The Exalted

by Kaitlyn Sage Patterson

  We just had to get to the bridge. There would be a solution on the other side.

  The sound of hoofbeats grew closer, and I twisted in my saddle to see how close our pursuers were. But the hoofbeats I heard weren’t the Shriven—instead, a horse burst from the underbrush in the woods at the right, cutting an angle between Curlin and me and the Shriven. Aphra’s red-gold hair flew out behind her like a flag, and Lei clung to the saddle as well, her short, scrawny legs flapping wildly. At the sight of Aphra, the Shriven’s voices rose in an angry cacophony, and they changed the direction of their fire, aiming their guns at Aphra and Lei.

  Despite the pain shrieking up my back and the fog that clouded my thoughts, I knew I couldn’t let them hurt Aphra or Lei. But just as I reined my horse to the right and began to gallop toward them, Aphra raised her hand and, to my great surprise, threads of golden light came pouring out of her fingertips, weaving together to form a moving picture over her head. Golden figures galloped in the sky above her, and I recognized myself, Curlin, the Shriven, Aphra and Lei.

  The image sped up, and in a matter of seconds, I watched the golden light image of Aphra ride closer to us and put Lei on my horse before she sped off into the woods, drawing half of the Shriven away from us. They galloped down the gorge toward the next bridge, while Curlin and Lei and I rode on.

  Then the golden light flashed away. I looked back at the Shriven, but it was as though nothing had changed. They’d seen nothing. One of them took aim and fired at me, missing me by just a hair.

  I never made the decision to follow the unspoken command Aphra had shown me—with what? Magic? I simply did it, wheeling my horse back toward Curlin as though it were the only option. Curlin disappeared into the woods just moments before Aphra and Lei’s path converged with ours, and they rode up alongside me. Lei leaped onto my horse, settled herself behind the saddle and wrapped her arms, viselike, around my ribs.

  “Listen to me, Vi,” Aphra gasped. “Hear me. Get to safety. We’ll meet back at the camp. You must stay safe.”

  With that, Aphra peeled off out of sight, leaving Lei and me on Curlin’s heels. It was almost like I couldn’t even see her; my whole brain was so focused on riding away from the Shriven. We wove through the trees, and bullets hammered into the trunks, sending chunks of bark flying. A slice of pain tore through my left arm, and I cried out in shock, dropping that rein, but my horse galloped on. I kept riding and riding as blood ran down my arm and screams echoed all around me.

  I couldn’t stop. I had to get to safety. I had to ride on.

  Suddenly, we were past the trees, and Curlin’s horse galloped across the bridge. I guided my mount onto the wooden planks, but the moment its hooves touched wood, the horse froze. I flew up, and nearly over the horse’s head, but managed to stay on. Lei whimpered, but I felt her small weight settle against my back.

  Even as I did my best to urge the horse forward, blood poured down my limp left arm, and bullets flew through the trees behind me. My horse backed up, whinnying and screaming in fear. I kicked my feet out of the stirrups and slid to the ground. Without my body to keep her there, Lei tumbled off the horse like a sack of grain, and I did my best to catch her with my uninjured arm. She was smeared with blood, but I had no idea if it was hers or mine.

  Just as I got her down, my horse reared and bolted away. Lei moaned and slumped to the ground, her eyes fluttering. I could hear the Shriven’s horses rushing through the trees, branches snapping and bullets flying as they came closer and closer to us. I paused, just for a moment, and though it took every ounce of my strength, I pulled Lei up and lifted her onto my shoulder.

  It felt like I was trying to move through water—every fiber of my being protested, but I couldn’t leave her behind. On the far side of the bridge, the brats were yelling over each other, over Curlin’s head, urging me forward.

  We weren’t but halfway across when the first of the Shriven burst through the trees. Curlin had reached the other side and held a torch high overhead in one hand and a bucket in the other. There were brats on either side of the bridge, sawing at the suspension ropes. I kept going, each step a stab of pain in my spine. Heavy footsteps pounded onto the bridge, and my balance faltered, offset by Lei’s weight on my shoulder. I stepped sideways, steadying myself against the rope rail and then stumbling forward again, knowing the Shriven were closing in on me. Blood dripped from my limp hand, my vision tunneled and all I could see was Curlin, standing at the end of the bridge, waiting.

