Chapter 5
Ebb Tide
He’s not going to show.
I lie in the center of the sparring circle staring up at the intricate golden ceiling of Grisholm’s training facility. Lifting my hand, I stare at my moniker’s timekeeper. Grisholm is officially three hours late for his scheduled training. I think it’s safe to say he’s never coming. He has been a no-show to every single session I’ve scheduled for him in the past few days.
I rise to my feet and climb the golden steps to the balcony. Nothing stirs here but the breeze from the sea. I wander out onto the shimmering terrace. The stone is veined with gold, glinting in the morning sun. The blue sky—uncluttered by airships, which are restricted from flying near the Halo Palace—still holds the warmth of summer here, even as we have slipped into autumn.
The view overlooks the stone stairs that wind through the jagged cliff to the water below. I pull off my protective wrist shields and hauberk setting them aside. My sleeveless under-armor top and lightweight leggings are warm enough for a jog along the shore. Descending the uneven steps to the sandy beach, I discard my footwear. My toes sink into the white powdery grit. I stroll to the water. It’s always a shock, the coolness of the sea as it settles around my ankles. I remember my first view of the ocean with Hawthorne and wonder what he’s doing right now—if he’s all right. If he’s alive. My heart burns from the agony of not knowing.
I turn my gaze toward the cliff again. Lavish white silken tents topped with streaming golden pennants stand ready along the shore, erected on the off chance that one of the firstborn residents of the Palace will need to use them. None of them does. I’m alone—the only visitor.
Secondborn Stone-Fated attendants stand near the tents to cater to firstborn royalty. I lift my hand to acknowledge them. Their heads lean together in suspicion, trying to figure out why Secondborn Roselle St. Sismode is in the Fate of Virtues when she should be off fighting the Gates of Dawn. I’ve been treated like an extreme outsider by all the secondborns I’ve encountered since I arrived. No one speaks to me. It’s as if they fear me, but why I can only guess.
I jog along the shore in the direction I haven’t explored yet. The tide is ebbing. It’s peaceful, and I hardly break a sweat in the thirty minutes it takes to reach the end of the inlet. Rounding the high cliff wall of the cove, I slow to a halt. Ahead, tall stone spires reach toward the sky from a small island in the middle of the sea. Waves crash around the jagged rocks and slate-colored stone walls. The retreating water uncovers a sandbar that leads to the arching gates of the medieval fortress. I’m captivated by the triangular white flags on the forbidding parapets, each pennant adorned with a silver halo.
The arching mouth of the castle is open. Heavy doors with a sea-foam patina stand wide. A slow procession of women emerges from the yawning maw of the castle. They travel toward the shore along a small strip of sand. At the center of the parade, a young blond woman in a flowy white dress wades gracefully through the shallow surf, holding her long skirt in her hand, exposing her ankles to the sunlight. Death literally hovers over her in the form of ten black, bat-winged death drones. The drones cast cold shadows onto the sand and water around her. Seagulls fall silent as they near, scattering in the presence of the drones.
A team of secondborns scurries around the beach. Stone-Fated workers set up tents and awnings and direct a hovering easel into place. A half-executed oil painting adorns the canvas in a palette of bright hues. Paintbrushes of various sizes levitate next to the easel. Secondborns with the white roiling wave monikers of the Fate of Seas amble around, digging up clams and throwing out nets and woven traps.
Before I can circumvent the party, the young woman in the white dress drops her hem, allowing water and sand to soak it as she hurries to me. The death drones follow her. “Roselle St. Sismode!” she gushes. “I’d heard rumors that you’d come to Virtues!”
Recognition dawns abruptly. It’s Balmora, a younger version of her mother, Adora. “Hello, Secondborn Commander,” I reply with a deep nod of my head.
Balmora Virtue, formerly Wenn-Bowie before her Transition, is hardly ever photographed or shown on the visual screen. As the spare heir to the title of The Virtue, she’s kept from the public eye so as not to be a distraction to the true heir. Her secondborn Virtue-Fated attendants move away from us to a discrete distance, but their eyes and ears are all tuned to our conversation. Based on their upscale attire and silver halo monikers, I’d guess they’re secondborns of other prominent families in Virtues—all but one of them, a secondborn Stone-Fated girl around the age of twelve. She hovers near Balmora.
