Authors: Sharon Shinn
“Corene, I see you!” he roared. “Let go before the stairs fall!
Let go!
”
His voice rose to her from directly below. He was still invisible in the swirling smoke, but she had to believe that he was there. The faithful torz heart; the one she could trust with her life. Oh, but she did not want to fall into his arms and smash him against the ground. He would die to protect her, but she would die from the loss.
“I can’t,” she whispered. “I can’t.”
He could not have heard her, not through the creaking of the stairs and the snapping of the embers and Nelson shouting something she couldn’t make out. But he answered her anyway.
“Corene, I love you,” he said, his voice so clear he might have been leaning over to speak directly in her ear. “I won’t let you fall.”
Courage,
she thought, and opened her hands.
Seconds of smoke and cinders and air and
nothing
and then the collision—arms and chest and a hard impact on the stony ground and rolling, rolling, her body entwined with his, no sense of up or down, just pain and motion and terror. Then a pause—a suspension of thought
and movement and sound and everything—and Foley’s insistent voice against her cheek, his breath against her skin.
“Corene.
Corene.
”
She tried to inhale, choked on the hot air, and didn’t speak his name so much as cough it. “Foley! Are you all right?”
“Yes—yes—unhurt, but you—I need to look at you. Sit up, can you sit up?”
“I don’t know, I’m so dizzy—”
How could they be alive, both of them? Maybe she hadn’t been so high up after all, or maybe she had perished in the fall and this smoky dreamland was where the dead existed.
I didn’t think there would be so much pain once I died,
she thought, her senses swimming as Foley pulled her to a sitting position. She felt his hands—his strong, capable hands—run swiftly over her arms, her ribs, her legs, pausing at the shredded skin along her right calf before checking her ankles and feet.
“I don’t think you’ve broken anything,” he said, his voice rich with relief. “And your head? Did you hit it when you fell?”
“I don’t think so. Everything else hurts, but not my head. And you? You’re really all right? You’re not lying?”
“I never lie to you,” he said.
All around them, currents of smoke swirled like particularly insistent ghosts, but they were in a small cocoon of open air, practically sitting on top of each other, their faces inches apart. She had no idea where Nelson had gone, but he wasn’t within the perimeter of this tiny magical space, so he might as well not exist. She lifted her hands—bruised and bleeding and streaked with red where she had clung to the hot metal—and put her palms on Foley’s cheeks.
“You said you loved me,” she whispered. “Did you say it just so I’d jump? Or was it the truth?”
He watched her steadily. His face was grimed with ash, his eyes rimmed with red from the stinging embers. Or maybe he had been crying. He repeated, “I never lie to you.”
“I love you, too. You know that. Or maybe you don’t. But I love you.”
“I know you think you do.”
“Oh, Foley,” she said, almost laughing. “You have no idea what I’m thinking.”
She leaned in to kiss him. It was a remarkably sweela kiss. He tasted like smoke and ashes and fevered life, like miracles and passion and the embodiment of dreaming. Her skin was hot, or his was, or the very stone beneath their bodies still harbored fire, because she was flushed with heat and her lips burned against his mouth.
“I’m so glad I didn’t die,” she whispered.
There was a disturbance behind them and an eddy in the hazy air, and suddenly Nelson was standing there, his hands on his hips, his face streaked with soot. “Truly? Right now?
This
is the time you pick?” he demanded. “These stairs could collapse at any minute!”
Foley didn’t even bother to look embarrassed as he stood up and helped Corene to her feet. She clutched at his arm, but he didn’t show any inclination to let her go. “He’s right,” Foley said. “We need to get out of here.”
She nodded, letting him guide her toward the big square of blackness that must be the wide door. She’d only taken three steps before she had to step over a body on the floor, hidden till now by the low smoke. She caught her breath and tightened her grip on Foley’s arm. “Are they all dead?” she asked quietly.
He nodded. “Yes. Four of them.”
He had promised he would kill to keep her safe—and expressed the hope that he would never have to do so.
Mostly because I don’t want you ever to be so much at risk.
Well, she had been at risk and he had responded as promised, though it was horrible to think about.
“Four,” she repeated. “I’m impressed.”
“One of them was already dead from the fire I believe
you
set,” he said.
She nodded, her throat so tight she couldn’t speak. So she had killed a man after all. Sometime soon, she would need a long, quiet moment to think about that.
