“It’s nothing,” she lied.
“It’s not nothing,” Whitney said. “I know you, Sora… Nothhelm… I know all there is to know.”
“Nothhelm… I—you—what?” Sora stammered. Her hand slipped off Aquira and banged against the bench as she went slack, stunned. Aquira flapped away to the crow’s nest. “How did you…”
“I have my secrets, too.” Again, he put on that mischievous smile Sora had practically been begging to see one last time, until now that she was a victim of it.
“Whitney…” she said, breathless. “I don’t know how you know that, but you shouldn’t.”
“I shouldn’t?” Whitney said, standing. “Are you kidding? Sora this is the greatest thing to happen to either of us. Do you know what this means?”
Sora tilted her head in question.
“You’re not just a princess—“
“No. Stop it now.”
“You should be Queen,” Whitney continued as if she hadn’t spoken at all.
“Queen? Are you mad?” Sora asked.
“You’re older than Pi. Smarter too. Definitely prettier. Plus… think of the gold!”
“Bastard princesses don’t get the throne,” she muttered. “Besides…”
“Well, at least a castle.” He extended his palm like a potion salesman. “Sora, Lady of New Winde Port.”
“Stop,” she said, stern. She looked back toward Yaolin City. “I don’t want to be a lady of anything. Whitney, you have to promise me you won’t tell anyone else. No one, do you understand?”
He blew out a raspberry. “You’re madder than the real Queen was.”
“I mean it. No one else knows, right?”
Whitney’s head rolled back. “I can’t believe you won’t even consider this.”
“Not even a little bit. Now, I’m serious. No one knows, right?”
Whitney put on a puzzled face, finger to his chin. “I don’t think Kazimir will be talking.”
“It was only him?”
He let out an exasperated sigh, leaned in, and said, “You could be something grand, Sora. Have the influence to do… well… something grand.”
“Promise me,” Sora said.
“Promise you what?”
“You won’t tell anyone.”
“If Torsten knew—“
“Especially not Torsten! Iam’s shog, Whitney. You aren’t thinking straight. If Torsten knew, he’d probably have me killed just to make sure no one found out his precious King was a whoremonger.”
“Or he might think you’re the better option over a sickly child,” Whitney offered.
“I mean it, Whit. No one.”
He sighed. “I promise not to tell anyone that you are the rightful queen of the whole yigging world. Happy?”
She crossed her arms.
The wind whistled as it passed through the many ropes hanging from posts and netting throughout the ship. Out there, on the Covenstan Depths, things had been quiet and peaceful beside the occasional grimaur attack. Even here in Glinthaven, it was like paradise. But it was just the calm before the inevitable storm, and Sora knew it.
“You don’t get it, do you?” she said.
“What don’t I get?” he replied.
“Queen of what? What’s going to be left? You’ve heard the rumors, same as I have, haven’t you? All throughout the docks. You can see what’s happening in Panping.” She pointed to the smoke and storm just barely visible now in the darkening sky. “You don’t believe that’s just her cultists. You can’t. Not after what we saw in the Citadel. We are out of time, Whit. First Yaolin City, then Yarrington, then the whole world. There’s no time to make people further doubt the King of the only Kingdom strong enough to stand against her.”
Still kneeling before her, Whitney held out his hand as if offering for her to take it. After a few seconds and a pleading look in his eyes, she did. “Yes, I’ve heard the rumors,” he said. “White hair, black eyes, pretty but terrifying, rides a sea-monster? Yeah, that’s obviously her.”
“So, what do we do?”
“I’ve got a plan.”
“Oh, do you?” Sora asked, skeptical.
“While you’ve been… recovering, we’ve been scheming. We’re going after her.”
“Just like that? There’s nothing to steal this time, thief.” She tried to be playful with the term, though she wasn’t sure it came off that way.
“Well, good thing I’m retired, then. I’m in the ‘saving damsels’ business now.”
Sora rolled her eyes.
