“The last remnants of the Old Southlands Empire,” Lyriana said, noticing my slack-jawed awe. “Before Lightspire conquered these lands, there were hundreds of ziggurats, maybe thousands. Now there’s just ruins.”
“Just like the West,” my father muttered. “A great Kingdom, and all that’s left is crumbled stone.”
Ellarion rolled his eyes. “The Southlands Empire was dust before the first pilgrims crossed the Frostkiss Mountains to the West. Your comparison is facile.”
“Not to those willing to listen,” he said, and his eyes found mine. I looked away, back to that majestic ruined ziggurat, its frame grasping out of the sand like a skeletal hand. And I had to admit I kind of agreed with him.
We rode on. And five weeks after leaving the Unbroken camp, five long aching weeks, we arrived at Tau Lorren.
The city loomed on the horizon from miles away. From a distance, it actually reminded me of Lightspire: I could see big stone walls and domed roofs, hundreds of smokestacks and a bustling crowd outside. But the closer we came, the more I could see how different it was. Lightspire had a homogeneity, a certain consistency in its architecture across all the neighborhoods. But Tau Lorren was a chaotic jumble. Some buildings were brick, others stone, and some were this weird glowing green rock. Wide elegant towers stood next to sprawls of thatch-roofed huts. Crumbling ancient walls gave way to newly painted stretches that led to rickety wooden extensions. People bustled about everywhere: on the walls and roofs, lined up around in camps stretching all around the city’s walls. Behind the city the Adelphus River roared, teeming with the multicolored sails of hundreds of ships.
And where Lightspire had the Godsblade, jutting out of the heart of the city like a sword driven into the earth, Tau Lorren had the Greatest Ziggurat, an enormous stacked palace that loomed over the rest of the city. It was the capital of the Province, the home of the young Dyn. The absolute last place we wanted to end up.
Getting into the city was actually pretty easy. We pulled our hoods up as we approached and blended into the busy stream of traffic, lost in the crowd of pilgrims and merchants and travelers. There were guards at the gates, of course, tall and armored Southland soldiers who searched wagons and interrogated anyone they thought was suspicious. But we didn’t have to worry about them. As we approached the gate we’d chosen, one that was small and out of the way, we dismounted those beautiful horses and left them tied to a post for some lucky person to find. We approached the gate, held hands, and Lyriana cast that Glimmer over us, the one that made us invisible. I worried someone might notice six travelers just disappearing, but the whole line was so loud and chaotic that no one even looked our way.
Lyriana dropped the Glimmer once we were in the city itself, and we reappeared in the safe confines of an alley, behind a tavern that smelled of spiced liquor and sizzling meat. “What now?” Lyriana asked.
“To the southwest of the city is a neighborhood called Wanderer’s Garden,” Syan said. “That’s where we’ll find more of my people. They’ll be able to give us the supplies we need to head into Izteros.” She craned her head, orienting herself by the shape of the Greatest Ziggurat. “If we can get there without being caught, we should be fine.”
“That’s one big if,” Ellarion added. “The Dyn will not take kindly to us being in his city. We need to keep our heads down, move quickly, and not draw any attention.” He glanced at me. “No matter how good the meat smells.”
“Are you sure this will work?” Lyriana asked Syan.
“No,” the Red Waster replied, as if it were a ridiculous question. “I’m just sure that it’s our only choice.”
On that ominous note, we pulled our hoods back up and took off. Syan led the way, guiding us through the maze that was Tau Lorren. If Lightspire was an ornate garden of a city, meticulously plotted circles within circles within circles, then Tau Lorren was a wild overgrown sprawl. Lightspire had alleys connecting the busy streets, but as far as I could tell, Tau Lorren was all alleys, narrow passageways between noisy buildings that jutted at nonsense angles, branched chaotically together, and, at least half the time, led to bricked-over dead ends.
I’d been worried we’d stand out, but that turned out to be a nonissue; the population was mostly Southlanders, sure, but there were plenty of people from other Provinces—Heartlands refugees and Eastern Barony merchants, folks who’d settled here long ago or who’d come fleeing the war. And the whole place was so loud and chaotic, no one really paid us any mind. It had been ages since I’d blended into a crowd, since I hadn’t been “the traitor’s daughter” or “the Unbroken fighter” but just another random face.