“How long has it been since I last saw you at the Sword Palace?” Balmora asks.
“I was ten, so nine years ago?” I ask.
“That sounds about right. I was eleven, I believe.”
“I’m surprised you remember me.”
Her eyes grow wide. “I remember you quite vividly, Roselle! How could I forget? You smashed a clock over Grisholm’s head! I also see you almost every day on the visual screen, running through a barrage of explosions or shooting at your enemies.” She holds up her hand with her thumb up and two fingers out in the shape of a fusionmag, popping off rounds. Her pouty mouth curls into a snarl. She isn’t mocking me, it’s more like admiration.
“That isn’t real. Those are just Salloway Munitions ads.”
“Yeah, but you got to meet Firstborn Derek Burgeon!”
My brow wrinkles. “I’m sorry, who?”
“The soldier . . . the one who lifts you up at the end of that one ad and carries you to the waiting airship.” She wraps her arms around herself in an embrace.
I remember the ad. It depicted a scenario very much like Hawthorne’s rescue of me from the battlefield in Stars. “I didn’t catch that Diamond’s name,” I reply.
“If I were that close to Diamond Derek, I would definitely remember his name.” She holds her hand to her heart with a dreamy expression.
I frown. “He . . . he’s okay. It’s just . . . it wasn’t real.” The real Derek, if put into a situation with megaton bombs exploding in actual combat, would probably wet himself and never leave the airship. He’d be cringing in the corner beneath his artificial helmet of hair products, crying and sucking his thumb. It’s men like Hawthorne and Reykin—who repeatedly dive into danger despite the threat to their own lives—that I find attractive. More than attractive. Irresistible.
“Do you think he’ll visit you here?”
“Who?”
She rolls her eyes. “Derek!”
“No.”
“That’s a shame. I was hoping you’d introduce me to him.” She pushes out her lower lip.
“Sorry, Secondborn Commander.”
She waves her hand. “Please, call me Balmora! ‘Secondborn Commander’ is so formal.” Her grin stretches wide, showing her perfect teeth. “When did you arrive?” Her fingers catch her windswept hair from her cheek, tucking the long blond strands behind her ear.
“A little over a week ago.”
“Why are you here?” she blurts out. “No one knows. It’s the most delicious question on everyone’s lips.” She moves forward and links her arm in mine with a familiarity that I cannot fathom. We’ve only met that one other time. Back then, Balmora had been more interested in Gabriel than me.
One of the death drones breaks formation and veers closer to me. Turning its harrowing gun barrels in my direction, its initiating whine sends my hand to the hilt of my fusionblade. “Step away from the Secondborn Commander,” it warns in a rumbling robotic tone. I can see my reflection and Balmora’s on the drone’s veneer. My fingertips slowly ease the hilt from the leather sheath secured to my thigh.
“Stand down!” Balmora orders her security drone with a wave of her arm, as if swatting away a nagging insect. “This is my friend, Roselle St. Sismode.” The drone takes a moment to process her words before it powers down and shifts away to join the others in formation. “Now then, let’s go for a walk,” Balmora continues, holding on tighter to my arm.
I relax my grip on my fusionblade, replacing it in its sheath. We stroll the shore together. The young girl trails behind us. Balmora seems not to notice. “Don’t mind my sentinels,” she says. “I rarely have visitors. The drones are unaccustomed to new faces.”
I glance again at her “sentinels.” They aren’t Sword stingers, like the ones that guard Grisholm. Stingers are meant to defend. Death drones are meant to kill. It’s their only job. I wonder if they’re protecting Balmora, or if they’re her prison guards, ready to kill her if she tries to slip away.
“Do you live there?” I nod my head in the direction of the stone fortress amid the waves.
Balmora’s smile fades as her gaze goes to the enormous structure surrounded by water. “The Sea Fortress? It’s the Secondborn Commander’s residence,” she counters with a sharp note of bitterness. “Where else would I live?”
