by Cindy Dees
“A singing seed,” One responded in disgust. “We went off course for this?”
Two tucked the seed lovingly in her pouch, nesting it in a woolen scarf like a fragile egg.
“Are you ready to get back to the business at hand of tracking our prey?” he asked impatiently.
Two nodded, and they turned their attention to descending the cliff, which, though less strenuous, proved nearly as tricky as climbing it. They’d lost at least two hours on their quarry and would have to hurry through the afternoon and march into the evening to make up for lost time.
But a driving compulsion to get back on the scent of their prey drove him mercilessly, and he’d learned not even to try to fight it.
* * *
Raina grinned as Lakanos asked drolly, “Should we offer to serve Cicero his dinner? It has been a long time since I was a page, but I think I could pull it off.”
She replied, “I draw the line at peeling grapes.”
Their escorts lifted away their veils and set them aside, revealing themselves to be women. Lakanos’s face reflected surprise, perhaps that he’d been fought to a draw by a group of females.
Raina unwound her own head wrap with a sigh of relief as a breeze cooled the sweat on her skin, granting her a moment’s relief from the day’s stifling heat. She knew from experience that the evening would not cool until the sun fully set, and then the temperature would drop precipitously. She could not imagine what this place would be like in the height of summer. It was barely spring and already nigh unbearable.
They were offered skins of water lightly flavored with what tasted like a cross between green tea and some fruit akin to a fig. Either way, it soothed her parched throat and eased her headache somewhat. She nodded her thanks to the woman who’d given the skin to her.
They were served rounds of flat bread, charred black on the outside but soft and chewy on the inside. A paste of some kind was provided to spread on torn pieces of the bread. It was salty in taste, gritty in texture. She did not ask what it was; she didn’t want to know. After choking it down, she was happy to accept a cup of some hot, bitter liquid that cleansed her mouth.
When the simple repast had concluded, a trio of woman approached Cicero. Together, they looked older than time, their skin dry and deeply wrinkled. Pale lines of dust seemed permanently inlaid in their facial creases.
“You are the messenger from our cousin in the Sorrow Wold?” one of them asked. “What news is there?”
Raina and Cicero had not had a single second to themselves to discuss what he would say in response to this expected question. She gulped. He was on his own.
“The Widow of the Wold lives and prospers. She hopes her cousins in the Thirst do the same.”
“We of the Veils prosper, as well,” one of them intoned solemnly.
The Veils? Raina gaped. They were a notorious outlaw group, said to be ruthless in protecting their territories and exceedingly unfriendly to outsiders of any kind. The Veils ruled the deserts of the Thirst, no matter what the Empire might claim to the contrary.
“My mistress wishes to inquire how you fare. It has been too long since she has heard from you,” Cicero intoned formally.
Ah, well played.
“The Wust is restless,” one of them replied as if that explained everything.
“The Wust?” Raina intervened to ask, curious after the dryads had refused to talk about it.
“Aye. The living embodiment of this land. It is the fearsome spirit and heart of the Thirst. It takes the blood we offer to slake its great and terrible thirst, and in return, it grants the land water, thus granting life.”
Raina was startled. In her short time in the Thirst, the region had struck her as dead and barren.
The woman who had answered her snorted. “You see no green and assume the Thirst is dead. Yet does not yon tree live? Do we not thrive? When night has fallen, do not the creatures of the desert sing?”
Raina nodded, conceding the point. But she couldn’t resist asking, “You say you offer the Wust blood. Do you do this in the form of sacrifices?” As a White Heart member, she opposed such practices, but it was also not her place to tell the people of a place that their culture and traditions were wrong.
“Food is too precious to waste in the way you suggest, White Heart. But marauders and intruders aplenty come here, eager to spill their blood upon our spears.”
While she abhorred bloodshed, she also couldn’t fault these people for defending themselves.
