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AERI

CITY OF BERM, GAYA

I slept like the dead next to Sora. I wake up gradually as a hand pulls at my ankle. I groan at yet another dream about Prince Omin. Another where he’s touching me before I kill him. It’s been seven years—when do the nightmares end?

But there’s the briny scent of the ocean and multiple men breathing. It’s not Omin—no, he’s dead and I’m awake.

My reality is somehow worse than a nightmare.

I open my eyes with a start as Yusanian soldiers pull me from my bed. My heart pounds, my mind frantic. How did they find me here? They already have my arms, and they’re yanking me out of the sheets. Mikail said to rest, that we’d be safe here. But the king’s guard have already found us.

Wait… Sora. Where is Sora? She was just asleep in the bed next to mine.

Desperate, I turn my head every which way, but all I see are king’s guard in black leathers. They’re not steel-plated palace guards, but there are a bunch of them in here.

I flail and manage to slip out of the soldiers’ hands. My freedom lasts for just a second before they grab my wrists again and pull my arms behind my back.

“Royo!” I yell, terror clawing at my throat. “Royo!”

A sweaty palm clamps over my mouth. His fingers smell like onions. I’m going to be sick.

I twitch and try to pull away as my gaze darts around for help, for anything I can use or any means of escape. There are five soldiers in this second-story room, and there’s nowhere for me to go. Sora is gone. Either they took her already or she fled without me.

No. She must’ve been taken. She wouldn’t have left me behind.

Two of the soldiers pick me up and start carrying me. I twist, kicking out, and a third takes my legs.

It’s hopeless.

My palms sweat, and my heart flutters against my ribs.

Wherever they’re taking me, it’s somewhere away from my friends, away from Royo.

No. I need a weapon, but my dagger is still buried under my pillow.

I’m unarmed and dressed in a slip. My stomach sinks, and then my ring and amulet vibrate on my skin, begging to be used.

Yes, I’m not powerless, but I can’t get to them with my arms held.

Wait… I don’t have to. The two relics work with nothing more than intention now that their power is multiplied.

Weirdly, the soldiers don’t try to remove the ring or pry the Sands of Time from my chest. The relics are fused to me, but they must not know I have them.

They’re going to find out.

I’m about to turn the soldiers into gold when Mikail bursts through the door. He has the Water Scepter in one hand and a flaming sword in the other. He looks every bit a warrior king.

Everyone freezes. Except for Mikail.

He springs into deadly action, swinging his fiery blade. With one smooth motion, he slices into the three soldiers who have me. They drop me and grab their midsections. I land hard on the woven mat and roll out of the way of guts and blood splatter.

The soldier closest to the door takes off running as Mikail slits the throats of the groaning men. There’s a brief scream in the hallway, and then Fallador appears with his sword dripping blood.

The last soldier backs away from Mikail with his hands up. He says something as I get to my feet, but I can’t understand him. He must be speaking Gayan.

Mikail tilts his head, staring at the man’s uniform. Anger contorts his face, his teal eyes ablaze. He swings his blade and slashes the soldier’s throat. A fountain of blood sprays out, splashing Mikail’s shirtsleeve.

The man clutches his own neck and then falls to the floor, gurgling.

I look down. I’m standing in my white slip, with four soldiers bleeding out on the ground and Mikail and Fallador staring at me.

That’s the scene Royo and Sora come running into.

Sweat shines on both of their faces. Royo has a dagger out and brass knuckles on; Sora has a throwing knife ready, but they stop as soon as they take in the room.

“Well, good morning,” I say. I smile at Royo, but then my legs give out.

I fall, slamming into the side of one of the beds.

I manage to brace myself, clawing onto the mattress.

For a second, fear swallows my next breath.

I can’t feel my legs at all. Royo and Sora rush to help me, but I wave them off.

I hang on to the sheets and almost sob when the feeling in my legs returns.

I get back on my knees and stay there, breathing hard.

“I just stood very fast,” I say. “That’s all.”

It’s a bit of an understatement.

Taking a deep breath, I get back to my feet. My knees, my legs are solid. All good, no lasting toll from the relics.

“What was this?” Royo’s amber eyes dart around as his broad chest rises and falls. Gods, he looks good in that shirt.

“What happened?” Sora asks.

“How did they know we were here?” I wonder as the three of us talk at nearly the same time.

“The king’s guard came looking for us first and then you,” Mikail says. As usual, he’s unaffected by slaughter. He casually uses a guard’s shirt to wipe blood from his sword before sheathing it.

“But how did they know our exact rooms?” Fallador asks as he drags the other soldier’s body into the room from the hallway. He tosses him onto the heap. The fake prince has been a good addition to our ring of liars. “We would’ve heard them kicking in other doors—they didn’t.”

Everyone stops and stares. It’s not a coincidence—that’s for sure.

