Fall of Thrones and Thorns

by Jennifer Ellision

  Langdon smiles, rapping his knuckles on the glass with a self-satisfied smirk. “My Elemental Tutors have been busy developing this. An effective blend of the elements—earth, fused with a concentration of fire.” He waves his hands as if washing away the topic. “But you haven’t come to be bored by science. Let us return to matters of the kingdom. I strongly urge you to consider surrendering, Lady Breena.”

  “After everything you’ve put us through? I would rather die,” I say softly.

  Aleta steps up next to me. “You would have to kill me, too.”

  He eyes us, weighing his options. “Very well, then.”

  Langdon springs into action with a feral yell, and the ballroom floor cracks in two. Aleta and I leap backward as Caden aligns his back against the windows, as far from the action as humanly possible.

  “Don’t you see?” he asks. “The Nereids have concealed the methods they use to bind Water Elemental abilities for generations. They refused to share information that could have advanced our entire species. But I don’t need them to share it anymore. My Tutors figured it out all on their own.”

  The floor begins to erode before my eyes, particles flitting through the air to Langdon’s upturned fingers, rotating around his knuckles. They burst into flame—tiny, fiery pellets. My breath catches. His lips twist.

  A breeze lifts the cape Langdon wears, whipping it around his ankles. And then, finally—my heart sinks. Tiny droplets of water—my water—rise to extinguish the flames at Langdon’s behest.

  The pellets clatter to the ground.

  I bite my lip to hold back the bitter laughter. Caden was right. Langdon has all four elements at his disposal.

  Caden steps forward, almost as though he’s unable to help himself in his hunger for knowledge. His eyes are locked onto the still, broken piece of earth that Langdon tore free from the ballroom floor. “How did they do it?”

  “Does it matter?” I ask, incredulous, turning to him. I lose my grip on the water, attention tossed away from Langdon. “Get back, Caden.”

  The moment of inattention costs me dearly.

  Langdon’s fingers thread through my hair, closing tight over my scalp.

  And my head pummels toward the glass.

  Thirty-Three

  Caden

  The glass holds strong, even as Father drives Bree’s head toward it like a battering ram. His hands tangle in her hair, and she closes her eyes, crying out as she tries to pry his fingers loose.

  Without so much as a glance at me, Father casts a wall of flame around the two of them, preventing me from reaching them.

  Aleta cries out angrily behind me as her own element encroaches upon her. It won’t hurt her; but it will take all of her concentration to prevent it from spreading and hurting me or the people outside the ballroom, like Lilia.

  Bree grits her teeth, every muscle fighting against Father as he shoves her toward the glass.

  The first blow stunned her. Another will kill her.

  She thrashes against my father, managing to drive them back several feet as I watch helplessly. Her element lashes against the glass with fury, waves rising from the ocean below with ire over the mistreatment of their mistress.

  Finally, Father stops, growling, transferring his grip from Bree’s hair to her neck. She winces, whimpering in pain as he pushes her back, finally succeeding in pinning her back against the glass.

  “You could have prevented this.” His voice is loud over the crackle of the flames. “All I wanted were the secrets of the Nereid throne. If they’d simply shared them—if you had simply let me get on with my plans…”

  She opens her eyes a slit to glare at him. “I remember your plans, Langdon,” she spits. “I was supposed to let you kill Aleta?” she croaks. “Let you get away with killing Da, killing my birth parents? No, Langdon, if I take only one thing away from this experience, it is the knowledge that I did every last thing in my power to stop you and make sure that your people finally see you for the monster that you are.”

  My hand fists, pounding on the glass, gritting my teeth over my own uselessness. I can’t reach them. It’s beyond my ability.

  Realization strikes.

  I straighten, slowly turning to the glass to meet my own gaze in its reflection.

  It’s beyond my ability to reach Bree. But it isn’t beyond the ability of the Makers.

  For at last, I see it: Father’s weakness. My advantage, the gap in his defenses. As if in a trance, I reach for the Underground token and pull it free, noting its emblem. The elements, twined. My gaze drifts to Father, his face as contorted as the Elemental abilities he’s mangled. My eyes come back to the coin. And then, the heart on its crest.

