The Storyteller

by Traci Chee

  Each morning, Arcadimon dosed himself.

  He’d been forbidden from leaving Deliene until the Gormani Resistance in the north was quashed. “Kill their children if you have to,” his Master had ordered, “but end the Resistance before we’re done in Kelebrandt, or I’ll cancel your daily deliveries.”

  For a time, Arc had obeyed. The Gormani Resistance had faltered.

  But deep down, he knew that he’d face death sooner rather than later anyway. Darion had warned him once, after all: Sentiment will compromise the mission, and it will get you killed—if not by your rivals, then by me.

  By letting Ed live, Arcadimon Detano had already proven himself disloyal. Once the Guard found a way to replace him in Deliene, he would be disposed of.

  So when Eduoar Corabelli II had revealed himself on the last day of the siege of Oxscini, Arc knew what he had to do. With the reappearance of their king, the Gormani Resistance had gained renewed strength, but Arcadimon had paid them little heed. All he cared about now was seeing Ed one last time.

  He should have done it as soon as the First reported he was alive.

  Arc was a traitor.

  A traitor to the Guard, letting the Lonely King escape.

  A traitor to Eduoar, over and over, killing his cousin, seizing his kingdom, sending his people to fight and die in a war they might have escaped.

  A traitor to himself, choosing to pursue the mission instead of his heart. Ever since he’d watched Ed disappear into the sunset, Arc had been regretting it.

  He should have escaped with his king.

  He should have followed his friend.

  He should have believed in them.

  And now, too late, his chance had come.

  Today, the last battle in the Red War would begin. Eduoar would be there, and Arcadimon had one last chance to see him before the end.

  The drug went down smooth, as it always did.

  There.

  Even if he died tomorrow, without the drug, he would survive the day. That was all he needed.

  One more day to follow his heart.

  One more day to change, after a lifetime of mistakes.

  He’d already left word with his messengers and his newsmen, who would spread the announcement throughout the Northern Kingdom: Arcadimon Detano was renouncing the title of regent. He was giving Deliene back to the Lonely King, from whom he never should have taken it in the first place.

  As he left the Guard’s office beneath Corabel, Arc checked the pocket of his blue wool jacket for Eduoar’s signet ring, which Arcadimon had lifted from the castle’s portrait gallery, where it had been kept under glass for six months. He hadn’t been able to get himself an Alliance uniform—he didn’t have access to that—but in the heat of battle, he hoped no one would notice.

  Though he was afraid, his heart gave a little leap as he opened the door to the portal room. As a Politician, whose training emphasized statecraft over magic, he wasn’t a skilled enough Illuminator to teleport—he’d barely achieved Manipulation. But Guardians had been using the mirror-like portals to get around Kelanna for ages, and he had them at his disposal now.

  He slipped through the portal to the Main Branch and the room of black and green marble, lit by electric lamps.

  Four full-length mirrors lined the walls. The one framed by silver waves led to Tanin’s—the Director’s—ship, the Black Beauty. The one with metal flags flying from intricately carved parapets led to Darion’s old chambers in the Everican capital. The one Arc had just left depicted Corabel’s lighthouses. And the last was bordered by great golden waves, seeming to flood over the portal’s reflective surface.

  It led to Braca’s flagship, the Barbaro, where it must have been engaged in the last battle.

  Arcadimon was going to see Ed again.

  My king.

  My friend.

  My love.

  Arc crossed the patterned marble floor and slipped through the gold portal with barely a shiver.

  On the other side, the summer light through the portholes was bright and the noise was deafening: the swift ratatat of gunfire, the explosions of cannons, orders barked crisp and clear in the cacophony of battle.

  He was in a ship’s cabin, roomier than most and the very definition of shipshape—the blankets neatly tucked, every scrap of clothing stowed in the chests and built-in wardrobes. In fact, there were no signs that anyone lived here at all, save for the glass cases of medals and velvet ribbons bolted to the walls. A Master Soldier’s achievements.

  He was in Braca’s quarters.

