But she started her story before the beginning, before she’d discovered the Merlin. She told Zara about her nine-year-old self, sitting outside the door of her parents’ sickroom, how she’d hated being locked out but that she’d overheard her father ask Zara to be her teacher. She told her how much Zara’s broken promise had hurt.
“I had no idea you were out there,” Zara said, leaning forward to take Lina’s hand.
Lina gave her a watery smile. “I’ve been hiding and listening for a long time,” she said.
And then she told Zara about her explorations of Ortana. She described her maps of all the ventilation shafts and the secret tunnels she’d discovered over the years and how they had carried her to every part of the stronghold that was off-limits or forgotten. As she spoke she waited for Zara to get angry with her or to tell her she’d been wasting her studies, but when she sneaked a glance at her teacher over the rim of her teacup, she saw that Zara’s expression was thoughtful, interested.
“You know,” Zara said, toying with a strand of gray hair, “I can think of several archivists in the architectural department who would give anything to get a look at your maps,” she said. “They could help when conducting repairs or tests of the stability of certain caverns. And I’m sure our maps of the ventilation systems are out-of-date. You could update them and make Archivist Heffmin very happy.”
“Really?” Lina put down her cup as she considered this. She’d never thought about the possibility that her maps would be valued by the archivists. “I always thought that if I revealed the location of the secret tunnels, they’d be sealed off.”
“You’re not a small child anymore, Lina,” Zara said. “Back then, we were worried you’d get lost or stuck in the tunnels and we’d never be able to find you.”
Lina had to admit it was a fair point, considering the Hourglass passage to her workshop. “I never got lost,” she said, and tried to push back the bundle of nerves gathering in her stomach, “but I did find something that was.”
And then she told Zara about the Merlin, leaving nothing out. As she spoke she expected her anxiety to get worse, but instead it felt like a weight lifted from her shoulders. She hadn’t realized until now how much she’d wanted to share her discovery with Zara, to ask her teacher’s advice about a being that Lina couldn’t begin to comprehend and that in some ways frightened her.
By the time Lina finished her tale, Zara was sitting in stunned silence. Her teacup slipped from her grasp, but she caught it in a clumsy juggle before it shattered on the stone floor. With shaking hands, she set it back on the tea tray and stared at Lina.
“I can’t believe it,” she said. “I mean, I believe everything you said, but it’s the most extraordinary thing I’ve ever heard. A sentient ship from the uncharted lands. We’ve never had an inkling of what’s behind the Hiterian Mountains. There could be a whole species of organic technology. Goddess, it boggles the mind.” Then her expression darkened. “And the archivists who found it kept it a secret from everyone, kept it for themselves. How could they have acted so irresponsibly?”
Lina’s cheeks grew hot. She had done the same thing. She was no better than those archivists. “Maybe they were afraid someone would take the ship from them. They were only thinking of themselves—like I was.”
Zara shook her head. “You’re not like them, Lina.”
“Yes, I am.” Lina wouldn’t meet Zara’s gaze. “At first, I wanted the ship for myself too.”
Zara reached out and lifted Lina’s chin with her finger so Lina’s eyes had to meet her teacher’s. “But how do you feel now?”
Lina remembered the ship’s loneliness, its longing for home. “I want to help it,” she said, then shook her head. “No, I have to help it.” How could she explain what she felt? “For a long time, I thought you’d abandoned me, and I was angry,” she said, and winced at the sadness and guilt that passed over her teacher’s face. “But I didn’t understand,” she rushed on. “I thought I knew what it meant to feel alone, but I was wrong. The Merlin was abandoned. For years, it was in a dark cave, cut off from light, sound, and every living thing. I’d never felt real loneliness and despair until I connected to the ship.” Remembering it brought tears to Lina’s eyes. “But the worst part, the part I don’t understand, is that someone had to have sent the ship over the mountains. Whether they’re human or something else, if they can feel as the Merlin can, why didn’t they come after it?” She looked at Zara imploringly, needing some kind of explanation for the cruelty. “Why did they abandon it?”
