The Waking Land

by Callie Bates

  Jahan grabs my hand and we both stride forward, through the gate. Almost immediately, we’re overtaken by Alistar and the crowd of Caerisians chanting, “Caveadear! Tire Caer-Ys!”

  Sophy comes barreling toward me, too, her face flushed, also shouting.

  They’re nearly out of control. I bellow to Hugh to have the trumpets blown. Then Alistar and Jahan offer to hold me up so I can address the crowd; I step into their cupped hands and am lifted. The mob shouts louder yet when they see me. I wave at them until, finally, they quiet. The men’s arms, holding me, are rock-solid.

  “Caerisians!” I shout. “The city has surrendered, but the duke has not! We must take the castle!”

  They cheer, and they’re moving almost before the words are out of my mouth, surging in a river of bodies toward the boulevard to the palace. I scramble down. Sophy grabs my arm. “Where do you want me?”

  “Beside me, until we take the castle. Then you address the people, and I’ll take care of Denis.”

  We’re already being propelled along, and Alistar and the others shout for the crowd to make way so that Sophy, Rhia, Jahan, and I can shove our way toward the front. We’re still well back, and by the time we arrive in the castle courtyard a man is at the front door on his knees, surrendering. “The castellan,” the Butcher tells me. A Caerisian man drives a fist into the castellan’s face.

  Before I have time to think, I’m racing forward, shoving people aside. Another man has joined the first, and another; they’re going to beat the castellan to death.

  “Stop!” I shout. No one hears me.

  So I point at the earth. A shrub struggles out of the ground between the men and the castellan, surging upward into a sapling, to a tree.

  I stare at my own hand. I didn’t know I could make a tree grow that fast.

  Maybe waking the land has made my own magic even greater.

  It’s shocked the men out of their bloodlust, though the castellan is lying on the ground, his hands covering the mess of his face. The men are all staring at me. Rhia cries out, “This is the Caveadear Caer-Ys!”

  The men look suddenly frightened. The others around them have caught the words and raise a cheer.

  I point at the wounded Ereni official and stare the men down. “There will be no fighting,” I say to them, and to the crowd beyond. The earth roars under my feet. “This is not about Caeris and Eren anymore. Our countries are one—and they always have been. We are fighting for the freedom of all our land, not just one half of it.”

  A cheer runs through the crowd. I manage a smile. Perhaps if I can show them that one does not have to be Caerisian or Ereni—that one can be both—they will begin to believe it.

  But it’s going to take a lot of work.

  Hugh is helping the injured castellan to stand, and just as I turn to Sophy, the Butcher taps my arm and jerks his chin toward the castle. “The duke’s waiting.”

  “Get this man to safety,” I call to Hugh. “I don’t want this to get any more violent.”

  Then I look for Jahan. He nods at me. Together, we push through the crowd after the Butcher and into the castle, to find Denis.

  —

  THE BUTCHER STOPS in a side room on the second floor and comes back out with a pistol in his hand. It’s loaded. He looks at Jahan with raised eyebrows. “I gather you didn’t break the guns here in the castle?”

  Jahan eyes the pistol. “Not yet.”

  The Butcher frowns, then shrugs and leads us on. At least, for once, he’s not aiming it at me. Unless he’s planning on taking me into the study and shooting me; unless this is an elaborate ruse.

  Denis is in his study, throwing papers into a chest. He doesn’t even seem to notice us walk in until the Butcher clears his throat.

  That makes Denis straighten. He looks pale and angry; his suit is rumpled. He sees the Butcher first. “What’s the word, Lord Gilbert? I want to get out of here before those savages—”

  I step past the Butcher, and Denis stops. He stares from me to the Butcher to Jahan and back again.

  Since he looks poleaxed, I decide to explain the situation to him. “The land is awake. The city is mine. Lord Gilbert is mine. Caeris is mine. And you, Denis Falconier, are under arrest for high treason for the murder of Antoine Eyrlai, king of Eren.”

