“What will you do?”
“Do not be alarmed; I will not challenge him.”
“Should we tell them the truth, that she’s a natural wizard, or would that make it worse?”
Pursing his lips, he looked across the treetops. “Worse, I expect.”
“Then we have to help her escape. She can stay with the Caldera tribe.”
He nodded, his eyes on the forest. His expression became resolute. “Let us return, madam. I wish to see her.”
The trees folded away beneath them, and Vic reminded herself again that Bethniel was in no immediate danger as long as Nelchior was kept away from her, but she was haunted by the sneering, leering looks the wizard cast her sister. The sun full over the horizon, they passed over the moat and settled next to Grunnaire’s pavilion.
Her steward emerged and saluted. “The prisoner is inside.”
Prisoner. Vic swallowed bile as they followed him through fabric hallways to a central chamber. Bethniel sat on a camp chair in an otherwise empty room. Grunnaire stared at her, arms crossed. “Do not disturb her,” the wizard warned them, speaking silently.
Eyes closed, hands palm down on her thighs, the princess sat still as a statue. “What is she doing?” Vic whispered in mindspeech.
“Nothing,” Thabean replied. “She is being held this way, but it is easy to break the spell. We wish to speak with her, Grunnaire.”
“Saelbeneth forbade that she be disturbed.”
“I will take responsibility. You may put her in my custody and rest yourself, if you wish.”
“I may not.”
Thabean's face remained impassive, as if Grunnaire’s refusals meant nothing to him. He signaled Vic to follow. “We should see Saelbeneth.”
In the air, Vic said, “I can get her out of there. I can do it right now, and we can take refuge with the Caldera tribe.”
“No, madam. It is better you should wait until nightfall.”
“Will we have that long?”
“Let us speak with Saelbeneth.”
The Council leader received them in her parlor, where she breakfasted on tea and biscuits. At the sight of the food, Vic’s stomach yawned. Head spinning, she sank into a chair.
“Victoria, you look likely to faint. Eat something.”
Thanking her, Vic took a biscuit and stuffed it in her mouth. Thabean stared as if she’d gone mad. A hand on her belly, she swallowed—a warrior ate when she could, and when they left this tent, she would have no time for feeding.
“We wish to speak to Lady Bethniel,” Thabean said.
“I cannot allow that until after she is tried.”
“If she has power, she could help us,” Vic said round another biscuit.
“She has power, but we have already set aside the law for you. If we do so again, for someone untrained in war, we open the door for every clerk, washerwoman, and soldier in this camp to take the Elixir. In a week’s time we would be back to the chaos we knew before the days of the Purge.”
“But you know she did not take the Elixir.”
“I cannot say before open Council what I knew or did not know.”
“But how can you allow me to live and not her?”
“You are still in custody, madam. Thabean is responsible for you.”
“I would take responsibility for Bethniel as well.”
Saelbeneth sighed, giving Thabean an appraising look. “Nelchior has also offered to supervise her parole.”
The cords in Thabean’s neck flexed and relaxed, but he showed no other reaction. Saelbeneth went on. “Which is why I’ve put her in Grunnaire’s custody. Grunnaire cannot hold her quiescent for long, however. Her trial is set for noon today.”
With a glance at Thabean, Vic stepped closer to Saelbeneth. “She is my sister. I will not let anything happen to her.”
“Madam, your destiny—your task—precludes all else.”
“Not to me. If you try to hurt her, we will leave you to end this war on your own.”
The wizard’s eyes hardened. “Do not threaten me, Victoria. Defy us, and we will rescind your reprieve and you will be executed on the spot. You must prepare yourself to accept the inevitable.”
Vic stalked out, mind reeling through plans by which she could extract Bethniel and flee to the Caldera tribe.
Thabean grasped her elbow. “Your sister will not die today.”
“No, she won’t.”
“Do not do anything rash, madam. There are certain legal actions we can take; I must speak with Fainend. In the meantime, I advise you to make arrangements with the Caldera tribe.”
Vic nodded, throat tight. “So, we’ll free her during the trial?”
Thabean nodded. “We will save her then.”
