by Rachel Aaron
Mellinor’s rage caught Miranda by surprise. The Great Spirit exploded from the sea, flying over the ship to strike the Empress again. Miranda clung to the water, throwing everything she had into Mellinor’s blow, but this time, the Empress was ready.
She raised her hand, and Mellinor’s wave stopped as though it had hit a wall. Mellinor screamed in fury, pounding on the Empress’s barrier with every drop of water he’d absorbed. Miranda screamed with him, pouring herself into the attack. They were so close she could see the Empress’s face less than a foot from their water, her ancient, dark eyes shifting away to look…
Miranda gasped, bringing in a lungful of water as her perspective shot back to her own human body. She coughed and blinked the burning seawater out of her eyes as she raised her head. She couldn’t see anything, but even at this distance she could feel the Empress staring at her. A spike of terror plunged into her mind as Mellinor’s voice washed through her.
“Hide, Miranda!” he screamed. “Hide!”
But it was too late. Across the water, the Empress raised her arm, the one that wasn’t holding Mellinor back, and flicked her finger. The second the motion was complete, the sand below Miranda exploded.
The force blew her backward, ripping her from the water and sending her flying through the air with such power she couldn’t even move her limbs to flail. She landed hard in the sand, rolling up the beach until she struck the sharp stones at the base of the storm wall. For a moment the world went completely black. She could feel nothing, hear nothing, and then, with a deafening roar, it all came back. Josef was standing over her, the great, black, bloody blade of the Heart glistening in his hand. He was knocking the soldiers back without looking, shouting at her to get up. Miranda stared at him, literally struck dumb. She couldn’t make sense of what was happening, but she felt empty, like something was missing.
Then, in one, cold, horrible moment, she realized she could no longer feel Mellinor.
She scrambled away from Josef, running all out toward the bay. Soldiers grabbed for her, but she kicked them aside, scrabbling on her hands and knees through the sand until she reached the water at last. She threw herself into the surf, slamming her body beneath the cold waves. Her soul roared open as she submerged, reaching out until her mind was on the edge of breaking. She yelled Mellinor’s name, screaming with her spirit and her voice until both were raw. She screamed again and again, taking in great gulps of seawater with each shout, but it was no use. Nothing answered.
Hands closed on her shoulders, pulling her out of the surf. She fought wildly, writhing in the man’s iron grip even as she recognized Josef’s voice telling her to calm down or they wouldn’t get out of here alive. But she didn’t want to calm down, she didn’t want to get out alive.
“No!” she shrieked. “Let me go! I promised! I promised I wouldn’t leave him!”
Josef ignored her. She fought as he dragged her out of the water, but her punches and kicks bounced off him. He tucked her under one arm and ran for the stairs, keeping the Heart high in his free hand, ready to swing. He didn’t have to. The enemy was keeping their distance now, unwilling to engage him even when he was burdened with a hysterical woman. Perhaps it had something to do with the dying men lying scattered across the sand. Whatever it was, Miranda didn’t care.
“You don’t understand,” she screamed, the words broken by sobs. “I let him go. I left the water! I failed him!”
“That may be,” Josef said, charging for the stairs. “But we’re still alive, though not for long if you don’t stop fighting me.”
Miranda went limp, her body flopping in his grasp. She was sobbing violently now. She couldn’t help it. She’d poured too much of herself into Mellinor, and what she had left was barely enough to keep her lungs working, let alone stop the tears.
She was still crying uncontrollably when the force hit her, but it wasn’t until Josef stopped that she recognized what it was. After all, she’d felt the Empress’s spirit just moments before, but that strength, strong as it was, was nothing compared to the wave of pressure that rolled over her now.
All around them, the soldiers were dropping to their knees, pressing their foreheads into the sand. The beach grew silent as everything went still. The fighting on the wall above them silenced as well, and Miranda got the feeling that if she could somehow climb up to look at the city of Osera, she’d find that even the fires had stopped burning. With the sole exception of the waves lapping on the shore, everything in the world seemed to have gone still, and in that stillness, the Empress spoke.
