Shadow of the Phoenix

by Rebecca Harwell

  “Right. Here comes the part where you threaten me.” Aster nodded to Shadar and Shay. “With your guardsman and nivasi here for physical force, if necessary. Have you thought through your torture methods? Do you know the best ways to extract knowledge from an unwilling source?”

  She continued when no one spoke. “I do, you see. Did you honestly think to intimidate me? I was born and raised in the imperial court of Wintercress. I have been trained in every type of political intrigue. I have been tortured to test my resolve, and I have never been broken. You are all fools if you think to get anything from me.”

  Shay bit back a wave of reluctant respect for Aster.

  “We do not wish to torture you, child.” Drina rose unsteadily to her feet. Shadar was instantly at her side, offering an arm for her to lean on. “We wish only to speak with you.”

  Aster laughed. “And a wizened old Nomori woman will be my undoing?”

  “That depends,” Drina said, her voice suddenly edged like a knife, “if your training included resisting the power of a Nomori psychic.”

  Nearly imperceptibly, Aster swallowed hard. Shay could not help but grin. Such a little loss of control by the councillor was tantamount to begging from another, less powerful mind. This was going to be fun.

  Kesali stepped in front of Aster. “We don’t care for knowledge of Cressian troop movements or the secrets of your cousin’s nivasi.”

  “Or,” Shay couldn’t help but add, “the schedule of the High King’s bowel movements.”

  The Stormspeaker glared at her, but her eyes carried a hint of amusement.

  “Well, you certainly didn’t bring me here to discuss the weather.” Aster leaned back in the chair. “Apparently I have all night, so take your time, by all means.”

  “Do you like your cousin?” Kesali asked suddenly.

  The innocuous question seemed to suck the heat right out of the room, and Shay shifted her stance, watching Aster. The councillor did not flinch, but the slightest hesitation marked her words.

  “Of course. The Crown Prince is the heir to the throne of Wintercress. He is loyal to the crown, a powerful leader, and ruthless in the name of the High King in all he does. There is nothing to dislike.”

  “Personally, though,” Kesali pressed, “do you enjoy his company? Do you like to stand behind him as he leads your nation from conquest to conquest?”

  Councillor Aster raised her eyebrows. “Are you actually trying to convince me to your side by manipulating my supposed jealousy of my cousin? Come now, Lady Kesali, you are better than that.”

  “Your high opinion flatters me.” Kesali gave the councillor a venomous smile. “I do hope you hold on to it as we proceed.”

  Proceed she did, as an hour passed. Aster dodged each of questions that Kesali, Marko, and Drina threw at her with graceful ease. As time wore on, however, not even the councillor could hide her weariness. Her answers grew shorter and sharper, but still incredibly useless.

  The interrogation seemed to be getting absolutely nowhere, and Shay’s back had started to hurt from standing still for so long. How much would Nadya’s father look down on her for walking out?

  “Has he always been so…regal?” the Stormspeaker asked suddenly. Kesali’s voice brought Shay’s attention back to the proceedings at hand.

  Aster had paled somewhat as the hour grew later, but her tongue had lost none of its bite. “He is the Crown Prince. I’m sure you can figure the rest from there.”

  “But you knew him as a child. Grew up together, if I’m not mistaken. You’ve seen him at his best and at his worst. Or have you always eaten up his shadow like the good soldier you are?”

  “My loyalty is not in question!” Aster’s voice rose and cracked. “I have stood behind him, and I have taken his edict out into foreign lands. My devotion to the throne of Wintercress is known throughout the imperial court. I have worked for my kingdom through danger, risking my life. Over and over.”

  Kesali shrugged. “I’m sure the Prince has done the same.”

  “Ha! He has served his father graciously, but it was I who volunteered to come to this disgusting city to prepare it for annexation. It was I who worked through fire and storm. When plague took root in the imperial court, my Prince didn’t dare leave his chambers, but I was there, holding court in his and his father’s stead.” She paused, breathing heavily. “Prince Trillium is a great man, and he recognizes all I have done for our nation.”