After dinner, more women came to the open tent, gathering to talk and laugh and stare curiously at the visitors. Elders arrived, and one of them stood up to speak.
“When the first daughter of the sand was exiled from her people, she walked into the Wust expecting to die. But instead, she found life in the branches of Bastion, the great father of all the tetrakis trees.”
As the woman described the dimensions and powers of Bastion, Raina guessed he must be a treant.
The storyteller continued, “Bastion and the Wust lived in harmony, and because Bastion accepted the lost daughter unto himself, so did the Wust. Bastion changed as the seasons changed, and the daughter learned the ways of the land and the rhythm of its seasons.”
As far as Raina could tell, the Thirst had two seasons. Hot and hotter.
“Many years passed, and another daughter of the sand came unto this land, parched and nearly dead from her long journey, cast out of Tyrel to die.”
Raina jolted. “Tyrel?” she blurted. “Are you certain?”
The storyteller turned on her. “I know where I was born, girl. And I know from whence I was cast out to die.”
Raina’s jaw sagged. “Are you related to the Black Widow, by any chance?”
“She is my niece.”
All the breath whooshed out of Raina as if the woman had slugged her in the stomach. She tried to stand, but was so stunned she staggered and might have fallen had Lakanos not jumped up to steady her.
“I am from Tyrel,” Raina managed to choke out. “And if I have this right, you are my great-great-aunt. I am Raina, the second daughter of Charlotte of Tyrel.”
The old woman frowned. “Second daughter? Not the first?”
“Nay. My sister, Arianna, yet abides in Tyrel. I ran away from home two years ago, and the Mages of Alchizzadon cannot replace her as long as I refuse to bear children.”
A collective hiss went up at the name Alchizzadon.
Cicero looked over at Raina in disgust. “Another one of your female relatives driven out to die? What is the problem with your family?”
Lakanos stared in alarm. “What’s this about women in your family dying?”
Raina replied, “It’s a long story.” To the storyteller—her great-great-aunt—she asked, “How did you find your way so far from Tyrel? And how have you lived so long?”
“The blood that makes daughters of Tyrel strong in magic also enhances our life spans, it seems.”
“Are all the people here descended from Ariannas?” Raina asked curiously.
“No. Only two Ariannas have found their way to the Thirst according to our oral history—the first one who founded the Veils long ago and myself. We keep a watch every generation for another to walk into the sands, but none have come in a long time.”
Raina thought back. “My aunt Ari left Tyrel four years ago. I have no idea where she ended up.”
“If she was lucky, she died,” the storyteller retorted bluntly. “The Widow of the Wold was the last to escape the clutches of Alchizzadon when she took her long walk.”
“What do the mages do with the women of our family?” She was fairly sure she knew the answer, but wanted confirmation.
“Kill them. Capture their spirits and magics.”
Lakanos pivoted to face Raina. “Is there evidence to support this claim?”
“You were there,” she replied. “You interrupted them trying to bottle my spirit. According to Kadir, they intended to drain my magic and then keep my body—an empty hus
k—barely alive in some kind of permanent stasis until they use my magic and my body dies permanently.”
Lakanos’s eyes narrowed to furious slits. “I will be reporting this to Lord Justinius immediately upon my return.”
“By all means, please do,” she replied.
“How is it you escaped the mages?” her great-great-aunt demanded.
“These gentlemen”—she gestured at Cicero and Lakanos—“and two more brave men, both Mages of Alchizzadon who have already left our company, rescued me. I am in their debt.”
“Be welcome among us, Raina of Tyrel. If you wish to stay and make your home with us, we will embrace the third daughter of the sand.”
Another one of the elder women bowed deeply, murmuring, “The Wust welcomes you into its ancient and powerful embrace, daughter of Tyrel.”
“Thanks be unto thee, but I cannot stay this time. I must cross the Thirst and find my friends.”
One of the Veils responded, “We have arrived at the season when you should travel at night and rest during the heat of the day. We will provide you a guide across the Thirst, for you are about to reach the lands of the Saryl.”
