Then, a few years after that, in the ultimate insult to Vivia, Merik had been handed the admiralty. Though Vivia had appreciated the indignation of her fellow sailors and soldiers at the time—the men and women she’d trained with—it hadn’t made the pointed oversight by Serafin any less stinging.
Easy, easy. Everything in Merik’s life had been easy.
In a rough burst of speed, Vivia finished her partial undressing, yanking off her boots and peeling off her coat. Then she began her routine as she always did: she hissed, “Extinguish.”
Darkness snuffed across the cavern, and she held her breath, waiting for her eyes to adjust … There. Starlight began to twinkle.
Not true starlight, but streaks and sprinkles and sprays of luminescent fungi that offered more than enough light to see by once Vivia’s vision adapted. Four main spokes crawled across the rock, meeting at the ceiling’s center. Foxfire, her mother had called it.
There should have been six spokes, though, and there had been six spokes until nine weeks ago, when the farthest stripe—at the opposite end of the lake—had winked out. Leaving five lines for another three weeks … Until another rivulet had vanished too.
Never had the light died in Vivia’s life, nor during Queen Jana’s. In fact, it had been at least two centuries since any of the six spokes had winked out.
It was a sign that our people were too weak to keep fighting, Jana had explained. And it was a sign that the royal family was too weak to keep protecting.
So the city’s people had hidden underground, in a vast city carved into the rock. Where more foxfire grew in such huge magical masses that it was enough light for plants to grow—or enough light so long as Plantwitches were there to supplement and support.
The under-city is as big as Lovats above, my Little Fox. Powerful witches, the likes of which we no longer have today, built it centuries ago as a hiding place to keep our people alive.
Vivia had wanted to know more. How was the city built, Mother? Why aren’t there powerful witches like that now? How does the foxfire know we’re too weak? And where is the city?
These were all excellent questions, but ones for which Jana had had no answer. After their ancestors’ final use of the city, it had been sealed off. No records left behind, no clues to follow.
There was one question, though, that Vivia had never dared to ask: Will you ever show this to Merik? She hadn’t wanted to know the answer, hadn’t wanted to risk putting the idea in her mother’s head. This had been their space, mother and daughter.
And now this was her space. Vivia’s. Alone.
She stepped lightly to the lake’s edge. Green light splayed across the surface, dancing in time to the water’s flow. Flickering with the occasional fish or shell creature. The strength of the water poured into Vivia before her toes even hit the edge. Her connection to the ripples and tides, the power and the timelessness.
The lake embraced Vivia instantly. A friend to keep her safe. The waters cooled her toes, and as she dipped her hands into the vastness of it all, her eyes drifted shut. Then she felt her way through every drop of water that flowed through the plateau. This was her power. This was her home.
Vivia’s magic snaked through the lake, bouncing over creatures that lived for all eternity in this dark world. Over rocks and boulders and treasure long lost and long forgotten. Upstream, her magic climbed. Downstream, her magic swept. Time melted into a lost thing—a human construct that the water neither cared for nor needed.
All was well with the lake. So Vivia shrank back into herself, loss brushing along the edges of her being. It always did when her connection to the lake ended. If she could, she would never leave. She would plant roots in this lake and fall into it forever—
Vivia shook herself. No. No. She had to keep moving. Like the river, like the tides.
With her arms hugged tight to her chest, she stalked from the water. In moments, her boots were on—wet toes curling in dry leather—and she was scooping up her lantern once more. Yesterday, she had explored a series of caverns that spiraled above the lake. They’d ended at a cave-in, and on the other side, Vivia had sensed water. Moving water, like the vast floods that cleaned the Cisterns.
She wanted to try to clear a path through the cave-in’s rubble, for though churning rapids might wait on the other side, churning rapids were no barrier for a Tidewitch.
Vivia was almost to a key split in the tunnels, when something landed on her head.
She flinched, hands flinging to her scalp. Legs, legs, legs spindled over her hair. She swatted. Hard. A black spot flew to the cavern floor.
