Clift had grinned back. “Drink up,” he’d said and handed the guard a glass. “On the house.”
They never realized they’d been imbibing the very substance they’d been sent to snuff out.
Tonight, he’d closed early. The bar had been empty anyway. The bar had been empty every night, ever since the king had imposed a curfew in the capital. Ever since he’d closed the gates, not letting a soul in or out, except his armies, marching off toward the skyline to enforce Egrian rule throughout the continent.
No one in and no one out—unless you knew the chinks in the wall’s armor, like Clift did.
The curfew had been bad for business, though. When the sun falls behind the horizon, so, too, do the people fall behind their locked and shut doors. Soldiers routinely patrol the streets and raid homes, searching for the traitorous needles among the city’s haystacks.
He crosses behind the bar and absently stacks glasses upon the counter, getting his rag out for cleaning. There’s been no word from Medalyn. She’d been so insistent that she was ready for a mission. He worried about the girl. She hadn’t even managed to get him a letter and he’d expected full reports. Nothing had come from Caden, either.
But they could look out for themselves. He just supposed that he’d like to know what was going on.
If he should be preparing more than he already was.
He could take the king’s scrutiny. Things would be coming to a head soon.
It wouldn’t be long now.
Nineteen
Bree
A week later, Lilia collapses beside me in a clattering pile of armor and sweat. She draws her sword, pulls a sharpening stone across it once, then glares off into the distance at nothing in particular. “I still don’t like this. Jospuhr nearly killed us the last time Caden decided to trust him.”
I scratch a mark into the dirt before our campfire as people mill around us. Our camp spans a mountainside now and I’m overwhelmed by the sheer numbers at our disposal now. Jospuhr had, so far, been as good as his word. He hadn’t lent us just one Shaker. He hadn’t stopped at five. No, the man had offered ten of his best Shakers, five Torchers, and a hundred more Elemental-less soldiers, ones that he swore wielded steel and sinew as though it was an element born to them.
“You don’t know that Jospuhr was to blame for that,” I protest feebly.
In answer, she merely gives me a look filled with skepticism.
“Like it or not, it’s what we have to do,” I say. “We’re sitting ducks without his help. We may be able to make a stand against the Shaker on our own, but with us Nereids so far from an abundance of our element, I don’t like our odds.”
She gives me a strange look, and I realize what I’ve said. My lips fold in as if tucking the words back inside; without thinking, I’d called myself a Nereid.
I suppose that’s it. I’m an Egrian no longer. My troth is pledged to the island across the sea where I’d been born. My birthright. My fate lies entwined with theirs.
Lilia looks at me worriedly. I’ve been quiet a bit too long for her. “Are you drinking enough?”
I roll my eyes. Aleta, Tregle, and Meddie had been very…loud about the fact that I’d need to hydrate quite often, mincing no words in the telling of my faint from Egria to Clavins. Master Izador’s agreement hasn’t helped matters, and so the entirety of our party has taken to baby-sitting me about it. “Not that I need your minding, but yes, I am.”
“Better I mind you than Aleta.” She grins. “Or Caden.”
My cheeks heat and she leans closer. “You know, now that you’re more in tune with your element, your skin positively leaks when you’re embarrassed.”
I bat her away, sputtering an excuse, but unable to dismiss my discomfort. I don’t exactly know why I’m embarrassed at the mention of Caden’s name except that…so many of them seem to assume that there’s something very desperate in the way I feel about him. That he ties with thoughts of the war at the forefront of my mind.
We’re not like Aleta and Tregle. We’re only exploring something new. It hasn’t had the chance to become anything yet.
I wish that they’d understand that a certain interest in a man doesn’t make him the biggest, most important part of my life. I could do without the knowing glances of the soldiers when I track Caden down to ask his opinion on a matter that has nothing to do with the two of us, but everything to do with our countries.