“And they are…?” Lakanos asked.
“Red lizardmen who live out here. Also, there have been sightings of Gnogadi, the Wandering Stone. And before you ask, he is a stone elemental indigenous to the area. Even we steer clear of him.”
“Are you well enough to travel tonight?” Lakanos asked Raina. “You seemed … off … earlier when we fought the Veils.”
Sometimes she forgot how observant he was. “If I get a few hours’ sleep, I’ll be ready to go. The headaches only get really bad when I try to use my magic.”
“Fair enough. I will guard your sleep.”
If only he could guard her nightmares.
CHAPTER
22
Gabrielle waited in an agony of impatience at the little inn in the forest while Talissar finalized the plan for breaking into Maximillian’s trophy room. Apparently, he had asked someone to help with the heist, and that person was due to arrive at any moment.
There had been quite a debate between Talissar and the young man over whether or not this outside party was to be trusted. They both agreed the person in question was capricious at best and unhinged at worst. Unpredictable as he might be, though, they both reluctantly agreed that the break-in would simply not be possible without his assistance.
Every day of waiting was agony for her. She consoled herself with praying that her children, her husband, and posterity might remember her, succeed or fail, for her bravery in standing up to the evil of the Kothite Empire. Of course, knowing Maximillian, no one would remember that she’d ever existed at all.
On the afternoon of their tenth interminable day at the inn, a knock on her door sent her innards into turmoil. Her guest was a black-skinned nulvari with the pale blond hair and brows of a human and a handsome rake of a fellow. He was tall and athletic, dressed to the nines, his intelligent gaze darting into every corner of the room and taking in every detail. He looked familiar—
“Are you by any chance Acavaro’s son?” she asked. “I believe we met some years ago.”
He swept into a grand bow, one nicely turned leg displayed to her. “I am, indeed, Your Highness. But for this adventure, I have decided to call myself the Thief in the Night. Romantic, no?”
“Terribly,” she replied dryly.
He asked briskly, “Are you and yours ready to go? I’m eager to get on with biting a pound of flesh out of our resplendent leader’s backside.”
So this was revenge for him. She didn’t like the hectic air that clung to him and said warningly, “I would remind you, our mission is simply to reconnoiter. We get into the trophy room, have a quiet look around, and get out.”
“Of course.” His dismissive hand wave and breezy reply didn’t calm her fears in the least.
“Last I heard, you went away, vowing never to return to court.” She vaguely recalled hearing about a spectacular blowup from him some years ago, around the time she’d lost Sir Darius. It had something to do with a nulvari woman. Supposedly, he’d stolen something on a lark and then given it to her as a gift. She’d been caught with it in her possession and accused of being his accomplice in the theft.
There had been quite a scandal over it, and the woman had fled into hiding, which lent credence to rumors that she had been the mastermind behind the whole affair. He’d vowed it was all his fault and demanded to take her punishment, but his powerful parents had intervened and he’d left court under a cloud.
“My old friend Talissar dangled the one bait that would get me to return to court. A chance at revenge against he who wronged my true love.”
“Promise me you won’t do anything rash. A lot depends on this mission, and I don’t need you to get us all caught and killed.”
“There are much worse fates in this world than death, I assure you. I have lived them all in the long decades away from my love.”
She rolled her eyes at his romantic foolishness. There were plenty of fates worse than being separated from a loved one. And sometimes separation was for the best. It had nigh killed her to send her own children away, but she could not pass up a chance for them to grow up far away from Maximillian, spared from being pawns in the Emperor’s political games.
A knock on her door admitted the other members of the party. The thief took one look at Sir Valyri and demanded, “He’s not coming with us, is he?”
Gabrielle responded, startled, “That was the plan.”
“No. Absolutely not. The Heart knight cannot go with us.”
“Why not?”
