She and Kell were in their cabin when it happened, packing up their few belongings, Lila’s hand drifting repeatedly to her pocket—the absence of her watch its own strange weight—while Kell’s kept going to his chest.
“Does it still hurt?” she’d asked, and Kell had started to answer when the ship stuttered harshly, the groan of wood and sail cut off by Alucard calling them up. His voice had the peculiar lightness it took on when he was either drunk or nervous, and she was pretty sure he hadn’t been drinking at the ship’s wheel (though it wouldn’t surprise her if he had).
It was a grey day above, mist clouding the world beyond the boat. Holland was already on deck, staring out into the fog.
“Why have you stopped?” demanded Kell, a crease between his brows.
“Because we have a problem,” said Alucard, nodding ahead.
Lila scanned the horizon. The fog was heavier than it should have been given the hour, sitting like a second skin above the water. “I can’t see anything.”
“That’s the idea,” said Alucard. His hands splayed, his lips moved, and the mist he’d conjured thinned a little before them.
Lila squinted, and at first she saw nothing but sea, and then— She went still.
It wasn’t land ahead.
It was a line of ships.
Ten hulking vessels with pale wood bodies and emerald flags that cut the fog like knives.
A Veskan fleet.
“Well,” said Lila slowly. “I guess that answers the question of who paid Jasta to kill us.”
“And Rhy,” added Kell.
“How far to land?” asked Holland.
Alucard shook his head. “Not far, but they’re standing directly between us and Tanek. The nearest coast is an hour’s sail to either side.”
“Then we go around.”
Alucard shot Kell a look. “Not in this,” he said, gesturing at the Ghost, and Lila understood. The captain had maneuvered the ship so that its narrow prow faced the fleet’s spine. As long as the fog lingered, as long as the Ghost held still, it might go unnoticed, but the moment it moved closer, it would be a target. The Ghost wasn’t flying flags, but neither were the three small vessels bobbing like buoys beside the fleet, each running the white banner of a captured boat. The Veskans were clearly holding the pass.
“Should we attack?” asked Lila.
That drew looks from Kell, Alucard, and Holland.
“What?” she said.
Alucard shook his head, dismayed. “There are probably hundreds aboard those ships, Bard.”
“And we’re Antari.”
“Antari, not immortal,” said Kell.
“We don’t have time to battle a fleet,” said Holland. “We need to get to land.”
Alucard’s gaze shifted back to the line of ships. “Oh, you can make it to the coast,” he said, “but you’ll have to row.”
Lila thought Alucard must be joking.
He wasn’t.
V
Rhy Maresh kept his eyes on the light.
He stood at the edge of the spell circle where Tieren lay, and focused on the candle cradled in the priest’s hands with its steady, unwavering flame.
He wanted to wake the Aven Essen from his trance, wanted to bury his head in the old man’s shoulder and sob. Wanted to feel the calm of his magic.
In the last few months, he had become intimately acquainted with pain, and with death, but grief was new. Pain was bright, and death was dark, but grief was grey. A slab of stone resting on his chest. A toxic cloud stripping him of breath.
I can’t do this alone, he thought.
I can’t do this—
I can’t—
Whatever his father had been trying to achieve, it hadn’t worked.
Rhy had seen the river lighten, the shadows begin to withdraw, had glimpsed his city of red and gold like a specter through the fog.
But it hadn’t lasted.
Within minutes, the darkness had returned.
He’d lost his father for what?
A moment?
A breath?
They’d recovered the king’s body from the base of the palace steps.
His father, lying in a pool of cooling blood.
His father, now laid out beside his mother, a pair of sculptures, shells, their eyes closed, their bodies suddenly aged by death. When had his mother’s cheeks grown hollow? When had his father’s temples gone grey? They were impostors, gross imitations of the people they’d been in life. The people Rhy had loved. The sight of them—what was left of them—made him ill, and so he’d fled to the only place he could. The only person.
To Tieren.
Tieren, who slept with a stillness that might have passed for death if Rhy hadn’t just seen it, hadn’t pressed hands to his father’s unmoving ribs, hadn’t clutched his mother’s stiffened shoulder.
Come back—
Come back—
Come back—
He did not say the words aloud, for fear of rousing the priest, some deep feeling that no matter how softly he might speak, the sadness would still be loud. The other priests knelt, their heads bowed, as if themselves in a trance, brows furrowed in concentration while Tieren’s face bore the same smooth pallor of the men and women sleeping in the streets. Rhy would have given anything to hear the Aven Essen’s voice, to feel the weight of arms around his shoulders, to see the understanding in his eyes.
He was so close.
He was so far.
Tears burned Rhy’s eyes, threatened to spill over, and when they did, they hit the floor an inch from the ashen edge of the binding circle. His fingers ached from where he’d struck Isra, shoulder throbbing where he’d twisted free of Sol-in-Ar’s grip. But these pains were little more than memory, shallow wounds compared to the tearing in his chest, the absence where two people had been carved out, torn away.
His arms hung heavy at his sides.
In one hand, his own crown, the circle of gold he’d worn since he was a boy, and in the other, the royal pin capable of reaching Kell.
He had thought of summoning his brother, of course. Gripped the pin until the emblem of the chalice and sun had cut into his palm, even though Kell said blood wasn’t necessary. Kell was wrong. Blood was always necessary.
One word, and his brother would come.
One word, and he wouldn’t be alone.
One word—but Rhy Maresh couldn’t bring himself to do it.
He had failed himself so many times. He wouldn’t fail Kell, too.
Someone cleared their throat behind him. “Your Majesty.”
Rhy let out a shuddering breath and stepped back from the edge of Tieren’s spell. Turning, he found the captain of his father’s city guard, a bruise blossoming along Isra’s jaw, her own eyes lidded with grief.
He followed her out of the silent chamber and into the hall where a messenger stood waiting, breathless, his clothing slick with sweat and mud, as if he’d ridden hard. This was one of his father’s scouts, sent to monitor the spread of Osaron’s magic beyond the city, and for an instant, Rhy’s tired mind couldn’t process why the messenger had come to him. Then he remembered: there was no one else—and there it was again, worse than a knife, the sudden assault of memory, a raw wound reopened.
“What is it?” asked Rhy, his voice hoarse.
“I bring word from Tanek,” said the messenger.
Rhy felt ill. “The fog has reached that far?”
The messenger shook his head. “No, sir, not yet, but I met a rider on the road. He spotted a fleet at the mouth of the Isle. Ten ships. They fly the silver-and-green banners of Vesk.”
Isra swore beneath her breath.
Rhy closed his eyes. What was it his father said, that politics was a dance? Vesk was trying to set the tempo. It was time for Rhy to take the lead. To show that he was king.
“Your Majesty?” prompted the messenger.
Rhy opened his eyes.
“Bring me two of their magicians.”
*
He met them in the map room.
Rhy would have preferred the Rose Hall, with its vaulted stone ceilings, its dais, its throne. But the king and queen were laid out there, so this would have to do.
He stood in his father’s place behind the table, hands braced on the lip of the wood, and it must have been a trick of the senses, but Rhy thought he could feel the grooves where Maxim Maresh’s fingers had pressed into the table’s edge, the wood still lingering with warmth.
Lord Sol-in-Ar stood against the wall to his left, flanked on either side by a member of his retinue.