by Traci Chee
“I love you,” Arcadimon said.
Something in Eduoar’s heart flared up, something he hadn’t felt in a long, long time.
Want. Hunger. For more of this. For life.
It was little more than a weak flame flickering under the weight of his melancholia, but it was there. A splinter of possibility. Maybe he didn’t want to die.
Maybe, just maybe, he wanted to live.
It didn’t burn away his sadness. It didn’t make his future appear any less dark.
But it was there—hope, perhaps, or something like it—and it was enough.
“Okay,” Eduoar whispered.
Arcadimon dragged him toward the door, and stumbling into the hall, they began to run.
They ducked through the castle, using empty passageways they’d discovered as children, rooms no one had set foot in for years, lower and lower into the cellars, where Arcadimon pulled him into an alcove so tight they were crowded thigh to thigh, chest to chest.
Again, that want. He could see Arcadimon’s pulse jumping at his throat, and he was overcome with the desire to trail his fingers down his neck, tracing veins coursing with life.
Arcadimon pulled a hook on the wall, opening a secret stairwell. Cool air, tasting of salt, passed over them.
Eduoar followed him into the dark. Down they went, until they must have been well below the city.
Arc squeezed his hand. “Come on. There’s a ways to go yet.”
When they reached the bottom of the well, Eduoar could hear the ocean clearly—the gasp of the tide and the soft knocking of moored boats.
Arcadimon led him along the slick corridor until they reached a long low cavern filled with blue water. At the far end, there was a glimmer of golden sunset, barely visible.
A hidden dock.
Arc began untying the mooring lines. “The current will take you out, and dusk will cover your escape.”
Eduoar swallowed. “Where do I—”
“I don’t know. Just get out of here. If they find out you’re alive, they’ll have both our heads.”
“Who’s they?”
“It doesn’t matter. But they have a plan for Deliene, and that plan doesn’t include you.”
Something about Arc’s tone made Eduoar pause. “Arc,” he said.
“What?”
“Did you kill Roco?”
Arcadimon balked. “What? No. Ed. I’d never . . . Look, you wanted it. He didn’t. I’ve done a lot of rotten things over the years, but not that.”
Eduoar wanted to believe him. Needed to believe him, despite the doubt that pooled in his stomach.
Chose to believe him.
“Okay,” he said.
Arc held out his hand. “Your ring, please.”
Eduoar rubbed his thumb over the Corabelli crest. What would he be, if he gave up his name?
The answer came to him on the whisper of the tide. Free. He’d be free.
Tugging the signet ring from his finger, he placed it in Arcadimon’s palm. Arc’s fingers closed around his, smooth and strong.
Want.
Eduoar pulled him in so suddenly Arcadimon’s chest struck his. Staggering under the impact, he turned Arc’s face to his own.
Hard. Clumsy, teeth knocking.
And bright. Bright as he’d imagined, the flame inside him roaring to life, licking at the edges of his sadness until he could feel light burning in his palms, in his eyes, at the back of his throat.
Beneath his fingers, Arcadimon’s heartbeat was just as quick as his own.
Breathless, they parted.
“Go, Ed,” Arc said. “Go now.”
Dizzy, Eduoar stepped into the little wooden boat and released Arcadimon’s hand.
The current drew the dinghy through the cavern, and Arc’s figure was swallowed by the shadows.
Then Eduoar was free—in the sunset and among the rocks—and as the sails unfurled, carrying him out to sea, he saw the towers of his castle flash pink and gold in the dying light.
Except it was no longer his castle. And he was no longer Eduoar Corabelli.
The Lonely King was dead.
And only he remained.
CHAPTER 43
The Many or the Few
That night, in her room in the dungeon, Sefia opened her father’s telescope case. Inside, the tubes and brackets gleamed, unspoiled by time. Reaching out, she touched the eyepiece, imagining Lon’s hands flitting over the instrument, turning knobs, adjusting counterweights until the distant images grew sharp and close.
Though the telescope was pristine, the velvet lining was peeling in places, and it tore as she removed the tripod, revealing yellowed sheets of paper beneath.
Frowning, she slid the delicate pages, barely thicker than onionskin, from their hiding place.
The handwriting was Lon’s. It matched the script she’d seen in texts taken from the Library shelves.
She bit her lip. Were these words for her? Some message transmitted to her across time, overcoming even death?
She read the first line—
Master,
—and swallowed her disappointment. The letter wasn’t for her at all.
Master,
Please know I wanted to tell you. I wanted to tell you as soon as I found out. I think you, of all the members of the Guard, might have understood why I have to do this.
Then I remember our oaths:
Once I lived in darkness, but now I bear the flame.
It is mine to carry until darkness comes for me again.
I shall forsake all ties to kin and kingdom,
and render my allegiance unto the service of the Guard.
