With the influencer’s gold, Jafe had purchased more glass bottles. Leena had loaded the returning rafts with camgras flour, pika beans, salted oil, blankets, steel spearheads, and bolts of plain cloth. The fenfolk had laughed with giddy recklessness, wealth and possessions overtaking customary reticence at the Ellegean docks. Raker didn’t care for the shift toward desire, subservience to things. They were fools to relinquish the power of indifference.
“My, Raker, so glum.” The goddess drifted around him and reclined on her back by his knees. “She is as safe as any mortal.”
He glanced across the luminescence, the Slipsilver’s light dappled by rings of rain. Catling huddled on a different raft, one that would moor at a greater distance. At the day’s end, they would leave her behind. He didn’t see the reason for her haste and had counseled caution, a solitary voice in a horde braying for gold.
Between the rafts, other river wraiths glided on the water’s silken surface, come for the spectacle. Guards on the docks observed the fenfolk’s approach, and messengers darted for the ramp. Raker frowned at the goddess, and she smiled in return. The rain splashed through her and dribbled across the planks. “We shouldn’t be taunting the influencers,” he said. “Nothing good will come of this.”
“The world lies beyond your command, Raker. Grander forces stake a claim in the deeds of man.” She rolled onto her stomach, propping herself on her elbows. “You have the benefit of half-blood, the gift of luminescence. You perceive beyond the illusion of matter. Yet, at other times, my darling, you grope in the dark like your alien forebears. Ellegeans believe the planet is without sentience. A dead rock mantled in a thin, green fringe. Influence is a bastardization of the world’s power.”
“If I’m blind, why badger me?”
“Because you are blind only in one eye.”
Raker pulled his hood farther over his face, glowering at Jafe, who grinned in return. He shrugged off the rain. “Leave me to my petty existence, Goddess. I prefer it.”
With a smile, she blew through him, rousing his heat. She drifted off the raft, broke into wisps of mist, and reformed on the water. “We aren’t likely to ship the Ellegeans off, are we? Balance doesn’t require their elimination. Balance requires you.”
“Against my wishes.” He scowled, and when the rafts neared the piers, he slid from the crates to stand at the vessel’s edge.
“Your wishes don’t matter,” she confessed.
“At least you admit it.”
“Justice, Raker, requires the powerful to disdain their power.”
***
Catling tightened the kerchief concealing her rose eye and glanced across the water at Raker. She smiled despite his stubborn grimace. Perhaps she was as reckless as he alleged, believing she could hide among the riverfolk and shelter in empty boats. Was she foolish to trust Lelaine? Vianne? She knew with utter certainty the four doyen would attempt to sway the heiress. Her only option was to reach Lelaine first. The very beat of her heart depended on her shield.
Dreary clouds hovered above the river, blotting out the highest tiers. Watercraft tugged at their moorings as rain speckled the decks and drew circles on the water. Ferrymen, bargemen, and fisher folk waited out the wet weather under tarps or in damp cabins. A few stalwart souls sold goods from the girding dock though the ordinary Summertide crowds languished. Even the twitchers and thieves had wandered off in search of refuge.
Rafts sidled between the boats, seeking a berth. Two piers north of her, Raker’s raft bumped against a piling. He turned his attention to mooring and unloading his cargo of luminescence. Drenched guards fanned out across the dock, waiting for orders.
As her raft wedged into the crowd of vessels, Catling dismissed her trepidation. Destiny had exacted too high a toll for her to miss her opportunity. She stepped over the gunwale onto a low ferry, scurried across the deck, and climbed onto a barge. Holding her breath, she ducked behind bales of soggy camgras and then flitted across two more vessels before taking cover behind the furled canvas of a sail.
“What are ya hiding from?”
Catling spun. A weathered graybeard with a lumpy nose peered at her from beneath a tarp. He’d draped the oilskin over his head like a hooded cloak.
“I’m not stealing,” she whispered.
“What the guards want ya for?”
“Running away to the swamps.”
“Don’t look like the daughter of no tier ward. Who punched ya?”
Catling adjusted the kerchief over her eye, failing to correct him. “An influencer.” She sighed as if her misery in life couldn’t be more pathetic.