“I don’t know,” Zara said. “Maybe they lost contact with the ship and thought it had stopped functioning and died in the crash. Another possibility is that they did send another ship, but it couldn’t find the Merlin, because it was buried so deep in the mountain. We’ll probably never know.”
“All it wants is to go home,” Lina said. “I have to try to fix it so it can.”
Zara smiled. “Spoken like a true archivist,” she said. “You said that its power source is missing. How are you going to replace it?”
“It’s not missing,” Lina said. “I know exactly where it is.” And she told Zara about the Sun Sphere in the Special Collections wing. “I don’t know how it ended up there, but—” She stopped speaking when she realized Zara had gone pale. “Are you all right?” Lina asked, leaning over the side of the bed to touch her teacher’s shoulder.
“I—I’m fine,” Zara said. “It’s just…I mean, I never knew…” Her voice trailed off. There was a faraway look in her eyes, as if she were lost in some memory. “I can’t believe it,” she murmured.
Lina had a flash of inspiration. “You know, don’t you? You know how the sphere got into the museum.”
Zara blinked and refocused on Lina. She laughed weakly. “I know exactly how it got there,” she said, “because I put it there.”
“You found it?” Now it was Lina’s turn to be stunned. Her mouth fell open, and she threw the quilt back to sit on the edge of the bed. “But how—? Where—? What—?” In her excitement, she couldn’t form proper sentences.
“I—my, this is a lot to take in,” Zara said. Like Lina, she fidgeted in her chair. “Let’s see, it was probably thirty years ago. There’d been another cave-in below the museum in one of the big storage chambers. I was trying to find an opening to get to the blocked-off cavern. I hoped I could salvage some of the artifacts that were lost. I didn’t get very far, because there was too much debris and the tunnels were still unstable, but while I was searching, shifting aside rocks and trying to see through the dust, I saw this light shining through the cracks in a rock pile. I thought maybe it was a lantern lost by one of the archivists who’d come down to search the rubble, but when I dug it out of the rock pile, I knew it was special. I spent a long time studying it before I gave up and put it in Special Collections.”
It is special, Lina thought. It’s the heart of the Merlin. And Zara was the one to find it. “I didn’t know you used to explore those tunnels,” she said.
Unexpectedly, Zara grinned. “Who do you think drew all those old maps of the ventilation systems?” Her smile faded. “Your parents were right about us, Lina. We’re very much alike. We’re explorers, but sometimes we get so wrapped up in our own worlds that we don’t see what’s going on around us. And we make mistakes.”
“What do you mean?” Lina asked, confused.
Sorrow deepened the lines in Zara’s face. “I have a daughter, Lina. Her name is Julia.” She closed her eyes for a moment, as if gathering her strength. “You asked me the reason why I stopped teaching you. Julia is the reason.”
Lina was stunned. She’d never known Zara had a child. Neither her teacher nor the other archivists had ever mentioned the girl. “Where is she?” Lina asked. “Does she live here in Ortana?”
“No,” Zara said, “but let me explain. You need to understand. I had just been elected to the council when Julia turned sixteen. She was so excited for me at first, but later, when I started to sp
end all my time either going to meetings or studying artifacts, we got into arguments. Big ones. Her father had passed away a few years before, so it was just the two of us, and that made things hard enough. Then, after a while, the arguments stopped, and I thought everything was fine. We drifted apart so gradually, I didn’t notice it at first. But when she came to me one day and told me that she was leaving Ortana, that she didn’t want to be an archivist, it was like someone had dumped a bucket of cold water over my head. She said she didn’t want to spend her life in a hole in the ground while the rest of the world went on without her. So she left, and she hasn’t been back here since. We sometimes exchange letters, but even those have gotten fewer and fewer over the years.”
“I’m so sorry,” Lina murmured. She couldn’t imagine what Zara must have felt, losing her daughter like that, not knowing where she was or what she was doing.