It shall be my duty to protect the Book from discovery and misuse,
and establish stability and peace for all the citizens of Kelanna.
I shall fear no challenge. I shall fear no sacrifice.
In all my actions, I shall be beyond reproach.
I am the shade in the desert. I am the beacon on the rock.
I am the wheel that drives the firmament.
For today I am a Guardian, and so shall I be to the end.
I wanted to let you know that I haven’t stopped believing. I guess it would be easier if I had. Although there’s nothing easy about what Mareah and I plan to do.
I’m afraid
I’m sorry I couldn’t be the Apprentice you deserved.
Here there was a series of scratched-out words, paragraphs stopped and started.
How do I begin?
If I had to
Once
I want to believe that our choices make a difference. I need to believe it.
Do you remember the first time you left me alone with the Book? I’d been looking forward to it for years. It was as if I knew there was something I was supposed to see, something important. Did you feel this way too, when you were an Apprentice?
“Be warned,” you said. “The Book likes to surprise new readers.”
“How did it surprise you?”
You told me the Book showed you your family. When you were inducted, your parents thought you were dead. They were bereft. They mourned for years . . . until one day, they had another son.
Though they never forgot you, with your younger brother there, every day they thought of you a little less. And every day, they hurt a little less too.
When he grew up, your brother married a fisherman’s son. Together they took in an orphan girl and raised her as their own.
“My parents, my brother, the niece I’ll never meet . . . they were fine without me. They were happy. Seeing that, I knew I’d made the right choice, joining the Guard.”
I asked if the Book would show me my own family.
“Everyone’s relationship with the Book is different,” you replied, “for the Book i
s not a static history but a living story, full of intent. Sometimes it is a beacon, illuminating your path when you have fallen into darkness. Sometimes it is an oracle, prophesying greatness or hardship. Other times it is a trickster, telling partial truths.”
“What’s your relationship with the Book?” I asked.
You laughed. “I like to think of the Book as an old friend. Faithful, with a good heart.”
Then you left, and I was alone in the vault. I flipped open the Book.
I wonder if I hadn’t been so eager, that would have changed what I found.
If I
When Sefia reached for the next pages, she found the familiar lettering of the Book, the ragged edges where Lon must have removed them.
The Reader
Once there was, and one day there will be. This is the beginning of every story.
Once there was a world called Kelanna, a wonderful and terrible world of water and ships and magic. The people of Kelanna were unremarkable in many ways, but in their storytelling they could not be matched. They told their stories with their voices and bodies, repeating them over and over until the stories became a part of them, and the legends were as real as their own tongues and lungs and hearts.
Some stories were picked up and passed from mouth to mouth, crossing kingdoms and oceans, while others perished quickly, repeated a few times and never again. Others, like secrets, were kept within a single family or a small community of believers, whispered in the dark.
One of these rare tales told of a mysterious object called a book, which held the key to the greatest tragedies Kelanna had ever known. Some people said it contained records of the worst atrocities ever committed: mutilations, brandings, murders, massacres, rapes and abuses, every form of torture ever perpetrated against another person. Some said with long hours and a little dedication, you could even learn to do such terrible things yourself. The accounts differed in the details, but on one thing they all agreed: Only a few could use the book. Some people said there was a secret society trained precisely for that purpose, toiling away generation after generation, poisoning themselves with power and methods of domination.
But stories are curious things. They change with the telling—multiplying, transforming—until the story you think you know becomes one among thousands.
Incomplete.
Or false.
One such story told of a reader who would change everything. She would be the daughter of an assassin and the most powerful sorcerer the world had seen in years, and she’d grow up to surpass them both in greatness.
But there’d be a cost.
There’s always a cost.
She would be young, only five when her mother died and nine when her father was murdered, and her childhood would be steeped in violence. She’d grow up to be a formidable force in a formidable world, and one day she would be responsible for turning the tide in the deadliest war Kelanna had ever seen. She would demolish her enemies with a wave of her hand. She would watch men burn on the sea.
And she would lose everything.
Her parents. Her friends. Her allies.
The boy she loved.
And by the time it was over, she would still be standing—but she’d be standing alone. She’d survive, all right, but survival is a hard and terrible thing to live through. You do things you never thought you could, and some you wish you’d never had to.
She’d survive, all right, but with the bones of ships and soldiers at her feet. With blood on her hands and nothing inside.
We’re going to have a daughter, see? Not now. Not anytime soon. But one day. The Book showed me my family after all.
“Five years,” Mareah whispered when I gave her the pages. “That’s all I’ll get with her. And you, only nine.”
“Maybe not,” I said. “Maybe things can be different. Better.”
