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Chapter Twenty

Daeros—Tenebris

We walk side by side, me and Saga and Vil, with Leifur and Pala at our heels. My heart beats triple time to our quick footsteps, and I pull my fur-lined cloak tight around my shoulders.

“Together,” says Vil quietly, looking straight ahead. “We’re in this together, right?”

“Together,” says Saga. “For the glory of Skaanda.”

I take a breath of icy air. “Together.”

A male attendant and Nicanor, Kallias’s steward, are waiting for us as we leave the guest wing. Nicanor inclines his head to me and Vil, not even glancing at Saga, who ducks her head in sudden terror. “You’re to surrender all weapons, Your Highnesses,” he says. “And then follow me.”

Vil grunts but unbuckles his sword belt and pulls three knives from his boots and hands them to the attendant.

I know he has at least one more knife strapped against his chest. Saga relinquishes her dagger with shaking hands, and Leifur and Pala relieve themselves of spear, sword, and more knives than seem possible for any two people to carry at once.

I hand over my dagger, praying that Nicanor won’t suspect my headdress. But he nods in satisfaction.

“This way,” he says. “The king is waiting.”

He grabs a torch from the wall, leading us down several corridors to a heavily barred door. Eirenaios, Kallias’s general, unlocks it for us, but not before demanding Vil’s hidden knife and relieving Pala and Leifur of several more. I’m allowed to keep my headdress.

Nicanor and Eirenaios lead us through the door and down a winding stone stairway.

We follow in single file, our footsteps echoing on the cold stone, the torch casting eerie shadows on the rough-hewn walls.

My heart beats too hard and fear claws up my throat and it’s time, it’s time. This will all be over soon.

We go down and down, and the cold grows deeper. Saga’s teeth begin to chatter. Vil shrugs out of his cloak and gives it to her.

We reach a landing of chiseled stone, illuminated with globes of pulsing Iljaria magic.

Kallias stands here with his engineer, Basileious, as well as Ballast, Aelia, the Prism Master, and a half dozen Daerosian guards in steel helms.

I sense Vil stiffen, because we didn’t count on quite this many soldiers. His eyes flick to mine and I nod. We can still go forward with our plan.

“Welcome,” says Kallias, flashing his teeth at me and not even glancing at Saga or Vil. “Now. Before we go any further, I must ask the Prism Master to surrender his magic, for a little while, so we are all on even ground when the weapon is uncovered.”

Brandr throws his head back and laughs, the stone around us glowing suddenly red. Heat sears through my furs, and I fight to breathe.

Kallias looks at Brandr mildly. “I do not trust you, High Master. There is nothing to keep you from obliterating us all, seizing the weapon, and melting the earth like so much candle wax. I must insist on this, or I will take you no further.” He snaps his fingers, and Basileious lifts an iron collar into view.

“Star metal,” says Kallias. “It will dampen your power while you are wearing it, but have no lasting effects.”

Brandr’s gaze darts around the chamber, landing, for a moment, on mine, before returning to the king. “You forget, Your Majesty, that I do not trust you .”

Kallias nods and takes the collar from Basileious. Without any warning, he snaps it around Ballast’s neck. Ballast curses and jerks away from his father, but it’s too late. The collar is secure.

“Come here, boy,” says Kallias, and to my horror Ballast obeys. His eye patch and ribbon are violet, turned to liquid darkness in the pulsing blue light.

The king draws a tiny jar of honey from his robe and, after opening it, smears a little on Ballast’s cheek. He takes out another jar, and my gut wrenches at the sight of the buzzing wasp inside. Kallias lets the insect out, and it goes at once to the honey.

“Can you keep it from stinging you?” says Kallias. “I wonder.”

Ballast closes his eyes, his lips moving quickly. But no magic sparks off him.

Kallias waves his hand to agitate the wasp, and Ballast winces as it stings him. His father laughs and flicks the insect to the floor, grinding it under his heel.

“And why ,” says Brandr coolly, “would I submit myself to that?”

Kallias faces him. “Because you are the Prism Master. Surely a mere bit of iron can’t make you as powerless as our little half blood here.”

Ballast’s jaw is tight, and a welt is already rising on his cheek where the wasp stung him, and it’s all I can do to keep from slamming Kallias to the ground and ripping out his wretched throat.

“Fine,” says Brandr. “I will play your game, little king. When I tire of it, I will kill you.”

“How very un-Iljaria of you,” Kallias drawls.

Basileious takes out a second collar and steps up to Brandr, who ducks his head and allows the engineer to lock it around his neck with violently trembling hands.

I watch the magic flicker out from Brandr’s skin. He seems suddenly frail, as if the barest wind could rattle him apart. But when he speaks, his voice is steady. “Lead on then, little king.”

Kallias smiles. He takes the torch from Nicanor and ducks into the tunnel opposite the landing.

We all follow. I find myself walking between Ballast and Saga, and I’m thrown back to those long weeks we journeyed together through the Iljaria labyrinth.

Ahead of me, Ballast breathes ragged and quick, obviously in pain, and it wrecks me.

The tunnel narrows until it’s barely wider than my ceiling vents, and I have to duck my head.

The sudden taste of magic hits me like a gale force wind, so much stronger than on any of my solo visits.

I gasp and stumble, and Ballast turns to grab my arm, steadies me.

“All right?” he asks, his eye meeting mine. I read regret there. Grief.

“I’m all right,” I whisper. It’s a lie.

We keep going.

The tunnel presses in around us, glinting blue and green and silver. It tastes cold and strange and powerful on my tongue, and I struggle to keep up with everyone else.

Finally, the tunnel opens again, and we step into a natural cavern in the rock.

