by Callie Bates
I hesitate to ask, but then I say it anyway. “Is there something else you want?”
His forehead wrinkles. He shakes his head very slightly. “I don’t know.” He turns and resumes climbing. I follow.
The trees fall away abruptly ahead of us, leaving a bare rock outcropping—and on the height of it, a stone circle open to the gray sky.
Finn slows. “I didn’t expect this. Did you?”
I shake my head. The stones are old, tipped against one another, green and crumbling, figments of my childhood come to life. They seem ready to be folded back into the earth at any time.
I clamber up to the height of the outcropping and catch my breath. The rocky hilltop is clear of trees, and from it we can see Caeris spreading out below—the great ribbon of the Ard, the smoke curling from Cerid Aven. Far to the west, the sea shines between fingers of land, and when I look north the tumbled peaks of the Tail Ridge, the Bal an-Dracan, smear the horizon.
Finn gasps and points. “There—that’s Lake Harbor. And Barrody.”
We both stare northwest at the mirrorlike lake, rendered minuscule by distance, and the cobbled impression of buildings clinging to the surrounding hills. Barrody, Caeris’s capital, the seat of her kings—and, now, an Ereni garrison.
“Varro-Dé.” Finn gives the city her Caerisian name.
It means “the dwelling of the gods on earth.” The old gods, not the ones we’ve borrowed from Paladis. In the legends I’ve been reading in my father’s library, they say Dagod, the Father of the Gods, played his harp on the hill and the city took shape to the strains of the music—palaces and avenues built of rainbows and glass. Then our people, the Children of Anu, followed the gods here. The gods gave up Caeris to us, departing for the islands beyond the veil, and our ancestors, being made too much of clay, could not keep the crystal city from being destroyed by their too-heavy feet.
Finn’s longing, his fear, his hope, is palpable in the cold, uncluttered air.
I can’t bear it. I move past him, into the shabby stone circle. As my feet cross the invisible perimeter of the stones, the earth begins to hum under me, the way it always did at the Hill of the Imperishable. I should feel comforted, but instead it makes me uneasy. What lies in these stones? What does this land want from me?
I have my dagger from Laon in my pocket. I slide it out now and let it rest on my palm. The blade gleams, dull with promise.
Finn has followed me in. The humming twists in response to him, a higher pitch that sets my teeth on edge. No. I can’t try it, not with him here.
But as I start to sweep the dagger back into my pocket, Finn reaches for it. It goes flying off among the tall stones on the north side of the circle.
“Sorry,” Finn begins.
I ignore him, hurrying to the stone and dropping to my knees. A patch of gorse pushes up through the rocks here; the dagger must have fallen into it, for I can’t see the glint of metal anywhere.
My palm itches. I wipe it impatiently against the nearest stone, but it only starts stinging terribly.
I snatch my hand back. Too late, I realize what happened.
The ground trembles.
“Finn,” I say as calmly as I can, “get back. Get out of the circle, if you can.”
But he stays there. His gaze is wide, almost awed.
Because of course the dagger made a gash on my palm, and my blood has woken the stone. I thought a specter would emerge from it, as they did in Laon, but no specter has appeared.
Instead, the stone is weeping—just as the Valtai Stone did when Father spilled my blood on it. It is a terrible sound—a harsh creaking, a deep cry that seems to be pulled up from the bottom of the earth. Part of me wants to back away, get as far as I can from this thing and its terrible noise.
But, again, I find myself crawling forward on my knees. I put both hands on the stone. The surface, which should be rock-hard, feels tremulous, malleable, like skin. Warmth emanates from it, and there’s a trembling beneath as if it has veins carrying blood through it. I lean closer.
Finn’s hands grab my shoulders, and he drags me back into the middle of the circle, holding me so tight against him I hear the thump of his heartbeat. Behind me, the stone still weeps.
“I can’t stand it,” Finn says, his teeth clenched, his set jaw bumping my forehead. “I thought—I thought it was going to swallow you.”
I pull back from him. He looks at me through squinted eyes, for the weeping has begun to throb through both our bodies, through the air itself.
