Ember

by Anna Holmes

  "You don’t get to decide that, Kelvin. Not unilaterally. I don’t get to decide that unilaterally. That’s what the council is for, and frankly, it needs a good few more voices added to it." My chest bunches up tight, and I force it to expand in my breastplate again. "The old ways aren’t working. We can do better."

  He stands up straight, looking me over in the same stern way he had when I was but twelve and prone to whining. In a moment, though, he softens, something I've only seen once before, when he told me to come reclaim my city. Perhaps this is really Kelvin, under all of the bluster. "Perhaps," he concedes.

  "What?"

  He shakes his head, rubbing at his silvery temples. "I am old. I’ve lived through so much war. Sometimes you forget…perhaps Elyssia does need your youth and enthusiasm and idealism again."

  I step back once more, blinking. I could take him to task for the way his mouth curls as he releases the word idealism or I could keep my voice level. I choose the latter. "There is much to discuss," I say. "I should not have run, but it was a good lesson. We can all do better."

  He fixes his gaze on the floor, nodding. It’s hard to watch him like this, as though we’re just patching up a spat. Rage still burns as much as the poison does. I want him to pay for every lash on Alain’s body, every prisoner still missing from their homes. But as much as I hate him, he was right. Peace doesn’t just happen.

  He walks slowly to the window, looking out for a long time. "The camps are a problem," he admits. "They’ve long weighed on the Council’s conscience. The recent reports were…illuminating."

  "The conditions are deplorable. Criminals are still people, and they weren’t even all criminals."

  He nods again. "You’re more generous than most, Caelin. After that wound you sustained, no one would fault you for bearing down hard on your enemies. What was it? A poisoned dagger?"

  "Arrow," I answer. "To the shoulder."

  He clucks sympathetically, turning around again. Before I can account for his movement, someone behind me grabs me hard by the shoulder. Alora slides a narrow thumb under the gorget and digs into the wound. She presses down hard, and I gasp, dropping my sword. The clatter registers not at all over the ringing of my ears, the piercing pain moving from my shoulder and slicing through my very soul. Kelvin steps close to us to loom over me again. "Must hurt like the devils."

  I should be screaming. This is the sort of thing that screaming was made for. She jabs her thumb even further down, and the tears start flowing down my face as my knees give out. Kelvin reaches out and holds me up by the gorget, watching my face as I try and try, but no sound comes out. I grasp for his hand, but the numbness has started to set in, and I can't move my fingers to pry his off. They’re pushing the poison in again. "I taught you better than this," he says, frowning. "Enemies are to be given no quarter. But that’s not the Elyssia you want, is it?"

  I can only gasp for air like a dock-stranded fish. My lungs feel as though they're burning and freezing all at the same time, and my vision starts to flicker. When my head sags forward, he tosses my body aside. I barely register the landing, until smooth wood floor brushes against my cheek. "Your idealism has killed you," he informs me, turning to the door. "I'll be damned if it'll do the same to Elyssia." To Alora, he says, "Your Highness, for your safety, I suggest you complete your preparations elsewhere."

  She sweeps her skirts over my broken, heaving body. Kelvin shuts the door hard behind him, the bar slamming into place.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Alain

  Well, Caelin, I came up through the castle.

  I huddle close to the wall in the long stairway and try to think flat thoughts as a man steps through her door, holding out a hand to Caelin. My spine seems to have solidified into the stone as she passes me, clutching a handful of white skirt.

  Instinctively, I start forming the spell to silently ask her what the hells she’s doing, but she turns and the outline of her face blurs. Probably imperceptibly to most, but I’ve been taught what to look for. I unfocus my eyes and sure enough, I can make out two separate faces. I shouldn’t have needed to. It’s not her. Caelin isn’t capable of the mirthfully evil twist to the girl’s face right now. I’d called her a demon once, but now I know what one looks like.

  The man turns on his polished heel to the four rows of guards standing in front of the door. "No one goes in or out," he orders. "This room is a security risk."

  "Lord Kelvin," the guard at center front acknowledges uneasily.

