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Twenty-Eight

T he emperor’s private carriage, at the center of a procession of a half-dozen vehicles, broke down halfway to Heron Lake. In the middle of a crowded stretch of road, the result was chaos.

Palace guards spilled into the streets as all four of the Emperor’s Dogs surrounded the carriage.

There was yelling as the Dogs demanded to know what the problem was, and the poor electro mages in charge of the vehicle protested that they had checked it the night before, and the servants in charge of the imperial fleet had also examined it only that morning.

With all the yelling and chaos, no one noticed a man dressed in a servant’s yellow garb slipping out of the emperor’s carriage to disappear into the crowd of other servants. I kept my head low, my bag hiked high enough on my shoulders to prevent most from recognizing me from behind.

I headed for the last vehicle in the procession, a cart driven by Piivu that was carrying trunks of my clothes and belongings, things Nohe insisted I would need for the several ceremonial outfit changes during the celebration.

I hopped up, getting my legs over the edge of the cart, and somebody else lifted the edge of the tarp covering the back.

When I slid underneath, I found myself crushed next to Seka Dalimu.

Velethuil had taken the middle spot, while Miksha and Liku both took the far side, his hand on a blade, his eyes fixed on the narrow gap between the tarp and the side of the vehicle.

No one dared to speak, even as we crowded together. There was a jostle and a jerk as Piivu directed the cart to the side, pulling down a side street and into a small alleyway.

As soon as we were still, Liku pushed back the tarp, leaping out of the back and getting on the front as Piivu stripped off his yellow clothing, revealing the plain browns underneath. His hands trembled, and I took the yellow cloth from him, tucking it into one of the chests.

Piivu had been the last addition to our party, and Seka Dalimu and I had presented it to him only the day before. Only his sister’s assurances of my promises for their safety made him go along with the plan.

I changed as quickly as I could, Seka Dalimu helping get me out of my senior servant’s clothes and jamming my head through a rough woven shirt. Velethuil was busy, using a handful of mud to dirty the cart until it was unrecognizable as an imperial vehicle.

With Liku at the head, his electro magic a spark of pure white that sent the vehicle back into motion, we got on the move, heading for the Sunrise Estate.

When he used his electro magic, I heard a voice in my head, one I had become familiar with over the past few days.

Electro magic sounded like the echo of thunder on an empty tundra.

It boomed in my head, giving me a headache.

Go , the voice commanded. The vehicle shuddered again, pulling out of the narrow alleyway and getting on a road perpendicular to one we had been on with the convoy.

Piivu’s face was white, and Seka Dalimu held his hands tightly, murmuring to him as we jostled along the road. Once we cleared the last buildings of the Imperial Capital, the others dared speak.

“Did you have any trouble getting free?” Velethuil asked.

I shook my head. Tallu was going to tell anyone who asked that in the chaos, I had been taken to a separate carriage for my own safety. When I couldn’t be found, there would be some questions, but hopefully by then, I would be back at the Heron Lake property.

Her mouth set, Miksha tugged on the cuffs of her coat, dragging a loose thread through her fingers.

“Don’t worry,” I said to her. Lerolian had stayed with Tallu and the convoy.

If something went wrong, he would be able to tell me, even though it was a risk for him to travel so far from Tallu.

He could do it, and we had to hope that I was the same protection to him as Tallu.

If he stayed close to me, it would save him.

Liku stopped the vehicle before we were in sight of the Sunrise Estate, pulling off into the woods. He and Velethuil covered it in branches as I checked my bag once more to make sure that none of the jars had broken during the trip.

The woods around the Sunrise Estate were unrecognizable to me during the daytime, but it was impossible to miss the shouting and sounds of military orders. Above me, Terror sat in a tree, watching.

More than anything, I wished for his conversation. Was he trying to warn me of something? Or merely waiting to see if I would die and he could eat my liver?

Silently, Miksha grabbed my hand, squeezing before releasing it and stepping closer to Liku. We trooped through the woods as quietly as we could manage, pausing only to avoid a patrol.

Velethuil, Liku, Miksha, and I all had training; the ones who struggled the most with the quiet were Seka and Piivu.