“Hold on.” I flash a crazed grin. “I’m going to try something.”
I always wanted to do this at the Hill of the Imperishable, but I never dared.
Fishing the dagger out of the gorse, I score a fresh line over my palm and let the blood fall onto a second stone.
It shrieks.
Finn backs out of the circle, his hands clapped over his ears. “Make it stop!”
But I’m not going to. I’m going to see what happens.
I drop my blood on the next stone.
It begins to sing. A wordless voice, cutting beneath the shrieking stone and above the weeping one, until it begins to seem to my demented ears that they are making music—a strange and inhuman kind, but music nonetheless. It seems as if it could resolve into a melody, if I just listened carefully enough.
Finn shouts my name again, and the almost-song dissolves into pure noise. This time he’s pointing at something in the forest below us.
“Riders,” he’s saying. “Shots!”
I drag myself by main force from the stone circle and hold myself steady on Finn’s shoulder, peering over the ledge into the forest. A flock of birds bursts skyward as a report of gunfire explodes in the trees. It’s coming toward us, toward Cerid Aven.
Finn’s already running back to the path. I start to follow, then pause to look at the stones, still making their strange music. Is it a song? Again, I have the sense that a melody floats within the noise, for ears skilled enough to hear it. Perhaps this is what my mother heard; perhaps, with her training in music, she fashioned her song out of this formless noise.
Finn calls for me. I tear myself away, pocketing the dagger, but allow myself one last backward glance.
The stones seem to have begun to move, to dance their grief in the motionless earth.
—
MY FEET SKID on the steep ground, and I fall onto my backside, gathering dirt and pine needles on my trousers and coat. I fish the dagger out of my pocket again. Finn runs ahead of me down the hill, leaping rocks and downed logs.
Shots echo nearby, ricocheting through the forest. I can’t tell what direction they’re coming from.
I scramble to my feet and pelt after Finn.
Where the ground levels, he turns to look back for me, bracing one hand on a pine tree. His chest flashes as he pants. “Are you all right?”
I look down to jump a log, look up.
Look again.
“Watch out!” I scream. A man comes hurtling through the woods, straight for Finn’s back. Finn spins, off kilter. The man wears Loyce’s colors. Blue and gold.
No conscious thought passes through my mind. I just lift the dagger and throw.
It goes wide, barely nicking the soldier’s shoulder. But it startles him. He reels back, and Finn rams a punch straight into the man’s face. Blood spurts from his nose. I don’t like the way his head jerks back. Finn punches him again, this time in the stomach, knocking the man backward.
“Finn!” I shout, running closer. “Leave him. Let’s go—”
But beyond Finn and his attacker, more soldiers burst into the woods. I leap back, not that it does much good to protect me. Then I realize they’re not running to attack us. They’re running from something.
One stops to reload his pistol. Others simply sprint, bayonets careless at their sides.
Whooping shouts echo through the trees. I stop running for Finn and stare. A man—several men—bound into view, shouting ululating cries. They’ve got swo
rds, some bayonets, some crossbows, but that’s not what makes them terrifying. No. It’s the sound coming from their mouths, the brilliant yellow-and-red cloaks strapped around their bodies. I almost run myself, but they’re Caerisian. They won’t harm me.
I think.
The Ereni soldiers pelt past us, not even seeming to see Finn or me, though Finn’s attacker has rebounded. They’re locked head-to-head now.
A shouting Caerisian breaks off from the pack and lopes to Finn. He swings out a pistol and brandishes it at the Ereni soldier’s head.
Neither Finn nor the soldier notices.
I can’t seem to move. Finn is my friend, but the Ereni soldier is my countryman, too. I don’t want to wade into the fight and hurt Finn. I don’t want to hurt the Ereni.
I am Ereni, not Caerisian. How many times have I told myself that?
The Caerisian clears his throat. He’s cut his hair and put pomade in it so it sticks straight up, as if in terror at being on his head. His face is young and fierce.
Finn pulls back. The Ereni soldier lunges after him, but the Caerisian efficiently wrangles an arm around his neck. He places the muzzle of the pistol to the man’s temple. The soldier goes still. His face is a mess of blood, and so’s his shirt.
