She took the blue ska from her perch and touched the mothertear diamond in the collar. In a blur above the table, disturbing projected images showed a prison camp with hundreds of human slaves working in the desert heat, their clothes tattered, their bodies gaunt.
“During the dragon hunt, my adopted sister Glik came looking for us out in the desert. She stumbled upon this camp and was captured. Her ska recorded these images as she flew away.”
The glowing picture showed the skinny girl trying to flee down rock-walled canyons. Copper-skinned wreth warriors rode her down on two-legged lizard mounts. Glik was dragged away to the camp while her ska escaped.
“Cra,” Hale muttered, though he had seen the images before.
“We can’t ally ourselves with those monsters!” said one of the Suderran generals.
“We do not have the strength to defy them either,” Adan said. “Queen Voo could send her warriors against Bannriya and enslave us by force.” He had seen what the wreths could do, the capricious disregard for life or pain. They had weapons, magic, strength. They thought humans were beneath their notice, which could work to Adan’s advantage. “We need to be careful, and smart.”
Penda drew another circle around her heart, and her expression became sly. “Voo is not aware that we know.” She stroked Ari’s blue plumage. “We don’t trust her, but we can play along until the time is right—to stab her in the back.”
5
GLIK usually considered herself fortunate. She hadn’t chosen to be an orphan, but what she did with her circumstances was up to her. She had the freedom to travel the land by herself, relishing the independence. She did not feel alone. Whenever she wanted to, she returned to Utauk camps for companionship and supplies before heading out again. It was a rugged life, and she had endured hunger and storms, frigid temperatures and baking heat, and countless other hardships, but that sort of life was her choice. Because of her wits and the lessons she learned daily in her explorations, her survival skills were unmatched.
And those skills would help her escape from the sandwreth labor camp. She was determined to find a way out.
The high canyon walls served as prison barricades, so Glik studied every cleft, every pebble. She would need the information to escape from this grim, harsh camp in the desert. She was used to being free to travel at will. She felt suffocated. Glik had always gone where she wanted instead of where she should.
Looming nearby, the wreth guards wore breastplates and shoulder spikes enhanced with bone and burnished metal. They carried ivory spears and hooked chains they could hurl out like a scorpion’s sting. Occasionally, the wreths made an example of a prisoner to keep the weak and terrified captives in line, and that made Glik cautious. The guards didn’t hate them, simply saw the humans as a resource, bodies to fight and bodies to work as part of their larger plan. Glik drew no attention to herself.
Learn, plan, stay alert, she told herself. There will be a way out.
One guard snapped at a sluggish worker pushing a cart of ore over the uneven ground. The metal-tipped whip whistled out and struck sparks from the stone wall only a hand’s breadth from the slave’s head. The man leaped to work.
The bleak camp’s dwellings were made of sand, hardened mud, and rock shaped by wreth magic. Mages deflected the wind that whipped through the canyons. For shade, fabrics and skins were stretched over frameworks made of gnarled hardwood.
Glik sat under the meager shade of her tattered awning. Bright sunlight poked through the holes, warming her arm as she used a rough rasp on long sticks to fashion arrow shafts. The slaves were making thousands of arrows for some upcoming titanic battle. Glik tossed her finished arrow with a clatter onto the pile of similar shafts. Others would sharpen the wooden tips and cover them with a resin that hardened like glass. She had no idea where fletchers would get arrow feathers out here in the desert, but that wasn’t her task. The beginning is the end is the beginning. She was trapped somewhere in the middle. For now.
As heat waves rippled from the desert canyons, she saw dust and smoke rise into the sky from mining operations in the striated mesas where workers extracted ore for smelting. Dour mages watched over the work crews, adding spells and drawing upon what magic remained deep within the landscape.
Among the captives Glik met survivors of entire villages overrun by wreths, whole populations bound and whisked away, leaving behind only whispers and ghosts. These people had no one to write down their lives, and many died here without anyone even recording their names. That made Glik sad, because a person’s legacy, their name, was all they contributed to the universe. She drew a quick circle around her heart.
