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CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Elician

T hey ride in silence.

They are a mourning party as well as a royal host. Marina and Zinnitzia had taken three horses from the Kingsclave stables to join Elician’s and Morsen’s steeds, so everyone has their own mount. Elician is in front, the weight of the crown growing heavier with each hour it rests on his head. He does not want to wear it, but cannot bear to take it off. Not now. Not yet.

Marina must have explained what transpired at the Kingsclave for Lio does not ask him any questions. And Morsen keeps to himself. He rides at the back of their party, sombre and easily forgotten. Elician almost wishes someone would say something. But even as he thinks it, he realizes that he doesn’t have the patience for conversation of any kind. His nerves are rubbed raw. His temper lingers at the tip of his tongue. He seals his mouth shut so he can’t speak any of his harsh thoughts out loud.

It is all for the best.

Their horses plod eastward, across plains and sparse forestry. There are few places to hide, to disappear. It doesn’t matter. Elician has no desire to hide anymore. This is his country. His in every sense that matters. This earth is his earth. If they did pass someone, and they do not, they would be his people. The crown grows heavier.

Anslian’s words, and his father’s actions, squirm in Elician’s mind. He squeezes his reins rhythmically, tries thinking of something else. Fen. How tall she is now. How strong. He doesn’t understand why she was sent to Crowen, but then again, he does not understand much of anything his father put in place. Legacy. All for a legacy Aliamon would never live to see. Elician squeezes his reins again, deliberately shifts his thoughts. Alest, the rightful King of Alelune, is in Crowen too. He can still ascend the Alelunen throne but how would he claim it? And would his people even accept a Reaper wearing the crown?

Then again, when has what the people wanted ever mattered much in politics? When have those people mattered to Soleben politics in particular?

Should they just let it lie? Let Alelune tear itself apart, just as his father planned? What would Alest want? Does he care?

His horse carries him onward into this future. ‘You’re not breathing, my King,’ Lio murmurs. Elician flinches at the voice, and he snaps his head about, glaring balefully at his friend. Lio takes it without complaint. Elician releases the last bit of air in his lungs and inhales long and slow. There are apples nearby. He smells them, mouth watering for a taste even as his stomach seizes at the thought.

If he is going to engage in creature comforts, he would much prefer sleep to an apple. He imagines a proper bed with warm blankets and pillows. He doesn’t think it is too much to ask for, for a king. But at the same time, when their group sets up camp each night, he finds himself lying on his back with his eyes open. Sleep eludes him as he stares at the sky, at the moon. Its light shines down upon him. The domain of Death, bathing him in her glow. He tilts his head towards his companions, and past them all, he sees eyes staring back.

A creature, crouched low to the earth, ears pressed flat, eyes narrowed. A muzzle and teeth, and white fur streaked with grey.

A nightcat.

He blinks, throwing himself upright, but it vanishes. Slipping out of existence like a mirage. ‘Your Grace?’ Morsen asks from where he had been uselessly keeping watch. Elician does not reply. He stares out into the shadows, waiting for an illusion to become real.

In the morning, there are no footprints in the earth. There is no sign that the creature had been there at all.

It takes them nearly a week to reach Crowen.

The city’s walls are high and well defended. Elician can see the guards walking the tops of them, armed and prepared for an assault. Considering their current political circumstances, he is not entirely surprised. Even the gates to the city are tightly closed, barring any entrance. He stops his horse well before they reach the gates, though. He stops and watches the guards. His people. The first strangers who will know that he is there as king. He thinks again, I’m not ready. But diverts his thoughts once more.

‘There’s a tunnel,’ Morsen suggests the longer Elician stares up at the wall. ‘A hidden one.’

Elician glances back at him dully. ‘I know where it is,’ he replies. ‘You know of it too?’

‘Yes,’ Morsen replies. ‘It was how I could make certain reports unseen.’ Slowly, Elician nods. He steers his horse away from the city. The others follow. No one asks him why he wants to take an alternate route. No one asks why he wants to effectively sneak into the city when he could walk through the gates the moment he declares his presence. They just follow. His word is law now. His decisions are meant to be listened to as if they came down from the gods themselves.

He thinks about the tunnel. It is not tall enough or wide enough for the horses. Of them, he would rather leave Morsen behind to mind the animals, but one man might not be enough to handle them all. Someone else will need to stay behind with him. The choice is not an easy one. ‘Marina, you and Morsen will take the horses back to the city gate. We’ll continue towards the tunnel. If we find no trouble, I’ll send a message to the gate and have them open it for you.’

‘Yes, Your Grace.’

