I gave the drink a cautious sniff, smelling nothing. Clift let out a bark of laughter. “Not like that, lad.” He mimed a quick drinking motion. “Toss it back.”
Finally, I did and the drink ignited inside of me. It was cinnamon, but not. It was cherry and spearmint, and it cleared my sinuses instantly. My eyes teared as I thunked the empty vessel down on the counter. I sputtered, coughing.
“Truly,” I managed between gasps. “This is a pastime for some people?”
Clift reached across the bar to clap me on the back, laughing. “It is. And that was well done for your first.”
As the shock wore off, I began to see the appeal. My fingers tingled pleasantly and the tips of my ears were warm. Even my throat still smoldered. I wasn’t one who couldn’t handle his drink, but it usually took more than one cup of ale to accomplish that feat.
He grinned, noticing my reaction. “And there’s the Torcher in it.”
I marveled down at the empty cup. “And Fire Adep—” I stopped, corrected myself. “Elementals. They really create it?”
He shrugged. “Doesn’t much matter to me if they do or don’t so long as I can keep getting it. It’s all that’s keeping me in business these days.” He jerked his head at the clumsy, elbowing, increasingly drunk crowd. “This lot can’t get the stuff anywhere else. Banned substance, you know.”
I froze. Oh. Oh, no.
Starter Cider. I had heard of it, only I’d known it by another name. Several other names, and none of them inspired confidence. Slaughter Starter. Queen’s Bane.
Ruin’s Reaping.
It was harmless if ingested—pleasant even, with herbs and juices mixed in—but when a flame was actually added to it…
I’d seen the illustrations in the history books. Read texts of the horror that Reaping could inflict.
It had been banned in Egria since before I was born. Since before my grandfather was born. My great-great-great-great grandmother Queen Annette had banned the substance when it decimated a village near the Egrian-Aridan border. Reaping was beyond the control of Fire Torchers, and it spread too fast. Its consequences were too great, she decided. They vastly outweighed its advantages. The war of Annette’s day hadn’t ended there, but it had been a stepping stone toward peace. Both rulers had signed a treaty banning the use of Ruin’s Reaping going forward.
But recently, it was a ban that had been discussed in the war chamber. A ban my father was talking about doing away with.
I coughed, regretting the drink already. “Sir,” I asked politely as I wiped my lips. “Are you quite mad?”
The genial manner he’d had with me dropped. “Sorry?”
“I mean,” I said, warming to my subject, coating my pleasant words with a glaze of disdain. “You don’t look stupid. You look like you have a brain in your head, so I can only assume that said brain is addled. Altered by a degree of insanity that doesn’t make itself known in your day-to-day dealings with customers.”
He clenched his jaw. “Look,” he said. “You want to go somewhere else to drink, that’s fine. Thought I was doing you a good turn, that’s all.” He grabbed my glass, and my hand darted forward to seize his.
“Do you have any idea?” I hissed angrily. “Any idea of what the drink you’re serving can do?”
His eyes widened and shifted away. I knew guilt when I saw it. I threw his hand away from mine in disgust. “You do know, don’t you?”
He shrugged. “It’s not like I’m lighting the shit on fire.”
“And it’s not like the bloody place is free from torches either!” I yelled. My voice wasn’t loud enough for the whole bar to hear, but those closest to me paused in their conversations, eyeing us uneasily. The girl who’d been helping him before appeared at his side like a Rider had blown her there.
The barkeep took a step back, scraping my glass from the counter. “You want to keep your voice down, lad.” His tone was mild, but a threat was laced beneath it.
“You,” I said, “want to stick to serving approved drinks.”
He snorted. “All right. Enough.” He motioned to someone behind me. “I think it’s about time that you get the hell out of my pub.”
My shoulders were seized. Instinct taking over, I thrust my head back into my attacker’s face. I stumbled as my shoulders were freed, and I fell forward. Turning back, I saw a large bald man cupping his hands over his nose.
