by Hannah West
“Yes, she is.” He took a deep breath. “And you resemble her.”
I looked askance at him. “So I’ve been told.”
“But you’re nothing alike. She’s a shadow wearing your skin.”
I tilted my head as my mind did its work parsing the strangely poetic words into Nisseran. Firelight accentuated the tailored lines of his face, the angular jaw and pronounced cheekbones.
This wasn’t the first time that I had thought of touching him, but it was the first time I had wondered whether my body would act of its own accord and bring me near him, make good on its own silent, daring promise. It would be too easy to fall into the refuge of a strong body, the warmth of another person.
I wondered whether there might be more to this unforeseen desire than that. The way I’d grasped his hand in the edifice to stay afloat frightened me a little. Still, fear like that meant I could feel something other than sadness. It meant that I was alive, and that maybe there were joys worth living for.
Without breaking our gazes, I stepped closer, testing him. He didn’t shift back to maintain the distance between us, but he didn’t help me close it either. He just stared, searching my face. Then his warm brown eyes drifted down to my lips. He swallowed, his throat bobbing.
That ended my silent deliberation. I neared him, leaving only enough space for a closed fist between his chest and mine.
Inhaling a soft breath, I gradually splayed my fingers along the rough fabric of his shirt where it covered his solid midriff, giving him ample opportunity to stop me if he wanted. But he didn’t. Flicking my gaze back up to his eyes, I raised my chin, slow and calm as melting ice, stopping just short of touching my mouth to his.
For a second or two, he stood as stiff and lifeless as that iron effigy in his pocket. Doubts fired through my mind. We barely knew each other. He’d been so cold at first that I’d misread his kindness as something else.
But then he sighed against me and parted my mouth gently with his own, his warm bottom lip drifting over mine. Delight charted a course through my every nerve. He grasped my elbows, bowing me against him, intensifying the kiss. My emboldened hands explored the muscular contours of his stomach, chest, and arms, indulging in the strength I’d seen displayed during the fight.
Suddenly he pulled back, and I braced myself for him to change his mind, dooming us to another irritable argument. But he glanced over my shoulder at the cabin, stepped sideways toward the dying campfire, and kicked a spray of dirt over the feeble flames to cast us in darkness.
I smiled. We didn’t have long before Jeno returned, but Sev seemed to want to make the most of what little privacy we could claim. His fingers laced through the hair that tumbled down my back as he brought his lips back to mine.
A wild thought struck me, and I blinked up at him. “Are we actually married after today?”
He cocked his head. “According to the law, yes. But I won’t tell if you don’t. Although…” He took on a feisty, crooked grin that made my blood burn hot. “Does this make me the king of Volarre?”
I scoffed playfully. “More like the queen’s consort.”
That wasn’t exactly true; Hubert and I still needed to convince Father’s other advisors to change the statute. I couldn’t appoint their replacements until they died.
Sev didn’t need to know that, but there was something I needed to know.
“You got so angry when I talked about magic,” I said. “If you’re not fond of elicromancers, why are you…?”
“Fond of you?” he supplied, his fingers still combing through the long tendrils. “I’m sorry. I was taught that elicromancers were different from mortals, that you looked down on us. Ambrosine only reinforced that, and you looked like just another powerful, rich elicromancer when you arrived. I thought perhaps tales of your bravery had been exaggerated—a scar didn’t prove anything. But then you volunteered to give up your life for Navara. It confused me. I’ve been trying to make you fit the mold of an elicromancer so that I didn’t have to confront my feelings. Now I’ve surrendered to the truth that you may be powerful and immortal, but you’re human. A brave, selfless, beautiful human.”
I crushed my lips against his again, more fiercely than before. Those words completely disarmed me, deepened my desire, and I relished the warmth of his skin through the thin barrier of his shirt.
But the cabin door swung open, and we jerked apart.
“Glisette? Sev?” Navara called, peering at the moonless night.
“Coming!” I called over my shoulder. Sev and I shared a muffled laugh before we walked back to the moss-cloaked cabin.