Of course, I don’t think Lilia places any stock in thoughts like that. But she does have a sort of uncanny ability to find whatever point of contention is most vulnerable and pick at it like a scab until her victim is ready to bleed with humiliation. I suppose it’s my misfortune that I’m the one within her sights at the moment.
And other things nag at me, too. I sigh. What I should be doing is visiting with the Nereid Wielders. Practice my Throwing with Master Izador. Meditate, maybe. Though that practice never quite took for me.
I also should stop in and see Liam and Meddie. Liam will never let me hear the end of it if I let the physical training he’d begun with me fall by the wayside. And Meddie would be only too happy to remind me what I’d let go of.
Then there’s Elena. We’ve barely exchanged words since we landed in Nereidium. My initial mistrust of her had been hard to overcome, but by sharing a cabin on board the Sumerki for the journey from Egria to Nereidium, we’d made great strides in that direction and she’s proven herself a valuable ally.
Aleta and Tregle, I know are busy elsewhere. The holes in my friendship with Aleta are patched. I don't know if things will ever be as they once were, but I have great hopes.
But while the war is on, we’ve got a moment of stillness right now. I’m no good to anyone when I’m this wound up. And Caden and I have had precious little time together, but for a few stolen glances and hurried kisses in passing. If there’s anyone I should talk out these thoughts with, it’s the subject of them.
I twirl the embarrassed sweat from my brow and let it drizzle to the ground until my skin is dry. I can ignore the smirks a little while longer. I’ll find Caden and see if he has the time to blow off some steam.
After bidding Lilia a quick goodbye, tracking Caden down doesn’t take me very long. I find him with Liam and Meddie, training. As, I think with another twinge of guilt, I should be doing.
His face lights when he sees me. “Bree!” He somersaults to an even stop and hops lightly to his feet, nodding cheerily at Liam and Meddie. Meddie crosses her arms and gives me a flippy little salute. I return the gesture as Caden jogs over to me. “What can I do for you?” he asks, panting from his exertion, eyes inquisitive over a nose reddened with effort.
I rock back on my heels. “Fancied a bit of a break, I suppose. Am I interrupting?”
He grins. “Oh, no. We’ve been at it for nigh on two hours now. What did you have in mind?”
“I don’t rightly know,” I say, blinking. Makers, I don’t know how to just relax anymore. I’ve grown so used to fighting, fighting, fighting, raging, working toward destroying King Langdon, that I don't know how to just be.
Caden seems to catch this, eyes softening in understanding. He tilts his head at me, indicating his brow, soaked with sweat even in these cold climates. “Would you mind terribly if I asked you to…?”
“Oh! Sure.” I perform the same action that I’d done for myself, clearing the sweat from his skin.
“I think I have an idea,” he says, catching my hand in his. I return his smile hesitantly. “Walk with me?”
I flip a wave of goodbye to Liam and Meddie as Caden leads me away. His stride is long, and I have to lengthen mine to keep up with him as he leads me on a winding path through the bodies, weapons, horses, and tents that litter the land around us, feeling stronger with each step as we get farther and farther from prying eyes and others’ thoughts.
He finds a trickle of a stream in the mountain. It nests into the ridge like lines on a palm. I blink. “How did you know this was here?” I ask, kneeling to the water
and blinking up at Caden, letting a teasing grin spread across my features. “Got some Thrower powers you’re keeping secret, Your Highness?”
He smiles. “An inkling. I noticed the foliage grew thicker, figured there had to be a source of water nearby. I thought it may provide you some comfort to sit beside it for a spell.”
It does. I settle onto a large boulder beside the stream and dip my fingers into its depths. Here, I can just let myself and the water coexist. Kindred spirits, an old friend, not needing to control each other. But the way we’d found it makes me think of Abeline. Of the river in the woods that ran behind my old home that I used to be able to locate with such ease.
“Do you think we can really do it?” I look up at Caden as the water runs gently through my fingers. My eyes search his. “Stop the Shaker, stop your father. Avenge…well, everyone who’s been lost, everything that’s been taken from all of us?”