A surprised chuckle escaped. Father might have despaired over my lack of battle acumen, but at least I could handle myself against a couple of untrained peasants. My amusement was cut short when the big barkeep moved around the bar to wind one hand in my tunic’s collar and used the other to immobilize my wrists.
The customers cleared for us without even breaking their conversations, just stepping aside to let us through. I’m sure I wasn’t the first rowdy patron they’d seen thrown out.
I kicked out at the barkeep at first, but he didn’t seem much bothered by my heel hitting his shins. I only succeeded in making my collar, still firm in his grip, choke me as I hopped ignobly, trying to regain my balance. So much for holding my own. He shook me by the scruff of my neck like a cat.
The streets were empty. The only people about when he shoved me outside were shadows behind dim windows. “Don’t come back,” he said and turned to go back inside.
“Wait,” I said, scrambling to my feet and trying to think of something that would make him see sense about the Reaping. “Haven’t— haven’t you ever thought about the king?”
His back was to me, but he stiffened and turned slowly. “What?”
I was onto something. “The king,” I repeated.
He was to me in three strides, my tunic wound in his fist again. “I hope you don’t think to threaten me, boy.” His words were a growl, but there was worry in his dark eyes.
My hands were gentle as they settled on his. “I don’t mean to report you if that’s what you’re insinuating,” I assured him. “But my—the king. Would you truly take the chance that he could get his hands on your cider?”
He released me to consider. “You’re not one of his dogs, are you?”
Just his son. I shake my head. “No,” I say aloud. “Just…a concerned citizen, I suppose. I don’t like to think about what would happen if the king had Starter Cider in his toolbox.”
“He’s got plenty already from what I hear,” he muttered.
My mind leapt, but I restrained it. That was a line of questioning for another time. If this went well, at any rate. The barkeep looked at me, wary.
Sensing that I finally had his attention, I thrust my hand forward again. “May I beg your pardon for my earlier words? The discovery simply took me by surprise. Let me introduce myself. I’m…” I couldn’t say Caden. The people may not have known my face, but they knew my name. “Rick,” I said firmly, shortening one of my many middle names, and smiled. “Concerned Citizen Rick Williams.”
That got a laugh out of him, and he grabbed my hand with a slap that made me wince. “Good to meet you, Rick,” he said. “Even if it was a bumpy start. I’m Clift. The Soused Turkey’s my place. And you know…” He grinned wolfishly. “I’m something of a concerned citizen myself.”
I’d been about seventeen then. And soon, I wasn’t just sneaking from the palace to be among my people. Clift gradually introduced me to the Underground. I let him know that I had a position in the castle, that I could influence the royals.
If he only knew.
My status as crown prince blessed me with a certain immunity. I could go about the castle unquestioned, inquire into different laws and politics, and make it seem as though I was trying to get my bearings on a kingdom I would one day inherit. The fact was that my hands were often tied. The scope of my power was limited to influence.
There were days when I thirsted to do more than try to stay my father’s hand, when delivering reports to Clift of the city raids did not feel like enough.
What good was influence when people were dying?
That
’s the truth of our realm. Egria is dying. Nereidium isn’t the first kingdom my father’s been bound and determined to make his—it is simply one country on a list. Clavins was another, conquered years before my birth with the help of his Adepts and Lady Katerine’s long line of kills. He took hold of Aridan, a land of little but cactus and sand, simply because he could. Egria has held them both for years, and they’re counted as part of our empire.
But a subjugated people are not a loyal people. The Clavish lash out and organize a resistance regularly. When our troops march through the Aridan Desert, our horse’s tendons are cut at the knees. It takes people to keep a rule. And it’s not only the resisters’ lives who are lost in the struggle to keep hold of the land. Egrian lives fall by the wayside.
And still, Father casually throws life aside like so much waste, executing Adepts who are found truant, sending soldiers by the ship-full to approach Nereid waters.
And so Clift and I, with the rest of the Underground…we’d done what we could. But as Father grew increasingly obsessed with Nereidium and the possibilities that Ruin’s Reaping represented, I’d worried that it wasn’t enough.
