Her nails pressed even harder, cutting into Talia’s skin. “I’m banishing you from Enduena, little sister. On pain of death if you ever return. I don’t recollect which of my supporters I promised Irsa to, but I expect they’re already rearranging the furniture.”
Without warning, she let go of Talia’s face and shoved her backward; Talia stumbled and fell, jamming her elbow hard against the stone.
“You thought you would be Empress of half the world. Now you will see how far you will fall.” Eda turned to the guards. “Get her out of my sight.”
“What about my mother?” Talia demanded as the guards hoisted her upward.
Eda swept away without answering, and the guards dragged Talia through the prison, out into a bare stone courtyard. The sun was just vanishing over the western horizon, but there was enough light to see the executioner’s block in the center of the courtyard, the dark stains on the stones around it.
Where was Eda sending her that was a fate worse than death? And what had she done to her mother?
The guards brought her through a gate in the wall and down a hill to the outer edge of the city. The last gleam of sunlight disappeared, and one cold star awoke in the twilight.
A carriage was waiting there. The guards shoved Talia unceremoniously into it.
“Wait,” she said as they shut the door and latched it from the outside. The windows were nailed shut, making the air inside stifling and hot. “Wait, please—”
But outside she heard the driver crack his whip. The carriage lurched into motion.
She hurtled into the unknown, the white city and Ayah and everything she had ever understood fading fast away behind her.
Chapter Four
IT WAS NIGHT WHEN THEY REACHED THE sea. She could smell it through the rough sacking a guard had shoved over her head as he yanked her from the carriage. She could hear it, crashing against creaking wood, feel its sudden cold spray against her bare legs.
She’d spent five days rattling onward in that awful carriage, with little food and nothing but her own dark imaginings to keep her company. Worry for her mother ate her up, dwarfing even her dread for her own uncertain future.
And now she’d come to the sea.
The long days of immobility made her unsteady on her feet. She tripped as her guard hauled her along, his grip too rough just under her armpit. She tried to shake him off, but his fingers dug deeper. Salt-drenched wind whispered underneath the sack, and a chill ran down her spine.
The harsh cries of birds and shouting men tangled with clanging bells and snapping ropes. Wooden planks swayed back and forth beneath her, scraping her feet through the holes in her ruined calfskin sandals. The wind stank of salt and fish and tar. Her free hand scrabbled to pull the sack off her head, and she caught a brief glimpse of stars and dark water stretching out to meet the moon, before the guard jerked her across a deck and shoved her through a low door.
She nearly collided with a brown-skinned man in a naval uniform and blue cap, who caught her by the shoulders and steadied her. He looked about forty and had a captain’s sigil pinned to his collar—she recognized both uniform and sigil from the envoys who reported regularly to Eddenahr with shipping reports for the Emperor, though she didn’t remember seeing this particular captain before.
“Hey, now!” he said, peering behind Talia to frown at her guard. “There’s no cause to be discourteous to a lady.”
“You have your orders, Captain, and I have mine. She’s your responsibility now.” And then her guard was gone, his boots creaking back across the deck the way they’d come.
She was on a ship, Talia realized belatedly, staring through the doorway at huge white sails that billowed full in the light of the moon. Men clambered on the rigging, hauling ropes and shouting to each other. The sea shimmered black beyond the rail.
It was only then that she understood the true scope of Eda’s words. I’m banishing you from Enduena, little sister.
“Welcome aboard, Miss Dahl-Saida.”
She turned back to the captain, who gave her a polite bow. “I’m Captain Oblaine Al-Tesh, at your service. I believe you know my other passenger.”
He stepped aside so she had a clear view of what had to be the ship’s great cabin. In the center of the low chamber, lit by a green glass lamp swaying from the ceiling, stood a wooden table ringed with chairs. Behind it, square-paned windows, tall as grown men, were set into the side of the ship, winking out into the night.
A woman crouched on one of the windowsills, the dirty red silk of her dress pooling in tatters to the floor, black hair hanging in knots on her shoulders. She lifted her head, remnants of kohl and gold powder smeared across her cheeks.
“Mama!” Talia cried out, lunging across the tilting cabin and into her mother’s arms. “I thought I’d lost you—I thought you were dead!”
Her mother kissed her hair and hugged her fiercely. “My dear, dear girl. I thought I’d lost you too.” She sounded more tired than Talia had ever heard her, and dark circles sagged under her eyes. But her smile was bright. “It seems the gods are watching out for us.”
Talia flinched. She wished her mother wouldn’t bring the gods into this—sometimes she was as bad as Ayah. “How can you say that, when everything went so wrong?”
Her mother’s smile vanished; she seemed suddenly listless and ill. “The gods saved us, Talia. Don’t blame them for what Eda did. I think she’s been planning this for a very, very long time, no doubt bribing supporters with her parents’ fortune. And I suspect the timing of the Emperor’s death was no accident.”
“Before I hear any other treasonous remarks,” said Captain Oblaine behind them, “Her Imperial Majesty commanded me to give you this.” He held out a letter, sealed in red wax. “For you, Miss Dahl-Saida.”
She took it, breaking the seal with her thumb and squinting at the elegantly penned words in the dim light. Beneath her the ship creaked and swayed, and water slapped up against the hull.
Aria Dahl-Saida, formerly the Countess of Irsa, and her daughter, Talia Dahl-Saida, are hereby stripped of land and titles, and banished to the imperial province of Ryn for the duration of their lifetimes, under pain of death if they should ever attempt to return to Enduena, by order of Her Imperial Majesty Eda Mairin-Draive, gods-blessed Empress of Enduena, Queen of Ryn, and Ruler of Od.
Talia felt numb, seeing her fate inscribed before her eyes in stark ink. She passed the letter to her mother without a word.
Ryn was the most remote part of the Empire that Eda could possibly send them to. Besides Od, it was the only other non-mainland province, located thousands of miles northeast across the sea, and was little more than a large island. The Emperor had conquered Ryn on one of his first campaigns, shortly after ascending to the throne some forty years ago. Ryn’s only export was fish, and by all reports, its people were uneducated and boorish.
They might as well be going to the ends of the earth.
There was a knock on the door, and a sailor stepped in with a laden tray, which he balanced expertly against the roll of the ship.