by Morgan Rice
“And you did,” Sophia said. “I just wish we’d been able to make that device of yours work. It’s another thing we’ll need Kate for.”
Assuming that she ever woke up. In spite of what her uncle’s physikers might say, Sophia was sure that no one should sleep like this. What if there was some damage in the wake of the battle with Siobhan? What if her sister was whole in body, but not in mind? What if—
“I believe that Kate is all right,” Lucas said. “When she gave me her warning, I felt the strength of her essence. She will be awake soon enough.”
“And probably getting into the kind of fights that make me wish she were safely asleep,” Sophia said.
“Probably,” Lucas agreed. He reached out to put a hand on Sophia’s shoulder. “You know that we can’t wait any longer. You want to go and rescue this prince of yours? Well, we should do that before anything can happen to him.”
Sophia knew that everything her brother was saying made sense. If Sebastian was in danger, then it made no sense to delay even a moment longer than necessary. Even so, she couldn’t shake the hope that Kate would walk onto the rooftop at any moment to join them.
“We’ll do this,” Lucas said, “come back, and she’ll be waiting for us safely.”
Sophia liked the sound of that. Maybe this was the way of doing this where Kate stayed the safest. Maybe she would wake to a world where the Dowager had already been overthrown, Sebastian was free, and all that was left to do was find their parents. Maybe Kate wouldn’t have to risk her life the way she had so many times. That was a good thought.
“Come on,” Sophia said, “let’s go.”
She made her way with Lucas down through the castle. The chaos of the last little while had slowed, so that it might have seemed peaceful if Sophia didn’t know it was because everyone was waiting with the ships, ready to go to war. Only a few were being left behind: Sophia saw Rika waving to her and waved back, while Oli seemed to be coordinating a dozen things at once, trying to keep things together with his books and his papers.
I’m doing the right thing, aren’t I? Sophia asked her brother, not daring to say it aloud.
You’re acting out of love, Lucas said. That’s a better reason than birthright, or honor, or the desire for power. If you won’t change the world for someone you love, what will you do it for?
Sophia nodded, determined now. She and Lucas made their way down through Ishjemme, and in spite of the fact that she had only been there a short while, it already felt like home. She would miss it while she was gone.
By the time they reached the docks, the last of the ships was loaded. They flew their flags, pennants fluttering in messages to one another. Sophia went to her uncle’s flagship, a long, slender vessel named the Briar with cannon running along the sides. She made her way up the gangplank and found the sailors there waiting for her, standing straight.
They’re waiting for you to speak, Lucas said.
Sophia nodded, looking around at the men.
“This was something I hadn’t wanted to do,” she said. “I thought that it was stupid, going to fight just so that I could sit on a throne rather than the Dowager. This is about more than that, though. It is about safety for all of us, when an enemy sits across the water who would kill us given any opportunity. It is about justice for those they have already killed, on the night when they slaughtered so many people.”
She paused, thinking for a moment about the way Lucas had put it.
“It’s about love,” Sophia said. She pointed. “The man I love sits across the water, languishing in a cell. His mother is a ruthless tyrant, his brother is worse. It is a land where those like me are hunted and killed, where people are sold like chattel and killed in the wars of the nobles. It’s a place where people who argue are killed or driven out onto the fringes, into the hills and the mountains, the moors and the forests.”
She shook her head.
“It’s time for that to change,” she said. “We’ll change it. We’re going to take the kingdom back, and we’re going to do it for everyone. We’re going to do it because if we stand by any longer, we’re condemning innocent people, not just Sebastian, but everyone oppressed there. We’re going to do it because it’s the right thing to do.”
Around her, the men cheered and thumped their fists on the ship’s woodwork. Sophia moved to the prow of the ship while they started to set the Briar into motion. It started to slide through the water, and behind Sophia, the whole fleet followed.
“Hold on, Sebastian,” she whispered. “We’re coming.”
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
Kate felt herself coming back to wakefulness like a swimmer rising from deep water, floating up one phase at a time, through blackness into grays and then into the light. It seemed to take forever before her eyes flickered open, and when they did, she gasped with the effort of it.
“Easy, Kate. You’ve been through a lot.” A woman leaned over her, holding a cup of water to her lips.
“Careful, Cora,” a young man said from the other side of the room. “You don’t know for sure that it’s her.”
Emeline was there with him, playing a game involving bone dice. “It’s her, Aidan. The witch is gone.”
Gone. Kate paused at that thought, looking down deep inside of herself, trying to find any trace of Siobhan left inside her. There was nothing, not just of Siobhan, but nothing. Kate felt scoured clean; empty. She wasn’t sure what it all meant.
She did know one thing. She was free, in a way she hadn’t truly been before. She’d been an orphan first, and then Siobhan’s apprentice. There had always been someone with some kind of claim on her. Now, for the first time, there wasn’t.
Kate could feel tears of happiness building in her eyes at that thought.
“I… you saved me,” Kate managed. Memories of the place she’d been trapped flared up in her mind, and she winced at them. She told herself that she was free of it, that it was gone, but even so, she guessed that those memories would be with her for a long time to come.