The latter jumped at every sound, biting his lip so hard I could see the bite marks on his skin as he tried to remain silent.

Liku had told us as much as he could about how any competent units would be organized at Sunrise Estate.

In contrast, Velethuil and Miksha had told us exactly what we would need to do to defeat an electro mage. They had come from different experiences, but they both had come to the same conclusion: the only way to deal with a military-trained electro mage was to kill him before he could attack.

We scrambled over the rough stone wall that Tallu and I had been over when we had first seen the airships.

It was still abandoned, still an easy access point.

Now that Bemishu’s two greatest opponents were imprisoned, he had put most of his force toward building the massive ship rather than defending his own borders.

Seka Dalimu tugged on my sleeve, and I turned toward her.

Piivu had gone pale, and I could see his eyes moving back and forth as he mouthed silently.

He had lost his father and one sister to the Imperium already.

I could see his fear that he was about to lose the last family he had if we were caught.

We crouched behind a pile of discarded pieces of wood, the edges shorn off unevenly. A few were broken through the middle, shattered as though they’d been dropped from a great height.

I pressed close to him, whispering, “Piivu?”

He shook his head sharply. “It has to be this way?”

“Yes. You don’t have to go with her. You can stay on as my servant.” I let that linger in the air, let him feel it, let him wonder if it was a threat. He shook his head again.

Trembling, he leaned close to his sister, and Seka wrapped an arm around him.

Crouching on the ground, Velethuil closed his eyes, twin lines forming between his brows.

Around him, the air stilled, his hair rising as though the pull of the earth had stopped working on it.

Finally, he opened his eyes, their natural color covered over in shimmering opal.

He shook his head. “I only feel one ship floating in the air. You said there were two?”

Tension cut through us like a knife. I straightened my back, my headache intensifying. “The large one?”

Velethuil frowned, closing his eyes again. I heard whispers in the air, a chorus of them, all on top of each other. When he opened his eyes, they went silent. “It’s as large as any imperial warship. Maybe larger.”

Seka, pale and trembling, frowned. “They might have broken apart the small one to gain the necessary pieces to power the larger. It won’t work for long.”

“What pieces do you need to run the small one?” I whispered. I would already be on the ship. It wouldn’t be impossible for me to steal the pieces necessary… Only the large ship needed them, too. Without the large ship exploding over Heron Lake, the plan wouldn’t work.

“Let’s find the small ship.” Seka tried poking her head out from behind our hiding spot, but Liku grabbed her tightly. He shook his head, then leaned out himself, making a complicated motion with his hand that the rest of us translated as directions to follow him.

In the daytime, the Sunrise Estate was pocketed with hiding spots. The garden had massive statues, niches, and well-manicured bushes. Decorative pieces of wood shadowed the sides of buildings, giving us space to hide behind half-walls and trellises.

Miksha squeezed my hand, and at first, I took it as reassurance, until I realized she was watching Liku’s back as he crept forward, searching for our next hiding spot.

It should have been me, but with the bulky bag on my back, I didn’t dare risk blowing myself up before I could plant my cargo on the airship.

Even worse, I couldn’t risk giving it to someone else and watching as the people I wanted to save died in front of me.

The small airship was discovered in another pile of rubbish. On the outside, it looked unharmed. Whatever they needed hadn’t been on the exterior.

Liku gestured us forward, and Seka jumped in first, scrambling up the hull and then reaching down to help the rest of us.

It was larger than I realized. Only compared to the massive airship the elephants had been constructing did it appear small.

It was large enough to fit everyone in the cabin comfortably, and if we had been in the north, I would have recognized it as a smaller fishing boat.

Large enough for a crew of five or six to comfortably travel on for one or two weeks.

Seka had already found the engine and was elbow-deep in it. When she pulled back, she was frowning.

“What is it?” I asked.

“There’s nothing wrong. There’s nothing missing. They must have just abandoned it when it stopped floating. The problem is the noise.” She bit her lip, fisting her hands. “It’s going to make a lot of noise to get it going again. It will take several minutes to get off the ground.”

I understood immediately. “Enough time to bring any guards running. All right. Wait until the airship blows up over Heron Lake. That should be enough of a distraction.”