BLOOD MAGE

The Dageian Puppetmaster Book Two

K. S. VILLOSO

Copyright © 2024 by K. S. Villoso

Cover illustration by Merilliza Chan

Edited by Amanda Bohannan

Published by Snowy Wings Publishing, Turner, Oregon

Cover and map design by Liam’s Vigil

Author photo copyright © 2022 by Mikhail Villoso

978-1-958051-65-8( hardcover )

978-1-958051-66-5 ( paperback )

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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CONTENTS

The Story So Far…

ACT ONE

1. Nasuha

2. Rosha

3. Rosha

4. Nasuha

5. Rosha

6. Rosha

7. Nasuha

8. Rosha

9. Rosha

10. Nasuha

11. Rosha

12. Nasuha

ACT TWO

13. Rosha

14. Rosha

15. Nasuha

16. Nasuha

17. Rosha

18. Rosha

19. Nasuha

20. Nasuha

21. Rosha

22. Rosha

23. Nasuha

24. Rosha

25. Rosha

26. Nasuha

27. Rosha

28. Rosha

29. Nasuha

30. Rosha

31. Rosha

32. Nasuha

33. Rosha

Rosha

ACT THREE

34. Rosha

35. Rosha

36. Nasuha

37. Rosha

38. Rosha

39. Nasuha

40. Rosha

41. Rosha

42. Nasuha

43. Rosha

Epilogue

THE STORY CONTINUES IN SHATTERED MAGE…

About the Author

Also by K. S. Villoso

Has anyone ever told you how disturbing it is when you grin to yourself?

SAPPHIRE ORSALIAN

And for other daughters, too.

THE STORY SO FAR…

Eheldeth has long been held as the golden standard when it comes to magical instruction in the Empire of Dageis. Its graduates hold high prestige in the hegemony, moving on to do great things…or so its keepers say.

For Rosha, Eheldeth’s promises ring empty. After her final exams are sabotaged by Ivasus, a fellow student, she decides to turn her back on the institution and flees. It is illegal for an unfinished student to leave Eheldeth, or for a mage to practice without the council’s blessing. Rosha is branded an outlaw. She manages to hide out in Klossaka, a small village at the edge of the empire. In those forgotten outskirts, she makes a living as a witch, providing charms and solving magical problems for the locals, who have otherwise given up that the empire would ever care for them.

Years later, Rosha’s uncle Kefier appears at her doorstep, begging her assistance in locating his brother and Rosha’s father, Enosh. Rosha has a strained relationship with her rich but capricious blood father, who abandoned her mother when she was pregnant with Rosha, only to later marry her in order to obtain the Dageian citizenship required for Rosha to enroll in Eheldeth in the first place. Kefier raised Rosha as his own before then, and Rosha firmly believes that Enosh’s insistence she attend Eheldeth is the main reason her family remains fractured.

Rosha returns home with Kefier, only to realize her family is in deep trouble and it might be related to a misadventure she had at school years ago, when she and a rival, Felan, were attacked by a stranger. Felan was sent away after, and local gossip insists Rosha is to blame. Things escalate when Rosha’s brother is kidnapped by a mysterious figure haunting her family.

A clue leads her to the mansion of Lord Cato, a sorcerer with ties to both the mage council and the merchant guild. Masquerading as his new housekeeper, she investigates various mysteries in his mansion, which includes an injured woman appearing and then disappearing in the middle of the night. In the meantime, she assists a woman she met on the road, Nasuha, in obtaining employment with Lord Cato.

Rosha discovers her brother in a crypt on Lord Cato’s property, along with his old housekeeper, who had been injured by some strange beast that lurks in the gardens. Lord Cato’s estranged son, Felan, arrives. He reveals that he left Eheldeth because he has lost the capability to cast magic. Rosha secures his help in trapping the beast in the basement.

In the meantime, Lord Cato seems to have vanished. His absence gives Rosha time to look for clues on her father Enosh’s whereabouts. She instead stumbles upon Lord Cato’s corpse—he has been lying dead in the attic since at least the night his son arrived. She also finds a strange simulacrum made in the likeness of the Dageian emperor. A spell triggers the simulacrum to bond to her, allowing her to control the emperor. It turns out that the Empire of Dageis’s immortal emperor is a lie; Lord Cato is part of a secret group who take turns controlling his likeness for their own interests. Blood magic, an act forbidden by the empire and reviled by Eheldeth, is used to facilitate the connection between handler and mage.

Now that she is the emperor’s puppetmaster, Rosha doesn’t hesitate to use him to force the Eheldeth Firekeeper, Ceres, into assisting her. Rosha’s contentious relationship with her father extends to Firekeeper Ceres, who is also Enosh’s lover, and she believes she is hiding something. But Ceres plays a trick on Rosha in return, forcing her to cast magic that can reveal her location.

To prevent Ceres from discovering her, Rosha brings the emperor to the palace to make a very public speech. During this time, she is attacked by the same figure that kidnapped her brother in the first place, a man calling himself Targus and who seems to resemble the emperor, but a few decades younger. Felan helps her escape, and her ruse as an outlaw is discovered. He also discovers his dead father.

Bearers are sent to question Felan about his father’s death. He protects Rosha and sends them on their way, but they sneak around the mansion and discover the beast in his basement, which they release. The beast attacks them, killing one. The other declares Felan in violation of laws preventing the unauthorized possession of magical creatures. Nasuha reveals she is also an outlaw, and attacks the bearer while Rosha runs after the beast, whom she discovers was her father all along—he, too, had been investigating Lord Cato for Rosha’s sake, and ran into trouble along the way. Lord Cato’s spells had turned him into a beast.

Rosha attempts to save her father. He turns back into a human being, but not before being taken by Targus. Targus tells Rosha to meet them in the ruins in a northern island if she wants to see her father alive. Rosha’s identity is now fully revealed to Felan, who turns her over to the Firekeeper.

The Firekeeper demands Rosha’s help in capturing Targus and discovering who he works for. Felan and Nasuha are recruited in the effort. While travelling, Felan and Rosha accidentally find themselves on an island, and confront their past while falling into an uneasy truce.

They eventually catch up to Targus and Enosh. They discover that the bodies they use to serve as the emperor are soulless, a mixture of human flesh and other materials forcibly grown inside women who give birth to them. To maintain their authenticity, the bodies are made to age naturally. Targus is one of the many simulacrums walking around; Enosh suspects he is being controlled by a rich couple with ambitions to take the empire for themselves. Because Rosha’s simulacrum is the ‘correct’ emperor in terms of age, they want Rosha control the emperor for them—only a powerful mage can attune itself to the emperor, and the only other way to disconnect them and attune it to a new puppetmaster is to kill its current handler. Rosha either helps them, or dies.

Targus and Rosha battle, and Rosha draws on her own blood to fuel her spells. It is revealed that Rosha’s powers have also been slowly slipping over the years, ever since the mysterious attack that took Felan’s magic away. She survived thus far through self-mutilation, using blood magic to keep up the pretense that she is as skilled and powerful as ever. Felan discovers the truth and offers his own blood, which she uses to finally defeat Targus.

Unaware of Rosha’s ailment, Ceres forces Rosha to continue playing as the emperor’s puppetmaster under her command. The story ends with Rosha overseeing a crowd as the emperor.

ACT ONE

CHAPTER 1

NASUHA

She is, among other things, filled with envy. The elders used to tell her this was a sin, larger than all the rest of her faults put together. In the broken land of Gorent, the stories they tell of the gilded children across the shores serve no purpose. The rich food, the spacious houses, the schools and books and fanciful clothes…what use is there to compare them to the hunger you feel, to the tattered rags that keep your modesty, to the handful of books you read over and over to stave off the numbing knowledge that this is all there ever could be? Envy is poison. The outside world is hard enough as it is. Why add to the challenges from within?

But she knows the truth, now. It is acceptance, not envy, that serves no purpose. The simple life the elders tell her to be content with is an illusion. When the very food is snatched from your mouth, love thy enemy serves only them, not you. And as you grow older and toothless and senile, the empire sinks its claws deeper, a greedy old man taking more than his fair share even as he has already sucked the marrow from your bones. She thinks: if I rid myself of envy, I will be just like them, bending because the very thought of fighting wears me down. The moment I am content with nothing is the moment I doom my fate to the sum of my existence. What chance did Gorent ever have with such sheep at her helm? It is like entrusting a sinking ship to the rats below the hold. A once-glorious, prosperous land reduced to ruins not just because it was defeated, but because her heirs let the defeat be her swan song. They think existence is a blessing. They dare not dream beyond the conquering. They dare not rise again.

Their concerns have always been unfounded, anyway. Envy has seen her through the worst, and from the very beginning she learned to wield it like a blade with no handle, the edges digging into her palm with each swing. She can cut with it, even if it cuts her deeper. She thinks this is a strength, and perhaps she is right. She has not yet been proven wrong, in any case.

Out of everything, she is most envious of people whose lives are filled with boredom.

Tedium, to her, is a rare gift. Time to digest, to ponder, to reflect on things without worrying about a grumbling belly or whether she will still have a home after the next season’s storms. If she had all the time in the world, she would use it to study, to learn things for the good of her people, to find something beyond envy. A world in which envy does not serve as fuel sounds like a gift. Maybe then she could grudgingly believe her elders.

But for now, envy is all she has.

All is a reductive word. Other words run in the background: hopes, dreams, memories. She is driven by the last one more than she cares to admit. It is easier to say it is what you want that propels you, rather than what was done to you. That you meant what you did, that you’re not just lashing out. The former shifts all the power into her palm. The latter is admitting that this is all she can ever be: a reaction, no better than the bleeding gums around a rotten tooth or a fart in the wind. All her power seems to be contained in the bubbling of the wound and not the strike of the sword itself. She feels as if she is forever trying to outrun herself.

It wasn’t always that way.

The one memory that stands out amongst the others still takes her breath away, even now that she knows better. In it, she is a child of eleven, staring down at the bamboo grove that stands not far from their hut. Grey clouds cover the sky, blocking out the sun. The coolness of the air brushes over her arms. In an instant, the wind blows sharply, the beginning of a hurricane that would flatten half the villages in their little island. As the bamboo reeds bend over her small form, one snaps right in half and falls over where she stood. It is the size of a palm tree, thick and heavy enough to crack her head open. But something in her snaps louder than the surrounding vegetation. Before she knows what has happened, she sees splintered bamboo on the ground. The pieces hover for a second before the wind tears through the soil, spraying them through the field in a spray of blue light.

She knows her magic did it, even before her young mind can fully grasp the notion of the words and what they mean. Some things you just know. She runs to her mother, who is in the yard wrestling with the laundry before the wind rips the rest of it apart. She clutches onto the woman’s skirt.

“Where have you been, Suha?” the woman demands.

“I did magic, Mama!” she declares. “Magic!”

“This is no time for such nonsense,” her mother says, grabbing her by the shirt. She pushes her backward, her desperation overriding a mother’s usual cares. “Get back inside! The storm’s only going to get stronger!”

“But Mama—”

“Now!”

They hear the creaking sound of roots being pulled from underneath the earth. Nasuha turns her head and sees the house rising with the next gust of wind. Her terrified mother picks her up, pressing her against her breast as she calls on the gods for aid.

“You don’t need them, Mama,” Nasuha says, one hand on where her mother’s heart would be. She can feel it thumping underneath, the energy welling underneath her ribcage. “I’ll do it. Look.”

She stares at the house and somehow, inexplicably, forces it back to the ground. That doesn’t protect it on impact. The stilts shatter as soon as they touch the soil, which shatters the bamboo all the way up to the rooftops. The house breaks like a toy smashed by the fists of a careless child; the wind picks it up again before flinging it into the void.