“Explains it.” He opened his tarp in invitation. “I’d sneak off from that lot too.”
At his gesture, she slid in beside him. He smelled of tipple and sweat, like old Scuff. Her gaze returned to the dock. Wrapped in cloaks, Dalcoran, Piergren, and Tunvise strolled through the rain, the tier guard’s captain following behind. They swung up the pier toward Raker and Jafe. Catling chewed a fingernail, her shield withheld. Raker had warned her not to give herself away for Jafe’s feverish dreams of gold.
Vianne’s absence among the doyen worried her, complicating her choices. Had her benefactor abandoned her? Was she dead, weakened, imprisoned, forbidden? What about Qeyon? Had he climbed from the river only to join Vianne in whatever fate befell her?
The doyen’s influence unfurled like a coverlet. Jafe’s raucous laughter reached across the piers, and the grin splitting Raker’s brooding face appeared oddly spectral. Coins changed hands, the coveted treasure of luminescence sold for a trifle if Tunvise had his way. The doyen frowned at the exchange, disappointment carved into their foreheads. They turned from the rafters, walking in the wet gloom toward the dock. Piergren leaned in toward Dalcoran.
Tension spooled up Catling’s spine. She needed no extraordinary vision to see a trap set. Piergren turned, eyes fierce with intent. Tunvise shuffled on up the pier, head down, the old man oblivious.
Bent double, Raker staggered backward, face contorted with searing pain. Jafe’s body arched, his fists clenched. Head thrown back, he howled, a mindless, feral scream. Raker dropped to his knees, teeth gritted, his fingers splayed.
Catling jolted up from beneath the tarp, her shield straining for release.
Then Jafe was on him, snarling and pummeling, smashing giant fists into Raker’s face. The fenfolk shouted, chaos erupting as they tried to rip Jafe from his bloody assault. Piergren exuded a miasma of blind terror and seething hatred.
“Sodding bashers,” the fisherman hissed beside her. “Gonna kill him.”
Jafe’s fists hammered, the man bellowing. Catling slapped her shield over the rafters as the old man pulled her down. Jafe collapsed beside Raker, mewling like a wounded animal at what he’d done. Raker lay on the pier as slack as a corpse abandoned to the rain.
“She’s here!” Piergren roared, sweeping an arm toward the rafts. “Find her!”
The guards divided and ran down the piers, the eagerness of a hunt flooding predatory smiles. Catling shifted her shield, blocking the three doyen.
The fisherman’s toothless jaw gaped. “Filching Founders. Things sure is odd-boggling today.” He pointed north up the river. In the distance, a massive ferry ghosted through the swirling fog. Before its looming prow, King’s Guardsmen glided in on swift skiffs pulled by waterdragons. The heiress.
“Find her!” Piergren demanded. The tier guards leapt onto the rafts, tipping gear, crates, and bottles of precious luminescence into the river.
“Clear away,” a king’s azure-cloaked guardsman yelled from his craft. “Fenfolk, clear away.”
“No,” Piergren shouted. His swarthy face blazed, his influence stifled. “Find her!”
“In the name of the King, I order you to clear away.” The waterdragons reared and dove as the native rivermasters released them. The boats glided into the piers. “Damned idiots,” a tall man shouted as he leapt to the planking, his cloak swirling. “Clear those rafters out of here.”
The fisherman peeked out from under his tarp. “They’re still searching. Want you like cheap wine.”
One by one, the rafters pushed from the piers into the Slipsilver’s current. Catling lost track of Raker and Jafe. The tier guards searched other crafts, jumping to the decks, barging into cabins, and rousting the riverfolk. Crewmen cursed and shoved, spilling two guards into the Slipsilver. Women shouted threats and pumped fists as they fled up the piers to the girding dock.
“Too late to make the rafts,” the man said. “I’ll hold them off. You stay put.” He slid the tarp off his head and tucked it around her shoulders.
“No,” she whispered. “I have to reach the tiers. I’ll flee with the others.”
