Daya rolled her eyes. “Well, the party’s over now.”
His senses perked; his hand tightened on the hilt of his misericord sheathed at his hip. “What do you mean? You found something?”
He had asked Daya—for no small price—to keep an eye on the port for him while he escorted Ana, Linn, and Kaïs to the Blue Fort. He’d reasoned the investment was one worth making, since she was familiar with the way Kerlan did his business in this kingdom.
And, Ramson thought with grim pleasure, it seemed he’d been right.
Daya stuck her tongue out. “Duh. Told you that you were paying for some high-quality reconnaissance.”
“Show me.”
She huffed a breath and crooked two fingers. Their boots stole soft against the wooden quays, the night filled with the rush of the ocean and the whisper of the wind. They were headed, Ramson guessed, to the very end of the port.
As they walked, the ships grew scarcer and became a more ragged assortment of smaller brigs and fishing boats—until a massive galleon loomed before them. From the dim moonlight filtering through the clouds, Ramson could see that it flew no flags.
“No sigil,” Daya whispered, “no particular design. Most ships are painted over with symbols like a pirate’s got tattoos, but this one is trying not to stand out. It’s been here since we arrived this afternoon, but no one was around it until earlier tonight. The port’s closed by six bells, and it was long after that when I caught a line of people disembarking. And Amara look upon me, I recognized several of those bastards.” She looked smug. “They’d been on my ship before.”
“Kerlan’s men?” Ramson muttered.
“Kerlan’s men,” Daya confirmed. “Sneaking around like they didn’t want anybody seeing them. Tsk, tsk. Definitely up to no good. Oh, but here’s where it gets creepy…”
Ramson threw her a skeptical look.
“What?” she snapped, shooting him a glare. “You’d be scared, too, if you’d been here.” She swallowed and touched a hand to her collarbone, where her tattoo of the goddess Amara was. “I thought I heard screaming coming from it.”
Ramson looked around. This part of Sapphire Port was remote enough that no one would come looking. “Screaming?” he repeated.
Daya nodded, her eyes wide. “At first I thought it was just the wind, but when I listened more closely—hey, where are you going?”
“Only one way to find out,” Ramson called over his shoulder. He heard her hissing curses at him, which turned to whisper-shouts threatening that he was on his own if anything happened to him.
Before him, the ship Daya had pointed out was a silhouette looming against the night. When he reached the end of the jetty and glanced back, Daya had disappeared into the shadows; he caught a flash of her eyes as she watched him.
Ramson paused to listen. There was nothing but the sound of the ship creaking as it bobbed up and down, the sound of water gurgling beneath its hull.
With a light leap, he swung himself onto the anchor line. It clinked gently as he began to haul himself up, his feet scampering easily over the chain links, his hands steady. When at last he reached the top, he peered over the hull and, seeing no one, he hauled himself over the railing and onto the deck.
The ship was a midsized vessel, with a large hull for storing goods. Ramson searched the captain’s cabin first, which was predictably empty, and then turned his attention to the hatch—the door that led to the hold belowdecks. It was locked, which wasn’t a surprise, and it took him a few moments’ work with his pick before the trapdoor clicked open.
Quietly as he could, he descended the rungs of the ladder. The air here was musty, and it took some time for his eyes to adjust to the dimness. Slowly, shapes began to emerge—piles and piles of crates.
Ramson stole over to one of them. It took him longer than usual to work the lock in the darkness. At last, the lid popped with a satisfying click.
He peered inside.
The crate was filled to the brim with searock. Under the faint moonlight that filtered through the opening above, he recognized the rippling patterns across the material’s surface. One piece caught a blue-green hue as he held it higher and turned it over in his hand.
Why would Alaric Kerlan be hoarding searock? More important, how had he gotten his hands on so much of it? Searock was a precious mineral available only in the south Bregonian seas, its mining tightly controlled by the Bregonian government.
Had Kerlan somehow stolen it?
