This time, the plan did work. The death riders chased her, not Cira and Kallista.
“I’ve got her!” she heard one of them yell. A silver spear hit the tunnel wall, missing her tail by a hair’s breadth. The death riders were fast, but Sera—strong and lean from weeks on the currents—was faster. A few minutes later, she saw the end of the tunnel. Rays of sun slanted through the water outside. She put on a final burst of speed, shot out into the open daylit waters, and found herself across the current from the Ostrokon. She darted into its ruined entry and down to its dim depths. Heart pounding, lungs heaving, she swam into a listening room and hid under a table.
A few minutes passed. And then a few more. When half an hour had elapsed, Sera finally allowed herself to believe that she’d escaped her pursuers. Her muscles were trembling. Painful cramps knotted her tail. She stretched out and closed her eyes.
“Please,” she whispered. “Please let Cira and Kallista have made it to the safe house. Please let Mahdi be okay.”
She remembered the trust in the little merl’s eyes. And the desperate relief in her mother’s. What if the death riders had split up and searched both forks? What if Cira and Kallista had led them right to the Market Street safe house? Had she endangered scores of people for the sake of two?
A good ruler will never sacrifice the many for the few, her uncle once told her.
She’d tried to argue with him. But Uncle, the few are no less…
Important, she was going to say. Valuable. Beloved.
But Vallerio had cut her off. The few are fewer, Serafina. And in war, numbers are all that matter.
She couldn’t understand that. Not then. Not now. Kallista mattered. And the tiny baby she was carrying. Little Cira mattered. The many and the few.
She’d made the right choice. She’d done the right thing.
As sleep stole over her, Serafina held on to that.
And tried her best to believe it.
“THERE YOU GO, PRIYā,” Suma said, helping Neela into a soft sea-silk robe. “A nice scrub makes everything better.”
Neela did not reply. She simply sat down by a window, in the same place she’d been sitting for the better part of three days, and stared out of it.
She had just scrubbed her body with soft white sand. Then she’d rubbed driftnut oil into her hair and brushed it until it gleamed. Suma had brought a tray of her favorite foods for dinner, and a plate of sweets for dessert. Soon she would lie down in her soft bed and sleep. She was safe. She was warm and well fed.
She was furious.
“Is there anything else you require?” asked Suma.
Neela shook her head.
“May I take the nasty black clothing away?”
“You may not.”
“You know what the medica magus said, Princess,” Suma reminded. “The sooner you admit you need help, the sooner he can help you. Promise to behave yourself and get rid of those awful things, and Kiraat will allow you to leave your room. Give them to me. I’ll put them in the incinerator. The lava will make short work of them.”
“Leave them, Suma. And me.”
“And the mirrors? What about the mirrors?” Suma asked.
Neela had draped every single mirror in her room with saris. “Leave those, too,” she said.
Suma shook her head mournfully. She dabbed at her eyes. “Covering your mirrors! Oh, Princess, it’s worse than any of us thought. You have lost your mind! I thought that when you started eating bing-bangs again you were making progress, but I was wrong.”
She bade Neela a tearful good night and left her.
Neela mindlessly unwrapped a sweet and ate it. Boredom and anxiety had driven her back to them. She glanced at the offending garments—her black lace top and skirt, her jacket, her messenger bag. They were draped over a chair. Kiraat had demanded she get rid of them, and she’d refused. He’d declared her dangerously deranged and advised she be confined to her room so she couldn’t do damage to herself or to anyone else. Kiraat and her parents thought they were protecting her. They thought they were helping her come back to her senses, but all they were doing was killing her spirit, bit by bit.
How could she explain to them what her swashbuckler clothes meant to her? When she looked at them, she didn’t see frays and tears, she saw Sera and Ling eating stew in Lena’s kitchen after Ling had almost been captured by Rafe Mfeme. She saw Becca and Ava in the River Olt, fighting off the rusalka. She saw fierce Astrid battling Abbadon in the Incantarium with only her sword.
And she saw herself—being braver and stronger than she’d ever thought she could be.