Seeing her, others made the gesture, muttering the same phrase. Individual Utauk traders and even large caravans had fallen afoul of wreth raiders. She was not alone here, but in a sense their isolation—where they were watched over at every moment—had rendered all of them alone. She vowed she would get to know them, build a sort of alliance.
As her hands worked on the next arrow shaft, she fell into a fugue. Although her fingers were sore, bleeding in some places and callused in others, and the work was so routine, she forgot what she was doing.
At least Ari had escaped. The beautiful reptile bird was another reason Glik rarely felt alone. Their companionship was so close they could feel each other’s emotions even when they were apart. When Glik was captured, the ska sensed her terror through their heart link, but Glik had pushed her away to keep her safe. The reptile bird had pumped her wings, darting among the thermals to fly far from the slave camp. Because she could still sense her ska, a part of herself remained free.
Now from her canyon prison, Glik looked up into the blue depths of the sky and focused her inner sight, going higher, rising beyond any clouds. She felt dizzy, falling up into nowhere, yet she pushed farther into her vision. Intending to search for her ska, Glik was startled to sense another great reptile with large scales, an ominous presence out there. She had seen something like this once before, glaring at her from behind a resinous shell in a mountain eyrie, just after she had found Ari’s egg. As Glik drifted in her strange waking dream, she also envisioned skas, thousands of skas coalescing and then breaking apart … wings, countless small wings. And then gigantic wings.
A dragon’s roar shattered her trance, and Glik blinked back to awareness to see a wreth mage standing nearby, inspecting the workers. He was broad shouldered and bald, his face deeply chiseled, his eyes gold and intense. He wore a heavy robe of oxblood-dyed leather imprinted with arcane runes. The garment looked like a book of dangerous spells.
Mage Ivun led this labor camp and sometimes even deigned to speak with the prisoners, as if he thought that explaining the wreth mission would make the slaves work with greater fervor. Glik stared at the ugly man, still trembling from the vibrant vision that had just consumed her.
Ivun addressed the workers in a booming voice. “You will help the sandwreths triumph in the coming war. With your assistance, we shall exterminate the frostwreths, then we shall wake the dragon and destroy it, so that Kur rewards us. You will be part of our victory.”
Ivun’s intense eyes were like lodestones sending out shimmers of energy. Forced to listen, the wretched captives stopped their work, but their lack of response seemed to disappoint the wreth mage.
When Ivun lifted his left hand, the leather sleeve fell back to reveal a shriveled arm like the forelimb of a dead beetle. The mage straightened his arm to point a gnarled finger toward the captives. “In our great wars long ago, thousands of human soldiers wore sandwreth armor and carried our weapons. They fought the enemy for our glory. That battle is not over. Now we call upon you again. We created your race. You owe us your service.” He grumbled in his throat and scanned the squalor of the camp. “There can be no greater meaning to your existence. This is why you were all made.”
The captives muttered in low tones, a mere murmur that could not be identified. Disappointed by the reaction, Mage Ivun strode barefoot across the rocky gro
und toward his stone headquarters. The wreth guards pummeled the captives back to work.
In silence, Glik observed how cruelly the guards treated her fellow captives. How did the wreths believe they had the right to destroy so many lives? Lives of good people?
Humans had lived without wreths for thousands of years now, creating their own civilization, making their marks in the world, creating a legacy. They had earned the right to be their own masters, not just to be tools for wreths to use or throw away.
Glik could survive this place. But survival was only the first step. She had to help these people escape.
6
AS the Isharan warship entered Serepol Harbor, black fabric dangled from the red-and-white-striped sails to signal that something terrible had happened on Fulcor Island.
Cemi stood at the bow, feeling very alone as they sailed back home with the wounded empra. Her view of the bustling harbor appeared to be blurred with an ocean fog, but when she felt the trickles running down her cheeks, she realized that tears had clouded her vision. Her mentor Iluris was alive, and dead at the same time—unresponsive, empty.