In her tent, Vic devoured a pome while shoving fruit, biscuits, and a waterskin into a knapsack, then rushed to the Caleisbahn compound, a narrow wedge filled with well-tended domes. The structures were covered with dense erinsheen, tightly woven into elaborate geometric designs of red, green, and blue. In a central square, seamen lounged over breakfast and pipes. Shirtless and crosslegged, Gustave scraped a porcelain blade along a lathered cheek.
“Gustave, I need you.”
The other Caleisbahnin jumped to their feet and bowed. Rinsing his blade, Gustave cracked his gap-toothed grin and scraped away another patch of lather. “Never disturb a man while he is shaving, madam.”
“You can shave later. Get dressed and get armed. Now.”
He rinsed and scraped the other side. “You cannot ask a man to go about half-shaven, madam, but I’ll leave the rest for now. I was thinking of growing a goatee.” Winking at his fellows, he sprang to his feet, wiped his face with a towel, and pulled a shirt over his head. Once he’d belted on his sword, she grabbed him and flew straight up.
“Where are we going?”
“Bethniel’s been arrested, and I need to speak with the Caldera tribe.”
“The princess’s troubles are no concern of mine. I followed you here to see a task completed. I will not aid you in distractions from that task.”
“I just need you to translate.” The wind sheared past, and the forest ripped away beneath them as she sped toward the caldera. Legal actions, Thabean said. What could those be, which hadn’t already been proposed for her own case? She might have to simply grab Bethniel and run straight from the Council chamber. She was stronger in the Woern than any one of them, but collectively? Thabean would certainly help her; perhaps he could hinder or slow the others without implicating himself. Once she and Beth were in the forest, they could stop using the Woern and hide. None of them had woodcraft to match hers, and the forest’s Mind might shield them.
Might. Fembrosh always had its own reasons for helping or hindering. It could be unreliable, and the Mind might be equally fickle. There was also the possibility that this trial, or Bethniel’s execution, might be the turning point the Kragnashians predicted. What if—no! Vic squashed the thought. She would not allow it. She would not lose Bethniel to fate; Ashel would never forgive her.
“You will never see the prince again if you fail to do what you were brought here to do.”
“Do not Listen to me, Gustave, and do not dare threaten me.” She felt as tight as a bowstring, her rage very close to erupting.
“No threat, madam. A simple fact. You will not have access to the Device until Meylnara is dead.”
“Bethniel is as important to that as I am.”
“A fulcrum is passive. Events this day turn about her; she is fulfilling her destiny now.”
“Shrine’s bitch.” Anger boiling, she repressed the urge to twist the pirate in half. “If she dies, Gustave—”
“She will die. Or not. It does not change what you must do.”
With a guttural growl, Vic let him go. His body crashed through the canopy; he grunted as branches struck him, but he did not scream. Catching him, she brought him the rest of the way down and dropped him hard on the grou
nd. “If I didn’t need you,” she panted, “you’d be dead now.”
Springing to his feet, Gustave drew his sword and pointed the blade at her heart. “You do need me, so do not threaten me, madam.”
They stared at each other, the seaman and the wizard, both deadly. She could have squashed him like the Relman soldiers outside Re, but the awful, horrifying ease with which she could kill cooled her anger as fast as it had boiled. Shoulders slumping, she stepped back.
Lowering his blade, he did not sheath it. “Your task, madam.”
“My task,” she repeated bitterly. Melon-sized insects buzzed through the understory, and climbers called high up in the canopy. She sat on an outgrowth and dropped her head into her hands. She was the Blade! Getting in and out of guarded camps was her forte. Assassinating Meylnara in the midst of her thousands of Kragnashians, rescuing Beth in broad daylight from wizards and their thousands of soldiers—two years ago she would have called either impossible task a mere challenge. Two years ago, Ashel was safe, whole, and happy in Narath. Joseph stretched inside her, and she slung her pack off, dug out a pome, and bit off a chunk.
Gustave squatted and began sharpening his sword. “They call him Kinseller.”
“Who?” The pome crackled as she took a second mouthful and looked through moss and leaves at the thin sky above. She felt as safe within this forest as in Fembrosh.
