Kingsbane

“Why one of our ships?” Ingrid gestured irritably at the terrace. “Can’t you ride your godsbeast out to the Sunderlands?”

“We could, yes,” Rielle replied at once, “but I would prefer to travel in luxury, as it will take some time for my body to recover after saving your city from total destruction.”

“I will prepare the Kaalvitsi,” Ilmaire said before Ingrid could reply. Rielle thought she even saw him stifle a smile. “I would ask my father to join us, but as you know, he has taken ill in recent years and is not strong enough to make the trip. My sister and I will accompany you instead. While on board, you will enjoy every comfort we can provide.”

“We’re grateful, Ilmaire,” Audric said with a small smile. “Thank you.”

“While you prepare our ship,” Rielle added, enjoying the mutinous expression on Ingrid’s face and unable to resist, “I wonder if I might meet with your Magisterial Council. I understand they were perturbed to learn of my anointing—thinking, perhaps, that I did not deserve my title of Sun Queen, or that I was given it unfairly.”

“Lady Rielle,” Ilmaire said quickly, “I don’t think anyone who witnessed what you achieved yesterday has any doubt that you are indeed the Sun Queen.”

“Nevertheless, I would very much like to meet with them. To reassure them, and give them a chance to apologize for any part they may have played in the attack on Audric months ago and the attack on us only yesterday.” She smiled sweetly at Ingrid. “Surely you can understand how important that is to me.”

Ingrid opened her mouth to reply, but Ilmaire stopped her with a hand on her arm—a hand she abruptly shook off.

“Certainly, Lady Rielle,” he said. “I will see to it at once.”

She inclined her head. “I’m grateful.”

Was that necessary? Ludivine asked wryly.

And then came an echo—faint with fatigue, delighted, and only for her: Well done, Rielle.

Rielle stiffened, an icy heat gliding up her torso.

Ludivine noticed at once. What is it?

Nothing, Rielle lied—and she knew the moment the words formed that Ludivine could not sense the lie. That something distant and sly was shielding her from it.

And Rielle found that she was glad for it, and relieved.

She squeezed Ludivine’s hand, reassuring her. It was only a small chill.

 

 

6



   Eliana

“My brothers and sisters, my friends and compatriots, do not let these humans deceive you! They promise peace, but what they want is our destruction. You can feel it in their minds as well as I can, but you have let your desperation for peace, your exhaustion, get the better of you. I say to you now: Reach inside your ancient minds for the strength I know you possess. I say to you now: Stand with me, here on these icy shores, and fight for our homeland! This is our world! We were born to it, and we will not let these humans, with their weak minds and feeble hearts, send us running like cowards into the darkness!”

—A speech delivered by the angel Kalmarothto angelic forces at the Battle of the Black Stars

Below the palace of Dyrefal and the dark-cobbled streets of Vintervok, buried far below the snow-dusted mountains, was a world of stone and shivering shadows.

As Zahra escorted her through the soaring obsidian halls, Eliana marveled. Each new chamber was different from the last—some vast and lofty, lined with rows of pale-gray stone arches boasting carvings of the saints at war. Others were narrow and still and padded with shelves of books, as if the mountains themselves were crowding down close to hear the pages whisper secrets.

Slender torches mounted to the walls in elaborate iron casings threw shifting shapes across every surface, creating the illusion that Eliana was traveling beneath the canopy of a forest shaken by soft winds. Enormous tapestries decorated the walls, warming the cold stone passages with depictions of Saint Tameryn, daggers in her hands and shadows writhing in her curls. Prayer smoke sweetened the thick air. Scholars in blue-and-black robes conversed in low tones; commoners come down below the mountain to pray knelt before gleaming black statues of Saint Tameryn in combat, in meditation, in repose.

There were no idols of the Emperor here, as had dotted the streets of Orline—no razed temples, no shattered statues.

This was a world untouched by the Empire, and Eliana did not know how to exist inside it.

She averted her eyes from Saint Tameryn’s blank stares and placed her right hand on Arabeth at her hip to remind herself of who she was. She was not a coward, no matter what insinuations blazed in Simon’s eyes. Nor was she a queen, the lost heir to a dead kingdom.

She was Eliana Ferracora. Daughter of Rozen and Ioseph. Sister to Remy.

She was the Dread of Orline.

Her strength lay not in her blood and not in magic but in her muscle, in the agile way her feet lit upon the ground, in her skill with her blades.

She said it ten times, like working her way through her father’s prayer beads—words she didn’t really believe, but that brought her comfort nonetheless. Then she imagined her doubt as a small creature sniveling in a damp room, and closed it away behind an iron door.

She would have to ignore her doubt, swallow her resistance to the idea of magic in her blood. If she wanted to save Navi, she would have to satisfy Zahra. She would have to summon her power again, just as she had on the beach at Karajak Bay. Prove herself capable of wielding it, deft and deliberate, in defense of herself.

Somehow, she would have to control it, and be able to do so with ease and at will.

The thought left her stomach in knots.

“Remember, stay in my wake,” Zahra murmured, drifting just ahead of her. “Keep your voice low, and don’t fall behind. We must hurry. If my strength fails me, and you are left to fend for yourself without me to shield you from sight—”

“Fend for myself against these people whose home I saved from Empire invasion?” Eliana said. “I think I’ll be all right.”

“Not everyone in Astavar delights at the knowledge that you are in their palace, my queen. What you did on the beach frightened many.”

Including me, Eliana thought darkly.

As she followed Zahra for what felt like hours, down winding stairs and through stone passages, each one more unfinished than the last, she drew a map in her mind. But as the air grew colder, the weight of the mountain pressing upon her shoulders, her mental map disintegrated. Wherever they were, their route was too labyrinthine for her to find her way back alone.

When the shadows grew so thick that Zahra vanished within them, Eliana withdrew the small gas lamp from her cloak pocket and turned the catch on the base.

“Stop,” Zahra said quietly.