“And here I thought you were powerful,” he snaps.
For an instant, I think he’s going to leave us behind to fend for ourselves, while he vanishes into the crowd.
Instead, he pulls at my energy. He’s going to try to mimic me. I can feel the faint tug of his power against mine—his eyes dart to one side, and there in the crowd, I see him evoke the fleeting shapes of identical versions of us, running in a different direction through the square. At the same time, he pulls us into a thick cluster of people.
“There!” one of the soldiers shouts behind us. I turn to catch a glimpse of them between the milling bodies in the crowd. They are following the decoys’ path.
Magiano lets the illusion drop. It’s most likely all he can do, given my weakened state. We reach the end of the square. From here, the harbor comes into view between the streets’ buildings. I run faster. Beside me, Violetta’s breath comes in gasps.
“Keep going straight,” Magiano calls over his shoulder. “Until you hit the piers. Hide when you get there. I’ll find you.” He takes an abrupt detour, veering sharply left of us.
“Stay with us!” I shout. I’m suddenly afraid he’ll be captured. “You don’t need to be a noble—”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” he shoots back. “You’d better wait for me.” Then he’s gone, vanished into the crowd before I can even think of what to say. Moments later, he reappears off in a corner of the square, where he hops up onto the stone railing overlooking a canal and pulls his lute from his back. He shouts something into the square that sounds like a taunt.
Behind us, half of the soldiers change their route to head in his direction. But the others continue pursuing us.
I try again to use my energy. Again, I fail. For a moment, I feel like I’m completely new to using my power, searching and reaching but never quite able to touch the threads of energy hovering inside me and all around us. What has happened to me?
Violetta tightens her grip on my hand. She points to where sailors are throwing ropes off one of the docks. She pulls me along.
An arrow whizzes past us from the roofs. It narrowly avoids hitting Violetta in the arm. Several screams go up from the people we pass. Others part the way as soon as they realize the soldiers are after us. Fear emanates from everyone around us—it feeds me, and I feel my strength grow. Come on, I urge myself. I reach again for my energy.
Finally. My mind closes solidly around it. I whip a blanket of invisibility over us, covering us with the brick and marble of the walls, the cobblestone and dirt of the streets, the crowds of people. It’s an imperfect shield, in my tired state and with so many moving people around, but it’s enough to throw off our pursuers. Another arrow comes from overhead, but this time it misses our moving ripple by a wide shot. I grit my teeth and keep the illusion moving as fast as I can. Another arrow lands somewhere behind us.
We reach the docks. Here, the commotion changes to the work of readying crowded ships, and we manage to find a place to huddle behind a cluster of barrels. Our invisibility solidifies, now that we’re still, and we vanish entirely from sight. My breaths come raggedly, and my hands are shaking violently. Sweat beads on Violetta’s forehead. She looks unnaturally pale, and her eyes dart nervously along the street.
“How is Magiano going to find us?” she asks.
I glance at the ships lined up along the pier, looking for one with a hull that resembles a double-edged sword. The water along the pier churns, frothed up by restless baliras that are still hooked to their ships, waiting as their sailors argue with soldiers who refuse to let them dock. A long rope as thick as I am tall now dangles low across the water behind the docked ships, preventing anyone from entering or leaving. My attention returns to the ships. Minutes drag on. Again, I find myself wishing the Windwalker was with us, knowing how easy it would be to get on board a ship with her help.
How are we going to find Magiano in all this chaos? What if there is no ship waiting for us?
Then a shadow falls over us. We look up into the faces of two soldiers.
Their hands close around my arms. They seize us before we can even utter a protest. The Night King’s emblems sit prominently on their sleeves, and their faces are partially covered by veils. Violetta shoots me a terrified look. Do something. I reach again for my energy, trying desperately to grab it.
The soldier shoves me roughly before bringing his face closer. “Don’t,” he says quietly.
I suddenly still. Something in his voice stops me—a warning, a signal that they are not arresting us in the way we think. I glance back at Violetta, who stares in silence.