  Instinctively, Arcadimon checked his pockets, where he’d stashed three vials of sleeping powder beside the signet ring. He was a poor Illuminator, a terrible shot, and absolute rubbish with a sword, so the powders were all he had to defend himself if he were caught.

  At the cabin door, Arc paused for a moment to straighten his jacket.

  “Here we go,” he muttered.

  While the battle raged on overhead, he sneaked through the Barbaro’s corridors, popping up in a hatchway, the top of his head barely visible over the lip of the deck.

  He was just below the quarterdeck, near the mast. And he could see Braca, leader of the Alliance forces.

  She was standing at her war table with her lieutenants, small but fearsome with her aggressively short hair and her cold, merciless eyes, accented by her blue suede coat. At her sides hung her gold-tipped guns.

  When she gave an order, it was followed, immediately, precisely. Her lieutenants obeyed her as if they were extensions of her own body, and their soldiers obeyed them with similar urgency. Flags went up on the masts, directing every movement of the Alliance invasion.

  Braca had been trained for this.

  No, forged for this. She was a Master Soldier in her element.

  Beyond the rails, the battle was in full swing. Rebel redcoats and Black Navy warships were going down in great explosions of flame and timber. From the onshore batteries, the Rokuine defenses shot cannonballs into the Alliance line. In watchtowers on the cliffs, signal flags flapped in the wind, sending communications between the city of Braska and the Resistance ships on the bay. Outlaws swooped through the chaos, quick on the water, but they were no match for the heavy artillery of the Alliance, which riddled them with gunfire every time they got too close.

  Under Braca’s direction, the Alliance mowed down the Resistance fighters, shredding their sails, splintering their masts, pitting their hulls with holes and pelting them with cycling-gun fire.

  The Resistance was breaking. The first line had already collapsed, the myriad of ships falling back to secondary positions as the Barbaro sailed through the western entrance of the bay like a conqueror.

  Arcadimon wasn’t a military tactician, but nearly a decade studying games of power had given him a sharp eye, and he could see that no matter how hard the Resistance fought, no matter how much courage they mustered, they were simply too few.

  The Alliance was going to crush them.

  The Resistance must have known before they even began that this was a losing enterprise. They could have had no hope of winning.

  For a moment, Arc admired their stupid bravery.

  He’d never been brave in his life. But maybe today that would change.

  As he strained to catch a glimpse of the White Delienean Navy, someone grabbed him by the collar, hauling him half out of the hatchway.

  “Get to your post!” the soldier snarled, his breath stinking of fish. The man’s eyes widened as Arcadimon reached into his pocket, popping the cork on one of the vials. “Hey, you’re not Allian—”

  Arc flung the powder directly into the soldier’s face and held his breath as the man toppled facedown into the hatchway, unconscious.

  That left Arcadimon with two vials of sleeping powder and the answer to a different problem.

  He stripp
ed the soldier of his uniform, bound and gagged him, and left him in one of Braca’s wardrobes. The man would sleep for half the day, if Arc was lucky.

  Enough time to find Ed, he hoped.

  He took a glance at his reflection in the mirrored portal. The blue uniform was a little loose, but he still thought himself quite the picture of an Alliance soldier.

  He sneaked back to the main deck and ducked into the throng of soldiers scurrying across the Barbaro, searching for Eduoar’s ships.

  There, to the southeast. They’d been repainted white, and they were flying the poppy flags of Deliene.

  Arcadimon’s heart sank. They were so far. He wouldn’t be able to swim, or even row, with the water choked with corpses, debris, and rescue boats. Could he cut the Barbaro’s rudder chain and hope the king’s ship would reach them in the chaos? Could he fix the sails?

  Arc took a deep breath. I’ll find you, Ed. Somehow.

  CHAPTER 38

  The Fourth Adventure of Haldon Lac

  It may have been an exaggeration to say Haldon Lac was stationed aboard the biggest warship he’d ever seen, but he was never one to shy away from a little hyperbole. The Fury of the Queen was immense—once, she’d been the pride of the Royal Navy, her three gun decks brimming with cannons, her four towering masts flying stiff white sails, her full complement of well-trained redcoats thirsty for battle.