Inside, Navara was scowling at a section of the scroll. Kadri rose from her pallet on the floor and tiptoed around Margala and Eleni, who made their dolls fight with toy wooden swords.
“What’s wrong?” I asked Navara as the three of us gathered around her.
She blew a harsh breath from her nostrils. “This scroll is nonsense. It’s absurdity. It’s blasphemy.”
“What do you mean? It doesn’t say how we can defeat a Fallen?”
“It does. But we can’t trust anything it says. There’s a reason it’s considered apocryphal, a reason why my ancestors only allowed two people at a time to know what it contains.” Navara blinked the shine of tears from her eyes. “It says the Holies and the Fallen were once creatures who roamed the earth and drank freely from the ‘pool of power in the west.’”
“You mean…the Water?” I asked. “In Nissera?”
She nodded grimly. “Eight of the creatures used their powers wisely, and so the pool gave them magical stones of varying shapes and colors that increased their power and virtue. Jealous, the other four tried to claim the pool of power for their own, growing more and more selfish until they embodied evil itself. The eight Holies banished them to infinite darkness in Galgeth, the netherworld. The Holies remained on earth for an age, making”—she looked at the text and quoted—“‘holy union’ with one another until they decided to stop drinking from the pool, give up their stones, and age. Their children lived among mortals to spread magic to mankind. The word Agrimas is a modern translation of an ancient Perispi phrase meaning ‘gods on earth.’ I’ve never heard that.”
“That’s what elicrin means in Old Nisseran,” I said.
“If this is true, then Agrimas is just an elaborate fantasy.” Navara indelicately fed the ancient document back into its case. “If this is true, elicromancy isn’t an offshoot of Agrimas, as I’ve always been taught, and elicromancers didn’t spawn from Nexantius. They are the descendants of the Holies. The Holies were elicromancers. It’s all the same.”
I looked up to find Melda staring at us over her darning work. The children had been caught up in their games and spats, but the older ones noticed Navara raising her voice.
“If this is true, it means that the edifices, the effigies, the prayers, the pedantic scripture…they’re just a way to frame elicrin magic,” she went on. “They’re a way to control the people of Perispos, to define what it means to be a moral and obedient citizen.”
I shifted uncomfortably and looked at Sev.
“This was kept secret for a reason,” she said sharply. “It’s blasphemous. Why do they even safeguard it? Why didn’t my father or the high priest burn it already? In fact…” Navara gritted her teeth, pushed back her chair, and snatched up the scroll case.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “Navara!”
She left, slamming the door hard enough to make Margala and Eleni jump. I followed.
When I stepped outside, I found three dark figures.
I froze in fear as my eyes adjusted to the low light of the fire that Jeno must have stoked back to life.
The Uprising agent—Viteus—pressed a knife against the column of Jeno’s throat. In his other hand, he held Jeno’s loaded crossbow. Navara stood motionless by the fire with her hands raised in surrender, the scroll case in her grip.
Sev appeared beside me, brandishing his axe. Kadri stood in the door
way. Muted white light illuminated her elicrin stone.
“What is it?” little Margala asked from inside. Kadri shushed her and told Melda to gather the children in a corner of the room.
“Let him go,” Sev commanded, his voice low and dangerous.
“I will.” Viteus’s eyes were crazed and bright, his hair mussed by leaves and branches. “If the princess and the scroll come with me.”
“I’ll go with you,” Navara said. “Don’t hurt anyone.”
“We made this bargain last time, Princess.” Viteus raked his menacing gaze over me. “Find some rope to bind her wrists. No more tricks.”
I hesitated, but he pressed the point of the knife against Jeno’s throat and made him cry out. “Do it!” Viteus barked.
I shoved past Sev and searched through his hunting supplies. I found string in his pack and swept my eyes over the clump of frightened children, sheltered behind Melda at the back of the room. We should never have brought our trouble on this family.
I hurried back outside.
“Tie it tight and show me your work,” Viteus said. Navara offered me her wrists, but Viteus said, “Behind your back.”
