Page 35

The Fight For Oaesys

I’m practically coming out of my skin as fighters rush past. Telling Reven I’m the queen is like telling a mosquito to stop biting me. It won’t make any difference.

“Okay,” he finally says, releasing me.

I rush out of the cistern into the open area between the walls, but already I can see there’s nothing to do. Our people have already blown a hole in the far wall, and the last of them are surging through it into the private royal gardens.

Part of me mourns the destruction that a hundred fighters will wreak on the delicate plants, many of them gifts from other dominions that the palace gardeners carefully nurture and coax to stay alive in our particular climate. But the fate of Aryd is more important.

Shouts from all around the city, even louder now that we’re out of the cistern, haunt my footsteps like angry ghosts. Forget the gardens. Innocent people—my people—may be hurt in this coup. There was no way to avoid that, but that doesn’t mean I like it.

Cain waves. “Here!”

Rather than following our fighters through the gardens and into the servants’ quarters through a side door I told them about, I lead Cain and Reven the opposite way toward where the gardens meet my sister’s old chambers. With no hesitation born from long practice, I take a running leap at the wall where it meets the palace, using the corners to scale it quickly to the top.

“Don’t do something like that without warning,” Reven growls the second he reaches the small landing where I’m standing.

“I like that you care,” I say. Which only earns me another grumpy sound.

Cain, however, grins as he gets to us. “That’s my girl.”

The way Reven’s head whips around to pin Cain with a glare, I’m surprised he didn’t break his neck. “According to Meren, she’s my girl.”

Possessiveness seems like a good sign, but not in the middle of an invasion. Letting the two of them sort that out, I scale the wall to my left and around the corner using small footholds and handholds that I’ve discovered over time breaking in and out of this place, until I make my way around the corner and onto the large balcony.

Goddess, it feels strange to do this now, in this way. Like a memory but not.

I run into the room and immediately start drawing sand to me. It doesn’t take long before enough is piled at my feet and I’m creating another portal. The last step is to bring Tabra through safely.

The plan is to dress her as a queen so that as soon as we have the palace secured, we can present her to the people—show them that their rulers have taken back Oaesys. Hopefully quell any unrest stirred up. We decided to come here instead of the queens’ quarters where I stayed while Eidolon had me under his thumb, because the other room—where it is, the access points, and the likelihood Tyndrans will set up camp there in case we come—is more dangerous.

I at least allow the glass to cool this time before I open the portal.

Except…no one is standing on the other side.

My immediate panic is enough to crack my control over the Shadows, and I have to stop to breathe through it, lashing them back down tight.

“Where is she?” I hear Cain demand, echoing my thoughts.

A roar resembling a clap of thunder shakes through the city, and my eyes fly open. Bene, grown to his full-size, must have taken to the skies to aid our coup. But I have bigger problems right now.

“Tabra!” I yell, leaning this way and that to try to see if she’s off to the side of the portal. Maybe she’s hiding to make sure the right person opens it?

But no one answers, and no one appears.

“Reven—”

I don’t even get out what I want him to do before he’s running through the portal into the red canyon beyond. He disappears just before my mind catches up with my fear and I realize that this could also be a trap. What if someone has her and they’re holding her to draw one of us out?

I open my mouth to yell for him, but before I can, he appears in a swirl of shadow and jumps back through to my side.

“The camp is empty,” he says. “There is no one there. Including your sister. No signs of a fight.”

“Something is wrong,” I say.

A thousand scenarios start building in my head. Maybe as one of the groups was running through, Tabra was discovered? Maybe our allies had to take Tabra with them to protect her? Maybe Eidolon came for them?

“Achlys is with her,” Cain reminds me. “Tziah, too. And my father.”

“That’s not enough,” I whisper, more to myself than him. Not to hold off Eidolon if he came for her.

Another of Bene’s roars blasts directly overhead, followed by the scream of a man falling from the sky, close enough that I hear the muffled sound when his body hits the ground.

Without a word to Reven or Cain, I sprint out of the room into the hallway.

“Damn it, Meren!” Cain calls after me.

But Reven says nothing. I know he followed, because I can feel him with me.

Instead of going to where the royal chambers lead into the rest of the palace, I turn left. It’s not far to reach a small door that looks more like an alcove. Ducking inside, I don’t even need a lantern to guide my steps, despite it being pitch black. I know these winding stone stairs, worn into dips with the footsteps of my ancestors over thousands of years. They climb up a narrow spiral that could be claustrophobic for anybody who doesn’t like tight spaces. The sound of male feet followed by some grunting and at least one of them saying, “Get out of my way,” tells me both Reven and Cain are still with me.

I don’t wait for them when I get to the top, bursting out of the doorway onto the large, flat rooftop of a parapet of our palace. Not the highest place, but one of them, and private, only used by the royal family. Not even servants are allowed up here.

I starburst my hands, shattering the portal I just made in my sister’s chambers. Then, not even having to gather them at my feet, because the sand is right there, several floors below where I stand, I catapult the grains of sand up into the sky in an explosion that looks like a firework going off to celebrate our victory.