  Denis’s face turns red, almost purple. He snatches something off the desk—a paper knife. He’s flying toward me. I fling up my hands—

  Jahan and the Butcher move between us at the same time. There’s a deafening explosion; a shot reverberates in the confines of the room.

  Denis Falconier falls to the floor. I stare at the bloody mess of his face, unable to look away. My ears are ringing. Jahan is holding my elbow, saying my name.

  The Butcher turns to us, lowering his pistol. “I hope you didn’t want him alive, Lady Elanna. He really is the most appallingly tiresome man. Was, I should say.”

  I squeeze Jahan’s fingers to let him know I’m all right, and face the Butcher. “Why did you kill him?”

  “Execution is the proper punishment for regicides,” the Butcher says. “Maybe you would have preferred the noose, or a trial, but really—after the events of today, no one will question it.”

  I stare at him. “How do you know he killed King Antoine?”

  The Butcher nods at Jahan. “Lord Jahan told me his suspicions. And after we brought him down from the circle this morning, he had a confession from Lord Denis. It’s close enough to proof for my purposes.”

  “He believed you?” I stare at Jahan, who shrugs.

  “I already suspected it for the truth,” Lord Gilbert says. “Denis Falconier was always much too smug to be a decent liar.”

  He seems about to add more, but running footsteps scuff into the study. A woman cries out, “Elanna!”

  It’s my mother, wearing a riding habit over her dressing gown, her hair wild around her head. She runs to me; I grasp her hands. She looks haggard, the circles dark beneath her eyes. Have they hurt her? Forced information from her? I don’t think she’s noticed Denis’s corpse yet—but she must, because she says, “You did it. Caeris is ours!”

  “Yes,” I say, but then she sways a little, as if she’s going to fall over. The Butcher comes up behind her, guiding her by the elbows, and between us we settle her down on a divan.

  “Who let you out?” the Butcher is asking.

  Mother shakes her head. “That servant girl, Annis. She picked the lock once the guards ran. It took her ages.”

  The lock? I drop down beside her. “What happened to you, Mother?”

  “Denis,” she says, and looks at his corpse with loathing.

  “He discovered your mother…” the Butcher begins.

  Mother gives him a look. “He discovered us—but he didn’t have the wits to understand Lord Gilbert and I were collaborating in our discussion of troop movements and the land shifting, thank the gods. He thought Gilbert was extracting information from me. I had to buy him off with some stories about the old stone circles.” She shakes her head. “Denis locked me up, of course.”

  So that’s why the soldiers were there, waiting for us. The Butcher must comprehend the look on my face, because he says, “Lady Teofila did not give away anything Denis Falconier and the witch hunter didn’t already suspect. They had read the accounts.”

  I look at my mother’s wan face, and the fear that’s dogged me clutches my throat again. “Did Denis harm you?”

  “No. Only tried to starve more information out of me.”

  I study her careworn face, her body slight under the riding habit, and I throw my arms around her. “You are so brave, Mother. Thank you.” She must know I mean more than her bravery; I mean for collaborating with the Butcher and showing me it was possible to bring him to our side. She leans back and cups my cheek with a smile.

  I glance from her to the Butcher. “I’m so glad Denis didn’t harm you. I thought—when the Ereni discovered the truth about the land shifting, I thought he must have forced it out of you.”r />
  Mother pales. “Gilbert?”

  I stare at my mother and the Butcher, as they look at each other. The truth passes between them, painfully obvious.

  She told him about the shifting in the land, hoping he would use it to help us, and instead he used it against us.

  He says quietly, “In war, I must use all the knowledge at my disposal.”

  “You could have used anything but that,” my mother whispers.

  I stand up beside her. “You should have kept that silent.”

  To his credit, he meets my gaze. “I had not decided to help you then, Lady Elanna.”

  As if it’s just that simple. Maybe it is, and maybe there’s no use in being angry with him now. But how many people would still live, if he’d kept silent?

  The Butcher has dropped his gaze, now, wiping and holstering his gun. He and Jahan stand on either side of Denis’s body.

  “I think the carpet’s ruined,” Jahan remarks.