As it turned out, I was right.
Day and night are indistinguishable. My hands hang, limp and white, from their shackles. Sometimes, when I win the struggle to open my eyes, my cell is empty. Dark. I am greeted always with a blinding pain.
Other times, I only wish that I was alone.
Though other guards sometimes sneak me bits of food and supply me with water, Tutor Larsden is my main visitor, doing his level best to wring answers from me. But I have nothing to say to him.
“Your Highness,” he coaxes at one point.
I blink hard at him. Blood runs, stinging, into my left eye.
He motions a guard closer. The woman doesn’t meet my eyes as she mops at my forehead with a rag where Larsden opened a gash. It was his first slice of the day, and the scream had ripped my throat ragged.
He knows where to cut, Larsden. He knows where to make me bleed, but leave me mostly intact.
“This is foolishness, Your Highness,” he says. The honorific is a taunt. “Just tell me. Where did Lady Breena and Princess Aleta go? Who is helping them? How did they escape?”
I’m in too much pain to bother with wit. I spit in his face.
He wipes my saliva from his cheek with a steady hand, but his cuts after that feel personal. Vengeance exacted.
He gets what he wants then. I scream. And I scream and I scream until the echo of the word Nereidium bounces off of the stone walls. Larsden wipes his hand with satisfaction and leaves with his prize.
Breathing heavily into the still, stale air, I close my eyes in defeat.
Stupid. I hang my head, cursing myself. That had been Makers-damned stupid of me to give up. But if Nereidium is all that I’ve given Larsden today, I should be grateful. It’s almost like giving him nothing at all, for Father’s surely already determined the girls’ destination for himself.
I need to be better than this though. Stronger. I can’t bend under Larsden’s pressure.
Rust-colored drops speckle the ground below me, and I hang my head. I long for news of what’s happening in my kingdom. I doubt consequences for Bree’s escape have reached the townspeople yet, but I know my father. He’ll get to the people soon.
I long for the news and dread it simultaneously.
Before now, I’d have sworn it was impossible for me to sleep while standing, but exhaustion wins at some point, for the next thing I remember is the cell door swinging open, drawing me from a sleep fraught with anger and resentment. I start to pin a casual expression of contempt on my face before I register that Larsden isn’t the one standing in the doorway.
The shadow in my cell is huge, but it’s one I’ve seen before.
“Clift?” I rasp out, hardly daring to hope.
A quick-fire grin splits over his teeth as he steps forward. “Pleasure to see you too, Rick.”
Instructions for preparing rabbit, scratched into the ground with a stick during a still moment:
1) Remove the bottoms of the legs and the head.
• Try not to kill Aleta or Meddie when they argue over which one should go first.
2) Skin it by peeling back its fur and flesh at the neck. Then cut the belly open and remove the guts.
• If feeling particularly malicious, sweetly ask Aleta if she’d like a taste.
• Ignore Tregle’s glare.
3) Roast, boil, fry, etc.
• If Torchers are doing the cooking, learn to enjoy the taste of char.
“We’re out of supplies.” Apparently disgusted with our situation, Meddie flings away a branch that snagged on her clothing and scowls, flicking a piece of hair from her eyes. “Well, not everything. Just the most important thing: water.”
“Perhaps we should head for civilization then?” Aleta asks, a hopeful note in her voice. I hear her unspoken wishes. A bath. Food that we don’t have to catch ourselves. Maybe a bed.
Most importantly for Aleta, though, an escape from Meddie.
In The Soused Turkey and under Clift’s watchful eye, the two had been fine, ceding leadership to Clift. But with the expanse of sky above us, a subtle battle for supremacy has commenced.
Our first few nights of travel hadn’t been bad. Clift had left us in the Leeched Desert, where King Langdon’s Earth Elementals had sucked the natural resources away, leaving the expanse barren. Our supplies had been useful then, though we’d been careful to ration them. I lick my lips at the memory of a dry mouth and parched tongue.
