by Callie Bates
Awareness of the land beats within my bones. If I go to Paladis, I wonder, will my magic be numbed? Or will it still explode out of me, even more dangerous than it is here, because I’m at the imperial court?
It can’t. I won’t let it. I’m strong enough to hide it; strong enough to claim the aid my father needs and then live the life I want.
I draw in a breath. “At least let me come, and we can talk to Jahan together.” He can help persuade my father that it’s worth the risk.
“It’s dangerous.” Father’s gaze is assessing. “Not least because the queen’s men will be looking for us—you heard your mother’s reaction.”
For a future in Ida, I can survive the danger of crossing the Caerisian border, though I’m not keen to incur my mother’s wrath so soon after we’ve reunited. But I can’t stay here for her sake. “Mother will have to understand, if she wants us to succeed. I could help you—you need my help. I can feel creatures moving through the forest. Maybe I will be able to tell if enemies approach. I could conceal our presence better than you could do alone.”
A look comes into his face, and I am astonished to see that it is pride.
I swallow hard.
He puts a finger to his lips. “Dawn. The stables. Dress warmly. And don’t tell your mother.”
—
I’M UP AT dawn. I haven’t slept half the night for fretting over my decision—over the idea that I might be daring enough to take Jahan’s plan and make it my own. I feel buoyed by my own courage. I could live the life I want.
And yet…the land’s heartbeat pulses in my own body. My father needs me. No one has ever needed me before. But I don’t want to fight in his war; I don’t want to destroy both Eren and Caeris in this conflict. Perhaps, with the emperor’s aid, it would be less bloody, less destructive. If I remain in Caeris, I’ll be thrust into the role my father has envisioned for me since birth—even though I can’t make forests walk, even though my power is too small to make me anything other than a figurehead. A doomed figurehead, if we don’t secure the emperor’s help. If I go to Ida, if I choose to return to Caeris, at least it will be my own decision. At least we’ll all stand a chance of surviving.
I feel flushed, too hot in my riding gear, addled from lack of sleep. The cold air, sharp with frost, restores me somewhat to my senses. By the stables wait a cluster of yawning stableboys and sleepy horses. The Hounds are there. I hear footsteps crunch the icy grass behind me and look around to see Finn.
“You’re coming?” he says, registering my presence.
“I’ll help to know where the Ereni are. I have some uses, you know.”
It’s too early in the morning; my attempt at humor falls flat. Finn just blinks at me.
The Hounds greet us with whoops. Alistar Connell performs an exaggerated bow in my direction. “Lady Elanna. What have we poor fools done to deserve the honor of the Caveadear’s presence?”
“Someone has to keep you out of trouble,” I say tartly, but the tension must come through in my voice. Alistar Connell frowns, dropping the pretense, and comes over to me instead, holding out his hand.
“Here. You look as if you could use it.”
It’s a cheese bun, still hot from the oven. “That’s yours.” I try to hand it back to him, even though my stomach rumbles. “I couldn’t.”
His mouth quirks. “I was saving it for later, but you could use it now. Eat up. The green ones always make that mistake, Lady El, thinking they don’t have to eat.”
I drop my gaze. “Thank you.”
My father arrives. Alistar moves off and we all mount up, Finn pressing up beside me. “I should have given you my extra roll.”
I feel suddenly aware of being the only girl in a group of men. My father glances over his shoulder at us, and I don’t miss how his lips twitch as if he’s holding in laughter.
“That’s all right, Finn,” I say, and eat the roll.
We ride through the morning. I haven’t been so long on horseback since our journey north, and when I slide off the mare, my legs wobble. About four gentlemen lurch forward to offer me their arms and morsels of food. In spite of myself, I feel rather singular.
I really shouldn’t have come.
“The Butcher is moving several regiments north,” my father says, while we stretch our legs and eat the cold packed lunch Cook provided for us. “They’ll achieve Portmason this afternoon, so our objective is to meet the Paladisan ambassador outside town. Jahan Korakides has come with the Butcher, on the pretext of examining Eren’s defenses. He’s been telling Loyce Eyrlai that he will recommend the emperor send the black ships to support her cause—though of course he will send them to support ours.”
