by Bo Burnette
“But you didn’t hide it. You entrusted it to the Anmórians.” She practically choked on her words.
Eamon pressed his palms against the stone. “You have to stop blaming me, hating me for everything I did. I made poor choices. We all do sometimes. I cannot undo them now, but I can make them right.”
A deep sense of realization, of forgiveness, formed in Arliss’s heart. She nodded. And she pressed the crown into its place.
The crown fit as well as any key with its lock. For a shuddering moment, nothing happened.
Then the edges of the wall cracked open. Fragments of stone fell around Arliss’s feet. The rocky door trembled, as if it wanted to fall to pieces.
“Get back!” Eamon dragged her away from the wall just as it flipped over onto the sand with a smack. The whole mountainside seemed to vibrate with the impact.
All three backed up against the waterfall, staring at the gaping hole that now loomed beyond the fallen door. Eamon reached beneath his jerkin. “Hopefully my tinder-box is still dry.”
It was. Philip held the wick of a stubby candle as Eamon struck the flame. The cave grew not so much brighter, but perhaps a bit less dark. Arliss stepped across the fallen stone door and into the mouth of the cave.
Eamon and Philip followed, and the candle cast spells of light across wet, uneven stone. In the exact center of the cave sat a small table, fixed firmly to the stone, so that it had stood still all those years. Arliss motioned for Philip to bring the light closer.
The table was carved out of the cave itself. It had been sculpted out of a rising irregularity in the black rock. On its top, a little indention had been impressed into the stone. And within it sat a vial about the size of Arliss’s fist.
She reached into the table and pulled out the vial. One side was crafted of glass, the other side of shining silver now tarnished. It had no lid, only an unusual spherical indention in the bottom.
That could be a problem. A gift that couldn’t be opened was no gift at all. Hopefully Thane would know how. Hopefully he would accept it.
She passed the vial to Philip, and he passed it to Eamon.
“Well.” She broke the long silence. “We’ve found all there is to find. It’s time for the bargaining.”
As if in response, the mountains above her gave a hideous groan. Rocks started to fall from the ceiling above.
Chapter Thirty-nine: The Storm Begins
ELOWYN LET HER CLOAK STREAM OUT INTO THE wind as she stepped through the city gates and onto the bridge. Kenton’s cloak, too, flapped in the breeze as he hurried around the edge of the city and back toward the gates. Elowyn waited in the middle of the bridge, where snowflakes gathered in her dark hair and in the crevices of her woolen cloak.
Kenton’s breath formed a cold mist as he reached her. “The guards are in position all around the city. Have you readied your parts of the plan?”
She nodded, her bare fingers threading through each other. “Every man in the city is ready to fight under Lord Adam’s command. The young men and the women who can shoot a bow are ready to take to the highest tier, even to the top of the castle tower. Arden, Fiach, and Finín rode out not long ago to take a message to Cladach.”
Kenton passed a hand across his brow. “There are so few of us, even if help does come from these new alliances. And I am not certain of it. This Ríon fellow—he’s a prince of Anmór. Anmór and Reinhold have never had any true friendship, not even in the old stories.”
“There is a time for everything.” Elowyn folded her arms. “And there is also a first time for everything. If Arliss trusts them, I trust them.”
“I trust her as well. I would even almost trust her with the crown.”
“Why only almost?”
“Because she needs a king to rule with her. And I am afraid even a week’s adventures have not patched things up between her and Philip.” He stepped onto the bridge, his heavy footsteps creaking on the wood.
She followed him through the village’s tiers. “It will take more than a series of revelations about the world to shatter Arliss’s walls. She will have to realize how much he needs her and how much she needs him. And those are realizations that are hard to come by.”
Young men and women had assembled in the streets, readying bows and strings and arrows. Lord Adam marched by with a contingent of guards in simple mail beneath linen tabards.
Kenton did not speak again until they stood atop the highest tier. “We need to be on the watch for Arliss and for Thane. Who knows how soon either of them will arrive.”