“We wouldn’t have been able to if you hadn’t called to us,” Emeline said. “I heard you shouting from across the distance of the sea.”
“And you came,” Kate said, sitting up. “Came to help me.”
“Well, you and Sophia,” Emeline said. She gestured to the other young woman there. “This is Cora. She and I traveled with Sophia across most of the kingdom. And that’s Aidan, from Stonehome.”
“You found Stonehome?” Kate said. When they’d been on the barge together, Emeline had mentioned her dream of finding somewhere safe, but Kate hadn’t been sure if it even existed. That they’d found it seemed incredible.
“We did,” Cora said. She frowned for a moment. “I hope we’ll still be able to go back when this is done.”
“Why wouldn’t you?” Kate asked.
Emeline answered that. “We left in kind of a hurry to help you. Without asking permission.”
Kate stared at them. If that was true, then the three of them had potentially given up an incredible amount in order to help her. Kate could barely believe that someone would cross the sea to try to save her and Sophia, but to do it knowing that they might not be able to go back?
“There will be a home for you in Ishjemme,” she promised. “If you can’t go back to Stonehome, I’ll make sure of it.”
She would do it even if she had to build them one herself, although Kate doubted it would come to that. Sophia had every reason to be grateful toward them as well.
“If Aidan here is from Stonehome,” she said, “does that mean that he has the same gifts as us?”
She tried sending a message over in Aidan’s direction, and was surprised when nothing happened. It wasn’t just that she didn’t get a response; Kate knew what that felt like, and this was more than that. She felt blank inside, empty.
Tentatively, she stood up, ignoring Cora’s attempts to push her back down. Even that was harder than it should have been. She didn’t have the strength or the speed
that she should have possessed, didn’t have the power of the magic flowing through her muscles. Experimentally, Kate took her sword from where it lay on a dresser close to the bed and tried a few lunges with it. The results were disappointing. She still knew how to do it, still had every subtlety of swordplay locked inside her mind, but there was no extra force there, no special speed. She tried reaching out for Cora’s mind, and there was nothing for her to reach with.
Her powers were gone.
Kate stood there, very still, trying to make sense of it. The idea that the powers she’d lived with her whole life might be gone was… well, it was shocking.
“Are you all right, Kate?” Cora asked.
To her own surprise, Kate nodded.
“I’m fine,” she said.
It was even true. What did it matter if she’d lost her powers, if that was what it cost for her to finally be free? What had they ever allowed her to do, except kill people? If she hadn’t gone looking for the ability to fight better than anyone else, she would never have met Siobhan, and she might still have been back at Thomas’s forge with Will.
She’d only ever wanted to be free. The skills to fight, the use of her powers… all of that had been to stop anyone else from being able to control her, yet all that she owed Siobhan for those powers had been what had controlled her, in the end. Now, she was free of it. She was better off.
“Are you sure you’re OK?” Emeline said. You seem a little strange.
Kate heard the words at least, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to send anything back.
“I’m fine,” she repeated. “I’m not still possessed by a witch, if that’s what you’re worrying about. I’m just getting used to being back in my own body.”
She stretched her arms out, feeling the push of them through the air. The place that Siobhan had kept her felt real enough, but there was still a difference between that and the subtle drift of breeze across her skin where the shutters were open.
“I think I want to take a walk,” she declared, more on a whim than anything.
Cora put a hand on her shoulder. “You should lie back down. You’re still recovering.”
“How long was I asleep?” Kate asked.
Emeline answered. “Most of a day.”
“Then I think I’ve been lying down enough, don’t you?” she countered. She smiled at their disapproving looks. “I’m grateful for all you’ve done,” she said. “I am, but I’m free for just about the first time in my life, and I don’t want to waste that time confined to my bed. Come with me if you want to make sure that nothing will happen, but I’m taking a walk. I’m going to find my sister.”
“Kate…” Emeline began, but Kate had already set off, making her way out from her rooms and down into the castle. She wanted to find Sophia. More than that, she wanted to find the brother whose mind she had touched, but whom she had never met in the flesh. She wanted to find Lucas and thank him for saving Sophia.
She headed through the castle with the others hurrying along somewhere behind her, trying to keep up. In spite of everything that had happened to her, Kate felt as though she could happily run through the halls without effort, so she did. There didn’t seem to be as many people around as usual, so there was almost no one to crash into on her way down toward the great hall.
Kate ran in there and the few guardsmen who were there reached for their weapons on reflex, obviously still remembering who she’d been. Kate raised her hands.
“I’m me again, I promise,” she said. “Where’s Sophia?”
“Kate?”
Kate looked round and found her cousin Rika approaching. Rika hugged her, and that seemed to put even the guards at ease.
“I’m so glad you’re all right,” Rika said.
Kate smiled at that. “I’m more than all right. “Where is Sophia?” she asked, looking around. “Where’s my brother? I want to meet him.”
Rika stepped back, shaking her head. “They aren’t here, Kate.”
Kate frowned at that. “What do you mean, they aren’t here? Did something happen to them? Did I… did I hurt them?”
“No,” Rika said quickly, reaching out to take her hand. “Nothing like that. Sophia has gone to see to the preparations for the invasion, Kate. Lucas has gone with her. You were asleep so long that they didn’t think you’d be awake for it.”