“Osera,” she called, her voice clear and ringing through the air. It came from every direction, filling Miranda’s ears with its hated smugness. Slowly, painfully, Josef turned them, and Miranda found herself looking out at the sea she never wanted to see again and at the woman standing in midair above it.
“You have fought bravely,” the Empress said, standing on a swirl of wind above her ship. “I admire strength, but the time for fighting is over. You have lost. Your army is broken, your wizards defeated, your city burning. Put down your weapons and surrender, and I may be merciful.”
“She’s got to be kidding,” Josef said, though his voice was quiet. “Oserans don’t surrender.”
There was no way she could have heard him, but the Empress answered in the most effective way possible. She opened her spirit fully.
Miranda seized up as the true power of the Shepherdess’s star struck her. Even Josef gasped, his arm clutching painfully around her waist. But it wasn’t just the spirit pressure. Out over the water, the Empress had begun to glow. Light shone through her skin, filling her body until she glowed like the morning, but brightest of all, brighter than the sun, brighter than anything Miranda had ever seen, was the mark on the Empress’s chest. The moment she saw it, Miranda knew exactly what it was and what it meant.
Bow down.
The Empress’s voice echoed through Miranda’s mind, through the very fabric of the world, and as it faded, the world obeyed.
The soldiers around them were already bowing, but now the sand under their knees joined them. All along the island, the spirits were lowering themselves before the Empress. The winds bowed, the stone bowed, even the fires shrank back in obedience, burning low before the star. Even the spirit deaf felt her presence. Oseran soldiers fell to their knees without knowing why, their spirits obeying on instinct alone. Only the wizards remained standing. Up on the storm wall, Banage clutched his rings, staring at the Empress in astonishment and growing terror. Even Sara had lost her jaded expression. She was looking about in open amazement, her eyes wide as she watched the world change itself to honor the Empress.
Miranda’s own spirits were bowing as well. She could feel them pressing on their rings, but she barely noticed it. The enormous pressure of the Empress filled her mind, impossibly bright, impossibly glorious, and strangely familiar. Miranda clenched her teeth, forcing her mind to work. She knew this feeling, this light. She’d felt it before. Suddenly, the memory came back clearly, her kneeling in King Henrith’s throne room floor beside Nico and Josef’s bodies with Gin at her back, staring in amazement that she was not dead while all around her pressure just like this thrummed through the air. And at its center, walking through the ruined hall that bowed only for him, crushing Mellinor’s fury with only his presence…
Before she could think about what she was doing, Miranda yanked herself from Josef’s grasp and bolted for the stairs. The swordsman didn’t seem to notice. His attention, like everything else’s in this corner of the world, was on the Empress.
Miranda ran as she had never run before. She clambered up the stairs and hit the top of the storm wall running, dodging the bowing war spirits as she charged the watchtower door. She banged it open and threw herself at the stairs. They were empty now, and a distant part of her mind realized that the common soldiers had had the sense to move the wounded when the war spirits arrived. Good, she thought bitterly, less for her to trip on. She was taking the stairs
three at a time now, her lungs heaving as she pushed herself with all her might.
She hit the door to the upper room like a battering ram, and it slammed open. She wasn’t sure how she’d known he would be there. Maybe some tiny part of Mellinor still remained, pointing her toward him. Whatever had led her, it had been right. The man she had come for was standing by the window, staring out across the silent beach at the Empress. He didn’t even have the good grace to jump when she came in. He just turned slowly, mouth opening to say something.
Miranda didn’t give him the chance. She charged him, barely aware of what she was doing as her fingers dug into his shoulders and slammed him into the wall beside the window. He let her, his body going limp under her hands.