Whitney’s features darkened. “She hurt you, Sora. You may not admit it, but I can see it in your eyes. And she hurt Kazimir, Gold Grin, Torsten—she’ll pay for all of it. So, before we worry about you taking your rightful place as Queen of the World, and me by your side—your dashing King—or even what’s happened while you were with her, and I was in Elsewhere, if you even think you might still have a connection to Nesilia, we need to talk with Lucindur right away.”
She stared at him, unblinking. She couldn’t stop herself. Whitney Fierstown, thief and braggart. Always out for himself, now willing to throw himself at Nesilia even though he’d already accomplished his mission, saving Sora—all for her and others. And as she watched him, hanging on with a dumb look smeared across his face, eager for her response, she knew. She could finally forgive him for leaving her behind all those years ago. Really, truly forgive him.
“Did you just propose marriage?” she asked.
Whitney waved her off. “Sora, stop messing around—“
His protest was cut short as she threw himself at him. His back hit the deck, and she landed on top of him.
Pinned beneath her, he said, “Sora, what are you…”
It was so long in the waiting—months, years, a decade even. She didn’t want to waste another second when any second could be their last. Her mouth found his, and for once in his life, he quit talking.
She pawed at his britches, unlacing them quickly with one hand as the other shoved back on his tunic.
“Ow,” he squealed.
She noticed the magical embers building around her hand as she lost control. “Get used to it,” she replied, pushing him harder. He stared into her eyes, then his hand tangled her hair, and he pulled her toward him, kissing her again.
III
The Knight
“Sir Unger, I’m sorry,” Sir Lucas Danvels said.
The young Shieldsman rode beside Torsten, heading east on the Glass Road. Their journey so far from White Bridge had been mostly silent. After Nesilia’s arrival and on the battlefield, Lucas seemed particularly shaken. These were the first words he’d spoken.
“For what?” Torsten asked.
“For bringing her—the Buried Goddess—there. The blood pact Rand made… it was against me.”
“You did nothing wrong, Lucas. The fault rests squarely upon my shoulders—as usual.” Torsten went silent, watching creatures flying in the distance, too big to be gallers. Grimaurs.
“I kept Rand among us when he was clearly more damaged than any of us knew,” Torsten said.
“For a Shieldsman—even a former one—to unleash such wrath… It’s inconceivable.”
“If he knew what she would do, I have to believe he wouldn’t have done it. Not if anything of the Rand I knew is left in that frail form.”
“Maybe, but I should’ve stopped them. Him, at least.”
“Nesilia killed Muskigo Ayerabi like it was a game,” Torsten said. “Like he was a mouse caught in the grain bin. She would have killed us all if not for Dellbar the Holy—Iam.”
Torsten paused again. It seemed a dream that old, drunken Father-Morningweg-turned-Dellbar-the-Holy had carried the manifest presence of his God. Iam had been there, on that battlefield, protecting his chosen children.
Torsten cleared his throat. “There was nothing you could’ve done.”
Lucas exhaled. “And now, Rand Langley is in the wind again.”
“No, he’s not.”
/> “You know where he is?” Lucas asked, hopeful like a hungry child at the smell of bread.
“No, but I know him. He’ll be heading east, just like us. He’ll never stop believing his sister is still inside of whatever twisted thing Sigrid has become. He’ll go to her—“
“And she’ll kill him,” Lucas finished.
“Or he’ll serve her like a mindless beast.”
“Like he did with the Mad Queen,” Lucas offered.
“Don’t call her that.”
“Sorry, Sir Unger. I didn’t intend to speak ill of the dead. But it is true, right? The things she made Langley do will be nothing compared to the goddess’ desires.”
“In that, you may be correct.”
“I spoke with her, Sir Unger.” His voice was shaky, as if reliving a horrific memory. “There was nothing human about her. Sh… sh… she looked right through me. It was as if I weren’t more than cattle.”
“The Buried Goddess and an upyr as one,” Torsten said. “I can think of nothing more wicked.”
Thick clouds blotted out the sun, casting an eerie, gray blanket over the Wildlands. It felt like months since Torsten had seen the sun, a precise mirroring of his soul.
