A Pirate’s Smile
Ghosts flooded into the heart of the citadel.
Nova and her cohort didn’t know what they were. They were floating. They cascaded off the edge of the walkway, a rippling river of men and women buoyed on the air without boots like their own to countervail gravity. Most were old, their hair white, gray, or sparse, faces lined. But there were younger men and women, too, and even some children among them. They weren’t wearing anything resembling armor, but they were formed up in ranks and moving with precision. They wielded knives and meat mallets. Some hefted big iron hooks. Others carried nothing, but had claws and fangs, and there seemed no end to their numbers. In they flowed, dauntless, expressionless. Inexplicable.
They were human. Their skin was brown, not blue. So what magic was making them float? There was no time to wonder. They attacked.
Nova met them with her stolen powers. Fireballs bloomed in her fists. She hurled them. They hit the leading edge of the oncoming assault and exploded in bursts of white flame. The soldiers—if that’s what they were—ought to have been engulfed in fire, but they weren’t. Sparks rained down, harmless. The flames died away, and the soldiers came on, unfazed.
Rook, Werran, and Kiska held their lightning prods before them, and they drew their short swords from their scabbards, but they had little faith in their weapons. These foes were not natural. Could they even be hurt?
Nova unleashed godsmetal next. She peeled strips from the curve of the walls, shaped them into scythe blades, and sent them spinning so fast they blurred. The soldiers ought to have been maimed, dozens at a swipe, but they didn’t even bleed. Their flesh re-formed with every strike and they just kept on coming. They engaged.
There was a ringing of metal on metal as Rook and Werran parried the first blows.
Nova let go of Kiska’s telepathy, and the torrent of despair dissipated. Sarai rose shakily to her feet in the passage. Ghosts were still pouring past her. Minya was standing stock-still. Her face was terrible, both bleak with hurt and dark with disgust. Her eyes were slits, her nostrils flared. She was flushed violet and breathing fast. Her little body was shaking with rage.
Sarai had never been so glad to see her. “We’re under attack,” she told her in a rush. “The orb. It’s a doorway. They were waiting.”
“You drugged me,” seethed Minya through gritted teeth while her ghosts clashed in the air with an enemy she had not yet laid eyes on.
She had woken up alone on the floor, with a bad taste in her mouth and a worse one in her mind. In that first moment, she’d thought—what else would she think?—that the Godslayer must have attacked and won. Her mind had screamed and all she could think was that she’d failed again to protect her people—that she’d gotten the fight she wanted, and, unthinkably, lost, and lost them.
That had been a very bad moment. The next was…complicated, because she saw the green glass bottle, and the truth struck her backhanded. Her people were alive, and had betrayed her. It stole her breath. They’d drugged her and left her defenseless. They’d taken the Godslayer’s side, and left her on the floor like dropped laundry. She’d picked up the bottle and hurled it at the wall, where it smashed into a million pieces. Then she’d turned on her heel and marched out of the bedroom, down her stairs, and out into the passage.
Her army was just as she’d left it, formed up in ranks in the gallery. The Ellens rushed to meet her and tried to placate her. “Now, let’s not assume the worst, my love,” Great Ellen had said in a warning tone. “They may have had their reasons.”
“Where are they?” demanded Minya, ready to spit on their reasons.
But the Ellens didn’t know where they were. They, too, were just waking up, and were as confused as she was. “Something’s not right,” said Less Ellen.
As soon as she’d voiced it, Minya knew it was true. The whole citadel was thrumming with a dark, unwelcome energy. “There’s somebody here,” she said.
She was furious at her family for what they’d done to her. But they were hers, and this was her home, and gods help anyone who interfered with either.
Now Sarai, stricken, said, “I’m sorry.”
“Shut up,” Minya spat. “I’ll deal with you later.”
And she followed her ghosts into battle.
Ruby, Sparrow, Feral, and Suheyla were still in the entrance to the chamber. Eril-Fane had wanted them to flee, but they’d been too stunned by his and Azareen’s dying—and dying and dying and dying—and stood rooted by their horror. When Minya stalked past them, they were overwhelmed by relief at the sight of her.
Who’d ever have thought they’d be so glad to see Minya?
Lazlo stood halfway up the walkway. When Sarai had been hurled back, he’d spun to follow, but halted as the army came flooding in. He flashed hot and cold at the sight of them bearing down, remembering the last time, in the silk sleigh, when he had barely escaped with his life. They weren’t coming for him this time, though. They parted around him and overwhelmed the invaders.
In the heart of the citadel, the battle raged. Nova held five gifts in her keeping: Lazlo’s, Ruby’s, Feral’s, and Sarai’s—though she still didn’t know what Sarai’s was—and Rook’s. She lashed out with godsmetal, disarming soldiers only to see them turn monstrous and attack with their teeth instead. Rook, Werran, and Kiska were fighting with their lightning prods and short swords, but their thrusts went right through these foes, and fear was showing on their faces. Kiska was bleeding from a wound to her arm. Werran grappled with a little girl who’d gotten through his guard when he was too appalled to strike her. This was Bahar, nine years old, who’d drowned in the Uzumark and was always sopping wet. Rook saw her bite Werran, her teeth clamping down on his wrist, and he tried to drag her off, but she melted under his hands, somehow keeping her teeth in Werran’s flesh. She ground down, savage. Werran gave a cry and Bahar wrested away his prod with unchildlike strength and turned it on Rook, sending a jolt of lightning through him that blacked his vision to null and sent him flying back into the open orb, his eyes rolling back in his head.
He didn’t get up.
Nova knew fear such as she hadn’t felt in many years. They were so outnumbered, and this enemy made no sense. They weren’t flesh, or even magic. They swarmed at her with their blank faces and preternatural strength, and she deflected them with godsmetal, throwing up shields to protect herself and her cohort. She was on the defensive, losing ground. How could they be stopped? Werran’s war cry, she thought, but she was stretched too thin, holding five gifts already, to seize it and use it on her own.
“Werran!” she barked. “Now!”
He dragged in breath, ready to comply.
But the breath rushed back out in a hard exhale. Werran didn’t scream. He stared. Because the ranks of attackers had melted apart to reveal a figure in the doorway. She was neither floating nor wielding a weapon. She stood with her arms at her sides, head lowered, peering at them from the tops of her eyes with exquisite, unblinking animus. She was a child. She was so small, her wrists as thin as gnawed bird bones. Her hair was short and choppy, her garment in tatters, hanging loose off one shoulder to show a clavicle as frail as the shaft of a feather. Everything about the sight of her was improbable: her size, her stillness, her black-eyed wrath. But none of that was what stopped Werran’s breath. He faltered because he knew her. So did Kiska. Rook, unconscious, would have known her, too. She was not forgettable, not even a little, and she had not changed in fifteen years.
“… Minya?” asked Kiska, her voice breaking.