by K A Dowling
A Cairan, James muses, his mind churning at an impossible rate.
“I’m sorry to bother you, General,” Peterson says formally. He draws himself up to his full height in a poor effort to appear imposing. “I can see you are not well, but we are in need of your assistance.”
James glances down at himself, and realizes he has forgotten to put his shirt back on. He stands before them in his trousers and boots, with his midriff bound tightly in sticking gauze. His shoulders are bare, save for the angry red stripes that peak out from the dressing. When he looks back up at the strange pair on his doorstep, Peterson is speaking again. The words fall from his lips too fast—he is nervous.
“I know it is late, but if we could encroach on your hospitality for just a few hours, we would be very thankful.”
James feels one eyebrow inching upwards on his forehead. Again, he says nothing.
Peterson frowns at him, perturbed both at his continued silence and at his compromising appearance. “Actually,” he sniffs. “I order you to give us use of your quarters.”
The delivery is uncertain, but his emerald green eyes flash with a resolve that makes James grimace. “Fine,” he says at last. “Come in, please.”
He moves aside, careful not to let the pain show in his face, and watches as the two-cloaked figures hurry into his apartment. Only once he has closed and locked the door behind him does he round on the prince.
“Your Highness,” he begins, searching for the proper words. “If I may ask, have you lost your mind?”
Peterson frowns, clearly insulted. “I assure you I haven’t, General.”
“Ah,” James breathes, easing himself into the chair at his desk. The candle at his back flickers wildly, sending the shadows dancing across the room. “Yes, the crown prince sneaks out of the palace unattended to traipse across the city with a Cairan girl. I agree, you’re quite in your right mind.”
“I am, and I don’t appreciate the mockery.”
James grimaces. “I apologize, your Highness. It’s only that it’s dangerous to wander out in the city without an escort.”
“Why?” The prince asks, his voice as sharp as a blade. “Because of the Cairans?”
James’s gaze slides to the young girl at his side. She is watching him with unabashed curiosity, her wide blue eyes glimmering like sapphires in the flickering light. She looks, to him, like a grazing fawn that has suddenly become aware of a hunter in her midst. Something tightens around his heart and he fidgets restlessly upon his chair.
“You remind me of someone,” he says to the girl.
She removes her hood, allowing the warmth of the candle to wash over her tawny hair. When she speaks, her voice is surprisingly self-assured. “I told Peterson you would help us.”
That surprises him. “Why would you think that?” he asks, his brows furrowing.
“Because you protected the Elegant,” she says, as though it were obvious.
James considers this, keeping his face stony. How can she possibly know that?
“Are you in love with her?” the girl asks. The question catches him off guard. He meets the girl’s gaze and finds her peering back at him with brazen interest. “I think you are,” she says, not waiting for him to continue. Her words are clipped with the dreamy excitement of a child. He frowns at the glaring face of her innocence. “I told Peterson that’s why the king had you whipped.”
He can feel the young prince ogling the angry lashes that curl across the width of his shoulders. The skin of his stomach itches beneath the tightly wound dressing. He presses the palms of his hands firmly against his knees, steeling himself against the pain that threatens to consume him.
“Let’s say for a moment that your assumption is correct, why would I offer you my protection as well?”
The girl’s smile falters only slightly. Those doe-eyes remain flooded with determination.
It is Peterson who speaks next, his words tart with pride. “We’re not here for your protection,” he says curtly. “We need directions.”
“Directions?” James repeats, bemused.
“Yes, I’m bringing her back to the Forbidden City.”
At that, James lets out a laugh. The force of the sound causes his muscles to contract painfully within him. Peterson’s frown deepens, the lines of his mouth pointing downward as he glares at the general from beneath his hood.
“It’s hardly funny, James” he retorts darkly, all traces of formality falling away. “You know as well as I what happens to Cairans found in the streets of Chancey. She’s only a child.”