“You asked if anyone waited for me. The Oreseekers call him Kinseller, and the burden of regret weighs heavily upon him.”
“What’d he do?” It wouldn’t be difficult to elude the Council once they were out of camp.
Gustave eyed the edge of his blade, then turned his frown on her. “Sometimes what seems happenstance is preordained. We knew the Concordance was near, and we knew the One would come from the Oreseekers. We sent watchers, and the watchers sent word of the birth of Victoria of Ourtown.”
Her attention snapped to him, and memories popped like sparks from a fire—a curt young man, a walk along a twilit beach, and a midsummer celebration that twisted into terror when slavers came. “Are you talking about Samson?”
“His mother was a watcher. When she died, she passed her mission to him. She told him it was a sacred duty, and he thought you would be honored in the Archipelago. He did not expect that you and the youth of Cairo would be sold as slaves.”
Vic stared. “You’re saying Samson betrayed me to the Caleisbahnin?”
He stood. “The Caleisbahnin betrayed him, Victoria, and so did you.”
“Me? I never saw him again after the day we were herded like cattle into a warehouse. You’re telling me he put us there?”
“No, he did not! My people did that, and it is a shameful betrayal of every principle of the Archipelago.”
“I didn’t know pirates and slavers had any principles.”
He returned her glare, quivering. “Samson fulfilled his mother’s charge to ensure you could fulfill your destiny as the One, and he is despised for it by Oreseekers and Caleisbahnin alike. Yet he believes in you. You are unworthy of that faith.”
“I’m unworthy? He is a Shrinejumping kin-seller!”
“We stand here today, facing a choice between slavery and survival for all humanity, and you think only of your own self-interest. More than your sister’s life is at stake: you hold the world in your hands, Victoria.”
“And I want you to hand it to me, without reservation,” Lornk had said. Seething, she stepped toward him, fists balled. “Is Lornk Korng behind all of this?”
“Lornk Korng would have prepared you for this fate, not set you careening aimlessly toward it as you now do. If you fail to preserve the Kia here and now, the ones we left behind in our own time will pay the price.”
Doubts peppered her anger. Fate, destiny, luck had nothing to do with her circumstance, and what would happen to Bethniel this day was not to be determined by history or fate but by choice. “I will not let them harm Bethniel,” she said. “We both know there is more than one possible outcome from this Concordance. If I lose her, I lose the future I want.”
“You may lose your husband if you save her and change the course of history.”
“And I will lose him if I fail to save her and yet preserve history.”
He pointed at her belly. “You would have his child be a slave?”
“I’ve been a slave. Slaves rebel. They escape. A child alone . . . This argument is pointless. I want to talk to the Kragnashians, and I need you to help me do it.”
Planting his feet, he raised his sword again and shook his head.
“Gustave, we’re leagues from camp. Your fastest way back is to come with me, now. There’s nothing you can do to stop me, but if you help me,” she sighed, “I’ll do what you want.”
Long seconds stretched before he nodded.
* * *
As they approached the caldera, a keening crept into their ears. The wind carried bursts of fresh-cut grass. At the cliff’s edge, Gustave’s oath echoed hers. Kragnashians churned in a massive battle. Trills, keens, screeches, crunches echoed off the cliff face. The sweet, fresh perfume of their blood saturated the air.
Coughing, Gustave swiped watering eyes and pointed. A great roiling bulge of Kragnashians moved slowly through the warring creatures. Attackers tore defenders apart, leaving a trail of shredded corpses. A warrior broke through the outer shell, exposing a core of lighter, smaller nymphs carrying fat white larvae in their mandibles. The attackers pulled the young out of the bulge with doubled ferocity. Keens ripped over the field.
“Meylnara?” Vic asked, searching for a smaller bulge.
“There,” Gustave said. A lump shifted slowly back and forth in the rear of the attacking forces.
A corner of Vic’s mouth tilted upward as she eyed the pirate’s sword. “Everyone thinks it takes a wizard to kill a wizard. Everyone worries about her essence or soul or life force—whatever you call it—being tied to the forest. But she is human. She could not live without a head.”
Gustave grasped his hilt; his eyes glinted. Mouth quirked, he flourished a bow. “As I am a seaman, madam, my sails and my sword are yours.”