Elowyn looked into the distant west, then to the mountainous north. The clouds had become thick and dark, snowy white laced with deep gray. Snow and ice sparkled across the plains.
Kenton peered northwards. “The storm is picking up. Let’s pray it does not get heavier.”
The flashes and sparks in the distance had become too crisp and sudden to be flakes of snow or crystals of ice. Elowyn reached for her husband’s arm.
“It is not just a storm. There is an army in that whirlwind.” Elowyn flashed Kenton a desperate gaze. “He’s come sooner than we thought possible. Thane is upon us!”
The mountain was collapsing. The entire world seemed to quake beneath Arliss’s feet as she stumbled through the waterfall, shielding her way through the pelting rain of stones. The vault had lain still for so long, the slightest movement seemed to have gnawed the mountain’s foundation out from under it.
Huge chunks of rock from the craggy mound high above started to crash down into the water, creating waves that flooded the narrow beach. Arliss combed the stone walls for an escape.
Eamon shouted through the ruckus, “We have to get out of here! If anything bigger starts collapsing, it’ll crush us flat as a sword’s blade.”
Arliss jumped onto the quavering stone staircase that bisected the waterfall.
Philip snatched the hood of her cloak and yanked her back. “Arliss—look out!” He grabbed her, pulling her to the ground as they rolled across the beach. One of the upper steps dislodged and thudded into the sand where Arliss had just been climbing. The other steps started to crack and slide out of place.
Eamon’s beard was dripping as he pointed across the lake. It was shallow enough along the edge that they could cross without completely submerging. “Swim—we have to wade through the water! It’s the only way!”
“Swim where?” Arliss cried through the deluge of water and stone.
“The pass in the north—remember?” Philip said.
Of course she remembered. That secret pass through the mountains—steep as it was—would be ideal for getting back to Reinhold as fast as possible. Especially since they weren’t getting back up through Thane’s ruins anytime in the next few months.
A chilly pang of regret ran up her spine. “What about the horses? Kirras?”
Eamon shook his head. “If they aren’t crushed by whatever may be falling above us, they’ve probably already bolted. I am afraid there is nothing we can do for them.”
Arliss drank a deep breath and closed her eyes.
Then she stepped into the water and let the icy ripples encase her.
Ilayda’s head pounded from the rattle of whatever vehicle she had been transferred to. She didn’t know—she’d been blindfolded for the whole ordeal—and she may as well have been blindfolded still. The vague light that glinted in from the lone window was gray and cold. Worst of all, she was alone. Brallaghan and Brédan must have been put into a separate cart.
They were in Reinhold. They had to be. Ilayda didn’t know her geography well enough to plot their journey’s course or their current location, but she knew by the rush of wheels below and wild, cold air that Thane was carting them back to Reinhold.
For what? To slaughter them as a warning—a display? Or to bargain?
Arliss would give anything for her. But what did she have to give? There was nothing.
The carriage—or chariot—or whatever it was—kept speeding along, but suddenly the back do
or swung open. Ilayda flinched. Who could open the door while they moved along at such a speed?
Someone cloaked in green darted inside the compartment and slammed the door back in place. Ilayda suspected there was only one spy who could enter the back of a moving war cart, but he never wore green.
She strained against her shackles for the hundredth time. “What are you doing here?”
The voice that spoke was not Orlando’s. It was a voice that made Ilayda want to laugh and cry all at once. “I am here to rescue you.”
“Erik,” she gasped. “I thought that—“
“Stow it,” he whispered fiercely. “Someone’ll hear you. We have to keep down until we get there.”
“Get where?”
“The city, of course.”
“Why are we going to the city?”
Erik settled onto the floor. “Because Thane is going to battle against the clan of Reinhold.”
Ilayda’s eyes narrowed in the dark. “And what are we going to do?”
“We’re going to fight.”
