The whispers still haunt the air around me, but I refuse to listen to them, pushing them aside. Violetta takes my hand and I help her to her feet. She leans against me, barely able to stand. “Teren,” I say as he approaches us. There are slashes in his tunic and smears of blood on his armor, but otherwise he seems unharmed. He gives Violetta a cold look, then hoists her effortlessly onto his back without a word.
“We have an encampment,” Maeve calls down to us from the roofs. She has heavy black powder rimming her eyes, and a streak of gold war paint on her cheeks. “You all look like you could use a rest.”
I see Maeve searching for me from her perch, and when our eyes lock, we stare for a long moment. I stiffen—there is an air of uncertainty hovering around her at my presence. I think back to the last time we set eyes on each other, when she had watched me call on Enzo’s power to destroy a devastating number of her fleet. Even now, I can envision the flames roaring all around us.
She straightens and nods in the direction of the city’s outskirts. “My men will lead us there.” Then she disappears over the edge of the roof.
Tragedy follows those who cannot accept their true destiny.
—Crime and Punishment in a Reunified Amadera, by Fiennes de Marta
Adelina Amouteru
Queen Maeve is thinner than I remember, and her face has become harder in the months since we last met. The Elite who aligns with death. With my weary demeanor, sunken cheeks, and hard gaze, I imagine she thinks the same when she looks at me. She and her battalion traveled over the Karra Mountains, the crooked range of long-dead volcanoes that divides Beldain from Amadera, and set up an encampment of sheepskin tents here on the outskirts of Laida, where humanity ends and a horizon rimmed completely by ice-capped mountains begins. Torches light the snow in patches between the camp’s tents. The air has turned cold and cruel, cutting straight through my riding gear. As evening washes the bleak landscape in blues and purples, the Beldish queen makes her way through puddles of slush from her tent to ours, flanked by her soldiers.
I wonder what she has gone through since we faced each other on the seas, and what the state of her navy might be. A part of me calculates whether it will be worth invading Beldain in the future or not. No doubt she wants to do the same to Kenettra—but we both bite our tongues now as she nears. She gives me a stiff nod of greeting.
“We leave at dawn,” she tells me. “If your sister does not wake by then, carry her.”
I return her nod, even though my whispers hiss. This is the closest we will come to civility. “We’ll be ready.”
Maeve walks past me without acknowledging my words. I turn and watch her disappear inside our tent. Show her what you can do, and then she will respect you. The Queen of Beldain and I may be forced allies for now, but there will be a time after this when we will all return to our sides, and our enemy state.
Behind her soldiers walks Magiano. When he sees me, he removes his cloak and wraps it around my shoulders. I relax as it blocks the bite of the wind; the lingering warmth from Magiano feels soothing against my body. “I can’t talk him into getting inside a tent,” he says, gesturing over his shoulder as ice crystals flake from his braids. Some distance from the tents, where the land fades off into the blackness of the mountains, I can see a lone blond figure kneeling in the wind, his head down in prayer. Teren.
I put a hand on Magiano’s arm. “Let him stay,” I reply. “He will talk to the gods until he feels comforted.” But my stare lingers on Teren for a moment longer. Does he, like Raffaele, now feel the pull of the Elites’ origin calling from somewhere deep in the mountains? I can sense a pulse in the back of my mind now, a knot of power and energy lying somewhere beyond what I can see.
Magiano sighs in exasperation. “I’ve told Maeve’s men to keep an eye on him,” he says. “Let’s not have come all this way only to lose him to frostbite.” Then he turns and walks alongside me as we head back into our tent.
It’s warm inside. Lucent sits in one corner, grimacing as she wraps her arm in a hot cloth. She has injured her wrist again during the battle, but when she notices me looking, she quickly glances away. Nearby, Raffaele rises from his chair and bows his head in Maeve’s direction. Maeve stands near the tent’s entrance, her body turned subconsciously toward Lucent, her eyes on Violetta’s bed.