There’s hardly time to catch my breath before Kallias is beside me, folding his hand around mine. His eyes glitter as he smiles at me. “There is still time, Princess Astridur, to give me the answer I have been waiting for.”

“You are wrong, Your Majesty.” I can hardly speak around my tight throat. “We are out of time.”

He just grins and pulls me with him into the next tunnel.

We walk straight for a while, past other tunnels that branch out from the main passage. There are marks left by drilling and explosives, the rock scarred, cracked, broken. But the tunnel doesn’t collapse above our heads.

From there we wind down again, deeper and deeper. Weird veins of light flicker through the rock, red and green and yellow. The taste of magic grows so strong I can hardly bear it.

Then, all at once, Kallias pulls me to a stop.

We’ve come into the chamber that is so familiar to me—it takes a great effort of willpower not to glance over at my hiding place in the rock crevice. Kallias smiles and lifts our joined hands to touch the vein in the wall.

I screech and leap back—the vein is scorching hot, lines of blue and silver splintering outward from where our hands touched it.

I am hyperaware of the beat of my own heart, the magic pressing in and in, like it wants to eat me alive.

Basileious, the engineer, steps up to Kallias and hands him a pickaxe that shimmers the same blue and silver as the wall.

It must be made of pure Iljaria magic, and I wonder why his workers never used it before, or if it is something he forced Finnur to make for him only recently.

That seems the most likely, and I’m thankful it didn’t occur to Kallias earlier.

Kallias lets go of me to grip the pickaxe with both of his hands.

He turns to address everyone in the chamber, the mingled people of four nations.

“Today you witness history,” he cries, his voice bouncing about the walls of the cavern.

“Today I uncover the power at the heart of the mountain and claim it for Daeros. Today you will crown a man among gods.”

“That was not our agreement,” says Aelia hotly. “We were to all decide together what is to be done with the weapon.”

Kallias just laughs and snaps his fingers, and the Daerosian guards draw their swords, pressing them against everyone’s throat but mine, Ballast’s, and Brandr’s. They are bound in iron, and I am, evidently, not considered a threat.

I take a quiet step back, my fingers quickly releasing the knife from my headdress. I hold it tight in my palm and fight to remain as solid and certain as the blade.

Kallias raises the pickaxe. “For Daeros!” he cries. “For its rule immortal and its power unending!”

He swings the axe and strikes the wall, the shock wave resounding through the chamber. The rock cracks but does not break.

“For Daeros!” he shouts.

He swings the axe again and again, and with every blow, the crack widens.

“ For Daeros !”

The rock shatters, magic spilling into the air like blood. Pebbles skitter across the floor, and beyond the opening in the wall, I glimpse what appears to be a huge cube of ice, or stone, bound with chains that trail off into darkness. Kallias sets down the axe, radiating triumph.

But this has gone on too long. I glance at Vil, who gives me a sharp nod.

I slip up next to the king. “I am ready to give you my answer,” I say, forcing sweetness into my tone.

Kallias grins like a cat and slides his arm around my waist. “At last you see sense.” He bends his head to kiss my neck like he owns me.

That’s when my blade finds his throat, pressing hard enough to draw blood.

He curses and tries to back away from me, his blue eyes round with shock. But I pin him up against the wall. Magic pulses behind his shoulders, and the whole cavern echoes eerily, a strange golden music whispering through the air. I blink and see yellow, yellow.

No one else seems to hear or see it. I fight to stay present, my knife biting into Kallias’s throat, blood sliding red down his neck. It is strange, to be the one wielding power over him. I feel strong. Free. But my hand trembles.

“Let the Skaandans and Princess Aelia go,” I order the Daerosian soldiers. “Or your king dies.”

The soldiers withdraw their swords and step back.

Saga and Vil come forward, Vil taking a sword from one of the guards, Saga throwing back her hood to reveal herself. Her ears are heavy with rubies, her hair pulled tight against her scalp and bound in gold.

She stares Kallias down. “I am Saga Stjornu, daughter of Valdis and heir to Skaanda.” Her voice rings sharp and clear. “By my own name, by the nature of your crimes, and by the power of Skaanda, I claim this mountain—and your life.”

My heart is stuttering in my chest, my palms sweating despite the frigid air. The magic around me teems and burns, burns, down into my soul.

Vil raises his eyebrows at me, ready for me to turn Kallias over to him—we are to hold the king hostage until the Skaandan army arrives, with Brandr conveniently bound in iron.

I grab Kallias by the arm and haul him away from the wall, my knife still digging into his neck.

But I don’t take the king to Vil.

I step past Vil, bring Kallias to the Prism Master. In one swift moment, I unlock the collar from Brandr’s neck and release Kallias into his arms.

The Prism Master smiles at me.

“What are you doing?”

Saga’s question echoes in the air as the Daerosian guards pull back their hoods, their magically assumed forms melting away to reveal their true selves: Iljaria, white hair bright against their dark or light skin.

“Correction,” says Brandr, putting his own knife to Kallias’s throat. “The Iljaria reclaim the mountain that is rightfully theirs. Skaanda will stand down.”

“Skaanda will not !” Vil cries. He lunges toward Brandr, sword outstretched, but the cool steel of my blade, pricking sharp beneath his jaw, draws him up short.

One of the Iljaria catches Saga as she bellows an outraged curse and charges at us. Another pair of Iljaria subdue Pala and Leifur. Kallias’s general, engineer, and steward are seized in short order, leaving only Ballast and Aelia standing free.

“Brynja,” says Vil slowly, careful around the point of my knife, “what are you doing?”

My eyes flick once toward Brandr. “My brother already told you. The Iljaria are reclaiming our mountain.”