“Is that—” Tierri started, but Rayne cut him off.
“Seloue!” she shouted. The person in the red cloak turned and her hood fell back, revealing golden curls and a wide smile. Rayne closed the distance between them and pulled her into a hug. How she had changed in just a few days. Her cheeks had rounded out and her eyes sparkled. Beneath her cloak, she wore a fine dress with a rope belt and an embroidered overcote. She had been beautiful before, but now she was blossoming like a flower in the thaw.
Releasing Rayne, Seloue turned to Tierri, tall enough not to have to stand on tiptoes to gather him in a hug. “I'm so glad to see you both. I've just been exploring. I hate being in my room when I have all this freedom that I've never—” Then she saw Edlyn and her face went slack. “Are you—? Is that—?”
“Seloue, this is my sister, Edlyn Crowheart.”
Seloue dropped into a clumsy curtsy. Edlyn nodded her head in return. Rayne knew she felt safe; this was just another commoner, not a slave or a rebel, though Seloue was both of those things. Rayne remembered how she had first seen the girl, leaning in the red door's frame, her lips twisted into a scowl as she watched the procession pass. She had not kowtowed simply because of who Rayne was—she was the type who believed that respect was something to be earned, not demanded or expected. It made Rayne value the girl’s friendship even more because of what it said about her own character.
“I wanted her to meet you,” Rayne said. A lamp flared to life in the home behind her. “Could we go to your place?”
Seloue beamed. “My place. Yes, yes, of course.”
The room they had found for Seloue was in a boarding house just off the main road run by an elderly woman and her sister. The two women were dozing by the fire in the main room when Rayne and her group slipped past. Seloue's room had a writing desk, a small bed, and two chairs around a hearth. Someone had already stoked the fire, and a pitcher of cider sat warming on the edge. Seloue hung her cloak by the door and served them the cider in wooden cups. Then she and Edlyn settled into the chairs while Rayne and Tierri sat side-by-side on the bed. In spite of the seriousness of the situation, her heart still raced at his nearness.
“How is it having your own place?” Rayne heard the strain in her own voice but hoped no one else would recognize it. When Tierri looked at her sideways, though, his cup at his lips, she knew he had. He shifted slightly, imperceptibly, so his thigh was against hers. Her head swam and she thought she might have stopped breathing.
“Amazing,” Seloue said.
“Where were you before?” Edlyn asked.
Seloue cleared her throat. “I was banded by a jeweler on merchant's row.”
Edlyn froze, her eyes flicking up to Rayne's and then back to Seloue. “Oh?” Here it was. She could get up and storm out and the decision would be made. Or she could stay and listen, hear from the people she was supposed to lead and come out on the other side a better ruler. “And how did that come to happen?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Rayne
“My mother was a Redbrace,” Seloue started. “I guess I'm a Redbrace, too, but I've never been able to use the name before.” Redbrace was an old Southern name, a family that crossed the border between Hail and Ash, their blood a mix of both nations. Tierri had told her that he remembered the name Redbrace in the Malstrom court. An adviser, perhaps? Certainly someone her father would have wanted to ruin.
“And your father?” Edlyn asked. Rayne could tell the idea of not having a name was lost on her sister, but Rayne knew the importance of it. Her name had both condemned her and then kept her alive when she arrived in Shade. It was because of who she was and who her father was and the blood that ran through her veins that she'd ended up in the situation she was in now instead of dead and burned. And Tierri—if he had not carried the Malstrom name, where would his fate have taken him?
Seloue shrugged. “My mother was captured during the invasion. King Innis sent her and the other young, Southern noblewomen to brothels. He didn't need more subservient nobility; he needed money. They went for a high price and it was gold he could use to feed his war, to pay his soldiers, to appease the nobles that he deemed worthy.” They were harsh words but it was obvious Seloue was done being a slave to the Crowheart nation. Edlyn balked but Seloue didn't apologize. “She ended up in Alas, but when she got pregnant, likely by a Shaddern who had come into Alas for trade and other…activities, they shipped her off to Silverton. When I was born, she acted as a wet-nurse for noble Ash families for years. Those babies drank my milk while I was fed on goat's milk. My mother held those babies while I wailed alone on a straw pallet.”