  “Fellow man before all,” I whisper.

  It’s finally time to use Kyrene’s favor.

  Her voice in my mind is a whisper-shriek. “Do it, boy,” Kyrene cries, her voice like thunderstorms and crashing waves. “Do it now, or lose them all.”

  With nothing else left to sacrifice, I slap the hot coin and my palm to the window. It fizzles, sinking into the glass, melding with it. Tiny fractures appear from the epicenter of where the coin vanishes, threads branching across the windows that line the room, like a million beautiful spider webs, lit by the rising sun behind them.

  The glass ruptures, exploding in all directions, showering the ballroom with a glittering storm of shards. I lift my arm to shield my eyes, but quickly drop it to see Father’s hand fall from Bree’s neck as he leaps back. His expression is startled, bewildered.

  Father’s firewall falls as glass crunches beneath his feet, and I lunge forward, knowing I’m moving as quickly as possible with my feeble, human means, hoping I can grab Bree’s hand. Knowing I’ll fail.

  I reach the edge of the ballroom just in time to see Bree lose her balance. Without the window there to block her fall, she plummets beyond my reach.

  Her eyes are wide.

  But she is smiling as she plunges to the rocks below.

  Thirty-Four

  Bree

  Water Throwers cannot fly. Not even Air Riders can fly.

  And yet…

  The wind whips around me, clearing away any fog left from Langdon’s blow. The air cradles me, my arms flung out toward the shrinking castle as I fall. Caden’s horrified expression gets smaller and smaller as I plummet toward the rocks.

  Still, I can’t help but smile. It’s almost like Da’s here with me, reveling in the sensation.

  We finally know what it feels like to fly.

  I am not afraid any more.

  Barred by the glass from reaching me, the water has been anxious to do my bidding. But with the obstacle removed, it easily arches over the rocks from the ocean, rising to meet and catch me as I spin like a corkscrew toward its depths.

  It launches me back toward the castle as if flinging me from a catapult, and I rocket back into the shattered ballroom, flooding the floor and extinguishing the flames. Aleta breathes a sigh of relief, sinking to her knees, exhausted with the effort of keeping the flames from preying upon Caden.

  Caden backs away from us, eyes pained. He whispers, “Goodbye, Father.”

  Langdon’s expression is almost laughable as I stare up at him, crouched in the puddle that spreads across the floor. His beard is soaked. He’s lost his crown. He frantically detaches his fur-lined cape, probably hoping for a greater range of motion. The weight would encumber his movements. But that won’t help him now.

  I rise.

  My sodden hair hangs like strings in my eyes as Langdon slams his brows down, looking angry—but there’s something new there. A desperation I’ve never seen on his face before.

  I could lick my lips; it’s that delicious.

  Langdon had been so confident when he knew he held the advantage. But his palace is in chaos. His people no longer complacently accept his rule. And, try as he might, he’d failed to prevent me from reaching the water.

  And with the ocean at my disposal, the advantage belongs to me now.
<
br />   Langdon wiggles his fingers, as if weighing his options. He lunges—flings a fireball toward me. Without bothering to dodge it, I laugh at his feeble attempt. It takes but a moment for me to douse it with a splash.

  I take a step toward Langdon. He takes one back. His heel catches on the edge of the ballroom floor, casting a glance backward where nothing but the empty air and the rocks wait to catch him.

  “Running away?” I ask. I cock my head to the side. “Why’s that now? You didn’t take kindly to that when Da tried to run away, tried to save me, save himself, save all of the people you would have had him slay.”

  He tears his gaze from the rocks and turns his scowl toward me. “Ardin was nearsighted. Myopic. He couldn’t see what I was trying to accomplish. A united land, no more barriers of Elemental or non-Elemental.”

  “The only way those people would have been united would have been through their hatred of you,” I snarl. “Please don’t try to convince me that you thought you were doing them some sort of service. You’re no humanitarian, Langdon. All that’s ever mattered to you is power and that you had more of it than anyone.”