Nasuha doesn’t see where it goes. As the wind strikes her wet face with shards of rain, her mother puts her on the ground and stares into her face. “Suha,” she whispers, “don’t tell me you did that. Don’t.”

“But I did, Mama. All I had to do was think and—”

“Don’t!” Her mother’s voice is a near-shriek. She slaps her so hard it feels as if the skin has been flayed from her cheek. All the revelry is drained from Suha’s young body. Moments ago, she felt mighty, powerful, like she could tear down half the trees on the mountainside with her mind if she wanted to and nothing could stop her. Now she feels like a dog that has wet itself. Staring into her mother’s eyes, half-shivering, her mouth forms the question even as her voice refused to give weight to it. Why?

“Why?” Her mother knows her mind before she herself does. “Why, child? You know why. You can’t—this isn’t—no. You can’t. It’s not allowed. You can’t.” The anguish gives way to something more feral. Suha watches as her mother drops to her knees and screams, as if someone has plunged a clawed hand into her belly and yanked out her heart from underneath her ribcage. She doesn’t know why. This thing, this power, is a gift. All the stories say so. Why couldn’t she use it for something? If the rest of the empire could do it, why not her?

She must have voiced her thoughts out loud, because her mother roars with an anger she has never seen before. “Those stories are not about you! The blessed child, the chosen one with golden hair just waiting to show the empire her power until its people tremble in awe…in what world can that ever be you? Look at you! At the colour of your skin, your eyes, your hair, the shape of your nose. You’re Gorenten. You do not have the luxury of dreams. This…thing…is going to ruin our lives. Push it away, Suha! Whatever the gods gave you—tell them to take it back. You don’t want it. We don’t want it. Tell them to take it back!”

As if she could. She didn’t ask for this. Later, after they have—somehow, miraculously—survived the hurricane, her mother takes her to the stream, still littered with debris from the storm, and scrubs her skin with a porous stone, as if this could somehow wash out what has awakened inside her. She does it long enough that it scrapes Nasuha’s skin raw. Drops of blood dissolve on the surface of the stream before being washed away by the currents. Nasuha stares at it for so long she feels a part of her has died inside.

Afterwards, her mother tells her that the Gorenten have no business being mages in the world the Empire of Dageis has constructed.

“Why not, Mama?” she asks as her mother towels her hair with some of the laundry they’d dug out of the debris of their home. “Our people always had magic. Remember the stories? You said in the old days nearly all our people had magic and we were celebrated far and wide for it. They would cross the sea just to see our settlements, especially Gentigen, that our powers made us so rich we would just give gold away to our friends. Why can’t we be like that anymore?”

She sees a stray tear in her mother’s eye as the words fall out of her mouth. Her expression says it all. These are nothing but fantasies, spoken as whispers to lull children to fall asleep at night. They were memories not written anywhere, for to have them out in the open would be to acknowledge that their colonizers have lied about their histories. Centuries ago, after the Dageians drove them out of their lands and emptied the streets of Gorenten bodies, they tore all the books out of the libraries and burned them in a pyre in the city square. With every lick of the flames went everything that Gorent held to be the truth, to be later replaced with the Dageians’ words and their own version of history.

This is what the Dageians’ books say: the Gorenten are a primitive people of whom only a few are capable of the rational thought necessary to practice magic at will. Those who exhibit a predisposition to controlling the agan do not do it consciously; they are dangerous and therefore can exist only as servants to mages who do know. They need to be watched, tamed, regulated, for knowledge unchecked is a dangerous thing. The Gorenten are like children, and magic is a toy that must be kept out of their reach.

They cannot be like they were because as far as the Empire of Dageis is concerned, that glorious past never existed.

But oh, for that one moment, when the bamboo split over her head as if on command, the power of a general commanding her army to trample an onslaught of enemies. She thought she held the answer to the burning questions that drove her people’s entire existence; that what she held was a rare gift, not a curse. She thought she had the power to change the world.

The folly of youth, indeed.

Her mother’s words aren’t enough to snuff a little girl’s hopes away. In the beginning, Nasuha sets them aside, believing she can make her mother face the truth. She starts small—little tricks here and there, which she hones with practice. Dry laundry in an hour’s time, even in cold weather. Firewood in the stove, gathered faster than able hands could chop them. Animals driven straight into her father’s traps, because all it takes is a bit of rustling in just the right side of the forest or the streams. Child’s play, the sort of thing little girls in the big empire got away with all of the time.

“I know what you’re doing,” her father tells her one day.

His voice startles her. He does not talk to her very often, and usually in short, one-word sentences, barked like an order to a dog. Far from bringing her relief, his attention feels like a slap on the face. She takes the long way around the hut, hoping to make a quick exit for the door. It isn’t all that far. Just two, three steps, and then...

Her father lunges, grabbing her by the wrist. He twists her arm and drags her to the mirror hanging from the bedroom door. Holding her by the hair, he forces her to look at her own reflection, at her dark eyes and hair, at the scars that run like jagged claw-marks across the side of her face.

“Look at that,” he hisses.

“No!” she screams.

He pinches her chin so she doesn’t even have the choice to look away. “Do you remember?” he asks. “Do you?”

She shakes her head as she sobs, because she wants to believe she doesn’t. She doesn’t want to acknowledge the memories of being a helpless toddler, thrown to the wild dogs by the father who was supposed to love and protect her from harm. The dogs had tried to maul the skin off her skull. A drunken mistake, the whole village claims, and yet she sees in his eyes that it is more than that: he is proud of it. She knows if she were smaller and couldn’t fight him now, he would do it again.

“Your mother said I was mad for what I did. But the world doesn’t revolve around you, child. I saw you for what you were that day. An abomination. A blight on our family. You would have set the whole village on fire.”

“But I didn’t,” she whispers.

The man’s face tightens. “You would have, if I hadn’t stopped you. The dogs did the rest. I was hoping they would kill you, but having them frighten you into keeping all of it in was the next best thing. If you’d kept quiet, you might have even gotten away with it. You should have known better than to flaunt this in front of me. Now I have no choice. You’ve given me no choice!”

Nasuha slips from his grasp. She has made a mistake. He is still much bigger than she is, and just as capable of harming her as before. She ducks just as his clenched fist goes for her head, narrowly missing it by a hair’s-breadth. Her father’s hand goes through the rickety bamboo walls of their hut, splintering it and scratching his skin in the process. Blood sprays. She realizes he means to finish the job the dogs have left undone.

She runs out the front door. She knows heading to town will be futile. Her mother left for the market half an hour ago and might be visiting one of her friends in the other islands. Everyone else she knows will return her to her father: the high priest, the fishermen, the farmers alongside the river. Family is family, even when they mean you harm.

She makes her way past town, towards the sea.

Someone whistles from the shore. Her eyes turn to the sight of a girl standing beside a boat. She looks like she is just bringing it in—her pants are rolled up to her knees and the shirt she tied around her head, which she used to keep the sun out of her eyes, is wet.

“You’re that girl,” she says, strolling up to her. “The one whose father tried to kill.”

The one whose father is still trying to kill, she corrects her inwardly. She keeps the thoughts at bay. The girl is telling the truth, but a part of her is aware that talking about her father’s sins would look worse on their family. Her mother has a bad back, and she has younger siblings to take care of—they still need the man to feed them. “Rumours,” she whispers, wiping her face. She doesn’t want her to see any sign of tears.

The girl wipes sand off her fingers before she gives a sweeping bow. “My name is Asera,” she says. “My family moved here at the start of the year. I heard you had a rough time during the hurricane. My mother asked me to check up on you last week, see if there was anything you need, but it slipped my mind.” She genuinely looks apologetic, as if she has any way of knowing. But the expression on her face, framed with curls of sun-bleached hair, is suddenly enough for her. She would trust this girl over her own father. She has to. She can see him coming up from the bridge, walking slowly to where she is. He isn’t even in a hurry—he, too, knows she has nowhere to go. Just like the rest of them, stuck in a dying land where sometimes the only chance to escape lies through the gates of hell.

“Take me away from here,” Nasuha tells the girl firmly.

Asera starts to laugh. But then she looks into Nasuha’s eyes and realizes she is serious. “Where?”

“Anywhere but here,” she says, knowing to give someone all that power over her is the worst thing she can do.

No, Nasuha corrects herself. The worst thing you can do is to stay. If you die here, nothing you’ve suffered will ever matter.

Asera licks her lips and then carefully walks back to her canoe. She digs her feet into the sand and pushes it back into the waves. “Come,” she says, jerking his head towards the seats. “If you hurry, he won’t catch up.”

Nasuha lifts her skirts and tromps into the water. The canoe shakes as she clambers in, but it doesn’t tip—Gorenten canoes are built to withstand roiling waves and this one is no different. The girl pushes the boat even deeper into the water, grabbing the oars as she finally jumps in.

Nasuha sees her father watching from the shore. He doesn’t even call for her. The anger on his face is mixed with relief. She wonders if a part of him wishes her well. Anywhere but here, his eyes say. Maybe the outside world will be kinder. Here, we can’t give you what you need.

“Thank you,” she says as the shore disappears in the distance.

“I’ll hear it from them when we get back,” she sheepishly replies.

“When you get back.”

She frowns. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do.”

She wipes her nose with her thumb. Sand gathers on the top of her lip, and she gives a small sniff. “I can take you to Sen’senal,” she says, after a moment’s deliberation. She points. Sen’senal is the largest city in the Gorenten islands, and the island on which it sits is only an hour south of Nasuha’s home. If the town she left behind is full of strangers, Sen’senal is even worse. Their last king, High King Elian, sent his daughter Princess Tiora to Sen’senal to build a new home for their people should he fall to the Dageians. He did, and so they did. It is not the largest city by any means, but it is much larger than Nasuha’s own hometown. The thought of it looming in the distance frightens her.

And yet she nods. Anything is better than what she left behind. She stares at her hands. Perhaps in Sen’senal she will find someone who will help her. Gifted Gorenten children are rare. Surely someone will see—someone who understands how children like her hold Gorent’s future in their hands. They were once a people of untold power. They could be, again. She imagines it wouldn’t take long for someone who sees the potential in her to take her under their wing. She imagines her father’s face once she comes home in triumph. The stories tell her this is all but guaranteed. She cannot see it work out any other way.

They reach the other shore an hour before dark. As the canoe glides along a wave to strike the sand, they see a group of men gathered around a campfire. Asera says something under her breath and attempts to strike a boulder with an oar to push them back into the water, but by then it is too late—two men have waded into the water after them. One grabs the bow, steering the canoe to land.

“You girls lost?” the man sneers.

“Leave us alone,” Asera says.

“What’s wrong with her face?” the other asks. He grabs Nasuha by the chin. Fear and disgust crawl into his expression. “Gods, look at this one. Were you in an accident? Marked? Some of these natives can be so backward.” He speaks like he isn’t of Gorent, and yet his skin is as dark as any one them. He has long, wavy black hair, just like Nasuha’s.

She spits into his face.

His companions laugh in the background as he wipes it off. Nasuha clambers off the boat, her veins burning with agan. “I am marked,” she declares.

Amusement flickers in the men’s eyes. It doesn’t last long.

She burns them on the spot, the way they always said she would.

CHAPTER 2

ROSHA

I lived in Lon Basden, the last southwestern bastion of Dageian civilization (if their history books can be believed) as a child, but it wasn’t until I visited it again for the first time as an adult that I felt like I saw it for the first time. Cities have ghosts, too, and the Lon Basden I knew—with its gilded balls full of affluent merchants and social climbers, the expensive restaurants, and the endless parade of luxuries out of reach from the common citizen—hid the rotting bodies in plain sight. It was the oldest city along the western coast. Back when it belonged to the Gorenten, when it was named Gentigen, it was famous for more than empty indulgence. I wondered how many of my people’s old kings and queens were entombed in its bowels, how many of its treasures lay beneath the oceans. The Dageians would never tell; as far as they were concerned, they built the city from the ground up.