Two other soldiers approach us. One of them draws his sword and nods at the soldier holding me. “Is that them?” he asks.
“Could be,” my captor says. “Go alert the captain. Now.” He says it with such force that the other two soldiers turn immediately and start running to send up the alert. Our two soldiers quicken their pace. “Move,” the one holding me snaps from underneath his veil. And before us, I see what I’ve been looking for—a gangplank leading up to a ship that looks like a sword.
Together, we make our way toward the gangplank, carefully bypassing others as they hurry back and forth. One foot after the other. The gangplank creaks under our weight. We make it onto the deck of the ship right as another cluster of soldiers hurries by. They pause on the shore. I hold my breath, my hand wrapped so tightly around Violetta’s that my knuckles have turned white. My sister winces. The sails overhead are unfurling, and two crew members are unknotting thick lengths of rope on the railing.
Finally, soldiers on the pier notice us. “Hey!” one of them shouts at the nearest crewmember on our ship. “You were supposed to be tying her in. Lower your mast, port’s still closed!”
No one on board listens to him.
“I said, port’s closed!” the soldier hollers again, and this time the other soldiers shift in our direction. “Lower your mast!”
Someone in the crew hollers, and the rest of them holler back. Violetta and I stumble a little as the ship pulls free of the docks, then slowly turns its bow to face the opening of the bay. The soldiers on the pier halt, while their leader signals frantically toward others to raise the alarm. Another points a crossbow in our ship’s direction. Those closest to the railing fall into a crouch.
Our soldiers shove us. “Get down,” one of them barks. We do, right as the ship gives a lurch that makes us all sway. From the ocean below come the haunting cries of baliras. I clench my teeth. Even if these men are all here to help us, how will they get us out of port with the soldiers onshore alerted? We’ll have to get past the roped barrier, and even if we do, there will be ships sent after us—
“Adelina,” a voice behind us says. I whirl around to see a young man crouched near us. Our two soldiers give him a respectful nod, and he nods back. His eyes turn to me. I stiffen.
He sees my expression and holds up his hands. “Easy,” he says. “We didn’t go through all this trouble just to hurt you.” He glances at Violetta. “And your sister?” he adds.
“Yes,” Violetta replies, right as the ship shudders again. We fall to one side, but the mercenary talking to us hops to his feet with little effort and rushes back to the stern. From where we are, I can see glimpses of the water—and that the rope suspended over it is now cut and floating uselessly. Shouts come from the pier as we pull farther away.
Magiano hops over the bow of the ship. He’s almost completely soaked, and as the young mercenary approaches him, he shakes water out of his hair like a dog. The two exchange some words. I watch them carefully, my hand still clenched around Violetta’s.
Seconds later, Magiano and the mercenary hurry back to us. Magiano bends down, helps us to our feet, and then stands with his arms crossed. He doesn’t look concerned at all. At my suspicious expression, he just shrugs. “Relax, my love,” he says. “If I wanted to make a quick coin by sellin
g you to someone, I wouldn’t have surrounded myself with people who don’t stand a chance against you.” The mercenary shoots him an irritated look, and Magiano holds up both hands. “I meant, you are all fantastic mercenaries. You just aren’t—well, these are the two that I told you about. Trust me, you’re interested in them because of how dangerous they are.”
“You’ve brought a hell of a lot of trouble down on us,” the mercenary replies. “I thought you were going to sneak them into the harbor, not bring the entire army down on us.”
“Plans. They’re fickle things.” Magiano hesitates. “You are a mercenary for the Night King, yes? You do know how to get us out of this, right? Are we even on the right ship? Because—”
The mercenary ignores him, then shouts something at the nearest crew and stalks away toward the middle of the ship. The crew bursts into action. As he goes, the color of the sky distracts me. I look up. It has suddenly turned a sickly shade of green and gray. Fat drops of rain have already started to fall. I frown at Violetta. Wasn’t the day clear and blue just moments earlier?
