Fall of Thrones and Thorns Page 18

  “I hate to disturb you, Highness. But the people are wondering where they’re expected to worship. To offer sacrifice, receive council.”

  Ah. Her mind clears, relaxing fractionally. At least this is an easily actionable task. Her people need her. There is so little she can do for them now, in their hour of need. But this, she can give them.

  She straightens with purpose. “I will take the space Kyrene designated for a shortened number of hours as I must remain in conference with the governors and their representatives. Worshippers may attend me at the temple in the foothills.”

  The Wielder nods and turns to deliver this news, but his steps pause in the doorway, hesitating. “But…Your Highness, it was my understanding that the temple is strictly for Kyrene’s descendants—and only under the light of the moon.”

  He shrinks under the bland stare she turns his way. “I am certain that the Makers and my ancestor will understand, given the circumstances,” she says coolly.

  “As you say, Your Highness.” He gives a jerk of the head and leaves her.

  Her attention turns back to the trees. To the mountains. To the shoreline and the ocean beyond it.

  Things are changing in Nereidium. With each tremor of the ground beneath their feet, they are forced to adapt their traditions. Religion and belief are brought to their knees with increasing frequency, bowing and scraping to the demands of more pressing matters.

  Lady Helen is practical enough. She knows that devoting her attention to the needs of her country over the practices of worship is the only sane course left to her. She even believes that her country could do with a bit of updating—but that doesn’t mean she wants to lose everything they once stood for. Everything the Nereid civilization has been built upon.

  She gazes out to the horizon, in the direction of Egria—and the returned Nereid queen, fighting somewhere that the eye cannot see.

  The Nereid people are precious to Lady Helen.

  She only hopes her new niece can save them.

  Thirty

  Bree

  The guardswoman is tall; it enables her to keep her stride flush with Liam’s as we cut quickly through the capital’s streets and onto palace grounds. The glare on my face as the guardswoman escorts us isn’t forced. But what is forced is the evenness of my breath, the steadiness of my pulse.

  From here, the crash of the waves reaches my ears and my gift fairly twitches with it, heart pounding in time with the surf. Grass crunches beneath our feet as we walk through the hunting grounds I’d once spoken with Caden on, past the garden Aleta had been allowed to tend during her years living here. Somewhere to our right are the dungeons and the thorned red rose garden, where Da had been kept a prisoner. Where I’d spent a night wondering what would become of me.

  And where, if Caden and Tregle are capable of thought, they surely wonder the same of themselves.

  When our heels click upon stone and we enter the palace, I can no longer stop my pulse from quickening or my breath from shortening.

  I remember the twists and turns of these halls well.

  From the corner of my eye, I watch Aleta close her eyes, trying to block the memories out. I can’t say I’m not tempted to do the same, but I need to remember our route. I don’t have the advantage Aleta has of growing up here. She knows each palace hallway, each staircase, each passage intimately. I hadn’t ever quite made sense out of them, often relying on escorts to get from Point A to Point B or getting lost when left to my own devices.

  The guardswoman stops outside the throne room. She, apparently, finds no reason that we shouldn’t be presented to Langdon immediately. She scowls at us, pointing a threatening finger up at Liam’s chin. “Wait. Here,” she says and slips into the throne room.

  I find myself once again staring up at the daunting violet doors, where I’d once stood with Da. Where I’d stood again, sopping wet and shivering after my Thrower reveal. Aleta looks at me, and I know with that single glance that we’re both haunted by the events that transpired here.

  I vow that there will be a very different outcome this time. If all goes well, after tonight, we’ll wrest control from the man who inflicted those wounds upon us.

  The guardswoman returns, shoving open the doors and seizing the ropes to tug us forward. I stumble, jerking forward onto the carpet. There isn’t an announcement when we walk inside the room this time. No herald crying out our titles for all to hear, no giggling courtiers gossiping behind their jewels.

  When we’re inside, Langdon’s waiting for us on his throne, a glass of wine on the arm beside him. He’s had Aleta and Caden’s thrones removed. But someone else stands next to him.

  My heart’s quick pace is no longer a concern. In fact, I think it stops.