“I don’t rightly know that anything would be enough to make amends for all that my father’s done,” he says. His voice is quiet. Thoughtful. He tucks his hands inside his pockets, thinking. “The losses are too great. Unseating him can’t bring the people we’ve lost back.”
I feel a pang and look away, thinking of Da.
Caden tilts my chin up with a finger so that I can see how serious his eyes are when he says, “But do I think we can defeat him? I think we stand a solid chance.”
I study him. Knowing Caden as I do now, being decently acquainted with his mannerisms and the way his brain works, I know he’s pretending at more confidence than he feels.
But I also know he wouldn’t lie to me. Not about this. He truly thinks—somehow—we can win.
“Makers be with us.” I pull my chin from his grasp, picking with my other hand at a spot on the rock I’m perched upon.
He starts at my invocation of the deities. “I think they already are.”
There it is again. That surprise when he hears someone mention the Makers. I look at him quizzically. “I’ve never known you to be devout.”
“Things change,” he says. His fingers fidget in his pocket. “I’ve changed.”
If that’s all he wants to say of the matter, I’m hardly one to pry into someone’s religious beliefs. A sad smile tugs at my lips. He’s changed. “Haven’t we all. Caden, have you ever thought… If we do win, what comes next for us, when it’s all done?”
Caden has Egria. I have Nereidium. What could there really be between us in the end? And what of Aleta, Tregle, and the rest of them? When it’s all over, where will they go?
Caden sighs and lifts my wet hand from the water, entwining our fingers together and dropping a kiss onto our clasped palms. “Whatever we want. A new beginning. A new world.”
Whatever we want.
Makers, it’s been a long time since things were as simple as what I did or did not want. But I suppose that is a perk of this whole royalty thing. If—when—I return to Nereidium, I’ll have the power to enact change if it’s needed. I don’t need to spend my days astride a great stone throne, a prisoner to a crown. I can be whoever I choose to be.
A barmaid.
A princess.
Or something new entirely.
“A new world,” I repeat, letting the words flow over my tongue. With squeezing fingers and lazy water, I tighten my grip on his hand, letting myself smile as I deposit my own kiss onto his thumb and meet his hopeful eyes. “I like the sound of that.”
Twenty
Bree
It takes two more weeks, but finally we reach a path beaten down by scraggly trees, so overgrown that it may as well be covered in dust for all the use it gets. It had always been that way. Few travelers. Few who even decide to leave to visit elsewhere, even for worship services.
My gaze travels up the weather-beaten wooden posts that boast a swinging sign in the wind. The letters are carved, deep grooves in the wood.
Abeline, it says.
Welcome home, I think, heart in my throat. My eyes prickle with the memory of the life I led here. I ache to see Da saunter onto that path in that swaggering way of his, a taunt in his voice.
“Come on, Breena Rose. Back to the Bridge and Duchess. Stew’s not going to stir itself.”
Blindly, I reach out to grab hold of the nearest person. My reward is Aleta’s elbow. Shooting me a look that is not unsympathetic, she holds up a hand to halt the rest of our party. We’d left behind the majority of our troops to make camp and proceeded on with a small contingency of Elementals and a few choice soldiers. Abeline isn’t a big city that we can blend into like we’d once blended into the Clavish capital. We got travelers here, sure, but the parties were always small. A large number of strangers would have drawn notice.
“Breena?” This voice isn’t a mere memory or yearning imagination. Aleta.
I blink myself back to the present.
“Do you require a moment?” she asks me in a low voice.
No. I don’t require a moment. I require moments. Hundreds of moments. Tens of thousands of moments. Millions of them. But one is all I will take right now.
I swallow, managing to turn a shaky smile her way. “I just had it.” Gently tapping my horse’s side with my heels, I spur it on.
We tie our mounts to trees at the edge of town and stand in a semi-circle. Elena’s hands go to her hips. “All right.” Her lovely accent is clipped as she nods to me. “This is your turf. How do you want to play this?”