The young woman’s body hitched as the horrible memories flashed through her. She had burst into the empra’s guest chamber to find her on the floor, her head smashed against the stone ledge. An assassin who looked like the Brava Utho had attacked, holding magical fire in one hand and a knife in the other. Treachery from the Commonwealth, the same people who had lured the empra there under pretext of peace!
Cemi had felt in a daze since their frantic escape on that stormy night, rushing the wounded empra down to the ship. Now, days later, though her head was bandaged and the blood had stopped flowing, Iluris had not spoken, not opened her eyes, not moved at all. A faint whisper of breath came from her mouth, and she still had a heartbeat, though it was faint and erratic.
“Oh, Iluris…” Cemi whispered, and the sound was lost in the hissing curl of water at the warship’s prow as they sailed into the harbor.
Loud war drums from the warship’s deck called the crowds as they gathered on the waterfront to cheer the return of their beloved empra. But the black hangings gave them pause.
Captani Vos joined Cemi in the open air, his golden armor polished and gleaming, his scarlet cape ready for a formal ceremony. “Empra Iluris is safe with us. We hawk guards will not let our mother suffer any further harm.”
Although he treated Cemi as a friend, Vos acknowledged that she was the empra’s intended successor, though no formal process had been completed. Cemi could not believe that a street girl from Prirari could be chosen to rule an entire continent, and she didn’t want to do it without Iluris. “Should I go back to her cabin in case she needs me?”
His eyes were weary and sad. “She has not stirred.”
“I’m sure she knows I am there.”
For much of the return voyage, she had locked herself in the guarded cabin, sitting beside the empra’s motionless form. Cemi had tenderly washed her skin, bound clean bandages around her head, but there was nothing else to do. The rocking of the ship through the rough storm waters had made Cemi sick, but Iluris had not responded at all.
Now as the ship glided to its place in the harbor, Key Priestlord Klovus strode up and down the deck, riling up the crew in preparation for docking. He bemoaned the fact that if only they had brought a godling along, they could have protected the dear empra. Several nondescript soldiers hovered close to the priestlord, guarding him from harm. A strange concern aboard an Isharan warship, Cemi thought, but her mind had been so fogged with fear and grief that she didn’t pick up on the small details at first.
As the sailors threw down ropes and the ship tied up to the dock, Cemi stood pale and brave at the bow. Next to her, Captani Vos seemed to be sculpted entirely of duty. After losing his family, Vos had been adopted by the empra as a surrogate son, just as with the other handpicked hawk guards.
Klovus stood in the sun in his dark blue caftan, and his enthusiasm overshadowed any grief he might have displayed for the empra’s grave condition. The priestlord shouted to the crowd even before the gangplanks had been lowered. “The Commonwealth set a trap against us, just as I warned. The empra is grievously injured! Only by focusing the power of prayer and sacrifice can we keep her alive. Hear us, save us!”
The chant roared back. “Hear us, save us!”
City guards lined up to push back the crowds and clear the way, and Klovus stepped to the front as if he were the ruler of Ishara. As the key priestlord, the highest priestlord in all of Ishara, he controlled the godlings that defended the land. With the empra incapacitated, it made sense that the religious leader would speak on behalf of the returning mission. Cemi herself had no standing to speak, but it still made her uneasy.
“We will bring the empra,” Captani Vos announced. “No one may touch her but us.”
Cemi followed the hawk guards to the empra’s guarded cabin, where they looked at the motionless woman with respect and sadness. Vos issued orders, and two hawk guards together gently lifted Iluris onto a pallet, which they carried in a brisk procession out into the sunshine.
Vos said privately to the hawk guards, “She is not dead. This is not a bier being carried to a funeral pyre. We will bear our mother through the city to the safety of the palace. Iluris is still our empra.”
Cemi took the lead, wearing a grave expression as they descended the gangplank behind Klovus. Resplendent in their gold and scarlet uniforms, the hawk guards followed the larger soldier escort along the docks.