But Violetta’s eyes stay fixed on the mercenary’s back. Her eyes are wide. “An Elite,” she mouths to me.
Magiano hops onto the ship’s railing to look back at the harbor. There, several thin caravelas flying the Night King’s flag look ready to sail in our direction. I brace myself for a hunt.
But they don’t get a chance to follow us. Because the skies open.
The ominous drizzle suddenly turns into a torrent of rain. It is a blanket that whips across the deck, stunning me with icy pellets. I shield myself with my arms; beside me, Violetta does the same. Enormous waves rock the ship. Somewhere, the mercenary shouts for Magiano to seek cover for us.
“Happy to oblige,” Magiano mutters. He guides us to the stern, where we huddle beneath a cloth canopy draped over crates. Once we’re settled, Magiano darts away again to the mercenary’s side. We look on as the crew rushes to make sure the ropes latching us to our baliras are firmly in place.
The mercenary concentrates on the sky as it turns steadily blacker, until the harbor looks like it has been swallowed whole by midnight. The soldiers’ ships seem to hesitate by the piers. There is no doubt that if they try to sail out into such a tempest, the ocean would splinter the boats to pieces. Still, one of them gives chase. Violetta and I hang grimly on to the canopy’s ropes.
But the mercenary seems unconcerned. He focuses his attention on the oncoming ship, then looks up at the sky, as if searching for something. Rain pelts his face.
A bolt of lightning strikes the approaching ship. I jump. There is an earsplitting crack as the ship’s mast splits in two, then erupts in flames. Shouts and screams come from on board, carried over to us by the wind even from our distance—and then the sheets of rain blanket the seascape again, obscuring the wrecked ship from view. I blink water out of my eye in shock.
The mercenary smiles a little, then sighs in relief.
As I watch him, a memory slowly emerges. It’s of the day Raffaele first tested me, when he told me the story of an Elite who failed to prove himself worthy of the Daggers . . .
The storm rages on, until my sister and I have to flatten ourselves against the deck, still gripping the soaked sides of the canopy. I play the memory over again and again. I’d thought that the Daggers killed the Elite that Raffaele talked about, because he was unable to control his powers. And maybe I’m still right. Maybe this boy isn’t who I think he is. But now, as we sail farther from Merroutas and the harbor behind us is lost within the storm, I wonder if Raffaele’s story was about this boy.
The boy who could control the rain.
They tell me that you have been crying in your sleep. Do not grieve our separation, my love, for our reunion will come just as swiftly.
—Letter from unknown prisoner, convicted of treason, to fiancée
Adelina Amouteru
The worst of the storm dies down soon after we reach the open ocean. But the rain continues on, falling and falling until I start to wonder whether the clouds will ever go away. Violetta and I stay belowdecks, in a small but private cabin that the captain offers us, and dry off with clean towels.
Both of us are quiet. The only sounds we hear are the crash of waves outside the porthole, and the distant shouts of the crew overhead. In one corner of the cabin, a mirror sits on a vanity desk, and I can catch a glimpse of my unadorned features, my mask gone, my hair wraps removed and revealing my short silver locks. Right after Enzo’s death, I’d cut off my hair with a knife—Violetta helped me trim the strands as neatly as she could, but my hair will stay short for a long time. I’m still not used to seeing it.
A sharp clap of thunder shakes the ship. From the corner of my eye, I see Violetta jump, then settle down, embarrassed. Her eyes stay uneasily on the stormy seas outside our porthole. She wrings her hands unconsciously in her lap, as if trying to stop the shaking.
She catches me looking. “I’m fine,” she says, but there is a tremor in her voice.
I realize how exhausted we both are. Where are we headed? Are this mercenary and his crew really trying to help us? When Violetta and I were little, I comforted her through thunderstorms by squeezing her shoulders and humming to her. I do that now, sitting beside her, wrapping my arms around her and picking a tune I remember our mother singing to me before Violetta was even born.