He investigated several other crates, which all yielded the same result. Finding nothing else, he made sure each crate was shut tight before he left.
Daya looked immensely relieved when he rejoined her. “Well?” When he gave a slight shake of his head, she continued, “Try again tomorrow.”
But Ramson remained deep in thought as they stole back to the Black Barge to settle down for the night. Olyusha had said Kerlan’s trade with Bregon was related to a new development with Affinites. How was searock connected to this?
He drifted into uneasy sleep, plagued by dreams of searock prisons and shadow ships, and monsters in the dark that lay in wait.
Bregon was a kingdom of water and sea, but there was wind here, too. Linn had hitched her dress into the breeches she’d worn under it, her own leather boots silent to the steel-tipped toes of the Bregonian Navy uniform, and she felt like herself once again.
Most important, her knives hung at her waist, strapped tightly and yielding to her body’s bend and flex as though they were a part of her.
She’d been following the scholar for a good portion of the evening, tailing him through the whispering alder trees and flitting between the gray-shingled roofs of the Blue Fort like a shadow. So far, he’d stopped by to meet with several officials before returning to what Linn assumed were his own chambers.
She leaned against the wall of his balcony, one leg dangling over the railing, watching as the lamplight in his room flickered. Before long, it went out; she heard the creak of his bed, and then silence.
Linn sighed. She waited. Minutes passed; she counted. When he didn’t stir again, she stood and stretched. She considered returning to her chambers to tell Ana that the scholar had been up to nothing and that she had no useful findings to share—but inspiration struck her as she looked around the courtyards, utterly empty at this hour.
If she were to explore more of the Blue Fort, it was best done under the cloak of night. There was no telling what she might find.
Linn heaved herself onto the balustrade and began to climb.
Her thoughts wandered to what Ramson had taught them of the magic that people possessed in Bregon. Linn knew that in Cyrilia, Affinites were born to nothing but the rawest forms of their Affinities. Most were left uncultivated, like a seed without sunlight.
In Kemeira, wielders learned harmony: to extend their minds and their souls so that they were one with their element. Every aspect of life, Kemeirans believed, was a circle of some sort: a giant cycle in which they all took part, in which there was give-and-take from every person and every life. Wielders depended on givers—those without magic—to harvest food, to build shelter, and in return, they gave back safety and protection. Action, and counteraction. Yin, and yang.
There was something to the artifact that could create new wielders, new Affinites, that seemed off to Linn. She had always been taught that the amount of power and energy in this universe was finite, and that there was no give without take. How was it possible, then, that power could be created?
Her musings were interrupted when a curl of wind brushed against her shoulder. It carried to her a sound.
Someone was weeping.
It was a soft, high, keening sound, so mournful that it wrapped around her heart and squeezed. She cocked an ear toward it. It was more than she’d seen or heard that night, and unknowingly, she found herself pulling at her wind
s to guide her toward it. It was coming from a set of balcony doors three floors down.
Carefully, Linn dropped down to the next balcony and peered over. It was a far leap from here to the balcony doors. She watched them for several moments, taking in the way the gossamer curtains ballooned out in the breeze, and how the inside of the room appeared dark.
Then, taking a deep breath, she jumped.
The searock was slippery, and her foot plunged forward. Linn gasped as she lost her balance, tipped over, and crashed against the far wall. She scrambled, squeezing herself against the wall and out of sight from the open-air windows.
In the room beyond, the crying had stopped.
Linn froze. Had they heard her? She couldn’t risk discovery—she shouldn’t even be here.
Drawing another breath, she grasped the balustrade and was about to fling herself over when a thin, high-pitched voice spoke.
“Hello.”
Linn spun around. Between the billowing curtains and half-ensconced in the darkness of the room stood King Darias. His hair was tousled, his cheeks flushed, and his eyes bright as he looked at her.
Panic closed Linn’s throat, choking her words. Options—not very good ones—flitted through her mind.
“Please don’t be afraid,” the boy king continued in slow, singsong Cyrilian. “I just want to tell you about the monsters beneath my floors.”
