The Losians row in shifts, ensuring the oars are always moving. They’re all incredible physical specimens: broad shoulders, tapered backs, arms sculpted from muscle. But even so, at the breakneck pace they’re maintaining, each crew only lasts for a short session, before another moves up to take their place, slotting in behind their comrade and dipping the oars back to the river before the boat has lost a lick of speed.
The captain joins me in the prow. She mops her face with a cloth and reties her blonde braids away from her face – they were the shade of golden summer fields before she took her shift at the oars alongside her people, now they’re resin-dark with sweat. She smells of coconut oil, leather and the musk of physical exertion. One has to admit it’s not unpleasant.
I attempt a smile, but I suspect the result is more wan than charming.
“If anyone can get you there in time, it’s us,” she insists.
Her accent twangs in a way that reminds me of Kip. My hands tighten on the rails as I wonder how she fares back at the battlefield. Truthfully, I wonder for all of them. The Emperor-elect. Yaita’s girl. Copperlocks. Even Amber.
“Primordial willing,” I tell the captain, forcing myself to relax. Nothing will be gained from wasting energy conjuring potentialities.
“Eh, the First One has nothing to do with it.” She looks back towards the current shift of rowers, their shoulders stretching and bunching, skin gleaming deep brown to sun-weathered pink in the last light before dusk. “Want to know how we’re the most decorated crew this side of the Wastes?”
“I adore information.”
“We train on the same river, but unlike our competitors, we do most of our sessions on the north side of the city.”
“North?” That gets an eyebrow raise out of me. “Who in their right mind would have anything to do with the river in such close proximity to the tidefall?”
“I said we’re the most decorated, not the sanest. The tidefall pulls like a hundred aurochs yoked as one. The strongest bitch of a current you’ll find in the Empire. Rowing against it is the best training ground Aramtesh can offer.”
A lesser being would gape at her. “A current dragging you towards a five-hundred-foot drop.”
“Exactly. We’re no strangers to rowing for our lives.” She grins, and it’s the grin of a madwoman.
I find myself smiling, genuinely, back.
“Like I said, we’ll get you there in time for whatever it is you’re doing.”
“I had hoped I’d made it clear I won’t talk about that.”
“Eh, what I don’t know can’t be tortured out of me.”
“Does that mean you’ll refuse to carry a letter back for me after you’ve dropped me off?”
“Never said that, did I?” She jerks a thumb towards the hatch leading to the lower deck. “But for now, I’m going to catch some hammock time before second moonrise. Got a tapped barrel of sugar spirit below. From the finest distillery in Lostras. You’ll never again taste its like.” It’s her turn to raise an eyebrow. “Care to join me?”
There are worse things I could imagine doing on what could be one of my final days of breathing. Who wouldn’t want a last gasp of the finer things in life before their potential end?
I follow her below.
Dawn finds me back in the prow.
It’s eerily quiet apart from the creak of the oars, the delicate splash as they enter and exit the water with precise efficiency. Mist rises from the river in silver tendrils. When the sun burns away the last trappings of night, the sight I’ve been chafing to see comes into view on the horizon, a solitary figure standing sentinel on the otherwise flat river plain.
Ekasya Mountain.
Sephine’s words echo in my mind: We’ll one day find our salvation in Asmudtagian destruction.
The political and religious centre of the Empire, crowned by the imperial complex, cloaked in a city where Aramteskans have fought and loved, celebrated and mourned, traded and created for centuries. And there, limned black against the early morning sky, the mountain where millions of prayers have been offered to the heavens, where generation after generation have worshipped. Unbeknownst to anyone who doesn’t follow the ways of Asmudtag, deep below that peak is what brought it all into being.
The key to saving us all.
Until the last breath.
I made the Order that pledge back when I was too inexperienced to know that an open-ended promise is a fantasy. But then the Order stagnated, and now the balance has tipped too far. Our future cannot be left to be decided on a battlefield.