Violetta doesn’t say anything. Gradually, her trembling lessens, though it doesn’t go away entirely. She leans into my touch, and we sit together in silence.
“Adelina,” Violetta finally says. Her voice startles me. She turns so that she can see me. “What happened to you out there in the city? When we were on the canal?”
I shake my head. The memory seems fuzzy now. I’ve always been plagued by illusions of our father’s ghost, but what happened today was something new and frightening. I’d seen him so clearly that I believed he was there. I saw Enzo, engulfing the streets in flames.
Violetta’s tone grows firm. “Tell me,” she says. “I know you’ll keep it bottled up if you don’t, and that might be even more dangerous for all of us.”
I take a deep breath. “I think I created an illusion by accident,” I reply. “Something that I couldn’t control. I woke up this morning feeling a strange pressure against my head, and when we reached the canal, I . . .” I frown. “I don’t know. I can’t even remember creating the illusions. But I thought what I was seeing was real.”
Violetta reaches a tentative hand out to touch mine. “Can you create something right now? Something small?”
I nod. I pull slightly on a thread of energy, and a ribbon of darkness winds its way up from the center of my palm.
Violetta frowns as she studies me. Finally, she releases my hand. I let the ribbon dissipate. “You’re right,” she replies. “There’s something odd about your energy now, but I can’t quite figure out what. Do you think it has anything to do with what happened at the Night King’s estate?”
My temper rises at that. “You think this is my reaction to killing the Night King,” I say, pushing off the bed and standing before her.
Violetta crosses her arms. “Yes, I think it is. Your energy flares out of control when you go to extremes.”
I tighten my jaw, refusing to think back on Dante’s death. On Enzo’s. “It won’t happen again. I mastered my powers when I stayed with the Daggers.”
“You couldn’t have mastered them as much as you think,” Violetta argues. “You nearly got us all killed! How will you tell reality from illusion if you don’t even know you’re using your power? How do you know you won’t feel that strange pressure on your mind again?”
“It won’t happen again.”
Violetta’s expression is anxious. “What if it’s worse next time?”
I run a hand through my short hair. The strands slide between my fingers. What if she’s right? What if the consequence of
letting my anger go unchecked, of twisting my illusions so hard that they kill, is that it feeds my energy so strongly it goes beyond what I can control? I let my thoughts wander. After I killed Dante and we walked the city in a haze, I could barely recall what I did. After Enzo’s death, I’d unleashed my anger on the entire Estenzian arena. I fell unconscious afterward. And this time, with the Night King’s death . . .
I sigh and turn away from her, then distract myself by fixing my hair in the mirror. In the corner of my vision, I think I see a glimpse of my father’s ghost. He seems to smile at me as he walks along the length of the cabin. His eyes are shrouded in shadow, and his chest is torn open, just the way I remember it from the night he died. I glance at the illusion, but it vanishes before I can focus on it.
It’s not real. I clamp down hard on my energy. “It won’t happen again,” I repeat, brushing Violetta’s concerns aside with a sweep of my hand. “Especially since I’m aware of it now.”
Violetta gives me a pained look—the same expression she once gave me as a little girl, when I refused to help her save the one-winged butterfly. “You don’t have as much control over your power as you think. It shifts so wildly, more so than anyone else’s I’ve felt.”
My temper boils over into anger. I whirl on her. “Maybe if someone didn’t force me to suffer alone as a child, I wouldn’t be like this.”
Violetta turns bright red. She tries to respond, but stumbles on her words. “I’m just trying to help you,” she finally manages.
“Yes, you’re always trying to help, aren’t you?” I sneer.
Her shoulders slump. I feel a twinge of guilt for lashing out at her, but before I can say anything, there’s a light knock on our door.
“Come in,” Violetta says, straightening.
The door opens a crack, and I see Magiano’s golden eyes. “Am I interrupting?” he asks. “It sounded a bit tense in here.”