Kate frowned. “What invasion? What is Sophia doing?”
“She’s planning to invade the Dowager’s kingdom,” Rika said.
“To string the old hag up by her throat for all she’s done to us?” Kate asked.
Her cousin shook her head. “To save Sebastian. The Master of Crows told her that Sebastian was imprisoned in Ashton. It’s very romantic, when you think about it.”
Rika was probably the only one of the cousins who would think about it that way. Kate certainly didn’t.
“She’s going all that way, taking all those risks, for Sebastian?”
“Well,” Rika said, “she said it was better to have an invasion that was about love than one for some other reason.”
“But that’s stupid!” Kate said. “She doesn’t think straight when it’s about him, and he’s done nothing but hurt her. And going off somewhere because the Master of Crows says something is crazy! I’ve fought him. He wouldn’t do anything without his own reasons.”
Kate could guess what some of those reasons might be too. The man, the thing, she’d fought on the continent’s beaches lived for carnage. An invasion now would give him more of that while leaving Ishjemme weakened.
Rika shrugged. “Probably, but the invasion is still set now. Almost everyone is going. Oli and I are the only ones of my family who aren’t joining it, and that’s just because Father says we have to stay here to look after Ishjemme. Even Endi has gone, and I’d have thought he could have done half the things he does from here, sending messages.”
Kate tried to think it through, but what was there to think about? If Sophia was about to go running off back to Ashton, then Kate knew where she needed to be, and it was right by her sister’s side. She turned, finding Cora, Emeline, and Aidan waiting at the entrance to the great hall.
“Kate,” Emeline said. “Sophia wanted you to rest. She wanted you to be safe.”
Kate shrugged. “My sister knows me better than that, Emeline. You should too.”
“I do,” Emeline said, “but how do you even expect to catch up to her? She left for the docks an hour ago.”
“Ships take time to sail,” Kate said, with the certainty of someone who had traveled to war with Lord Cranston’s company. “Warships more than most. The ships won’t depart until every last provision is lashed down, every last soldier checked.”
She had to convince herself of that. It was the only option that gave her enough time to find her sister and her brother, to unite with them for all of this. Maybe she could even get there in time to talk Sophia out of leaving Ishjemme defenseless just so that she could run around after Sebastian, or at least convince her that killing the Dowager was their real priority.
Taking a breath, Kate ran from the hall. She didn’t have the inhuman speed that Siobhan’s fountain had lent her, but she could still run, could still sprint her way to the docks and make certain that she didn’t miss the battle.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
Endi stood aboard one of the warships toward the side of the line, watching the progress of the fleet toward Ashton. Even he had to admit that it was impressive. Somehow, Sophia had managed to bring together clans from Ishjemme and beyond for her war, in a collection that looked as though it could sweep through almost any foe.
Endi knew as well as anyone that appearances could be deceptive, though.
“This is madness,” he whispered, but he kept it to a whisper. It was the kind of thing that could mean trouble for him. He couldn’t let people see his dissatisfaction; not if he was going to do anything about it.
The size of the fleet was impressive, but Endi knew the kind of forces that the Dowa
ger had been able to bring to bear in the past. He’d seen the ships that the Master of Crows had brought, too. Compared to that, was it really so impressive?
Even if they won, even if somehow they pushed past Ashton’s defenses, too many of Ishjemme’s people would die doing it. Couldn’t they see that? Apparently not. Endi had heard the way they’d all cheered for Sophia’s scheme. He’d cheered with them. He knew better than to be the one person not shouting approval around a would-be ruler.
A deeper anger burned in him too. He’d seen a flash of his father’s signet ring on Sophia’s finger. That ring should have been his. He was the son who actually arranged things and made them happen. He wasn’t silly, like Rika, or warlike, like Hans. He wasn’t too bookish or too obsessed with hunting, didn’t spend all his time trying to be a hero, either. It seemed obvious to him that he should have been the one speaking with his father’s voice.
“This isn’t about me,” Endi said to himself. “This is about Ishjemme.”
There was no doubt in his mind that this invasion would hurt his homeland and its people. There was the obvious point that many of them would die in the violence that was to follow. Then there was the likelihood that the Dowager would counterattack in the wake of the invasion’s failure, ceasing to ignore the dukedom the way she had through the rest of her reign. Added to that, there was the more serious threat posed by the Master of Crows, who was presumably just waiting for Ishjemme to weaken both itself and its foe before resuming his campaign of conquest.
Put like that, this was more than madness. It was a form of treason against Ishjemme. And for what? So that Sophia could go to rescue her lover? So that she could rescue the Dowager’s son? Given all the cruelties their family had inflicted, wouldn’t they be better off leaving him to die, and then using it as just more proof of the Dowager’s tyranny?
To him, all of this was proof of one thing: Sophia wasn’t fit to lead Ishjemme.
Endi started to move across the ship, writing a note to send with a bird. They only had doves for this journey, fearful that any raven or crow might be controlled. He set it carefully on the bird’s leg, then set it winging away, traveling back in the direction of Ishjemme.