  A brief knowing look passed between Drina and Kesali in the aftermath of Aster’s rant. The Stormspeaker turned back to the councillor. “If he holds you in as high esteem as you seem to think, then I am sure you will be rescued in no time. Until then, you will be our guest.”

  Shadar stepped outside to signal a few guardsmen. Shay stood to one side as they led Aster out of the makeshift interrogation chamber. She was not sure what just happened, but she wasn’t about to let that Cressian woman observe any weakness.

  “So,” Shay asked when Councillor Aster had been escorted out by two guardsmen, “what is the plan? Why all the questions about Prince Trillium’s past? Doesn’t seem like much to use, honestly.”

  Her question had been casual curiosity, laced with a bit of bite; she’d risked her neck to bring in the councillor, and yet they did not seem to be any closer to regaining the city. It wasn’t that Shay did not want to put herself in danger. She’d known when Nadya first received the message from her father that danger was all that awaited them. But if she was going to break in to the most secure part of the enemy-controlled city again, it had better be worth it.

  A quick, indiscernible look passed between the two young royals before Marko quickly said, “General questioning, nothing more.” Behind Shay, the Guardmaster shifted his stance but remained silent.

  What were they hiding? she wondered, and the fire in her core began to spark. Give them a chance to tell you the truth. They owe it to you, after all.

  Shay shook her head. “Seemed like there was something else going on.”

  “We wanted to get a better sense of what was happening in the palace, between the Prince and his advisors,” Kesali added. “Anything that might give us an edge.”

  The lamps that hung on iron hooks flared suddenly as Shay’s temper roared within her. She kept it on a leash, but it swirled and bubbled in her chest. “Don’t lie to me.”

  “Shay, perhaps you should calm down,” Shadar began, but Shay whirled around to face him.

  “I am calm! I risked my neck to bring you the councillor. Now, I know you all are not stupid enough to waste the first opportunity to interrogate her, with the time you have before Trillium realizes she’s missing, by taking the temperature of the drama in the palace. So tell me what is going on.”

  “We can’t,” Kesali said, crossing her arms. “The situation is too delicate, and you—”

  “I what?” Shay snapped. “I’m a dangerous nivasi who can’t be trusted?”

  “She can be trusted.” Drina’s unexpected words came from the corner of the room where the old Nomori sat, hands folded neatly upon her lap. Shay stared at her, the fires in her chest dying down at the sudden vote of confidence from a Nomori Elder, of all people.

  “You’re reading me?” she asked.

  “I read everyone, Shay. It is only a choice for me whether to dive deeply into someone’s emotions or not. I do not need to do that with yours to know that you may be nivasi, may harbor some prejudice toward Storm’s Quarry, but you do not have a traitorous thought in you. To betray those you fight beside is as alien to you as breathing water.” Drina spoke with an even tone, her words confident and sure. She looked to the royal couple. “Do you doubt my word?”

  Marko’s face flushed as red as his hair, and Kesali could not meet Drina’s eyes. “Of course not, Madame Gabori,” she said. “We are just being cautious.”

  “And you, husband of my lost daughter?” Drina turned to Shadar without acknowledging Kesali’s words. “Can you accept the words of a Nomori Elder? Or does you
r instinct to protect Nadezhda from everything, even love, cloud your gaze?”

  The Guardmaster bowed his head. “Forgive me. I know better than to question your word.”

  “Good.” Drina gestured to the table that had been brought into the room. “Now, please explain your plan to us.”

  Kesali and Marko shared a look before he nodded.

  “We are going to take back the Nomori tier,” Marko said, rolling out a map. Fine-lined ink outlined each successive tier of the city, and the detail brought neighborhoods and tiny streets to life. Shay’s gaze skimmed over it, noting the marked safe houses that dotted the first three tiers of the city.

  She frowned. “Why? Prince Trillium is in the palace. So is his nivasi. We won’t retake the city while the two of them still stand within its walls.”

