by Callie Bates
Dressed, I make for the door. The corridor stretches away on either side, long and empty. I pad across to Victoire’s door and knock gently.
No answer. I try the knob—it opens without a hitch—and lean my head in. It sounds like she’s asleep, breathing long, slow breaths. I start to edge inside, but think better of it. Maybe I should get the lay of the house first, before waking Victoire and trying to persuade her to ride with me to Tinan.
I am not going home. I refuse to be embroiled in another revolution, sacrificed again for the good of Caeris. I will not make a humiliating return to Caerisian customs and poverty and earth-worshipping magic, not after Antoine Eyrlai taught me better. I am going to make my way out of here, and live my life the way I want.
Even if Victoire is right that Antoine was a liar and a thief. Even if the life I’ve lived makes me complicit in his lies.
I creep down the grand staircase, hanging on to the railing. There’s a faint glow of light from the back of the house, down a turn of the hallway from the foyer, and through the high-ceilinged library. The murmur of conversation sounds beyond the just-open door. I listen: Hugh, Finn, the count. Jahan.
“…if she won’t come?” Finn is asking.
I hover there, drawing in my breath, my fingertips just touching the door.
“The people won’t rise,” Hugh says. I hear him sigh. “Or not as willingly. They need something to believe in, something beyond crowns and kingdoms. They need to believe in the old stories. In the power of the land.”
The power of the land—the stories he used to tell me about Wildegarde. I stiffen.
The count speaks, his voice muffled. He must have his back to the door. “How do you know she has that gift?”
My hand falls and hits my thigh. So they all know.
I knew all along there’s only one reason why my father would want me back after fourteen years. It’s not affection or guilt or even a sense of responsibility for my life. No. He wants to use me.
Hugh answers. “She had it as a child. Ruadan kept it quiet—his secret weapon, he called her. I remember once he took her out to the stones, let fall a drop of her blood, and the stones—” An intake of breath. “The stones danced.”
I was a girl, barefoot in a blue dress, and the stones pulsed a rhythm through the earth, faster and faster until they seemed to move. To dance. And I danced, too, whirling at their center, the sun hot on my head and the smell of grass in my nostrils, until I fell down, dizzy and panting. The earth murmured in my ears. I tasted the soil and plants growing in it. I was alive and the earth was alive, and my body and the earth were one living thing.
It was all I ever wanted as a child: to play in the land that lived in me.
When we came south for the coronation and Harvest Feast a few months later—to the city where magic was forbidden—my father swore me to silence. He gripped the collar of my dress. You mustn’t tell anyone you can bring the land alive, Elly, do you understand?
And after the king took me hostage, I buried the secret deep in the pit of my stomach, so deep it was hidden even from myself. But I couldn’t hide all of it. Pieces of my gift lingered whether I wanted them or not: the stones that woke to my blood, the plants that grew to my touch.
I can only imagine how it must have galled my father to lose me—the daughter who instinctively wielded the power our family had in legends, in the time when the earth was alive.
Perhaps I still have it. In the Madocs’ garden, I woke the earth in a way I haven’t since I was a little girl. I can still taste it, the earth on my tongue. But I can’t bring the earth alive again as I did in the Madocs’ garden. I won’t. They’ll brand me a witch; they’ll take me away to prison and send me mad before they kill me.
And even if the witch hunters don’t come for me, I’ll never help my father.
Jahan’s voice, on the other side of the door, startles me back to the present. “But the duke does not have this power?”
“No.” Hugh pauses. “Not particularly. The Valtais have passed the knowledge down, but in the two hundred years since the Ereni conquered us, few have had the ability.”
Finn and the count make noises of wonderment, but Jahan talks over them: “This will make gaining the emperor’s support more difficult. You understand? We wish to help, but the emperor will never condone the use of magic. Euan Dromahair has made many promises of what he will give Paladis when he takes the crown, but the emperor is more likely to swallow his irritation and pay the Eyrlais’ high tariffs on wheat and lead than to support magic. Most likely he’ll arrest Lady Elanna and try to erase her very existence. How will you tell all of Caeris about her but not let word slip to Paladis?”