The man scratched his lumpy nose. “I’ll see you off, then.” He yanked the tarp farther over her face, and they climbed from the boat. Riverfolk ran down the pier, and Catling joined in, the old man’s hand on her back as if guiding a child.
“Find her!” Piergren shouted.
Catling glanced to her right. The heiress’s ferry anchored off the piers. Rafts dappled the river like Harvest leaves. Dalcoran strode toward her with a man from the King’s Guard. At the pier’s end, she veered onto the dock away from the influencers.
A man in an azure cloak stepped in front of her, and she bounced off his arm. “Watch yourself!” He raised a hand, prepared to swat.
“Clumsy child.” The fisherman yanked her out of the guard’s reach and shoved her along the dock.
“Hold those two,” Dalcoran ordered behind her. “The one in the oilcloth.”
She broke into a frantic run.
Pain ripped through her legs. She stumbled and slapped her shield around herself. The old man yowled on the dock behind her.
Guards trailed, boots battering the wet planks. She discarded the tarp and flew down the dock toward the southern piers, rain splattering her face. The prospect of climbing any of the ramps now seemed impossible. A clamor rose ahead of her, her capture menacing her with a terror all her own.
As the scattered riverfolk parted, the guards closed the distance. She halted, her heart pounding, fear screaming inside her head. A twitcher rose from behind a crate and lunged toward her, his teeth bared. Without a choice, she dove from the dock’s lip into the streaming luminescence.
The current dragged her under. Her head thumped on something hard. The river tugged, and she opened her eyes. Arms raised over her head, her fingers grappled for purchase on the dock’s slimy underside, her lungs burning. She’d forgotten that the dock floated, the bottom crowded with Founder-made barrels. With a despairing kick, she shot up between two drums, face breaking into a slender layer of air. She clutched at the rough planking, wormed her fingertips into the narrow cracks, and held on.
Luminescence glowed softly around her. Winged shadows traversed the deep below her feet. Raker’s whittled waterdragon bobbed to the surface by her chin, and she caught it between her lips before the river dragged it away. One arm wedged between two barrels, she freed a hand and stuffed the wooden carving into the pocket holding Gannon’s key. She worked her fingers back into the slim cracks.
Chill shivers rattled her teeth. The commotion above her on the dock hadn’t diminished, the doyen ensuring she’d never surface.
A hard bump on her back shoved her head upward into the decking. White stars flashed in her eyes. A second thump knocked her loose from between the barrels. The river gripped her, dragging her beneath the slick floats. The next bump thrust her out from under the dock into the cavernous space beneath the first tier.
She surfaced, gulping air. The tier’s underside glowed with luminescence, visible to anyone pacing the dock. All they had to do was pivot from their search of the piers. She dipped her head from view, helpless as the cold current swept her through the gloom. The creature nudged her upward for breath, pushing her deeper under the water-bound city.
Rippling light mottled the tier’s floor above her head. Ava-Grea’s pylons rose from the water like giant caliph trees smooth and green with growth. Memories of the warrens tickled her consciousness. Yet, this world was eerie, uninhabited, monstrous. She swam with nowhere to go, the river overpowering her, teeth gritted against the cold.
The waterdragon’s horned head reared above the surface and exhaled a blast of white spray. She whispered a yelp as the current thumped her into the scaled neck. Desperately, she grasped the shoulder of a wing and the creature dove.
Luminescence sluiced by her, the waterdragon rolling. She let go, batted by the fins, disoriented, her lungs threatening to burst. The beast struck her in the back, lifting. She surfaced with a gasp just as the current slammed her into a pylon. The river carried her around the slippery surface, her hands clawing for purchase, failing to slow her momentum.
Until the boat glided into view.
She kicked and with one flailing hand grabbed the transom before she streamed by. Someone had secured an empty boat to the pylon by a rope, its other end lashed to the handle of a door.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“I demand Vianne’s presence!”
The bite in the heiress’s tone had teeth. Vianne stood outside the closed door, her back to four King’s Guardsmen, a hand poised above the panel. Lelaine had heeded her summons, yet not soon enough. How she would greet the sober account of their failure, Vianne couldn’t guess.
