Ruin of Stars

by Linsey Miller

  “She directed the shadows through Nacea so that they’d kill Naceans—my family—instead of Erlend soldiers.” I wanted to be wrong. I didn’t want to steal two people from Elise or ruin her childhood hero as Our Queen had been ruined for me. There were no truly good people in this world. There were only people. “She’s Riparian.”

  “No. She’s not a monster. Not like my father.” Elise’s fingers curled into fists. “She’s not, and she has done too much for Erlend women for you to slander her.”

  I spun the ring on my finger, teeth aching from the strength it took not to shout. I took a breath. “She’s done a lot for Erlend women? What about the rest of us? How many Alonian women has she helped? How many from Mizuho? Berengard? Nacea? What about me? How worthy am I to her? Or would she only try to help me when I’m following all the made-up rules of what she considers womanly? She admitted her involvement to me. She only helps Erlend women because she’s as bad as all those lords throwing people to the shadows to save their own skins. She’s just saving all the folks exactly like her too. The ones she thinks are worthy. You don’t get to decide what people are worthy, but she thinks she does. She said that to me, near exactly those words.”

  “Were you armed?” Elise rolled her lips together. “I’ve been at the deadly end of your knives, and people will say and do many things not to get stabbed.”

  A cold, sharp sting burned through my chest.

  “She murdered my friend,” I said. “I watched her stab him, and then I had listen to him die, drowning in his own blood.”

  She froze. Closed her eyes. A puddle of tears gathered along the rims of her eyes. “Now you’re lying.”

  I gasped and sniffed. “Why would I lie about him being dead?”

  “Lena has never used a knife.” Elise swallowed, raised her chin, and twisted her face into the stubborn, righteous look of Erlend. “I might have believed her having someone else do it, but you don’t know her at all. Obviously.”

  “Obviously.”

  I knew her soul was redder than mine. She’d a world of ghosts within her, every Nacean she’d killed to save Erlend was another life added to her debt. She was worse than me, but I was the enemy here.

  I could hold on to nothing. Nothing was in my control. Riparian was killing me slowly from days away.

  “I don’t know you,” I said. “And I don’t want to right now.”

  She was Erlend nobility through and through, and I was a fool.

  “You don’t know everything. People have dozens of reasons to do what they do, and Lena has supported me and her people at every turn. She sacrificed part of her inheritance so I could rebuild Hinter’s schools.” Elise swallowed, face hard. Her jaw tightened. “So you will take my father and my idol from me and still expect compassion?”

  The words left Elise like water, dripping between us and echoing in the silence. I wanted to listen to her, soak up her every word and let them quench the burning, terrible anger in my chest, but she was wrong. Erlend’s legacy was a river of violence.

  And for all her good work, she was still drowning in it.

  But I was cruel too.

  For all our differences, the world and I shared that.

  “She is why I am who I am.” Elise crossed her arms over her chest. She kept her voice even, but her fingers shook against her arms. “She supported me when not even my father would.”

  The last bit of care I had snapped, sliding the world into place.

  So this was how it would be.

  “She’s a traitor,” I said slowly. “She killed my friend, and when she throws you aside to save her own life, I hope you’ve got enough sense to trust me and run.”

  “I’m sorry your friend is dead, but I do not believe she killed him.” She rolled her shoulders back. They shook. “And I don’t appreciate you lying about that to try and make me believe you about Lena’s intentions.”

  “I’m disappointed in you.” I pulled my mask back on. I couldn’t let her see me crying. “We only knew each other for half a year, and most of that was lies or cons. Lena de Arian might’ve helped you, but she ruined Nacea. She killed hundreds of thousands because she thought they weren’t worth saving. She forced the only other Nacean I’ve ever met to kill to save his family. She’s got Maud serving her and might kill Maud at any moment. She killed the only person I ever had who was my own, the only living person I called family.” I lifted my mask and wiped my face, crying so hard I couldn’t stop talking for fear of drowning in my own grief. “She killed Rath da Oretta, she killed my family, she killed Nacea, and there’s no coming back from that.”