“You know, it’s funny, Sir Unger.”
Torsten glared at Lucas.
“Poor choice of words. It’s just that I didn’t even believe there was such a thing as upyr until recently. Like everyone else, I figured they were just stories meant to scare children from sneaking away at night. But now, every horrid nightmare has become a reality. It seems lately, nothing makes sense. What happened?”
Torsten knew precisely what had happened. “King Liam died.”
It seemed too simple a response, but often the truth was just that, simple.
“How do we stop her?” Lucas asked. His words no longer came out merely shakily. Now, he quaked, and the horror there was unmistakable.
Torsten felt it, too. That oppressive feeling of hopelessness latching onto every and all parts of him. He’d witnessed a miracle when Iam possessed Dellbar the Holy’s body, and still, he felt it.
“I have no idea,” he admitted. “But we have to try.”
Torsten had to see the truth for himself. After what happened outside White Bridge, he thought they’d have more time. That Iam himself had provided a chance to collect themselves for what was sure to be the second God Feud, Torsten thought it to be a sign of ultimate victory.
Then, the rumors started flooding west. From Glinthaven and the Wildlands, the eastern dwarven kingdoms and even Brekliodad—Yaolin City had fallen, and darkness spread across all Panping like a plague. Torsten had sent messages east by galler and even horseback in efforts to confirm these tales with Governor Nantby and the garrison commander at Fort Wuxia.
They didn’t answer. Nobody answered. And none of the messengers had returned.
And so, Torsten and Lucas rode east, garbed in nothing but the rags of devout priests of Iam. It wasn’t long ago that Torsten had berated that dastardly Whitney Fierstown for posing as a priest—but Torsten had little choice. With the blindfold he already wore over his eyes, blessed to allow him sight despite his burns, the disguise fit.
Besides, they couldn’t very well wear glaruium Shieldsman armor. Torsten knew now that the enchanted metal mined in the heart of Mount Lister, from the place where Nesilia had been buried bent to her will. He carried only Salvation, tucked beneath his robes. Even the gorgeous, gilded, dragon-shaped hilt and the Eye of Iam pommel were shrouded by the folds of his hood.
Their horses whinnied and reared back as they crossed the boundary into the Panping Region as if somehow sensing the new dangers the land presented.
“Whoa!” Lucas exclaimed, struggling to calm his tawny mare. He’d grown up in Dockside, where horses weren’t a necessity, so he still had a lot to learn. Torsten trotted his sideways, the same chestnut he’d ridden for months. She was a faithful girl, and he swore to her many times over that he’d retire her as soon as they’d returned to Yarrington.
“You control him, not the other way around,” Torsten said. He grasped the mane of the young Shieldsman’s mount.
Lucas nodded, then leaned over to stroke his horse’s neck.
Then, together, they looked up. Panping’s border was unassuming. No wall or moat, just a gentle shift from the rolling plains of the Wildlands to Panping’s white rocks and lush jungles. The temperature was usually balmy, especially in these summer months, but not now. Clouds swarmed above, and it wasn’t fully snowing, but flakes drifted on the wind like ash.
Maybe it is ash.
Torsten caught one on the tip of his finger, feeling the nip of an icy breeze as his arm stretched behind the folds of his sleeve. He touched it to his tongue.
“Snow,” he said to Lucas, who was busy staring up at them as well.
Torsten wasn’t sure which was worse. At least ash was explainable. Nesilia’s followers did so like to burn things—Torsten’s own eyes could attest to that. Snow, however, made no natural sense in the heart of summer, not this far south. Panping was no stranger to magic and mysticism, causing the world to reject the nature Iam had designed for Pantego. Mystics would summon rainstorms over farms, strike enemies with bolts of lightning, erase winter entirely.
This felt different.
“That storm looks bad,” Lucas said, pointing east over a ridge.
“I don’t think it’s a storm,” Torsten replied. “At least, no storm like you and I would be familiar with.”