I gave a soft sigh.

“Thinking,” Felan said beside me.

“Yes,” I replied, refraining from adding, “Stating the obvious.” It probably wouldn’t be fair.

He didn’t ask what was occupying my mind. In the last year, I came to appreciate his innate sense of just exactly when I needed conversation or not. I’m not sure that he preferred silence himself—he was always more than willing to engage in a discussion should the opportunity arise and sought company for the novelty of talking to someone new—which made his respect stand out.

I cleared my throat. “Wondering, actually.”

He glanced outside the carriage for a moment before shifting closer. I suppressed the smile flitting over my lips. Funny, too, how he knew when I’d changed my mind, even before I was aware of it myself. I’m not so sure I can explain why it feels different to be next to someone who can see right through you. There was a time I found the thought repulsive. To have your defenses stripped down, free for another person to prod through and judge, sounded like hell. And yet there I was, and the last thing on my mind was eternal fires and damnation. A pleasant buzz was running through my skin, one that wasn’t unwelcome. My eyes skipped to his hand, which he’d placed on his knee—just the perfect distance to reach for if I’d half a mind to it. Petty indulgences. I pushed my thoughts away.

“There is a city underneath this city,” I continued, turning my gaze to the streets ahead. I pointed at the buildings, most of which were painted red and white, as was the fashion for the last decade or so. Even to the untrained eye, everything looked newly built; none looked older than half a century. Ugly building after ugly building, some of which gave way to sprawling estates, all very modern. Dageian. They had dominated the continent for well over a couple of centuries at least, and the name was supposed to imply mastery and superiority. “You wouldn’t know this was once the seat of the Gorenten people.”

“Every city the Dageians have taken looks like this,” Felan commented.

I nodded. “But only the ones they’ve taken over.”

He looked confused.

“Drusgaya doesn’t look like this,” I said. “In Drusgaya, you can see the ancient architecture they built when they first settled there. If their history has it correct, that part of the empire was empty land, avoided by the native population for reasons unknown.”

Felan put up a finger. “They were sacred grounds, actually.”

“I stand corrected. Is this Genthal knowledge?”

“I believe so.”

“Let me pick your brain about that later. But for now, the point I’m making: the Dageians could have easily left the old buildings up. But they didn’t. Everything was torn down. Why? Even in the worst of battles, something remains. High King Elian hardly put up a fight when the Dageians arrived here. By many accounts, he just bought his people time to escape before surrendering. And yet they still did this, as if to make a point. They destroyed everything, to be replaced by theirs. More than punishment, it was as if they wanted history to…forget about us.”

He made a soft sound.

“Disagreeing?” I asked.

“Agreeing,” he corrected. “But thinking it over, too. This wasn’t taught in Eheldeth. When we were children, we thought all we needed to do was remember the texts and we would have everything we needed to be functional adults. It feels strange to read between the lines.”

“Strange. Freeing. As if the knowledge you’ve always sought was there all along—you just have to learn to read between the lines.”

He nodded.

“All the books in Eheldeth say that the native population of the continent embraced the Dageians’ arrival and willingly gave them the knowledge on the agan and how to control it.” I sniffed. “The most prestigious university in the empire is a den of lies. I doubt the others are much different.”

The carriage rolled to a stop.

The door opened, revealing Ceres in a silver gown that shimmered under the sunlight. Details of such clothing usually escape me, but she wasn’t the sort who dressed up often, and you could tell she relished what little opportunity she had to spruce herself up. I detected a bit of glamour, too—just enough to do away with the lines on her forehead and eyes. She gestured. I clambered down the steps, offering her a look of disdain. “You seem overdressed,” I said. “This is just supposed to be a meeting with Lon Basden officials, hardly the talk of the century.”

“I don’t recall needing your fashion advice,” the Eheldeth Firekeeper said with a straight face. I knew she was being ironic and wondered if she shared jibes about me with my father. Your child is at it again. Should I throw her a bone?

“You should take it,” I continued. “It would be an improvement.”

She stared at me for a breath, as if she was trying to decide if I was still being factual or not. Eventually, she decided I was just as capable of growth as she was, because her eyes flashed towards Felan. I detected the barest hint of a smile on her face. “Tell me if she’s becoming a handful,” Ceres said, “and I’ll have her replaced, quick as that.”

“Please don’t drag me into this, Firekeeper,” Felan replied. “Trading witty barbs is beyond my expertise.”

“You’re both so humourless. Small wonder—you were Eheldeth’s finest in your time. All that studying doesn’t leave much room for personality growth.” She pressed her fingers over her forehead. “In any case, a meeting with Lon Basden officials is not just. You should know that, Rosha—we’ve been to many of these events together when you were little.”

“I remember you hanging onto my father’s arm, reeking of drink,” I grumbled. “You had glamour on while you pretended to be my mother. No one could tell it was you except me. It coloured my perception of you all throughout my years in Eheldeth.”

“Dearest Rosha, when will you ever learn to let go of the past? Even the years we spent at Eheldeth are long gone. I’m your employer now, not your professor. Don’t you think I deserve a bit of civility?”

I cast my gaze on her coolly. “You have it, Firekeeper. But that’s not what you’re really asking. You want me to treat you like a confidant, like the mother you’ve always tried your hardest to seem. I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

She sighed as she reached for my wrist and pinned a bracelet around it. “A safeguard,” she explained. “It’s unlikely anyone will look at you twice, especially in a building full of mages already, but you never know. Someone as powerful as you may find it hard to escape notice.”

I glanced at the bracelet. It was made of woven silver, with a single green gemstone in the center. It felt just like any jewellery, though I knew it was supposed to block you from being able to perform spells. “I assume I’ll be able to remove it myself once the emperor is in place.”

“Of course, Rosha.”

I turned it twice around my wrist before letting my arm fall to the side. “We’ll wait in the servants’ quarters.” I gestured at Felan, who bowed to Ceres before leading the way.

Ceres watched us walk a few paces before clearing her throat. “You’re wrong, Rosha,” she called. “I don’t want a daughter. I don’t want children—never did.” Her expression softened. “But I need you to trust me. You and I can’t be at odds—not when we don’t know who our enemies are. If we’re about to face the brunt of the entire mage council and merchant guild together, we can’t afford to be at each other’s throats.”

“You let me be the judge of that,” I whispered, before walking away.

I’m convinced I do a fine job of hiding my true disdain for Ceres. I can’t stop the sarcasm from tainting my words in her presence, but what I felt about her was more…turbulent than I let on. Perhaps it was practice. I grew up, studied, lived in her shadow for all those years in Eheldeth. Maintaining my composure around her was second nature. Had I acted on my impulses from the beginning, I would have never gotten another chance to live as a free woman…as free as one can get inside the steel cage that is the Empire of Dageis, anyway. It was one thing to accidentally destroy the life of a man who attacked you, and another to purposely antagonize the Firekeeper of the Council of Mages. In the blink of an eye, the woman could destroy me. She could take away everything that gave meaning to my world. She had done it already, and I wouldn’t put it past her to do it again.

I know most people would question how easily I let the notion boil over, given what Ceres has done to me. Shouldn’t I be angrier? People venerate rage. They want my anger to prove I have something worth fighting for, never mind the damage such rage will do to my soul. Show your teeth, Rosha, your edge! Fight your way through this with a sharpened sword! But then what? Anger has been many a mage’s downfall. One need only scour the vast libraries of the empire to find tomes upon tomes of mages who have gone over that same edge and fallen on their own swords. Eheldeth’s first few lessons involve learning to keep a cool head. The agan is closely tied to your essence, your soul, and muddling it with your emotions is a recipe for disaster.

I suppose that is a lot of words to say that I am dead inside.

I am…dead inside. I have always found it difficult to show outrage or concern. Perhaps being snatched away from the only home I have ever known as a child and forced into a world of deception and power play can do that. I remember caring only about a handful of things: Papa most of all, because out of everyone, he was the only person who was there for me from the very beginning. My mother made questionable decisions, sacrifices I didn’t agree were necessary, but Papa always put me first among everything, and so why couldn’t I love him just as much as he loved me? Everyone else could rot in hell for all I cared. Moving to Dageis intensified the apathy. I knew little about this strange land, and even less about what its people wanted. Outside of my family—my broken, fucked-up family—I could see no other person who cared for me, no other faces like mine, and no one who could say if my feelings were right or wrong.

It didn’t feel that way in Jin-Sayeng. In Jin-Sayeng, even though it was common knowledge that my father was Gorenten, I was treated as if I belonged. The neighbours knew my name. Vendors from the market would stop my mother as she walked to hand me treats. Other children didn’t run from me, and if they hated me, they said it to my face. The land of my mother’s birth has its problems, but none of it remotely resembles the empire’s. In the empire, people were openly hostile to me for reasons I couldn’t fathom. They found fault in everything, from the way I walked to the way I looked at them. If I chose to respond, they would find fault in the words I used or the tone I took; if I decided not to speak in return, they would call me rude behind my back. I later learned I shouldn’t have been so surprised. The Empire of Dageis was built on the bones of my fathers’ ancestors and those like them. People like us were the living embodiment of their sins.

Eheldeth took what was left from all that and crushed it into dust.

I don’t know if I hated Ceres, the person. After all, without her, they would probably be picking pieces of me off the street. She was fair enough if you took her to task. She wasn’t deliberately cruel or malicious. I knew I had much to be grateful for. But every time I looked at her, I saw a tangled web of emotion I had no interest in wading through. She was the living embodiment of everything that was wrong with my life: My father’s philandering ways, which resulted in me and would forever be the wedge between the people I considered my true parents. The expanse of loneliness that made up the bulk of my childhood, deepened even more by my separation from my family. My gift, then a curse; later, an example of squandered potential.

My eyes burned as I sat in the common area I was to share with Felan and the other attendants. We were the last to arrive, and almost everyone else was getting things ready for their various masters and mistresses. Felan had stepped out momentarily to help at Ceres’s table while also keeping an eye out for the best place for me to hide once the emperor got there; I was to wait for his return. I could feel the numbness creeping from within. I hadn’t controlled the emperor in over two weeks. Ceres felt that too many appearances would increase the chances of getting caught and packed him off for a supposed vacation to some estate along the coast. The truth, of course, was that he was being kept in a box in her room, but that was neither here nor there. It was the longest I had gone without tapping into the agan lately, and I was afraid I’d forgotten how to. I was afraid I would stand there behind the emperor’s unseeing eyes, and he would slump down, the lifeless husk that he was, and Ceres would realize my secret—that my connections to the agan had weakened to the point of uselessness. Suddenly, talk of replacements would no longer be made in jest. She’d have to find someone to take my place before I jeopardized hers.

The waiting started to grate on my nerves. I got up to take a candle from the windowsill. Holding it next to a ray of sunlight, I snapped my fingers.

It should have sparked. A goddamned flame was child’s play, a game I’d indulged in since before my earliest memories. Irritation flared along my brow. I snapped my fingers again and again until I felt the ligaments in my arm begin to strain. There was a crawling sensation in the muscles, as if my body was trying, only it had forgotten how. It was the same sensation as gagging on an empty stomach.

I gritted my teeth and closed my eyes. Calm down, I told myself. I thought of the ocean, of soothing water rolling underneath a moonlit sky. Remove all emotion. Kill it, like Eheldeth taught me. Like Eheldeth showed me. The best mages in Dageian history knew how to keep it all at bay. It gave them power. You have to feel nothing to be something. I was good at that, beyond excellent. Wasn’t I?