  “Sal.” Elise reached for me and winced when I pulled away. “You’re wrong about her. You have to be.”

  “I don’t care.” I shrugged. “If you don’t trust me, you don’t trust me. So I don’t trust you.”

  Face to the stars and back to Elise, I leapt from her window to the ledge beneath it. I couldn’t go back, and she couldn’t chase. Couldn’t offer excuse after excuse. I should’ve known.

  No more trust.

  No more mercy.

  Only a prayer to my triad—North Star, Winter, Riparian—and under the pale glow of the moon, running north toward death, alone like always, I broke as ice breaks.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Lena de Arian was going to Lynd.

  At least some good had come out of that.

  But I’d never cried while running before. It burned deep in my chest and up through the backs of my eyes. Snot dripped into my open mouth, bitter and slick, and I stumbled to a stop a good ways out of Hinter. Elise had been concerned for the missing children. Would she have been less worried if Lena were stealing them?

  This was where hope and mercy got me.

  Sobbing in the middle of a dark forest, spit all down my shirt and nose stuffed, the dry scents of ink and paper clinging to my hands, the barely-there trails of the rangers ahead of me vanished with each breeze. A cacophony of whippoorwills and mockingbirds drowned out my crying.

  “Where’s the line?” I asked the stars, my head tilted up to the pine needles casting the forest floor in darkness. Only one glittering light broke through. “Before me or behind me?”

  North Star.

  I ran north. I stayed as close to the roads as I could, keeping an eye out for Riparian’s carriage or guards. I found them on the third night. The guards were spread out, attentive and well trained, and the carriage had glass in the little viewing window. A wagon rolled behind it, stacked half-full with trunks and boxes. Dimas sat atop one, head in his hands. Maud sat next to him.

  Of all the things I couldn’t think about, her going with Riparian wasn’t one of them. It haunted me. I dreamed about it. Why had Maud left with Riparian in the first place?

  I followed their procession, watching from afar anytime I could, and kept my eyes on Maud. She did servant things, nothing else. Riparian’s interest in her had waned.

  I squashed the flare of panic in my chest.

  Maud hadn’t been found out. She’d have been dead if Riparian knew she’d not killed me and not even tried.

  Two nights later, after tracking the guards and late-night movements of their little camps, I waited in the pitch dark of the trees for Maud to take her nightly walk to clear her head. Dimas tried to join her, coming into the conversation with the slump of someone who knew they’d been defeated ages before. Maud laughed and shook her head. He fidgeted.

  “You’re in danger.” He wasn’t his normal self—his hair was loose and tangled, his clothes were more dust than wool, and the ink stains on his fingertips had been there for days, building up one after the other. “Do you know how many times I’ve had to convince her you’re serious?”

  “Are you threatening me?” Maud rounded on him and slapped his shoulder with her braid.

  He backtracked. His face fell. “No! I’m trying to keep you out of danger. This is a disaster.”

  “I don’t want you to do anything for me, Dimas,” she said, low and furiou
s, “except leave me alone.”

  “Please be careful.” He slunk away from her.

  Finally.

  I crept forward to the path I knew Maud would take and crouched in the underbrush. The guards gave her privacy because she spent the first five minutes praying, and personal prayers weren’t the place for an audience. They walked away after the first line.

  I slid up behind her and clasped a hand over her mouth. “It’s me, it’s me. It’s Opal. It’s Sal.”

  Her sobbing gasp escaped through the cracks of my fingers.

  “Sal.” She cried into my shoulder, and it killed me—the sound, the shudders, the damp. “I thought I’d killed you. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.”

  Maud muttered apologies she didn’t owe into my shoulder, and I leaned my cheek against her scalp. The scratch of her hair and digging of her nails sharpened the world. I had no bad memories of her. No last-time hug. No last look before death. Only joy.