Toward the horizon, the clouds turned darker and darker still, until they were black as a crow, and swirling like a murder of them toward a converging point.
A vortex centered around Nesilia’s new seat of power, Torsten thought.
Yaolin City was still many leagues to the east. Still, the weather anomaly was spreading, slowly gobbling up the world Torsten knew. The grass was browning. Cherry trees amongst stark white stones, usually full and bright this time of year, had wilting flowers and leaves flaking away. Beyond that, the jungles looked starved. No animals roamed. Apart from what Torsten was now convinced were grimaurs, no birds soared. No people—Panpingese or otherwise—traveled roads that were typically rife with sojourners.
And the smell…
In blindness, Torsten’s other senses had grown more acute, and that was the strangest part. Smell was almost wholly absent.
“Should we check that inn?” Lucas asked. “Maybe they saw something.”
“If anyone is still alive to see,” Torsten said, then nodded. He gave his horse a kick, and they trotted farther into the bleakness to a quaint old cottage house set just a short walk from the Glass Road.
Their horses clopped toward a garden just west of it. “I know this place,” Torsten said. He couldn’t mask the pride in his voice, and he was sure his face showed it as well. “Sir Uriah and I stayed here on a trip east to meet with Governor Nantby. That was when King Liam installed the man into his position.”
“Was it always this quiet?” Lucas asked.
Torsten shook his head. “I’ve never cared much for fancy food, but the owner made a rabbit stew fit for any King.”
“Not better than my mum’s. Trust me.”
Torsten shot his ward a sidelong glare, wiping the smirk right off his face. He appreciated Lucas’ uncanny ability to stay chipper, but there was a time and place. Here, in a countryside cursed by darkness and silence, was neither.
As Torsten neared the inn, he recalled the aromatic outdoor garden set around a babbling, trickling waterfall stemming from a stream zigzagging through the stones. Spices he’d never even heard of had grown there in plenty. Now, his horse’s hooves cracked stale, frozen dirt. What was left of the plants were dead, and centered amongst them was an arrangement of corpses.
“By Iam,” Lucas said, covering his mouth.
Torsten brought the neck of his robes up over his nose. The stale air grew rank with the stink of death, radiating toward him in waves. These were not fresh bodies. They’d be
en laid in a circle, with more forming the shape of a triangle between them—the cultist symbol of the Buried Goddess.
There was no telling how long they’d been left to rot in the open air, but they were so decomposed, it was unclear how they’d died either. He could see straight to the bone, flies buzzing around them, worms feeding on their insides. He’d seen the horror of battles and not been so overwhelmed. Both the stench and the sight had tears welling in his eyes.
“Who could do this?” Lucas muttered.
A clatter from within the inn stole Torsten’s attention. A red-robed figure swept by a window. Unlike the trampled, rotting garden, the building itself appeared to be untouched. Nothing was destroyed; none of the paper walls torn. It merely seemed quiet.
“I think I saw someone,” Lucas said.
“Me too.” Torsten hitched his horse to the front porch and climbed down. Lucas followed him. As they edged closer to the entry, a blur of red moved again.
“Stay here and watch the horses,” Torsten ordered.
“What if there’s more than one of them?” Lucas asked.
“Come running. At times like this, Nesilia’s followers aren’t the only ones we have to worry about. Two western mares would make quite a prize for bandits and leave us stranded a good way from the city.”
Torsten stopped just outside and fished behind his back, hands coming to rest on the grip of his claymore. “In the name of Iam and the Glass Kingdom, show yourself!” he hollered. His voice carried far, the only sound for miles in any direction. Nobody answered.
“I won’t ask again!” Torsten shouted.
Again, nothing. True to his word, Torsten kicked through the sliding entry door, drawing Salvation at the same time. When no attack came, he quickly scanned the room and found that the many undisturbed tables still had tankards of ale sitting on them. Tankards were lined up on the bar, half of them still full, and the rest clean and empty, like the bartender had vanished in mid-preparation of an order. Some seats even had bowls of stew set before them, only they were covered by flies and edged with mold.
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