“And the sweela prime accounted for another one,” Foley added.
She swiveled her head to get a look at Nelson. “He
did
? I didn’t know he could even hold a weapon.”
Nelson’s grin was tired. “That’s not how a prime slays a man.”
“Oh,” she said, facing forward again to watch where she was going because Foley was steering her around another dead soldier. Well, she
knew what Zoe was capable of. The coru prime could call a man’s blood right out of his veins, make it seep through his skin in rivulets of red—though as far as Corene knew, Zoe had never actually killed anybody. Corene didn’t know how Nelson would stop an assailant, but she wasn’t surprised to learn he could do it. More surprised that he
would
.
There were too many bodies piling up in Malinqua. She was unutterably grateful that none of them were hers, or Foley’s, but she was tired of this place. Tired and sad and in pain and ready to sail away.
They stepped through the great door into the clear, cool night, and Corene took one deep breath of sweet air—then felt her feet freeze to the ground.
The tower was ringed with soldiers.
• • •
S
he felt Foley drop her arm and pull a blade; she felt Nelson press closer, bristling with heat and menace. But the soldiers didn’t surge forward, brandishing weapons, and neither of her protectors issued a challenge. They spent a brief, tense moment staring at each other in the imperfect light of flame and star, trying to make out faces and insignia. It didn’t take long for Corene to realize these men weren’t wearing Malinquese livery. In fact—could it be?—was that the small Welchin rosette embroidered on the fronts of their uniforms?
She drew herself up to what she hoped was a regal pose and demanded, “Who are you? Speak now.”
The lead soldier stepped forward and offered formal bows to Corene and Nelson. “Majesty,” he said. “Prime. I’m Captain Sorren of the Chialto Royal Guard, and these are my men. We await your orders.”
She felt Foley relax and Nelson start laughing, but she was too stunned to do more than stare. “Chialto Royal Guard,” she repeated. “How did you get here?”
A smaller shape slipped past Captain Sorren and resolved itself into Leah. “You’re safe!” she exclaimed, flinging her arms around Corene for a quick hug. “I brought the soldiers. When I realized what was happening—”
“What
is
happening? Why are Welchin troops in Palminera?” Corene asked. Suddenly she registered the intermittent, echoing booms
rolling across the city from the direction of the docks; suddenly she remembered the flashes of light she’d seen from the harbor. She gasped. “Are we invading Malinqua?”
“Not us,” Nelson answered.
“Berringey?”
“Cozique,” Leah said.
Corene felt that the night had left her too stupid to absorb information. “But—why?”
“For the same reason I’m here, and Welchin warships lie a few miles out in the ocean,” Nelson said dryly. “Because Filomara has been careless with the safety of her guests.”
“Melissande’s mother,” Corene realized. “She sent a navy to retrieve her.”
“So it appears.”
Corene gestured at Captain Sorren. “But then you—did you battle the Coziquela navy to come find us?”
“That wasn’t necessary,” he replied.
Still confused, Corene glanced at Nelson, who was pursing his lips. “Let’s say I might not have been entirely truthful with Filomara,” Nelson said. “Before I came ashore, I had some conversations with the Coziquela admirals. It turned out we were basically in agreement and we saw no need to fire on each other.”
Corene rubbed her temple. Maybe she had been wrong when she told Foley she hadn’t hit her skull on the stone. She was starting to get a headache. “So then—what’s happening now?”
Captain Sorren replied. “It’s been a busy day. Coziquela forces made short work of the Berringey blockade before confronting the Malinquese navy. Welchin ships were not far behind, and we met very little resistance. Coziquela forces now occupy the harbor and by now, I believe, control most of the city. If the empress calls up her infantry, we could see a great deal of bloodshed, but my guess is she will make terms. It’s not like Cozique wants anything from Malinqua except the queen’s daughter safely returned.”
Corene listened closely, nodding a few times. Well, it made sense, but what a disaster for Filomara! Every one of her complex plans in tatters—one of her nephews dead, her trusted steward revealed as a
bloodthirsty traitor—and now her city in the hands of a wealthy rival. This night of celebration had turned Palminera to ruins.
“What part did you and Leah play in all this?” Corene asked the captain.