I opened my eyes, and for one last time snapped my fingers with such violence I thought I would tear my thumb off. The wick remained unlit. I felt like swearing.

I returned the candle to the windowsill. Without a flame, it seemed to mock me. If you can’t do that here, you can’t do that out there. Do you understand, Rosha? You’ve been losing it slowly, and now it’s all gone.

“It’s not all gone,” I snapped. My own voice sounded foreign.

Then why is this room ice-cold?

I grabbed the candle and without thinking hurled it through the window. The glass shattered as it went through. In that split second, I thought I smelled smoke and saw a spark of flame. I reached for it, heedless of the broken glass, but it was too late. The candle dropped to the street below, rolling straight into the gutter.

“Rosha?” Felan called.

I turned away, shame over the outburst flooding my cheeks. I didn’t think he would be back so soon.

His eyes drifted to my arm. “You’re bleeding.”

I flicked the drops away. “It’s nothing,” I said.

“What happened?”

“Nothing,” I repeated. I turned to the door. “Is it ready?”

“Just about.” He didn’t mention the wound again, but as I walked past him, he took my elbow, making me turn towards him. He ripped his sleeve and wrapped the fabric around the cut. “It was an accident,” he said. I felt another flush of shame when I realized he was giving me an excuse for Ceres later. He must have thought I was about to perform blood magic.

I pulled away. Maybe he wasn’t wrong.

Blood magic is cheating.

I still remember the lecture where I first heard that saying from. The professor was a young woman with dark brown hair that went down to her waist, which fanned out with every step and made her seem more animated than her expression would suggest. It was my fourth year in Eheldeth, not long after Felan left. I found myself listlessly scratching the words out, my attention drifting to the half-open window. Classes were supposed to end early that day, in lieue of winter break. I wanted to get back to my room and see if my parents sent a letter about that winter’s plans. Normally, they made arrangements for me to come home, but I suspected this year would be different—they were busy with business and my brothers and might not find someone who could accompany me on the airships back. I couldn’t think of what was worse: to spend weeks watching fussy babies, or to hear other students gripe about the dreary weather and fusty professors. The fussy babies were winning by a small margin. Annoying as they were at that age—Ryo, in particular, was all lungs and no charm—their company was a walk in the park compared to rich students complaining about every slight discomfort.

“But first, let me start with a bit of history,” Keeper Winna said, walking to the end of the chalkboard. She began writing something down. My eyes caught a flash of the word Gorent. That should’ve been my cue to get up and excuse myself for a trip to the lavatories. But I always reacted too slow for that sort of thing. I’d barely processed the word when I saw her eyes flash towards me. “Kirosha,” she continued, in that kind of sweet, patient voice that always seemed to signal worse. “Could you enlighten the class on the practices of the people of Gorent?”

I glanced down, resisting the urge to stare at her open-mouthed. I went through all the possible responses in my head. How am I supposed to know? My mother is Jinsein and my father’s never told me about Gorenten magic.

From the impatient look on Keeper Winna’s face, I realized I was taking too long to formulate a response. I managed to choke out something incoherent, which elicited laughter from the students sitting near the front. I had to stop my eyes from rolling.

Keeper Winna simply smiled and nodded. “And could you translate that for the rest of us who don’t speak Gorent?”

“That wasn’t—” I began, before realizing no amount of explanation was necessary. She didn’t want to hear that I knew very little of the Gorenten tongue, that my first language was Jinsein but that didn’t mean I needed to walk around with a guidebook transcribing everything for myself because I was just as fluent in their tongues, too. She wasn’t interested in learning I could react outside of my skin and my parents’ cultures. More importantly, I knew there was no way I could even point out her mistake without stuttering and making a bigger fool of myself.

I took a deep breath. I could feel the eyes of everyone in the room on me, taking in everything there was to see: the way I twitched my fingers, my ink-stained sleeves, the beads of sweat dotting my forehead. I was a spectacle, and they could take every action or reaction and twist it to serve their needs. Stay calm. You are going to walk out of this classroom with your dignity. Maybe if you pretend nothing is wrong, that none of this bothers you, they’ll leave you alone long enough to catch a moment of peace. You can cry when you’re alone. You can feel everything when you’re alone. But until then, they can’t know you’re struggling. Until then, you can’t show them anything.

“I know very little of Gorenten magic, professor,” I said.

She smiled again. She wasn’t convinced. “Last week, you interrupted one of your keepers’ lessons with an argument. You spoke about blood magic. A smart student like yourself would surely know the connections between your argument and your people’s practices. Tell me—how did your people react when they found out you were gifted?”

No, I thought, with rising panic. This went beyond making me into a spectacle. This was a trap. She had no interest in anything I had to say, even on the subject. The glint in her eyes told me she was just waiting for the right opportunity to bombard the class with her knowledge and whatever point she wanted to make. Whatever it was, I knew it was going to hurt.

I shook my head. “I’m…I don’t know other Gorenten, Professor. I spent the first few years of my life in Jin-Sayeng.”

“They burn mages there,” she said, so quickly it was clear she had this factoid ready to drop at a moment’s notice.

My classmates’ eyes were filled with delight. The image of me on a stake was tempting, I was sure.

“Such ignorance is common throughout the continent,” the professor continued, moving through the class as if she had something absolutely profound to share. “The gift of the agan flows through every people, though it manifests itself more to those who have learned how to harness it. Ignorance has also given rise to methods that no civilized person of society ought to condone.”

She looked at me again, and I wondered what she saw. Did her mind conjure images of my father’s ancestors lying await in the bushes with spears and clubs? Perhaps she was imagining my mother’s, the bloodthirsty warriors who rode dragons and burnt their enemies to a crisp. I couldn’t understand why, when I was dressed like all the others there. Civilized. She said the word like an insult.

She grew tired of my inability to respond and paced the length of the class, chalk in hand. “In Gorent, they practice blood rites involving their enemies’ heads: a ritual so debased I really shouldn’t be talking about it for your young ears. And yet I feel it is necessary for you children to see just how low you can go without the proper guidance. Using your own blood to support your magic is like cutting into your own legs before you can run. It might give you a spark of energy in the beginning, but eventually, you will collapse upon yourself. Using another requires a willing participant, a volunteer who understands the intrusion and won’t build up a protection that might harm the mage drawing on them. What’s the alternative, then? The freshly fallen still retain sparks of the agan. The Gorenten learned to supplement their weak, failing magic with the blood of others. And the best way to tap into it…” She pressed a finger on her temple. “The best way is through their heads.”

Half the classroom gasped. The rest snickered. There were fewer eyes on me now, though. Maybe they were afraid I would draw out a sword and demonstrate the ritual right beside the chalkboard.

“Such savagery, in the name of magic, taints the glorious history of what has created our society,” Keeper Winna continued. “It is a reminder the same magic that has given us progress beyond anything history could offer is always just one step away from destruction. Without such institutions as Eheldeth teaching us the rules, the limits of what should be, we would be nothing more than animals hacking at each other for sport.” She placed her foot down, throwing the chalk on the ground with flourish. “We are all here to make sure none of that happens. A warning, my dears, and nothing more. Blood magic makes spells mind-numbingly easy, but there are reasons we do not practice it.”

The bells began to ring from the towers in the schoolyard, marking the end of the class. Students crowded to be the first out the door, the lecture seemingly forgotten. I was in the very back, in the furthest corner—my preferred position, because it kept me away from people—so I was the last to leave. Keeper Winna barely even offered me a glance as I scuttled out of there, books in my arms. As far as she was concerned, she’d given a harmless lesson, nothing more. But my heart was still pounding. Every word she had uttered in the name of education was slamming hard on my chest, like a hammer. I felt like a cornered deer, fending off wolves.

“Hey,” someone said, as soon as I stepped out the door.

I turned. One of the boys from the class stood there, as if waiting for me.

I acknowledged him with a quick nod before I darted down to the hall.

He was beside me again when I reached the corner. Without a word, he reached over to take the books from my arms. Such was my panic that I willingly handed them. “There you go,” he said, once he’d taken them all. “See? Now they won’t weigh you down so much.”

Back then, I never really paid that much attention to Ivasus. He had yet to be the catalyst to my ill-fated portals exam during finals week. He was one of many in the blur of faces that marked the last few years, one of the rowdy boys that spent time with even rowdier boys and excelled only in the subjects that involved physical violence in some way. I immediately looked back to see if his friends had followed him, waiting to assault me with snowballs from the ditches outside. But the hallway behind us was empty.

He responded to my surprise with a grin. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I just wanted to let you know I saw what Keeper Winna did. It’s unfair. Putting you on the spotlight like that…”

“I’d rather not talk about it,” I quickly said. “It’s nothing.”

Ivasus cocked his head to the side, golden curls dancing over his forehead. “I saw your face back there. It wasn’t nothing. You’re upset.”

“My feelings are none of your business.” I gazed at the books in his arms. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to snatch them back or ask nicely. I felt like either option would reveal his true intentions and end in mockery.

“Let me walk you back to your dormitory.” He sounded so earnest, and it was the easiest way to get what I wanted than any of the other options. The last half an hour had unexpectedly taken down my defences. I felt like a broken pencil, dulled to uselessness.

“All right,” I replied. But I also couldn’t stop the next question from falling out of my lips. “Why are you doing this?”

He seemed to mull over this for a second. “Because,” he finally said, a flicker of amusement in his eyes, “you look like you need a friend.”

CHAPTER 3

ROSHA

I was off to a rough start the moment I slipped into the emperor’s skin. The blood flowing from the fresh cut on my arm made the transition easier. Felan opened the door, said something with a gesture. I turned and stared back at him.

His mouth opened again, confusing settling on his features. No sound was coming out. I couldn’t hear a damn thing.

I jumped back into my body. Nausea filled my senses. He grabbed me before I could fall.

“It’s getting worse,” he said. “Your magic is weaker than ever.” I would’ve taken it as an insult before, even though Felan was always the kind of person who kept to the facts. Now, I took the observation as a sign that I wasn’t going mad. Something was wrong with me, and he could see it.

“Did yours do this, too?” I asked. “Did it disappear slowly?”

“Whatever that stranger did to us, I got the worst of it.” Felan wiped the trickle of blood running down my elbow. “But no—it didn’t happen like this. One moment I had magic—when I woke up after the attack, I’d lost it all. I would have given anything to have the time to get used to it.” He helped me get to my feet. “Will you try again?”

I had to stop myself from laughing. “You’re saying that like Ceres is giving me a choice.”

“She isn’t making you do this.”

I grimaced. “She doesn’t have to. She could have me locked away for practicing magic without the council’s approval.”

“You know she won’t. The woman loves you.”

“You must be joking.”

“She is fond of you then. Tell her the truth. Tell her you’re struggling. She’ll help.”

“No.” I returned to the emperor, grabbing the front of his robes and forcing the lump of flesh to gaze upward. “Look at me, damn you!”

A flare sparked in my veins. Cerknar’s eyes glowed. I had to stop myself from laughing out loud. “There,” I told him. “Was that so hard?” I pressed my bloody fingers on the rune on his back and returned to his body. This time, the simulacrum yielded, soft as clay. Every sensation was as it should be.

“Now,” I said, straightening my sleeves. “To pay homage to all the empire’s sycophants. Which way, Adherent Felan?”

His face was expressionless as he led the way.

Addressing a crowd from a dais as the emperor was a far different experience than attending a party as a guest of honour. For one thing, I was removed from my audience, which meant it wasn’t that much different than casting shadows from one end of a room to the other. Very few people ever interrupted me, which gave me the freedom to say what I wanted (or rather, whatever speech Ceres had prepared for me at the time). I needed only to reach within myself, to maintain my focus on Cerknar’s movements, on the words tumbling out of his lips as easily as wine dripping out of a bottle.