  I ran. The moment my feet touched grass, I eased Lei down and onto her back, gasping for breath, praying I’d been fast enough to save us.

  Behind me, there was a loud crack and a symphony of screams. It took every last ounce of strength in my body, but I turned, and as I sank to my knees, I watched the bridge flap over the chasm. One rope had been severed, and the Shriven on the bridge were clinging to the slats, trying to climb back to safety. But the wood was slick with the jungle damp, and there were too many of them. Even as they heaved themselves back the way they’d come, the brats kept sawing away at the suspension cable.

  A moment later, the last rope snapped, and with a great, shuddering heave, the bridge collapsed, sending the Shriven hurtling down into the gorge. The edges of my sight went blurry, and then everything faded into blackness.

  Part Three

  “Your lives are often wasted, distracted from your true purpose in endless pursuit of survival. Worship is the way to bring you back to your center, where you may experience and taste your full being.”

  —from the Book of Rayleane, the Builder

  “Let there be no compulsion in your worship of me. Truth cannot be washed away by even the strongest wave. Whomsoever rejects falsehoods and believes in my strength will be unstoppable. I am the protector of those who have faith in the truth.”

  —from the Book of Hamil, the Seabound

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Bo

  “It’s an odd thing to go from being an only child to a man with so very many sisters. I can’t seem to remember a time without them, and yet, I can’t imagine what it was like to grow up knowing them.”

  —from Bo to Vi

  The icy chill of Alskad fell away as Lisette’s small sunship made its way down the coast, carrying us toward the Denorian capital of Salemouth. Still and Pem ran roughshod over the crew, approximating threats they had no real way of carrying out, charming them with smiles and begging for sailing lessons by turns.

  I’d arranged with Gerlene for my siblings to be moved to a furnished house in a better neighborhood. Gerlene would give them sufficient funds to live more comfortably and stop stealing. It was only with great reluctance that the eldest four agreed, but given Rylain’s apparent tyranny and the possibility of the temple connecting them to me, it was in their best interest to keep a low profile.

  Brenna and Chase hadn’t been eager to see Pem and Still go, but the girls had wheedled and cajoled until they got their way. Even so, Brenna made Swinton and me promise that we’d keep the girls out of trouble at least a half dozen times before she finally agreed. Just before we climbed aboard the ship, I’d pressed my letters to Vi and the Whipplestons into Gerlene’s weathered hands and kissed her on the cheek. Days later, her parting words still echoed in my head.

  “You go, and you find a way to take back your throne. Make Runa proud. She didn’t spend all these years laboring just to let it all go to pot the moment she let go the reins.”

  I’d been silent in response. More than anything, I wanted to erase that entire day, to keep Runa alive, to find a way to give myself and Vi more time. But in the icy predawn darkness, my feet planted on the rocking dock as frigid waves crashed beneath me, I could only nod and hug Gerlene fiercely. In the time since, I’d searched my brain for the right words, the right way to thank this woman who’d stepped in to become Runa’s silent partner, her helpmeet and support as well as mine. There was
just one thing I could imagine that would be enough to honor Runa’s memory and thank Gerlene at the same time.

  I would find a way to take back my throne. And I would rule Alskad as my grandmother would have done.

  I gripped the railing at the bow of the ship and let the cool spray wash over me, a baptism and a benediction from Hamil as I watched the lighthouses on either side of the Salemouth harbor grow steadily closer. Swinton appeared, silent as the shipboard cat, and leaned his back against the railing, elbows resting on the polished wood.

  “You’ll have to get those younglings under control before we dock, elsewise folk’ll think we’re the attendants and they’re the wild nobility.”