She was shaking so hard she could barely keep her grip. Her mind was choked with loss, guilt, failure, and blinding anger, all mashing together until she could no longer form coherent thoughts. When she opened her mouth, the words came out in a trembling, ragged sprawl.
“You’re one of them, aren’t you?” she whispered. “You’re a star.”
Eli leaned back against the wall without a sound. Behind him, the Empress’s fleet started forward yet again.
CHAPTER
27
Eli stared down at Miranda, ignoring the pain as her fingers dug into his shoulders.
“You are, aren’t you?” Miranda said again, her voice quaking. “I saw you, back in Mellinor. It all makes sense now. I never understood how you could get spirits to listen just by talking to them. Why no spirits would ever tell me about you after you left. I knew you had to be something special, something more than just a wizard. Now I see. Nothing can disobey you, can it? You just give an order and your Shepherdess will—”
Eli’s anger exploded without warning. He lunged forward, yanking her hands off his shoulders. “That’s not how I work and you know it!” he yelled, his voice raw.
Miranda stepped back in shock, and then her face flushed red as her anger rose to match his. “Shut up and answer the question! Are you a star or not?”
“Oh, fine,” Eli said through clenched teeth. “You win. I’m a bleeding star. Cover that with sugar and eat it, if it makes you happy.”
“Makes me happy?” Miranda roared. “You’re a star. What are you doing, hiding up here while—” Her voice began to quiver, and she took a shuddering breath. “If you’re really a star, how did any of this happen? You knew the Empress was coming. You knew it would be like this. I thought Josef was your friend. How could you let this happen to his country?” She flung out her arm, pointing at Nico’s bloody bundle, still lying exactly where he’d laid her this afternoon. “How could you let any of this happen? What kind of a coward are you?”
Eli swallowed against the guilt she was hammering down his throat. “I tried to make them leave,” he said lamely.
“Tried to make them leave?” Miranda shouted, shaking with rage. “How selfish can you be? Don’t you see that this is bigger than your little gang? An entire country is falling, and the continent is next. Hundreds of men have lost their lives today, and—”
She cut off, and Eli winced as tears began to pour down her face. Powers, she’d lost one of her menagerie, hadn’t she? He hoped it wasn’t the dog. She really would rip his head off if she lost her dog. But though he steeled himself for the worse, her answer still hit him like a punch in the gut.
“Mellinor,” her voice broke as she said the spirit’s name. She looked at him, her eyes so full of hatred Eli couldn’t help but hate himself along with her. “My spirit is dead, and it’s all your fault!”
Eli cringed as her voice hit him and bumped into the wall behind him. She had him cornered. There was nowhere to run.
“Everything is your fault,” she said, her voice breathy and raw. “You could have stopped this at any time, couldn’t you? Mellinor wouldn’t have had to fight, wouldn’t have had to die if you weren’t hiding in here like a filthy, selfish coward who won’t lift a finger to—”
Eli moved in a flash. He dropped, reaching out with both hands. The first grabbed her head to hold it still; the second covered her mouth, stopping her voice.
“That’s enough,” he said.
Miranda tore away from him and lashed out with her fist. Her swing caught him by surprise, and he didn’t have time to move before her punch landed in his ribs, her sharp rings digging into his skin. He let her go, falling back with a grunt as he clutched his side. Miranda stood over him, panting as she raised her fist again.
“That’s not nearly enough,” she said. “I can’t believe you’re Master Banage’s son. You have all the power in the world, but you’re too selfish to use it for anything other than taking what other people have worked for. You know nothing of duty. You don’t even know what it means to be a responsible wiz—”
“Shut up!” Eli shouted. The anger in his voice shocked them both. Eli stared at her a moment and then dropped his head to his hands. “Powers, Miranda, do you think I wanted this? I never wanted to be a star. Look at the Empress. Does that look like the kind of power it does the world any good to have?” Eli shook his head. “I hate it. I hate the way the world turns over and shows its belly to that woman. I hate the way everyone has to dance on her string, even the Immortal Empress. I’ve spent my whole adult life trying to get away from her, to make my own way on my own power. To make my life worth something, even if it’s just a bounty.”
