I’m saved from responding as Gesine and her floating globe ascend from the city’s bowels with the poise of a shadow, her inky hair hidden within the hood of her cloak. Elisaf is on her heels, nimbly rushing to ground level.
Between the caster’s magical light and Elisaf’s torch, I can finally discern the crowded, low-ceilinged room we’ve climbed into, cluttered with wooden crates and barrels of various sizes. Another dusty storage space that hides Cirilea’s secret passageways.
Gesine flicks her wrist, and a stack of crates slides across the gaping hole in the floor, concealing its existence.
Despite our current predicament, my heart skips a beat with excitement, as it does every time I witness real magic in this world.
“A skiff awaits us at the dock. The most discreet path is along the seawall.” The light of her globe fades until it vanishes. She gestures toward Elisaf’s torch, its firelight glinting off the gold collar that encircles her neck. A reminder that she is still shackled by Queen Neilina, even this far from Ybaris. “There is a metal bucket of water by the door. You must leave that behind.”
“This is my city, High Priestess, and we don’t need your guidance on how best to move through it.” Zander’s voice carries a biting hatred I haven’t heard since the days when I was the treacherous princess who murdered his parents.
But Zander’s wrong. It’s Atticus’s city now. Zander practically handed his crown to his opportunistic brother when he ignored the aspirations even I could see.
Tonight, we need all the help we can get, including from this caster.
Gesine may be thinking along the same lines, but her expression remains stoic as she dips her head. “Of course, Your Highness.”
Zander’s stern gaze flickers to Elisaf, who promptly dumps his blazing torch into the bucket. The flame sizzles, throwing the tiny storage room into darkness once again.
With Elisaf’s guiding hand on my shoulder, we creep out of the shack single file, Zander leading the way, his footfalls silent against the dirt path. A lean-to cluttered with scrap wood and fishing nets sits directly ahead. Beyond it and to the right are rows of one-story shanties. They’re the homes in the Rookery that Zander and I visited on more than one occasion, doling out gold coins to the loitering peasants. No one lingers on the porches now, though, save for a stray cat devouring its kill.
Rhythmic waves lap against rock on my left, the only hint of the yawning expanse of sea beyond. A warm, briny breeze grazes my cheek, and it is a welcome shift from the stench of waste. If this were any other situation, I might feel the urge to sit and absorb the calm those waves carry.
But up the hill, past the stone wall that serves as a barrier between Cirilea’s finer class and the humans it deems worthless, steel clangs against steel, drawing a disturbing wave of déjà vu. I’ve heard those sounds of battle before, upon waking in a strange world where two moons sometimes hang in the sky. That night, Princess Romeria was also at the root of the death and destruction.
Shouts soar in the streets behind us, and my panic surges. Soldiers found us at the apothecary. It’s only a matter of time before they follow us here.
“We must not tarry.” Gesine’s voice is too serene for the situation, but I appreciate it.
“This way.” Zander leads us along the narrow passage at the water’s edge.
I trail closely, noting every loose stone that tumbles past the retaining wall to plunge into the black waters below, praying that I don’t lose my footing and mirror their path.
With the city fair in full swing, people have flocked to Cirilea from every corner of Islor to sell and buy wares at the market and imbibe in the lively nighttime entertainment on Port Street. But it’s eerily silent in the Rookery tonight. Not a soul dallies outside the dilapidated walls. No curious faces peek out from behind the grimy glass panes. The streetlights are extinguished, save for the odd lantern, its glimmer timid. Surely, these people recognize the noise of battle from above and want no part of it. Has news of Atticus’s treason traveled to these hovels yet? Do these humans care which king governs when Islor’s laws keep them chained in a life of servitude?
Somemust care, at least. Humans like my seamstress, Dagny, who hoped for change under Zander’s rule.
“Tell me, High Priestess, did your all-knowing seers foretell of Islor’s king scampering through sewers and along shorelines like a rodent?” Sour humor laces Zander’s words.
“Foretelling does not work like that, Your Highness—”
“Then how dothey work?”
“It is as I’ve told you. The end of the blood curse is at the tied hands of—”
“The Ybarisan daughter of Aoife and the Islorian son of Malachi. Yes, I recall. You’re speaking in riddles based on hallucinations rooted in madness,” he snaps, all semblance of charm gone.
I can’t fault Zander for his anger. Too late, he learned how these casters from Mordain have been spinning a web of duplicity so thick, no one can see from one side to the other. While he claims he never trusted Wendeline, I think confirming her treachery has wounded him deeply.
And her list of deceptions keeps growing. She lied about even knowing of Gesine and Ianca, let alone of their arrival in Cirilea. She knew of Ybaris’s plot to kill Islor’s royal family the night of the wedding, and instead of stopping that tragedy from unfolding, she altered schedules to kill Zander’s parents sooner. She misled Zander about the poison, convincing him it was deliquesced merth, an odd metal vine that grows in the mountains and is toxic to immortals. Her hand was literally on the arrow when Margrethe summoned the Fate of Fire to resurrect Princess Romeria’s body—unbeknownst to them, with me in it.
And this unparalleled key caster power that simmers within my limbs, subdued by the ring around my finger? Wendeline discovered it the same night I arrived here, unconscious and torn apart by the daaknar. But she hid that vital truth from everyone, including me.
Wendeline may be more culpable for Zander’s kingdom unraveling than all of Ybaris’s scheming royal family put together, and she swears she did it in the best interests of Islor.
Only time will tell.
“That is better left to discussion when we are not scampering through sewers and along shorelines like rodents, do you not agree?” The faintest edge in Gesine’s voice—a hairline crack in her otherwise relentless deference to a king—makes me smile. Behind all the curtsies and bows to royal protocol, she has a backbone.