“What are you doing, Meren?” Cain yells at me. “You just told our enemies exactly where you are.”

“I know.” I glance back at the two men standing with me.

Cain’s features twist in a furious sort of worry. Reven doesn’t react. Maybe because he’s thinking of what happened earlier. If I tap into Eidolon’s power again, goddess help anyone around me. “Tabra is more important,” I say.

An answering roar sounds through the sky a split second before shadow flashes across the city, and I look up into the brightness of the sun that has climbed higher, squinting against the light which is quickly blocked by the massive wings of the chimera-looking creature flaring wide to land not on the parapet but on the lower rooftop of the connected building, putting his head level with us.

Bene.

No one, not even those who have never traveled to our walls to see the ocean, could mistake him for anything but what he is. Not like this.

A man’s face—a beautiful man’s face—sits awkwardly within the head of a ram with its horns curling backward, but the jaw and mane are of a lion, and tusks like a wild boar protrude from between its lips. It has the arms and claws and torso of some kind of massive, fur-covered animal I’ve never been able to identify and haven’t asked him about, but its legs and tail look like those of a wolf.

All carved from sand. My people must be terrified for their very lives, and maybe I shouldn’t have agreed to include him in the fight, but at the moment, I’m glad I did.

“Tabra is missing,” I tell him. “She’s not in the camp where she’s supposed to be. She must have had to go through with one of the other groups for some reason.”

“What is your wish?” Not an ounce of hesitation.

“This used to be your city. You know where all our fighters are supposed to be.”

Bene nods.

“Fly me over them.”

“No!” Both Cain and Reven snap the word at the same time.

Thanks to Savanah’s amulet, still around my neck, Bene’s voice sounds in my head. “I refuse, with respect.”

“Until we find your sister and bring her safely here, it would be foolish to risk both you and Tabra,” Reven points out.

Ah hells. His logic is sound but cuts me to the quick. I can’t lose Tabra. Not again.

“I’ll go,” Cain says. “Stay here, and I’ll find her.”

Pit of Bones swallow me whole. I have no choice.

I give a jerking nod, and immediately Cain crawls over the rail of the parapet and onto Bene’s head, sliding down his back to sit at where his withers meet his neck.

“We shall find her and bring her to you,” Bene assures me.

He spreads his wings and takes off with a whip of wind. I have to shield my face to keep from getting sand in my eyes. When I open them again it’s to find Reven standing in front of me with his back to Bene, protecting me from the barrage.

He steps back. “There’s nothing you can do from here.”

“I know. Let’s go get me dressed like we were going to do with Tabra, just in case.”

It doesn’t take us long to make our way back down to her old rooms, which are still surprisingly empty. In fact, the entire wing of the palace seems questionably void of people.

But worrying about that won’t solve anything.

I head into the large open room off Tabra’s bathing chambers, which still holds most of the princess’s clothes. It doesn’t escape me that, once more, Reven and I are repeating a moment from our lives before Eidolon took him.

I grab one of the simpler dresses I can find. “Can you go check on what’s going on in the palace?”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“I’ll be fine.” I lay the dress down across a vanity to walk back into the bedroom to the secret panel in the wall, which I press and it swings silently open. I show him the room with a wave. “See? If anybody comes, I can hide in here until I know it’s safe. No one will know.”

Unless it’s Eidolon. He knows about these rooms now. I don’t mention that bit.

Reven frowns, glancing from my face to the darkened room behind me and back.

“I promise,” I assure him. “I won’t take any risks.”

Ironically, for once, I mean it.

His lips actually quirk although his eyes remain serious. “I think we both know better than that, princess.”

Princess.

The word ricochets through me with a hundred memories in its wake. I don’t even think he noticed he used it again, even though I’ve told him what it means to us.

Then he disappears, only a small disturbance of the shadows where he was standing giving any indication that he had been there at all.

As fast as I can, I get myself dressed in a sleeveless, sky-blue gown that cinches tight around my torso, practically pressing my breasts up to my chin, with a floor-length pleated skirt. Over that I don a sheer white robe, also sleeveless, with our three moons embroidered on the white silk. My hair will have to do the way it is, braided in a crown around the top of my head. It’s probably sticking out in wisps by now, but there’s not much I can do about it. I try to distract the eyes of anyone about to behold me with a tiara, the one that Tabra wore when she was recognized officially as the heir to the throne of Aryd at the age of ten summers.

Achlys was supposed to be here to help my sister do this, to expertly style her hair and her makeup. I’m terrible at any of that. I attempt only a few rudimentary things, made even more difficult by the distorted reflection in the obsidian block we use as a mirror.

I’m honestly not sure if I made it better or worse. Hopefully we’ll find my sister before I ever have to show my face to anyone other than our own fighters.

“We have taken the city.”

I jump at the sound of Reven’s velvet voice, not realizing that he shadowed back to where I was sitting. I spin to face him on the small stool I’m sitting on, taking in his expression, which, as usual, gives nothing away. “So fast?”