  “I figured out you weren’t serious when you told her I couldn’t swim.” I squeezed her tight. “Was real confused for a while there.”

  “It was sudden.” She lifted her head and pulled back. “Oh, you’re filthy.”

  “My servant resigned.” I let her go and placed my hands on her shoulders. “Maud, what’s going on?”

  “I knew something was wrong with Lena, and then she focused on Dimas and me. I liked it at first. It was sort of like having a mother again.” Maud shrugged, one shoulder rising, and wiped her face. “But then it was odd. Dimas has always been very particular about what jobs he takes, and this wasn’t like him at all. I know him, knew him, better than most. We talked of growing up alone so often, and then suddenly he didn’t want to talk about his family ever again.”

  “He said Erlend had his mother? And sister?”

  How much was true and how much was Dimas’s wishful thinking overworking so he could play assassin?

  Maud nodded. “He told me that too, after he came back. Lena was furious when she found he hadn’t killed Our Queen or anyone. If they were alive, I would think they’d be dead now. You’ve seen what she’s capable of.”

  “I do.” I was certain she’d say she didn’t need me, didn’t need anything from me, but I asked anyway. Maybe I’d get her another hairpin. “You need anything? Is there anything else going on?”

  “There is more, but—” She froze. “It might be best if you see it for yourself because I can’t explain it. You won’t believe me.”

  I glanced around. Her praying time was about up. “Will it kill me?”

  “No, Triad no, I’m not killing you ever again.” She straightened my collar and brushed off my shirt, nervous hands too shaky to hold still. “Watch Dimas tonight.”

  “All right.” I nodded and hugged her one last time. “You should go. Stay safe.”

  I couldn’t lose Maud too.

  She smiled and kissed my cheek. “Thank you for coming after me.”

  “Always.” I let her go. “We’re friends. I’ve not got enough of them to let one run off to Lynd.”

  She laughed softly and started stepping back toward camp. “Dimas, tonight, north side of camp. I’ll be there. Don’t be scared.”

  And Maud, for the first time I’d ever seen, vanished like a Left Hand into the night.

  Full of surprises.

  Six days till Lynd.

  Six days to figure out how North Star, Riparian, and Winter would die.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Once Maud left, I snuck to the far side of the camp, as north as north could get, and climbed into the high branches of an old pine drooping beneath the weight of its needles. The uneasy panic settled as I looked down on the world, everything coming into focus. The wagon half-full with trunks was set up under a series of trees, the five trunks locked and punched with holes, and I kept the bile from crawling up my throat by gnawing on too-hard tack. Something was alive in there. Adella?

  I’d not seen her at all. Lady, don’t let her be dead. Not another death on my soul.

  Dimas showed up a long time later, a ring of keys on his wrist. His bandaged hand was strapped to his chest, and the only thing he truly carried was a small pot. Maud, arms full of bandages, came a while later. She didn’t look at him, didn’t acknowledge him.

  But he didn’t say anything when she slipped hunks of bread through the holes in the trunks or when she hid the evidence right before Riparian walked into the little moonlit clearing. She set her lantern atop a blue trunk.

  I wasn’t close enough to hear what they were saying. Riparian instructed Dimas to do something, he bowed, and Maud left only to return shortly with a canteen and quilt. Dimas unlocked an old, brown trunk, and Adella came flying out of it headfirst. Her legs and arms were bound and she was gagged, but she launched herself into Dimas. They collapsed to the ground, and a guard came running forward. Adella elbowed Dimas in the face. The guard kicked her off him.

  A warm hate boiled in me, and I leaned closer. Tried to catch a bit of the conversation.

  “…can’t hurt her,” Riparian said, staring down the guard. “There are very few touched just enough to trigger the response.”

  I shuddered. I had to save Cam.

  There was no good outcome with sentences like that.