  I look at Lord Gilbert. His face is almost as worn as my mother’s, and his shoulders seem bowed. But he came to our side. He cost us lives and towns and grief, but in the end he helped us to take Barrody.

  He meets my eyes. “I trust,” he says, gesturing at Denis’s body, “that this at least proves my loyalty?”

  If I stay angry, it makes me little better than Antoine Eyrlai, who did his best to render the Butcher inhuman. I want to say that I will never make him do the kinds of things Antoine Eyrlai forced him to do; I want to say that, with enough effort, he might even be able to redeem himself, at least in some eyes. I want to say that I am trying to forgive him.

  But he also didn’t need to kill Denis. He’d already pledged me his loyalty.

  And he certainly didn’t need to give away the secret about the shifts.

  So I say, “You have. But you must be aware that many Caerisians—and not a few Ereni—still consider you their enemy. It will take a long time to change their minds. Once we’ve finished our work here, it might be best if you remained in the south.”

  He lifts an eyebrow, but then makes a short bow. “As you say.”

  “And,” I add, “ultimately your appointment will rest with our council, not my sole choice. Consider yourself in a trial period, Lord Gilbert. But you’ve done well so far.”

  He takes this in stride. “I understand, Lady Elanna, and I will also support Sophy Dromahair, once she is elected queen. I shall do my best to ensure Eren’s cooperation. The army, at least, I can guarantee.”

  I nod. “Then you will help me again. We have one more thing to do.”

  I can feel the land moving; we must take advantage before it stops, before the ancestors vanish into the spirit world.

  And just opening my awareness to the land makes my mind fragment into pieces—or perhaps swell, huge, into a glorious whole. The moving forests seem to be shifting across my own body, and when the mountains rumble, scraping their plates together, it seems as if my own bones are rubbing. I can feel that Ingram Knoll, the mountain lords, and another army of trees and ancestors have surrounded the Ereni army just to the north of Barrody. And if I listen hard, I can even hear someone shouting, We surrender!

  I try to focus back on my surroundings, on my mother, on Jahan, but I’m being drawn away again. The rivers are rising—a swelling I feel in my own blood, and the forests and the animals are still moving. The ancestors shine like brilliant stars on the earth.

  There’s a hand on my cheek. Jahan.

  “El,” he’s saying, and I focus on his frown, the line by his mouth, the stubble on his jaw. He actually looks frightened. “You were gone.”

  I’m still being pulled from within, but if I look at him, if I flex my hands, I’m more in my body. I remember that I have a voice beyond the cries of animals and the sound of falling rain. I remember what I have to do, before the ancestors at last take their rest in the spirit realm, before the waking land escapes my control.

  “We have to go to Laon,” I say. “Now.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Laon smells of gunpowder. I’m standing outside the city, in the shelter of a moving forest, again; Rhia brought us here by the folds in the land, and the weeklong journey took less than a day, for the sun is just now lowering. The queen’s men have been shooting at the army of trees and the specters of the ancestors that surround the walls, but now the Butcher has made his way inside to suborn the guard. The guns have stopped firing—either he succeeded in ordering the men to stand down, or Jahan managed to break the muskets. I’ve made all the city gates grow into misshapen trees and fling themselves open. Walls have fallen when I’ve spoken to the rocks. Sophy, beside me, is tense and breathless. On my other side, Alistar and Rhia are arguing about whether to approach the gates now.

  Within me, the pulse of the land has risen to a roar. I’m not sure how much longer I can control it, the entire kingdom being awake. My chest and limbs have begun to feel heavy. Soon I need to let the land go, or I’ll collapse.

  But I can’t lose control yet.

  Just as I think I can’t hold on any longer, the Eyrlai standard falls from the gate, and the Dragon rises in its place.

  We advance into the city.

  Jahan and the Butcher meet us inside the walls, flanked by a line of military men. Jahan’s face is smeared with powder; he squeezes my elbow. “The guns are broken.”

  The Butcher nods. “Laon is yours, Caveadear.” A nod at Sophy. “Your Majesty.”