Elician dismounts at her words and Zinnitzia and Lio follow his lead.

Marina is the better fighter should the party run into trouble inside Crowen. But he barely knows Morsen beyond the knowledge that he is a spy who trained with Ranio Ragden. Trust is not something he is keen to give at the moment, but he trusts her to take care of him in case Morsen does anything un trustworthy while they are gone. Elician doubts that will be the case, but his uneasiness doesn’t subside.

It is a long walk for him, Lio and Zinnitzia. Perhaps not compared to their ride to Crowen, but long enough that the sun has dipped behind the horizon by the time Elician spots the landmark that identifies the tunnel. The scraggly tree is dead and decrepit and its trunk has been nearly cleaved in two by a storm – or a particularly vicious sword strike. Its roots are sound though. And after scraping away a few palmfuls of dirt, Elician reveals a buried trapdoor.

It takes a bit more time to shift the earth so the trapdoor can be loosened and raised. Once he has done so, it takes even longer to gather enough dry branches and earth to balance atop the entrance so their route is obscured. He’ll have to send someone back to better secure it another day. Darkness wraps around them as Elician cautiously drops down into the hole, adjusting his crown to keep it firmly in place. The tunnel is only slightly taller than he is, and he helps the others scramble down – then trails his fingers along the rough walls, feeling for the path forward. ‘This way,’ he murmurs softly. He reaches out behind him until he finds Lio’s arm. ‘Take Zinnitzia’s hand,’ he instructs, and hears them shuffle, then their affirmation that they’re now linked too. Elician leads onwards.

They walk slowly. Each step is a shuffle-slide into the deep. There are no blue stones down here. More’s the pity. With no air vents, lighting a torch would only lead to them choking in the dark, and who knows if there are pockets of gas or animals who might be attracted to the light.

No one speaks.

Elician tracks their progress primarily through a vague mental map he had created while they manoeuvred from the entrance. He knew of the tunnel from lessons on safety and security trained into him as a child, but using it is an altogether different sensation. His sense of direction, at least, continues to insist that they are heading the right way. And when they cross under the city walls, something changes. He stops for just long enough to tilt his head up. He can just make out the sound of movement up above. Carriages and city dwellers going about their business.

Keeping one hand to the wall, Elician continues on. By the time his fingers come to rest against a ladder, his whole body is aching with tension. His hands are scraped and his knuckles bleed from their journey though the dark. He does not care. ‘We need to climb,’ he tells them.

Even without a torch, the air quality in the tunnel is poor. He can feel his own chest struggling to fill and so knows that Lio is in a worse position. But Zinnitzia is like him. She will heal. Lio will not. Not unless he is healed by them. He is always healed by them, and Elician feels guilty all over again at the trouble he brings to his friend.

He squeezes the rungs of the ladder. Thinks of something else. Starts to climb.

One hand after the other, he ascends. It is not a tall ladder, just meant to take them from the deeper underground to a slightly more acceptable underground: a basement cellar. His fingers find the outline of a hatch over their heads. Pushing up, he grits his teeth as he heaves at the stiff wooden trapdoor. It gives suddenly and the door crashes onto the stone above. Elician flinches at the horrible clanging. He continues upwards. Once in the cellar, he helps Lio and Zinnitzia climb the rest of the way out. It’s still pitch black but the air is less oppressive.

‘Now what?’ Lio asks when the hatch is closed behind them once more. His voice is hushed in an effort to keep their party hidden.

‘If anyone was going to hear us,’ Elician tells him at a far more regular volume, ‘they’d have heard us when we opened the hatch. Zinnitzia?’

‘Here.’

‘Clasp hands with Lio again and keep close; I’ll get us to the door.’ There is some fumbling. Zinnitzia loses her footing and nearly falls, but they stumble onwards through a cellar that smells of mould and hay. Elician finds the stairs and they cautiously make their way upwards. He finds the cellar door by smacking his shoulder against it, sending his teeth rattling in the process. Cursing to himself, he fumbles at the latch and the door swings open into another dark room.

A window lets in some moonlight and his eyes start to adjust. Yet when Elician steps through, a bell rings. It is the only warning he has before a sword slices through the air towards his face. He throws one hand up instinctively, unable to do more while unarmed. It is too late, and too useless by far. But the blade stops mid-strike, sharp silver hesitating a breath away from his throat.

Elician turns his head to squint through the gloom. But just as he thinks he might be able to make out his assailant, a light flares and fire erupts on his sleeve. He yelps and jerks backwards, slapping at the flame that – vanishes quick as it came.

