“Innisfuil Valley,” he hears himself say. “It is a neutral location, far enough from the capital and from any Bastian City reinforcements. And those devoted to the temple will look upon it as a good sign when a successful trade is held there.”
Katharine considers, then bends to scribble on the parchment. She rolls it up and hands it to Elizabeth, and they watch with quiet wonder as the little bird sticks his leg out to receive it.
“I never imagined you would send your own familiar, Elizabeth,” Katharine says. “I thought you would send a hawk or some other strange bird. I am truly grateful.”
“We are happy to be of service,” the priestess replies. “Happy to help avoid a war.”
Katharine smiles at Pietyr. He feels himself smiling back. It will not be long before they depart to march on Innisfuil Valley. Innisfuil Valley—and the Breccia Domain.
SUNPOOL
In the small courtyard at the rear of the castle, Mirabella watches the warrior Emilia Vatros and naturalist Jules Milone train together on the war gift. It does not look much like training: Emilia has brought a cord of wood, and the two are chopping it together. But as they work, the swing of their axes changes perceptibly; they swing straighter and faster, until the logs seem to split themselves.
The Legion Queen. That is what they call Jules now, this rebellion that Mirabella and Arsinoe have so conveniently stumbled into. The people bestowed the title of queen so quickly. So lightly. As if it never carried any weight at all.
“Take care!” Emilia shouts when Jules’s blade misses. She wrenches it out by the handle and swats her. “Just because it feels like nothing to move, does not mean it isn’t dangerous. It’s still an ax. Mind it!”
Jules nods and begins again. She takes direction well. She does not seem like the same girl Mirabella met those few times before. The simmering anger is gone, and her stance is such that she seems much taller than she really is. Even the cat seems larger and more confident, lying draped across the waiting wood with her tail flicking lazily back and forth.
Jules looks different. She is different. But she is still not a queen.
“A break,” Jules says, and Mirabella steps out and claps softly. She joins Jules beside the cougar as she drinks a cup of water.
“You are doing very well.”
Jules crooks her lip.
“Thanks. I feel as wobbly as a young colt.”
“Your war-gifted friend is clever, to combine training with a necessary chore.”
“Always work to be done when you’re raising a rebellion,” says Jules. She holds out the cup. “Water?”
“No thank you.”
“Arsinoe won’t tell me much about why you all are back here. Only that you’re headed up the slope of Mount Horn.”
Mirabella nods.
“I am sure she would tell you if she knew more herself.”
Jules looks down at her hands. “She says you’re going back as soon as your business is finished.”
“I am relieved that she would say so,” Mirabella says, and exhales. “Part of me feared that the moment she saw you, she would vow to stay forever, no matter the danger.”
“You shouldn’t have let her come, you know. You should’ve made her stay away.”
“I do know. Just as you know how impossible that would have been, without the use of ropes and chains.”
Jules smiles grudgingly, and Mirabella feels a surge of fondness. For ten years, all the years between the Black Cottage and the Ascension, Jules was the one who looked after Arsinoe. She saved her life on the day of the Queens’ Hunt. Saved them all on the day of the duel. But she still does not like to meet Mirabella’s eye.
“Arsinoe says you buried him instead of burning.”
“Yes,” Mirabella replies. “That is how they do it there. He rests atop a green hill, looking out at the sea.”
Tears gather at the corners of Jules’s eyes, and the cougar comes to lean against her legs.
“I wish I could see it.”
“Maybe you can, someday.”
“Well.” Jules blinks. “Someday seems like a far-off thing. Anyway, I’m glad Arsinoe and Billy were there. And you. I’m glad someone was there who loved him.”
“You loved him more. I always knew that. And he loved you.” Mirabella shakes her head. “He never really loved me.”
For a moment, Jules is silent. Then she turns and looks at her, dead-on.
“You must think I’m really small, to think that would make me glad.”
“I only meant—”
“You should get back inside, Mirabella. Even with that cloak and those clothes, it won’t take anyone long to figure out who you are if they get a good look at you.”
Jules picks up her ax and resumes chopping wood, even though Emilia has disappeared. Mirabella lingers, but Jules never again glances her way. Finally, she throws up her hands and leaves, not back into the castle as ordered but farther into the courtyard, where it wraps around to the rear.
She walks across the grass and climbs over stones that have fallen from the wall, intrepidly making her way to the top.
When she reaches it, the wind catches her cloak and presses it tight about her, like an embrace. How she longs to throw her hood back so the breeze can rake cold fingers through her hair. But she knows what Jules and Emilia would think of that. Besides, they are right. It is better for everyone if their presence remains a secret.
Still, she cannot resist calling a little more wind to swirl around her body. A few more clouds to darken the sky. The nearness of her gift, the ease and strength of it, is the only joy returning to the island has brought. Everything else—the rebellion, the Legion Queen—has only shown how unneeded she was. How easily replaced.
She is not even part of Arsinoe’s quest to stop the mist.
I am my sister’s keeper. Her protector.
But is that enough? For a girl who would have been queen? The people speak of Jules already as if a legend: a naturalist with a gift as strong as a queen’s.
No elemental queen in history has mastered all the elements so fully as I. Yet there will be no mural to remember me. Not even my name will endure.
She lets the wind die and thinks of Bree and Elizabeth. Her friends and her home, that she may never see again.
And then, as if it were a wish or a prayer, a black-and-white tufted woodpecker flies into her stomach, so hard she feels the slight puncture of his beak.
“Pepper!” She gathers the little bird in the crook of her arm and looks into his bright black eyes. He is panting and afraid. “Pepper? Is that really you?” But of course it is. She has no relationship with any other bird. She strokes his chest and looks around, hoping to catch a glimpse of Elizabeth ducked down behind a rock. But he is alone. Elizabeth sent him away the day she took her priestess vows, to keep him from being crushed by horrible, brutal Rho.
“Have you been alone in the north country all this time?” she asks, and holds him up to her face. “Poor Pepper. What luck to find me here. What luck that you saw me.”
In response, the woodpecker lifts his wing and thrusts out one tiny leg. A tiny leg with a roll of parchment tied to it.
Bartering for supplies in the midst of a rebellion is not the easiest thing on the island, but Billy manages to do it. Somehow, despite limited funds and the fact that everyone in the marketplace is hoarding goods for the cause, he secures them warm clothing, climbing tools, and what is hopefully plenty of dried meat for the leg of the journey above the snow line.
“There now,” he says to Arsinoe happily. “Ready to depart. Now aren’t you glad you brought me?”
“I suppose I am.”
He shrugs.
“Negotiation. Buying things. They’re the only skills of value my father ever taught me. Though you could say that my success is mostly due to charisma, and you can’t really teach that.”
“How long do you think it’ll take you to find him?”
“I don’t know. After we’ve finished on the mountain, I thought I’d sail around to the capital. I won’t go in,” he adds, seeing her expression. “I’ll send a letter or a messenger.” He sighs. “I’ll wager that he isn’t even here.”
“Where, then?”
“Sailing around the world. Having a grand holiday in Salkades, maybe. Drinking wine and teaching me a lesson about life without him and the price of disobedience.”