“Actually, I think that question would be better put to Tregle,” I say. “I’m not the one who’s had just the thin veil of a flame between me and Everett.”
Tregle’s eyes land on mine for but a moment before his gaze darts away, unable to stay still. He’s the only other one of us who’s been here before, and the memories the two of us left behind are less than pleasant. At that time, Tregle had still acted as though he’d been under Lady Kat’s boot heel and set my home ablaze until it was nothing but tinder and ashes. I’m sure the added factor of her twin being present isn’t doing wonders for him, either.
When he speaks, it’s hesitant and quiet. “The last time I scryed for him within the fire, he’d been back outdoors, but he’d still clearly been sick—and drunk.”
“And it’s not as though he’s brewing it for himself,” I say. “Right, then.” All heads turn to me, but for once, being looked to for direction doesn’t startle me as it once would have. I’m finally growing comfortable in my role. “We’ll split into small parties, checking the different establishments. A Shaker and a Wielder go with each group. We know Everett likes the drink. There’s a pub in the village run by a brewer—Jowyck. He’s been banned, but they may be able to give us some direction. Those of you who are with me, we’ll start there. The rest of you, there’s an importer in the village square who occasionally sells wine or Clavish brandy. And plenty more make their own drinks that they’re willing to part with for the right coin. Start knocking on doors. Begin with the center of town, in the square, and once we’ve got more direction to go on, we’ll head toward the woods, hopefully combining groups when we do.”
“If you find Everett, engage him quickly,” Caden advises, coming up beside me. Our sleeves brush as he surveys the people before us. “Catch him off his guard. Wielders, it will be your job to notify the rest of us when you have a lead. Use your flasks to send water to lead us to you so that the other groups may join and assist you.”
I have enough control over my powers now to know that I can call to the others, even in the heat of battle. Master Izador has shown me how questing water is drawn to a Wielder like a compass’s point is drawn north. We call to the water without conscious thought. If I send water seeking a home, it will find them and bring them running.
“We’ll hope to overwhelm him and incapacitate him with sheer numbers before he knows precisely what’s hit him. He has Locus powers, but he’s only one man,” Caden finishes with a confident nod. He steps back so that we can all form our groups.
The search parties don’t require m
ultiple Torchers, but Aleta and Tregle make themselves a set and no one argues. They’ve proven in the past that they work well as a team. Lilia accompanies them, and they shake hands with a Wielder and Shaker who pair up quickly. Caden, Elena, and I join together with Meddie, Liam, and one of Jospuhr’s Shakers, a woman by the name of Olivia.
I take a deep breath and look over my party—nervous, but ready. “All right?” I ask and receive nods of affirmation in return. “Then we’re off to see Jowyck.”
Desiccated leaves crunch beneath my feet as I lead the way into the square, pointing the other groups toward the buildings they’ll be seeing to. I swallow as I turn my attention to Jowyck’s tavern, eyes lingering on the door.
Jowyck had been the town drunk when I’d lived in Abeline, and from what we’d seen in Tregle’s fire, not much has changed. Back then, when things needed doing, his wife had had to pry him out of bed. Their boys were sweet scamps, but troublemakers, always getting lost in the woods until someone—usually me—found them.
A bell tinkles over the doorway as we push our way inside Jowyck’s establishment, and a head pops up above the bar, just barely clearing it; his chin is level with the counter.
“Can I help you ladies and gents?” The boy’s voice is high-pitched, not yet put through the sieve of manhood. Jowyck’s youngest. Bennie. He can’t be any older than twelve. No older than I was when I started tending bar. Difference is, Da had been around. I see neither hide nor hair of Jowyck and his wife.
I smile, eyes crinkling at the corners. “‘Lo, there, Bennie. You don’t happen to remember me, do you?” He squints in my direction, and I pull my hair behind my neck. “My hair was shorter back then,” I say.
His expression clears. “You’re that barmaid who found us when we was lost in the woods those times. Bree?”
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