That doesn’t seem like a good sign. Does it? Or is it a sign of my slipping control over darkness that I expected more bloodshed?

He shakes his head. “Here in the palace, as soon as they saw us, the servants turned on the Tyndran soldiers, and together they were subdued easily enough. Eidolon’s advisor, Pollux, is being held in the throne room for you and Tabra to speak with.”

“And the rest of the city?”

“Listen,” he says, then cants his head to look behind him, out the open balcony.

I don’t even have to ask what I’m listening for. It’s obvious the second he points out that there is no more noise. No yelling, no booms, no shouts. The city has gone quiet, the chaos of battle subdued.

“It was too easy,” I say more to myself than him.

“I know.”

I meet a gaze that is ever steady and know he’s with me, at least in this.

“We’d better find out why.”

Reven stays at my side as we make our way through the silent palace proper, down the long hallway with its obsidian wall decorated with painted carvings of the history of my people. I wonder if I’ll be added to it now?

I don’t stop to think about it as we pass through the buttressed entrance leading into the central courtyard of the palace grounds, then past the massive well in the center, with its staircase that winds down the wide circular walls to where the clearest, purest water in the kingdom flows.

Which is when I realize Reven is no longer beside me.

I stop to look back and find him standing very, very still between the columns of a covered walk, and everything inside me goes quiet. He’s staring not at me, exactly. It’s almost at me and through me and around me all at the same time.

And then it hits me…

This is where he kidnapped me. He knocked Cain out, wrapped me in shadows, and stole me from the palace.

Does he remember?

“Hey.” I take a tentative step forward, because there’s something about him, maybe the way his shoulders are set that tells me not to startle him the way one should never surprise a coiled snake.

Only he blinks and everything about him eases, even though he doesn’t move or change his expression.

Maybe that’s not what that was. I’m too much of a coward to ask because I can’t deal with it if the answer is no. At least not right this second.

“Okay?” I ask.

“Fine.” Back to one-word answers.

When we make it into the throne room, Pella is already there. So are Vos, Hakan, Trysolde, Istrella, and most of the other leaders of the Wanderers, minus one or two. They are standing around a man who has been bound to—no, by —a metal chair. The chair itself is wrapped around him like vines around a trellis, including over the lower half of his face. Solid metal. No doubt Trysolde’s doing, given he’s a metal wielding Hylorae. That can’t be comfortable.

When he spots us, Vos moves out of the gathered group. “That’s Pollux, the advisor Eidolon left in control of Aryd.”

I nod. “Do we have reports yet?” How many died for this to happen?

He shakes his head.

“We couldn’t find her.” Cain rushes into the room. Bene must still be outside. He looks around those gathered, starting to frown. “Pell?”

“I don’t know where Father is,” Pella says.

Of all the leaders of the Wanderer zariphates in the room, Cainis isn’t one of them. He was with Tabra. Maybe he still is? I don’t see Ledenon or his zaripha, either. Magda never leaves his side, not even in battle.

“Take Bene. Go to where they entered the city,” I command Vos. “Make sure they are unharmed. They must have Tabra and are keeping her safe.”

I’m clinging to the likelihood that not all of them could be in danger.

Vos leaves without a word, and the wait becomes something that puts even the patience of Aryd to the test. I move to one of the windows that has no stained glass, not since it was shattered when Reven and I fought Eidolon in this room.

I steady myself at the sight the blue morning sky, always true, despite everything going on down here. Night may come, but day will always follow. Somehow knowing that there is at least one constant in this world is enough. For the moment.

The massive heavy doors to the room groan as they are opened again, and we all turn, eager and hopeful, and an audible sigh of relief passes through the room as Zariph Cainis strides in—visibly unharmed though still limping from our fight in Tropikis. Magda is at his side.

But the instant he moves his large form so that I can see behind him, ice seeps into me, freezing everything—the blood flooding through my veins, my heart pumping in my chest, my thoughts.

Tabra is with him, her hands bound in front of her.

Achlys and Tziah trail behind her, also bound. In particular, Tziah is gagged.

Vos rushes into the room behind them, his scowl as fierce as any I’ve ever seen from him. Tziah’s matching scowl around the cloth in her mouth shows exactly how pissed she is, but she shakes her head at him, then nods toward Achlys.

He skids to a halt at the sight of the knife Ledenon holds to Achlys’s throat, then snaps his gaze to Cainis. “This better be a bad joke.”

Something about his words finally burns away the ice inside me and sends me striding toward them. “What is this?” I demand in a voice that echoes off the vaulted ceilings.

“Father,” Cain’s voice is as hard and chipped as flint. “This better not be what I think it is.”

“This is exactly that,” Cainis snaps at his son, never taking his iron hard stare from me.

“What are you talking about?” Pella hisses at her brother before I can ask the same question.

Cain’s jaw clenches. “A revolt.”

“Didn’t see that coming,” a Shadow cackles inside me.