Having to move amongst people was a different beast altogether. My senses threatened to overwhelm me. The scent of bodies so close together, the rustle of fabrics, the chatter—oh, so much chatter—felt like the buzzing of a thousand bees inside my skull. People bowed as I passed them. Some wanted to make eye contact; others, conversation. I ignored them all. I wondered if it looked like I was already drunk, and then decided that wasn’t a terrible way to present myself. Turning on my heel, I grabbed a cup from a passing servant and drained it in one gulp. I reached for another.

“Might I suggest a clear head this evening, Your Excellency?” Forget the bees…Ceres’s voice drowned it all out with expert precision. I felt like someone had just jabbed me with needles.

“Firekeeper,” I said, holding out my arms. “Perhaps you should drink. You look like you’ve been having a bad day.”

She frowned. She hated that I gave the emperor a personality. Cato played him in a manner that merely amplified his own demeanour: dour, humourless, and a persistent foul mood he sought to unload on the nearest person at every opportunity. That made it easier to hide him, I suppose—the less time anyone wanted to spend with him, the less likely the ruse would be discovered. But I felt that such an act would be difficult for me to maintain. I’m no good with tantrums and treating people terribly to make a point. Let the populace think that the emperor’s frequent vacations have improved his temper. I couldn’t see what was wrong with that. People were allowed to change, even ageless emperors.

I placed a hand on the Firekeeper’s shoulder, and she flashed me another look. This time, I felt like I’d gone too far. I’d seen her throw that look before. She delivered it frequently to Enosh. Did my humour actually remind her of my father? Appalled, I drew back. Maybe I really was no good at this.

“Your Excellency,” someone called, interrupting that train of thought before it grew too dangerous. My panic shifted. For a moment, I thought I was back in the changing room, fending off a torrent of memories.

The crowd parted. In the middle stood Ivasus.

He’d grown since that fateful day in the portals examination room. Taller, broader. His face, however, remained the same, now hidden behind a stubble of golden-brown fuzz. His hazel-flecked grey eyes still had the touch of wry humour, the sort he used to keep himself at a distance from everyone else in school, even his closest friends. I forgot I was supposed to be a centuries-old emperor attending his umpteenth ball; I even forgot I was the mage controlling him. Suddenly I was a student in Eheldeth again: young, impressionable, easily fooled. The temptation to draw the emperor’s ceremonial sword and cut his throat in front of the entire court was strong. If he hadn’t interfered…if his idea of a joke didn’t remain a persistent shadow I’d forever run from…

Ceres must have noticed the bubbling anger, because she coughed loudly.

“I beg your pardon,” I said, trying to regain my composure. “And you are—?”

“Tribune Janus’s son, Your Excellency,” Ivasus said with another tilt of his head. “Ivasus ban-Sokur.”

I know. I’ve been cursing your name for years, you petulant, unbelievable son of a—

“Bearer Ivasus,” Ceres broke in.

Ivasus smiled. “Ah, yes. The Firekeeper never fails to remind me that I am still, heart, body, and soul, bound to Eheldeth and its laws. It is good to see you.” He nodded towards her in a gesture that was nearly a bow, if slightly more casual.

She remained unmoved by his attempt to charm her. “And are you not? As a bearer, you answer to the mage council.”

“The position was granted to me upon graduation, it is true. But you must also recall I turned it down when I was invited to sit with the merchant guild. I am not the first mage to do it, nor the last.”

“You did it to insult me.” She wasn’t engaging in banter—there wasn’t a single note of amusement in her voice. I detected history there. What had I missed in the last few years? Judging from the look on Ceres’s face, quite a bit. I doubted she would tell me, though, even if I ordered her as emperor. The woman guarded her secrets like a bear guarding a fistful of honey.

Ivasus chose not to take the bait. He bowed again. “Such harsh words from someone I deeply respect. I am sorry I didn’t greet you first. The Firekeeper believes herself equal to the emperor himself, and who am I to say otherwise?” He made a sweeping bow in her direction, one that drew attention from about half the people in the room. They turned, partway through drinking their champagne, glasses in hand. A wonderful way to keep attention away from us, Firekeeper, I wanted to say in my most sarcastic drawl, but of course I kept it to myself. I still wasn’t quite over that look. I was not Enosh. But I could admit the words in my head sounded like what he would say.

Ceres gazed back at Ivasus coolly. “Fine talk coming from the man who has dodged his responsibilities for the better part of two years.”

Ivasus simply grinned, as if Ceres had caught his hand in a cookie jar and her words were nothing but a quick slap across the knuckles. “I’ve been busy with my father’s affairs. He’s left quite a bit, as you can imagine. The sort of work we do doesn’t end in our lifetimes.” I didn’t know where he’d picked up decorum, but watching it fall from his mouth was unreal.

Ceres clapped her hands together and made a swift bow. “I extend my condolences for the tribune’s passing.”

“Condolences now, Firekeeper? He’s been dead a few years. Surely you would have sent them then. The funeral was a glorious affair, too. More a celebration than anything else.”

“I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t invited.”

From the look on Ivasus’s face, I could tell it was on purpose. I cleared my throat and chose that moment to step between them. “If that will be all—” I began.

“Emperor Cerknar, I wanted to ask about your opinions on outlaw mages,” Ivasus said.

I couldn’t even trade glances with Ceres. I kept my gaze on Ivasus, afraid that the slightest twitch in the wrong direction would give me away. “An inevitability in an empire like ours,” I replied. “You will always find someone willing to bend the rules, if not outright break them. Outlaw mages aren’t the only ones guilty of this.”

“Even legitimate mages, swearing oaths to the mage council, are not exempt,” Ivasus agreed. Another jibe at Ceres?

Better to get right to the heart of the matter. I cleared my throat. “Do you have a name, Bearer Ivasus?”

“Lord Cato tan-Tarsius comes to mind. Another mage who chose allegiance to the merchant guild over the mage council.”

“The man met his end nearly a year ago,” Ceres broke in. “His son’s reports indicate an outlaw mage was responsible for the assassination, a thief who was killed during the struggle. Perhaps you know something we don’t?”

That would be inconvenient for you, wouldn’t it?

Ivasus flicked his nose with his thumb. “I very nearly had the same question for you. You see, Lord Cato was a business partner of my father’s, and right before his death, we were in the middle of some…very important deals.”

“I’m sure Lord Cato would be deeply apologetic over how his death has inconvenienced you,” Ceres said wryly.

“The man can rest easy,” Ivasus said, without missing a beat. “I’m more concerned about the activities of the living. Some of my investigations have led to irregularities that I thought you might be interested in.” He glanced at the crowd. “This may not be the best situation to discuss this, of course. A private meeting might be in order, Your Excellency, say—tomorrow, in my estate?” He turned to me. I wilted at his gaze and had to force myself to meet his eyes.

Ceres coughed. “This is hardly the time for—”

“Firekeeper Ceres is invited, too,” Ivasus continued, turning to her. “Can’t say I don’t know how to pay respects to my old professor.” He took her hands in his and kissed the top of them. “We would love to have both of you as guests. That is, if the time and place works?”

“As long as you don’t invite the whole town,” I said.

Ivasus bowed. “Of course, Your Excellency.”

I now found the opportunity to withdraw from them both, the emperor’s false heart racing in the chest that wasn’t mine. This was more than a complication. Ivasus’s appearance was a disaster waiting to happen.

The rest of the party was a blur. I remembered nothing—not the food I tasted or the empty pleasantries I exchanged with what felt like half the dignitaries in the empire. Wading through the sea of some of the empire’s most powerful and most corrupt figures made me feel like a wolf prowling alongside a herd of deer…I couldn’t help but feel like I could solve so many problems with a well-aimed projectile on the ceiling. The hour was over before the temptation became too strong, which was more than enough time for my required appearances; I faked a headache and withdrew without trouble. I returned to the changing room, dismissing all the servants before locking the door behind me.

I slipped back into my body. As soon as I was back in familiar territory, memories of Ivasus—the same ones I had forced behind a locked door all these years—came rushing back.

A friend—that was right. He said he wanted to be friends that first day. I couldn’t remember how I’d replied to him, but knowing me, I would have probably just blinked and left it there in the hopes he would just leave me alone. And he did, for a time.

But after our next class together, a rather mundane one on what sort of magic could be used to lighten chores around the house (nobody would blink if you started a stove with your own fingers!), I saw him waiting for me near the door leading to the courtyard. I knew immediately he was waiting for me because his friends were nowhere in sight. Despite that bit of information, I decided to walk past him. I had no desire to make eye contact or engage in conversation with anyone. This was my favourite time of the day, the afternoon right after classes but before evening meals, when most of the other students would be engaged in gossip and free time and I could spend an hour or two uninterrupted in the dormitory reading. I wasn’t about to let a boy interrupt that.

He started walking next to me.

I took the longest way back to the dormitories—one that led us straight through one of the fields, which was useless for that season on account of the three-foot high snow that would pile on it during winter. Without blinking, I strode straight through the snowdrifts. I realized a moment later that the bastard was still following me.

“You’re doing all the hard work here, really,” he said, nonchalantly. “You’re breaking a trail for me.”

I pressed the books tighter against my chest. “What do you want?” I asked.

“You didn’t even say hi.”

“Hi,” I said abruptly, turning around.

“Normally, that word doesn’t imply a parting of ways. You say hi like it’s goodbye.” He strode closer to me and carefully flicked a stray strand of hair from my forehead. “It doesn’t suit you.”

I glared at him.

“Snowflake,” he explained. “On your hair. You’ll freeze to death.”

“What do you want?” I repeated, more firmly than last time. Maybe he didn’t hear me.

He gave a small shrug. “I believe we’ve had this talk already.”

“No, we haven’t. The last time, I asked why are you doing this? This time, I’m asking what you want. Whether or not I need a friend has nothing to do with you.”

“It does, if I’m offering my friendship.”

“I don’t want to be friends with you,” I said.

He clutched his heart. “That hurts. That really does. What is it about me? My breath?” He pretended to cough on his hand so he could sniff it.

“I don’t want friends at all,” I announced. After a moment, I remembered my manners—what my parents had tried to instill in me. “Thank you for asking, though.”

Ivasus crossed his arms and looked away. “You realize this class was our last for the semester. Everyone’s off having mini gatherings to celebrate before the professors break it up with one of their fusty rules. Aren’t you going to take part in any?”

“I’m lost at the part where you thought I’m the sort of person who gets invited to these, let alone has the desire to attend them,” I finally managed. Please leave. I want to sit on my bed and read until I fall asleep.

“I can fix the former.” He offered his elbow. “I believe I have four after-school parties to attend. We can pick one or go to them all. Not sure I can do much about the latter, though. Could it be you just haven’t been around the right people?”

I couldn’t help myself; the arrogance dripping out of his every word was beyond infuriating. “What do you mean the right people?” I asked.

“People who know the right way to have fun, of course.”

“No, thank you.”

“You’ve said thank you twice to me now, and yet you’ve yet to accept anything I’ve offered.” He reached into his pocket. I felt a moment of involuntary cringe, wondering what he was going to show me. He pulled out a golden key, nothing more. I thought I’d seen one like it before. My mind reached back as it recognized something I’ve seen around Firekeeper Ceres’s neck before.

“The library key,” I blurted out.