Even in the lantern light, Violetta still looks deathly pale. Her eyelids flutter now and then, as if she were lost in a nightmare, and a sheen of sweat covers her forehead. Her dark waves of hair fan out across the cloak folded under her head.
“Snow is coming from the north,” Maeve says, breaking the silence. “The longer we stay here, the more we’ll risk having our routes cut off. The snow breakers are already heading up to the ranges.”
“Snow breakers?” Magiano asks.
“Men who are sent up to the snow packs. They break up the snow into small, controlled avalanches in order to prevent larger ones. You probably saw them in town, with their ice picks.” Maeve nods at Raffaele. “Messenger.” At the mention of his name, her stony face softens a touch. I’m surprised at the twinge of envy I feel, that Raffaele can so easily draw others to him. “Are you well now?”
“Better,” Raffaele replies.
“What happened?” I ask. “We saw you freeze—you crumpled to your knees.”
Raffaele’s jewel-toned eyes catch the light, glinting a dozen different shades of green and gold. “The energy around me was overwhelming,” he explains. “The world became a blur. I couldn’t think, and I couldn’t breathe.”
The feeling overwhelmed him. Raffaele’s power is to sense each and every thread in the world, everything that connects with everything else. This must be how Raffaele’s powers are deteriorating, the equivalent of my spontaneous, out-of-control illusions, of Violetta’s vicious markings, and Lucent’s fragile bones. Unless we can succeed in our mission, his power will be his undoing, like the rest of us.
I can tell by the look on Raffaele’s face that he is thinking the same thoughts that I am, but he just gives Maeve a tired smile. “Not to worry. I’m well enough.”
“It seems you stumbled across our traveling band at exactly the right time,” Magiano says to Maeve.
In the silence that follows, Lucent pushes herself to her feet, wincing as she goes, and heads for the tent flap. “We should all get some rest, then,” she mutters. She hesitates a step as she passes Maeve. A flicker of expression—something lonely, longing—crosses her face, but nothing more than that, and before Maeve can react, Lucent ducks out of the tent and disappears.
Maeve watches her go, then follows. Her soldiers leave in her wake.
Raffaele meets my gaze and sits back down in his chair. “Your sister is growing weaker,” he says. “Our nearness to the origin of Laetes’s fall has intensified our connections to the gods, and it is ravaging our bodies. She will not last much longer.”
I stare at Violetta’s face. She furrows her brows, as if aware of my presence near her, and I find myself thinking of when we once lay side by side on identical beds, struck down by the blood fever. Somehow, it never has left us.
I glance at Magiano, then Raffaele. “Give me a moment alone with her,” I say.
I’m grateful to Magiano for his silence. He squeezes my hand once, then turns away and steps out of the tent.
Raffaele stares at me, doubt on his face. He doesn’t trust you alone with her. That is what you inspire, little wolf, a cloud of suspicion. Perhaps that’s what the expression is—or perhaps it is guilt, some lingering hint of regret for all that has happened between us, all that could have been avoided. Whatever it means, it disappears in the next breath. He tightens the clasp of his cloak and folds his hands into his sleeves, then moves toward the tent flap. Before he can step out, he turns back to me.
“Let yourself rest,” he says. “You will need it, mi Adelinetta.”
Mi Adelinetta.
> My breath catches; the whispers go still. The memory rushes to me, clear as crystal, of an afternoon long ago, when I sat with him by an Estenzian canal and listened to him sing. With the memory comes a rush of wistful joy, followed by unbearable sadness. I hadn’t realized how much I missed that day. I want to tell him to wait, but he has already left. His voice seems to linger in the air, though, words I haven’t heard from him in years . . . and somewhere, deep in my chest, stirs the presence of a girl buried long ago.
On the bed, Violetta lets out a soft moan and shifts, breaking through the turmoil of my thoughts. I lean closer to her. She takes a deep, rasping breath, and then her eyes flutter open.
