I didn’t sleep well that night. I woke early, hiding the comb in my pocket, eager to go to the garden and practice my power. I bent every tooth of the comb forward and back, even focusing enough to lift the comb off my hand, but it wasn’t enough. In the garden, I moved the stone bench, I raked my power through the ground and tore up small rocks, large rocks, tiny flecks of minerals. It was never enough.
I had everything I had been hoping for—a child, and a tenuous grasp on peace that was slowly becoming stronger. My husband would finally lay down his arms.
My power still felt desperate, something wild that was artificially pinned down and aching to be freed, and it never felt more wild and desperate than when I was with Galen, when he looked at me and touched me and said the things that I spent hours turning over in my mind.
I was so close to everything I wanted, and it felt like I would never possibly be happy. I walked the garden twice over, but I still couldn’t shake the feeling.
Zeph and Theron both came with me to the Erudium that day, and when Adria and I walked outside the castle, I saw a carriage waiting for me.
“We will walk,” I said, directing an imperious stare at Adria.
“It wasn’t me,” she said quickly.
“My lady, the news of your condition has spread throughout the city. The people are overjoyed for you, and I just want to ensure your safety. Crowds can be dangerous,” Zeph told me.
I lifted my head. “Then you will protect me as you so ably do, but I will not take a carriage.”
“My lady—” Zeph started.
“Zeph,” I interrupted, stepping closer to him and speaking softly. “The carriage makes me ill,” I admitted. “And my stomach is uneasy already.”
“Oh,” he said. He crossed his arms over his big chest. “Hm. How about a horse, then?”
I nodded. “A horse I can manage.”
“Theron!” he shouted. “Horses!”
Both guards fussed over me as I mounted the horse, as if I would suddenly tumble from the creature’s back and shatter like an egg. I scowled at them both, and they mounted their own horses when they were satisfied I was safe. It was a wonder it didn’t take them tying me to the saddle.
“Theron will go first,” Zeph told me. “And I’ll be behind you and Adria. You must keep going, no matter what, and keep pace with him. Yes?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
He nodded once. “Good. After you, my queen.”
Theron started riding, and I followed him at a quick canter. The guards opened the gates, and my heart soared as I saw flowers lining the walkway, and then people at the bottom of the slope. At the sight of me they started cheering, and people started pressing in toward us. I didn’t even know where people were coming from, but it seemed they were multiplying.
“Faster!” I heard Zeph say behind me, and Theron sped up. The people parted for us, and we sailed through. They blurred around me, hands waving and reaching out for me. I felt them touching me, and spurred my horse.
The crowd thinned away from the castle, but it never dissolved completely. When we arrived at the Erudium, the children were all gathered on the front steps, and they cheered and clapped for me.
People from the city flooded in behind us, and the young men sprang into action, running into a formation to block the others so I could come in. I dismounted, and the children rushed around me, pulling at me and hugging and touching me.
“Back!” Zeph growled, sweeping an arm out to clear the children. They gasped and leaped out of the way. “Is this how the Erudium conducts itself ?”
This seemed to mean something to the children, and they all went back to the steps, standing in formation to welcome me. “We have a very special day planned for you, Tri Queen,” the praecepta told me. She gestured me forward, and I drew my back up straight, going inside.
When we left, we faced a smaller crowd, still calling to me, waving at me, praising and blessing me and my baby, but not so many that I was frightened. Zeph didn’t even insist we ride fast or in any formation, but he and Theron stayed by my side, watchful.
Our route to the Tri Castles wound mostly along the coast, where the road was wide, and it seemed to be traveled more by merchants and wealthy women than the common people, but there was a small stretch where the road narrowed and went by the edge of the Maze, a tight warren of houses in the center of the city. We had just turned the corner where the road shrank, and we could hear shouts and yelling coming from an alley.
“My queen, we should—” Zeph started.
“Theron, would you see what’s going on?” I asked him. A scream rang out, and I paled. “Theron, please! Zeph can stay with me.”
Zeph nodded his agreement, drawing his sword and circling his horse in front of me and Adria as Theron dismounted and entered the alley. I watched him for a moment, and when I blinked in the sun, I couldn’t see him anymore. Adria made a whimpering noise.
The ground shivered, and I clasped my hands, for a moment thinking I had caused it. As soon as I realized it wasn’t me, I looked at Zeph.
“Ride!” he roared at me.
I jerked the reins to the side, and my horse jumped into action, only to rear and stop so short I nearly fell as black uniforms flooded to one side and a river of commoners came in from the other. I heard Adria scream and tried to wheel around to look for her, but an arm wrapped around my waist, and I screamed, too, as I was pulled from the saddle.
“My queen!” Zeph shouted in my ear, and I stopped yelling. He dragged me back against a building, crowding me behind him and yanking Adria’s wrist. He tossed her behind me and turned, sword drawn, ready to defend me.
But they weren’t there for me. The horses bolted, and I could see the fighting. The uniformed Trifectate soldiers were hammering the common men, and it was brutal and bloody.
“What’s going on?” Adria yelled, crying on my back.
“Stay down!” Zeph yelled.
My stomach dropped. The wind kicked up, and the soldiers fought harder, cutting down the commoners and executing them in the streets. I watched one soldier not far from us slash a man’s throat. The man dropped as a river of blood poured out of his wound, and his eyes searched upward, looking for something. An answer, maybe.
The soldier lunged and impaled a man on his sword, running him cleanly through until the red-stained blade came out the other side. He jerked it out again, but his victim wasn’t dead. The man lurched forward with a knife in his hand, and the soldier hacked at his arm. The heavy sword bit deeply and something cracked; the soldier had a hard time pulling his blade free.
When he did, blood sprang up like the world had spun upside down, catching in the wind and bursting in a red spray.
I didn’t realize I was crying until Adria put her arms around my shoulders, hugging me from behind, and when I felt a shudder, it wasn’t her.
The soldier left the man to fall to his knees in his own blood and moved on to his next victim. This man had two knives, and he was fighting valiantly. He was fast, but his back was turned and he didn’t see the soldier coming.
The man turned, and my heart stopped. No matter how little I had seen it in recent years, I would never fail to recognize my brother’s face.
“Rian!” I screamed before I could help it. “Rian! Rian! Rian!”
Zeph whipped around and covered my mouth.
I didn’t even feel the threads this time—it was too fast, like a tide swamping me, and my love for my brother—my fear at seeing him threatened—took over. I curled my fist, and the dirt of the road sprang up, whipping around Rian to slam into the soldier. More and more dirt and rocks and mud welled up like a wave, and in seconds the soldier was flat on his back like he had been buried in the middle of the road.
Rian stopped for one moment and met my eyes, and then he turned back and kept fighting.
The rush of power left me, and the last thing I was aware of was hands, or arms, or something trying to hold me upright, and failing.