  She’s in there, then, and once again, I was wrong. The false Caelin isn’t the demon, despite the blood on her hand and the smirk in her eye. Kelvin’s complete calmness as he leaves my Caelin to die is truly the worst thing I’ve ever seen.

  As he passes me, he stops, turning his head. I swallow hard. His eyes bore straight through my head. After this much time spent invisible, I know when someone is looking at me rather than through me, but the sharpness to his eye makes me doubt. Kelvin holds that hard stare a moment, then turns away. "Watch this hallway," he calls over his shoulder. "The impostor can’t have gotten here alone."

  The guards move back into formation, and all at once I realize just how many of them there are. Four rows of five. A bit much for an empty room.

  A few feet to my right is a door—open, thank gods. I back into it, keeping my eyes on Kelvin. He doesn’t look my way again. Once he’s gone, I turn fully around in the room.

  It’s a generously sized study, leather chairs butted up against bookcases and an inviting hearth. The smell of dust on paper stirs something in me that aches to linger here. Books. How could I have forgotten how much I’d loved books?

  I can’t pause more than a moment. The antidote feels heavy in my belt pouch. I follow the dim gray light and the sound of water tapping on glass to a window. A quick push on the frame elicits what to me seems like an ear-splitting groan. I freeze in place, waiting for those twenty guards to come pouring in here.

  A moment passes, two, then ten, and no one comes. I lean against the window a little slower this time, and with minimal creaking, manage to push it open. Rain spatters onto my forehead as I perch awkwardly in the window. I hadn’t wanted to ever climb the tower again.

  My boots skid uncomfortably on the wet stone, and I unfold out of the window and look up. It feels much closer this time than the last. I can do it. I have to. With a sharp intake of breath, I swing out and latch my fingers and toes into any crevice I can find.

  Each pull upward is harder than the last. My leg complains, my achy neck complains, the magic complains every time I ask it to hold me fast to the wall. The rain and the wind both feel intent on shoving me off and into the brambly arms of the rosevines below.

  I balance shakily on my bad leg to reach out for her windowsill. Its slipping, one tense muscle at a time, but I need the good leg to pull me up. With one last lunge, I fight my way up just as I feel the invisibility drop away.

  I cling desperately to the wet stone and wait for the guards to descend. I know it’s a terrible idea, but I twist my torso to look past my flapping cloak. So, far nothing. And then I turn back around and haul myself to the windowsill. Let them come if they’re going to.

  I thrash my way past the curtains clinging to my face and gills and let myself fall onto her floor. From under the bed I catch a glimpse of steel and dull copper hair on the other side. "Caelin," I gasp, as much reflex as exhaling.

  Her head turns, and I can inhale again. She’s not gone. I crawl over to the other side of the bed, scooping her head into my lap. Her expression shifts through several shades of confusion, all tinged horribly white and blue. Branches of the poison reach up her neck and across her cheek, and there’s no light at all left to her skin. I have to busy myself with fishing out the antidote, glass slipping in my wet fingers, to block out the fact that she looks far too much like she had in the devastated courtyard of the prison. "You’re supposed to be free," she mumbles.

  I finally manage to get the pouch flap open and p
ull out a vial. I lift my head and balance hers in the crook of my arm. Her watery eyes find mine. So many words run around my head. I should ask her what the devils she was thinking. If she knew what I was thinking. I want to shake her and order her to the bed. This will only be ignored, but I'll have tried. I try to figure out how to express all this, but all that comes out is, "I love you."

  She blinks. "I’m—not dead, right?"

  "Dear gods, no, and don’t you bloody dare," I answer, struggling with the cork. Uncorking one-handed is not easy, and my trembling isn’t helping. At last, I bite into the cork, spit it out, and hold the vial to her lips. I slide my arm underneath hers to hold her face. "Hold your breath and forgive me," I say, tilting her head back, pinching her nose shut, and pouring the contents of the vial into her mouth.

  I know for a fact that the thing must taste vile. She was fortunate enough to have been unconscious the last time. "All of it," I tell her as she gags. "You have to take all of it."