Vic’s grin broadened. “I thought I was unworthy.”
“Perhaps Samson’s faith in you is not entirely misplaced. Who is to say what happens now is not what needs to happen?”
Noon and Bethniel’s trial were hours away. Time to do what could be done. She waved at the larger bulge, no doubt sheltering the Caldera Center. “We need them on our side.”
Gustave indicated a clump of ferns where he would wait. She shot over the cliff edge, flying fast toward the larger defensive mass. She wanted to draw Meylnara out of the safety of the Kragnashians, so she did nothing to mask her waveform. Kragnashian blood soaked the air in spring, but her throat bore it, and she flew directly above the Caldera bulge, reached down with the Woern. Her power slipped around the creatures, but it lodged in the earth and air beneath them, and with that, she built a basket to scoop them off the caldera floor. A thousand thousand eye facets looked up as she tugged the basket toward the caldera edge. Black and brown bodies pursued in a churning flood.
A trilling scream shattered the smaller bulge, and Meylnara burst forth. Lightning crackled across the caldera. Vic raised an ion shield, deflecting the blast, and sped toward the caldera’s wall, the great writhing mass of Kragnashians in tow. They reached the plateau, and the knot melted into the trees. Nymphs bearing larvae darted into the undergrowth. Warriors guarded the cliff edge while others hustled the stoled Center into the woods.
A fiery nimbus crackled around Vic’s shield, and she dove into the trees, pulling the flames with her. The canopy ablaze, she zigzagged among rocks and trunks and ferns, around the rim of the caldera, luring Meylnara toward Gustave. Howling, the other wizard flew after her, shooting blasts of energy from above the canopy.
Shrinejump, Vic cursed. She needed Meylnara on the ground, not high above it. She sailed out of the woods, and fire
balls burst around her, scorching past her shield and setting her clothing afire. Snuffing the flames, Vic launched a lightning bolt, and Meylnara tumbled toward the caldera floor.
Fucking Shrinejump! Vic darted after, but Meylnara caught herself and charged, her face awry with fury. Diving and swooping, Vic dodged fireballs and lightning bolts and shot toward their trap. Landing on the far side of the clearing, she planted her feet and waited. The other woman sprang out of the air, landing near Gustave’s hiding place. Vic sent a quick prayer to the abandoned ship orbiting the planet, grateful for this particular quirk of fate, destiny, or luck—whatever it was that put Meylnara so close to the pirate.
“The People told me to kill you, and I didn’t,” Meylnara spat. Her hair singed, her shoulder bubbled with black welts.
“You won’t have my child or one of your own,” Vic shouted.
“I would have sent you home.”
Her hand on her belly, Vic shook her head. “I wouldn’t have gone without him.” The ferns rustled, and she grabbed Meylnara in a fist of air. Gustave’s sword flashed. Meylnara squealed, and the pirate crumpled, his sword and a scream tumbling across the grass. Meylnara shattered Vic’s hold, blasting her into the bush, and shot across the caldera, after her People and their enemies.
Shaking, Vic stumbled to Gustave. Hunched over his arm, he breathed in short, wheezing gasps. “Let me see,” she said. From elbow to fingers, his arm was bloated and limp, like a bag of fluid. The skin was intact, but she guessed the bones had been pulverized.
“A clever trick,” Gustave grated, tears leaking. “She has unmanned me.”
Gently, Vic immobilized the limb in a cast of air and bound it to his chest. The last Kragnashians were climbing over the opposite rim. No help for Bethniel here, and Gustave, whatever his role in her destiny, could no longer help either. She sighed, a wave of fatigue rising. The task always had to be done alone.
War Council
Outside the command tent, hooves clomped and wagons clattered, signaling the arrival of another company. Geram held up his hand, asking Velbaor to pause in his reading. Thirteen divisions so far, less than a quarter the troopers Fieldmarshal Henrik wanted for an assault, and it had been a week. Word could spread only so fast, and armies traveled slower than that. Two months ago, there were still enough discharged soldiers hanging around Narath that they could have gathered the necessary force, but now there was nothing to do but wait for the regiments to assemble.
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