His tone is blunt, pragmatic. He must be used to making this kind of consideration. I suppose if you’re a sorcerer-in-secret, the crown prince’s closest friend, the most public of public figures, secrecy becomes second nature.
But I will not be my father’s figurehead—no matter how much my magic whispers to me.
I back away. The lining of my stomach is quivering. I need to go, now. Horses. We need horses. Except the servants will be sleeping over the stables. They’ll hear me if I try to sneak one horse out, much less two.
Hensey gave me some coin. Maybe Victoire and I could walk to the village and buy horses to carry us to Tinan. We’ll have to move fast, though; it’s getting late and I don’t want to arouse too much suspicion by purchasing a horse in the middle of the night.
Victoire first. Two brains are better than one. I hurry from the door, in my panic bumping into a table behind me so that the vases on it rattle. In the other room, there’s a cessation of sound.
I flee.
The hallways are dark. All the servants must be in bed, or sent to separate quarters. The foyer remains shadowed as I tiptoe across its marble floor. I should have waited to put on my boots. Just as I turn to go up the stairs, a gleam catches my eye.
I turn back. Through the wide, sashed windows, I see lights spilling into the front drive. Swinging lanterns—many of them—illuminate the bulky shapes of horses and men. I’m at the window now, the glass cold against my forehead. The lanterns sway and bob. The men are dismounting, and the light catches on the polished gleam of their bayonets.
And something else. Chips of gold on one man’s coat.
No, not gold. Epaulets. Which means—
I turn to run, and collide with Jahan, my fingernails snagging the buttons on his coat. He catches my arms, steadying me. “Your father’s men?”
“No,” I gasp.
Boots tramp on the other side of the wall. A fist rattles the door.
“The royal guard,” I whisper.
Jahan and I stare at each other. The knocking booms again.
I hope the door is latched.
The same thought must occur to him. We both start to bolt, me for the stairs and he for the back rooms. But he grabs my arm and pulls me with him.
“Let me go,” I whisper. “I have to save Victoire!”
The knocking comes again.
“No time.” Jahan pulls me back into the shadows, into the long corridor, just as the front door opens.
We both freeze.
A hoarse voice calls toward us, into the darkness—surely he cannot see us here, hidden behind the stairs—“Is anyone at home?”
That voice.
The Butcher.
He came to the Fayette house in the middle of the night, because they had been accused of selling information, and in the morning their home was ashes. They invited him in because they had no choice. They gave him hospitality, and he obliterated them.
Jahan’s pulling me down the length of the hallway. I jerk my arm away and begin to run—outpacing him, racing for safety. I don’t care what my father’s men want of me now, I just want to live. We burst through into the study where the count, Finn, and Hugh are sharing a dram of whiskey amid the tranquil odors of leather and wood fire.
“The Butcher!” I cry out.
“The q
ueen’s men,” Jahan is saying. “The royal guard—”
“It’s the Butcher,” I say to Count Hilarion, to Hugh, knowing they must understand; they must know the stories of what he’s done over the last fifteen years. Both of them are on their feet. The count, I notice irrelevantly, is wearing a peacock dressing robe. “The Butcher of Novarre. He’s here—he’s in the foyer.”
The count’s face goes white. He pushes past us to the door, checking the corridor, the vastness of the library. It must be empty. He looks back and barks, “Get out. I’ll take care of the men.”
“Victoire…” I begin.
“And Demoiselle Madoc.” The count disappears into the library, shutting the door tightly behind him.
“I see you’re prepared for escape, Lady Elanna,” Hugh says, nodding at my satchel and boots. “That’s good.” He walks past us to the bank of windows, where there’s a fragile glass door opening onto the back portico. “Blow out that candle, Finn.”
Finn and Jahan exchange a glance, then Finn blows out the candles and, in the sudden darkness, the light of the fire isn’t enough for me to see anyone’s expression.
Hugh comes back to grab me by the shoulders and I’m steered toward the garden door.