  Jospuhr and Langdon’s grins are reflections of each other.

  I want to scream. And I’m not the only one. Lilia makes a muffled noise behind her gag, and Liam inches closer to us. His back is flush with Meddie’s chest as he gropes for the sword at his waist, a suspicious eye on Jospuhr. The Jospuhr troops begin to murmur amongst themselves, hands drifting for their own weapons.

  Looks like they’re not sure which way this will go either.

  “Your Majesty,” Liam says cautiously. He nods to Jospuhr, eyes wary. “Cousin.”

  Jospuhr returns the greeting calmly. Even good-naturedly. “Cousin.”

  Langdon’s mouth twitches beneath his beard. He spreads his arms wide, welcoming us. “Princess Aleta. Lady Breena. It truly has been too long. My son will be so happy to see you once again.” He crosses his legs on the throne. “He has so longed for company. Solitude is a cruel mistress.”

  I growl angrily behind my gag.

  “Have you learned in the time that you’ve been away?” Langdon asks. He tilts his head. “Embraced your studies? Tutor Larsden was ever so sorry to lose you as a pupil.”

  Larsden doesn’t miss anything. Clift and Caden had seen what fate had befallen him, and dead people miss nothing.

  “I’ve learned,” Langdon continues. “I’ve learned that you’re not so special after all. Who needs one simple and paltry Water Thrower?”

  He certainly had. I blink hard at him, not moving in any other way. If Langdon doesn’t believe he needs a Water Thrower anymore, there is a reason.

  I hate that I know him this well.

  And he proves me correct, lifting his palm. The wine in his glass levitates, hovering above the glass’s rim, and I nearly swallow the gag with my quick intake of breath.

  He twists his fingers and the wine ignites. “Who needs a simple, paltry Water Thrower,” he repeats, lips curving, “who fights me at every turn? Why not be all that I need and more myself?”

  I shudder. Makers, he’s really done it. He’s managed to make an Elemental out of someone who’d had no affinity toward an element before.

  I just never thought he’d try the experiments on himself.

  We’d had a signal established; a sign for when we were meant to act. And maybe someone gives it, but I don’t see that. My field of vision has narrowed to Jospuhr at Langdon’s side as the smoke curls through the air over Langdon’s empty fingers. My mind clinches on the certainty that Jospuhr’s betrayed us as guards leak from the shadows along the wall. They slink toward us like predators, drawing their weapons with a hiss.

  That’s all the signal I need.

  Just like Izador showed me, I drop the gag, freeing my wrists from the bindings in tandem with the others. My insults tangle with Aleta’s in the air, as I cry out, “Langdon, you bastard!”

  Aleta beats me to reaching for an element. In fact, she beats all of us. Before I’ve blinked, her flames flash in the space before us. They reach toward Langdon like hands intent on throttling. A guard ducks behind his shield, huddling protectively in front of Langdon’s form, but Langdon has no need of his assistance. The fire is extinguished with a lazy wave of his hands.

  A chill goes through me. How in Egria are we supposed to defeat him now?

  “Seize them
,” he says calmly.

  His soldiers move toward us, but Liam and Jospuhr’s men surround us in a protective circle.

  Jospuhr’s men are a surprise; their lord’s actions appear to have been as much a shock to them as us. I would have thought that they’d turn against us—and it does seem that some of them have—but they’re quickly put down by the larger majority.

  The Shakers who are still with us join hands, concentrating on splitting the ground beneath Langdon’s throne. The floor quakes and crackles, then stills between the spaces of our heartbeats.

  Langdon drums his fingers on the arm of his throne. Another jolt of ire sizzles through me. By the ether. He has the audacity to look bored by this.

  His Torchers spring into action, striking out immediately, but my Nereid Wielders close ranks. The Torchers hadn’t known to prepare for Water Throwers. The flames and water meet, vanishing into vapor with a hiss. Another belt of fire pelts toward us, but Aleta seizes that one. She snatches it in a vice-like grip, like she’s catching a rope, and whips it at some of Langdon’s other men, the ones who can’t control the flames. Their panic is instantaneous; their weapons clatter onto the ground as they leap back, frantically patting down the flames racing along their clothing.