Linn swallowed. He made no sense. Could she even convince him to keep quiet?
She opened her mouth to speak—and then something very peculiar happened. The boy pressed a finger to his lips and gave a small shake of his head.
“Yes,” he continued loudly, and suddenly, Linn wondered whether there was more to the King’s nonsensical babblings. “Yes, the stars are beautiful tonight. I will come out to look.”
He stepped out, his feet bare and his nightshirt thin in the wind. He moved closer to her and paused, and that was when she caught it: the barest tip of his head, a flick of his eyes back to the room. He took two more steps toward her and then fell still, remaining just in sight of his windows.
They were so close now that she could see the flush to his cheeks, the unnatural dilation to his pupils. He held a cup in his hands; the liquid inside sloshed as he moved to the balcony. In a single motion, so swift that she might have missed it if she blinked, he dumped the liquid over the balustrade into the bushes below.
King Darias caught her gaze. “Poison,” he said, and this time, he spoke matter-of-factly, his voice low. “There is a guard stationed in my room, and many more outside the parlor. If I do not finish my daily dosage, they will force it down my throat.”
There was no strange, slow lilt to his words now, no odd vacancy in his eyes. His gaze was suddenly sharp, focused solely on her.
A chill ran through Linn. Ana had told her the story of her father and brother being poisoned by those who sought power. “How can they do this to you?” she whispered. “Why would the Queen allow it?”
“My mother is long dead,” the King replied, a flicker of sadness crossing his face. “The Sea Court has suppressed all information of her passing, and Admiral Farrald began to administer this poison to me in order to take control of my government.”
Her head was spinning, but the King continued to speak.
“I am glad you came,” he said. “The answers the Cyrilian princess seeks lie beneath our floors, in our research dungeons.”
Linn’s heart began to beat a fast, erratic rhythm. “The artifact?” she whispered. “It exists?”
King Darias’s eyes were wide. He gave a single nod. “The research wing is at the back of the Naval Headquarters, behind a walled courtyard. Look for a set of ironore doors with a scroll carved on top. It will be heavily guarded.”
“What is there?” Linn asked. “Is it the artifact?”
Before he had a chance to respond, another voice called out from inside the chambers. “Your Majesty?”
King Darias pressed a finger to his lips. Slowly, he began to retreat, his expression returning to the blank vacancy of earlier. A placid smile curled on his lips, and by the time the King turned back to his chambers, Linn might have believed every part of the act of the puppet king he was putting on.
Her mind was abuzz with the information she had learned, and she needed to get back to Ana to discuss. Linn slipped over the balustrade. Before she left, she took a last glance into the King’s chambers. A soft golden light emanated from inside; the billowing white curtains had swallowed everything but the boy’s voice.
“The moon is bright and beautiful tonight,” sang King Darias. “And there are monsters on it.”
The Kingdom of Bregon and its Three Courts duly request the presence of Anastacya Mikhailov at Godhallem at eight bells of the evening.
Yours,
Darias Rennaron
King of Bregon
The note lay on the oakwood surface of her parlor table, where Ana and Linn’s breakfast was splayed out with an extravagant assortment of rolls stuffed with caviar, cured meats, plates of tiny salted fish drenched in sweet sauce, and platters of tropical berries. Ana had just finished listening to Linn recount the extraordinary events of the previous night, including her conversation with King Darias.
“I knew they were hiding things,” she murmured. “And they expect me to negotiate tonight.”
The Queen Regent dead, a government cover-up, and a possible new lead. Ana chewed on a slice of buttered bread, considering it all. It seemed she’d stumbled into more than she’d bargained for. With a hostile foreign government, her task had just grown insurmountably harder.
Not to mention, the person she needed most, the only one of them who could help her navigate this tangle of lies and deception, was gone. Ramson had kept true to his word: He had left. Ana had passed Ramson’s door on her way to her room last night, and a quick sweep of her Affinity told her the room was empty.