“How do we know he’s not playing both sides?” Alistar Connell asks.
A wave of outrage sweeps through me, but Finn gets there first. “I have known Jahan better than anyone, and I assure you, he believes in our cause.”
“But he’s the Korakos,” says Alistar, apparently unperturbed by Finn’s outburst. “Saved the crown prince’s life—and comforted him in more ways than that, if the rumors are true.” He smirks. “Shouldn’t a nobleman support other noblemen who follow the imperial model, and not us—especially when he knows we have the Caveadear’s magic?”
Finn looks guarded. “He has his secrets. Let me tell you, just because one becomes a favorite of royalty does not make imperialism dear to them.”
“If Prince Finn believes we can trust Jahan Korakides, we can trust him,” my father says.
Alistar Connell looks unconvinced, but shrugs. Somehow I think he almost wishes Jahan is untrustworthy. It would make for a challenge, for more excitement, and prove him right about the imperial model of rulership.
My father comes over to me, putting an arm around my shoulders. “We’ll be across the border in an hour or so. Do you know what you’ll do?”
I nod. I don’t know if it will work, but I’ll try. “But I thought you said we’d be gone for days.”
“We’ll dip south, so Finn can speak with the people in Eren, too.”
My mouth drops open, the implication of what he says striking me. “But you said this revolution is for the freedom of Caeris. Not to start a war over all of Eren.”
He smiles. “If our brethren in Eren wish to rise as well, so much the better.”
There’s a ringing in my ears. All this time, I’ve been assuming my father wants to divide Eren and Caeris—that I’ll have to choose between being one or the other. Even though Hensey and Hugh told me that some Ereni supported the Old Pretender in the first rebellion, it didn’t seem real to me.
“That’s what you want?” My voice seems to float, far from my body. “Unity?”
Father raises his brows. “Would it be such a terrible thing, to be unified under a Caerisian king instead of an Ereni one?”
“No.” I want to weep, such relief sags through me. “No, it wouldn’t. Not at all. The Ereni deserve better than the Eyrlais. They deserve better than Loyce. They…”
I stop. Another thought has occurred to me, a terrible one. I look at my father who watches me with a frown, as if he’s struggling to follow my jumbled thoughts. Do I dare say it?
I have to. After all this, it must be asked.
“But will Euan Dromahair—a man who’s never even set foot on Caerisian soil—be any better than the Eyrlais?”
He looks at me, then draws me farther from the group. I glance back to see Finn’s eyes on us before he quickly looks away.
“A king doesn’t rule alone,” Father says softly. “Especially not a Caerisian king. A king of Caeris is first among equals, the head of a council, and his will is subject to others’.”
“The stewards of the land,” I whisper.
Us. My father, and me.
“It has always been thus in Caeris,” he says. “The king needs the stewards of the land and the wardens of the mountains. He needs their power, and their validation.” He pauses. “When the mountain lords arrive, you will understand. Th
e wardens have a power even the stewards do not, and they possess knowledge of the laws and customs we have lost. In any case, there is much less to fear from a Caerisian king than from an Ereni queen.”
I think of Loyce’s pettiness. “How do you know Euan Dromahair will rule as a Caerisian king should, and not in the manner of the empire?”
Father lowers his gaze and sighs. When he speaks, he does not quite answer the question. “I know his son.”
We both regard Finn, who sits on a rock looking up at one of the Hounds holding forth on past exploits.
“He’s young yet,” Father says, “but he can grow into a true king. I see it in him.”
And I see, in my father, the strength it takes to rule a kingdom without really ruling it. The strength to hold on to beliefs of a better future, a better home, when the world seems pitched against it. The strength to lose one revolution, to lose freedom, to lose a daughter, and yet stand up and fight again.