It was nice being back in a city, nice to be so surrounded by people. The place was packed. Huge crowds bustled everywhere. Merchants hawked wares like fresh fish and glistening fruit. Vagabonds performed on elevated stages. Children splashed around in long stone fountains and leaped daringly from rooftop to rooftop. Little silver cats with useless vestigial wings prowled the dusty floor, their eyes glinting at us from the shadows of the alleys. Southlander youths sat in a schoolhouse, their heads still unshaved, slumped bored at their desks. A fight spilled out from an overflowing tavern, broken up by a pair of soldiers who came running. Under the statue of a Titan, its features decidedly Southlandish, sat a gathering of priests, sitting cross-legged with their eyes shut and hands folded together.
I’m not sure what I’d expected from this place. With all the talk of the war, I think I’d expected something more awful and oppressive, burning buildings and marching soldiers everywhere. But no. For all the conflict to the north, Tau Lorren was still a city at peace, a city where people ate and played and worshipped, a city where life went on as it always had. I thought of that battlefield we’d passed, of the ash fluttering in the air of Torrus. And I prayed to the Old Kings that we’d stop this war before it came here.
“Just a little farther,” Syan said. We were deep into the city, close enough to the Greatest Ziggurat that I could make out more details. It was at least seven layers tall, the bottom as wide as a whole castle and the top the size of a house. Its stone was ancient, unbleached, but packed so tight it looked like it’d still be standing a thousand years from now. And there were figures all along it, motionless, standing out in rows along the edges of the levels. I’d thought they were trees or maybe statues, but now I could see that they were soldiers, rigid, spears in one hand and shields in the other. There must have been at least a hundred of them. Did they just stand there like that all day? Was that their job? How many soldiers did this Province have?
We rounded a corner onto a cramped market street. Little shops lined the sides. At the far end, past a wide, round fountain, was a four-story building, the biggest in the area. Though the rounded windows I could see kitchens and bedrooms, families making meals and children playing. A housing building then, for many families.
“So, Syan. When we get to this Wanderer’s District,” Ellarion began, “do you think we could get so—”
But he never got to finish the sentence, because that’s when the earthquake hit.
I heard it before I felt it, a booming crash like thunder from below. Then the ground lurched so hard it hurled me off my feet, sending me slamming on my side into the stone. People screamed all around us, as stands collapsed and windows shattered, as trees toppled and stone cracked. This was brutal, the worst earthquake I’d ever felt by far. The ground jerked under me like a bolting horse, tossing me back and forth, skinning my knees and bruising my arm. Dust and sand billowed up all around us, stinging my eyes and clogging my throat. It was less than a minute but it felt like forever.
Then it stopped. I gasped, pulling myself onto all fours, my heart beating like it was going to burst out of my chest. The roaring had ended, but the other sounds continued, the screaming and the sobbing and the yelling, the howls of a city wounded. Putting a hand over my eyes, I squinted through the cloud of dust, searching for my companions. Zell helped Lyriana up, and my father huddled with Ella
rion, a bloody cut in his left arm. Only Syan still stood, her legs locked, her face gritted with determination.
This was bad. This was really bad. But at least we’d all made it.
“Oh no,” Lyriana said, her eyes wide with horror. I followed her gaze and I saw it in the clearing dust, that tall building at the market’s edge, or what was left of it. The top two stories had collapsed forward, toppling into the street, leaving only a massive pile of rubble and stone, broken up by the remains of what had just been people’s homes: chunks of broken furniture, colorful fragments of torn rugs, here and there a stone splattered with red.
Then I heard it. We all did. Voices coming from within that pile of rubble. Howling and moaning and crying.
By the Old Kings. By the Titans. There were survivors in there.
“Help them!” someone screamed. A few people ran forward, burly laborers, scrambling to dig frantically in that pile. For a second I couldn’t figure out why they were just doing it with their hands, uselessly tugging on huge hunks of stone, and then the realization hit me like a leaden weight. They didn’t have mages out here. This was all they could do.
