Eliana
“Dearest brothers and sisters, please do not grieve my absence. Know that I was of sound mind when I left for Ventera. As the youngest of five, I have often felt dim in the shadow of your brilliant light. Now, it is my turn to shine. In the belly of the beast, I will serve Red Crown’s cause of justice and freedom and strive to earn your admiration. May the Queen’s light guide us all home.”
—Letter from Princess Navana Amaruk of Astavar to her siblings
December 13, Year 1014 of the Third Age
They moved through the cold forest for hours—all through the night and into the next day.
The ground became rockier the farther north they went, soft earth giving way to pale sand. The trees were strange here, short and spindly, with brittle leaves that hissed spitefully in the wind. Long, misshapen barrows crowned with crumbling stones snaked through the forest like veins.
“These trees reek of death,” Hob whispered as they crouched near one such mound. “I’ll be glad to leave them behind.”
Eliana agreed—but where to go after this? Simon’s contact, their path across the Narrow Sea, was now lost to them.
They stopped at last to rest, huddling beneath a moss-draped overhang on the side of a slight hill. Navi had lost much of her color, her skin slick with sweat. They settled her on the ground, piled leaves atop her shivering body.
She raised one feeble hand. “Eliana?”
Eliana took it, settled beside her. “I’m here. You’re all right. We’re going to be fine now.”
Navi smiled weakly. “Don’t lie to me.”
“Fine. We’re quite likely all doomed.”
“That’s better.”
Remy wedged himself against Eliana’s other side, his arms crossed over his chest. He had spoken not a word since leaving Simon behind.
Eliana glanced at Hob. “Do you know who Simon could have been talking to? The contact he went to meet.”
Hob pulled a few wrapped pieces of food from his pockets—dried meat, hard rolls, all he’d managed to grab before fleeing the fire—and passed them around. “No. According to Simon, I am not high-ranked enough an ally to be privy to such information.”
“There must be smugglers that cross the Narrow Sea.”
“A few. But we haven’t the money for that.” Hob yanked a berry off a nearby bush, chewed it, spat it out. “Rotberries. This forest is useless.”
“Can we go back to Rinthos? Ask Camille for help?”
“I don’t think Navi would survive the trip. If we can get to the port of Skoszia without someone seeing us and killing us on the spot, I can send a message to Camille from a place there, but it will take time.”
“That’s time we don’t have.”
“We left him.” Remy shifted to look up at Eliana. “We left him to die with Rahzavel.”
“Yes, we did,” said Eliana, refusing to meet his eyes. “He would have wanted us to.”
“That doesn’t make it right.”
“Hey, you know what?” She slid her arm around Remy’s shoulders. “I have something to tell you. I wish I could show you, but I can’t. You too, Hob.”
Hob raised an eyebrow. “Don’t talk to me like I’m a child.”
“I met a friend,” Eliana said, “in the laboratories where they held me and Navi. Her name is Zahra, and…she’s here with us. Right now.”
Some of the sadness left Remy’s face. “Really? How? Where?”
Hob was staring at her. “Have you lost your mind?”
“This is no joke, Hob,” said Zahra.
Hob’s arm shot out to shield both Eliana and Remy. “Who’s there? Who said that?”
“Who are you?” Remy looked around wonderingly. “Can you show me what you look like?”
“My name is Zahra, little one.” Zahra swooped down to Remy’s eye level, her chin in her hands. “What a darling thing you are. Your mind is as wide open as the sky.”
Remy cautiously waved his hand around. “You’re very close, aren’t you?”
“Indeed.”
“Eliana,” Hob muttered, “what is this?”
Remy hugged his knees to his chest. “Are you a wraith?”
Zahra blinked in surprise. “What is this child, who knows so much of the world?” Her expression turned tender. “Oh, sweet one. You are a dreamer, a teller of tales. I see that now. You ache for magic and for all those golden giants of the past.”
Remy flushed with pleasure. “Before the invasion,” he said eagerly, “people stole books from the temples, so they wouldn’t be destroyed. I buy them whenever I can and read them all.”
“Hang on.” Eliana pulled back to frown at him. “You mean you used to sneak around Orline buying books in the underground market?”
“Do you think I learned everything I know just from rolling dough at the bakery?”
“Well, I—” She shook her head, astonished.
“Oh, I do like you.” Zahra draped an arm across Remy’s shoulders with a smile. “A curious mind and a pure heart both in one.”
Hob flung his gloves to the ground. “Can someone tell me what a wraith is?”
“Don’t move,” a male voice warned from the shadows before them. “Or I’ll tell my archers to let their arrows fly.”
Eliana froze as shapes shifted in the undergrowth—five soldiers, ten, gathering close with bows raised and arrows nocked.
Zahra shot up to her full height, dark eyes flashing. “Eliana, forgive me. I was distracted; I didn’t hear them!”
One of the archers jerked their arrow to the side, seeking Zahra—and of course finding nothing.
“You’ve a fifth in your party?” asked the first man. He approached Eliana, no bow in his hand but a long curved sword at his hip. His hood hid his face from view.
“Do you see five people here?” Eliana glared up at him. “Your eyes fail you, I’m afraid.”
“But my ears do not.” The man stopped, considering Navi’s shorn head. “You escaped from Fidelia.”
Eliana tensed. “Perhaps.”
“Malik?” Navi moaned, struggling to push herself up. “Is that you?”
“Navi?” The man flung off his hood and fell to his knees at her feet. “Sweet saints.” He gathered Navi against his chest before Eliana could stop him, pressed a tender kiss to her head. “Simon said you were alive, but I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t let myself.”
Navi clung to him, her gaunt face free of pain for the first time since they’d escaped the laboratories. “Eliana,” she murmured, “please don’t be afraid. We’re safe now.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.” Eliana moved in front of Remy and reached under her singed jacket for Arabeth. “Who are you?”
Malik turned, his brown cheeks wet with tears, his eyes large and dark, his jaw strong. The resemblance, now that Eliana knew to look for it, was obvious.
“I am Malik Amaruk,” he said, wiping his face. “I am Navi’s brother—and a prince of Astavar.”
? ? ?
Later that afternoon, after Malik and his scouts had shared a proper meal with them, Eliana stood with Malik on the edge of a cliff overlooking the Narrow Sea. Across the black channel lay a line of white cliffs: Astavar—and freedom.
Eliana made herself look at it and imagine the fresh green country beyond the border, even though doing so opened old wounds in her heart.
Harkan, she thought, you should be here.
“So there are monsters on those boats,” Malik murmured. On the far horizon, black specks moved steadily west against the darkening sky. The Empire fleet.
“They’re called crawlers,” Eliana told him.
Down the coast, a small flotilla of Empire warships waited at the port of Skoszia. The faint shapes of adatrox bustled back and forth along the docks, moving supplies and weapons. Hanging high on the warships’ masts, the Emperor’s colors of black, red, and gold snapped in the wind.
The Emperor. Corien, Zahra had called him.
Eliana’s mouth thinned. That was not something she would allow herself to think about just yet. “So we have to make it across the sea without anyone on those ships seeing us.”