“Vianne’s been unwell,” Dalcoran said, the sympathy in his voice infuriating. “We’ve sent for her.”
“I’m concerned about my shield’s development,” the heiress stated. “My guards report that she vanished during your fiasco on the docks.”
Vianne inhaled. Well, that was the end of that. The secret of Catling’s destiny had spilled, and she saw no point in further duplicitousness. Lelaine would discern as much. It fell to the candid demands of royalty to save Catling—if she turned up alive, a condition as uncertain as the wind.
“We were attempting to secure her,” Piergren said, a slight peevishness to his voice. “If Vianne had been forthright about the girl and her relationship with you, a great deal of misunderstanding could have been avoided.”
“Her secrecy was at my command.” The heiress sighed. “I can understand how you might have misconstrued Vianne’s actions.”
“Doyen?” a guard behind Vianne asked. “Are you entering?”
Vianne held up a hand. “Please, I’ve been unwell. A moment for the dizziness to pass.”
The guard nodded and stepped back.
“…of which we are all agreed,” Dalcoran finished whatever point he made.
“She kept a man imprisoned without our knowledge,” Piergren stated. “Deceived the Bankers’ Guild, and smuggled the girl into the swamps, a deed resulting in the death of her assistant. Her control over the entire situation has been reckless from the start.”
“I can see that,” Lelaine said. “I should have kept a tighter rein, taken a bolder route. Forgive me my misjudgment.”
Vianne groaned at the heiress’s compliance. Lelaine was no mouse. No doubt, the three men’s influence weakened her resolve, manipulated her loyalty and trust.
“I want an accounting,” Lelaine stated. “Ill or not, I want Vianne present.”
Without further delay, Vianne hauled in a breath and opened the door. The King’s Guards within the salon briefly barred her way before stepping aside. “Heiress, my respects.” She bowed, trembling at the sting in her back while she sent a wave of pleasure and adoration through the heiress’s heart.
“Doyen, you look fragile.” Lelaine kissed her cheeks while Vianne glared at Dalcoran over the woman’s shoulder. More than two could twirl the influencer’s dance.
Lelaine stepped back. “What is this I hear about Catling?”
“Please, let’s sit.” Vianne smiled and offered a seat. The young woman complied, smoothing her azure jacket and the silk hem of her underdress. Dalcoran and Tunvise took chairs facing her, and Piergren remained standing, hands clasped behind his back.
> Vianne filled two glasses with fresh lissom juice. “Catling’s abilities were made known. I couldn’t protect her.”
“You should have requested assistance here.” The heiress indicated the other doyen with a sweep of her hand. “These are honorable men with oaths to Ellegeance. It was unwise to deceive them.”
“The circumstances were unfortunate.” Vianne plied Lelaine with love tinged with misgivings, a blend increasing her dependency. “I felt it essential to keep your confidence. I knew, without a doubt, some would perceive Catling’s ability as a threat.”
“Our vow is to Ellegeance,” Piergren assured her. “We were denied an opportunity to assess the girl’s value.”
Vianne glanced at Piergren, the glint in his eyes making her blood steam. She dosed the heiress with a touch more fear. “Not all influencers interpret their oaths in the same fashion.” She sharpened the edge of her voice, anger loosening her tongue. “Some influences will stop at nothing to have their vision of Ellegeance hold sway. They believe this power grants them the right to compel, to torture and murder. They justify their actions with ease and will do anything to enhance their personal power. Some believe they are entitled to rule and are not above controlling even you.”
Rage burned through her, everything she had labored for unraveling, her power undone. They were all to blame, and she lashed out, “You have lost your shield, Highness. Your will is not your own now and never will be. Prepare yourself to rule under our thumbs every day of your life. You’re a puppet dancing on the influencers’ strings, no different than your father before you.”
Vianne choked on her words. Fear ripped through the marrow of her bones and burst into her skull. What had she said? Her stomach lurched; self-doubt and shame shredded her reasoning. She peered up at the sheer dismay on Dalcoran’s face.
Her gaze swung to Piergren, to the smooth serenity and self-assurance in his dark eyes. Was he influencing her against his oath? Influencing a doyen?
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