Suddenly, I realize why Antoine Eyrlai didn’t have my father executed or imprisoned when he had the chance. Why he took me instead.
Because if Caeris had lost my father, her people would have revolted in earnest. They would have fought even harder to get him back, this man who fought all his life for them, than they fought to bring a strange king from across the sea to rule them.
So instead, Antoine tried to disempower Ruadan Valtai, to take me from him so I could not learn to be what Caeris needed me to be. So that I did not even know the truth of my own history. But somehow, we are both here. Together, fighting for Caeris’s freedom.
And I want it. I want Caeris to be free. I want Eren to be free. Both countries, together, under a new king, a new regime. The hope that bursts through me is so strong my chest contracts.
A part of me still yearns for Jahan and Ida. And I know we need the emperor’s help. But can I leave now?
Father squeezes my hand. “Time to ride on.”
—
NO DISCERNIBLE DIFFERENCE marks the border between Caeris and Eren—and yet I feel it, like a current running beneath the earth, trammeled and broken in places, but still there. Before I know what I’m doing, I’ve flung myself off my horse and am kneeling on the earth, my hands pressed into the damp autumn grass of the moorland. Around me the others rein in their horses. A single pulse echoes from the depths of the land, up through my palms, shaking my arms. I gasp.
“El!” Finn’s in front of me, with Alistar Connell on his heels.
Father watches from his horse behind them, his gaze thoughtful.
I am shaken, disoriented—so much that I let Finn take my arm and guide me onto my feet. As I step across the invisible line that demarcates the border, I feel a coldness, a deadening, wash through me. It is as if my hearing is blocked, or my eyesight dimmed. The pull to go back to the north side of the line is magnetic, so strong I have to grasp my horse’s saddle and hold myself from crossing back into Caeris.
Finn’s asking me what’s wrong.
“It’s the border,” Father says. “The old magic still lingers here, the spell that has protected Caeris for so long. The stewards can feel it.”
The sweating and swelling in my chest I felt when we crossed the border with Hugh, though I pretended I didn’t feel it—that must have been the magic. I wonder how much stronger yet it would have been if, like Hugh and Finn, I’d spilled my blood to the earth. With shaking hands, I pull myself back into the saddle. When I lived in Laon all those years, I must have been partly deaf, partly blind, and I never even knew it. Perhaps this is why the earth no longer woke to me, why my magic became a small, isolated thing, reduced to growing plants’ roots and waking specters in stones; perhaps this is why I didn’t understand any of it.
Perhaps this is why it was easy for me to forget.
Father falls back beside me as we ride on.
“You see, El, if we can wake the land, we can wake the border. Make Caeris safe again, shielded from those who would bring her harm.”
Protected, but isolated. I stare straight ahead, chewing on my lip. Would there still be trade, knowledge of the expanding, living world, of science and medicine and faraway lands?
Because with such obvious magic in use, Jahan’s plan will fail; Paladis will never come in on our side. And the emperor will see to it that we are isolated. Alone. Vulnerable.
There would be only Caeris, her justice, her people, and her magic.
Is freedom—is magic—worth that kind of price? How many people would have to die for it to happen? What is the cost?
Father seems to read my thoughts. “Raising the border does not mean no one will be able to cross into Caeris—or out. After all, the Ereni conquered us despite it. But it will give us more protection.”
“So that you may practice your customs,” I say.
“And you may practice your magic.” He looks at me. “So that we may become a kind of haven, for magicians the world over who are hunted down for their abilities.”
Like Jahan, who has to hide his skill in the most public and intolerant court in the world.
Like me.
But it still means a revolution. It still means a cost in lives. How likely is it that we would win? And even if we win, the chances that the emperor of Paladis will let us build this sorcerers’ haven would be laughable. After centuries of eradicating magic, Paladis will not look at us benignly. We could win the war with Loyce, only to find ourselves in a far greater war against the empire itself. Or, worse, fighting both at once. How on earth would we win that? When would the fighting ever stop?