Lyriana obviously had the same thought. “We have to help them!” she said, rolling up her sleeves.
“No,” my father growled, and even reached out to grab Lyriana’s arm. “You do that, you’ll draw every guard in the city onto us. We can’t get involved!”
“I am not letting them die!” Lyriana jerked her arm away, and there was a surge of energy around her, a crackling rush of air like an electric breeze. Heads swiveled our way and a few people gasped, but it was too late because we’d already crossed the point of no return. Lyriana strode forward, eyes blazing, and wrenched both hands into the air. The top layer of rubble lifted with them, massive stone slabs hovering like leaves on a breeze.
Zell didn’t waste a second. He sprang forward, pushed through the crowd, and then he was on the stack, digging through it, hurling aside a broken table to reveal a slumped woman beneath. Ellarion ran after him and Syan did too, and then we were all in it, rifling through debris toward the agonized voices. The Southlander laborers gaped at us but only for a moment; right then, the only thing that mattered was saving as many lives as we could.
I wasn’t thinking then, just acting. I grabbed a pillar of stone and pulled on it, even as my palms shrieked in pain. Next to me, Zell was hoisting an injured woman onto his shoulder, and Syan was on her knees, combing through a pile of crushed rock toward a sobbing voice underneath. Lyriana saw me struggling and flicked her wrist my way, lifting the stone up out of my hands and revealing even more debris below. And my father…
I’d lost sight of him. I squinted up, but between the billowing dust and the frantic crowd, I didn’t know where to begin looking. He was gone. Shit. Shit shit shit! We’d lost him. All that care, all that precaution, and in one moment, we’d gone and lost our most valuable hostage.
And of course he took off now, when we were distracted saving people, like the total asshole he always was. He must have just been waiting this whole time, watching for the perfect moment, and now he was gone, gone like—
“Tilla!” Ellarion’s scream jerked me out of my thoughts. I spun around to see him standing over a wide wooden beam on a heap of rubble, glaring down furiously at his left hand. It was twitching weirdly, the metal fingers contracting and clenching like he was playing an invisible guitar. “It’s not working!” he yelled at me, eyes scorching out of his skull. “I think I got something caught in the gears! I need your help! Now!”
I followed his gaze down at his feet, below the wooden beam, and underneath it I saw a tiny arm, a kid’s arm, jutting out against the stone. Before I could think, before I could breathe, I was over by his side, both arms hooked around the beam, straining, pulling, lifting as hard as I could. My muscles throbbed and my back flared and I could feel the splintered wood tearing into my palms, but all that just made me pull harder. The beam budged a little, just a little, and I could see underneath it, could see the tiny child (still moving, still moving!) trapped below.
Then someone was alongside me, hunched down, holding the beam with two arms and lifting with a low guttural grunt. Messy long hair. A tall lanky build. And furious sparkling green eyes.
My father.
I didn’t ask or question or even think. I just gritted my teeth and strained and together the two of us jerked that heavy beam up and shoved it aside, sending it clattering down the side of the debris pile like a log rolling down a hillside. I staggered back, hands bleeding, muscles burning, and my father knelt down and grabbed the child. She was a little girl, maybe five years old, in a loose tan dress blackened with dirt, her eyes lidded, her skin bruised and cut. My father scooped her up in his arms and pulled her out of the rubble, slumping back down. She was breathing, thank the Old Kings, and she coughed, and he slumped back, cradling her close to his chest.
She reached up with a tiny hand, placing it on his cheek.
And even in the chaos of the moment, as the city howled and the streets burned and the air hung heavy with smoke and ash and the crackle of magic, I felt this sudden stillness, this second of calm. I looked at my father holding this little girl, saw his eyes widen with tenderness and surprise, saw him press her against his chest.
“Shhh,” he whispered, his voice softer than I’d heard it in a decade. “It’s okay. It’s okay. You’re okay.”
There were tears in his eyes.
Tears.
“None of you move!” an accented voice barked, perfectly shattering that second of calm. “Hands in the air! Now!”