  The guard sat Adella on the trunk and fastened her to the trunk lid. She growled at her.

  The snap of her teeth behind the gag echoed louder than anything, and Dimas opened the little bottle. Maud lowered her head.

  Dimas dipped a finger into the bottle, skin coming away dark, dark blue. He painted a line down the shell of Adella’s ear, and I shuddered, knowing what was coming without being able to see the details. His runes didn’t look the same, but I could read the short word scrawled across her ear.

  Eat.

  A prickling, uneasy itch spilled down my arms and over my legs, begging me to run, and I tightened my grip on the tree. Something twisted in my chest, a panicked ache. Bark crumbled from the branch.

  And Adella began to scream.

  “The ears are weak, all flesh and no bone, so it’s the best place to test if someone can use magic,” Dimas said, hands stained red and black. “If the ink remains and their ears are whole, they can’t use magic. If the ink eats the flesh like an infection, they can. It means there is power in their bodies they can still harness.”

  Adella howled, back arching, and Dimas unhooked her chains from the trunk. She writhed on the ground, legs tangling in her binds and hands clawing at her neck, as close as they could get to her ear. The dark ink vanished. The guard hauled her to her feet.

  Lantern light streamed through the new holes in her ear.

  “Good,” Riparian said, voice barely carrying over my frantic breathing. “She’ll do perfectly.”

  No part of me moved.

  A trick of the light. Lady, let it be a trick of the light.

  An alchemical agent. An acid, a poison, anything but magic.

  The runes he’d drawn had burned away, leaving the scent of singed hair drifting on the breeze. I gagged and covered my nose. Riparian left, unaffected.

  Maud vomited in a bush.

  And the runes, Lady, the runes, writhed in Dimas’s hand, dark specks tearing in and out of his uninjured hand, blood dripping down his fingers and the wounds burning shut before they could bleed too much. He helped Adella back onto the trunk and pulled the bandages from where Maud had dropped them. Adella flinched away from him.

  Maud raced over, grabbed the strips of cloth, and began doing up Adella’s ear. Dimas fell back.

  I stayed in the tree all night, awake and watching, spinning the ring along my finger until my nail chipped and the ring was much too warm, because if magic was real again and Erlend was using it, had been using it, the shadows were within their grasp.

  In the morning, Riparian’s group moved out and sunlight scoured all the shadows from the woods. I watched Maud pass under me, in the wagon with the trunks, and picked a scab from my arm till it bled.

  “Do
n’t let Riparian find her out,” I whispered. “Don’t let Dimas give her up. Don’t let Adella and the others get sent to wherever they’re sending them. Don’t let me be too late for Cam.”

  I dropped from the tree and followed after them, steps sure and quick. Their path was perfectly clear.

  “And don’t let anyone kill Riparian before I get to her.”

  Runes or not, shadows or not, war or not, she was mine and mine alone, and I’d make her pay.

  Chapter Thirty

  I never strayed far from camp. The dark that crept around it lingered at my back, keeping my heart pounding in my chest every moment of every day. The whisper of shadows was never far—wind rustling the leaves of the forest floor, the stench of mold and rot beneath a fallen tree. It was like I was running again.

  Like they were grasping at my back again.

  So I watched Maud and Dimas. They’d reversed roles. Maud, chin held high and wearing the sneer she’d stolen from Riparian, dismissed him at every turn and followed at Riparian’s heels. On the third night of being ignored, Dimas turned his attention to Adella and whispered through the air holes of her trunk. She didn’t fight when he opened the top, but she was ready to run, from the press of her bound hands on the trunk edge to her sideways glances. Dimas only unwound and redid the bandages covering her ear. There was no blood.

  There was no flesh at all where the runes had eaten away her skin.

  Not runes. A single Nacean word. A command.

  Eat.

  I didn’t know how runes were supposed to work, but watching Dimas was as enlightening as it was sickening.