The Unbound Empire

by Melissa Caruso

  “Jerith,” I said heavily, forcing the name out from the sucking black despair in my chest. “He’s raising a storm to destroy the Serene City.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Raverra had stood for hundreds of years, built first on a clutch of tiny islands in a sheltered lagoon, then expanded beyond and between those islands by brilliant engineers: a miracle city of solid stone built upon the water. But none of us who lived there had any illusions that the sea we lived upon was tame. When bad storms came, parts of the city washed inches deep in murky water, and fine lords and ladies wore shoes with great blocky heels and toes to keep them up above it, like circus performers on miniature stilts. The marks of a great flood from my grandparents’ day, and from an even greater flood over a hundred years ago, still stained the walls of some buildings; the Temple of Wisdom called out the high-water marks with lines of golden embellishment and a solemn stone plaque commemorating the disasters.

  But the Serene City had been sheltered from those storms by the barrier islands that protected the lagoon. Jerith could create a hurricane right over the Mews and unleash forces of destruction upon Raverra such as the Tranquil Sea had never seen.

  He could drown my city, wash it away, and rain down lightning like the vengeance of demons on anything that remained. And standing on the tower top, he was outside the wards; the sleep enchantment wouldn’t touch him, even if we could trigger it.

  “Sweet Hell of Death,” Zaira breathed.

  “How long will it take him to raise the storm?” I asked, clutching the wall as if the Mews itself could slip away beneath my fingers if I didn’t hold on to it.

  “That depends on how much he wants to build it up before he lets it go,” Marcello replied grimly. “If he only wants to flood Raverra, a quarter of an hour might be enough. If he wants to obliterate it completely… I don’t know.”

  “I doubt Ruven would order him to stop at a mere flood.” I gripped the claws around my neck, trying not to think of all the people I loved who were in that city right now.

  “It’s a gamble,” Istrella said.

  “What do you mean?” Marcello asked, turning to her from the window. He’d made the mistake of ignoring Istrella’s odd statements once; I could see the determination in his eyes never to do it again.

  Istrella cocked her head. “When I was under Ruven’s control, he would want me to do something, and I wouldn’t have a choice. I had to do it, sure as I needed to breathe. But how I did it was up to me, so long as I truly thought it would work.”

  “That’s right.” Terika snapped her fingers. “You have to do your best, but if there are multiple ways that would work, you have a choice how to do it.”

  “So Jerith has to decide whether to release his storm early, and hope the city survives, or keep building it up to the point where the destruction will be absolute, and hope someone stops him before he can let it go.” I bit a knuckle. I couldn’t imagine the desperate courage it took to roll those dice.

  “He’ll keep building it up,” Zaira said, her voice rough. “I know Jerith. He’ll take the long chance.”

  For an interminable moment, we stared out the window at the thin, wind-whipped figure. The clouds thickened as we watched, beginning a ponderous swirl over his head.

  “Can you…” The words jammed in my throat. I could only force them out in a hoarse whisper. “Could you make the shot from here, Marcello? If you had to?”

  Zaira’s fingers dug into my shoulder, sharp and merciless. “Oh, Hells, no. We’re not going to do that.” She glared at Marcello. “You try it and I’ll break your other arm. No killing friends. You don’t do that.”

  I’d done it. Shame flooded me like the foulest canal water, dark with pollution.

  I’d lost count of the nights I’d lain awake telling myself that it was what Roland would have wanted, and that he’d have given his life gladly and without hesitation to save countless others, had the choice been his. But it hadn’t been. I was the one who carefully and deliberately traced the rune that killed him, in the blood we shared. And I knew that it made me a monster. But it still hurt like the touch of balefire to hear Zaira say as much.

  I doubted Jerith would rather we spared him if it meant letting him sink Raverra and the tens of thousands of people living there beneath the waves. But the cold, logical argument proofing out the mathematics of human lives failed in my throat. I knew too well it was a demon’s bargain.