“We can’t leave Victoire,” I whisper, bracing my feet into the carpet.
“We must. You and Finn are far more important. I won’t risk you for her. Hilarion will keep her safe.”
“She’s my friend. I have to get her out. The Butcher—You don’t understand!”
“I do, Lady El.” Hugh wrestles me to the door and stops, grabbing me by the chin. “But if you make a sound, you’ll get us all killed. Now silence, or I’ll have Jahan make you quiet. Understand?”
I fight off the threatening tears and nod. How dare he hold me like this?
Hugh lets me go. One by one, we plunge out into the night.
—
A MIST IS falling. It’s black outside, except by the stables, where lanterns blaze as the stable hands are woken to take care of the royal guard’s horses. We stop in the shelter of an arbor, its vines still thick with leaves.
“No mounts for us,” Hugh says grimly.
I shiver. The damp cold cuts through my jacket; I left my greatcoat in my room. “We could go to town. Buy horses there.”
“It’ll be under watch.”
“So we walk,” Jahan says. “To another town. Find horses there.”
Finn is also shivering; he’s only in a shirt and waistcoat. No hat. The mist shines in his pale hair. “Good plan. Walking.”
It isn’t a good plan, but we don’t have much choice. We break from the arbor, hurrying for the safety of the woods. Finn asks if we have wolves to fear.
“No wolf has ever eaten a human being,” I snarl. “You’d do better to fear tripping over your own stupid feet and snapping your neck.”
“Lady Elanna,” Hugh admonishes me.
“I don’t suffer fools. Especially not fools hoping to bring back the Old Pretender and send Eren into civil war.”
There’s a silence, save for our clumsy feet breaking branches and rustling in leaves. The trees loom blackly around us. Beeches, some elms. A branch nearly pokes me in the eye, but when I touch it, it lowers of its own accord, like a bow. The others are sluggish behind me, struggling against the forest. I stomp ahead, letting my body adjust to the woods, or trying to. I can’t seem to find the rhythm that usually comes to me. The trees seem awkward and out of place, as if the forest is disjointed.
There’s some rustling. I look over my shoulder, hoping for Jahan, but it’s Finn who comes up beside me. He walks with his head down, his shoulders tight. Neither of us says anything for a while. I almost feel sorry for what I said, but then I remind myself that I only spoke the truth. Someone has to dissuade them from their revolutionary madness.
“I wish you wouldn’t call him the Old Pretender,” he says abruptly.
“Why?” I say. “He’s a pathetic man living off the emperor’s goodwill, dreaming that someday he might have a kingdom to rule. Letting other people fight and die for his ambitions, while he himself has never even touched foot to the soil of Caeris or Eren. He’s a pretend king—a king of nothing but air.”
Finn’s throat clicks as he swallows, but he doesn’t answer. I suppose this should make me triumphant, but I’m just tired now. The forest is black and wet. I think of Victoire abandoned in a strange mansion, at the mercy of the most merciless man in Eren. It seems, in the course of the last two days, too many people have been sacrificed for my sake. Guerin. Hensey. Now Victoire.
Tears spill over my cheeks, cold mingling with the rain.
I slow. The rhythm of the forest is coming to me now, the way I’ve always felt it when I’m alone in the woods, in silence. I feel the stream nearby as a shifting coolness in my body. It’s a relief to know this ability I’ve had all my life has some practical use. “We’re coming to water. There’s a town nearby.”
“How do you know?” Finn sounds cross.
I dodge the question. I may be willing to help, but I’m not about to let these people know all my secrets. “There’s a mill holding back the water.”
“Good.” Jahan comes up behind us. “I’m freezing.”
He pushes between Finn and me, his elbow knocking mine, and Finn is forced to drop back. I glance at Jahan, but it’s too dark to see his expression. I have the feeling he came up now just to stop Finn from questioning me. As if he’s letting me protect my secret.
And even though I don’t like what they’ve done, bringing me here, this simple act makes me want to trust him.
I stride ahead, guiding us toward the river.