  My attention is intent on Langdon. I seize the water from my flask, from the soaked rags we’d used for my bindings, and meet Langdon’s eyes.

  The bastard’s eyes crinkle as he flips me a lazy salute. He rises, taps Jospuhr in a command to follow him, and disappears through the doorway behind his throne.

  “Coward!” I cry. I grip the water in a fist around my fingers and march forward, intending to pursue him, but Liam grabs me around the waist, hauling me bodily backward.

  “No,” he says over the din of the melee, dragging me determinedly toward the violet doors. “Not that way. Let us pursue Langdon. You get the prince.”

  We reach Aleta, and he puts her hand in mine. “Tregle and Caden first,” Aleta says, firming her mouth. “If Langdon is on the move, I want to assure myself of their safety. He has nothing left to lose.”

  Her cool logic cuts smoothly through the fog of anger in my mind, making me see reason. Lilia sticks her head out into the hallway, checking our route, and motions us frantically through the throne room’s double doors.

  “Today, if you please, Highnesses!” she yells.

  “Lead the way,” I tell Aleta.

  She nods, pulling me toward the hall. We fight our way back out of the throne room with a cadre of Liam’s men, Lilia close at hand. One of Langdon’s soldiers gets perilously close, swinging a sword overhead with a mad cry. Lilia shoves our heads down protectively, blocking the strike with a clang of steel.

  I chance a glance back at the throne room and see Liam and Meddie, back to back, Meddie’s knives a tornado of steel as they move toward the throne room’s back exit. I swallow and force my attention onto what’s going on around me. I pray Liam and Meddie will be all right, left behind like that…especially once they’re on Langdon’s trail.

  But this should be their moment of triumph as well as ours. They’ve been waiting for it as much as we have. They have every right to try for a piece of Langdon’s carcass.

  I barely recognize the halls of the palace like this, alive with screams and clanging steel. One guard comes for me with murder in his eyes, and I shove water down into his lungs, choking him. His eyes pop wide; his hands go to his throat. He falls limp into unconsciousness, and I snatch the water back.

  I don’t wish to kill if I don’t have to.

  My frantic gaze flits over the battling bodies. I have no idea where to even begin searching among the tumult and chaos for an exit to the rose garden, the best lead we have for Caden and Tregle’s whereabouts.

  “Any thoughts?” I shout to Aleta.

  She opens her mouth, but the castle trembles, cutting her off. A loud boom reaches my ears, the ground rocking beneath our feet.

  “Hold them,” I whisper, a chill prickling over my forearms. I doubt she even hears me. I’m spellbound as I drift into an open suite, toward a balcony, Aleta and Lilia blocking strikes from reaching me.

  The Shaking could have been Jospuhr’s Shakers. It could even have been Everett. But somehow, I don’t think that their Shaking would be accompanied by a crash like thunder.

  My hands are almost calm when they settle on the balcony’s rail, as I look out toward the city.

  A large, gray cloud of smoke hangs over the capital. From here, I can see the flames racing over the city with unnatural speed.

  That was no Shaking. As if from a distance, I hear Aleta’s gasp, see Lilia’s hand cover her mouth. Me? I look toward the city with a strange sort of clarity.

  Someone has unleashed Ruin’s Reaping. Hundreds of people are going to die.

  I shake my head, freeing it from the icy horror it has been clutched by. Flinging myself back out into the hall, Lilia swears. She and Aleta follow me as I bowl people over, ducking and dodging strikes, until finally, I find a Wielder that I recognize. I seize her by the arm. “Find Izador,” I pant. “Take some of the Wielders into the city and contain the Reaping fire. Minimize the damage.”

  “Your Majesty, we’re to remain and protect you—”

  “I gave you an order!” I shout, turning to sprint back toward the action.

  The Wielder grits her teeth, but she retreats, seizing her partner and searching for an exit.

  I reach Aleta and Lilia just as Aleta’s attention catches on a staircase leading down.

  “This way,” she says and clips quickly down the stairs before I can follow.