James’s laughter subsides. The muscles in his cheeks ache from lack of use. “She is,” he agrees. “But so are you. The palace will be in an uproar by morning when your nurses find out you’ve gone missing. You’ve only ventured outside the palace walls a handful of times, and then with an armed escort. If you think you can outrun your father’s Golden Guard, you are a fool.”
The boy prince stares back at him in silence. He continues.
“What do you think your father will do, Peter, when he finds you in the company of a gypsy? Do you think, for a moment, he’ll believe you left of your own free will? Or do you think he’ll have the girl condemned to death for bewitching you and stealing you away?” He grimaces, leaning forward. The skin on his back screams in protest as it stretches beneath the gauze. Cold realization is dawning across the boy’s face as the bravado of his plan fades away.
“You know as well as I the dark things your father fears the most. He’ll make a spectacle of the girl. He’ll string her up before the entire island and set her ablaze, and it will be your fault.” He clears his throat, glancing toward the open window. The blue moon has cast an eerie radiance across the choppy surface of the ocean below. “Your plan isn’t brave, Peter. It’s foolish. Its a child’s plan, a game for boys, but this—this is not a game we’re playing.”
“I—” Peterson begins, but James cuts him off, rising to his feet.
“Do you know the danger you’ve put me in, bringing her here?” James demands. “You could have been followed.” He walks to the window, relishing in the cool breeze that wafts across his exposed skin. The familiar smell of salt tickles the inside of his nose. He leans out, scanning the blackness of the narrow street below.
“I wasn’t,” Peterson argues.
“Do you know that for sure?” A nagging itch prickles the base of James’s spine as the night stares back at him in silence.
“No,” comes Peterson’s reply. The boy’s voice is despondent—drained of the guileless swagger that had saturated his words when he first arrived. He is reduced to a whisper, there in the flickering dark of James’s quarters. James feels his shoulders slump slightly; giving way beneath the newest burden he now carries. He sighs, an audible grumble of exhaustion bursting forth from his chest.
“I’ll bring her back,” he says at last. He turns to face the cloaked pair that idles in the shadows before him. The girl watches him, unblinking. Her face is the picture of composure. “I don’t know where the Forbidden City is, but if I bring you safely back to the forest, can you find it on your own?”
She nods slowly, her chin rising and falling as she considers this. “I have the tools to navigate back safely,” she explains, patting a small pouch that sits at her waist. “The Elegant left them behind with me when she was arrested.”
“Good,” James says, his mind spinning. The pain is edging into the corners of his eyes, bidding him to sleep. Not yet, he wills himself silently. “I’ll return Prince Peterson to the palace immediately.”
“I’m coming with you,” the prince asserts.
“You’re not,” James disagrees. “If I’m caught with the girl, I can at least try to use my rank to our advantage.” He hesitates. “If you’re in our company, we may as well both be sentenced to death.”
The stinging wounds on his back serve as a painful reminder.
Do not fail me again.
He thinks of Anderson’s sneer hovering at the ed
ge of his cot. This is the push the man needs—this is the one misstep that it will take to bring him down. He cannot afford to make any more mistakes. He pulls the windows closed, the whistling wind curling around the wooden frame and rattling the glass panes. He feels blindly for the brass casement, turning the handle so that the frames click into a locked position. Drawing the curtains, he casts the room into still deeper darkness.
“The girl will wait for me here while I bring you back. I’ll tell the Guardians on duty that I found you wandering the streets alone. You will confirm my story, and tell them that you snuck out of your own accord.”
“Why would I have done that?”
James shrugs indifferently. “Boredom,” he suggests. “Rebellion. A driving need for attention. I’m certain you can think of something.”
Peterson shoots him an incredulous look. “My father will have my head,” he snaps, his brows drawing together.
“Figuratively, yes,” James agrees. “You’ll be in quite a good amount of trouble, I’d imagine.”
Peterson scowls. “If I snuck out, which I did, I can just as easily sneak back in.”
