Jaime pressed his hands to his mouth, swallowing his vomit.
He would recognize that face anywhere: Nides Doupolous. The young Townfolder who had flaunted stories of the King’s fire before Julias Markus backhanded him.
Here. Alive.
Well—just barely.
The spearfighters jabbed at his legs. One of them impaled his left thigh. Nides sobbed in pain, falling to one knee.
Roars of delight erupted over the stands.
Jaime swallowed.
By all rights, this man was a traitor. The moment he had left Mount Alairus to join the King’s lochos, he betrayed his hometown. And he had openly stood at the Archpriestess’s side as Hilaris burned at the stake.
Nides deserved to die.
But his suffering cries pulled the strings of Jaime’s avai. He was so sick of this, so tired of the lawlessness and murder that would go on forever so long as this war existed.
Despite the screaming of his senses to stay put, he raced downward, dodging the spectators, shoving past the shields of the spearfighters, till he was side-by-side with Nides.
“Stop!” Jaime yelled.
The stench of sweat, dirt and feces infiltrated his nostrils. Nides sobbed quietly behind him.
A swarthy, middle-aged councilor in the front stands stood and raised a hand to his guards.
“My name is Jamian,” he shouted. “I am the Prince of Jaypes, and I command you to let him go.”
Adrenaline coursed hot through his blood.
With his back turned to Nides, the latter could have impaled him at any second. Townfold’s greatest traitor probably hungered to.
Finally, the swarthy councilor said: “Prince Jamian. That man betrayed all of Lord Julias’s hidden bases to the royal lochoi. My bondlords captured him at the base of Mount Alairus. We are friends of Senator Gaiyus, our leader of the Air Alliance.”
His shoulders uncoiled. Commander Julias led a battle? Lord Jaypes, there was a battle after I escaped?
“Nides Doupolous participated in the slaughter of thousands of Alairans. He deserves to die in the arena, in disgrace—that is the Jaypan way.”
“The royal authority will find out,” Nides interrupted. Tears carved trails down his filthy face. “They’ll burn you. They’ll burn all of you maggot-infested rebels!”
A few heads turned away in disgust. Jaime closed his eyes. In another lifetime, he would have demanded Nides’s head.
But he turned around, looked Nides in the eye. Gray. Both of them had the same Jaypan-gray eyes. The young soldier turned away first, unable to bear the shame of his mutilated face.
Despite the knot in his chest, Jaime forced the words out.
“I forgive you,” he said. “For fighting on the King’s side. For fighting against my uncle. For yelling to the Archpriestess that I was the Prince, for being part of the royal force who came to burn my family at the stake. I forgive you for all of it.” Jaime cupped the taller man’s face. Nides flinched. “I’m sorry for what they did to you.”
Several Korinthian councilors shot to their feet in fury.
“You mock us!” an elder councilor hissed.
“No,” Jaime snapped back. “This,” he nodded at Nides’s mangled face, “is Usheon’s way.”
“Many Jaypans died in your name—”
“If you host cruelty and murder in my name,” Jaime interrupted, “you aren’t fighting for me. As your Prince, I’m mortified.”
The jaws of the elder councilor started to tremble. The arena blazed with hateful gazes.
What are you doing? You could completely undo the following you have.
But Jaime kept his shoulders square, glaring back at them.
The surrounding spearfighters glancing at the head councilor for orders. Nides sobbed quietly behind him.
The Korinthian Guard never received their orders.
A host of royal soldiers brimmed over the top of the theater, their spears and shortswords brandished.
Chapter Thirty
“Jamian!” someone screamed.
Lady Eridene streamed through the parados, the side-entrance behind him. A few seconds later, she was guzzling air by his side, a stolen spear raised.
“What are you doing?” she said. “Announcing you’re Prince like you own the world? Are you trying to die?”
Adrenaline pumped him with giddiness. He breathed, “I would only die if you did.”
“Funny,” she hissed.
Skylight radiated off her honey skin. A strand of hair, loosed from her messy braid, fell down the curve of her neck. His senses went berserk. He wanted to kiss her there.
You’re so perfect.
“Bring me the Prince!” their commander hollered. “Alive, by order of the King!”
The councilors scattered, crashing into each other. Nides’s eyes stretched in manic ecstasy. “They’re all rebels!” he bawled. “Part of the Air Alliance—they confessed it!”
Jaime swiveled around.
“Go on, you’re free,” he hissed. “But if I ever see you again, I’ll kill you myself.”
Nides started to smirk a reply, but Jaime backhanded him.
Eridene gawped.
Mouth falling open, the young soldier hobbled away, tears welling in his eyes. A second later, he vanished into the fray.
One of the Korinthian guards leapt over the lower tiers, drawing his spear. A silver pin similar to Sojin’s—a flying tyto with a sword and javelin in its claws—glistened above his heart.
“Protect the Lord Mayor!”
Jaime’s glanced the swarthy councilor in surprise. Lord Mayor? Was that man Lord Romulus, the same Lord Mayor who had lent Florin and Prescilla troops?
“No!” the Mayor bellowed in reply. He gestured in Jaime’s direction. “Protect our Prince!”