‘Fen—’ someone starts to say. And before Elician can react to his sister’s name, the faint glow of several lanterns fills the room.

Blinking up from his arm, the fabric still smouldering, he finally sees his assailant. A man, lanky and short, but with a straight back and features cut from alabaster stone. Sea-green eyes stare at him from an unblemished face that Elician recognizes all too well. ‘The Queen is dead, Stello Alest,’ Elician murmurs. He pulls off his crown and lets its weight carry it to the ground. It clatters with a noise that rings in Elician’s ears. Even so, he places his hand on his heart. He bows. ‘Long live the King.’

‘Elician?’ someone says just beyond Alest’s shoulder. He wearily lifts his gaze.

The girl standing before him cannot be his sister. She wears a deep purple dress embroidered with gold. Her hair is tied in a long braid that hangs over one shoulder. She is taller than Alest still, but she has somehow lost the gangly limbs of youth. ‘Elician!’ She pushes past Alest. Throws her strong arms around Elician’s neck. He catches her, and his head spins. He feels his vision fade a little as he staggers under the weight of her. His sister sobs into his shoulder. She speaks to him, but he cannot hear her words. His knees buckle and Lio’s arm comes around his back and holds him up. Voices go back and forth over his head. He can barely keep track of any of it.

Zinnitzia retrieves the crown, speaks to Alest about something Elician barely understands. She calls him Cat still. Why call him Cat? Everyone knows who he is now. Everyone must know. Does Fen not know? After all this time? The voices begin clamouring louder and louder. More people are approaching. Lio makes a noise, sharp and almost pained. It forces Elician to attention and he turns, ready for whatever threat that—

Adalei.

She is dressed for bed in a plain nightgown and shawl. Sensible as always. It is late. Everyone should be dressed for bed, but only Adalei seems to have taken that notion to heart. Her headscarf is simple and black – hastily put into place, no doubt, when she heard the commotion. It sits somewhat crooked along her brow. Just out of perfect alignment. That is not like her at all. She does not seem to notice.

Her eyes are wholly focused on Lio. And Lio is wholly focused on her. His arm trembles at Elician’s back. ‘Go,’ Elician murmurs. Lio stumbles forward awkwardly, as if in a dream – his hand touching his chest in his habitual gesture. And even with his back to Elician, Elician knows full well what Lio must have remembered. Adalei’s headscarf had not been with him when he’d been pulled from his grave. Three years of fighting a war, and nearly two years in captivity, he’d still kept that slip of fabric safe and treasured. Yet, after all that, it had been mislaid when his naked body had been thrown into a pauper’s grave. ‘I’m sorry,’ Lio chokes out. ‘I lost it . . . it’s not here.’ Tears press against Elician’s eyes. Adalei has still not said anything. She is silent, staring at Lio as he rubs his chest. ‘Your scarf . . . I promised I’d give it back to you but I—’

Adalei’s lips part. Her hands rise. She unravels the scarf on her head, pulling it free. Her scalp, hairless and scarred from countless treatments and surgeries in her youth, is bared. Fen gasps quietly at Elician’s side. He wonders if she has ever seen Adalei like this. She would have been too young to visit her in the House of the Unwanting, and perhaps she has never known what she looks like without it. Adalei has never wanted anyone to know.

Adalei steps towards Lio. She presses her black scarf to his heart, where the previous one had once rested. A treasured promise of things to come. ‘There is no need to return it,’ she whispers to him. ‘I have you.’ Then she arches up on her toes and kisses Lio featherlight on his lips. Fen gasps again. She says something to Alest; Elician is not sure what.

Lio folds his arms around Adalei’s body. He ducks his face to her throat even as she kisses his cheek. He holds her, shoulders shaking, and she holds him in turn. She breathes him in, one hand losing itself in the patchy remnants of his hair.

Spots dance across Elician’s vision as his last bit of energy threatens to leave him. For a week, reaching the Crowen safehouse had been the only thought keeping him moving forward. And finally, it is done. They are here. And almost home.

Adalei looks at him over Lio’s shoulder. ‘I promised I’d bring him back to you,’ he murmurs.

‘Thank you, cousin,’ Adalei says, voice thick with tears.

Elician nods to her. His head spins. The spots grow worse, blinding. His limbs move awkwardly. He says something slurred and nonsensical. A warning, maybe. Fen yelps, but this time he cannot summon the strength he needs to respond. Someone leans forward to help support him. Alest, maybe. They are saying something, but the sound is fragmented as if underwater. He feels his legs collapse underneath him.

This time, he lets himself fall.