“Don’t be,” Zara said. “It was my fault for being so absorbed in my work that I couldn’t see what was happening right in front of me. And what did I learn from it? Nothing. I told your parents I’d take care of you, Lina, and I meant it. I had such good intentions when I first started teaching you.”
“But,” Lina asked in a small voice, “why did you stop?”
“Because I got scared,” Zara said. “I was scared of you.”
Lina blinked. “Me?”
“Yes, you. You were a bright, curious, caring young girl—just like Julia, though I didn’t think about the similarities back then. Those first two years I taught you, I was also helping you through your grief over your parents’ deaths. I didn’t have time to worry about my own heart, because I was focused on healing yours.” She hesitated, her eyes full of memories. “And then, after you had healed, I realized that I loved you like a daughter.” Tears sprang to Zara’s eyes, and Lina’s heart stuttered in her chest. “I was happy, but I was also terrified that I would mess everything up again, and I couldn’t stand the pain of losing another child. So I pulled away. I told myself it was the best thing for both of us, even though I knew I was wrong. I thought I would get you an incredible teacher, someone who would see all the potential in you that I did, and you’d be happy. But you wouldn’t let go of me.” Zara wiped her eyes. “I was going to make you, but I just couldn’t. You were so stubborn, so determined. And now, when I find out all that you’ve been through with the Merlin, and you didn’t confide in me—”
“I’m sorry,” Lina said, tears spilling down her cheeks. “I should have told you.”
Zara waved it away. “We both should have trusted each other more. And I hate that it took almost losing you to make me realize how many mistakes I’ve made.” She squeezed Lina’s hand. “I’m sorry for breaking my promise,” she said. “If there was a way we could start over after all this, I would gladly take it.”
Lina jumped off the bed and threw her arms around Zara’s neck. “I want to,” she said. “I want another chance to have you as my teacher.” She pulled back and looked at Zara. “But I have to take care of the Merlin first. Will you help me do that?”
Zara swiped a tear from Lina’s cheek with her thumb. “I’ll help you however I can,” she said. “For what it’s worth, I think you were right to keep the ship a secret between you and Ozben. Those archivists who found the ship are proof that not all of us have the best intentions.”
“You think if we told the archivists, they wouldn’t let the ship go home?” Lina asked.
“I hate to think that, but it’s possible,” Zara said. “Maybe we’re not ready yet to have contact with people and technology from the uncharted lands. We already have enough problems fighting each other over resources. Introducing a living ship, one that either the Merrow Kingdom or the Dragonfly territories could use as a weapon in the war, would be disastrous. No, I think the best thing to do is get the ship’s heart back to it and let it go without anyone being the wiser.”
Lina nodded. “I want to do it today,” she said.
“You need to rest today,” Zara said. “You’re taking on a huge responsibility, one you’ll need all your strength for.”
Lina wanted to argue, but she knew Zara was right. “By the way,” she said, looking around the room, “where are we?”
“This is my chamber,” Zara said. Her mouth quirked in a smile. “I never showed it to you because I didn’t want to find dralfa moss growing here one day.”
Lina rolled her eyes, but she grinned. “You let one experiment go awry, and nobody trusts you again.”
They both laughed, but Lina caught her breath when the door to Zara’s chamber burst open and Ozben rushed in. He wore his usual bandaged-up disguise, but he ripped it off and threw it on the floor the moment he was safely inside.
Zara shot the boy a stern glance. “A knock would have been polite, Ozben,” she said.
Lina’s heart lifted when she saw her friend, but she could tell immediately that something wasn’t right. Ozben was breathing heavily, as if he’d been running for miles, and his eyes were wide and panicked. When he saw her, relief replaced the panic in his eyes but only for an instant.
Before he could speak, another figure stepped through the door. It was Nirean in her human form.
“Please excuse our intrusion, Zara,” she said grimly, “but we have news that couldn’t wait.” Her expression softened when she glanced at Lina. “I’m happy to see you’re up and around,” she said.
Lina nodded her thanks but barely heard the chamelin. Her attention was still on Ozben. “What’s happened?” she asked.