  She swallows hard and coughs mightily before glaring at me. "You wouldn't say that," she gasps, "if you knew what it tastes like."

  "You wouldn't have to know if you didn't go running off," I reply, frowning slightly.

  "I don't want to get married," she yells. The volume's back in her voice, at least.

  "Me neither, but I don't think death is an appropriate alternative!"

  "And you," she seethes. "You were supposed to be far away from here!"

  "You needed the antidote. You left without the antidote, and frankly, if you’re going to dump me, I’d prefer it be for some reason other than my own good."

  She coughs incredulously, flopping a weak hand in the direction of the blood seeping from her gorget. "People are horrible here."

  "I know," I answer, setting my hand to her face. A little of the warmth’s coming back into it, a little glow to her pallid cheeks. "Listen. Tell me you really don’t want me with you, and I’ll go. Right back to the middle of nowhere. I’ll never climb your castle again."

  She arches her back with a groan, trying to settle into my lap. "Of course I want you with me. It’s just…safer, if you’re not."

  I tilt my head to align my face with hers. "Caelin, we both left safe behind a long time ago."

  "They’ll try to put you in prison…"

  "I have a pardon."

  "They’ll twist everything you say. Make up cruel nicknames. Plot your death or social downfall or worse while pretending to be your best friend."

  "Like I’ve never experienced that before." I spent some months as the youngest Legion prince. I saw my share of smiles hiding knives.

  "You are so stubborn," she growls.

  "Hello, pot, I’m the kettle," I say with a bit of a laugh. "Shall we compare shades?"

  "Fine," Caelin retorts. "I love you too."

  I lean back against the bed with a sigh, cradling her in my lap. She reaches for my hand and holds onto it with a hand so clammy I can barely tell where her skin ends and mine starts. "Thank you," she mutters.

  "I wasn’t about to let you get married to a man with decorous conduct."

  "That’s still on," she realizes with a start. "Oh, shit, that’s still on, and my advisor is a treasonous shit. I need to get down there."

  I fold her hand into both of mine. "You need to sit here for a minute and let that antidote work. Then we can go break up your wedding."

  "You make it sound easy," she says wistfully.

  I have no idea how we’re going to do that. Twenty guards outside the door all think they saw the princess leaving with her chief advisor, and we don’t have the time or the credibility to talk our way out of that. I don’t have the magic to lie our way out of that, and she doesn’t have enough energy to consistently hold her head up, let alone swing a sword.

  And somehow, I can’t bring myself to worry about that. My whole body hums with nervous energy, and I suspect I could fly with or without Fran’s help.

  She’s alive.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Caelin

  This is the most conscious I've been when taking the antidote, and gods, it is foul. It tastes like peat bog, plus soap.

  I lean against my bedpost and try not to throw it all back up while waiting. I feel my limbs grow a little warmer, my vision a lot less fuzzy, and my stomach more and more tempestuous.

  Alain hovers like a nervous hen, his arms still outstretched in case I go into a swoon again. I’ve barely got my feet under me before he’s asking me if I’m all right, if I need to sit down. I’m not fond of being getting fussed over. "I’m not made of glass, Alain."

  "I know you’re not," he says with a snort. "You’re made of pointy steel bits, something that glows, and sarcasm. But you’re also human, somewhere in there."

  "If we don’t get down there soon, all we’ll be interrupting is my new father-in-law’s evil speech."

  "Father—you didn’t tell me he was Bannon’s father."

  "Stepfather, and it never seemed relevant."

  "Caelin," he says, looking me in the eyes. "You are a monarch of inheritance with no heirs. Who takes the throne if you and decorous conduct conveniently die?"

  "Shit. Again." There's a banging at the door, and I sigh. Looks like I'm going to have to get back into the swing of things before I'm quite ready. At least I can stand. I pick up my sword and head toward the door in time for it to splinter open—but outward, away from me.

  On the other side is Tressa and a stringy man with a fancy jacket and a fancier flop of hair. He brushes wood scraps from his shoulder and grins when he sees Alain. Tressa doesn’t seem to notice. "You’re alive," she says. "Good."