Until now, I’d thought promises were the very substance that made us. Instead, they’re sticks of incense. Burning bright to begin with, their scent clear and strong, even as they consume themselves. But sift through the ashes of many an eternal vow, and the only thing you’ll find is an unwitting lie.
Everything must end.
The Order.
Magic.
Even the gods themselves.
CHAPTER 36
RAKEL
Father wore his old uniform, the leather leg tied off below the remains of his own. He smelled of mint soap and rosemary beard oil and not even the faintest whiff of illness. His cheeks were full of colour. He rode straight-backed in the custom saddle he’d made for himself, and his hands were steady when he flipped the reins over his gelding’s neck as we rode back from the Shadow Keeper tomb into camp.
So Yaita did smuggle him the cure.
A Losian soldier escorted us through the makeshift camp. Father explained he’d arrived with the Aphorain army. Once they were sure Zostar wasn’t interested in sacking Aphorai City, they’d used the little known and less-travelled desert mountain passes to avoid the imperial army’s blockade of the river, not flying a standard to give them extra cover.
A tent has been pitched on a rise in the middle of the forces. Inside, a table dominates the space, a map of the Wastes covering its top. Carved figurines have been placed on either side of an open area between the rock formations and larger geysers on the map – the plain located below the camp. Each Province Commander and Eraz stands stiffly around the table.
Nisai is at the head, caught up in a strategy debate with the others. “I have to go myself,” he insists. “My brother may very well not listen to anyone on this. But he’s definitely not going to be swayed by a messenger. It has to be me, or this was all for nothing. There will be no true parley.”
“The risk is too great, Your Highness. There’s nothing to protect you if they dishonour the white flag, or on your return if negotiations fail. What if he sets those… If they can do the things your former Shield was capable of…”
Nisai pinches the bridge of his nose as the other commanders weigh in.
A little further away stands another figure.
Yaita.
I haven’t yet seen her back on her feet, and I’m surprised at the strength of the relief that wells up inside me. I go to her and, for the first time, we embrace.
There’s no similar display between her and Father. But before he joins the other commanders at the strategy table, there’s a nod that seems … respectful. Like a door on the chance at affection has been closed, and any awkwardness is now behind it.
“Are you well?” I ask, guilt at the edges of my voice. She wouldn’t have been unwell if it weren’t for me.
“I still feel a little weak, but I’ll be fine.”
“I’m sorry, I—”
She cuts me off with a raised hand. “We’ve all made mistakes.”
Part of me smarts at not being given the chance to explain, but the other part, the part that had been more worried than I’d care to admit that she wouldn’t recover from saving me in the Aphorain temple, sags in relief.
“Walk with me?” she asks.
I nod agreement, and we exit the tent.
“Did you recover the weapon? Zostar reportedly has more Children of Doskai than we’d estimated.”
I relay what we’d found in both the Aphorain and Lo
sian caches, that they’d only turned out to be burial grounds.
“Buried, not sent to the sky,” Yaita muses. “Ami’s sure the name was Kaiseth? Do you trust her?”
“She’s not responsible for Esarik’s actions. And what reason would she have to lie?”
“And their being sealed in Asmudtagian glass would support the notion… It’s believed to be protective.”
“What notion?”
“It’s too much of a coincidence. Kaiseth was the first of the Scent Keepers. In the legends, Asmudtag gave her the elixir to channel their will, so she could lead the resistance against Doskai’s shadow armies.”
“You mean…”
“Kaiseth was a Shadow Keeper as much as a Scent Keeper. It’s where the Order began.”
I look out over the soon-to-be battlefield, scrunch my eyes shut, open them again. The connection is finally clear and not in the way I’d hoped. “There is no weapon.”
She smiles sadly. “Not quite.”
“The weapon is us.”
She nods.
“But there were dozens, maybe hundreds of bodies buried in the Losian cache. Maybe as many more again in the Aphorain cache before it was destroyed.”