“It’s lovely.” It’s something from a fairy tale. The water is clear enough to see the coral reefs. Diamond patterns dance on the weathered stone. The spires are topped with silver tiles that sparkle in the sunlight.
“It is, but it’s also very lonely.” She sighs with the kind of melancholy I remember from my days living at the Sword Palace. But I had no companions. She has several. The gaggle of females follows us, whispering behind their hands. Balmora tightens her grip on my arm. “They’re not good company,” she hisses. “They’re no better than spies. One must watch everything one says around them. And anyway, they’re boring. The only one I can trust is Quincy.” Balmora indicates the freckle-faced twelve-year-old behind us. “You’ll have to visit me while you’re a resident of my father’s home. Which reminds me, you haven’t yet told me why you’re here.”
She holds her breath while she waits for me to answer. It gives me pause.
“I . . . I’m to assume Firstborn Malcolm Burton’s position as Grisholm’s mentor.”
Her expression turns incredulous. “You are going to instruct Grisholm in the art of warfare?” She giggles and tries to smother it with her hand.
“Yes.”
“And how is he taking that?” she asks, wiping a stray mirthful tear from the corner of her eye.
“Not well,” I reply, straight-faced.
“I should think not! His overinflated ego won’t stand for a secondborn telling him anything, let alone a young woman half his size.”
“His ego is in for a beating, then.”
She snorts. “And my father knows about this?”
“He’s the one who gave me the job.”
“If only I could be around to see that,” she says wistfully.
“Come to Grisholm’s sparring facility tomorrow and see for yourself. I could teach you both at the same time—if he ever shows up for training.”
She gives me a side-eyed look. “You’re not serious?”
“Why not?”
Her cheeks puff out as she exhales. “I can think of a few reasons. First, I’m not allowed inside The Virtue’s Palace, or even beyond this beach, without his invitation. Second, I’m not allowed anywhere near Grisholm. And third, I’m forbidden by law to train in the art of war unless I become Firstborn Commander.”
“You’re confined there?” I cast my eyes out to the Sea Fortress once more.
“You see that stone formation ahead?” she asks me, gesturing to jagged rocks on the beach. “That’s the farthest I can go without creating chaos among the Exo and Iono guards on the estate.”
She’s their prisoner. We’re not so different, she and I, secondborns to the two most powerful Clarities in the world. But unlike me, Balmora’s family wants her alive, in case something happens to Grisholm. Mine wants me dead so there will be no alternative to Gabriel.
“What do you do here all day?” I ask. “Do you have a job of some sort?”
She shakes her head. “I have no duties and few interactions with anyone, apart from my staff and the occasional visitor. But now that you’re here, you can be my special friend and come for tea and tell me about all the things you’re doing out there in the world.” I’d hardly call the Halo Palace “the world.” It’s more like the most privileged island in the world. “Please say you’ll come!”
“I’ll come when I can,” I reply.
On the walk back, she chats nonstop about her visit to the Sword Palace when we were children—her memories of me and of Gabriel. It’s clear that she has romanticized that time, talking about Gabriel as if he’s the most heroic person she has ever met. I try not to become irritated. I’m not really mad at her. I’m mad at our parents and society for turning the chivalrous boy into a bitter man. When we near her easel, she shows me her oil painting. To my untrained eye, it’s exquisite, the exact likeness of the castle in the sea before us. “This is beautiful, Balmora. You’re an artist.”
“I’m not allowed to be an artist,” she replies, her lips pouting. But I know my compliment has made her happy because her mood changes quickly, and she pounces on my arm once more. “You have to let me paint your portrait! I won’t take no for an answer.”
“But I—”
“I said I won’t take ‘no’ for an answer!”
“I don’t know the first thing about sitting still.”
“No. You wouldn’t, would you?” She giggles. “We’ll figure something out.”
She needles me until I say yes, and I spend the next few hours watching her paint the castle. She teaches me about perspective, using a focal point to determine the angles and lines. It’s fascinating. I use focal points to target and kill. She uses them to capture and create.