A wolf spider, monstrous and fuzzy. Its legs stretched long as it scampered away, leaving Vivia to catch her breath. To slow her booming heart.
An almost hysterical laugh bubbled in her throat. She could face down entire navies. She could ride a waterfall from mountain peak to valley’s end. She could battle almost any man or woman and be named victor.
But a spider … She shivered, shoulders rolling high. Before she could resume her forward, upward march, she spotted movement near her feet. Up the cavern walls too.
The wolf spider wasn’t the only creature scratching its way to the surface, nor the only creature shaking with terror. A centipede—no, tens of them—curled out of crevices near Vivia’s feet. Salamanders slithered up the walls.
Blessed Noden, where were all these creatures coming from?
And more important, what were all these creatures running from?
SEVEN
Half a day of walking.
Half a day of thirst.
The walking had been easy enough. Somehow Safi had lost her shoes in the surf, yet even barefoot, Safi had trained for this. And even with her foot smashed by an iron flail two weeks before, she could march for miles.
But the thirst … That was a new experience, and it was made all the worse by the endless brackish water slithering through the mangroves, none of it drinkable.
Neither Safi nor the empress ever spoke. Not that it mattered. The jungles of the Contested Lands made enough noise for them both.
For hours, they trekked southwest, away from the shore. Away from any Cartorran armada that might be hunting or any assassins still on the prowl. They crossed mud that sucked them to their knees. Mangrove roots and cypress knobs. Vines that snagged, thorns that cut, and insects that clicked and feasted.
Until at last, they needed a rest.
Vaness was the first to sit. It took Safi several dragging steps to even notice the sudden silence behind her. She snapped back her gaze. Empty jungle, and green, green shadows. Her heart lurched into her throat. Vaness had been right behind her.
There. Safi’s eyes caught on a hunched figure atop a fallen mangrove. The black of Vaness’s gown blended into the leaves and shadows.
Safi’s heart settled. “Are you hurt?”
“Hmmm,” was all the empress said before her dark head drooped forward, sweat-soaked hair cascading across her face.
Safi turned back. Water, water—that word pounded in her mind as she approached the empress. Vaness needed it, Safi needed it. They could go only so far without it.
Yet it wasn’t dehydration she found shuddering through Vaness’s small body. It was tears. The empress’s grief was so pure, it sang off her. Hot, charged waves that kissed true-true-true against Safi’s skin. She could almost see it—a funeral dirge to spread through the forest, rippling outward and growing perfect black roots.
She reached Vaness’s side, but no useful words rose in her throat. This … this was too big for her.
Iron was not meant to weep.
Vaness seemed to understand. Shackles clanking, she cupped her face. Rubbed and swiped and erased the tears before saying, “They were my family.” Her voice was thick. Almost lost in the jungle’s endless cry. “The Adders. The sailors. I have known them my entire life. They were my friends … my family.” A crack in her throat. A pause. “I did not think war would return so soon. The Truce only ended two weeks
ago…” Her voice drifted off, leaving an unspoken truth to settle through the trees.
I ended the Truce by claiming you in Nubrevna. I brought this upon myself.
Then Vaness straightened, and like the iron she controlled, her posture steeled. When she met Safi’s eyes, there was no sign tears had ever come—and there was certainly no sign of regret. “I will kill the Cartorrans who did this, Domna.”
“How do you know it was Cartorra?” Yet even as Safi asked this, she knew the empire of her childhood—the empire that had sent an armada after her—was the only logical source of the attack.
Except … something was missing from that explanation. Like a key foisted into the wrong lock, the idea refused to click. After all, why would the emperor kill Safi? It seemed far more likely he would want his valuable Truthwitch kept alive.
Then again, perhaps he’d rather lose her forever than have her stand at his enemy’s side. And, the assassin had had blue eyes.
“Henrick.” Vaness spat the name, as if reading Safi’s mind. “His entire navy—I will find them. I will kill them.”