“Because Gambria betrayed us,” Royo says.

We all turn our attention to him. At first, I think he must be wrong, but I look around.

Gambria is the only one not here. I doubt she slept through all of this, so maybe he’s right.

But Sora said Gambria saved them by the ice caves.

And she helped us get to the palace in Quu. Why do that and give us up now?

“That’s not possible,” Fallador says. He wrinkles his nose at his bloody hands.

Sora sighs. “We just saw her talking to the king’s guard.”

Fallador shakes his head. “She would never betray us—not to Yusan.”

As soon as the thought enters my head, it makes sense. Gambria did save them in Khitan, but that was before the events of Quu Harbor.

“I mean, she might not betray you normally, but she loved Quilimar, didn’t she?” I ask.

The room goes quiet.

“Love leads to betrayal,” I add.

I ignore the tick in Royo’s jaw muscle at my words.

“Did you leave any of them alive to talk, Mikail?” Sora asks. She rests her throwing knife on the table and closes the door, all business.

He shakes his head. I guess that’s the downside of killing so quickly—no witnesses, no sources.

“I suppose we’ll have to ask her when she gets back,” Sora adds.

Fallador peers out the window. “We need to find her and leave as soon as we can. The garrison commander will send reinforcements when the soldiers don’t return. Sneaking out now will save us a lot of headaches.”

“But what if more soldiers are lying in wait and it’s an ambush?” Sora asks. “What do we do?”

I…hadn’t even considered that. My mind is slow. It feels like I’m dragging my head through mud this morning. I’m not sure if it’s the relics or just being so shocked and tired.

Mikail looks around with sharp eyes. “I don’t think it’s an ambush. There would be more soldiers pouring in, and the perimeter would be surrounded. I’m certain there’s one or two guards downstairs and one or two outside, but they’re just waiting for us to be brought out.”

“Why, though?” I ask. “Why try to take us in with so few men?”

“Because they don’t know we have the relics,” Mikail says.

“I assume someone reported us as suspicious but not as being fugitives. Quu happened so recently that even if Joon survived, he couldn’t have alerted the full king’s guard to arrest us.

” He pauses and shakes his head. “No, someone saw six strangers and notified the garrison.”

I take in the five of us. We look like outsiders. We should’ve stopped at a dress house yesterday, but everyone always groans when I suggest a new wardrobe. As if clothes don’t shout the world about you to anyone who’ll listen.

A gentle knock on the door startles me. I grab the throwing knife Sora set down and reach for the dagger under my pillow. Mikail’s sword burns to life. Fallador grips his blade, and Royo turns toward the door.

“Who is it?” Sora asks in her wind-chiming voice. She, of course, continues to look rested and radiant.

“Gambria,” a woman’s voice answers. It sounds like her.

Royo and Sora meet each other’s gazes, and I feel like I’m missing something, but Fallador nods and moves to open the door.

Royo adjusts his brass knuckles, his biceps flexing.

Gods, I missed him. He’s ignored me since I woke up on the skiff and he discovered I’d lied about having the Sands of Time, but he did just try to save me, running in from wherever he was.

I saw it—he still cares. Hope bubbles in my chest, but then it bursts because caring isn’t forgiveness.

Even if he loves me, he won’t ever be able to move past me lying a second time.

Fallador tiptoes around bodies and organs and opens the door slightly, but Gambria bursts in, holding a knife to the throat of a Gayan man.

She throws him on the ground, and he lands on a dead body.

The man flails and sputters, staring at the soldiers’ open wounds.

His feet skid along the bloody mat, and his jaw drops, but he’s too shocked to scream.

What is happening? Who is this?

Gambria says something, but it’s in Gayan and I can’t understand her. Whatever it is makes the man tremble. I think she’s saying tell him , but even though I pick up foreign words quickly, I only know a few in Gayan because it’s considered a dead language.

Gambria’s totally unfazed by the gore and bodies in the room as she stares hard at the man. I finally recognize his mustache—he’s the innkeeper.

She says something else, pointing to the dead soldiers in the room.

“I… I…reported you,” he says in Yusanian.

“I think that’s fairly obvious,” Fallador says. “Why?”

“Because you’re out of place and came without luggage. Innkeepers, all citizens, must report strangers in order to protect Gaya.”

Mikail’s eyebrows rise slightly. “I understand protecting Gaya, but why would you say anything to the Yusanian king’s guard?”

He sheathes his sword, but the tension in his shoulders says he could still kill a man in seconds.

“Because we are Yusanian.” The innkeeper’s eyebrows knit.

Gambria gestures with her arms in a move that translates to I told you so .

Now I’m sure I missed something.

Mikail sighs. Then he reaches out, grabs the innkeeper’s head, and, with a brutal twist, snaps his neck.

Ugh. We’re in so much more danger than we thought. And we haven’t even gotten breakfast yet.