—
AROUND DAWN, WE turn north, onto a muddy, narrow track that barely passes for a road. Hugh procured horses from a farrier in the mill town—I was impressed until he told us the farrier was “a sympathizer”—but my mare’s warmth helps to heat me somewhat. On our way out of the town, we had to stop for Hugh to pass out coin to the poor who were sitting on the temple steps. “Their farms have been taken from them,” he said to Finn as we rode away. “Their lords wouldn’t keep them on after the poor harvest. They own nothing but the clothes on their backs—and even those, a lawyer might argue, belong to their masters. But under Caerisian law, anyone may buy his own land. They would not be homeless beneath King Euan.”
He also handed out pamphlets. I snatched one and skimmed the long treatise—by an Anonymous Author—describing the rights of the people under the traditional laws of Eren and Caeris, as opposed to those we have adopted from Paladis.
I wonder what printer dared to put this treason to press. Even several hours later, I’m still twisting the paper into a tight roll, as if I can rub the ink off the pages.
We must be near the border, and as the sun clears the sky, I see it—the wide river Ard flowing south. On the other side spread the bedraggled fields of Tinan.
But the idea of finding a way across the river only sounds exhausting. And the worn pamphlet in my hand implores me not to go.
Are they in the right? Would changing the king—changing the laws—make our kingdom better, stronger, safer?
Jahan rides beside me when the difficult road permits. He seems to have one eye behind us, though he doesn’t turn to look back. His shoulders are taut and alert. I tell myself I shouldn’t be watching him—that he’ll think me a silly, moonstruck girl—but I keep thinking of the stories they tell about him. How he went on campaign to Chozat and saved the crown prince of Paladis’s life, catapulting to fame by single-handedly taking on the two dozen tribesmen who had attacked them. How he stood in front of the crown prince, his rapier flashing…they’ve written songs about it. A miracle, they call it; the gods blessed him with superhuman strength that day.
But I suddenly wonder whether it was a miracle, or his magic. And what does he hear now? Why is he so alert?
I finally ask. “Are we being followed?”
He looks unhappy, but he shakes his head. “I don’t thi
nk so.”
“But something’s wrong.”
He doesn’t answer right away, but he doesn’t deny it, either. We curve along above the river. The tracks are rutted; the road must be used by farmers taking their goods to market. I twist the pamphlet so hard it finally tears. Jahan stares straight ahead, his mouth tight. Our horses jostle together on the curve, and he looks at me as if he’s just remembered that I’m there.
“Someone spoke my name,” he says.
I have no idea why this would upset him. “Probably Finn.” The others have drawn ahead, though still within earshot.
Jahan winces, shakes his head again. “No, not like that. I heard it…miles away.”
It’s my turn to stare straight ahead at the churned muck and grass on the road. I don’t know why it should be so easy to forget he’s a sorcerer—and not only that, but the Korakos. I feel clumsy and ignorant in so many ways. He seems to know so much more about magic than I do. I’ve spent my life trying to forget the little I know, and now that I need it, I have to confront the fact that my knowledge is a child’s.
“I shouldn’t have come,” he says, half to himself. “Nikerites didn’t like it. Didn’t like me. They don’t, you know, most people. They pretend to. Or they make it clear they don’t. Nikerites was one of the latter. I had to pull rank, use Leontius’s name. He called me an arrogant puppy.”
I digest this. It is difficult to imagine having so much power, being able to wield the crown prince of Paladis’s name like a weapon. “Is it…Nikerites…you heard?”
“No.” He tilts his head, as if listening again. “It was a woman.”
“Do you always hear it when people say your name?” I can’t help but think there must be many women and men, from Paladis to Eren, speaking his name. His friends must speak it—the crown prince must speak it. They say that after Jahan saved Leontius’s life, the prince never lets him out of his sight. Some claim they’re lovers. What does the prince call him when they’re alone together, if the rumors are true? My ears burn at the thought. Of course most people say the crown prince is just too dull and stupid to make decisions on his own, that he needs someone stronger to rule through him. And why not Jahan Korakides, who’s quick-witted and brilliant and dashing?