They met eyes.
This high lord, three times his age, wearing blue dye worth more than everything Jaime owned, lowered his bare knees into the sharp gravel.
Bowing.
Several of his councilors breathed out gasps. Relief coursed through Jaime’s blood. Six months ago, such a sight would’ve made him stumble off a mountainside.
Florin and Prescilla might be gone, but you’re not fighting this war alone.
Jaime straightened his shoulders.
“Let the winds lead you,” Lord Romulus recited.
Jaime returned a nod. “I shall find my feet.”
Eridene tugged at his arm. Soldiers were forming a ring around the theater, pouring into the stands. Fifty of them. In less than a minute, they would block the parados. Their last chance of escape.
It would take unshakable focus, and a well of avai energy, to stop all of them.
“We have to go, Jamian.”
Eridene nudged him again, but Jaime shook his head. Dug his sandals in the ground, facing the oncoming tide.
“You’re mad!” she cried. “You can’t defeat them all!”
The first sounds of clashing steel rippled across the theater. Jaime drew a current in his mind—a gyre of air. Focusing his avai energy at the soldiers’ middle lines.
And released.
Back at the Battle of Arcurea, several seconds would lag between the currents he drew in his mind and their manifestation. Today, they were instantaneous.
The wheel of air knocked the enemy’s center off balance. Soldiers exclaimed, crashed down the steps, shields colliding into spears. Only the front and rear lines, and the edges of the company, were still advancing.
The Korinthian Guard formed a protective line in front of Lord Romulus, but their Lord Mayor roared, “I said, protect the Prince!” He stretched out one arm. “Spear!”
His City Captain tossed him a shortspear, its pennant flying with the blue and white colors of Korinthia.
Lord Romulus thrust it at t
he nearest soldier.
An arrow whirred in Eridene’s direction. Jaime clamped onto her hand, spun them around. Avai swelling with energy. He discharged a shaft of air. The archer, fifty feet away, crashed onto his nose. Jaime caught her before she could fall.
Her back nearly touched the ground. Jaime’s body dipped in her direction, their faces only a breath away from each other.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“I’ll take out the rest of them,” he whispered back. “Watch.”
He pulled Eridene upright again, turned back to the soldiers. The front lines were crossing into the arena now. Eridene sprang back into the fight, huffing and grunting as she swung. They crashed against the Korinthian Guard, lightning against thunder.
Jaime focused.
Small bursts of currents fired at individual soldiers, needle-accurate. The Korinthians panted in surprise, their spears half-raised.
In a final offensive, Jaime sprinted forward, powering his avai energy. Rolled past a soldier’s thrust. Snatched up a spear. Leapt onto the first tier of seating, slammed the butt down.
A shockwave of air blasted across the orchestra, levelling every standing body at full force.
The last of the soldiers smashed into the stone seating. Helmets crashed against steel plates. Wine spilled everywhere. No one got back up. Several of the councilors were also on their bellies, moaning.
Oops.
Jaime dropped his arms to his sides, a crooked smile on his face.
“Sorry.”
The Korinthians left standing, including the elderly councilor who had spat at him, went silent. Their jaws nearly touched the ground.
“Gods,” the City Captain murmured, “he fights like an Ascaerii.”
The elderly councilor broke into laughter. “If only the rest of the Alliance could see this!”
“They will.” Lord Romulus staked his spear against the ground. “Send out our owls. Rally the bondlords who have pledged themselves to Romulus Biros. Tell them our true King lives.”
Eridene squeezed his arm. “Jamian, he’s rallying all of the west for you.”
“The south and the northeast are also on my side.” He stood straighter. At least, what survives of them.
He forced himself to look at her.
“We should get you to an inn. It’s too dangerous to stick around me any longer. You need to sail to Glaidde tonight.”
The smile vanished from her face. “But I can’t just—”
Before she could finish, a horn blared across the western expanse of Jaypes Kingdom. A long, single note. So deep, the sky seemed to shatter.
Both of them turned their heads in the direction of the strait. It was coming from inside Korinthia’s citadel.
“A breach,” the Captain murmured. “The royal authority knows the Prince is here.”
Jaime clenched his fists. “I’ll stay and fight—”
Lord Romulus turned around. “No,” he said sharply. “Is your final destination Korinthia or the Lord’s Temple?”
“I saw the royal lochoi march on Arcurea.” Jaime bared his teeth. “I won’t let it happen to another City-State—”
“Florinokles was my friend also, Highness.”
“I know how to fight—”
“Your battle is with the King, not these royal dregs!”
Eridene whispered in his ear: “He’s right, Jamian. It will take some time for your King to send an entire army here. By then, western Jaypes will be mobilized to the teeth.”
His nails dug into the tendons of his palms, but he met Lord Romulus’s incisive gaze. Nodded. He touched Eridene’s arm and led them in a sprint.
The din of marching shields, armor plates, and boots on grass tingled his spine. More soldiers were coming. The City Captain yelled orders. The Korinthians followed their Lord Mayor in a retreat back to their city walls. The tips of enemy spears began to appear over the top of the theater.