  I looked over my shoulder and up at the rigging, where Pem and Still were battering each other with wooden swords. They’d found the armory our first night at sea, and Pem had been on the verge of losing an arm to Still’s clumsy use of a broadsword when the captain found them. The woman and her first mate had—with many beleaguered sighs toward the girls and winks directed at Swinton and me—agreed to give Pem and Still a few lessons in swordplay, using a set of wooden practice swords. And, if they were good, she’d promised to gift each girl with a sword of her own when we arrived back in Alskad.

  I’d have to find a way to thank her for her generosity.

  “Let them wear themselves out today,” I said. “Otherwise they’ll be up all night, too excited to sleep before we disembark tomorrow.”

  “Nervous or scared?” Swinton asked, and I knew that his question was really about my state of mind, rather than the girls’.

  “Both.” I started to chew on my thumbnail, but Swinton gently moved my hand away from my mouth. He laced his fingers through mine and waited while I worked out what to say next.

  None of it was anything new. The worst possible scenario ran through my head over and over again, varying each time in the details of my failure—failing to persuade the queen to join my cause, failing to even get into the palace, failing to keep my sisters safe in this new foreign country, failing, failing, failing.

  “You have the perfume?” I asked for the thousandth time.

  Swinton, mouth set in a tense line, patted the breast pocket of his jacket. “One on my person at all times, the others safely packed away belowdecks.”

  “Aren’t you worried that it might break? That you might accidentally dose yourself? We’ve no way of knowing how strong this mixture is, compared to the temple’s serum. We don’t even know if you were somehow dosed before now.”

  Swinton pulled me in close and touched his forehead to mine. “Is any of that within our control?”

  Brows furrowed, I shook my head.

  “Then there’s no point in worrying about it. What we do have to worry about is how to get a dead prince into a palace.”

  I chuckled and leaned in to kiss him. He was right. It was rare for the journey between Denor and Alskad to take less than a week, but favorable winds and a fast ship would have us in the city’s harbor in just over five days. Even still, that wouldn’t be fast enough to beat the news of Runa’s death—and my own.

  It had been nearly ten years since I’d last seen Queen Noriava, and—aside from the small details I’d gleaned from the polite correspondence required by birthdays and holidays—I knew almost nothing about her. I knew that she thought Alskad’s food was too bland, that she hated green beans, that she was an excellent shot and that she’d kept an owl as a pet when she was a girl. Beyond those facts, everything I knew about her was based on rumor and speculation.

  “I don’t have any idea what to expect, or what to say. ‘Hello, Noriava. My, how you’ve grown since you were a twelve-year-old terror chasing me through the garden. Would you mind lending me your army so I can take back my throne? Oh, and by the way, I’m not only a bastard, but a twin as well, and I’d like my sister, who happens to be a thief and a fugitive trying to take down the extraordinarily corrupt temple that’s more or less taken over my empire, to rule beside me.’ Think that’ll work?”

  Swinton snorted. “It’s a bit of a mouthful, but it’s the truth.”

  I hated showing up like a beggar at the foot of another sovereign’s throne, but it wasn’t as though I had much of a choice. The Suzerain had no doubt made Rylain replace every member of the guard with those loyal to their cause. Without the support of another army, without the support of another sovereign, I had no hope of taking back my throne.

  “We should have gone to Samiria,” I groaned. “At least the Samirians aren’t opposed to the idea of a twin in power. Abet and Jax were elected the same year I was born.”

  “And Alskad relations with Samiria have been just grand ever since. You know they’d see it as a ploy, and you’d be dead before you were allowed to set foot on the docks. Save reparations with Samiria for after you and Vi are both safely on the throne.”

  I gritted my teeth. “I know you’re right.”

  Swinton’s smile seeped into his words. “You just hate it.”

  Still dropped from the rigging and into a roll, coming up just in front of us, wooden sword clenched between her teeth. A rope dropped from the sail overhead, and Pem slid down it to stand beside her sister, brandishing her sword at Swinton.

  “What do you hate?” she demanded. “Tell us, or we’ll run you through!”

  I hid my snicker with a cough.

  “That’s no way to be a spy,” Swinton said. “The best spies are never seen, never heard. They’re like the air, always around and never noticed.”

