City of Spells

by Alexandra Christo

  “I need her,” Saxony said, turning back to Karam. “I need you here, by my side.”

  Karam wanted very strongly to kiss her in that moment, but it seemed an odd thing to do with Saxony’s grandma watching them.

  “I owe Wesley my life,” Karam said. “Just as you do. We cannot leave him with the Kingpin any longer. His guidance is what we need to win this war.”

  Saxony still didn’t look convinced, and Karam thought that sometimes Saxony forgot that Karam had made her name in the underrealm fighting rings.

  “Do not worry so much,” Karam said. “I will return and I will bring Wesley back. He might know how to stop the buskers from selling the Loj.”

  “Tisvgen is dangerous,” Saxony said.

  “I have lived in this realm for many years and I know what to expect. I can easily navigate across the Shores of the Dead and to the mountains,” Karam said.

  Saxony sighed in resignation, though Karam could see the doubt still flicker in her eyes. Saxony reached out for Karam’s hands.

  “You better come back in one piece,” she said.

  “You know I will.”

  “And try not to kill the underboss if he isn’t in a good mood when you save him,” Saxony’s grandma said. “He probably hasn’t slept much.”

  They both turned to her, a little surprised.

  “You really do want us to save Wesley, don’t you?” Saxony asked.

  Her grandma nodded. “He is necessary,” she said. “And it’s time he came back to where he belongs.”

  “Well, Karam can still punch him if he gets mouthy,” Saxony said. “Don’t kill him, but make sure to kick his ass if he doesn’t at least say thank you.”

  Karam had no doubt that once Wesley was back, he and Saxony would settle into the same routine of rolling their eyes at anything the other said, while secretly valuing each other’s stance on things. They had a lot of forgiving to do, but Wesley had saved Saxony’s life and sacrificed himself so she could escape, and that should have earned him absolution.

  * * *

  WHEN THE sun rose the next morning, Karam, Arjun, and Asees had already been training for hours. Karam was glad to finally have a fighting session that didn’t end with Tavia trying to teach her all kinds of shifty magic tricks, with a busker’s gleam in her eyes as Karam failed to master any one of them.

  This was familiar.

  This she knew.

  She would miss it when she left.

  “Time for a break,” Asees said in Wrenyi. “I may faint if we continue.”

  Karam nodded in agreement, wiping the sweat from her brow. She swallowed a gulp of breath that made her chest sting.

  “Agreed,” she said. “There’s only so many times I can beat Arjun to a pulp before it gets boring.”

  Arjun pointed at her with his sword. “Don’t get cocky. I’m only letting you win so you feel good about yourself. We can’t have your bruised ego costing us this war.”

  “You’re bleeding,” Karam said.

  “You threw a rock at my face!” Arjun protested.

  Karam shrugged. “Expect the unexpected.”

  She slumped onto the log beside Asees.

  “You’re getting better,” she said to the Liege. “Fighting without magic.”

  “I’m not sure why I need to know how to do that,” Asees said.

  “You can’t rely on one thing to win a battle,” Karam said. “Who knows what kind of spells Zekia and Ashwood have created? Perhaps there’s one to strip you of your powers or disorient you. Or maybe you just won’t have enough time to conjure your gifts.”

  “You’ve really thought a lot about people trying to kill me,” Asees said, with an amused smile.

  “It’s mostly about people trying to kill Arjun,” Karam said.

  He laughed and squeezed himself into the small space between Karam and Asees. “We would’ve made a great team back in Wrenyal. The three of us against the world.”

  “You act like we can’t still do that.” Asees rested her head on his shoulder. “When we go back home, we definitely need to kidnap Karam and take her with us.”

  “Good luck with that,” Karam said. “The way you two punch, I won’t even need to try.”

  Asees let out a loud laugh and Karam closed her eyes and leaned back onto her palms. These rare moments of peace in all the dire things the realms were trying to throw at them needed to be savored. The sound of her friends’ laughter and the feel of Arjun’s disgusting sweat-slicked arm brushing up against hers, like they were truly inseparable. The sound of his blade picking at the dirt while the trees sang them a lullaby.