Linn leaned closer, ignoring her cup of steaming black tea. “We must get to the bottom of this, before you agree to an alliance tonight. What is an ally hiding secrets but a potential snake in the nest?”
It was an apt Kemeiran proverb to describe their situation. Head Scholar Tarschon had lied to her face about the Queen, and about the whereabouts of the artifact. “I’m going to request to speak with King Darias,” Ana said. If the Bregonian government was asking for a meeting tonight, she needed to cut straight to the source.
“What about the research wing that King Darias told me about?” Linn asked.
Ana hesitated. Linn had said the wing would be heavily guarded; there was no use risking a break-in the day of her negotiation. “Can you take watch there for the day, and meet me at the Livren Skolaren at six bells?”
Linn nodded. “I go now,” she said, finishing the rest of her food in several quick bites. “Kaïs stays with you.” She narrowed her eyes. “I do not trust anyone in this kingdom.”
Ana smiled at her friend’s concern. “I can take care of myself.”
After Linn left, Ana changed into a crisp ocean-blue dress. Kaïs wasn’t in his room, to her surprise, and after a quick search of the Ambassador’s Suites yielded nothing, Ana decided to set out alone.
She headed for King Darias’s chambers, two of the Royal Guards stationed outside her door trailing her. She’d studied a map of the Blue Fort; the King’s chambers were located in the building directly behind Godhallem. The air was balmy, warmer even than that of Southern Cyrilia. The sky was overcast today, and a wind had picked up, rattling the grasses and slamming doors and window shutters.
Ana ascended the steps to the King’s residency and found herself blocked by an entire squad of Royal Guards. Their livery, navy blue with emblems of the Sea Court emblazoned on silver plates, reminded her of Sorsha’s.
One stepped forward, the badge of a silver shield on his chest marking his
higher rank. He saluted. “Can I help you?”
Caution tightened inside her. These were Sorsha Farrald’s men, and if Ana guessed right, they were the ones poisoning the King.
Ana schooled her features into careful blankness. “I’d like to request a meeting with King Darias Rennaron.”
“My apologies, meindame. King Darias is not taking guests at the moment.”
“Would you convey my request to him?” she asked, but at that moment, footsteps sounded from inside and a man pushed through the doors.
His uniform was different from those of the Royal Guard: lighter blue, with brown shoulder pads and stripes, bronze buttons dotting the sleeves. As he descended the steps to her, one hand on the hilt of the sword strapped to his hips, Ana saw that the badge on his chest was the rearing stallion of the Earth Court.
He stopped sharply before her and saluted. “Captain Ronnoc of the King’s Guard,” he said. “Can I help, meindame?”
The Royal Guards fell back with a noticeable ripple of tension. It seemed the King’s Guard was a separate branch from the Royal Guard, dedicated to the protection of the King himself.
Ana inclined her head. “My name is Anastacya Mikhailov of Cyrilia,” she said. “I’d like to request a meeting with King Darias.”
“My apologies, meindame, but the King is currently not taking guests.” Captain Ronnoc paused. “Per my briefing on his schedule today, he is to meet with you at eight hours of the evening at Godhallem.”
“There is something important I must discuss with him beforehand,” Ana pressed. “Would you relay my message? I can wait here.”
The captain hesitated, but the Royal Guard spoke. “We have our orders, meindame,” he said sharply. “No visitors.”
Frustrated, Ana made her way to the Livren Skolaren. It was the only place she could think of where she could find information, even if it was all tangential to what she was truly after. She spent her day reading about Bregonian history and trade policies. She found a number of details that she hadn’t come across in Cyrilian textbooks. There was particular emphasis on searock, a stone that Bregon coveted and refused to trade with foreign nations. She recalled her previous day’s readings on the uncanny way searock absorbed the properties of other precious stones and metals, which made it extremely valuable. It was probably why, she thought, leaning back against her chair and staring at the mural over the high ceiling of the Livren Skolaren, most of the buildings in Bregon had been built out of a combination of searock and other construction material.
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