  “You’re right,” Kesali said with matter-of-fact certainty. “But we do not have the strength nor the numbers to defeat the Prince within the palace.”

  “But when Nadya comes back…” Shay’s words faded as she realized what they were saying. “You are planning for her failure. For her never returning.” Her stomach twisted.

  Shadar stepped up to the table. “No, of course not. She will come back. My daughter would die before abandoning her city, and I wouldn’t bet against her in any fight that finds her in Wintercress.”

  His surety eased the roiling in Shay’s chest. She swallowed and nodded. “Good. Because she’s coming back.” She’s coming back to Storm’s Quarry, and she’s coming back to me.

  “We will need her,” Marko continued, “if our plan is to succeed. Without the Cressian nivasi out of the way, we’ll have no hope of holding the Nomori tier.”

  “And you want to do that because…?” Shay asked, still unsure of why they’d favor the lowest tier in the city, far away from where Prince Trillium sat on his ill-gotten throne, over storming the palace.

  “Even with the Cressian nivasi incapacitated and you and Nadya on our side, any fight with the bulk of Trillium’s forces would be a foolish waste of life. If we can control the Nomori tier, we will hold the supply houses that Marko’s father, Protectress grant him peace, set up in the weeks before the invasion.” Kesali pointed to several marked squares on the map as she spoke. “And, most importantly—”

  “We will control the only way into the city,” Marko finished, and the royal couple looked at each other, sharing a small smile.

  Shay resisted the urge to roll her eyes, because as she thought it out, it was a good plan. A very good plan. “You force Trillium to withdraw his forces to the upper tiers. The Nomori tier becomes easy pickings, and Nadya deals with the Cressian nivasi. Suddenly, Wintercress has to negotiate for the return of its Prince.”

  “Precisely,” Shadar said. “It will not be easy, by any means, but it is possible, if all the pieces fall into place.”

  “It is ironic to think that the Nomori tier is now the battleground for the future of Storm’s Quarry.” Drina’s voice carried no animosity, much to Shay’s surprise, but rather a wistfulness she did not think the older woman capable of. Every pair of eyes turned to focus upon the Nomori Elder. Her fingers brushed the metal seal of the Protectress that wrapped around her throat on a leather band. “When your father brought us into the city, we were relegated to the lowest tier. The poorest Erevans once lived there, but they moved themselves to the second tier to avoid being neighbors with the witch people, as they called us.” The corner of Drina’s mouth upturned in a slight smile. “They called it the sea scum tier. We called it home, close to the waters of the Kyanite where our blood, borne upon the waterways of this world, felt closest to the Protectress. No place in this city has felt so much hate, has been deemed so insignificant, and now…”

  Shay heard her own heartbeat in her eyes as Drina paused, finally looking up to the faces that hung onto her every word.

  “And now,” Drina finished, “now our Natsia, our long road home, has become the only path forward for Storm’s Quarry.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The port city of Brome, marking the far eastern edge of Wintercress’s sovereignty, was built into the side of the Stygian Mountains. As the Seawitch rounded a steep cliff face, the spindly guard towers of Brome came into view. Nadya’s breath caught in her throat. The city’s buildings rose up the mountainside in a mosaic of browns, grays, and whites.

  On the far corner of the starboard side of the ship, the one Nadya had become intimately familiar with during their weeklong voyage as her seasickness never let up, she and Levka made last-minute preparations before their arrival. She thanked the Protectress that her nausea had abated to a slight twinge in her stomach; she truly didn’t think there was anything left in her to retch up.

  “We will pose as merchants,” Levka said. He straightened his vest and rubbed at a speck of dust that had settled on his collar. “Husband and wife, both interested in acquiring rare artifacts. We’ve heard of an ancient temple in the area, and we will pay good coin to gain access.”

  Nadya groaned at husband and wife, but it was a good plan. It would give them the excuse they needed to ask around the city for information on access to the temple. “I pray this works,” she said. “Surely a Nomori and an Erevan will be conspicuous, though.”