Edlyn was quiet. They all were, images in their minds of a baby crying for its mother; of a mother crying for her baby while holding another one to her chest. It was the ultimate loss of power—the inability to care even for your own children. Why would Innis allow such a thing, when he himself had lost one of his own?
“I was seven when they decided I was old enough to be taken from her,” Seloue continued. “I worked in noble houses throughout Ash, and when they saw I would be beautiful, they sent me to Flagend to begin prepping me for the same work as my mother.”
Rayne wanted to gag. Prepping her? She looked to Edlyn for her reaction, but the girl's face was stoic. The only indication she had heard anything that bothered her was the way her hands gripped the arms of her chair, the knuckles turning white, the cup of cider forgotten at her feet.
“I met Jeph at the boarding house in Flagend. He was a spellwielder training in the forges. He would be bound and sent to the army when he turned sixteen, but he had a year or so left. And he was beautiful,” Seloue gushed. “All the girls thought so, but I was the only one brave enough to talk to him.” Rayne could believe it. Seloue had come across as fearless.
“What happened to him?” Edlyn asked quietly. They all knew this story didn't have a happy ending or Seloue wouldn't be sitting here now.
“Slaves aren't supposed to develop relationships. It's one of your father's rules, why they keep moving us around. Even in the boarding house, they never let us stay with the same group of girls. Other girls came and went, and they beat us freely to keep us quiet. But do you know why?” she asked, leaning forward and putting a hand on Edlyn's. Edlyn shook her head slowly but didn't pull away. Maybe Seloue was getting through to her where Rayne hadn't been able to. “Because relationships breed passion. And passion among the unhappy breeds revolt. And that's the one thing a man like your father can't have. So he takes away our chance at anything resembling happiness, any human connection, because of his own fear.”
Rayne looked at Tierri; she couldn't help it. Seloue had risked everything for that connection, for the chance at love, and here was Rayne, squandering her opportunity by pretending it didn't exist. She bumped her knee against his, wishing that she could talk to him, not about assassinations and crowns, but about the two of them, a boy and a girl, and their chance at happiness.
“But Jeph and I were blind to all that. We just saw each other, and it was fun. He taught me my way around a forge, taught me how to work the metal, how to write spells even if I couldn't imbue them with magic. He made me feel like I could. And that was enough.”
Rayne watched her little sister. Was she thinking about Danyll? Did he make her feel like magic or did he make her feel like a burden? Like a responsibility? She would bet all her money that Danyll had never once tried to teach her how the very spells that protected her worked.
“After almost a year together, we were caught. He was beaten and bound to a Duskan general and sent away.”
“What was your punishment?” Edlyn asked.
“I was also beaten. The madame said to me, 'If there is a baby, I will beat it out of you.' But even worse, I was ruined. No upper-class brothel wanted me if they couldn't get my virgin price. The madame didn't care what happened to me anymore. I became her whipping girl, beaten when the other beautiful girls misbehaved. So they put me on the auction block and sold me to
the highest bidder, the jeweler who banded me.”
“Where is Jeph now?”
Seloue shrugged, feigning nonchalance, but Rayne saw the barely-disguised hurt, the sadness that she knew better than anyone would never go away.
“If he is in my father's army, perhaps we can locate him,” Edlyn said. “Perhaps we can bring him back.”
Small steps, Rayne reminded herself. But Seloue looked annoyed. “And what will that do? One freed girl, one transferred soldier. We're not pieces on a game board. We can't be moved around at your whimsy. What will you do? Pick and choose who you help? Only the saddest stories or the ones lucky enough to reach your ears will be heard?”
“I’m only trying to help.”
Seloue’s upper lip curled dangerously. “Trying? Can’t a queen do more than try? Shouldn’t a queen want to help all her people?”