James draws nearer to him, the candlelight catching in the pitted white of his dressing. The open wounds that snake across his skin are angry and red, the dried blood glistening black in the shadows. He recalls, suddenly, something his father told him once when he was a boy.
“Do you want to be brave, Peterson? What you’re doing here, sneaking around with a Cairan, it isn’t brave. It isn’t admirable. Bravery isn’t doing something risky and managing to get away with it. That’s fool’s luck.” He chuckles dryly. “No, courage is seeing adversity in your path and choosing to face it head on.”
Before him, the young prince is silent.
“So we will go back to your father, and you will tell him what you did. You will lie only where necessary, and you will take the full punishment for your actions. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” the boy says, meaning it. The light in his green eyes extinguishes. He stares baldly at the angry lines of red that peer out of the top of the gauze and his skin pales. “What of the Rose?” He gestures weakly to the girl at his side. She has withdrawn beyond the reach of the candle’s throw, her bare feet scuffing uncomfortably at the cool floor underfoot.
“She’ll be safe here,” James promises.
“That’s not what I mean,” Peterson’s eyes shoot upwards to meet his, the dark green gaze lined with sudden defiance.
“She’ll be protected with me,” James says, understanding his meaning. “You have my word. As soon as you’re back within the walls of the palace I will see the Rose safely returned to her Forbidden City.”
“We can trust him,” comes a quiet voice from the girl behind them. She stops scuffling the balls of her feet against the floor, resting instead on the tips of her toes. Her eyes twinkle as she smiles warmly at James. “You’ll do it, won’t you? Keep your promise to him?” She edges forward, her eyes on his throbbing wounds. “If not for me, for Nerani the Elegant.”
“For Nerani,” he agrees, and knows that he means it.
As the prince and his Cairan say their goodbyes, James Byron sets to slowly dressing, the pain in his back slowly ebbing as he thinks of seeing Nerani the Elegant again.
A fool’s mission, a voice within him says. He pushes it away, ignoring it—extinguishing it as best as he can. Still the voice persists, admonishing him with every beat of his heart, every throb of his pulse.
An act of treason.
A fatal mistake.
A death sentence.
There are no other options. Not for him. Not anymore.
CHAPTER 35
Caira
Light falls down around Alexander in broken clusters of gold. He squares his shoulders against the tickling heat that smolders upon his exposed skin. The rustling world around him is saturated with dank olive hues. Moss sprouts up over every rock and rotting stump like a blanket. He steps out of a swath of grass cut by the swinging blade of his cutlass, careful to keep his eyes trained upon the stifling undergrowth. Only a few moments ago he had nearly stepped upon a coiled snake. The reptile was quickly beheaded before it could snap its unhinged jaws shut. Alexander isn’t eager for another close call.
He chops away at the undergrowth, relishing in the sharp ringing of the steel blade as it sunders the tangled grass before him. He doesn’t need the map to know where he’s going. The sun has already begun its dreary descent to the west. He can feel the sweltering glare dancing in shades of orange upon his back. He closes his eyes and pictures the map. East, it said. Go East into the lion’s den. He can see the blood red markings—curling words scrawled painstakingly in the dead language—burned behind his eyelids whenever he blinks. He knows that as long as he keeps the sun behind him he will find the place where Tyde resides, deep within the jungles of Caira.
He lives in the long shadow of the sun. Ha’Rai’s voice slithers again through his mind. He makes his home in a world of riddles and darkness.
Alexander pauses amid a cluster of ferns that droop toward the forest floor. A bead of sweat makes its slow way down the curvature of his nose. He ignores it, leaning against one of the thin, branchless trees that climb up to the sky. He tilts his head back and lets his eyes travel up, up the trunk, all the way to where the top bursts outward in an explosion of vivid green leaves.
Almost indiscernible among the brittle, topmost branches of the trees are the shuffling black outlines of birds. He swallows, averting his gaze. That creeping feeling of discomfort is back. Of course they are being watched.
