Once two more shadow-possessed had been dispatched, Megs and Linna pulled on drab clothes until they could pass for the city’s inhabitants. Linna insisted upon keeping the black leather armor of the palace guards on underneath the disguise, even though Megs worried it could still be spotted by someone looking closely enough. But she supposed Linna’s armor offered better protection than the rags the possessed had been dressed in.
They worked their way up from the bowels of the ship to the deck above, taking one ladder then another. Megs looked up through the last hatch longingly. She could see the night sky from here, a rich black velvet heavy with stars.
Except for a brief scouting mission the night before, Megs hadn’t been above decks in at least three weeks – that was how much time had passed since sneaking aboard the ship on the other side of the Sunrise Mountains. They’d scarcely moved during the entire voyage from the East, creeping out only at night with the rodents, when they were fairly certain the ship’s sole Order of Targhan guardian slept. The infected sailors did not appear to need sleep, nor did they pay any attention to Megs and Linna; when they did not work, they simply stood in place, staring at nothing, looking to Megs like a discarded doll. That was how she’d realized there must be different types of shadow infected, because she’d seen fellow soldiers become infected, and now she’d seen the Order of Targhan women, and they were never blank-faced. The infected soldiers Megs had seen had always seemed to keep some part of themselves intact, even as the shadows took control of their minds. But these laborers … they moved as though sleepwalking, as though whatever had been human within them was gone forever.
She couldn’t help but wonder which type of infected her family had become after Milo had touched them. Was it too late to save them, or would they, too, crumble into dust the moment her rune-marked blade touched them?
She pushed the thought away, as she always did.
“I’ll go first,” Akella said, placing a hand on a ladder rung.
“Wait,” Megs said. She glanced at Linna. “We haven’t agreed on what we’re doing once we’re up there. Linna and I planned to sneak through the city, then into the palace at its zenith. But you never told us your plan.”
Akella kept her hand on the ladder rung but turned to face Linna and Megs. “I’m glad you found me, because your plan would never work. There’s a compound in front of the palace. It’s where all the witches live. Getting through the city dressed like this is easy enough. But getting into the compound, then through it to the palace…” She shook her head. “Last time, we were found out and almost immediately overwhelmed by the assassin-witches. But I know what to do this time. This time, I’m going to find my sailors first.” She grinned. “Sorceresses or not, I’d like to see them try to take down two dozen furious Adessian pirates.”
“There are two dozen of them?” Linna asked.
“There were when we sailed into this harbor two years ago.”
“Six and a half years ago,” Megs corrected gently.
Akella blew out a breath, and her rakish smile faltered. “Six years ago, I guess.” She was quiet for a moment. “I doubt my boys simply submitted quietly to the Order. Which means there might not still be two dozen. But even if half of them are still here, we stand a much better chance of succeeding with them at our side.”
“We got a glimpse of the city last night,” Linna said. “It looks big.”
“It is,” Akella said.
“Then how do you plan to find them? Do you already know where they are?” Linna asked.
“No, but I’ll find out,” Akella said.
“How?”
“The same way information is always gained in war,” Akella said, her grin returning. “Observation or interrogation. But I’m hoping it’ll be interrogation.”
“You plan to interrogate a shadow-possessed?” Linna asked skeptically.
“One of these mindless drones? Of course not.” Akella scoffed. “They won’t know anything. That’s why we’re going to have to find an Order woman we can interrogate.”
“That’s –” Linna stopped herself from saying whatever she was about to say and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she said with forced calmness, “You’ll bring them all down on us, Akella. It’s too dangerous.”
“What’s ‘too dangerous’ is the three of us trying to sneak into the palace without any reinforcements.” Akella pushed up the sleeve of her tunic, revealing a long, ugly scar. Its bright pink color suggested it had been a healing wound not too long ago. “The last time three battle-hardened women tried that, two of them were captured and the one who barely escaped ended up with a broken arm she had to set herself underneath a gash that almost bled her out.”
Linna pursed her lips but said nothing.
Akella turned back to the ladder, satisfied that she’d won the argument. “Count to one hundred and twenty. Then the next one goes.”
Linna and Megs waited without speaking.
But when a hundred and twenty seconds had passed, Linna turned to Megs and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Whatever happens, I want you to know that I appreciate you. You came with me all this way, crossed the Sunrise Mountains with me when we didn’t know what waited for us on the other side, snuck onto this ship even though we weren’t completely sure where it was going. You didn’t have to do that.”
“I did have to do it. You saved my life,” Megs said. “But besides that, I am a first sergeant of the Imperial Army. I go where the Empress needs me.”
She was surprised to hear the words leave her mouth. It had been a long time since she’d thought of herself as an Imperial soldier, longer still since she’d felt any sense of loyalty to an emperor or empress. Perhaps Akella’s unexpected appearance had reminded Megs of that other lifetime, the lifetime before Azza and Rom, before eking out their existence like a pack of stray dogs in the Sunrise Mountains.
Linna squeezed her shoulder. “You are a good soldier.”
Megs didn’t feel like a good soldier. Good soldiers cared about the outcomes of battles and wars, and Megs didn’t care at all anymore, not really. She just wanted her war to finally be over.
She didn’t say that to Linna, though, and she didn’t look up to meet Akella’s gaze, which she could feel boring into her.
“Go,” Megs said. “We will be right behind you.”