“The inner library key,” he said with a hint of a smile. “Ah hah! You suddenly look flustered. I figured you would be. You bookworm types find value in this sort of thing, don’t you? Forbidden spells, blood magic, necromancy…”

I turned away so he wouldn’t see the temptation on my face. The knowledge hidden in that room was…beyond inexplicable. I didn’t even think it was possible for a student to hold the key to it. Was it a counterfeit? Did he swipe the key from under Ceres’s nose? Even if he was pretending, a part of me wanted to prove without a shadow of a doubt that he was lying. Because if he wasn’t…

“If you change your mind, everyone at the boys’ dormitory knows me!” he called.

I walked away, but the damage had been done. For the rest of the evening, it was all I could think of. You see, forbidden knowledge is tempting by itself, and I know very few mages worth their salt who would turn their noses up at the chance to know more than their peers. Even back then, a part of me suspected the professors hid more than they taught us. They had to be. I felt like I understood why, too—we were young, given to stupid mistakes, and I couldn’t blame the keepers for doling knowledge out piece by piece.

But to a young mage who feared her powers were slipping, forbidden spells was as tempting as a bowl of stew on an empty stomach, more valuable than the promise of riches or love or whatever it was that made most people’s worlds go round. Everything. I knew Ivasus’s offer wasn’t benign. Clueless as I was in those days over the workings of attraction, I knew he had ulterior motives. Kefier had warned me enough about such things. “Don’t trust anyone,” he’d said before I first left for Eheldeth, his hands on my shoulders. “Especially young men. Especially charming young men.” A piece of advice that had Enosh rolling his eyes, clue enough that it was something worth remembering.

But I wanted to find out what was wrong with me, why the attack in the ruins had made me feel as if I was still dangling in mid-air, still in that intruder’s grip. I visited Ivasus’s dormitory in the middle of the night, at an hour when such a visit wouldn’t go amiss. The other students did it all the time. At that age, trysts were no longer uncommon. When I showed up in his hallway, I saw his friends elbow each other and whisper amongst themselves. Eventually, one approached me. “Ivo, eh?” he asked with a shadow of a grin. “Girls really can’t keep their hands off him.”

“Just take me to him,” I whispered under my breath.

The whispers turned to barely concealed giggling. I kept my head down as I followed the boy up the stairs. Framed paintings of famous mages from the council glared down on me from every wall. I could feel their gazes piercing down deep into my skin, tearing it inside out. Do you even belong here? That morning, I had struggled to keep myself warm after waking up, a habit I’d started doing automatically ever since we moved up north where the winters were blisteringly cold. The thought that I was risking all of this to talk to a boy I couldn’t even stand to be around just so I could find out why I was losing my magic filled me with shame. With every step I made, I was looking for an excuse to turn tail and go back to my bed. What sort of mage couldn’t even keep herself warm anymore? Maybe I should freeze to death.

We stopped in front of a door. The boy opened it.

“I told you not to fucking interrupt—” Ivasus started, before he saw me standing there.

The boy craned his head towards me.

Ivasus nodded at the boy, who immediately stepped back, closing the door shut. “Imagine seeing you here,” he greeted, almost nonchalantly. I noticed he was shirtless and immediately turned away, even as he grabbed a sweater from his bedside table and shrugged into it.

“You said you could take me to the inner library,” I blurted out. “I wanted to see if you were lying.”

He started laughing. “That’s how you want to start this conversation? By daring me?”

I flushed and waited as he pulled the sweater on, and then a cloak.

“Come on,” he said, just as I was thinking of what else I was supposed to say. I didn’t think there could be anything to cover up the gaping hole of embarrassment in the pit of my stomach. As we walked back down the stairs and through the dormitory common room, I could see the other boys’ knowing looks. This wasn’t the first time he’d done this; I wasn’t the first girl to come here looking for him, and certainly not the first one he took outside. Was this inner library even a real thing, or a love-nest he kept on the side?

But even the thought he was lying to me wasn’t enough to dissuade me. I couldn’t afford to miss out if he was telling the truth. I had to know what was in those shelves. I had to know what was happening to my powers, and I was convinced the answer lay inside that library.

So I followed him out into that frozen night, past the snowdrifts and into the main building, through the greenhouse in the back garden. The red key opened the door effortlessly. I stared at the array of potted vegetables on the tables and had the quick thought why the mages of Eheldeth couldn’t just use spells instead of relying on the glass to warm them up. The tomatoes look withered, each one with puckered yellowish skin, and the cucumber vines looked brittle.

“You think a lot, don’t you?” Ivasus asked as he fiddled around with the door leading into the main building.

I searched for something to say. “You don’t?”

He gave a grim smile as the door opened. “Only when the situation warrants it. It saps a lot of energy, otherwise.” He gestured at the long hallway in front of us. The air smelled tomblike, of mothballs and dust.

“How do you have this key?” I asked.

“So many questions already.” He gave a furtive grin. “We don’t even know each other all that much yet.”

“It’s just a question.”

“Guess. Use that brain of yours.”

I frowned. I didn’t know if it was a trap, but now that he’d dropped the hook, I couldn’t help myself. I remembered seeing his father’s name in a golden plaque out in the main lobby. Theirs was a family that made massive, frequent donations to Eheldeth, and had for generations. “I’m guessing on top of your family’s usual obligations to the university, they’ve made personal donations to…hmm, the groundskeepers? No. You wouldn’t care about the groundskeepers. The building admin, then. Whoever it was, they provided you with your own personal skeleton key that can get you access to books the other students wouldn’t have in the slim chance you’d somehow excel beyond your capabilities.”

He blinked. “That’s a lot of words.”

“It means you’re not very smart and your parents bribed people to see you succeed.”

Ivasus snorted, seemingly unaffected by my insults. “Could’ve told them it was useless. Like I’d ever want to spend time surrounded with more books. Whatever they lob at us in class is enough. But it is mighty convenient that someone like you would find this intriguing. I’m sure nothing else would’ve piqued your interest.” He opened the library door. I barged past him. But before I could cross the threshold, he pressed a hand over the door frame, blocking me.

I stared at him.

“A thank you wouldn’t go amiss,” he said.

“Thank you. Now—”

He removed his arm and pointed as we walked in. He carefully closed the door behind us.

“You’re smart,” he said, as we strolled through the vast aisles. “What does it feel like to have the answers all the damn time?”

“I can’t imagine why you would think I need access to a library if I did.”

“Ah. My mistake. I’m just…your head…” He made a vague gesture before coughing.

I stared at him. “What about my head?”

“What’s inside it…”

“Bone. Blood vessels. Brain.”

“Forget I asked.” He opened the last door and gestured. There was no way to walk in now without brushing against him. I swallowed my fear, and just as I expected, felt his hand on my waist. This was a transaction that came at a price.

I bit it all back and forced my eyes to the inner sanctum. He snapped his fingers, and lights from the sconces flooded the room with warm shades of orange and flashes of shadow. I held my breath. There were so many books here, and I didn’t know where to start. I would not have enough time to read them all in one night, or two. There, in the furthest corner, an aisle caught my attention.

Alternative Magic. I knew what it meant immediately—the spine of the first book in the middle row was written in blood.

“Blood magic is still magic.” It had only been a week since I said it deliberately, hoping to get more out of them than they were giving us. They acted scandalized, incensed; I was sent to the Firekeeper and was told the rawness of my abilities, whatever that meant, made me ineligible for the valuable scholarship track given to the most gifted of students. And yet here it was, aisle after aisle of knowledge on a subject they pretended was beneath them. I felt my heart race.

Everything I needed was in the damn room, and Ivasus’s key was the only way for me to have continuous access to it. Enosh was sleeping with the Firekeeper, but Ceres didn’t give handouts. Even if I could somehow convince my father to line the university’s pockets with cold, hard cash the way the others did, I knew it wouldn’t do a damn thing. There were rules, and they didn’t apply equally.

The edges of my vision blurred as frustration clawed up my heart. I needed this. I needed to preserve my magic. Without it, what else was there to do with my life? I’d seen the opportunities accorded to other Gorenten out there. There was no life waiting for me outside of Eheldeth, outside of being a mage. I imagined how my classmates would react if they found out I’d been kicked out because I couldn’t do the absolute basic. How the other professors would act. Keeper Winna, with that amused smile on her face, would probably shake her head. What did I tell you? Primitives. Savages. They’re incapable of higher thought, and she’s just proven it.

“What do you think?” Ivasus asked, breaking the silence. His smooth, beardless cheeks were flushed red, a stark contrast to his white skin. “Impressive, eh? I mean, I know I didn’t do anything but you’ve got to admit—”

I turned around, a hand on his chest, and pressed my lips over his. He immediately stopped talking. A light flashed across his face as he overcame his surprise—it was quickly followed by an expression I could only describe as revelry. He’d done this before, right here, under the exact same circumstances. Of course. He placed a hand on the small of my back and pulled me closer. And then, without another word, he lifted me to the nearest table. The heat of his fingers was nauseating. It wasn’t unpleasant, but I knew the circumstances surrounding this were. I wished I had time to examine my feelings, to turn them over under a magnifying glass until I was absolutely sure of them, but I knew I’d reached a point of no return. This will be worth it, I told myself. What was the alternative? To lose everything that gave my world substance, the only thing worth fighting for?

I kept my eyes on the bookcase the entire time.

CHAPTER 4

NASUHA

She doesn’t have time to examine her kills, as one might expect after the sort of accident that greeted her at the shores of Sen’senal. An accident, even though deep down she wanted it to happen—because it is so rare in the world she has walked thus far for her to get the things she wishes for. She knows she has power, but not to that extent. Not like this.

It intoxicates her, even as it also fills her with fear. She runs from Asera, who is screaming like a girl awakened from a nightmare, and heads straight for the dark shape of the city in the distance. Her last thought of the men is how hungry killing them has made her. The lingering stench of roasted meat clings to her fingers. It makes her sick. It makes her feel like an animal.

Somehow, she finds her way to the city, which is further away than she would have guessed. There, people’s eyes simply pass over her; their indifference is a stark contrast to the image of the carnage she left behind. She wonders if it is because they see nothing but a mere village girl when they look at her, or if they see her at all. She wonders if the secret of what she has just done to five men is all over her face. A part of her knows it is something one cannot run away from for very long.

And yet somehow, no one accuses her of the crime. She spends the rest of the day wandering the market, until eventually a vendor notices her. “You’ve passed by twice in the last hour without buying anything,” the woman says. “I’m about to close shop, anyway. Have something to fill your belly.” She pushes forward a tray of sticky rice snacks, wrapped in banana leaves, and grins with the expression of a woman who doesn’t know any better.

Nasuha doesn’t question why. She doesn’t even stop long enough to thank her. Miracles only came once in a blue moon, and you grabbed opportunities before they were snatched away from you. If the woman doesn’t smell the stench of crime on her person, then perhaps she has nothing to fear elsewhere. She crams two down her mouth before she finally regains her thoughts long enough to look at the woman in the eye. She finally mumbles her thanks, rice clinging to the roof of her mouth. The smell of the roasted meat is gone.

The woman hands her a glass of melon juice. She drains it in one go.

“How do I get out of here?” she asks.

The woman stares at her in amusement. “Where do you want to go?”

“Anywhere but these islands. Gorent…doesn’t know a gift when she sees one.”

The woman is too polite to ask if she means herself. “That happens,” she agrees. Her eyes fall on Nasuha’s scarred face. “Gorent is not a rich land. Very often, without meaning to, she eats her own. Don’t blame her for it.”

“I want to,” she whispers.

A smile, deepening the creases on her face. “Well, don’t. It’s not her fault. She doesn’t know any better.”

“She used to.”

The woman makes a sign of the Sun God, imploring his blessings. “Do you remember what you had for breakfast exactly two years from today?”

Nasuha stares at her, mouth open.

“If you yourself cannot remember what you ate a year ago, you cannot expect a land to recall glories she no longer tastes,” the woman continues. She taps her forehead with a small nod. “Memories are not made to sustain us forever.”