  Still and Pem nodded thoughtfully, drinking in his every word.

  “When’ll we get there?” Still asked.

  “Will we get to stay in the palace?” Pem’s question came so quickly on the heels of her sister’s that their voices blended into one chorus.

  “We’ll be in the harbor on the evening tide, but we’ll wait until tomorrow to dock,” I said. “So you two had best make sure you’ve got your livery all neat and tidy for our meeting with the queen. What’re the rules?”

  Pem’s and Still’s hands both flew into the air, two fingers pointing up like the masts of the ship. In unison, they said, “One. Mouths shut. Eyes and ears open. Two. Little girls with sticky fingers become little girls without fingers.”

  “And...” I led.

  “No fighting.” They sighed in unison.

  “Good. Now go see if the cook will give you something to eat. Scat.”

  * * *

  The cliffs surrounding Salemouth harbor rose out of the water like curtains of stone, their smooth, sun-bleached folds and pleats home to birds that dove in and out of the water, squawking endlessly to one another when their beaks weren’t stuffed with fish. Tiny islands dotted the wide harbor—nothing more, really, than grass-covered boulders too steep for anything other than grazing goats and shacks that looked liable to blow away in the first passing storm. A constant drizzle left the whole city damp, but the air itself was the perfect temperature. The chill of Alskad had long since faded, and Denor wasn’t nearly far enough south to match the suffocating heat of Ilor.

  But it was the bright, shocking green of the landscape that took me by surprise as we sailed into the harbor. Even in the jungles of Ilor, I’d never seen this kind of verdant vibrancy. It was as though every blade of grass, every leaf came from the youngest, freshest, most thoroughly fertilized plant in existence.

  I smiled to myself. Gerlene would love it here.

  “City’s not half–bad-looking, is it?”

  Swinton nuzzled my neck, and the prickle of his stubble against the delicate skin there sent chills up and down my spine. I leaned into him and kissed his cheek.

  “You need to shave.”

  “Not on a damned ship. Not if you’d like me to live to reach the shore.”

  I laughed, suddenly remembering the beginnings of a beard he’d sprouted on the trip from Ilor back to Alskad.
“I managed.”

  “But you have all the grace of a cat, and probably the nine lives, as well. I’m not taking those kinds of risks.” He nodded at the quickly approaching city. “Have you been here before?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “Under normal circumstances, I would’ve visited Denor and Samiria after gaining my maturity last summer, but... Well, you know what happened.”

  “You’ll do well. You’ve already half put on your kingly mask. Just remember that’s what you are. A king.”

  I grimaced. “I’ll worry about Noriava just as soon as I manage to haul myself up those stairs.”

  Like the cliffs around it, the city rose sheer out of the water. Staircases and wide walkways were carved into the white cliff face, and merchants hawked their goods from brightly painted carts parked along the walkways. People rushed up and down the stairs, going from the docks to the city at the top of the cliffs and back.

  It was no great wonder that Salemouth hadn’t been invaded and pillaged in the years after the cataclysm when the leaders of Alskad, Denor and Samiria were scrambling for power. Built at the top of the highest cliffs in the bay, the only way into the city by sea was up the daunting expanse of steps and walkways. An impressive black stone wall rose from the top of the cliff, and guardhouses equipped with enormous cauldrons meant to dump boiling oil on invaders were evenly spaced along the top of the wall.

  Approaching Denor by land was just as daunting. The country was ringed by a range of some of the highest, most impassible mountains in the world. And though it was a small country, the rich soil in the countryside surrounding Salemouth produced a greater volume and better quality of food than twice the same amount of space in Alskad.

  The bounty and safety in Denor had allowed for the kind of improvements that were unheard of in Alskad and Ilor. While we were still relying on hunting and the meager harvests our land could produce, Denor was rebuilding an education system, focused on science and the understanding of what happened during the cataclysm that had nearly destroyed our planet. Denor’s citizenry had never looked to the temple for comfort, like the people of Alskad, or closed themselves off from the world, like the Samirians. Instead, they looked to science for answers—and I hoped that logic would sway Noriava to my side.