Chapter Forty: Into the Fire
ARLISS SCRAMBLED TO THE TOP OF THE HILL, dodging a boulder that obstructed her path. Sheer mountain faces crowded either side of the pass, creating an area hardly wide enough for two to stride abreast.
Philip and Eamon hurried behind her, the combination of their broad shoulders practically scraping the mountain walls as they ran.
The ground suddenly fell away in a steep decline before her feet. She braced herself on a jutting rock, leaning back.
“Stop!” she yelled behind her. “The path stops here! It falls!”
Eamon and Philip skidded to a stop and avoided knocking her into the snowbanked decline. She stared down at the hundreds of feet that sloped down beneath a thick blanket of snow. Her breath misted down and became one with the snowfall.
Descending this pass would prove the most treacherous of their trek thus far—barring the avalanche of rocks in the oasis, of course. Arliss could feel the bruise on her forehead where one rock had hit her as she swam.
Eamon pointed. “We have to get down there, some way or another.”
Philip shrugged. “Just run and hope we don’t hit anything on the way.”
Arliss shook her head, but Philip’s plan was already fading into her subconscious. Her gaze was fixed on flashes that dotted the southwestern horizon. She squinted through the insistent wash of snow, but the flurry insisted on obscuring her vision.
Philip must have noticed her studying the horizon. He placed a hand on her shoulder, and she made no move to shove it aside. “What do you see?”
Arliss exhaled. “Fire.”
Elowyn stumbled up the city’s tiers. Torches had been lit in the waning light, and they matched the flickers of light that signaled Thane’s approach. The city had been thrown into the chaos of battle. Archers shouted for bowstrings and arrows. Children shrieked for their mothers.
Elowyn almost collided with the seamstress, Fidelma, as she burst from the doors of her shop.
“Good gracious me!” Fidelma said. “Has the attack begun so soon?”
“Yes, it has. Every strong, able-bodied man is going to fight. The younger men and women have been called to shoot from the upper tiers. Only the elderly and the children can be spared.”
Fidelma’s jaw hardened, and she tightened her handkerchief around her golden curls. “Leave them to me. Shall I gather them into the great hall?”
Elowyn hesitated. “The castle is the most prominent place in the city. If Thane has any weapons of distance—”
“It would not be safe.” Fidelma nodded. “The Bronze Lion, then. It’s on the opposite side of the city from the battle, and it’s quite a big place.”
“That will do. And if the entire city seems to be endangered, have the people evacuate completely. Make for the forest.” Elowyn started up the hill. “Thank you!”
“Where are you going?” Fidelma shouted after the queen.
Elowyn kept running. “There are other things in Reinhold that need saving.”
She rounded the curve up to the third tier, and was reminded of a night thirteen years ago which had been much like this one. That night on the isle had felt just this way. She had run through fire, through distressed villagers, on a mission to save one thing: her daughter, and her people’s history. Her daughter was not here this time, so she could not save her.
She could, however, save the books.
Philip forced himself to take steady breaths. Fire around the city could mean many things. Yet this fire was no ordinary torchlight. This fire meant war.
“We have to get down there, now.” He unstrapped the shield from his back, his fingers working quickly. Eamon’s medicines had quieted the pain in his shoulder, but it still felt like it was on fire. “But we’ll never make it in time to parley with Thane. Those flames must be coming from his army’s advance.”
“I fear you are right,” Eamon said. “And right on both accounts: we shall never make it in time. Not without our horses.”
“One of us might,” Philip said.
“What?” Arliss asked.
Philip held out the shield. It shone in the rain of snowflakes. “You could take the crown and the vial, at least, and get to the city. We will follow as quickly as we can.”
He eyebrows scrunched lower, but realization started to flicker across her face. “You mean…”
Eamon spoke through clenched teeth. “You can’t do this. It is madness.”
“It’s the only way.” Philip kept his voice level and confident.
Arliss pulled her bow from around her torso. “I’ll do it. I will.”