  “I’m leaving tomorrow,” Karam said.

  Quick, like snapping a bone back into place.

  “Leaving to go where?” Arjun asked.

  “Tisvgen,” Karam said. “And then maybe Creije.”

  “You mean you’re going to find Wesley, then,” Arjun said.

  Karam stood and dusted off her palms, soil scattering back to the forest.

  “I want you to come with me,” she said to her old friend. “I know that together we can bring him back and give our armies the last missing piece they need to win this war.”

  “It isn’t even a question,” Arjun said. And then, quickly—perhaps a little too quickly: “And not because I care about the underboss. I just know you’ll definitely need my help.”

  Karam was tempted to start sparring again, if only to knock some sense into him.

  “You could at least pretend to ask for my permission,” Asees said.

  She looked between them both with raised eyebrows, and Karam almost felt guilty for not considering that. She was Arjun’s Liege, after all.

  “Come with us,” Karam said. “Arjun wasn’t wrong when he spoke about us making a great team. The three of us against the world? We could do this.”

  Asees tried to hold back her smile, but Karam could see it. If there was a chance to hurt Ashwood—the man who’d nearly destroyed her Kin—then Karam knew that she would take it.

  “I have been working with Saxony and the other Lieges to keep peace and strategize,” Asees said. “But I think she has that under control herself now. She is strong.”

  Karam had always known that.

  “I would be honored for you to join me in this,” Karam said. “With some of your Kin, too, if possible.”

  “Ah.” A knowing smile dawned on Asees’s face. “So you were going to take my second in command and my Crafters, but not me?”

  Karam only shrugged. “A few Crafters on my team couldn’t hurt.”

  “It would be nice to stretch our legs,” Asees said. “I’m sure the rest of the Kin have been feeling a little trapped in this place.”

  “We wouldn’t need many,” Karam said. “And since you and Arjun are Spiritcrafters, the rest we bring should be Energycrafters and Intuitcrafters. A good mix of gifts will be invaluable for seeing the course ahead and staving off the weather if the mountains in Tisvgen prove unstable.”

  “Agreed,” Asees said. She stood and pulled Arjun to his feet. “We must pick the best of our warriors for this. When did you want to leave?”

  “First thing tomorrow morning. The train from Rishiyat station will take us straight to the Shores of the Dead in Tisvgen. From there, we can head to the mountains on foot.”

  “Wait a moment,” Arjun said. “What are the Shores of the Dead?”

  “It is a burial ground covering the entire seafront of Tisvgen,” Karam explained. “And it will be the quickest way in.”

  “There better not be spirits roaming the place,” Arjun said. He sheathed his sword. “Do you think half a dozen of us should do it?”

  Karam nodded. “A small group is better to go unnoticed.”

  The last thing they needed was to march half their army into Tisvgen and alert the Kingpin to where they were and what they were doing.

  “And the mountains?” Arjun asked. “How perilous are they?”

  “The Uskhanyans call the mountain pass the
Looming Valley,” Karam said. “So take from that what you will.”

  Arjun sighed, as though he regretted agreeing to the mission already.

  “We’ll need to amass the most powerful of us,” Asees said. “If it’s a small group, then we will need the best of us in case we are attacked. Come, let’s speak to the Kin.”

  When Karam next let out a breath, it felt like she was pushing all of the frustrations she had been feeling over the last few weeks out of her. It would be good to finally do something of her own. Tavia had brought the buskers to them, Saxony had brought the Crafters, and now Karam could bring them something too.

  Wesley was an asset that, once lost, had been a serious blow to their armies. The buskers were restless without him and Tavia wasn’t herself. Even Karam found herself missing Wesley’s insights. He had been the one to help shape her into a warrior, after all.

  She owed him a lot, and a rescue from Ashwood’s clutches seemed like the perfect repayment.