  He wobbles, feet losing their purchase on the ground, but he regains his balance.

  I raise an eyebrow at him. “Be careful, Your Majesty,” I bite out softly. “You may fall.”

  Langdon glares at me. He lifts his arms, summoning the wind. Air whips around him, raising him in a cyclone. Sweat beads on his forehead. It’s a last-ditch effort and he knows it. Even a practiced Air Rider couldn’t keep this effort up for long.

  With increasing panic, Langdon tries using his Shaker abilities to fling rocks toward me. His arms windmill, driving the stones toward my form, but his tornado’s winds have already made their course unreliable and my water slaps the ones that get near from the air like annoying insects.

  I thread the ocean neatly into the tornado, until the air can no longer hold its form. If there is a twister here, it is one of water and it is entirely at my command. I nudge it past the vanished glass until Langdon dangles over the empty cliffs. The waiting waves. The open air. My water holds him in its grip, and I lower him to meet my gaze.

  “This is it, Langdon,” I say. “You wanted to be the waves’ master, didn’t you?”

  He snarls. “I want nothing. I am the waves’ master. I am every element’s master. Everyone’s master.” Within the grip of the water twister, Langdon pounds on his chest.

  “Is that so?” I ask. Langdon’s strong brow wavers. The wind has died; the water I control is all that holds him up now. I watch the knowledge of that flicker in his eyes. I won’t say that I don’t take a certain amount of pleasure in it. “Wave-master Langdon, is it? I have to tell you…I’m eager for a demonstration.” I rip my grip from the ocean.

  And I let him fall.

  Gravity works quickly. As I had only moments before, Langdon plummets. His arms flap, his hands working furiously in an effort to save himself, trying to conjure a breeze that will slow his fall, but he succeeds only in calling air that buffets him about.

  Langdon is no master of the elements, no Elemental. The elements can’t reconcile him as one of their brethren.

  When he lands in the water, the ocean swallows him whole.

  I can’t help but think it’s anticlimactic; there’s nothing but a splash to signify his passing.

  I sink to my knees, barely registering the embraces of Caden and Aleta—Caden staring shell-shocked out the window and Aleta smoothing worried hands over my brow.

  The King of Egria is dead.

  And I am finally free.

  Epilogue

  Bree

  One year later…

  I rotate my neck along my shoulders as I descend from Kyrene’s throne, accepting Aunt Helen’s hand to help me down from the steps with a modicum of surprise.

  “What brings you here?” I inquire. She hasn’t supervised my time giving the citizens counsel for months now. It’s still far from my favorite duty, but I’ve managed to get the governors, with reluctance, to agree to shortened hours so that I may at least pretend at some semblance of a normal life. Or a life that I fits my new definition of normal.

  Besides, after what Caden told me of the gift from Kyrene and the Makers, I can’t help but think I owe them this. It’s the least that I can do.

  Aunt Helen tucks my arm in beside hers, patting my hand as we descend the steps of the temple. My gaze drifts over the pock-marked stone, the cracks in the stairs where they’ve been obviously patched. It had taken some time to get the temple in the city into working order, but it has a ways yet to go before it is restored to its former glory.

  “Your mainland governor has arranged a surprise for you.”

  I stop, turning to her. “And will I like this surprise of Aleta’s?”

  “She certainly seems to think so. Come. To the docks.”

  Even with the war over, the governors are still wary and ask that we keep the Wielders on guard, masking our location. But instead of decimating ships before they reach our shores, now we send one out to meet them, peacefully board and blindfold the crew, and guide the ship into our docks. It’s been good for our economy; we finally have a legitimate import and export flow and it’s struck a blow to the burgeoning smuggler trade.

  And with Langdon’s death, we’d been quick to establish treaties with other countries. Aridan and Clavins, with their autonomy formally restored to them, had taken more time than we’d suspected to sign them, likely suspicious of any other countries dictating their moves after so long. Still, they’d signed it in the end.