“Enough.” Edlyn stood. “I will not be attacked.”
“No, you won't,” Seloue said. “Not as long as you're behind your magic doors.”
“Seloue,” Rayne warned.
“Was that a threat?” Edlyn's cheeks were as red as if she had been outside in a snowstorm. “We're leaving. I suggest you do the same lest you find guards knocking at your door someday.”
“Edlyn,” Rayne tried. “Seloue.” Neither of them was listening. Seloue glared and Edlyn angrily stalked to the door. Tierri followed her but Rayne hesitated.
“I'll leave for Shade tomorrow,” Seloue said, still sitting by the hearth, her eyes on the fire instead of her departing guests.
“You shouldn't let her scare you.”
“Shouldn't I? She's the next queen.” She turned, half her face still cast in shadow.
Rayne paused, then shook her head. “No, you're right. If you go to Shade, don't stop at Bricboro, and Torlan isn't safe either. It's better to go to one of the northern ports, Inurta or Otille.”
Seloue nodded her understanding.
Rayne started to shut the door but stopped and looked back. Seloue was bending to pick up the forgotten cups of cider. “It's cold there. Lots of snow, almost all year long.” She unclasped her necklace and tossed it at Seloue, who caught it. The chain was white gold, and the ruby dangling from the end would probably be more than enough to buy her what she needed.
“I'll pay you back somehow,” Seloue said, clutching the chain. The red ruby caught the firelight.
“Yes,” Rayne said, “when we see each other again.” With a final smile at her friend, she shut the door behind herself and chased her sister into the street.
✽ ✽ ✽
“The nerve of that girl!” Edlyn was stomping down the residential street toward the market. The area was quieter now, most people ready to retire for the evening. Her sister was the exception, indignant rage making her careless and loud.
“She was just telling you—”
“I know what you wanted her to tell me!” Edlyn whirled on her, both of them stopping on the side of the street beneath a lamppost, the flickering flame casting them in yellow light. Rayne resisted the urge to step back into the darkness. “Well, your plan failed. You cannot make me believe that our father has done anything wrong by enslaving those that rebel against him. People like her deserve it.”
Rayne was appalled. “No one deserves that!”
Edlyn stomped her foot like a toddler throwing a tantrum and turned on her heel, walking away. Rayne watched her go, the words ringing in her head: Your plan failed. They all had. It was time to stop making plans and act. Her fingers found the hilt of her knife, forgotten in her pocket. She had been hoping that her sister would be able to change. That she would understand what the country needed and that it wasn't necessarily what her father wanted. There were a million excuses for slavery—money, obedience, punishment—but one giant argument against it, and Edlyn would never admit it. She had resigned herself to confinement, but that didn't give her the right to inflict the same fate on everyone else.
“I have to do it,” Rayne said to Tierri, who had stopped beside her. “But Danyll will blame us. He’ll know.”
“She escaped,” Tierri said. “We went after her, but it was too late. She was killed by angry protesters, rebels who had been waiting for her, just as your father suspected. There was nothing we could do.”
“He'll kill you.”
“He won't. I'm too valuable. I'm the last Malstrom wielder.”
Rayne thought of Wido, of how pleased he would be when he heard the news. And how angry he would be when he came to claim a throne to find Rayne already occupying it, with the Hail force at her back. Would he join her then? When he saw her power? And then she would free her people and turn them on Dusk, on her father. It was the first time she allowed herself to imagine the crown on her head, to imagine herself victorious.
She walked forward with purpose now, toward her sister who waited for her in the shadows. The rest of the world fell away. Orabel became a distant cacophony of light and sound. Even Tierri's footsteps behind her were just echoes from somewhere far away. She remembered this feeling from her training, the calm before a fight when nothing else mattered except the weapon in her hand and the blood in her veins.
“What are you—?” Edlyn started to ask, but everything after that happened so quickly that Rayne never heard the rest of the question. Rayne lifted the knife, sliding it from its sheath, her steps growing longer as she prepared for action. At the same time, someone else melted out of the alleyway behind Edlyn.