  * * *

  “WAKE UP,” a voice said. “You should probably get going if you want to catch the morning train to Tisvgen.”

  Karam opened her eyes to see Saxony hovering above her, the sun casting a halo through her wonderfully wild hair. Curls flowed in every direction, large ringlets to tight coils.

  By the spirits, she was so beautiful.

  “Good morning,” Karam said.

  “Bad morning,” Saxony corrected. “You’re leaving me. For a man.”

  Karam snorted and stretched out in a yawn among the bedsheets.

  “Enjoy this bed while you can,” Saxony said, tapping the pillow. “You’ll be sleeping on the ground for most of your trip, I bet.”

  Karam reached up and cupped her face. “The best thing I can do for this war is to bring Wesley back,” she said. “We have been over this.”

  “For once I’m not actually thinking about the best thing for the war,” Saxony said. “I’m thinking about the best thing for me, and that’s having you by my side.”

  She picked at the fabric of the bedsheets, biting the corner of her lip like she always did when she was frustrated.

  “I know that you have to leave,” Saxony said. “But I don’t have to like it.”

  “I would be insulted if you did,” Karam said.

  “Just don’t try to be too much of a hero,” Saxony told her. “Make sure you don’t put yourselves in danger for Wesley. If he’s there, then Ashwood won’t be far behind, and you can’t engage with the Kingpin or Zekia. It’s too risky.”

  Karam wasn’t about to argue with that.

  She pulled Saxony toward her and gave her a quick kiss on the lips.

  “I promise,” she said. “Stop worrying so much.”

  Saxony only sighed, and Karam felt that in her bones. The sun was rising, but part of her didn’t want to get out of this bed. This mission would be the longest time Karam had been away from Saxony since they had first met all those years ago, and she wasn’t quite looking forward to the distance.

  Still, they could be back within a couple of weeks if they took the floating railway all the way to the Shores of the Dead and then walked through the Looming Valley to Creije. And Karam was fairly certain that it would be worth the missed moments and empty nights.

  “Here,” Saxony said, pulling off her ring and placing it in Karam’s hand.

  It was the one she had always worn, since Karam had first met her. A serpent that twisted from her fingers and around her palm, its eyes green as the forest that surrounded them.

  “It’ll help you find your way home,” Saxony said. “Back to me.”

  Though the two were strangely the same.

  “No matter what happens, swear to me that you’ll come back okay.”

  “There is not a person in the four realms who could stop me from returning to you,” Karam said. “I swear it.”

  She pressed her head against Saxony’s. “I love you.”

  “I love you too,” she said. “Remember not to die.”

  “Remember not to kill Tavia while I’m gone,” Karam said back.

  Saxony laughed against her and Karam closed her eyes, making sure to memorize the sound. When they parted, she pushed a coil of hair from Saxony’s forehead.

  “Remember that Tavia does not hate you,” Karam said. “Remember that you are friends.”

  Saxony smiled and placed a hand on Karam’s cheek. “I’m supposed to be the one worrying about you,” she said. “Not the other way around. We’ll be okay. I’ll be okay.”

  But her voice didn’t sound so sure. Even as she pressed her lips against Karam’s once more, there was a shakiness there. The uncertainty in her breath and the way she grabbed on to Karam made her feel like it was for some kind of life support. As though Saxony were trying to keep herself from tumbling away.

  11

  ZEKIA

  This is what becomes of us.

  Zekia could still hear Ashwood’s voice and the words that had haunted her like a promise all those years ago. Even when she squeezed her eyes shut so very tightly and said her prayers to the Many Gods and drank a specially brewed elixir to calm her heart.

  Those words were like scripture carved into her bones.

  “Creije will be mine,” Ashwood said, back straight, hand resting atop his cane like it was both a weapon and a treasure. “We have half of the districts. It’s only a matter of time before the rest of the city is under my control, and my magic is already circulating in the other eight cities of my realm.”

  On the opposite side of the train, the other Kingpins of the realms stared at Ashwood like they could not quite believe their ears.