  “We don’t dare chance it, anyway,” Marcello said. Strain and worry carved deep, troubled lines into his brow. “If we attack Jerith, he’ll strike us down instantly with lightning. Right now we may be the only chance Raverra has, and we can’t throw our lives away trying to shoot him when he can kill us fast as blinking if we miss. We’ll have to get close and use Terika’s sleep potion.”

  Zaira’s hand relaxed on my shoulder. It occurred to me that if shooting him wouldn’t work, our best fallback option was balefire—if Zaira could be convinced to use it.

  What in the Nine Hells is wrong with me? Here I was, clinically planning how to get one friend to kill another if circumstances demanded it. I shook my head as if I could clear the dark thoughts from it like cobwebs. My mother had said to choose which lines I wouldn’t cross, and that surely must be one of them.

  “The courier lamp room is on the way to the watchtower,” I said, trying not to show how much my own thoughts had rattled me. “Let’s go.”

  As we crept through the dark corridor, Zaira fell back by my side. “I can’t believe you wanted to shoot Jerith,” she muttered.

  “I didn’t want to,” I said softly.

  “But you were ready to do it.”

  Yes. I was. Because sometimes, that was what needed to be done, and the integrity of my own soul was a currency I had to be willing to spend when the survival of the Serene City was at stake. But that wasn’t an argument I was ready to have with Zaira. Not now, with all of our nerves sharp as blade’s edges in the hostile darkness.

  “What would you want me to do, if you were under Ruven’s control and about to destroy the city with balefire?” I asked instead.

  “Not assume I wanted to be shot without asking me first!”

  “That’s what I’m doing now.”

  We passed another window, and in the narrow rectangle of orange-rimmed light it cast across the corridor, I caught her dark eyes. Pain flickered across her face; she was all too familiar with the potential for her power to hurt people she cared about.

  Then we were in shadow again, her face hidden. “That’s easy,” she said, sounding confident as always. “I’d want you to kill Ruven.”

  “But if there wasn’t time—”

  “You really need to make this night more depressing than it already is, don’t you?” Zaira snapped. “Of course I don’t want to murder thousands of people. But I’m going to have to do that soon enough anyway, when they send us against Ruven’s army, so I’d be a damned liar if I said I’d rather die than do it, wouldn’t I?”

  Terika dropped back to join us, and squeezed Zaira’s hand. “Shh,” she whispered. “Someone will hear you.”

  “Then they’ll be sorry they did,” Zaira grumbled.

  “Do you want me to release you?” I asked uncertainly.

  “Hells, no. Not unless Ruven shows up in person. There are dozens of little brats like Aleki in this place. I’m not letting balefire loose in here.” She let out a frustrated sigh. “Unless we need a lock picked, I’m useless.”

  We came at last to the stairwell that led up to the courier lamp room, which was housed in a wide, squat tower. We’d heard two more scuffles through the windows, both ending in some poor holdout getting caught and dragged off to the dining hall to be force-fed Ruven’s potion. The wind had picked up to a constant keening, but we’d seen no one on the fourth floor. It would seem too easy if I didn’t know that the controlled Falcons and Falconers and soldiers were trying as hard as they could not to catch people.

  Still, I was surprised at first t
o find no guards at the entrance to the courier lamp tower. Communications were too important to leave unsecured. But then I noticed the artifice seal on the door, and the bubble of suspicion rising within me burst into a murky rain of despair.

  Zaira looked at me hopefully. “This is the part where you make some clever scribbles on the circle and unlock the door, right?”

  I shook my head, eyeing the perfectly executed seal. The artificer had left no room to tweak the spell away from its intended purpose. “This is good work, from a Mews-trained artificer. I don’t see any gaps or mistakes I can work with.”

  “We’ll just have to cancel it, then,” Istrella said brightly. She was already rummaging in her satchel of artifice project bits. “I learned this in advanced artifice training last month. It’ll take me a little while to inscribe the counter seal around it, so try not to interrupt me. If I drop the magical energy at the wrong moment, there could be explosions!”

  She sounded far too cheerful at the idea. The rest of us exchanged glances and took a few generous steps back to give her room.