I hold Violetta’s hand, weaving my fingers with hers. Her skin is scalding to the touch, darkened by overlapping markings, and through it I can feel the bond of blood between us, strengthened by our Elite powers. Her eyes search the room, confused, and then wander up to my face. “Adelina,” she whispers.
“I’m here—” I start to reply, but she interrupts me and closes her eyes.
“You’re making a mistake, Adelina,” she says, her head now turned to her side. I blink, trying to understand what she means—until I realize that she is talking in a feverish state, and perhaps not even aware of where she is.
“I want to turn back,” she whispers. “But your Inquisitors—they are searching everywhere for me. They have their swords drawn. I think you may have ordered them to kill me when they find me.” Her voice cracks with dryness, hoarse and weak. “I want to help you. You’re making a mistake, Adelina.” She sighs. “I made a mistake too.”
Now I understand. She is telling me what happened after she fled the palace, after my illusions had overwhelmed me and she had turned on me—after I had turned on her. A lump rises in my throat. I take a seat in Raffaele’s chair, then lean toward her again.
“I told my soldiers to bring you back,” I murmur. “Unharmed. I searched for you for weeks, but you had already left me behind.”
Violetta’s breathing sounds shallow and uneven. “Took a ship bound for Tamoura, at first light,” she whispers. Her hand tightens around mine.
“Why did you go to the Daggers?” I sound bitter now, and my illusions spark, painting a scene around me of the days after Violetta had first left my side. How I sat on my throne, clutching my head, refusing trays of supper from servants. How I conjured blackness over the skies of Kenettra, blocking out the sun for days. How I’d burned parchments in the fire after my Inquisition patrols would write me, one after another, that they could not find her. “How could you?”
“I followed the energy of other Elites across the sea,” Violetta murmurs in a trance. Sweat drips down the side of her face as she shifts uneasily again. “I followed Raffaele, and I found him. He found me. Oh, Adelina . . .” She trails off for a moment. “I thought he could help you. I begged him on my knees, with my face pressed to the ground.” Her lashes are wet now, barely holding tears back. Beneath her lids, her eyes move restlessly. “I begged him every day, even as we heard you sent your new navy to invade Merroutas.”
My hand clenches harder around Violetta’s. Merroutas, I’d ordered my men. Domacca. Tamoura. Dumor. Cross the seas, drag the unmarked from their beds, bring them out into the streets before me. My fury seethed, day after day. “I couldn’t find you,” I snap, irritated at the tears that spring to my eye. “Why didn’t you send me a dove? Why didn’t you let me know?”
Violetta is silent for a long moment, lost in her fever world. Her eyes open again, vacant and gray, bleeding color, and find me. “Raffaele says you are lost forever. That you are beyond help. I think he’s wrong, but he sheds tears for you and shakes his head. I’m trying to convince him.” Her whispers turn urgent. “I think I’ll try again tomorrow.”
I reach up and angrily wipe my tears away. “I don’t understand you,” I whisper back. “Why do you have to keep trying?”
Violetta’s lips tremble with effort. “You cannot harden your heart to the future just because of your past. You cannot use cruelty against yourself to justify cruelty to others.” Her gray eyes slide downward, away from my face, until her gaze rests on the lantern burning low near the tent flap. “It is hard. I know you are trying.”
All my life, I have tried to protect you.
The room blurs behind my curtain of tears. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. My words float in the air, quiet and lingering. Before me, Violetta sighs, and her eyelids drift closed again. She murmurs something else, but it is too quiet for me to hear. I squeeze her hand, unsure what I am holding on for, hoping she will wake and recognize me not in a fever dream, not in a nightmare, but here at her side. I stay long after her breathing turns even. Finally, when the lantern has burned so low that the tent is all but shrouded in darkness, I put my head down against her bed and listen to the wind howl until sleep finally, mercifully, claims me.
Maeve Jacqueline Kelly Corrigan
Maeve hears Lucent calling for her, but not until she reaches the entrance of her tent does Lucent finally catch up. Maeve turns around to face her former companion. In front of her tent, the queen’s personal guards place their hands on their swords’ hilts, their eyes following Lucent’s movements.
