The sun’s cheery warmth didn’t reach Johanna. She’d once fallen into a river swollen with icy winter rain. Soaked to the skin, she’d had to hike back to her parents’ wagon, trembling with every step. Walking through the back hall of the Citadel to the small gate that led out to the Keepers’ Mountains was a similarly bone-rattling experience.
Performers had crowded into the narrow space, lining the walls. They were subdued, and came to attention as they caught sight of her, fists clenched over their hearts. Their bodies were unmoving, but their faces betrayed a wide mix of emotions: sorrow, pride, fear, and hope.
Rafi managed a smile and a head nod for all of them, putting on a braver face than Johanna could accomplish. The calm was an act, though. He gripped Johanna’s hand so hard that it hurt, crushing her knuckles together. She didn’t complain. It was the only part of her body that was warm.
Ahead of her, Jacaré swung open the Citadel’s rear gate. Brambles pressed into the space, nearly filling the doorway with twisting limbs and finger-long thorns. It was amazing her mother had once fought her way through the tangle.
Jacaré stepped forward and the branches curled back on themselves, clearing a path, and the Keeper strode forward unharmed. Pira and Leão followed, maintaining their rigid soldier’s posture and the measured distance between them. Their expressions might not have been easily readable, but the camaraderie they’d once shared was clearly missing.
The thicket opened to accommodate the rest of their small group, with enough space for Rafi to slide next to Johanna and for Dom to stand on her other side. It was cramped, but as she scanned the faces of her companions, she was grateful to be in close company with these five.
“Pira,” Jacaré said, nodding to her. “Do you want to . . .”
She gave her brother a long, hard look before reaching for the satchel over her shoulder. Fumbling, she extracted two silver chains with faceted metal pendants hanging at their centers. “This is the best I could do on such short notice,” she said, holding one out to Johanna. “It isn’t fancy and it won’t send images beyond the wall, but Leão worked some essência into them so we’ll know if you’re ever in trouble. I hope that you’ll never be in trouble, because I don’t want to come to Santarem again. Ever.”
The necklace settled around Johanna’s neck, the pendant disappearing down the front of her shirt. “Thank you.”
Pira hesitated, looking down at Johanna, indecision making her lips twitch. “Well . . .” She gave Johanna a quick embrace before shoving the other necklace into Dom’s outstretched hand.
“No hug for me?” Dom asked, drawing a startled laugh from Leão and a frown from Pira. “If you do come back, you’re welcome to rescue me any—” Rafi released Johanna’s hand long enough to cuff his brother on the back of the head.
Leão’s smile held as he shook hands with Rafi and Dom. Then he dropped a kiss onto Johanna’s forehead. “Make your own happiness, my friend.”
His words, an echo of her mother’s, stole her breath. She managed a strangled, “You too.”
He stopped in front of Jacaré, offering a formal salute, and Pira snapped to attention.
“Stop, please,” Jacaré said in a gruff whisper. He snatched Pira, crushing her to him, in the bruising sort of hug reserved for older brothers. She squeezed him hard in return, unwilling to say good-bye.
Johanna closed her eyes against the scene, remembering too well all the times she had wrestled out of Thomas’s embrace. Light, what she wouldn’t give to feel that again.
Rafi swayed closer, and she leaned into his side, looking up as her friends turned toward their homeland. Pira’s hand sought out Leão’s. He stopped on the trail, studying their interlocked fingers, then placed a quick kiss on Pira’s knuckles.
Warmth surged through Johanna, and she couldn’t help herself. She stood on her toes and brushed her lips against the corner of Rafi’s mouth.
“Jo . . .” His eyes searched hers.
“A reminder of what’s waiting for you when this is over.”
His arms snaked around her. “It won’t be a long wait—” Suddenly he straightened, so quickly that he sent her stumbling into Dom. Dom took a step backward, and two thorn-covered branches whipped forward and wrapped tightly around him.
There was a metallic click, and Rafi’s hands flew to his throat. A collar, bright and shiny, pressed tight into his flesh.