Leah answered for him. “I saw the Coziquela ships in the harbor. I knew that a Welchin warship lay at anchor in the smuggler’s port, and I thought you might need your own guards to see you through this night.” She took a deep breath. “We were heading for the palace when I saw the red tower go up in flames. I didn’t know what that meant—but when the flames suddenly died down, I knew the sweela prime had to be nearby.”
Nelson was grinning. “It
is
rather my signature style.”
Captain Sorren spoke again. “Now that we’ve found you, let us escort you back to the ship. There’s enough chaos on the water that I’d prefer not to cast off until morning, unless you’re in a desperate hurry to pull out.”
“We can’t leave,” Corene said. “We have to go to the palace.”
All of them frowned at her with various levels of disapproval. Nelson said, “If you think there’s chaos on the
water
, you can bet it’s five times worse on land.”
“The palace will be nothing but mayhem,” Foley added. “No one is there to keep order.”
“Best to leave now,” Leah agreed, “before things get any worse.”
Corene’s mouth set in a mutinous line. “I’m not leaving until I know how the situation stands at the palace,” she said. “They’re my friends—Garameno and Jiramondi and Liramelli. And Steff! And the empress! Her whole
life
has fallen apart tonight. Alette already disappeared and Filomara has no idea what happened to her. I’m not going to do the same thing. I’m going to say goodbye to her—to all of them. And even though you think you can pick me up and drag me back to the ship, you
can’t
. I won’t go. I’ll break down a locked door and I’ll jump into the ocean and I’ll swim back to shore, and I’ll walk back to the palace on my bare feet, if I have to, but
I’m not leaving
.”
She was so angry she couldn’t read their expressions. She thought maybe Leah and Captain Sorren were eyeing her speculatively, wondering how much she would resist if they tried to kidnap her, but Foley was smiling and Nelson was openly laughing.
“She’s sweela, but never forget that her father is the most hunti son
of a bitch of all hunti sons of bitches ever born, and she’s every bit as stubborn as he is,” Nelson said. “I admit I’m curious to see the aftermath of this night’s work. Let’s go back to the palace.”
• • •
T
hey formed an actual cavalcade as they navigated the streets back to the royal residence. Foley drove the elaymotive and Nelson insisted on sitting up front, so Leah and Corene crammed themselves onto the narrow bench in back. Nelson had given Corene his jacket to wear, because the night was chilly and she had, of course, sacrificed her own. “I’m never cold,” he said when she tried to protest, so she accepted it gratefully. She snuggled into it as she watched Captain Sorren deploy his men—half ahead of the elaymotive and half behind. They were all mounted on horses they’d acquired in some fashion. Corene hadn’t asked.
Unlike Corene’s first manic dash through the city, this journey took them down streets that were oddly quiet and wholly deserted. All the windows were dark and no one peered out to investigate the noise of their passing. It was as if—through some mysterious but reliable method of urgent communication—every resident had learned of the betrayals at the palace and the invasion at the harbor, and everyone was hunkered down to wait out the consequences of disaster.
It was easier to see on this trip, though; thank the sweela prime for that. Every gaslight on their route flared to sudden brightness as they approached and sank back to a muted glow as soon as they passed. No one even bothered to comment.
Things got livelier as they approached the walls to the inner city, where the gate area shone with an artificially white light that owed nothing to Nelson’s careless magic. There were dozens of soldiers camped on both sides of the wall, and in the ample illumination Corene could tell that their blue-and-gold uniforms were neither Welchin nor Malinquese. Captain Sorren was correct: Cozique had control of the entire city.
Their contingent met with a few cursory challenges, but once they were recognized as Welchin, they were waved on without fuss. Corene craned her neck, trying to peer down the labyrinthine alleys inside the
gate, but those roads were just as dark and silent as the ones outside the walls. The whole city seemed to be holding its breath.
It was a different story once they made it to the palace grounds, where there was so much activity it was hard to figure out who was doing what. The whole place was a wreck of trampled shrubbery, abandoned furniture, discarded wine bottles, dropped clothing, and spilled food. An army of servants moved through the welter, trying to set things right. Coziquela soldiers prowled the perimeter, but Malinquese guards stood at the palace entrance and took strategic positions throughout the grounds as if daring the foreign invaders to come one step closer. The wide front doors were propped open, admitting a steady stream of traffic both in and out—soldiers, servants, and the well-dressed members of Malinqua’s elite.