Xion, the ur-priest from the harbor temple, waited for them along with many followers of his own godling. He had heavy brows and dark hair cropped very close to his skull. “Prayers and sacrifices will be made in the harbor temple as well, Key Priestlord. Hear us, save us! My godling can share its strength with the people of Ishara, for the empra.”
“Your godling?” Klovus said, as if it were a criticism. “That temple and its godling used to be mine before I became key priestlord. The harbor godling traveled with me when we struck the town of Mirrabay in Osterra.” He gave a condescending smile to the ur-priest and his earnest followers. “I can muster all the godlings for the defense of Ishara.”
Unable to bear it any longer, Cemi spoke up sharply, her small voice breaking through the hubbub. “Iluris remains the ruler of Ishara, and she will awaken.”
Hearing Cemi’s confidence, the crowd responded with a cheer as well as a prayer. “She will awaken! Hear us, save us!”
Klovus frowned at the interruption, but rapidly shifted his expression. “Of course, dear girl, that is what I meant.”
At a swift, unwavering march, the hawk guards rushed Iluris along the main thoroughfare that led to the palace. A tall man wearing dark robes and a thick chain of office intercepted the party. He had a lantern jaw, large eyes, and heavy brows. Chamberlain Nerev had accompanied Iluris throughout the districts of Ishara in the search for her successor. Seeing the older woman stretched out and pale on her pallet, the chamberlain stifled a gasp. The lines in his face looked as if they had been pounded in with a chisel. “What happened? She still lives?”
“She still lives,” said Captani Vos.
Nerev turned to Cemi, showing deference and respect. “What are we to do?” Clearly, he expected the young woman to give him an appropriate answer.
Nearby, concerned with his own followers, Klovus raised his voice in a shout. “Only we can make our people strong. Hear us, save us!” While the hawk guards hurried the motionless woman to the palace, the key priestlord thrived on the attention as if he drew energy from the believers just as godlings did.
The key priestlord followed them to the fountain courtyard of the palace under the soaring stone arch, but he remained outside as the hawk guards took their burden inside. Cemi was concerned that he showed such little regard for the injured empra, but she was also glad he didn’t accompany them.
Instead, Klovus climbed to a speaking dais and bellowed his story in a commanding voice. As they hurr
ied the empra into the cool shadows of the palace, Vos said to Cemi, “Klovus has the crowd’s attention, and he will speak at great length.” He sounded relieved.
“He always speaks at great length,” Chamberlain Nerev said with clear disapproval.
The hawk guards were swift and professional, their boots and jingling armor echoing in the vaulted portico. For Vos, it was a tactical matter. “That gives us time to take our mother to the tower quarters. We can secure her and set up a cordon of hawk guards.”
Cemi trusted his instincts. “I approve. No one will approach unless we allow it.” She was surprised at how readily the guards followed her lead. Nerev looked at her and nodded.
Outside, the crowd’s murmur built to a roar as the key priestlord continued his speech. Using inflammatory language, Klovus explained how Konag Conndur had tricked Empra Iluris, offered Fulcor Island to atone for all the crimes the Commonwealth had committed. Cemi frowned as she paused to listen. That wasn’t exactly what Conndur had said.
Waving his hands as if to shoo away gnats, the key priestlord painted a bloody and vindictive picture of how the treacherous konag had sent his own Brava to kill the empra. “We were vulnerable. The empra’s greatest mistake was to trust the godless, and she nearly paid with her life. Brave Isharan soldiers carried her to safety—but this is not over.” He raised his voice to a shout. “Oh no, it is not over! Hear us, save us! We must prepare our revenge.” When the people shouted in anger and dismay, Klovus continued, “Go to your temples, make your sacrifices, give your blood to strengthen our godlings—to strengthen Ishara.”
Inside the grand entryway, Cemi looked at Vos, whose brows were furrowed with concern. Chamberlain Nerev cleared his throat. “Cemi, why are you not addressing the crowds?”
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