My hands tighten on the reins. It’s impossible. Choose to fight once, and you will have to fight again and again.
I don’t know how to resolve the struggle within me, so I feel instead for the knowledge of the land, undulating, unrolling within my body, steady and certain. It grounds me. I listen, and I fall into it.
“There are riders to the west on the coast road,” I say. “But if we keep to the east, to the forest, we should be safe.”
Father nods, and looks away before I can quite see his smile, or the gleam of tears in his eyes.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
We have arranged to meet Jahan at an old watchtower built by the Dukes of Touyron to defend their territory against Caerisian “barbarians,” long abandoned since the conquest. Night falls before we arrive, but Father won’t permit lanterns. Clouds cover the moon, forcing us out of the forest onto a wider track that leaves my spine feeling alert and exposed. I try to send my senses out into the land, but all I can gather is an uneasy feeling, of no use to anyone. The wood around us comes awake with night, and I am no longer sure I can distinguish humans from animals. My uneasiness prevents me from feeling the land clearly.
“Anything?” Father calls to me.
I can’t very well say that my skin is prickling with danger. I must be inventing things. Close ahead, the stone tower weighs down the land. I see blood soaking the ground. A marching army, a man dying in agony, flames burning up the tower roof. More blood. I start to retch, and it brings me back to myself, my hands clamped at my chest. What was that? Am I losing my mind now?
I try to focus again on the tower, but I have no idea whether anyone besides Jahan actually occupies it.
“I don’t—I don’t think so.”
Alistar Connell mutters something on my left; he’s riding beside me now. “Doesn’t feel right.”
I shake my head to clear it, but it doesn’t do any good. Part of me sees a line of Caerisian soldiers marching along this road, sometime in the past or even future, and a coach dashing toward the great house, Ereni bayonets, the scent of gunpowder—
I have to stop making these things up. Jahan is waiting at the tower. I have to concentrate on him. Maybe I’ll feel his presence. Maybe that will make sense out of the jumble of time.
But I don’t feel him at all.
Alistar Connell reins his horse in, the silhouette of his hand in the air. Our line jerks to a stop. I hold my breath. Alistar is holding his
breath, too. We all listen.
Nothing but the wind in the trees. A small mammal scurrying up a branch.
In the past, someone died here. I feel the echo of their shock, the sudden pain, traveling up through the earth.
I’m losing my mind.
“I thought—” Alistar begins, then breaks off. This time I hear it, too: a snort and stamp ahead of us. We are quite close to the tower. I can taste the limestone it’s built of.
“That will be Jahan,” Finn says, his voice bright and eager.
And loud. Too loud.
“There are men ahead,” I say, but my confidence is cracking. My heartbeat pulses in my ears, distracting me.
Alistar must hear it in my voice. He pulls out his pistol. It snicks as he cocks it.
Father knows, too. “El. Alistar. Some of your Hounds—”
“I’ll stay with the Caveadear,” Alistar says. “Nevan. Art. Go ahead with the duke.”
“Are we in danger?” Finn’s voice is taut.
“Just taking precautions.” Father sounds easy. “You stay here, stay safe.”
“No. I’m coming with you. I’m the only one who knows Jahan.”
Father draws in his breath, then just sighs. “Stay at the back, then. Ready?”
They ride off with a squeak of leather, leaving me alone, in darkness, with Alistar Connell and several others. I start to say, “There can’t be anyone else at the tower. How would anyone know—?”
He interrupts me. “Do you have a weapon?”
I swallow. “Just my dagger.”
“Can you fire a pistol?”
“Yes, but my aim wouldn’t be good from the back of a horse.” This is no time to lie about my skills as a markswoman. I think about pheasant hunting on the king’s country estate, with the patient shooting-master cocking the guns for us, the careful, leisurely shots we took. It seems like it happened to someone else.
“All right. If we have trouble…” He pauses. “You ride ahead. We’ll cover your flank.”
“What if they’re behind us?” I whisper.
Silence. Then Alistar Connell says, “Do you—”