  I swear, making to turn after her, but I’m stopped by a trio of guards running pell-mell toward me. With a slamming blast of water, I manage to take two of them out, and they’re still when they hit the wall and land. I fumble backward, landing on my ass, trying to reposition my hands for another strike, but the remaining guardsman is nearly upon me, looming tall and lifting his sword for a strike that will decimate me.

  Or it would have. Were it not for Lilia.

  She cuts him down with a merciless blow, severing hand from arm before he can touch me. His sword clatters to the ground, and his scream echoes in the hall as his flesh falls with it, landing with a wet splat.

  Lilia swings around to look at me, blonde hair straggling into her frantic eyes. “Go,” she says. “I’ll block the way.”

  “Thank you.” I toss the gratitude her way, already tripping over my feet as I struggle to stand. But I don’t need further prompting once I get there and take off at a dead sprint after Aleta.

  I’m hurtling down the staircase she descended, taking turns blindly away from the center of the conflict, hoping that I find Aleta before more guards find me. There. I think I see the flick of her black hair around one corner and follow at a breakneck pace. I’d never quite learned how to navigate this damned castle with all of its rubbish architecture and confusing additions, so thank the Makers that I haven’t lost sight of Aleta, my only compass in this madness.

  I burst outside. Aleta’s leading us past her garden, her course sure. The way is lit by moonlight as my arms pump at my side heading toward the prison. Its stone pulls into my line of vision, and I catch my breath at the sight of the leaves reaching over the prison’s roof.

  Looks like Clift’s intelligence has been proven true. There was never a tree among the prison’s roses before.

  Aleta heads straight for it, and I’m finally nearly even with her when we turn the corner. The rose bushes are like a maze, and neither of us have the patience to navigate it. Aleta cups her hands and blows with the fury of a dragon, incinerating the plants that stood in our way.

  “Makers bless,” I breathe.

  Our view of the tree is unobstructed now. But I hadn’t expected this.

  My stomach turns. My gaze fixates on a knothole in the wood, but it isn’t a knothole at all.

  It’s a face. It’s Everett’s face, standing out stark from the wood.

  The wood s
crapes as his lips turn up.

  Smoke from the burned roses hovers in the air as I fight back the spire of revulsion in me. By the ether, what sort of corrupted experiments of the Maker’s gifts has Langdon allowed Everett to be perverted to? What kind of twisted…

  My thoughts cut short as my gaze moves to the branches.

  Caden hangs from the leaves like he’s dead.

  The cry that tears itself from my throat is ragged, and Caden blinks his eyes open. Oh, thank the Makers. My heart rate slows to a manageable beat, but my relief is short-lived. Caden’s brow furrows as his gaze meets mine, like he’s working out a complex equation behind those eyes.

  It’s like he doesn’t recognize me.

  I can’t bear to continue looking at him like this. My eyes move to the other branches, where Olivia and Tregle dangle listlessly, like fruit from the leaves. And they aren’t alone. Others, clothed tellingly in the black robes that mark them as Elemental Adepts. I’d bet a fair amount of coin that they’re Shakers who got tossed into this experiment somehow. Used to augment Everett’s powers perhaps.

  Olivia is gray and disturbingly still. Tregle’s eyes stay closed and his skin is leeched, but I see with relief that his chest rises and falls unerringly. I take a steadying breath. I hadn’t realized how much I’d truly feared that they’d been taken from us forever.

  Aleta’s been silent this long while. Heat grows at my back, a palpable force, and I turn.

  It’s Aleta. But it’s Aleta as I've never seen her before.

  How I’d missed her steadily growing glow during my horrified observations, I can’t say. I’d have to be robbed of my senses to miss her now. My eyes widen at the sight of her.

  Aleta isn’t just wielding her element. Her rage has transformed her. She is her element. Her eyes glow red, embers set in a face of kindling. Flames of vengeance dance over every inch of her, igniting at her palms. She isn’t a person. She’s a creature, a fire-wraith.

  “Kindly step aside,” the wraith says. “You’re blocking our tinder.”

  I wordlessly obey.

  But Everett—or whatever he is now; he hasn’t so much as spoken a single word—is not prepared to go down without a fight.