  “Not as much as you would think.” Levka pulled on a velvet overcoat of deep jade that he had…reappropriated from one of the crewmen. “Most people this far north can barely tell the difference between a bear and a squirrel. With the number of travelers coming up from the South Marches, we’ll blend right in.”

  She hated that there was nothing to do but trust him.

  The port master, a tall man with silver hair and gnarled hands, stopped them before they could leave the dock after disembarking from the Seawitch. He looked them over with sharp, appraising eyes, and Nadya swallowed hard.

  He barked out a few words in flowing Cressian, and her stomach twisted. They would be caught before they even entered. She shifted her feet, readying herself to block if the port master lunged with the saber belted at his waist.

  But beside her, Levka smiled at them and replied in fluent Cressian. He gestured to himself and to Nadya, and she tried her best to hide her surprise. What other skills, she wondered as he slipped the port master a coin and steered her off the dock, was the former magistrate hiding?

  The city of Brome suddenly extended up before them. Stained windows glinted in the sun, and a myriad of people wandered about, carrying food and other goods that Nadya didn’t recognize. It was as if she had stepped into another world.

  “Unfortunately, we don’t have any time for sightseeing. I suggest you close your mouth, Nadezhda, or risk having a seabird nest in it.”

  She jerked back to Levka, who wore a patronizing smile. “Fine. What are we going to do?”

  “I have a plan.”

  “A plan? The same one that you refuse to share me with?” she hissed as they made their way through the crowded streets.

  “Ah yes, well, you cannot fault me for that. There are aspects of it that are beyond your comprehension.”

  “If we weren’t in a hostile city surrounded by people I would hit you with such force that you flew out into the ocean,” Nadya said, forcing a smile.

  “I have no doubt.” Levka’s jovial tone sounded equally fake. “But if we’re going to find a way into the temple, I will need to get going. To the Cressian scholastic society, to be precise. Does that satisfy your annoying urge to be privy to everything?”

  “It’s a start,” she muttered.

  After pointing out that she would stick out in any house of scholarship like a pigeon among gulls, Levka left Nadya in the shopping district with some infuriating line about buying something nice. She watched him vanish into the crowds, heading toward an outpost of the Wintercress Society of the Noble Scholar. Its brick building bore a stained glass window of an owl devouring a snake while holding a candle in its opposite talon. It was just as well Levka insisted she didn’t accompany him; she would have probably
choked on the insufferable air the place gave off.

  Levka returned within the hour as Nadya wandered between stalls and the open doors of shops. She understood little of what was said around her but admired the intricate rope art and painted starfish proudly displayed all the same.

  Levka stormed up to her, his erratic heartbeat drowning out the calls of sellers and distant crash of the waves. “Damn this city!” he swore.

  Nadya had never seen him so disheveled, not even on the morning of the Blood Sun Solstice when she had confronted him in the throne room. “What happened?”

  “It’s completely locked down,” Levka said, running a hand through his hair. “There is a veritable army between the road and the entrance to the temple. Not to mention the second army that is no doubt waiting inside.”

  Nadya shrugged. “I’ve dealt with Cressian soldiers before.”

  “Yes, I am very familiar with your hack and slash manner. The thing is, Nadezhda, we need to not only get in but have time to study the temple.” Levka had assumed a mocking tone, as if he spoke to a child. “That won’t be possible if the entire nation of Wintercress knows of our presence, will it?”

  “All right, I get it.” Nadya crossed her arms. “We can’t fight our way in. But what are our other options? They aren’t exactly going to open the temple up to a couple of travelers, and I don’t know that our disguises would hold if they did.”

  Levka turned away from her and said, his tone abruptly changing, “Don’t worry, I have a secondary plan. I suggest you find a place to get some sleep. We will be quite busy tonight.”

  Nadya didn’t even bother asking what he had planned for them. He wouldn’t reveal anything he didn’t want to, and he got a perverted pleasure from keeping her in the dark. She had a feeling she’d need to bail them both out of whatever situation he got them into, but if it gave them the knowledge they sought about the Cressian nivasi, all this would be worth it.