“You’re wise for a rice cake vendor.”

“You want to leave,” the old woman continues. “I understand that. I wanted to leave too, in my youth.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because as bad as it could get here, you do not know what waits for you out there.”

She bites back the angry retort building inside her chest. Of course she has no idea. She has a better clue of what waits for her here, though, of what the rest of her short life will look if she lets the fates have their way. Her father sees her as a curse, and it is only a matter of time before the rest of the villagers do, too. That, on top of the constant, grinding hunger…

The woman pulls down the blinds to her little stall.

“This is the largest—the only—city in Gorent,” Nasuha says, watching as the woman puts her things away for the night. “So you must know things, must have heard things. Where does one go if one wants to control the winds? Or command fire? What does one do if one wants to become a mage?”

And now the woman laughs. She peers over the edge of the stall, amusement dancing in her eyes. “Where does one go? If you were a little Dageian child, born to the right family with deep pockets, you would go to Eheldeth. They say it is a magical city, a school that forms the heart of the mage council, one of the pillars of the Dageian hegemony. But I think by one you mean a child of Gorent, which means I have a different answer. You won’t like it.”

She licks her lips. “Tell me,” she says, though she already knows.

The old woman’s face grows sombre. “Dead, if you’re unlucky. In the bowels of a Dageian ship, if the gods decide to grant a bit of mercy. And if you’re really lucky, you might become a servant to their mages, a cheap and easy source of power should their own fail them. The odds are not kind to such children. I’ve seen enough lost out there to know.”

“There are other…Gorenten children with power?”

The woman presses a finger to her lips. “If you have such a gift, I would keep it to myself. They will capture you and sell you to the mages. I’ve not seen it unfold any other way.”

“I want to go to this Eheldeth.”

“Didn’t you hear me, child? The odds—”

“I will beat them.”

She doesn’t know if it is pity or amusement that finally forces the woman to point out a ship that might take her to the mainland if she begs the captain hard enough. As she walks away, she sees her making the sign of the gods again, imploring them for protection. It occurs to her it may not have been for her sake. She wonders if there will come a time when her own stop fearing her. Glancing down at her still-charred hands, she knows such days are a distant dream.

The journey from one end of the continent to the other is not just long and arduous, though most history books choose to fall back on such basic descriptions. The two words by themselves fail to accurately express the breadth, the depth, the contrasts. Hours of tedium, broken by random moments of peril. Surviving such a journey for a penniless young girl seems doomed from the start.

But I will beat the odds.

The mantra stays on her lips, from that first, frozen night she spends on the mainland streets to the next few ones at a temple dedicated to a Dageian deity that valued coin above all else. The priests housed and fed all manner of orphans and other unfortunate souls wherever they can. Here, Gorenten were an uncommon sight, though no one ever commented that Nasuha didn’t quite belong in that sea of dirty pale skins and light-coloured hair. Why shouldn’t she be as downtrodden and destitute as the rest? But the Gorenten patrons of the deity—there are many who have denounced the Sun God, especially those who seem to have attained some level of comfort out in the mainland—would whisper to her whenever they would see her in the yard.

“Where are your parents?” they would ask. “What are you doing here? Tell us where you’re from, and we’ll take you home.” The old women gazed at her with pity—in their eyes, the Gorenten ideal of family means that it is inconceivable that there was nobody left who could take care of her. They saw their daughters in her, their nieces or young sisters. She doesn’t think they will understand if she explains she is not like everyone else. It is a lie that those from Gorent have no future as a mage—servitude and death cannot be all that waits for her. She knows she is destined for greater. Why should the gods squander the very gifts they’ve created?

She stays in the temple, stealing change from the offerings in the altar every chance she gets and hoarding the coins where the other children can’t see—buried in a hole in the garden like a dog with a bone. As the months wear on, the pile grows bigger. Two seasons in, her moon’s blood comes upon her, and she notices the looks of the other boys in the orphanage has changed. Suddenly she cannot walk past them without them attempting to peer up her skirt or grab her chest. It tells her it is time to leave. She scoops the coins into a purse, counting each as she goes.

“Where’d you get all of that?” a voice demands from behind. One of the boys from the orphanage, followed by his friends. They advance, eyes leering, jackals at dusk.

She stands her ground. They don’t frighten her. Maybe if she hadn’t killed five grown men already, they would. But she stares back at them and notes with pleasure the discomfort settling on their expressions. She has not given them any attention the last few months, and they have assumed almost everything that has nothing to do with the truth. That they intimidate her, that she must be weak. It has never occurred to them that her disregard stems from ambivalence. To her, they are nothing but ants. Until that moment, she has never even looked at their faces long enough to be able to pick them out from a crowd.

Her flippancy sparks outrage. How dare she acknowledge their threats without fear? How dare she deem herself good enough to lift her chin when she looks at them? They grab her by the wrists as one boy—the tallest, biggest of the lot—approaches her slowly, mouth twisted into a cruel smile. She doesn’t need to guess at what he has in mind. Her mother has warned her before, over and over again until it feels like her ears would fall off. It was only a matter of time. Women who cannot protect themselves cannot expect to go through life unscathed.

As if to prove her right, one of them reaches for her chest.

She burns him first.

Her own skin prickles and bleeds as the flames burst from her palms, dancing along the boy’s arm before running all the way down to the other. The fire doesn’t choose whether to harm her or her captors. But she is prepared for the pain; they are not. They drop her and fall backwards, screaming. Now she lifts her hands and faces the third boy, the one who now stands staring at her, mouth open.

A ball of flame forms at the ends of her fingers. She throws it at him, ignoring the smell of her own roasting flesh—already she has done this enough that the scars in her fingers barely tingle at the contact. The flame strikes him on the throat. It spreads outward, like a splash of water. It is oddly fascinating. A moment later, she realizes the dark liquid spreading over his shirt is blood.

He screams and falls to the ground, attempting to kill the flames before he burns to death. She watches him without blinking.

“She’s connected to the agan,” one of the other boys screams. “Call the mages! Quickly!”

They scatter, leaving the third boy, who now lies motionless on the ground. He isn’t dead yet—Nasuha can see the rise and fall of his chest. Seeing him lying there, however, fills her with a moment of regret. Was she too hasty? Was he really going to do something to her, or was that all in her head? She steps close to him, crouching next to his head. Her hand hovers over his hair.

“Witch,” the boy gasps, his breath trickling through the soil. Even in his pain, he doesn’t forget his anger. “You fucking witch. People like you need…to die…”

Nasuha lets her arm hang loose to her side, her fingers curling. “You live in a land of mages,” she whispers back. “Why does it bother you?”

“You’re not a mage,” the boy replies. “Gorenten aren’t allowed to be mages. You’re nothing but an abomination.”

She gets up, and begins to walk away.

“Abomination!” the boy calls to her retreating figure. “They need to lock you up and throw away the key!”

She keeps walking. I will beat the odds, she repeats to herself. She has to believe it, even if no one else will. It is the only way she can survive.

It takes her two whole years to reach the other end of the continent, drifting from town to town, finding what work she can in order to save enough money for the next. In that time, she sheds her girl’s body and becomes a young woman, at least in the eyes of the men she dodges more frequently. She keeps it all in, like a warrior that knows the sort of enemy she must face. It keeps her vigilant. Whether by luck or through the gods’ interference, she makes it to the east unharmed. The sight of the Dageian Plateau from the plains, the glorious city-school of mages from her dreams, is more than she can explain. It makes her want to break down in tears on the road.

But instead of sobbing, Nasuha steels herself as she strides to its glorious gates. She knows excitement can be poisonous. She goes through the list of explanations in her head, the ones she has prepared all these years for the gate guards. Despite all her misgivings, a part of her believes they will welcome her with open arms. Eheldeth is home for those vilified elsewhere. Even if she has no money for tuition, she has heard they offer scholarships for the deserving. Furthermore, she is Gorenten, a race they believe is incapable of the strength of magic she has. She doesn’t exactly think she can make them see the error of their ways, but a part of her is hopeful it will make them reconsider what they say on their texts. For a start, it might make the Gorenten—a people ever-dependent on the Dageians’ words—stop throwing their children to the dogs.

The gates are wide open. There are no guards.

After a moment’s hesitation, she walks through. Courage builds with every step. These are the cleanest streets she has seen in her life, and she has to make herself believe she belongs here. I will beat the odds, she reminds herself, the mantra that has kept her alive all these years. A part of her believes she already has, in fact. How many Gorenten can claim to have crossed the continent with nothing but the clothes on her back? She shouldn’t be here, staring at the tall towers in the distance like an ant in the presence of giants. She should already be dead. The odds have already been beaten, and she can do it again. Will she be the first Gorenten child to grace these gates? Excitement rushes through her veins. It doesn’t take much for her to begin dreaming about the look on her father’s face should he find out she made it here. She knows the whole village will stare in disbelief. Perhaps they’ll punish him for his crimes at last—the child he feared wasn’t cursed after all. More than a demon, more than a Lost One, she could be their salvation.

“You!”

A mage has appeared at the other end of the road. He stares at her with surprise. Briefly, she thinks back on the stories she has read. This is the moment, usually, when they ask for a test, something to prove she belongs. She holds up her hand.

The mage jumps back, forming a shield before she can even cast a spell—a blue thing that shimmers against the sunlight. She admires his reflexes. Perhaps someday she, too, can be as fast. But she is also amused that he finds something to fear in her. Both fear and admiration are powers she used to think are beyond her.

She creates a ball of fire, larger than her head. Her scarred skin tingles, but by now, she is used to the pain, and the scars are thick enough to take the edge off. The mage watches her, his caution giving way to curiosity. She throws the ball of fire to the ground. It dissipates even quicker than when she made it.

“There,” she says, wiping her hands. There is now only the faintest heat and scent of burnt flesh in the air. A bit of salve and a night’s rest, and she will be more than capable of casting another spell of such intensity. She hopes the mage is impressed. “I want entry into your school. I want to learn everything there is to learn about my powers.”

The mage pauses before dropping the shield. He stares at her another moment, and then laughs.

She flushes. “I know I don’t look like much, and I know you need tuition for your school, but I’ve also heard you have scholarships for those who deserve it.”

The mage finally catches his breath. “There’s an application,” he says. “A process you have to go through. They don’t just hand scholarships to everyone who wants it. Didn’t anyone tell you? You don’t just walk in.”

“I’m already here. Let me in.”

The mage looks like he wants to laugh again. He even glances around, as if he is hoping to run into someone else with whom he can share the joke. “Oh, what the hell,” he finally says under his breath. “Maybe the Firekeeper will find it amusing.” He gestures to her, leading her up the road.

Nasuha’s ears ring as she realizes he is going to take her to Eheldeth. It worked. It actually worked. And then her mind goes blank. Because no amount of dreaming in the last two years has prepared her for this. Eheldeth is a place straight out of the pages of a story. She doesn’t even want to think of the odds now that she knows she has beat them for sure.

The mage takes her to one of the giant, pristine buildings, and has her sit on a bench near a door. Nasuha does a great job of taking it all in. She doesn’t want to walk around slack-jawed, ignorance dripping from her pores. She allows herself just enough shock to orient herself, and then lets it all go. Mere minutes in Eheldeth, and she can already see herself strolling along with the other students, books in her hands as she exchanges dull conversation with others like her. The thought of having friends, of doing more with her days than endure, fills her with more hope than she has dared allow herself for years. Father will never even recognize me, she thinks, watching the students’ bright, clean faces, no traces of scars or dirt or tears. Whatever it is they learn out here, the students are well protected. Maybe her own body will stop hurting with every spell she casts.