“I know.” Safi did know. The truth of that statement burned off Vaness. It heated Safi’s skin, boiled in Safi’s gut—and she would revel in Emperor Henrick’s downfall when it came. That toad-like leader of the Cartorran Empire, that sweaty-palmed man who’d tried to force Safi to marry him, tried to force her Truthwitchery into his clutches.
Safi offered her hand to the empress, and to her surprise, Vaness accepted. Her hands were surprisingly soft against Safi’s. Fingers that had rarely held weapons, skin that had never been worked.
Yet not once had Vaness complained today.
Iron might weep, but it did not break.
Scrapes and scratches Safi hadn’t noticed before now fought for attention. Now that she’d stopped, her aching feet had decided they would no longer be ignored. Especially her healing right foot. Yet she forced herself to say, “We need to keep going, Your Majesty. We’re still too close to shore.”
“I know … Domna.” Vaness uttered that title with a frown. “I cannot keep calling you that. Not once we are in Saldonica.”
“Safi, then. Call me Safi.”
Vaness nodded, mouthing Safi to herself as if she’d never used a first name before.
“But what shall I call you?” Safi asked, a spark of energy rushing through her at the prospect of a nickname. “Nessie? Van? V? Ssen … av?”
Vaness looked ill. She was clearly regretting this idea.
Safi, however, was only just getting started. Creating aliases had always been her favorite part of a heist, much to the annoyance of her mentor Mathew.
A bolt of fear hit Safi’s chest at the thought of him. At the thought of all the men and women working for Uncle Eron. They wouldn’t know where to find Safi now. Worse, they might think her dead and never come for her.
She swallowed, loosening her parched throat. Then she screwed her worries down deep, deep and out of reach. There was nothing to be done but hike onward.
And, of course, craft a new name for the empress. “Iron,” she suggested as they resumed their trek west, following the sun toward Saldonica. “Steel? Oh, Iron-y.” That made her chuckle.
Not Vaness, though, who now glared.
“Oh, I know!” Safi clapped her hands, delighted by her own genius. “I shall call you Un-empressed.”
“Please,” Vaness said coldly, “stop this immediately.”
Safi absolutely did not.
* * *
For hours, Safi and Vaness hiked. Mangroves gnarled into a jungle. Mahogany and oak, bamboo and ferns, interrupted only by swaths of yellow grassland.
Safi avoided the open meadows when she could. They were too exposed in case anyone followed, and the thick, waist-high grass was almost impenetrable. In the forest, the canopy grew so thick no sunlight pierced through, no plants could grow to block the earthen floor, which meant longer lines of sight. There was water in the jungle too. Twice the women came across a low streambed. Both times only a muddy trickle wavered by, but it was something. Even chalky, thick, and tasting of dirt, it was something.
They had just skirted another wide meadow when Safi noticed clouds pilling in. A storm would soon break, so they stopped at a fallen log. Stopping, however, made the pain return tenfold. Safi’s soles screamed. Her ankles moaned. And the thirst …
Dizziness swept over her the instant she knelt beside the log. She almost fell to her hands. Limp muscles bound to weary bones, and the empress fared no better. It seemed to take all Vaness’s remaining energy to crawl beneath the overgrown climbing vines.
At least, Safi thought distantly, the empress wasn’t demanding. She endured her plight—and Safi’s humor—as stoically as Iseult would.
Before Safi could join Vaness under the log, a water droplet slammed onto her scalp. More droplets followed, streaking down her forearm, leaving glowing white trails through dust and sweat and ash.
She had to catch this rain, no matter how much she’d rather use this moment to rest.
“Can you make a bottle?” Safi asked Vaness. “We need something to hold the water.”
Vaness conjured a slow nod. She was past exhaustion, once more drowning in grief. Several bursts of rain later, though, two round canisters rested in her smooth palms. One from each shackle. Safi took them cautiously, as if any quick movements might frighten away the empress.
Her eyes were so empty in this darkness.
“I’m going to walk back to the last clearing we crossed. It’ll be easier to catch rain in the open.”