“Because we’re going to be committing a crime, and he’s bound to get squeamish at the worst possible moment. He goes or I go. But not both of us.”
Gabrielle looked back and forth between the two men in distress. She could see the thief’s point. “I am loath to exclude one of our most accomplished warriors from the mission.”
The thief snorted. “If we need any warriors at all, we’re dead anyway.”
Sir Valyri spoke up. “It’s fine. I will wait outside the palace and hold a boat for us. That way if we need a fast departure, it will be waiting and ready.”
“You’re sure you don’t mind?” she asked the knight.
“Our new friend makes an excellent point. In truth, I am relieved to avoid the more larcenous aspects of this plan.”
The thief murmured, “Shall we go, my lady? I believe the plan calls for you to lead the way.”
Already they were off the plan, and they hadn’t even gotten started yet.
She nodded regally, assuming the mantle of her royal title, and said formally, “Let us depart. Korgan and Jossa, follow behind the rest of us. I am sorry, but the two of you will have to carry the luggage. It will be assumed that you are servants because of your races, and to do otherwise would attract the wrong kind of attention.”
She swept out of the inn into the crisp mountain air, the afternoon sun warm on her cheeks. They walked across a bridle path and down a short road through a stand of pine and birch trees to the shores of the Crystal River. A magnificent barge floated by the dock like a bloated ladies’ brooch, crusted in gems and curlicues until the boat itself was barely visible.
The trip down the Crystal River was as gorgeous as she remembered. Every field and forest they passed was manicured within an inch of its life and looked like a pastoral painting. But mostly, she was sick to her stomach with nervous anticipation of the heist to come.
They rounded a great bend in the river, and the Imperial Seat rose before them, its city-sized mass perched upon the White Crown Plaza, a gigantic platform raised many stories above the river by a spectacular fretwork of arches rising like a three-dimensional stained-glass window between the eight mountains making up Thoris’s Shield.
At the peak of the Imperial Palace, topping it like a dark crown, was the Eternal Flame itself. She knew from visiting it once that the flame burned in an enormous b
razier, never needing fuel or magic to sustain its life-consuming fire. To pass through the Black Flame was to be consigned to the Void for eternity with no possibility of return.
Evening was falling, and torches were being lit all across the Imperial Seat, turning it into a glittering diamond atop its splendid setting.
The palace of His Resplendent Majesty, Maximillian the Third, was the central jewel in an empire spanning the breadth and length of Urth. It seemed to float in the sky, as awe-inspiring as the immortal ruler who occupied it. No matter how many times she gazed upon the soaring edifice, it never failed to amaze her.
Even Korgan gasped in wonder at the sight of bridges, plaza, and palace. “Gor, how does it stay up? So delicate those arches be. Why does the whole city not crash into the lake?”
Gabrielle answered, “It is said that giants grew the arches.”
Bekkan commented, “Giant-grown stone is the strongest in existence. Yon arches may look fragile, but if they’re giant-made, they’ll last forever.”
Gabrielle sincerely hoped not. One day, she would love to see the entire palace and everything it stood for come tumbling down.
She checked her train of thought sharply. She dared not rely solely on her Octavium Pendant to shield her thoughts from the prying minds of the powerful Kothites at court. Not only the Emperor but also his archdukes and archduchesses were adept mind readers.
It took nearly an hour to ride the swift currents to the foot of the floating city, and night fell in the meantime, the sky turning violet, then navy, then black, peppered with bright stars.
The Imperial Seat towered over the entire valley like a massive stone cloud. The hair-raising ride in trolley carts up the mountain took nearly a half hour—plenty of time for the approaching supplicant to soak in the immense wealth and power behind the construction of the edifice overhead.
And then there was the breath-stealing walk across a stone footbridge in buffeting winds to the White Crown Plaza. Gabrielle had always thought the approach to the Imperial Seat was designed to terrify and cow visitors. Defiantly, she refused to be afraid of the lofty heights this eve.