  Istrella pulled out special artificer’s paint with ground-in obsidian and started sketching a larger circle around the seal, humming to herself as she daubed on runes. I watched her work with a twinge of envy; it was impossible to study magical theory for years and not wish you could do it yourself.

  She wasn’t even halfway through when Zaira sucked in a sharp breath. “Visitors,” she hissed.

  I whirled from watching Istrella to face the corridor, even as Marcello drew his sword and Terika slipped her hand into her belt purse, their faces grim.

  A handful of people approached, a dim collection of figures in the dark hallway, moving with wary tension. As they stepped beside a window, the patch of orange-edged light revealed the red and gold uniforms of Falcons and Falconers. Most of them looked vaguely familiar, but I recognized the elegant young man at the forefront immediately: Lamonte Clare, an artificer we’d rescued from Ruven’s castle not long ago. He’d chosen to come back to the Mews, staking his chances of freedom on my Falcon reform act when he could have fled into Vaskandar. It twisted my chest painfully to see him here, under Ruven’s control once more, on the very day he should have finally been free.

  Lamonte hesitated, his assessing glance moving from Marcello’s drawn sword to Istrella, who hummed softly as she continued to work on her circle, before lighting on me.

  “Hello, Lamonte,” Marcello said.

  “Evening, Captain Verdi. I’d wish you a good one, but it’s too late for that.” Lamonte grimaced and drew a rod twined in beaded wire from his belt. “I don’t suppose you’d all like to come with me peacefully for a nice drink?”

  “Not if it’s got Ruven’s potion in it, I’m afraid.” Marcello’s voice had gone high and strained, and his sword tip wavered. Agony was clearly written on his face. These were the very Falcons he’d dedicated his life to protecting; the idea of hurting them was anathema to him. But all he had to protect his sister and the Serene City was his rapier and pistol, instruments of less than gentle persuasion. “I don’t want to fight you, Lamonte. I don’t want to fight any of you. There must be some way we can—”

  Something small bounced off Lamonte’s chest, splashing his uniform with liquid, and glass shattered at his feet with a high, tinkling crash. He sucked in a surprised gasp and fell at once, crumpling to the ground like a dropped handkerchief. The Falconer at his side skittered on broken glass and spilled potion, her eyes growing wide, knees beginning to wobble. The man on Lamonte’s other side swayed, his pistol sliding from his hand to clatter on the floor, and sank gracefully to his knees.

  We hurried backward a couple of steps, to get away from the whiff of peppermint, as our last standing opponent swore and did the same.

  “Terika!” Marcello cried in protest. “I was talking to him!”

  “Exactly,” Terika said, without a shred of remorse. “Thanks for the distraction.”

  Lamonte’s remaining companion drew a pistol, anguish twisting her face, crying, “Stop me, quick!”

  I yanked one of Istrella’s rings from my finger and threw it at her, praying to the Graces it would be enough.

  It struck the woman in the shoulder and stuck there like a magnet, runes flaring along the band. She went completely still, the muscles in her face relaxing, as if she’d simply forgotten what she was doing—but her eyes remained alert and intent, crying out silently for help.

  The Falconer who’d fallen to his knees, meanwhile, started to crawl away from the spilled potion, shaking his head to clear it. Just as he scooped up his pistol, Zaira lunged forward and kicked him in the chin, sending him sprawling across Lamonte’s soaked chest. He didn’t rise.

  I stared at the three collapsed forms and the one standing one, my ribs heaving against the boning of my bodice. The wind wailed outside, but nothing stirred in the hallway; no clamor rose up in response to our scuffle.

  Zaira clapped Terika’s shoulder. “Nicely done. You’re right—never underestimate an alchemist.”

  “I don’t think she’s going to be like that forever,” I said, waving uneasily at the Falconer I’d hit with Istrella’s ring. The effect was similar enough to one Istrella had used on me when she was controlled that I had to conclude it operated on the same principles. Terika and Zaira hurried over to take the Falconer’s pistol and haul her into a nearby storeroom, businesslike and efficient as if they disposed of bodies together all the time.

  “There!” Istrella said triumphantly behind me. “Stand back!”

