia lied about who she was for weeks at court? That Kate has killed at another’s command. Choose, Lucas. Choose or die…”
Lucas knelt, trying to think of a way out of this problem, of a way to make things better. There was nothing, though, onl
y the incessant hounding of the voice to choose, choose, choose…
In the end, Lucas did the only thing he could, and chose.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Sebastian stood by the edges of the city, overseeing the escape, his hand clenching and unclenching on his sword hilt. Around him, Hans’s soldiers, whatever was left of the various free companies, and the warriors of Stonehome all helped to move people along as they fled their homes.
“There are too many,” Asha said, “and they’re moving too slowly. If we stay with them, we’ll never make it to Stonehome before the enemy catches up to us.”
“Then I suggest you help me to slow them down,” Sebastian said. He could understand the woman’s concern for her own people, but when it spilled over into having no concern for anyone else, she lost a lot of his sympathy.
“Or you could get on a fast horse with your child and be in Stonehome well before they get anywhere near us,” Asha suggested.
“Violet will be fine,” Sebastian said. Ignoring her, he went over to where Cora and Emeline stood with Will’s parents. Cora had Violet on her hip, feeding her milk using a piece of cloth.
“Thank you for looking after her, Cora,” Sebastian said, taking her hand.
Cora looked up at him. Sebastian could see the grief in her eyes and wished he could do something to make it feel better for her, but there was nothing, just as there would be nothing for all the other people who had lost those they loved thanks to the Master of Crows’ forces.
“I know there’s nobody Sophia would trust to look after her as much as you,” he continued. “Can you do that for me?”
Cora nodded. “She’ll be safe.”
“We’ll get her to Stonehome,” Emeline promised, and Sebastian believed her. “Are you sure you won’t come with us?”
“I’ll follow as soon as I can,” Sebastian promised. “I couldn’t live with myself if I just abandoned the people I’m supposed to rule.”
“Be safe,” Emeline said.
Sebastian nodded, but didn’t promise anything. There were some promises he couldn’t make. Especially since the bulk of the New Army seemed to be getting closer.