We’re taught that what is written comes to pass . . . and we take great pains to ensure it. The Book says there’s going to be a famine? We don’t tell the provinces to stock up on sacks of grain. We plunder their food stores for ourselves and when the people starve, we shrug and say it was written. The Book says war is coming? We don’t negotiate for peace. We teach the smithies to make better weapons and call it being prepared.
It’s treason, I know. But maybe if we tried to change destiny instead of running toward it with open arms, maybe what’s written wouldn’t be set in stone.
Mareah and I would have to turn our backs on everything we’d been trained to do. On everything we believe—the good of the many over the good of the few—and we still might fail.
The only thing I knew, the only thing I know, is if we stay, my daughter won’t be able to escape this fate. You know the Guard will want her for the war. They’ll do everything they can to make her into the weapon the Book says she’s going to be. Powerful. Hollow. Alone.
And I want better for her than that.
That night, we began planning our escape. Getting out of the Guard would be easy. We could teleport. Mareah could cover our tracks. Getting the Book would be impossible. But it would lead you right to us if we didn’t.
I’ve considered telling you a hundred times. But this choice was forced upon me: our mission or our daughter. I can’t make you choose as well. (And perhaps I’m afraid. If all goes according to plan, Mareah and I will escape with the Book and no one will be hurt. But if something goes wrong . . .)
Maybe when this is all over, I’ll find a way to tell you.
Maybe if I’m not too much of a coward, I’ll even deliver this letter myself.
I’m sorry, Master. I’m sorry for betraying you. I’m sorry for not trusting you. I’m sorry for taking the one thing most precious to you.
Please forgive me.
Always your pupil,
Lon
Sefia blinked tears from her eyes.
Her parents had tried to beat the Book too. They’d tried to cheat destiny.
And they’d failed. Her mother had still died when Sefia was five. Her father was still murdered when she was nine.
She didn’t know about Mareah, but Lon might have lived if they’d abandoned her. He could have hidden her away somewhere in an obscure corner of the world—the Paradise Islands, a sulfur mine in Roku. They wouldn’t have been together, but he might have lived.
Instead, they’d chosen a handful of years with her over a lifetime without her. They’d chosen the hope—however faint—that they could outsmart fate, and find more time.
The few or the many. Their family or their mission.
The stone walls seemed to close in around her. Her parents had never wanted her to end up with the Guard, and yet here she was—their willing prisoner.
What is written comes to pass.
It wasn’t the Guard she needed to defeat. It was destiny itself.
Had she been running toward it with open arms?
In leaving Archer, had she forced him to do the same?
The boy from the legends.
The boy she loved.
It was him. It had been him when she found him in the crate . . . or because she found him in the crate. It had been him when Rajar cracked open his memories. It had been him when he killed Kaito, when she saw him with Annabel, when she left him on the cliff. It had been him all along.
Sefia touched the piece of quartz at her throat, her fingertips sliding over the crystal as if it were made of ice.
Did it have to be him?
Maybe not, her father had said. Maybe things can be different. Better.
But Lon and Mareah, with all their combined power, had failed. How could she do what they hadn’t?
Her hand closed over Archer’s worry stone, which warmed in her palm until she could no longer tell what was crystal and what was her own flesh, her bones, her blood.
How could she live with herself if she didn’t
try?
Carefully, she refolded the letter and placed it inside her vest pocket. Then, settling the tripod inside the telescope case again, she slung it across her back.
She had to believe they could do it together. That they could escape, together, and live out their lives, together.
The few or the many, and she’d always choose the few. She’d always choose Archer.
Would love and cleverness and nerve be enough to beat the Book?
And change both their fates?
She had to find him. And to do that, she couldn’t stay here.
Blinking, Sefia summoned her sense of the Illuminated world. Gold sparks burst before her eyes.
She palmed the door open, wrenching it from its hinges, and paused in the empty hallway. But Dotan and his Apprentice must not have been around to hear.
Soft as a whisper, Sefia sneaked through the corridors to the Library, where she found Erastis sitting at one of the curved tables with a manuscript in front of him. When he noticed her in the doorway, he looked up, blinking over the tops of his spectacles. “Sefia? What are you doing out of . . . Oh. I see.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Erastis sighed as he stood. “Like father, like daughter, I suppose.”
She reached into her vest for the letter. “I found this in my father’s telescope case. He kept it all these years, even though it would have put them both—all of us—in danger.”
Erastis unfolded the letter with trembling fingers. “Indeed?” As he read the first lines, he sank back into the chair, his gaze skimming over the words. After a moment, he paused. “Why are you showing this to me?” he asked.
Sefia twisted her mother’s ring on her finger. “It’s yours.”
“Aren’t you, like your father, afraid I’ll raise the alarm?”
“I don’t think you will.”
Erastis didn’t answer, holding the letter to the light again. She watched him read, the planes of his face shifting as Lon’s words reached him through the years. By the time he got to the last page, he was crying.