  Well, he admitted, not redcoats. They still wore the uniforms. But they were not members of the Oxscinian Royal Navy anymore. He didn’t know if there was an Oxscinian Royal Navy anymore, or if it was just the Alliance now.

  The Resistance needed a last line of defense between the battle on Blackfire Bay and the capital, where the civilians were huddled in shelters, so many of the biggest ships, including the Fury, dropped anchor at the mouth of Braska’s harbor, forming a chain of floating fortresses that would protect Rokuine shores.

  If all went well and the rest of the Resistance battled back the Alliance, she wouldn’t even see combat.

  But all did not go well.

  The morning of the last battle, Lac and Hobs climbed the mainmast to the fighting top, where they and the other topmen watched Captain Reed’s storm spread across the western horizon, flickering with lightning. They cheered when the Resistance vessels sailed out, multicolored flags flying, to meet the blue beasts of the Alliance beyond the entrance to Blackfire Bay.

  But as the hours wore on, the Alliance pushed them back. The Resistance defenders were forced to retreat.

  The Fury of the Queen could not move from the harbor entrance without risking the safety of the city, so Lac and Hobs could do little but watch as the enemy attacked the islands on the north side of the bay, capturing forts and watchtowers, commandeering gun turrets and firing back on the Resistance.

  Flaming ships floundered in the waves, trailing thick clouds of smoke that obscured patches of the midsummer sky. Even with Sefia’s magical reinforcements, the Resistance ships were still tar and timber. Under enough cannon fire, they still broke. They still burned.

  Haldon Lac’s topmen were nervous. He could feel their fear spiking as they watched sailors who had been thrown into the sea swim for floating bits of debris. But he didn’t know how to help them. He didn’t even know how to help himself.

  “There were six sister sand witches,” he muttered, “and six sandwiches: two tuna sandwiches cut in two, a sandy sandwich which slipped from the hands of the sixth sand witch, and a tuna sandwich which Witch One had bit into. Witch Two wished for—”

  “What are you mumbling about?” one of the topmen asked, gripping the stock of her gun.

  “It’s a riddle,” Lac said.

  “I’ve been working on it for months,” Hobs added proudly.

  Speeding out of the harbor, unarmed rescue boats sailed into the confusion, running over the corpses of enemies and allies alike. But they were at the mercy of the battle. Doctors went down under stray gunfire. Cannonballs went wide of the Resistance fighters, sinking the small rescue ships instead.

  “Well, keep going,” said another of the topmen. “What’s the rest of the riddle?”

  Hobs beamed. “Okay, so, Witch Two wished for a tuna sandwich which Witch One had skipped while sampling sandwiches”—he continued rattling off his riddle while the other topmen huddled around, needing a distraction—“and would willingly switch sandwiches with any sand witch that wasn’t Witch One. The sixth witch switched with Witch Four, which for Witch Four was a sinister sandwich switch, so Witch Four granted Witch Two’s wish and switched her sandwich with her sister sand witch—”

  Out on the water, there was a great crack as an Alliance warship crashed into a rescue vessel, smashing the smaller boat into pieces. Lac thought he saw bodies crushed beneath the enemy’s enormous blue hull.

  “Don’t stop,” said one of the topmen.

  Lac turned back to them, swallowing. “Which sand witch ate which sandwich?” he asked.

  The topmen conferred.

  “Witch One ate Witch Two’s sandwich, so . . .”

  “Which one had a tuna sandwich again?”

  “No, Witch One had half a tuna sandwich, but Witch Two . . .”

  On Blackfire Bay, the whitecaps turned red.

  The Alliance kept gaining. The Resistance kept retreating.

  From the entrance to the harbor, Haldon Lac could no longer see the Red Hare, the White Navy ship on which Ed—the king—was sailing, or the Current, lost somewhere in the chaos. But he kept catching glimpses of the Barbaro and the Amalthea, which seemed to be everywhere, firing their great guns, taking down everyone from outlaws to rebel redcoats.