  And as for Egria… Well, King Caden hadn’t been able to put ink to paper fast enough.

  It’s a peace. I don’t know for how long, but after all of the fighting, it’s a peace I relish.

  When we arrive at the docks, I abandon Aunt Helen to flounce up to Aleta. She leans back against Tregle’s chest, his arms wound loosely around her. Tregle grants me a contented smile in greeting as I prod at my governor.

  “Prepared for the upcoming assemblage of the Strategeion?” I ask.

  She rolls her eyes. “Can one ever be prepared for Ogen’s intransigence?”

  Governor Ogen had been the least willing to accept my appointment of Aleta to the post I’d created for her of mainland governor, but the rest of the Nereid governors had seen the suitability of it. She had, after all, grown up anticipating a duty to the Nereid people. I had no desire to rule a country and Aunt Helen had been eager to step down; she’d already been at the post longer than she’d ever expected to.

  But the long-held beliefs of the people wouldn’t simply vanish and so an ancestor of Kyrene—me—would need to remain in the temple, accepting visitors who sought our counsel, our blessings.

  I keep a staff of the best healers Nereidium has to offer in the temple. I have not escaped the memory Rastus’s mother, desperately entreating me to help her dying son. I couldn’t save him, but the healers have saved others who have been brought to me.

  It’s a start.

  “Helen tells me you have a surprise,” I say.

  Aleta eyes Helen, who nods in a modest show of respect. “Lady Helen speaks true, but I wouldn’t think it would still be a surprise. I’d thought you would have noticed the purple sails by now.”

  “Purple…” I turn to the docks.

  True to Aleta’s word, violet Egrian sails sway against the vivid blue sky. And a pair of gray eyes crinkles over a grin as their owner disembarks from the ship.

  My own answering grin splits my cheeks, and I race up the gangplank to throw my arms around Caden’s neck. Thrown off-balance, he lets out a soft grunt of surprise, but his hand settles on the small of my back as he chuckles and says, “I’m glad to see you as well, Bree.”

  I pull back, tugging him the rest of the way onto the docks. “None of your letters mentioned you were coming!” I accuse. “It’s been…what—five? Six months since we saw you last? How did you find the time to get away?”

  He shakes Tregle’s
hand, gives Aleta a light embrace of hello. “It’s not so impossible when you have people you trust. I can’t stay terribly long, but the capital’s been cleaned—and rebuilt, to an extent. And Liam and Meddie are seeing to the dismantling of Elemental conscription in my stead. We haven’t quite worked out how to incentivize voluntary enlistment, but we’ll get there in the end. And Elena and Lilia have the training camp well in hand.” He nods to me. “Thank you again for the gift of the Secan lands. So far, it’s been large enough to house the Elementals who have been willing to come out of hiding.”

  “They were never really mine to give.” Brow furrowed, Caden opens his mouth to protest, but I hold up a hand. “I know, I know. Birth father or not, Da would have wanted them to go to me, but I’ve got no use for them. He would have approved of using them to train new Elementals, though. That reminds me, how is Izador getting on?”

  With the unbinding of Water Elemental abilities, more Water Throwers had been Revealing in Egria, and I had shuddered to think of them attempting to learn from an Earth Shaker, as I first had. Understanding my own abilities as I now do, I know how antithetical they are to each other.

  I’d asked for volunteers to teach them. Izador had been first in line.

  “Very well,” Caden says. He laughs when I simply continue to stare at him. “Bree,” he says gently. “Things are good. There is no cause for worry.”

  “There is, however, cause to eat,” Tregle pipes up in his quiet way. “My stomach is fairly insistent upon that point.”

  “I told Trycia we would be by,” Aleta says, turning in his arms. “Come.”

  She and Tregle lead the way back into the city, Aunt Helen not far behind them. Caden starts after them, then stops, hesitating when he realizes I haven’t moved.

  “Bree?” he asks. “Won’t you join us?” He reaches out a hand to me.

  I stare at his extended palm. I don’t know if Caden and I have a future. His life’s course is tied to Egria, and mine to Nereidium.