We have a small picnic together, set up by her secondborn staff on the beach under a luxurious awning with tables and chairs and linens. We sit apart from the other secondborn women, who talk quietly among themselves about the upcoming Secondborn Trials and their favorite Diamond-Fated actors. I pick at my food, afraid to try anything not tested by Phoenix first. I only eat the finger foods from the same plates as Balmora, even when she tries to offer me things she’s not eating. A part of me feels stupid and paranoid. Another part of me knows everyone is a potential enemy.
Balmora grills me about life at the Sword Palace, and especially about Gabriel. She listens to my tales recollecting his childhood games and acts of chivalry. These are the only stories I can give her, because after the age of eleven, I hardly ever saw him. She laps them up like the pastry cream on her fingertips.
“Do you want some advice?” Balmora asks as she wipes her hands with her napkin. She has a smile much like her mother’s, though more sublimely impish than wickedly beautiful.
“I don’t know. Depends on what we’re talking about.” I set my napkin aside.
“My brother hates to be embarrassed above all else. If you want him to do what you tell him, that’s your leverage.”
I think about it for a moment. “Thanks.”
The tide is fully out now, and the sea castle is completely exposed. The sun is scorching. It’s so much warmer here than in Swords. By this time of year, we’d be issued heat-regulated armor. I should wear a bathing suit the next time I come to the beach.
The dishes are just being cleared by mechadomes when combat airships suddenly fly by overhead. The teacups tremble on their saucers. I shield my eyes and track them. They’re new, heavily armored troop carriers. By the look of them, they have multiple types of guided missiles and advanced combat weaponry. The Salloway Munitions signature is in every sophisticated line of the airships. Clifton is nothing if not meticulous when it comes to his products, and I would know his designs anywhere.
“What is it?” Balmora asks.
Several more fly over in combat formation. “We should get off the beach,” I warn as I get to my feet.
“Why?” Balmora asks. She doesn’t seem the least bit alarmed.
“Something’s happening. Something’s not right.”
The death drones blare and move into a tighter formation, herding the secondborn women into a circle around us. Some scream and overturn their chairs, skittering to get away from the drones. I remain calm. In a few seconds, the noise cuts off. Some of the women are crying.
Airships with arsenals pointed away from the beach hover above the water in defensive positions. They appear to be protecting the Halo Palace and the Sea Fortress. On both sides of the beach, guards uniformed in black and gray swarm onto the sand, moving in our direction, fusion rifles resting just below their shoulders. They don’t have their weapons trained on us, so I know we’re not the targets. They scan the water and the cliff’s edges through the scopes on their tactical weapons. A death drone breaks formation and flies menacingly close to Balmora. In its robotic voice, it orders, “Secondborn Commander, return to your residence for lockdown.”
“Why? What’s going on?” Balmora retorts with a scathing look. She’s not frightened, not like her attendants.
The first wave of Exo guards from the Halo Palace makes it to us. The highest-ranking officer steps to me. With his forearm raised to his mouth, he speaks into his moniker. “Secondborn Commander secure. We’ve also located Secondborn Roselle Sword.”
The holographic soldier projected from his moniker says, “Commander Kodaline’s orders are to protect Roselle Sword and bring her to the safe area.”
The firstborn Sword Exo frowns. “What about the Secondborn Commander?”
“Secondborn Commander will be shown to her residence by her security detail.”
The lead soldier nods, ends the communication, and drops his forearm. “Roselle Sword, you’re to come with us,” he states. Balmora’s death drones surround her and her entourage, aggressively prodding the secondborn Virtue-Fated women to retreat to the sea castle. Something’s wrong. Balmora is the most important secondborn here, isn’t she? And yet they’re more concerned about securing me than her. Of course, the orders did come from Dune, but it’s still counterintuitive.
“Promise you’ll come visit me!” Balmora calls in a desperate plea as the drones urge her away. I give her a quick nod so she’ll stop resisting and return to her home. She smiles and turns away, moving at an unhurried pace across the sandbar toward her towering fortress of stone.