Kingsbane

“What’s downstairs?” Eliana asked.

“My fathers’ war room,” said Navi. “My brother will be there, and Lady Ama. I don’t know what we’re facing, and any intelligence we receive from scouts will be delivered there. After that…”

Her voice trailed off.

“Your fathers’ armies will be able to stop them,” Eliana said into the silence, forcing steadiness into her voice. “Astavar has stood free for years, thanks to them.”

“Except now we have something they want even more than they’ve wanted to destroy our kingdom and our people,” said Navi, glancing over at her. “We have the Sun Queen.”

Eliana had had the same thought. She lifted her chin against the sick swoop of guilt that inflamed her body. “I’ll ride out to meet them and surrender myself. That will hold them off for a while, give the rest of you the chance to escape.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Navi said crisply. “Whatever you could do to them wouldn’t give everyone in Astavar the chance to flee to freedom. And even if it would, I wouldn’t allow you to risk yourself in such a way.”

“You wouldn’t allow me.” Eliana followed Navi and her guards out of her rooms. Her castings were warm buzzing nets around her hands. She nearly ripped them off and hurled them out the window. “No one will allow me anything. What if I want to surrender myself? Does that mean nothing?”

“No, it doesn’t.” Navi paused in the threshold of her sitting room, fixing Eliana with a steady, patient stare. “And I think you know that. I know you don’t like hearing such things, but—”

Cannon fire detonated outside, near enough to shake the floor, the door to Navi’s rooms, the sculpture of Tameryn and her black leopard on the nearby table.

Another boom followed shortly thereafter, and another, and a third, each one nearer than the last, and the Horn of Veersa kept baying over it all, like a pup howling for its mother. Screams, shouts, and the distant sounds of gunfire began floating in through the open windows in Navi’s bedroom.

“That was close,” Eliana muttered. “It sounds like they’re right at the doors.”

Navi looked back through her rooms, her expression suddenly taut with fear. “I don’t understand. The passage is over one hundred miles away. How could they have gotten so close unobserved?”

The answer came to Eliana swiftly.

The only way an imperial army could have taken the Astavari lookouts so completely by surprise was if someone had hidden their approach. And the only creature powerful enough to do that was the Emperor himself. But was such a thing possible? Imagining the kind of power required to maintain mental control of that magnitude, and from that distance, made her head spin.

“My lady,” Ruusa urged, “we must hurry downstairs. Your fathers will want you to head for the tunnels—”

“I would sooner submit myself once again to Fidelia’s laboratories,” Navi snapped, “than hide underground while my people face the Empire’s guns alone. No, we’ll go to the war room. At once.”

“I’ll meet you there,” Eliana said quickly, taking hold of Navi’s hands. “I have to find Remy.”

Navi nodded. “Of course. On the third floor, in the north wing, there hangs a tapestry of Saint Tameryn in prayer. Behind it is a narrow door. Follow the passage, and when you reach a fork, enter the second hallway from the right. It will lead you to a door flanked by guards. This is my fathers’ war room. The guards will allow you entrance without question.”

Then Navi squeezed Eliana’s hands, pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Savrasara, Eliana.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s an old Astavari word, one we learned from Saint Tameryn’s writings. Roughly translated, it means, You carry my heart. An expression of love and of warning. It is a great responsibility, to be trusted with another’s heart.”

A tingle crept down the back of Eliana’s neck. Something terrible was about to happen. She sensed it—a subtle rot in the air, a shift in the angles of the world—and could tell by Navi’s knotted brow that she felt it too.

“An odd time to tell me such a thing,” Eliana said lightly.

Navi’s smile did not reach her eyes. “It’s always the right time to say such a thing.”

The loudest boom yet detonated, shattering the glass roof that allowed sunlight into Navi’s sitting room.

Ruusa’s tone brooked no further arguments. “My lady, I must insist.”

“Go,” Navi whispered, releasing her. “And hurry.”

Eliana turned and ran toward the central library, assuming Remy would have gone there for solace after seeing her. Another boom from outside shook dust from the dark rafters overhead, rattled vases on pedestals and the artwork hanging from the walls. The corridors were chaos—servants and castle staff hurrying for shelter, guards running for their posts. The sounds of approaching war, and of people utterly unprepared for it.

And then, in the corridor outside her rooms, Eliana ran straight into Harkan. A detonation, followed by the unthinking shove of a sobbing, wild-eyed servant, knocked them into each other’s arms.

For a moment, Harkan held her to his chest. Then he pulled back to look at her, the relief passing over his face so palpable and obvious that Eliana found herself wishing she could love him again as she once had. It was a realization that came over her with the force and clarity of a punch to the jaw.

“Where’s Remy?” Harkan asked, looking round.

“I don’t know. He came to Navi’s rooms, we barely talked, and then he left. I’m trying to find him and take him with me to the war room. Navi’s there, and the kings.”

Then Eliana paused. Harkan’s face was strangely closed to her, as if he was striving for the kind of unreadable cool cruelty that Simon wore like an accessory to his everyday clothes.

That same creeping sense of dread came over her—the approach of something inexorable and terrible. “What is it? Harkan, what’s happened?”

In the cool midday light spilling through a nearby shattered window, his eyes glinted, bright and full. He muttered, “I’m sorry, El. But there’s no time to find him. Forgive me.”

Before she could move or protest, he had grabbed hold of her, his grip determined. He grounded himself against the wall as she kicked at him, trying to wrench herself away. But he held fast, and then one of his hands came over her mouth and nose, a soaked, sour rag clutched inside it, and she realized what was happening in the few seconds of furious awareness she had before the blackness reared up to drown her.

Harkan was drugging her, just as Fidelia had done all those weeks ago in Sanctuary.