“Jacaré!” Horror made Johanna’s voice shrill. “What are you doing?”
Rafi lunged toward the Keeper but came up short, as if he’d run into a solid wall.
“Kneel,” Jacaré commanded, and smiled as Rafi dropped heavily to his knees. “I wasn’t sure if this was going to work.” He rolled up his sleeve, revealing three black bands, as dark and flat as the silver collar was bright and shining, ringing his wrist. “I couldn’t figure how Vibora could drain and transfer the essência. If that fire bolt hadn’t hit her precisely in the shoulder, I would never have noticed she was wearing these around her upper arm. Pira realized that each collar was linked to a bracelet.”
“Oh, Jacaré,” Johanna said, sick with sudden realization. He’d prepared for this moment all along.
Dom thrashed against his constraints, and Rafi railed on a barrier as smooth and solid as glass, both brothers believing the Keeper had betrayed them.
But Johanna knew the truth.
“You don’t have to . . . please . . .” Johanna trailed off. This was Jacaré, determined, stubborn, resolute.
“For sixteen years you were an assignment, a duty. I fulfilled my task to care for you physically, but I failed to protect you from sorrow.” He ran a thumb over the bracelets with a lover’s caress. “I can’t promise this will work. I don’t know if this will save Rafi’s life. But please, Johanna, let me try to save you from this one heartache.”
“Jacaré,” she said, her voice falling to a choked whisper. “You won’t survive.”
He offered her a smile, beatific and bright, happier then she’d ever seen. “If that’s the case, then so be it. I’ll finally rest.”
Her mother’s warning rang clear. This was the first sacrifice of many to come, but there was sweetness with this bitter. Jacaré was leaving this decision in her hands, and the weight of it would stay with her forever.
Behind her, Rafi beat his fists against the barricade, his voice muffled. She could only imagine what he was saying, but she could remember clearly the voices of those people whose power had been trapped in the wall. All of them Jacaré’s friends and family. And if it was their goddess’s will, he’d finally join them.
“Please, Princess. Let me try.”
She nodded slowly, her head heavy with her blessing. “It will be a rest well earned.”
He gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze, then pressed one hand against the Citadel’s foundation. Rafi groaned, raising his fists to his head, then he crumbled to the ground. A band of blue light stretched from the collar to the bracelets at Jacaré’s wrist.
Jacaré threw open his arms and the light intensified, blotting out everything in Johanna’s vision. She could hear Dom shouting in confusion and fear, and Rafi’s pained cries.
The silver pendant flashed hot, and arrows of agony stabbed into her chest. She cried out, cursing Mother Lua’s name, and then the light winked out, replaced by total darkness.
Chapter 88
* * *
Johanna
A hand shook her shoulder; a voice called her name; blood and roses flavored the air. She ignored it all, waiting for the cocoon of sleep to wrap tightly around her and cradle her to a place where dreams of love and hope lived on.
The hard slap of a palm against her cheek forced her eyes open, and she looked into the glowing ball of the sun.
“Johanna, you’ve got to wake up. I don’t think Rafi’s breathing.” Dom’s words came out in a hurried rush.
She sat up too quickly; the thornbushes around her wavered at the edges of her vision. “Where is . . .” She answered her own unfini
shed question, scuttling across the ground to Rafi’s side. He lay on his back, one arm thrown out across the rocky ground.
Her hands shook as she reached out, afraid to feel the chill of death on his skin. “Rafi?” she whispered, brushing one of his wild curls off his forehead.
He didn’t respond.
She’d already done this once—thinking Rafi was dead—but this time there was no heat in his skin and his chest was still. His face was cold.
With a rattling breath, her tears broke free. “You promised.” She reached for the pulse at his throat but found blistered skin and the solid metal of the collar. “You said this wouldn’t be good-bye.”
Dom found the collar’s latch and the band fell free.
“You liar,” she cried, falling across Rafi’s chest. “You promised. You never break your promises. You have no honor!”
A hand touched her back, a few inches too low to be proper.