Navara turned in place. The string quivered in my fingers as I wound it around her wrists. My mind reeled as I tried to scrape up an idea to get us out of this.
“Glisette, we can’t allow the children to get hurt, no matter what,” Navara whispered over her shoulder. “I have to go. Without me, the Uprising wouldn’t even be looking for any of you.”
A tear slipped down my cheek. The responsibility to protect Navara from the threats prowling on every side had offered me a new purpose when I had lost mine. More than that, I cared for Navara. She was good, open-minded and unsullied by the political cynicism that sometimes plagued me, yet mature enough to act nobly and bring hope to her people.
“Commander Larsio will help you,” she continued. “But this scroll says a thousand armies could never defeat Nexantius.”
“Finish up!” Viteus commanded. “No more talking.”
Navara ignored him. “You have to offer yourself as a vessel to one of the Holies and banish Nexantius back to darkness, as the Holies did before. Then you and the other elicromancers can kill Ambrosine.”
“Bring her here!” Viteus said.
I secured the knot and led Navara to him.
“Good enough,” he said. “I’ll take them both and release the boy when we’ve traveled a safe distance. If any of you follow us, I’ll slit his throat.” He looked over my shoulder at Kadri. “You can assure the others this is not an empty threat.”
“They agree to your terms,” Navara said. She looked back at me. “Use the elemental ritual to summon a Holy. It’s in the first chapter of the Book of Belief.”
“Stop talking!” Viteus shouted, and reared back the crossbow as if to strike her with the metal stirrup. He didn’t, but it was too late. He had revealed how he truly viewed his divinely appointed leader—as an object to control. “Follow close behind me, Princess.”
He backed away, using Jeno as a shield. Navara followed. But as they moved, Jeno saw an opportunity to grab Viteus’s hand and yank the knife down and away from his throat. He slipped under Viteus’s arm and stepped out of the way, pulling Navara with him. Sev reeled back and flung his axe. It flew through the air and lodged in Viteus’s thigh.
Viteus screamed and dropped the knife as blood spurted over his breeches, but his left hand managed to cling to the crossbow. He clumsily pointed it at Sev and released the lever.
I heard the slender bolt whistle by, followed by the wet noise of it sailing through flesh and muscle. I pivoted and saw Sev gripping his upper arm. Dark blood stained his sleeve. He bared his teeth and staggered back against the doorframe.
My voice sounded far away when I called his name. I covered his hand with my own, pressuring the wide wound where the bolt had passed clean through. We sank to the ground together.
His blood leaked between my fingers, pooling in the basin of each knuckle before dripping down in jagged stripes along the back of my hand.
I can help you.
The disembodied whisper tickled my ear. I shook it off, pressing my skirt against the wound. But the whisper came back on the other side, and then it hummed inside my head, passing from ear to ear until I felt surrounded.
Is this what you want? it asked.
I heard a scuffle behind me. I turned to find Viteus yanking off Jeno’s quiver of crossbow bolts. He pushed the boy to the ground and stepped into the stirrup to reload the weapon. Navara screamed at him, her hands tied helplessly behind her back.
Kadri cut in front of me, her elicrin stone bright. Favoring his injured right leg made Viteus sway a little, but he managed to heave up the crossbow and loose another bolt.
It went clean through Kadri’s chest and over my head, embedding in the cabin door next to the one that had struck Sev. She flailed and sank to her knees.
This can’t be real, I thought. I couldn’t move. Anchored in place, helpless, I watched my dearest friend die.
Jeno was next. The bolt sank through his chest as though his body were a pin cushion.
Viteus reloaded the crossbow yet again and pointed it at Navara. “We don’t need a faithless queen,” he said, and buried a bolt in her belly.
I knew this couldn’t be real. If this were real, I would be able to move, to fight, to scream and sob. Instead, I was frozen in horror. It was like the blood running down my arm and filling the stream.
Viteus tossed the crossbow and empty quiver and collected his knife. He limped past the fire toward me, but I couldn’t so much as reach out to catch his leg. He stepped over Sev’s body and entered the cabin.