The Caerisian shakes him. “That there is the crown prince of Caer-Ys. What do you think you’re doing, trying to kill him on my watch? Eh?”
The soldier twists. The Caerisian holds him harder, pushing his head to the side. The man stills.
Finn shakes out his sleeves; he doesn’t look much better than his attacker.
“Your Highness.” The Caerisian shoves the Ereni soldier to his knees. “Let me dispatch this swine for you. Say a last prayer, southern pig.”
He cocks his pistol. The soldier looks into the forest, straight at me. Beneath the blood, his face is pale and young, and I hear him stutter. “Ha…have mercy—”
The Caerisian grabs him by the collar. “What did you say? What language do you call that? Say it again in Caerisian and I’ll think about it.”
A low, pathetic sound escapes the young soldier.
“Ugh. Rather than speak our language, he pisses himself.” The Caerisian shakes his head, cocks the pistol again. “One, two—”
“Stop!” The word rips from my throat.
The Caerisian looks up, startled.
I’m walking forward, though my legs seem to belong to someone else; I’m shocked at my own audacity even as I march to him. “If you kill him, you’re no better than they are.”
He stares at me. “Who the hell are you?”
Finn answers, quietly. “She’s Elanna Valtai.”
“Lower your gun. Let him go.” I fight to keep my voice sharp with authority; everything I’ve been taught tells me to back down before a man with a gun. But everything I know to be right in this world tells me to protect the life of the man on the ground. I can’t see an Ereni soldier killed. He could have been on guard at the palace or one of Antoine’s country estates; I might have met him on tour at the training yard, and not remember.
To my astonishment, the Caerisian obeys me without hesitation. His jaw clenches, though. “There, Caveadear Caer-Ys. Do what you want with his sorry life.”
I look down at the wretched Ereni soldier. I’m more like him than I’m like these Caerisian thugs. “Go on. Find your regiment. Run.” My Ereni sounds crystalline and aristocratic, completely out of place in these woods.
The soldier crawls forward. “Lady…”
This groveling makes me want to squirm, and I can’t help seeing the narrow look in the Caerisian’s eyes. I gesture in the direction the others ran. “Go.”
But still he seems afraid to move.
“Your justice may be short-lived, Caveadear,” the Caerisian says—almost smugly. I want to hit him. “My Hounds will see to him if he’s not careful.”
I glare at the Caerisian. “It seems to me your ‘hounds’ need a good leash!”
“He is a soldier. We are at war.” The Caerisian folds his arms, glaring back at me.
“Take off your colors,” I order the soldier, and he does, throwing the sash to the ground. I point south. “Go that way. You’re less likely to run into trouble.”
“Thank you, lady,” he whispers.
I grimace at the blood cracking around his lips and pull my handkerchief from my sleeve. I don’t care whether it makes me seem like an Ereni sympathizer to Finn and the self-proclaimed Hound-Master. “Take that. Now off you go.”
He crawls to his feet, takes one look at the three of us, and hobbles away toward the south.
Now I don’t have a handkerchief for Finn. He’s mopping his face on his sleeve. The Hound-Master is watching me, arms still folded. He’s a wiry young man of middling height, not much older than Finn.
“What’s your name?” I say. I refuse to be cowed, to feel guilt for helping the “enemy.”
He sweeps a bow. “Apologies, Caveadear, for not presenting myself to you immediately. I am Alistar Connell, leader of the Hounds of Urseach and brother of the Countess of Lanlachlan. Clearly you do not recall our childhood friendship.”
“Alas,” I say. “No.”
“What happened here, Lord Connell?” Finn asks. He’s cleaned up his face, for the most part.
Alistar Connell drops to one knee. “Your Highness.”
Finn’s mouth twitches with impatience. “Please rise.”
Alistar springs to his feet in a single bound, the show-off. “We were making our way to Cerid Aven, answering the duke’s summons, when we spied a party of Ereni soldiers headed in our direction. We decided to scare them up a bit.” He grins widely. “Brought us straight to your side, as requested, sire.”