Eamon shook his head. “Philip, Arliss…”
Philip stared hard at Eamon. “We have to take this gamble. It may be the only way to protect the city and save Ilayda and Brallaghan’s life.”
“And Lord Brédan’s,” Arliss added. “Come, let me go.”
“Very well,” Eamon said.
Philip’s arms trembled from cold and the adrenaline coursing through them as he steadied the shield facedown on the snow. Arliss mounted it gingerly. She pulled her feet and cloak into the wide circle of metal and held her bow out in front of her.
Philip hesitated. “Be careful. It’ll be a bumpy ride.”
She wielded the unstrung bow in front of her. “I will manage. I think.”
He forced a grin. Then his smile softened. “Do you trust me?”
She held his eyes for a long, breathless moment. “Yes.”
He released the shield.
Arliss slid away from him, down the snow, faster and faster until she was far out of sight.
Chapter Forty-one: The Carven Throne
ARLISS WAS MOVING TOO FAST FOR THOUGHTS OR words. The hillside sloped away before her as the mountains thinned out into nothing. She clenched her stomach to balance atop the rushing shield. One wrong move, a slight shift of her weight, and her entire balance would be thrown off. She could be hurled to her death in the ice and stone.
Wasn’t she being hurled to her death, anyway? If Thane had already attacked—or even if he was preparing to attack—she was almost certainly walking right into death’s realm.
But the thought did not faze her. Her mind felt too numb from the day’s journey through constant cold. Death seemed somehow a distant friend—one to be laughed at, not feared.
The wind seemed to blow straight through her. Her wet clothes felt like they were freezing stiff—encasing her in ice.
Numb, raw cold snaked through her body. She shuddered. She had to make it to the light. To the fire.
The shield scraped beneath her, and its speed began to stutter across a smattering of stones. The hillside leveled out into the plains beneath her. She tapped the tip of her bow to the snow.
The shield swung around, nearly knocking her off her metal mount. She kept the bow out straight and dug her other hand into the icy powder. It turned her fingers to throbbing rocks, but she managed to drag herself to a crunching
halt.
The shield would be too much of an encumbrance from here on. It had served its purpose.
She stood and ran towards the light.
The fire was near enough Arliss thought she could actually feel the heat of the flames. She couldn’t, of course, but she could see them well enough. And even in the torchlit dusk, she could see clearly the force that had amassed on the far side of the city.
Thane had brought Anmór to Reinhold.
Dozens of chariots, much like the one Merna had ridden, bracketed the front lines. Some dragged cargo carts; others pulled catapults and crueler weapons. Behind them, rank upon rank of Anmórian guards were flanked on either side by a significant cavalry.
Arliss’s chest constricted around her lungs. Subtlety had never been Thane’s strong suit, and nothing much had changed. He was assailing them full-on from the west, not even bothering to make a perimeter around the castle. That could mean either he had grown terribly proud of his own military skills or he had another plan up his jerkin. She suspected both were true.
“Let the battle not have begun,” Arliss murmured. “Let me not be too late.” She could feel the crown and vial in her satchel, pressing against her side as she ran.
She reached her numb fingers into the bodice of her dress and pulled out her bowstring—still miraculously dry—and hooked it over the top of her bow as she ran towards the city. The snow had fallen less evenly here, and some outcroppings of the flaxen plains poked through into the darkness. She counted the number of arrows in her quiver: fifteen, as many as the container could possibly hold.
She might need every one of them, before the end.
The city reached Arliss before she reached it. Reinholdian citizens swarmed across the bridge, making for the forest with a vague sense of order. The only thing that kept the crowd from seeming chaotic was the complete lack of shouts and screams.
Arliss clasped her bow and hurried into the crowd of her people. She saw familiar faces all around her, but no one even seemed to notice her. She had become one of the crowd. They all jostled past her, dragging sacks and chests and whatever else. Arliss’s heart sank. Was the city already under siege?