  The train itself moved in broad circles somewhere in the middle of the Onnela Sea, which Ashwood had told Zekia was neutral ground between them. Or neutral waters. Though Zekia didn’t think the other two Kingpins looked very neutral.

  Simran of Wrenyal was sitting, arms crossed at his chest, as though he wasn’t sure what else to do with them. His outfit was a wonderfully bright mix of color that Zekia thought would look very pretty on her, and a cloth the same blue as the waters outside kept his hair tucked neatly away.

  Beside him, Aurelia of Volo leaned against the cabin door, a bright orange braid running down her shoulders. Zekia was still trying to decide whether standing was an act of defiance, to show Ashwood that she would not be seen as lower than him, or if she was just too scared to sit and be caught off guard by an attack.

  It was not a very neutral way of thinking.

  If Wesley were here, he and Zekia could laugh about their hesitance.

  Wesley would whisper something mean about the way Simran’s voice shook, or how Aurelia tried her hardest not to blink so she could look fierce. He’d say it in a low and smiling voice and Zekia would have to put her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing. Then maybe Ashwood would look back at them, half-scolding and half-amused himself.

  Zekia wished Wesley had come.

  She wished he didn’t have to sleep so often or heal so slowly.

  She wished he understood the terrible world she had seen and how she was just trying to make it better.

  “This is insanity,” Simran said. “We are shadows and we have become very rich and powerful that way.”

  “This is about more than riches and power,” Ashwood said. “This is about salvation. A new world of magic, roaming free throughout the four realms.”

  “We’re not innocents,” Aurelia said. “We’ve done horrible things in the name of magic and self-interest, but what you’re talking about is treason. Usurping a Doyen? An official world leader? Seizing control of governments and armies? Even if you could manage to topple Fenna Schulze, the citizens would never accept you.”

  Dante Ashwood did not falter.

  He had never faltered.

  “That is why I have the Loj,” he said.

  Aurelia sneered and Zekia had to swallow and squint at the floor to keep from doing something bad.

  “Your mind-control elixir is flawed a
nd so is your plan,” Aurelia said, pushing herself from the cabin door in frustration. “We will not be a part of this. If you want to destroy your realm for a blood dream, then you can do it without dragging our realms and reputations into it.”

  Zekia took her eyes off the floor and let them burn into Aurelia.

  She did not like her.

  Not one bit.

  All Aurelia cared about was herself and her ambition. She didn’t understand what would happen if they didn’t do this.

  Zekia stepped forward, biting her bottom lip with a frown.

  “You’re really mean,” she said. Her hands clenched and unclenched at her sides. “I don’t like mean people.”

  She took another step forward and Aurelia’s face drained, her mouth parting slightly as she took in an uncertain breath. Maybe all of her stolen magic could sense the power that Zekia had and maybe it was running scared, leaving its heartless leader to fight alone.

  “Now, now,” Ashwood said.

  Zekia felt his hand on her shoulder, warm and cold at the same time, his shadows squirming loudly by her ears.

  Zekia tried not to wince at them. She held her breath so as not to smell the burnt magic they were soaked in. She didn’t want Ashwood to know that she was thinking bad things about him.

  “My little warrior,” Ashwood said. He squeezed her shoulder tightly. “Destined for so much greatness. How proud you make me.”

  Zekia smiled at that, though she couldn’t help but feel it wasn’t earned.

  That destiny he spoke about was never hers. It was given to her, like a consolation, or a gift meant to soothe her broken heart as Zekia tried her best to live without a mother or a big brother to guide her. Other people got tearful sympathies and tender words. They inherited traits or fancy jewels from their dead parents.

  Zekia had inherited an entire people.

  She had inherited a fate and suddenly there were grown-ups so much wiser than she was, looking to her for wisdom, pressing the weight of her brother’s destiny against her tiny heart.

  There would be no more children in the Rishiyat Kin until she fulfilled the role of Liege.

  There would be a curse upon them all until she accepted the spirit of her dead brother’s magic.