Thankfully, Meddie has proven to be a natural guide. She led us out and into a bordering forest quickly. Upon stepping beneath the shady leaves and onto damp ground, I’d wiped my brow, grateful for the shelter—thick, green branches that provided us with cover. In the desert, I’d felt so exposed with nothing to duck behind or hide under. Aleta and Tregle had sighed with pleasure to be hidden from the sun’s harsh rays.
Meddie gave us all a warning look, unknotting the cloth she’d used to block the sun from her head. “Don’t get comfortable,” she said. “The hiding thing goes both ways. Sure, we could hide anywhere, but so could the bandits.”
Her bandits again. I roll my eyes. Aleta visibly grits her teeth, and sparks dance at the edge of her fingertips in annoyance. Tregle covers her hand with his, and though she jumps at his touch and jerks away, the sparks are extinguished.
We all fall into step together as Meddie tilts her chin, giving us a heading. We continue north, toward the nation of Clavins. There, we hope to find a ship to take us onward to Nereidium. “This way.”
On the days when our spirits are up and our tempers even, Aleta and Meddie snipe at each other without real malice. Sometimes, I’m the one to hip-check Aleta when she’s particularly harsh. Sometimes, it’s Tregle. He tends to be gentler than I do, and where I earn a scowl, he’s granted a sheepish smile.
But other days… Well, on other days, I fear Aleta and Meddie may kill each other if Tregle and I aren’t nearby to interfere.
Today, though, is a good day. Meddie simply scowls, shakes her head in response to Aleta’s query about finding a town to spend the night, and points off into the distance. “Not a risk we need to take this time, princess,” she says.
If I squint in the direction she’s indicating, I can make out the glitter of the sun’s rays on a river, and I breathe a sigh of relief as we head that way. We’ve been lucky so far. The water we’ve come across has been clear. Drinkable. No settlements around to contaminate it.
The river will mean fresh fish tonight as well. Our food supplies, wrapped carefully in hides to keep them safe from insects and decay, only last so long before they have to be disposed of and buried far from our camp.
And if I trip a little en route to the river, it’s only because I am already tired of hunting. Fish would be vastly preferable to skinning another rabbit or plucking the feathers from an indistinguishable bird. Tregle and Aleta capture any fowl we
eat, sending arrows of fire streaking toward the creatures winging across the sky, their Torcher powers having a practical use that I hadn’t foreseen.
I fail to realize that they assume I can manage something similar with Water Throwing.
Tregle casts what I’m sure he thinks is a subtle glance at me. “It’s good we found this,” he says loudly. “I’m sure the river will provide plenty of food.”
Makers, Tregle. I hitch my pack higher and quicken my pace so I’m walking in front of him, next to Meddie. Tregle might as well have nudged me in the side and winked at me. His hopes are for nothing—I still haven’t been able to Throw. If he’s expecting a surplus of fish manipulated into our hands by a controlled current, I’m sorry to say he’ll be disappointed.
Even without Throwing though, when we find the river, I manage to contribute a small river bass through more traditional methods. I hold my prize between my hands, suck my cheeks in so my lips are pursed, and widen my eyes at it dramatically.
“You may as well be twins,” Aleta says drily, wading forward a bit. She lets out a disappointed sound as another fish swims through her outstretched hands.
Tregle leans across her, keeping one eye on Meddie, who’s fashioning some sort of rod up on the riverbank. He keeps his voice low. “Bree, what are you doing? Couldn’t you…you know…” He mimes Throwing, swirling a finger in the palm of his hand.
I lay my “twin” aside and jerk my head at Meddie. “Too risky with her here,” I say. I feel only a twinge of guilt for my excuse.
Nevertheless, it works. Tregle nods and turns back to his own fishing attempts. Meddie doesn’t know about the Throwing. Meddie can’t know. It will bring too many questions when Throwing has been absent from Egria for years. Too many questions I don’t have the answer to. Too many questions we don’t have the time to answer. Like, why me? Why now?
I’ve put together some of the puzzle. It has to have something to do with the fact that I’m from Nereidium. But what?
Riot of Storm and Smoke Page 6