“You think your bounty makes you worth something?”
Eli sucked in a tight breath. He couldn’t see her face from where he was sitting, but he didn’t have to. He could feel her disgust bearing down on him like a weight.
“It’s nothing,” Miranda said. “Less than nothing. All that matters is action, Eli Monpress. If you’re sitting on your power, if you let Mellinor die just to keep your self-worth. If you’re going to let the Empress put her boot on every spirit on this continent all to save your pride, then you are even worse than I thought you were.”
He heard the floor creak as she turned away.
“You’re not worth a drop of Mellinor’s water,” she said, her voice thick with hatred and loss. “But what more could I expect from a thief and a con artist and a selfish, irresponsible—”
The list went on and on, and Eli sat on the floor and took it. He couldn’t even argue with her anymore. She was right. He could have stopped this. He could have saved her spirit, saved Josef’s men, saved Karon, saved everything, but he hadn’t. He’d sat there and let it happen all because he couldn’t stand to go back. Couldn’t stand to let that woman win.
But I have won, love.
Eli sucked in a breath. He shouldn’t have been surprised, he thought bitterly. Of course she would be here. She was always here.
I told you I’d win in the end, Benehime said. He could feel her now, kneeling beside him just on the other side of the veil that separated the spirit’s world from her white nothing. After all your valiant efforts, this is your reward, known forever far and wide as the man who doomed a continent to keep his pride. She made a tsking sound. You’ve let everyone down—your father, Josef, Nico, even Miranda, who never expected you to be anything more than a thief. But I’m different. I will always treasure you, darling star. I love you more than anything else in this sad, tiny world.
The skin of his ear began to tingle as Benehime’s lips pressed against it through the veil. Look at the wizard girl. Her loss is already suffered, but hers can be the last. You can still save things. All you have to do is stop being stubborn. Give in, embrace your position as the favorite again, and you can be the hero. Her voice fell to a shivering whisper. Come home to me, Eliton, and everything will be put right. I swear it.
And just like that, Eli gave up.
He stood in one smooth motion, and Miranda stumbled back, surprised out of her tirade.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she shouted, glaring at him with red-rimmed eyes.
Eli didn’t answer. He stomped past her, shrugging off her hand when she tr
ied to grab him. He kicked open the watch room door and started down the stairs. The boards creaked as Miranda started to follow him, but Eli didn’t look back. He kept his eyes straight ahead as he clattered down the tower steps and burst through the door at the bottom into the silent, bowing world.
The door to the watch room slammed shut with a crash that made Miranda wince. She stood there panting, too exhausted to chase the thief down the stairs but too furious to give up. As a compromise, she went to the window, reaching it just in time to see Eli emerge from the bottom of the tower. He walked across the storm wall and down the stairs in quick, angry steps. The world was silent around him, every spirit cowering before the might of the Empress, but Eli paid it no mind. He hit the beach with a stomp and kept walking, stepping over the kneeling bodies of the soldiers. When he passed Josef, Miranda thought she saw him slow, but then he was moving again as fast as ever, marching toward the sea.
Miranda caught her breath when he reached the surf. The waves were still lapping despite the Empress’s pressure, but the moment Eli’s boot touched it, the ocean froze. Miranda blinked at the deathly silence that descended on a shore where the sea had gone completely still. The water stood motionless as far as she could see. Even the great breakers on the horizon were frozen midcrest. Overhead, the air was perfectly still as well, the winds holding their breath as Eli walked forward, striding across the smooth water like it was stone.
When he reached the center of the bay, Eli stopped. He folded his arms across his chest and glared up at the towering wall of palace ships. High overhead, the Empress looked down at him with a haughty sneer. In that whole, still world, they were the only two who moved.