“The assassin offered a full confession in exchange for leniency in his sentence,” Nirean said.
“A confession?” Lina scoffed. “He was caught trying to push us off a mountain. He doesn’t need to confess.”
“We were wrong, Lina,” Ozben said, speaking for the first time. His voice was hoarse, as if he’d been shouting. “The Dragonfly territories didn’t hire the assassins to kill me and my family.” He hesitated, and his face screwed up in an expression of misery that made Lina’s heart ache. “My grandfather hired him.”
A stunned silence fell over the room. Ozben took in Lina and Zara’s shocked faces and Nirean’s solemn frown, but it was as if everything were happening from a distance—as if he were far away, treading water in a deep, dark lake, trying not to drown.
When Nirean had told him his grandfather’s plan, he’d shouted at her over and over. It just couldn’t be true—she had to be lying. He’d called her names that made him ashamed, which he’d need to apologize for. But now all he could do was stand there as Nirean took up the story for the second time, filling Lina and Zara in on everything the assassin had confessed. Ozben listened, hoping that maybe this time the story would be different, that his grandfather wouldn’t be guilty of treason and conspiracy to commit murder.
After they’d taken him into custody, the chamelins had searched the assassin and found a hidden pocket in his clothing that contained a handful of black sapphires. The discovery was what first triggered the suspicion that King Easmon might have hired the assassin, as the king had the only known collection of the rare gems. When confronted with this evidence, the assassin confessed to having a contact within Ortana, an archivist who had arranged to smuggle him into the stronghold and given him information on Ozben’s whereabouts. Zara went pale with shock and fury at the revelation, for the only people who knew that Ozben was hiding in Ortana were the council members and a handful of chamelin guards, like Nirean, who’d been assigned to protect him. But only someone on the council would have had the authority to get the assassin into the stronghold past its security. In exchange for leniency, the assassin had named the archivist: Councilwoman Vargis.
Once she learned the identity of the assassin’s contact, Nirean had gone with a group of guards to take the councilwoman into custody and conduct a search of her office. There, in a hidden compartment in Vargis’s desk, they’d discovered several incriminating documents, letters signed by King Easmon and bearing his personal seal. The docume
nts named a large sum of coin for Vargis’s cooperation in the plan. With Vargis and the assassin now in custody and the king implicated in the plot, they both seemed eager to spill their secrets in exchange for mercy. Between the documents and their testimonies, they outlined an elaborate plot that began with Ozben’s death and ended with the Merrow Kingdom winning the Iron War in one decisive battle.
It started with Ozben’s father. King Easmon had been appalled that his son wanted to pursue peace talks with the Dragonfly territories. Ozben remembered their late-night arguments on the subject, but he’d never imagined how badly his grandfather wanted to win the war, to crush the Dragonfly territories and make them submit to his rule. No matter how much Ozben’s father disagreed with this intention, while Easmon was king, his word was final.
But then Easmon fell ill. Ozben had known that his grandfather was sick, but he hadn’t known that the king was dying. Easmon kept that information secret from everyone except his personal physician. He didn’t want the Dragonfly territories to find out and take advantage of his weakness. But he also had to make sure his legacy—the Iron War—would be won, even after his death. As soon as he died, he knew that his son would try to make peace with King Aron. He couldn’t let that happen.
He hired the assassins to storm the palace, but their intent was not to kill the entire royal family, as everyone believed. Their only target was Ozben.
When Ozben thought about it, it made perfect, if morbid, sense. Ozben’s father and mother were great military strategists, and his sister was a fine and honorable soldier and the heir to the throne. They were vital to the kingdom. Ozben was the extra heir, the expendable prince.
If Ozben was assassinated and it came out that the Dragonfly territories was responsible, Easmon believed that his son would be consumed by grief and rage and give up any notion of pursuing peace. Then Easmon could die knowing that his legacy was assured. Thankfully, that part of his plan had been foiled.
The Secrets of Solace Page 21