When Jaime and Eridene were halfway across the theater, Arrys and Toran cut through the parados. Arrys’s hood shadowed his face. His recurve bow was strung, a deadly arrow notched in place. Toran’s eyes bulged as he drank in all the fallen bodies.
“I brought you some friends,” Toran called.
Jaime panted. “Friends?”
“The rest of the fishing village. I told them it was your birthday.”
Gods.
And there they appeared, behind the descending lines of soldiers. Several of them commoners he had seen in passing. The little boy with the porgies and mackerels carted his wheelbarrow alongside the crowd.
“Merry birthday, Prince Jamian!” someone shouted.
“Merry, merry birthday!”
“Hark! There is Lord Jaypes’s chosen one!”
The soldiers paid them no attention—until they started to pelt smelly seathings, bruised fruit, and stale barley bread at the soldiers.
The theater fell into a greater storm.
“You’re crazy,” Jaime half-laughed, half-cried to Toran.
The royal commander, cowering behind the rear ranks, cursed them. “Anyone who raises a hand against the King’s authority is guilty of treason! Do you hear—”
“Long live King Jamian!” the City Captain interrupted.
Roars followed this.
Adrenaline pounded his heart. It took everything in him not to turn around and release a slew of air currents to protect them.
This isn’t your fight. You can’t fight every fight in Jaypes Kingdom or you’ll never make it to your Duel with the King.
Arrys released an arrow. A soldier swinging against an unarmed fruit merchant snapped backwards.
“Go!” the Larfene yowled. “This is our parting!”
Jaime nodded. With the heartbeat of the Korinthians pounding in time with his own, the three of them escaped out of the parados and into the free winds calling him northward.
Chapter Thirty-One
To Jaime’s relief, the Korinthian Guard gifted him with three of the Mayor’s best coursers. As western Jaypes trembled from growing mobilization, Jaime galloped into the winds.
The weight of his shoulders felt so heavy.
The three of them didn’t stop flying across rocky plains of fennel and prickly lettuce till the Skyrros Ocean vanished from sight.
“I had a nightmare,” Eridene told him the next morning.
She peered through the crumbling pillars of the cylindrical tholos they camped out in. White clouds drifted above them. Speckled slopes covered the horizon. The growing stormwinds leveled the firs, beeches, and oak trees.
Toran was somewhere out there, harvesting wild beans. For once, Jaime was thankful his best friend wasn’t here.
“What did you dream of?” Jaime said.
“You.”
He returned his gaze to the shadows of their camp.
“I see you facing your father in the Colosseum,” she whispered. “And you’re burning . . . ” A small breath echoed against the walls. “I hear your screams, but they’re like my own. They vibrate inside my bones, and I feel them behind my eyelids, and my whole body is melting.”
“That’s so dramatic.” He laughed without humor.
“Maybe that’s all this is. Jaypan theater drama.”
She stood up.
“I have nightmares, too,” he said.
She paused.
“I failed to keep my promise to you.” Jaime turned away to face the gusts. “We were supposed to find you an inn. And now you’re back on the road with me. The King will kill you—”
“Jamian, I want to go to the Temple with you. I know you don’t trust me—”
“Why would you say that?”
“I’m sorry I wanted to kidnap you to Glaidde.”
Although nervousness was about to tear his chest open, he took the frame of
her shoulders. At this distance, her hair smelled like the wind. That urge again to kiss the curve of her bare neck zapped his sanity.
Toran’s voice filtered in: Eridene doesn’t want any man.
Jaime felt a tiny tremor ripple under her skin where he touched her. Toran had to be wrong.
“Run away with me,” she whispered. “The lords of Glaidde will protect you. You’ll be safe there.”
“You know I can’t.”
A quiet sigh escaped her mouth. Gently, he took her back to the ledge, and they sat down by each other.
He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I’m tired of being afraid,” he admitted.
“Everyone is afraid of something,” she said.
“What are you afraid of?”
She clutched her charm, her thumb rubbing the seven-pointed star.
“You can tell me anything, Eridene.”
Her eyes fell.
“I just . . . I can’t stop thinking about the war at home. I’m worried about my father and uncle. I keep having dreams—Emperor Viro spiking their heads on his palace gates. I see the Kaipponese breaking through the Border Wall, and—and—selling me. Uncle says we’ll win the war, but Jamian . . . I’m so afraid.”
Sweat was forming pools in his hands.
“Can Toran help you?”
“Toran is my father’s prisoner of war.”
Jaime beetled his brows. “I thought you were friends—”
“We are. But Toran is a peasant from the enemy Kingdom. He can’t stop the Imperial armies from storming the Wall.”
“How do you know each other?”
“It’s not important—”
“It is to me.”
She sighed. “My father’s bondmen invaded the other side of the Wall years ago. They looted the rice fields and demanded coin. Toran fought them. He wanted to protect his family, but he gave them such nasty blows that they brought back him to our manor. The marshal demanded his head. I pleaded Father to let him go.”
“And he did.”
“He did.” Eridene tucked her fingers around the loose curl of hair on her neck. “Toran can’t go home, not as long as our war stands.”
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