I don’t need to say it. We both know what’s on my mind. There’s only a handful left of those who’ve survived the first imbibing of the Scent Keeper elixir and lived. And most of those are in the Sanctuary up in the mountains beyond the Empire.
I squint into the sun, down to the flat expanse of ground where we expect to meet Zostar’s forces. It’s dotted with pools of belching bile-coloured sludge. Even from up here, the stench is awful. Sulphur – just like one of the main ingredients in Sephine’s shadow ceremony. An idea begins to seep into my mind.
I pat Luz’s satchel. “There might be something that could hold them off.”
I just hope there’s enough yeb balm in here to get the job done.
It’s a scramble to prepare in time for the parley, but somehow we make it.
“Ready?” Nisai enquires.
He’s preparing to mount the horse my father gave him – speed will be key if anything goes wrong out there. Then he, Kip, and several of the Aphorai Province’s best troops will ride out under a banner of truce to parley with the army that awaits us across the Wastes.
“If we end up needing it, you’ll only have to give the signal,” I assure him.
“Will you ride with us? In case something … goes wrong?”
I nod. If Nisai is willing to put his life on the line to try to head off a battle before there’s any carnage, so am I. And if anything happens out there, the sulphur concoction I’ve got burning in a handheld censer will soon tell us if my idea is going to work or not.
“What if it doesn’t work?” Barden asks. “Or it does work and the wind changes?”
The truth is, I don’t know. It’s not like I’ve ever done anything like this before. The ceremony with Ash in the Aphorain temple was similar, but in an enclosed space, and nowhere near this scale. But I’m not about to remind Barden of that. “Luz’s satchel is a treasure trove of substances,” I tell him. “These are things that will buy us some time if we need to flee.” I give Lil’s neck a rub. “Ready, girl?”
We ride out on to the plain. Barden bears the white flag of parley. It flaps in the wind above our heads, already smudged with yellow-green sulphur dust.
Far ahead, the leaders from the other side are there, waiting. It’s hazy, but it looks like eight or so of them. Towards the centre, a figure sits tall and balanced in the saddle, his broad chest emblazoned with the Kaidon family crest. Iddo.
Next to him, a shorter figure, slight beneath his black robes, his tufts of white hair straggled by the wind. I’ve never laid eyes on him, but I don’t need to have. The stories have been more than enough. Zostar.
Four guards flank them, two in imperial palace colours and two in red and black, no doubt bearing the sigil of the Brotherhood of the Blazing Sun. It’s the last two figures that wrench at me. They’re on foot. Slight frames dressed in too-big soldier leathers. They couldn’t have seen more than thirteen or fourteen turns.
It feels like hours pass between leaving the ranks of our allies and meeting in the middle of the ancient battleground. But the sun has hardly moved when we come within earshot of each other.
“Greetings, brother,” Nisai begins. “I’d say ‘well met’, but…” He makes a show of looking around us before shrugging, the movement slow and weary.
“Prince Iddo shall be addressed by his title as Regent,” one of the palace guards growls.
Nisai doesn’t let them get up his nose. He simply waits, holding his mount in check, maintaining a neutral expression.
Iddo removes his helmet. His expression is flat, but he looks older than when I last saw him, back in Ekasya after Nisai was healed. His features are now framed by lines that will only wear deeper with each passing turn. “I don’t want to hurt you, little brother.”
“Then don’t,” Nisai responds. “We can stop this. The wounds are deep, but they can be stitched. There does not need to be carnage simply because two sides have shown up at a battlefield. I do not even wish to seize power from you. I would happily co-rule. You’ve always had skills that I lacked.”
He pauses, waiting for that to sink in.
“But know this, brother. I will never, ever abide the atrocities that have been committed by those in your company.” He doesn’t acknowledge Zostar; instead, he looks to the two young people, gaze brimming with empathy. “And I will do everything I can to prevent history repeating.”