Maeve hesitates at the sight of Lucent’s grave eyes. They had ended their relationship a year ago, right along the white cliffs of Kenettra. She should let it be; after all, Lucent had told her then that she would not agree to Maeve’s wishes. I cannot be your mistress, she said. So why does Lucent look so desperate to speak to her now?
“Yes?” Maeve says coolly. The girl looks ill, and the sight of her wan skin and aching limbs twists Maeve’s heart.
Lucent hesitates, suddenly unsure of what to say. She runs a hand through her reddish-blond curls, then gives Maeve a hurried bow. “Are you well?” she finally asks, her voice faltering.
“Are you?” Maeve asks in return. “You look terrible, Lucent. Raffaele mentioned in his last letter that you were . . . suffering.”
Lucent shakes her head, as if her own health were not important. “I heard what happened,” she replies. “Tristan. Your brother.” She bows her head again, and the silence drags on.
Tristan. This was why Lucent is here. The weakness of her voice cracks Maeve’s resolve, and she finds herself softening toward Lucent in spite of herself. How she has missed Lucent’s presence, how quickly they had been separated again after the last battle against Adelina. She turns her head and nods once at her guards. With a clatter of armor, they step away and leave the two alone.
“He was never meant to stay this long,” Maeve replies after a while. She shakes away the image of her brother’s dead eyes, the mindless nature of his attack. It wasn’t him, of course. “He was already in the Underworld.”
Lucent winces and looks away.
“You still blame yourself,” Maeve continues, gentler now. “Even after all this time.”
Lucent says nothing, but Maeve knows what must be going through her head. It is the memory of the day Tristan had died, when the three of them had decided to go hunting together in the winter woods.
Tristan had shied away from the lake. He’d always been afraid of the water.
Maeve closes her eyes, and for an instant, she relives it again—Lucent, gangly and laughing, dragging Tristan forward through the brush to see the deer she had tracked for them; Tristan, staring at the deer that had made it halfway across the frozen lake; Maeve, kneeling into a silent crouch, lifting her bow to her line of sight. They had been too far away from the creature. One of us will have to get closer, Maeve had suggested. And Lucent had goaded and encouraged Tristan.
You should go.
They’d played on the ice often, never with incident. So, finally, Tristan grabbed his bow and arrow and crawled out onto the frozen lake on his elbows and stomach. They toyed with death a thousand times, but that day would have a different outcome. There was a hairline crack in the
ice at a fateful spot. Perhaps the deer’s hooves were the cause, perhaps the weight of the creature made the ice unstable, or perhaps the winter was not cold enough, had not frozen the lake solidly. Perhaps it was the thousand times they’d cheated death, all returning for them.
They heard the crack of the ice an instant before Tristan fell through. It’d been just enough time for him to look back at them as he plunged into the water below their feet.
“It was my fault,” Maeve tells her. She reaches up, about to lift Lucent’s chin, then stops herself. Instead, she gives Lucent a sad smile. “I brought him back.” She looks down. “I cannot reach the Underworld any longer. The touch of it has leaked into the mortal world, its harsh presence like ice on my heart. My power will kill me, if I choose to use it again. Perhaps,” she adds in a low voice, “part of all this is my punishment for defying the goddess of Death.”
Lucent studies her for a long moment. Has it really been so long since they were young? Maeve wonders whether this will be the final journey they take together, whether Raffaele’s predictions will all come to pass, that they will enter the mountain paths and never return.
At last, Lucent bows. “If we must all go,” she says, eyes turned down, “then I’m honored to go with you, Your Majesty.” Then she turns to leave.
Maeve reaches out and grabs Lucent’s arm. “Stay,” she says.
Lucent freezes. Her eyes widen at the queen. Maeve can feel the heat rising to her cheeks, but she doesn’t look away. “Please,” she adds, quieter. “Just this time. Just this once.”
For a moment, it seems Lucent might turn away. The two remain fixed in place, neither willing to move first.