  "Er, hello," I say to her. "Who's this? And what just happened to my bedroom door?"

  The man is about to open his mouth, but she shoots him a glance. "It doesn't matter right now. You're late to your wedding."

  I peer out the positively shattered door—get a better door now added to my growing list of things to address after all this is over—at the guards below, slumped over against the walls, murmuring, some laughing, some shouting, some asleep. "What did you do?"

  The man waves me off. "They'll be fine." I stare at him, and he shrugs. "Instant drunk," he says, brandishing a little bottle with a handkerchief crammed into the top. "Not at all envious of the headaches they'll have tomorrow, but it does the trick."

  "Right," I reply slowly, watching one of my lieutenants cuddling his own helmet as he sobs. "And the door?"

  Now he grins. "Draenian suction mine. Not cheap, I’m afraid, your highness. I’ll be passing the bill along later. And at that time, I would love to discuss the castle’s outdated protectives. I may have something of interest to you."

  Ah. I thought he sounded Kennian. I should have guessed by the ridiculous outfit. "On my back," Tressa says impatiently to me. "Simon, stay put, will you?"

  "And miss all that?" he says, jerking a thumb in the direction of the crowd outside. "Not a chance, lass."

  I ignore him. "You're sure about this?" I ask her.

  "What good is having a horse for a backside if you can't use it?" she asks. "Just this once. It's for a good cause."

  Tressa awkwardly stoops, and I slide up and over her back. I turn to Alain. There isn’t enough room for us both. "Meet me there?"

  He smiles tiredly. "Sure, why not."

  "Be careful," I tell him.

  "Ugh. You two are disgusting." Tressa cranes her neck to look back at me. "Grab onto my belt. That was the only way Kai could stay on. Prince—"

  "Yes, yes, I know. Don't die."

  She nods abruptly and starts moving. Tressa gets us down the staircase to the third floor, contemplates a moment, and then turns over her shoulder. "Hold on, and I apologize." She aims a kick at a window, and we arc through the air and land on the battlements below with a thump. I’m still too groggy to register the drop. This may all be a hazy fever dream, but dream or not, we're running on the battlements now.

  "I don't understand," I shout. "How did you find me?"
>
  "Guessed, mostly. There were a whole mess of guards there, so that's where we went." She straightens her upper back. "Caelin, you don’t need to steer."

  "Sorry," I mumble. "Force of habit. I guess what I really mean to ask is how the hell you got into what’s supposed to be the most heavily guarded building on this island?"

  "Most of the guards—and everyone else—aren’t here. That, and Simon has a wealth of…interesting items."

  "Well, I'm glad to see you. And your friend."

  Tressa sighs. "Between the pair of you, I think I may resign my post."

  "Don't you dare," I tell her, unable to fight the smile. "For this you might just be knighted."

  "And get to save you lovesick idiots forever? However did I get so lucky?"

  "You love it," I accuse.

  She offers no comment in response, but I see a hint of a smile when she checks over her shoulder to see if I'm still holding on. I am, but barely. Dangling one-armed and afraid to use the same pressure I would with Navigator, I feel like the slightest bump will unseat me. And then comes a big bump as Tressa takes a flying leap from the battlements to the high hillside below. And now I’m awake to register dropping from a very great height. I long for the dream fog. It’s less terrifying.

  This hill was never meant to be climbed—its proximity to the castle meant that some time ago, it was scaled down to a sharp incline so that climbing it would be near impossible. Tressa seems unconcerned, even though her hooves falter a few times on upturned roots and stones. She simply shifts her weight to compensate. I cling to her belt and try so hard to walk that tightrope between falling off and jamming my knees into her back. Another leap, and we're over the small retaining wall and running around the lakeside.

  The cathedral sits on the opposite side of the lake. The only path to it snakes its way through town, thoroughly jammed with people. I suppose I should be flattered that so many want to witness this day, and I suppose I should be concerned about handling their disappointment to come. Right now, I can only admire Tressa. "You're sure you've never been here before?"