  Marcello and I scampered to give her space. Light flared from the new circle she’d drawn, and the seal within it sizzled, smoking. Istrella nodded with great satisfaction and opened the door.

  Terika held one of her sleep potion vials at the ready as we climbed the stairs; Marcello led the way, his pistol in hand, his mouth set in an unhappy line. He hadn’t had to hurt anyone yet, but our capacity to take people out swiftly and painlessly was diminishing rapidly, and he knew it. Still, the courier lamp room waited at the top of these stairs; one quick message would alert the Imperial Palace of the imminent danger to the city, and our work would be half-done.

  Then we emerged at the top of the stairs into the courier lamp room, and I saw at once why there were no guards on the stairwell door.

  The large, round room normally had the magical, expectant look of a temple, with hundreds of niches rising in rows along the walls, each holding a lamp. Some would flicker like candles, and courier lamp clerks would bend over them as if praying, writing down the messages and signaling back the replies.

  But now there were no clerks, no flickering lights. Every niche was dark.

  The floor lay two inches deep in shattered crystal. Slashed golden wires hung curling from the ceiling, dangling in tangled bunches from the rune-circled window in the center of the dome that funneled the braid of lamp wires up to the sending spire on the roof. Chunks of wood and brass jutted from the crystal shards that blanketed the floor like boot-churned snow, pieces of lamp bases mixed in with the broken hunks of quartz.

  Istrella let out a cry as if we’d found the body of a dear friend and fell to her knees in the doorway, scooping up crystal shards to let them run through her fingers.

  “No!” she wailed. “We worked so hard on these!”

  I had to steady myself against the wall with a shaking hand. This was a staggering loss. Each courier lamp crystal had a twin, many of them hundreds of miles away—hewn from the same rock, magically linked, carefully crafted, and now completely useless. It would take months to replace them all.

  And without them, we had no way to tell the outside world what was happening.

  Marcello squatted beside his sobbing sister, rubbing her back. “Shh, ’Strella. It’s okay. We can make more.”

  “We don’t have time to cry about it,” Zaira said grimly. “This means we can’t count on anyone to clean up after us if we make a mess of this. We have to stop Jerith ourselves.”

  I k
ept my hand on my flare locket as we once again made our way along the fourth-floor corridor. We were quite close to Jerith’s watchtower now, and someone had lit the lamps here. I caught my spine curling, hunching down out of some instinctive urge toward stealth, and straightened at once, forcing my shoulders to relax to a more normal posture.

  Zaira elbowed me. “Finally, you’re learning,” she murmured.

  A sole guard waited at the door to the watchtower stairs. He sucked in a breath to call for help as we approached, lifting a rapier before him. But Marcello charged him before anyone had a chance to react; he dodged past the soldier’s blade and drove a knee into his stomach, knocking the wind out of him. Zaira and Terika piled onto him, and soon they had him down on the ground; one drop of Terika’s precious sleep potion forced past his lips was enough to make him go slack and still.

  “How long does that last?” Zaira asked, worry in her voice.

  “Mine usually lasts an hour, if no one tries to wake them up.” Terika shook her head. “I never thought I’d be using it on the soldiers stationed at the Mews to protect us.”

  Zaira snorted. “Really? I thought about that sort of thing all the time.”

  Marcello bent nearly in half, panting, his face slick with sweat. He looked as if he might faint or throw up, and wasn’t quite sure which. I hurried to his side.

  “This fighting can’t be good for you.” I tentatively laid a hand on his uninjured shoulder; his skin was so hot I could feel it through his shirt, and he flinched from my gentle touch. The pain in his face twisted like a knife in my own side.

  “I’ve felt better,” he admitted, on a hoarse wisp of breath. But then he shivered and forced himself straight. “Let’s go. The wind is picking up.”

  That was an understatement. The wind shrieked outside the windows, tearing the banners from the battlements, and the clouds fled across the sky as if they could escape the nightmare that pulled them inexorably into a spiral above the castle. Shouts of alarm and dismay came from the courtyard below. We were running out of time.