I’d been so focused on lifting that beam, I’d lost sight of the world outside this crumbled building. The crowd had dissipated. The dust had cleared. And surrounding us from all sides were Southlander soldiers, their long flat spear-blades sparkling as they leveled them our way. I threw my hands up instinctively, as did Ellarion and Syan. Only my father remained still, but he had an injured child in his hands, and I’m pretty sure the soldiers knew better than to mess with that.
“You too, mage,” one of the soldiers growled, swiveling his spear to jab the point at Lyriana. He was a big guy, stocky, his bald head covered in jagged tattoos. The commander, I’m guessing.
Lyriana’s eyes flicked toward him, still glowing bright. She could crush him with a flick of her wrist, could bring the earth smashing down around every one of his soldiers, could get us all out of here before anyone even blinked.
But she didn’t, because she wouldn’t, because spears or not, these were just Southlands soldiers doing their job. The glow faded from her eyes, and she folded her hands together behind her head.
“We surrender.”
THE SOLDIERS BOUND OUR HANDS in front of us (so much for Lyriana’s magic) and marched us through the city, past gawking crowds and distracted rescue workers, to the steps at the bottom of the Greatest Ziggurat. And then they marched us up them. It had looked like a lot of steps from a distance, but let me tell you, it was a lot of steps walking up. Especially because they took us all the way to the top.
The Greatest Ziggurat was basically a palace, with most of the levels made up of things like dining halls and nobles’ quarters and big fancy baths. The very top level was the throne room, the Dyn’s Chamber. From the outside, it wasn’t particularly impressive: a big block of ancient yellow stone maybe two stories tall, its walls smooth and undecorated. But as they shoved us in, through a rounded, carved arch, I realized the simplicity was probably the point.
We Westerners liked to decorate our Halls with tapestries and fancy chandeliers, and the rich folks in Lightspire couldn’t build a bathroom without throwing in a fancy golden filigree and some shimmersteel. But the chamber of the Dyn was plain, aggressively plain, so plain it actively made you admire its emptiness. The towering walls, the ceiling, the floor were all bare stone. So the only thing you could look at, the only thing you had to look at, was the Dyn of the Southlands, Rulys Cal himself.
Cal sat on a thro
ne made of yellowish-orange sandstone, so impeccably polished it looked smooth as glass, with his feet resting in a small inlaid water basin at his feet. He was younger than I was expecting, in his early twenties maybe, with smooth bronze skin and sharp, lean features. He was dressed simply: a white, almost-translucent robe that gave way to a wrapped skirt, leather sandals, and at least four golden rings on each hand. Most notable of all was his hair. Every other man in the Southlands shaved his head bald, but Cal had beautiful long black hair, a serpentine ponytail that stretched down to his waist, clasped tight every fistful or so with a jade bracelet.
His soldiers shoved us forward at spearpoint, driving us all the way up to the throne. Cal didn’t even look up (which, ultimate power move). He just rifled through a little serving bowl beside his table, piled high with fruit. “Ellarion Volaris. Queen Lyriana Volaris. And unless I’m mistaken, the bearded gentleman is none other than the former King Elric Kent himself. Which I’ll admit is quite the surprise because all three of you are supposed to be dead.” He plucked a juicy-looking pear out of the bowl and wiped it against his robe. “They say it’s a great misfortune to see a ghost. I can’t imagine what it means to see three at once.”
Ellarion took point. “Great Dyn,” he said. “I suspect there has been a misunderstanding. We are but a group of humble travelers en route to—”
“Oh, stop it,” Cal said, his voice a blade, and now his eyes finally flicked up to us: narrow, intense, the irises brown flecked with blue. “Bad enough you lost your hands, but you’ve apparently lost your sense, too. I know who you are, you simpleton. Lie to me again, and I’ll start executing you one by one.”
Ellarion looked like he was going to say something, then thought better of it and backed down. That left Lyriana to talk. “Great Dyn, I apologize for my cousin’s attempt at deceit. He was merely trying to protect me.” She bowed her head, something I’d never seen her do before. I guess the situation really was that desperate. “Your words are true. We are who you say we are.”
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