“And saved us, for which I am grateful.”
I snort. “If Hound-Master Connell and his men hadn’t decided to scare up the Ereni soldiers, we wouldn’t have been in danger in the first place. You don’t know who that man was—if he’d been born on this side of the border, he could as easily be fighting for you. Caeris was conquered two centuries ago. We all live in Eren now. You nearly murdered your own countryman.”
I’m breathing hard. I didn’t mean to say all that. Alistar Connell is watching me, his eyebrows lifted, while Finn stares at the ground. He’s flushed. Maybe my words mean something to him. Maybe at least our prince understands the danger of a civil war.
The Hound-Master, however, obviously thinks I’m out of my mind. “The Ereni took you hostage. Their queen wants you imprisoned, sent mad by witch hunters, and executed. And you defend them?”
“You don’t understand,” I flare. “I am them.”
Alistar Connell just looks at me. There isn’t a shred of comprehension in his face.
I huff out a breath and stalk past the two of them to fetch my dagger from the grass. Then I swing back to say, in my most irritating court drawl, “It’s been diverting, gentlemen, but you’ll have to excuse me. I have some unnecessary blood to wash off my hands.”
I storm away through a patch of birch trees. The moment their voices fade behind me, my trembling legs betray me and I have to lean against one of the birches. The breath heaves in my chest. My fingers scrabble against the birch’s smooth, papery bark. I see again the Ereni soldier’s terrified face. Hear his halting voice, speaking the language I know far better than Caerisian.
I am them. It’s true; fourteen years in Antoine’s court have made me far more Ereni than Caerisian. How can I take up arms against the people who raised me? I speak their language, I know their customs, I call them friends. Loyce may be vile, but she’s a single person. And that Ereni soldier isn’t her. He’s a young man who joined the army—for money, for glory—and was sent to Caeris to do his duty. He doesn’t have Alistar Connell’s fanatical passion or Finn’s sense of responsibility to his father’s cause. He’s just earning his pay.
I can’t witness people dying like that, for me or against me. I owe who I am to those years at Antoine’s court. I can’t lead a revolution against t
he people I still consider my friends.
Finn’s and Alistar’s voices echo through the woods behind me. I push myself upright and put one foot in front of the other, toward home.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Word comes a few days later: Loyce has had her coronation, and she’s declared war on us. It was inevitable, but still the breath stops in my throat at the thought of fighting against the Ereni.
Guerin’s still in custody, though Loyce has not declared him guilty of regicide, since I am a more appealing villain. Hensey, however, has been pronounced guilty of aiding the murderer—namely, me. My father’s people are working on a plan to help her escape prison; they don’t need to tell me that she’s been sentenced to death. Some of the guards at the Tower, they say, are amenable to the Caerisian cause, and may be willing to help.
It makes me sick to think of Hensey locked up, awaiting death after a sham trial, but there is nothing I can do except ask my father, day after day, whether she’s yet been freed. At least it seems the Count of Ganz is keeping Victoire safe.
My father disappears for days on end, taking the Hounds of Urseach and sometimes Finn, but always Hugh. Hugh has begun to look haggard, and the line between Finn’s brows seems fixed, but my father strolls about, robust as a fox, as if revolutions only give him life. The Hounds—and Alistar Connell—seem as aquiver as the dogs they name themselves for, eager for a fight.
They’re going to gather support, and to someplace where their followers train in secret. Finn always returns smelling of gunpowder and mud.
They don’t invite me to come with them, even though I would have thought Father would insist. The first days, I consider that I’m being insulted by being left out; but then I consider that perhaps Alistar and Finn mentioned to Father what happened with the Ereni soldier in the woods. Perhaps my father understands how I’m torn between Eren and Caeris. Perhaps he doesn’t want my views to inflame his men, either to anger against me or to sympathy for the Ereni they’re supposed to hate.
I tell myself I should be relieved, but I only feel wrenched apart inside. I know I will have to choose between Eren and Caeris, that I will have to decide which one I truly am. It isn’t right. The truth is that I’m both.