It was a short figure in a high-necked wielder's jacket and golden mask. Rayne didn't have time to cover her own face but there was no point. Danyll was here, and he had seen her and the raised knife. There was the twist of magic inside of her and he threw himself in front of Edlyn, a blast of fire shooting in Rayne's direction. Rayne dropped and rolled out of the way, while behind her she heard Tierri shout in alarm. She was crouched on the ground behind a wall, her mind reeling in panic. She looked back to Tierri for help, but he was on his knees, panting. Of course. Danyll was stealing from him. Taking the magic that he used to fill ships' sails and burn slave ownership letters, and using it to destroy her.
There was a tightness inside of her that she recognized as the feeling of gathering magic. She lunged, giving up her position behind the wall, and slammed into him. They hit the wall together. Edlyn screamed and there was a churning in Rayne's gut. She didn't know if it was Danyll's magic or regret at what she had been about to do. At what she'd been caught doing. Her stomach squeezed as she and Danyll tumbled together. He was grasping, searching, reaching for his magic, and finding…
Nothing. Just like when they had fought in the tunnels. Perhaps he did not have as much control over his borrowed magic as Edlyn believed.
The knot in Rayne’s stomach twisted but she didn’t stop her charge. The knife was still in her hand and she thrust it forward until it scraped bone, a rib, maybe. Danyll screamed, more a sound of rage than of pain, and she brought the knife around again, the hilt connecting with his nose with a sickening crunch.
Tierri was on her then; he threw her back against the other wall in the alleyway, his hand pinning her throat, her toes a few inches off the ground. She kicked and struggled, grasping at his fingers, but didn’t let go. He was crying, his face twisted in agony.
“I’m sorry,” he was saying over and over again. “I’m sorry, I can’t.”
Danyll pushed himself off the wall and wiped a hand across his nose, smearing blood up and over the bottom edge of the golden mask. His other hand held onto his side, blood trickling through his fingers. His mouth twisted into a smirk. “No little Knight boy to save you now, is there?” He laughed and it was a sound that shot straight into the pit of her stomach. “No, I took care of him. I made sure he suffered before he died, just like I'll do to you. I don’t know what your plan is or why I can’t wield against you, but I look forward to extracting all your secrets.” He was hiding behind Tierri, the coward. She lashed out with her feet but found only Tierri’s immovable thighs.
Danyll hissed and pulled her off of Tierri, then turned her by the shoulders to face Rayne. Something wet and salty dripped into Rayne's mouth—tears or blood, she couldn't be sure. “Meet your Iblia assassin,” Danyll said. “She's been trying to kill you all along.”
It was true, but it still hurt to hear the truth spoken aloud. It still hurt to see the realization on Edlyn's face. To see the resignation on Tierri’s. All the fight went out of Rayne and she crumpled in Tierri’s arms.
“No, you're lying,” Edlyn said, but she didn't look away from her sister. Rayne knew what she was thinking, felt the betrayal as real as if it had been done to her instead of by her. She saw the moment Edlyn understood that it wasn't a lie at all. “Rayne.” It was said in a breath, on a sigh, a simple exhalation and she gave up, turning away.
Danyll laughed. Flames licked at one of his hands as he found his power again, and he pressed it against Rayne's shoulder, dragging his fingers down her arm. Rayne screamed, the smell of burning flesh more rancid than the fish in the market had ever been. The last thing she saw before the pain took her was the back of Edlyn's head. Her sister walking away from her. This was what she deserved. It wasn't over, though; the end was just beginning.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Sibba
Evenon blinked up at Sibba, a wrinkle between his furrowed brows. He was so pale and gaunt that the scar on his cheek, the one her mother had given him, seemed to glow a vicious, unnatural pink. Days had passed, but Sibba hadn't let Tola heal him. The wound the boar had given him in his abdomen was festering, filling the house with the sharp stink of rotting meat.
“He'll be dead in days,” Tola had said, trying to appeal to Sibba's better nature, the thing that she was doing her best to hide.
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