  Sophy starts to protest that she hasn’t yet been elected, but I shake her wrist to silence her. We’ll see her elected once the dust has settled. For now, we need no one to question us.

  Fewer people occupy the streets than I expected—I see them watching, instead, from windows and doorways as we pass. But as we draw nearer to the Queen’s Square, more folk emerge from their homes, swelling up from the side streets, and soon there’s a mob behind us bigger than the small force we brought here.

  In the square, a crowd has already gathered, and Victoire is standing up on the speaker’s platform. She shouts when she sees us. “The Caveadear! The queen!”

  And the people roar their approval.

  I grab the Butcher’s arm. “Where’s Loyce? The palace?”

  He nods. “Give me half an hour to remove her guards, then you can march in and claim it.”

  I agree, and he slips away through the crowd, jerking his chin for several lieutenants to follow him.

  Victoire is pulling Sophy up onto the speaker’s platform now. Sophy has a speech prepared, shouting over my head, “People of Laon! I will give you what Loyce Eyrlai could not—a queen who serves her people first! Eren and Caeris may for generations have considered themselves different, but today they are united—under Elanna Valtai and myself!”

  A woman is pushing toward me. Her face is marked with gunpowder, her hair is uncovered and her dress filthy, but she’s smiling and I know her.

  “Hensey?” I just barely manage not to scream, but I can’t stop myself from running forward. Then I’m in her arms, holding her tight as Sophy’s voice rings out above us.

  “The Butcher told me you escaped,” I whisper, because I can’t speak any louder through the tightness in my throat.

  Somehow she hears me. “I did, El. And we’re both here. Still standing.”

  It almost seems like we really have won.

  —

  BUT WE STILL have to confront Loyce.

  Just before I gather everyone to march on the palace, Victoire hops down from the speaker’s platform and takes both my hands. Her gaze is intent, her voice pitched low. “There’s news about your father, El.”

  Tears start in my eyes, as if my body knows what she’s going to say before she says it.

  “He was executed two days ago, in this very square.” Her voice lowers still further. “On this very platform.”

  I think I’m going to be sick. I can’t even speak. The tears won’t even fall.

  It’s Sophy who cries out and crushes her fists to her mouth. I th
ink she’s going to fall to her knees; I reach for her at the same time as Jahan does. We hold her between us. She’s sobbing silently, her whole body heaving, as if she’s trying to hold the grief in but she can’t. My eyes burn. She knew my father better than I ever did; he practically raised her. For her, this is an utter loss. For me, it is regret mixed with fury. Once again, the Eyrlais have stripped my father from me.

  When her breathing calms, I embrace her. “You can stay here with Victoire,” I whisper. “You don’t need to come to the palace.”

  She yanks back from me. Her eyes are red. “That woman murdered him, El. I’m coming with you. I’m going to see her kicked out of that palace if it’s the last thing I do!”

  “Soph…” I begin, but then I don’t say it. She pushes away, calling to the people around us. Jahan grasps my hand as we begin to move forward, shoved by the press of the crowd and Sophy’s rage.

  “You’re not going to let them execute the queen, are you?” he says in my ear. “That is, I am sorry for your loss, but we’ve already gotten through this so bloodlessly…”

  “I know. And if we let her die, it’s just an excuse for someone else to come along and use vengeance to claim the throne.”

  “You could imprison her.”

  I shake my head a little, though not exactly in denial. Depending on what happens when Loyce comes out of the palace, all these options must be faced.

  When we arrive at the palace gate, it’s standing open. Loyce’s flag has been flung to the ground, trampled on. The former queen’s guard stand on either side, their colors flung off and the uniforms cast onto the cobblestones, which means most of them are down to their shirtsleeves and waistcoats. A trickle of snow dusts our heads. The sun sinks; it’s growing colder. The people press around the square, some of them pushing up into the palace compound itself, shoving aside the guards. “The new queen!” they shout, and, “The steward of the land!”

  The Butcher is coming down the drive. Several soldiers walk behind him, and as they come closer I see they’re pushing someone: a woman in an elaborate gown. Loyce.