“What will it take to get it back?” Rafi asked with a wheeze. “You are so difficult to please.”
She didn’t have a chance to answer. His lips found hers, warm and sure and certain.
And as he’d promised, it was a kiss she’d never forget.
Chapter 89
* * *
Rafi
Rafi stood at the top of the tower, looking over the craggy mountains and twisted trees that stretched beyond Donovan’s Wall. The Keepers, more than two hundred of them, had disappeared, leaving nothing—not a broken branch or a disturbed patch of shale—to show that they’d ever poured through the pass.
The thorn hedge was another matter. In every story Rafi had ever heard, the brambles stretched the entire length of the Citadel in an unbroken line of gray brown. Now a narrow trail snaked from the castle’s rear gate to the mountain’s feet. It didn’t look like a comfortable way to pass, what with the sharp thorns and twisted branches, but for the first time in anyone’s memory bright blossoms speckled the hedge.
“Do you see the rabbit?” Johanna asked, shifting in Rafi’s arms to point at something his eyes couldn’t pick out. She’d retained whatever Keeper powers should have been hers, and Rafi was adjusting to the idea that she could see and hear things he couldn’t. Including the bright lines of the magical barrier that stretched toward the cloudy sky. “It’s nestled right along the path’s edge.”
Rafi placed a kiss on the curve of Johanna’s neck instead of responding. In a few weeks, when all was settled in Santiago and his mother and Michael reached the Citadel, they planned to complete the betrothal contract their fathers had drawn up so many years before. He smiled against her warm skin, knowing that soon there would be plenty of other places to kiss.
“The hedge will always remind me of him,” Johanna said, unaware of Rafi’s thoughts—or maybe ignoring them. “It’s forbidding and impossible. It looks like something that will tear you to pieces, and it probably could, but it’s also offering protection to so many things we can’t see.”
“Is that how you’ll spin the epic of Jacaré?”
The Keeper’s body had been found a few paces farther into the bramble hedge. The hardness that had traced lines on his brow and around his mouth had softened in death, and Rafi hoped that Jacaré had finally found peace.
“No,” Johanna said, her voice dropping low, the tingle of essência brushing across Rafi’s skin. “His story will be sacred. He will be revered for his sacrifice, and children who bear his name will be expected to give it honor.”
Rafi nodded, a hint of sadness pinching in his chest. Jacaré’s sacrifice had been personal, giving up his own life, sealing the barrier with the last residues of his essência. Rafi would have tried to stop him. Jacaré had known that and had prepared for every eventuality.
He would never have admitted it, but Jacaré had wanted Rafi to have the future that he’d been denied.
It was an honor debt Rafi could never repay, but he’d live the rest of his life trying.
Feet pounded up the steps to the tower and a throat cleared. “May I join you, or is this another private moment?” Dom asked as he peeked around the corner.
“We’ll never have a private moment with you around,” Rafi said with a sigh.
“Keeping you honorable, brother.” Dom’s grin was bright, but something in his bearing had changed. He’d never lacked in confidence, but he seemed slightly more conscious about his actions.
“What’s in that letter that’s made you so happy?” Johanna asked, waving to the small scroll in Dom’s hands.
“It’s from Lady Maribelle, formerly of Maringa. She asked me to speak to you and the Council of Lords about supporting her rebellion against her father.” Dom reread the short missive to himself, and his eyebrows rose. “She makes some interesting promises.”
“To you or to the Council?” Rafi asked drily.
Dom didn’t have to answer. His shrug insinuated enough.
Johanna punched him playfully on the shoulder. “Go. Respond to her letter. Tell her you have the Council’s ear.”
“And keep the rest of it appropriate.” Rafi raised his eyebrows at his brother. “You never know whose hands it will fall into.”
“You take the fun out of everything,” Dom said, and retreated toward the stairs.
Once the footsteps had disappeared, Rafi turned Johanna to face him. “I suppose this is a new beginning for Santarem. Councils of dukes and underlords, representatives from every township and Performers’ Camp.”