  On the western cliff above the city, Sefia and Archer’s watchtower was still flying message flags. The Alliance didn’t seem to have attacked the fortifications of the main island yet. Lac hoped it would stay that way.

  It was midday when the Alliance drew into range of the Fury’s cannons. They were a blue serpent with black spines, one massive warship following another in a long, sinuous line.

  Were any of them Royal Navy vessels? Under their new coats of paint, it was hard to tell.

  On the fighting top, the topmen had agreed Witch Two had ended up with the sandy sandwich, but they hadn’t decided which other witches had eaten which sandwiches.

  And they wouldn’t, now that the Alliance had come for them.

  Below, the rebel redcoats worked the great guns, raining iron down upon the enemy. Blossoms of flame erupted from the mouths of the cannons. Black smoke drifted into the fighting tops.

  One after another, the Resistance line took out the invaders. They cracked hulls. They demolished masts. They wounded officers and soldiers.

  But the Alliance was relentless, sailing in from the northwest, firing broadsides, and sailing back out again. Red and orange lights flowered in the smoke as the decks of the Fury were shot to pieces. From above, Lac could see his fellow redcoats falling. Dying. One of the other midshipmen, posted on the main deck, went down with a spar of timber through the neck.

  Closer and closer came the blue beasts of the Alliance . . . until at last they were in range of Lac, Hobs, and their topmen.

  They fired across the water, taking out soldiers in the enemy fighting tops.

  Were they Oxscinians beneath those blue uniforms? Former comrades? Friends?

  But they couldn’t stop the Alliance. There were simply too many of them.

  One enemy ship, smaller than the Fury, sailed in from the northwest, but instead of firing a broadside and retreating again, it charged in toward the Resistance line.

  “They’re trying to board!” the captain of the Fury cried, his voice carrying up to the fighting tops.

  Below, the gun crews let off one last broadside. A cannonball struck the Alliance mast. Another took out a piece of their stern. But the enemy was still coming.

  Gesturing to his to
pmen, Lac ordered them to prepare for boarding. They grabbed chests of grenades or climbed out onto the yardarms, preparing to drop powder kegs on the enemy boarders.

  Hobs touched Lac’s elbow. “You scared, Lac?”

  Lac gulped. “Yes.”

  Of death, capture, and drowning. Of being impaled by shrapnel. Of falling. Of fighting his own. Of his friends not making it to sundown.

  “Me too.”

  On the gun decks, the crews loaded their cannons with scrap shot, and as the Alliance ship drew up alongside them, the Fury let loose her last volley of fire. Lead barbs, nails, and other sharp bits of metal went flying from the cannons, studding the enemy hull. Blue-uniformed soldiers went down with hundreds of tiny wounds.

  But they didn’t stop coming.

  There was a great crunch as the bow of the blue ship crashed into the Fury. From the yardarms, the topmen lit powder kegs and sent them plummeting onto the enemy decks, where they exploded, burning boarders wielding revolvers and axes.

  Lac and Hobs began hurling grenades as the Alliance soldiers leapt from their ship onto the Fury of the Queen. Some didn’t make it. One man misjudged the distance, striking the redcoats’ rail with his chin.

  As the enemy swarmed the Fury’s decks, the rebel redcoats detonated powder chests strapped to their bulwarks, sending up bursts of fire. The leading Alliance soldiers were blown back, but they were replaced by others, leaping through the flames, firing their sidearms as they landed among the resisters.

  It was a bloody business. Soldiers on both sides were slashed and stabbed, their faces blown off, their guts spilled. Below, the decks turned crimson.

  In the fighting top, Lac threw himself onto his belly and began firing his rifle. Bang. Bang. Bang. Beside him, Hobs and the other topmen did the same.

  But soon he heard the useless clicking of the hammer. “I’m out of ammunition!”

  “I’ve got it!” Hobs got to his knees. But before he could move toward the case of bullets, his whole body jerked back.

  Blood spattered Lac’s face as he turned to see Hobs, clutching his shoulder, fall from the fighting top.