In his brief respite, thoughts of Emerala creep into his mind. Unable to push them away, he allows himself a moment to wonder where she is. Who is the architect? He frowns at a beetle that lands with a clicking flutter on his sleeve. And why are they taking her to him?
He knows that she will be safe in the company of Lachlan—the old pirate is a formidable enemy, and he has no doubt that Melena recognized the infamous murderer the moment she laid eyes on him. Still, he can’t help the feeling of unease that creeps within him each time he thinks of the growing distance between them. It is dangerous enough paying a visit to Tyde without having to formulate a potential rescue plan for Emerala and the Lethal as well.
Quiet footfalls rush through underbrush as the Hawk breaks through the tangled grass and emerges into the clearing.
“Took you long enough.” Alexander pushes himself upright from the tree. It is all he can do to mask the irritation in his voice. They are so close to the end—closer than they have ever been. As deceptive as the Hawk has been—as much information as he has withheld—Alexander may have need of him yet.
That is the only reason the pirate is still alive.
The sharp golden eyes before him glimmer in the refracted flares of orange sunlight. The Hawk takes a few steps closer, wiping the dripping sweat from his forehead with the back of his sleeve.
“You took off hurtling through the woods. I didn’t realize when you said, ‘make haste’, you really meant throw one’s self like a madman into certain death. You’ve no idea what might be lurking in this jungle.”
“We have to be quick. The sun is setting.”
“Nothing quick about seeing Tyde.”
“You know him.” It is not a question.
“No,” the Hawk says, shaking his head. “Haven’t met him.”
The brusqueness of his tone only serves to further irritate Alexander. He plucks at his shirt; the sweat lined cotton growing clammy beneath the breeze, and momentarily sheaths his cutlass.
“You don’t know Tyde, perhaps, but you know a great deal that I don’t know.”
The Hawk purses his lips, his gaze hard. “I’ve told you everything I know.”
“In bits and pieces, yes.”
“Aye? What are you suggesting?”
“Nothing,” Alexander shrugs. “I’m merely giving you yet another chance to be honest with me. We’re in this together, after all. Isn’t that wha
t you told me? We’re allies?” His words are clipped. Terse—the look on his face is a scarcely subdued warning. The Hawk blinks and turns from him wordlessly, heading off into the shaded jungle.
“Time’s wasting, Cap’n,” he calls over his shoulder. “Sun is setting.”
“Why did you have me bring Emerala?” Alexander asks. The pirate stops, stiffening. His white shirt sticks to the skin between his shoulder blades. He is silent, gripping his cutlass tightly within his fist.
“Back in Chancey, you told me that we needed her,” Alexander continues. “You swore to me that she was the key to my father’s journey and that we’d be unwise to leave without her.”
The hazy afternoon light dyes the Hawk’s profile orange. The pointed bridge of his nose turns to copper as he tilts his head in Alexander’s direction.
“I know what I said.”
“Well, then, why? What use has she been to us? So far, she’s done nothing but get herself into dangerous predicaments. Here we are, at the end, and she’s been of no use.”
A slight smirk curls at the corners of the Hawk’s lips. “I wouldn’t say that.”
The sound barely reaches Alexander’s ears over the rustle of the leafy world around them. He feels something malicious coiling in his gut as his skin prickles with sudden, unwanted envy. He thinks of how the Hawk demanded Emerala stay with them back on the beach—how he fought to keep the girl under his watchful eye wherever they went, regardless of the consequences.
Up ahead, the Hawk has resumed walking. His figure is enshrouded in shadow as he glides under the cover of the curling ferns.
“Do you fancy her?” Alexander calls. “Is that why you wanted so badly to bring her onboard?”
The Hawk gives no response, only slinks further into the impenetrable gloom of the jungle.
Alexander stands still for a moment, feeling foolish. His feet press hard into the spongy undergrowth. He groans, unsheathing his cutlass and heading off after the pirate.
He tries to turn his mind back to the map, turning over and over the question inscribed in red.