She nodded. “Someday it will an incredible tale about how a duke and a princess changed Santarem.”
He nuzzled the soft skin below her ear. “And how will it end?”
“Exactly how we want it to,” she said, shivering at his touch. “Happily.”
Acknowledgments
There’s a reason authors thank their editors first: editors’ names aren’t on book covers, but their hearts and souls are on every page. If you love a book, remember a great editor was behind it. They pick at the flaws, the logic, the very word choice, and encourage and inspire authors to find better, smarter, cleaner ways to craft a story. Thank you, Annie Nybo, for picking up this orphaned manuscript and loving it enough to make it shine.
That gratitude extends to the entire team at Margaret K. McElderry Books and Simon & Schuster for all their work on this book and on The Storyspinner. Thank you Justin Chanda, Bridget Madsen, Erica Stahler, and Michael McCartney. Treats and smoosh hugs for all of you!
My Super Agent, Jennifer Laughran, is quite literally made of magic. I love her supportive snark and sharp mind. I owe her a dozen dinners, and maybe a cape that she can swoosh every time a deal gets done.
When I met my publicist, Audrey Gibbons, for the first time, I said, “With a name like Audrey, you have to be super classy.” She is. And savvy. And persistent. And incredibly kind. Thanks for all your hard work on my behalf!
By the time this book prints, I’ll have known Nicole Castroman for nearly five years, talked to her on the phone almost every day, hashed out dozens of plot and character problems, laughed over millions of stupid things, and never met in person. I hope we can fix that very, very soon. Expect a hug.
To my other fantastic critique partners and the people I’m grateful to call friends—Jess Lawson, Lynne Matson, Diana Wariner, Katie Marie Stout, Kristin Rae, Trisha Leaver, Lindsay Currie, and Mary Waibel—thank you, thank you for the supportive, helpful, insightful emails and phone calls. I really couldn’t do this without you. Like really. For reals. You ladies make my writing and my life so much better.
Stacy Sorensen and Kara McCoy are the kind of real-life friends that can never be replaced. We all live in different states now, but still manage to exchange hundreds of slightly inappropriate text messages every week and get together a couple of times every year. I can’t even think about you ladies without getting teary. I would be a lot less sane (and stylish) without you two. Love you forever.
And then there’s Jen Wegner (aka Perfect Friend), who is the most optimistic, positive, thoughtfu
l person I know. You live up to your nickname every day.
Authors wouldn’t stay authors for very long without an army of booksellers and book bloggers who support and recommend their novels. Thanks particularly to: Blue Willow Books (Houston), Brilliant Books (Traverse City), The King’s English (Salt Lake City), Mundie Moms, My Friends Are Fiction, Icey Books, There Were Books Involved, Fiction Freak, and Reader of Fictions. You make the world a better place!
Librarians and teachers who work so tirelessly to give the right stories to the right readers deserve my undying gratitude. Thank you, thank you!
Without my parents, Dave and Ardy Vallett, this book would never have gotten finished. They give my children so much love and attention while I write that it almost eliminates my mommy guilt. Thank you for a clear conscience, a place to stay every summer, and home that was always full of laughter and books. Love you guys.
The rest of my family is pretty darn amazing too. Thank you Grandma Edie, Lizzy, Joel, MeMe, Travis, Amanda, Brandt, Brandon, Looli, Jarod, Brianne, and of course, Warden (Olivia) and Ricketts (Rick) for supporting this crazy dream, telling your friends about my book, and bailing me out from time to time. Families are forever, and I’m so glad you’re mine.
Then there’s my own little quadsquad: Gavin, Laynie, Audrey, and Adelynn. Knowing that you are proud of me is the most rewarding part of this entire process. I love hearing you tell friends and strangers all about my book. It makes my heart melt. I believe cupcakes, snuggles, and a movie are in order.
And to my husband, Jamie: you have been incredible this year. Thanks for picking up the slack, sitting up with me on so many late nights, and for helping me figure out fight scenes. I couldn’t have done it all without you.
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