“Yes,” Vaness said thickly. “Do that, Safi.” She scooted back beneath the log, trusting Safi to return. Or perhaps no longer caring if she was forever alone.
Safi found a spot near the clearing’s edge where ancient columns lay strewn across the earth. Half a crumbling wall too, and though Safi recognized marble beneath the ferns and vines, she didn’t recognize the ruins. Some forgotten race, no doubt swallowed by an empire long ago.
Whoever they’d been, they didn’t matter. Now all that mattered was the rain. It stormed hard and clean against Safi’s skin, and she let it pour down her body and into her mouth. She let it sink into her stained dress, her gnarled hair.
It felt good. It tasted good. Which was why the drumming of it covered the approaching footsteps. The tall grass covered the approaching bodies.
Safi’s hands were up, scrubbing against her scalp, her eyes foolishly closed. Her focus was briefly—oh, so briefly—absorbed in the feel of fresh water on her lips, when a steel point dug into her back.
Safi didn’t move. Didn’t close her mouth or give any reaction that she felt the blade there.
“Stay still, Heretic, and we won’t hurt you.”
Four things about this command collided in Safi’s mind at once. The person with the sword was male; he spoke in Cartorran with a mountain accent; he said “we” as if there was someone else in the clearing; and he’d called her “heretic.”
Hell-Bard.
Safi’s eyes snapped wide. Rain slid through her lashes, forcing her to blink as she lowered her gaze and found exactly what she expected to see.
A Hell-Bard towered five paces before her. Though a steel helm covered his face, there was no missing the enormity of his neck. He was the largest man Safi had ever seen, and the two axes he hefted in each hand were almost as long as Safi’s legs. Rain glittered on the metal plates across his scarlet brigandine, on his chain mail sleeves and leather gauntlets—full armor that should have made noise. How had she not heard the brute coming, or seen him?
She swiveled her head just enough to glimpse the speaker behind. What she saw didn’t bode well. Though not as large as the giant, this Hell-Bard still cut a hulking silhouette. His armor was complete, his longsword expertly grasped in both hands, and the scarlet stripes across his gauntlets indicated he was an officer.
A Hell-Bard commander.
If a man is better armed or better trained, Habim had taught, then do
as he orders. It is better to live and look for opportunity than to die outmatched.
“What do you want from me?” she asked the commander.
“For now, we want you to stay where you are.” His voice echoed in his helm, and nothing in Safi’s magic reacted. It was as if he spoke no truth yet also spoke no lie.
“It’s wet,” she tried again.
“Don’t pretend it bothers you.”
It did bother her. Safi’s toes were numb. Her knees had turned to needles. But she also knew better than to press the point—especially since her witchery was so clearly failing her in the face of a Hell-Bard. Everything had narrowed down to the way the rain glanced off the man’s armor. To the way the second Hell-Bard stood as still as the marble pillars mere feet away.
It was the moment Safi had run from her entire childhood, and Safi’s training was taking over. All those drills and lessons and practice rounds with Habim, all those lectures and dark stories from Uncle Eron—they had become a part of her. Long before she’d ever met Iseult, Safi’s teachers had hammered into her that she was strong, that she could fight and defend, and that no one should ever be able to back her into a corner.
Safi was a wolf in a world of rabbits.
Except when it came to the elite fighting force known as the Hell-Bard Brigade. With the sole purpose of rooting out unregistered witches in the Cartorran Empire, Safi had spent her life hiding from them—for of course her own magic was too valuable to ever reveal.
Since her first trip to the Cartorran capital when she was five years old, her uncle and tutors had told Safi there was no fighting the Hell-Bards. No defending against them. Uncle Eron, a dishonorably discharged Hell-Bard himself, knew better than anyone else what the Brigade could do. When you see their scarlet armor, he always told her, you run the other way, for if you get too close, they will sense your magic. They will see you for what you really are.
Safi might be a wolf, but Hell-Bards were lions.
Vaness is still out there, Safi thought. She who could block explosions with her witchery or crush entire mountains—a lion would be nothing against the Iron Empress.