“You’ve spent too long with your precious scrolls, brother. Two provinces in rebellion. A false capital. A weakened border on one side of the Empire. A coast ruled by pirates and smugglers on the other, and larger threats beyond. The Empire needs strength now, not words and compromise. If you will not step aside, then I have no choice but to end this here.”
Iddo looks to Zostar.
Black Robes remains silent.
“By whatever means necessary,” Iddo finishes.
Nisai regards his older sibling solemnly. “We always have a choice, brother. Always.”
A look passes between them. Guess this is a conversation they’ve had before.
The Regent’s expression turns pained. “Ack, little brother. It’s not that easy.”
“Why, Iddo? Why is turning around, taking your army home, putting all this to rest, not easier than the bloodshed that will ensue if we continue on this collision course? You’re a soldier. You’ve done a soldier’s duty, trying to protect your own. But this isn’t protection any more. This is conquering. I know you feel it’s inevitable. That there’s only one course. But there isn’t.”
Iddo barks a bitter laugh. “And what else would you suggest, little brother? I come serve you in your far-flung new capital? Keep you secure while you dream impossible dreams and neglect reality?”
“It’s no secret I have ideas for what the Empire could be. But I would have your input as an equal voice at the table. Let us sit down and discuss this.”
“Talk begets talk.” They’re the first words Zostar has spoken. “It’s men of action who triumph. My Regent, we’re done here. Let us rejoin our forces.”
He nods to one of the Blazers, who yanks the white parley flag from the earth and throws it down.
“I don’t want to go to war with you, brother,” Nisai calls as Iddo and his escort retreat back towards their force’s lines. “You of all people know I don’t. But mark my words, I will. I will fight for hope. For everyone to feel they have a choice. Including you.”
At that last, Iddo turns in his saddle. He watches Nisai for a long moment. Then he closes his eyes, bows his head, and faces forward again, disappearing into the dust haze.
We retrace our steps to our forces.
“How did it go?” Ami asks.
I drag my finger across my neck.
“That good then.”
Nisai squints across the plain, shielding h
is eyes, then turns to me. “Once we light them, how long will those fires burn?”
“Until dusk, give or take? I’m not an expert, though, it’s not like I’ve worked with this stuff before.”
“Let’s hope it’s long enough for my brother to see reason.”
CHAPTER 37
ASH
“Get him ready for the Regent,” barks one of the senior officers.
The guards move the wagon carrying my cage closer to the command tent, dragging me out by the bindings around my wrists, and tether me to the rear of the wagon like a pack animal in a train. There’s only thirty yards or so now separating me from Del, Mish and the others. I have to get them out of here. But first I have to get their attention without drawing the ire of the Rangers that watch them like hawks.
The air shimmers with the last heat of the day, so that the figures in the distance waver like they’re made of water. As they return from what I now know is to become the battlefield, Iddo’s chariot draws close to a black-robed figure riding a donkey. It can only be Zostar. They appear to be talking. Iddo points an accusatory arm, then pulls back the reins, wheeling the horses and his chariot around.
Did he speak to his brother, out there? Knowing Nisai, he would have parleyed. He’d want to exhaust every possibility to prevent bloodshed.
I crane my neck to follow the elder Kaidon son’s path, straining against my bindings until the ropes cut into my flesh.
Iddo drives his chariot back towards the command tent, riding directly before the first lines of infantry that are now fully in place. The vanguard is made up of mercenaries and conscripts, grist that he can afford to be crushed. I’d expect the trained section of his army – the palace guards, Rangers, household contingents from the Trelian river lords that came to the so-called Regent’s aid will attack from the side, outflanking and harrowing the opposing army even as they break through the first lines. Judging by the landscape up ahead, they’re determined to push Nisai’s forces up against the towers of rock and bubbling pools, using the terrain as an additional weapon.
Iddo shouts something to his officers, but he’s too far away, I can’t quite make out the words. And I can’t delay just to hear them. I’ve got higher priorities.
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