I heard the pleas of Sev’s mother and the cries of the children as he cornered them. I tried to close my eyes, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t escape the horrific nightmare.
After the slaughter, Viteus trudged out of the cabin.
Tears blurred my vision as I looked back down at Sev. His mouth hung open. His eyes were vacant. My dress was drenched in blood. It had dyed the green fabric a dark brown and stained the cheerful sunflowers a savage red.
I heard someone stirring inside the cabin.
Margala shuffled to the doorway, her white nightgown soaked red. Blood spilled into the whites of her eyes, as though every vessel inside them had burst and flooded in lightning-shaped rivulets. The irises were black yet bright, like burning coals.
“Is this what you want?” she asked, gesturing around. It was a woman’s voice—deep and ancient, underscored by vicious whispers—emerging from the little girl’s mouth. “This is what will happen if you don’t let me inside you.”
She took a step toward me. I was desperate to scramble away, but I couldn’t move.
“The Holies won’t answer your call. They don’t care what happens here on earth,” she said. “But I do. I can help you win. You don’t have to watch more loved ones suffer or die.”
“Themera?” I whispered. Finally, I could speak again. “Is any of this real?”
The chorus of whispers weaving around her voice silenced as she stood over me, her small face level with mine. With blood-encrusted fingers, she combed back my hair. “If you don’t let me inside you, it will be.”
THIRTY-THREE
AMBROSINE
THREE WEEKS AGO
THE sea wind whipped my hair into tangles. On the map, the weather-beaten islet of Alonnides looked like an accidental inkblot off the Perispi coast. But as our rowboat labored closer, the formation jutted up from the blue waves like a rock beast with verdant growth trailing along its spine.
The other islets were more like sea stacks, stark and uninhabitable. Merchant vessels were too large to navigate this stretch of water, and human life had long ago forsaken this ragged coast.
That’s why it’s perfect, I thought.
Damiatta grunted as she rowed us through the gentle waves toward our destination. She had helped me choose this lonely islet as the meeting plac
e.
I knew Valory would answer my message. Well-intentioned people could be so easily fooled.
I had used my enchanted mirror to speak with Perennia. Our weekly chats were perfunctory and stale, but reliable.
This time I asked to see a servant about shipping some of the belongings I had forgotten in Nissera. When Perennia left the room and the servant came, Nexantius and I manipulated her. Everyone wanted something. We showed the servant a version of her that was beautiful enough to catch the eye of a wealthy, handsome duke, whom I promised to contact on her behalf. We convinced her that the duke only needed to notice her, and he would defy his family to marry her. In turn, she wrote down my anonymous message for Valory, which she would send via magical missive routes.
Valory would never ignore someone asking for help, and she was too powerful to fear going alone.
The task of scaling the gray rocks to the islet’s plateau proved arduous. At the top, I wiped the sweat from eyes, grimacing at the memory of those few weeks spent laboring to launch Glisette’s ridiculous food assistance program. My body was not designed to haul grain sacks and collect grime like a second skin. Subjects didn’t want to see their sovereigns working like peasants. The dignity of our kingdom rested on the way we presented ourselves.
I caught my breath and surveyed the tiny islet.
Would this work? What would Valory do to me if it didn’t?
Could Nexantius protect me from her? Could the power of the Fallen match hers?
Focus on the deception, Nexantius reminded me. If you don’t fool her, our plan will fail.
Clouds obscured the noonday sun. It shouldn’t be long now, unless Mercer had seen a vision that had compelled him to warn Valory against answering the mysterious call.
But several minutes later, a prism appeared out of thin air, expanding like blown glass. Through the portal, I glimpsed a bare stone chamber inside the wing of the palace in Arna that used to house the elicromancer academy.
Valory stood at the threshold of the portal.
Dark half-moons hung under clever eyes of amber green. The wind from my side tossed her auburn-tinged brunette hair and the cloak around her shoulders. The points of the gold crown she wore had been fashioned to look like antler prongs. I had built her up in my mind, but she was still the same, small and slight.