The door opens, and the mage walks out, nodding towards her. “You’re all hers now,” he says, inclining towards the room. And then, without so much as a goodbye, he leaves.

Nasuha straightens her dress and walks through the door.

The golden-haired woman at her desk mutters something under her breath. “He’s right,” she says, before Nasuha can reorient herself. “You are Gorenten.”

She bites back against the shudder of pleasure over being recognized. “Is that so surprising?”

“No,” the woman says. “But it is dangerous.”

The world suddenly shifts. Nasuha stares back at her, all revelry gone in her uncertainty over the woman’s words. That tone, in her voice—is it praise, or repulsion?

“Sit,” the woman continues.

Nasuha slumps into the chair. The woman holds out her hands. “Show me your arms,” she says, in the sort of voice that says she is unused to people denying her requests.

After a moment’s hesitation, Nasuha does as she orders. The woman looks at her skin, her nails striking the surface of the scars. “Your spells do this?” she asks.

Nasuha slowly nods.

The woman lets go. “We cannot teach you here. You can still apply for the scholarship, but seeing as to I’m the Firekeeper of Eheldeth and everything to do with the school has to go through me, I might as well tell you not to waste your time. I won’t approve it.”

The words barely register in Nasuha’s head. “Why not?” she manages. “I…I have the gifts. Just because I’m Gorenten…”

“Believe me, child, if that was my problem, I would have called the guards and have it all done with. According to Dageian law, children like you shouldn’t be walking around without supervision. But I happen to have a personal vendetta about mage-thralls, and so…I’m willing to just turn my head and let you go back to whatever gutter you crawled out of. There will be no record of this anywhere, rest assured.”

How she can insult while offering comfort, Nasuha can’t imagine. “Why can’t you teach me?” she asks again.

“Your scars…” the Firekeeper says. “They’re a sign that your connection to the agan is faulty, at best.”

“I can craft fire. I can control the wind.”

“So you can. But you’re slowly killing yourself as you do. Every spell you cast takes from your own essence, and your body is ill-equipped to deal with the aftereffects. I’m sorry, but it happens. Not everyone can be a mage.” She bares the sleeves from her arms—her flawless, white-skinned arms. Without another word, she allows a lick of flame to start from her fingertips and crawl down to her elbow. Her face hardly flickers with the effort.

“But you can teach me…” Nasuha says, the uncertainty spreading through her.

The woman shakes her head. “One can be taught to control what they already have. But if they lack the talent…”

“I can make this whole room burst into flames if I wanted to!”

“And you, with it. A truly talented mage would be unscathed. Grant you, it is interesting that you have a connection to the agan at all, when your body so vehemently refuses to create protection for itself. Not every student can create flames as strong as what Keeper Vinos described you capable of—not every student can create fire at all. But the combination of magic as strong as yours and the complete ineptness at wielding it is…rare.”

She swallows. “If it is rare, why are you not worried?”

“Because you are in Eheldeth,” the woman says. “You cannot hurt anyone so badly that you wouldn’t hurt yourself first.”

“Try me,” Nasuha whispers. I’ve killed before. She wants to say it, but her tongue refuses to form the words. What will the woman do with a self-confessed murderer?

“Do that, and I may just call the guards.” The Firekeeper’s voice softens. “Listen, child. You do have power, I grant you—but not nearly enough for me to be able to make a petition with the council, even if your body wasn’t intent on self-sabotaging. I can already tell that you will struggle through all your lessons, and we don’t have time to give someone a scholarship and teach them the basics at the same time. It will be terribly unfair. Their eyes will be on you, every step of the way. Is that what you want?”

“I want to learn,” she whispers.

“Go, before I change my mind and call the guards after all. Find some place safe. Your power will harm you before it can help you.”

In her head, Nasuha imagines tearing the room apart with flames, just as she has threatened. She imagines the Firekeeper in flames, an apt imagery. But it soon gives way to exhaustion. She doesn’t want to tear anything down. She just wants to be let through the gate.

Gathering her dignity, she turns and walks out. The door slams shut behind her.

She takes a deep breath. She tells herself she won’t cry, at least; she won’t give them the satisfaction of seeing her in tears. For a moment, though, she glances at her scars. She wonders why it is such a bad thing that she can’t cast spells flawlessly. To be able to harness so much power despite the cost can’t be worthless. Her tolerance for pain, her capability of healing…she doesn’t think any student in that school could hold a candle to what she is capable of. It has to mean something.

On her way out of the building, she passes by a man mopping the corner of the hall.

“Did they reject you, girl?” he asks in Gorenten. He stands straight, mop in one hand, a bucket by his foot.

Nasuha turns, her eyes catching his dark skin, which contrasts with his completely white hair. Despite that, he doesn’t look that old at all—possibly not much older than her own parents. She shakes her head. “No, sir,” she says. “I don’t think taking me in was ever an option at all.”

“That’s unfortunate.” He tips his head forward. “Well, I wish you good luck, whatever your next step may be.”

Nasuha stares at her feet before looking him in the eye. “I have nowhere else to go,” she blurts out. “I thought this was the end of the road for me, and now…” It takes all her strength to keep the tears in. It is more difficult in the face of sympathy.

The old man places a hand on her shoulder. “We have space in the workers’ hall if you want. Maybe it’s not what you want.” He smiles, his cheeks deepening. “But the women can give you food and a warm place to rest until you figure out your next step. Is that something you may consider? I’d hate to let you go out there as you are. Sometimes in sadness, we can’t be alone.”

It is a paltry offering compared to what she could have had, but it is given with such warmth and generosity that she cannot help but nod. And so she finds herself in Eheldeth at last—not through the front door but the back, the one they show to people like her all the time. Those who make the rules would likely insist she belongs there, anyway.

She closes her eyes, and endeavours to prove them wrong.

CHAPTER 5

ROSHA

I stumbled out of my room to the servants’ common area in a daze, worn down by the ordeal and the onslaught of my own memories. I wondered how long I’d been down at the party. Felan was still in there, on a sofa with a book in his hand and one leg slung over his knee. He looked like he hadn’t left it in the last hour.

“How was it?” he asked, as my vision grew clearer.

I flushed immediately. How was what? I’d been thinking about Ivasus the whole walk back there, and now I suddenly felt like vomiting. I cleared my throat. “We have a problem.”

He folded the book on his lap and waited patiently for me to explain what.

“Do you remember one of the boys from our year?” I continued. “Ivasus ban-Sokur.”

He furrowed his brow. “I do recall the name, and maybe even his face. I don’t remember he was in our year. I believe he was a year after us.”

“You never shared classes with him?”

“Not in the time I was there, no. If he shared one with you, then he must have been held back.”

“Not surprising. I never asked—I suppose I just always assumed…I just didn’t pay attention to anyone much in those days.”

“I don’t disagree.”

Someday, I figured, I was going to talk to him about his ability to deflect an incoming argument while still speaking his mind. It was impressive. He’d only learned it in the years we’d been apart—the boy in my memories wasn’t capable of such patience. Did it come from having to live without magic at all? If this fate was what awaited me, perhaps I, too, should learn. I didn’t want to. The thought of embracing the inevitability of stillness was more frightening than anything in the world.

I shook my head. “Anyway…the bastard’s here.”

“If my memory serves me correctly, his father was a military tribune, and a position in the council is all but guaranteed for someone with a connection to the military and the agan.” He hesitated, a question settling on his brow. But whatever it was, he looked like he was actively trying to stop himself from saying it out loud.

I sighed. “What?” I asked.

“You said bastard. You normally don’t swear unless someone irritates you on a personal level.”

“And you would know this how?”

“I’ve been on the receiving end of it before. Many, many times.” Felan was now actively stopping himself from laughing.

“I’m glad this amuses you.” I sighed. “Regardless, he’s a complication. He’s wheedled a meeting out of me and Firekeeper Ceres in his residence tomorrow. I’m going to have to come along as Ceres’s attendant. He’ll know me, and…”

“And?” His one eyebrow twitched. As if it had a life of its own.

“Nothing,” I quickly said.

He took a deep breath. “I will be there with you, if that makes you feel any better.”

“It makes me feel worse.”

“Why?”

“Because that man…the boy that he was…was cruel, and vindictive, and I don’t think much has changed since then. If anything arouses his suspicion, he’ll both use it against us and for his own gain.”

“What makes you think he’ll be suspicious at all?” Felan asked.

I chose not to answer. Because that’s just the kind of man I know he is would open myself up to a line of inquiry I had no desire to follow. Felan, sensing my growing disquiet, left it at that. We returned to the emperor’s room to double check that the door leading to the hallway was double bolted, bundled the simulacrum up, and covered him in thick blankets before hiding him in the closet. The simulacrum uttered a low moan at the prospect of having to be locked up in the darkness once more, or so I assumed—it felt odd to think of him as an object, rather than a living, breathing human being, especially since I started occupying his skin. Perhaps it was just an involuntary reflex.

Felan closed the closet door, and I activated the spell Ceres had left there to ensure the staff didn’t accidentally stumble on him. As soon as I felt the agan swell through the cracks and harden there, I found myself able to breathe better.

“Food,” Felan said, out of nowhere.

“I’m sorry?”

“I know a great place to eat in the market, if you haven’t been yet,” Felan said. “I imagine you may not feel very hungry, especially if you thought you’ve been feeding the emperor out there. But your own body needs nourishment. That amount of magic, for anyone, takes its toll.”

All I really wanted was to sleep, but before I could say so, he opened the door and gestured, and my traitorous stomach grumbled. I suddenly had the brief recollection of Lon Basden’s bustling market, full of the sounds and smells of food foreign to most Dageian palates, and realized nothing in this estate could ever rival it. I could sleep now and partake of nothing but buttered bread and cold, beef stew later, or…

I took my cloak and followed him out into the street.

My childhood leaped out at me from every corner of the marketplace. I am someone who remembers everything she has ever read, simply because the process of running over familiar words and statements brings me pleasure. Memories are a different matter altogether. I prefer things that happen in the past to stay in the past, which is to say that I rarely—if ever—engage in nostalgia unless something triggers it.

Now, staring at the marketplace, my nostrils full of the scents of coal-roasted skewers and steamed rice cakes, I suddenly remembered all the times Kefier took me out here behind Enosh’s back. In those days, Enosh had been trying to teach me manners, as he liked to call it, which meant I was supposed to learn to eat bland food with a fork and a dull knife without making a fool of myself. No crumbs on my face, no spills on my shirt, everything as flawless as possible in order to avoid his associates’ piercing gazes. In those days, he had just started Risen Industries under his own name, which meant appearing in public as himself: Enosh Tar’elian, a brown-skinned, Gorenten man. He never said so, but I believe it made him nervous; and not being the sort of man who liked to talk about his feelings, he poured it on me instead. I was supposed to make him look good. I was supposed to make them love him, because he couldn’t make them love him himself. As if I had half his wit and charm. I can admit that much…I can’t draw attention to myself in a crowd the way he can.

I would have hated him more for it if Kefier hadn’t taken me from him once in a while. Papa walked through life so simply, it made me ache in jealousy just to watch him. It was as if nothing bothered him. This market, with its alleys Enosh described as full of thieves, and the food, half of which he claimed would make you sick…Kefier acted like he belonged. He and I would face the street on a bench, his left leg propped up so he could rest his arm while he ate from the street stalls, and never once worried about what it made him look like. He was the same way back in Jin-Sayeng, too; anywhere you could live in your skin without someone making a big deal about it, he embraced without reservations.

“How do you know about this place?” I asked Felan as he checked the street names. “This doesn’t seem to be the sort of street Lord Cato would have ever taken his son to.”

“I read it in a book.”

“Ah, I should have guessed.”

He furrowed his brow. “You’re right, of course. Lord Cato never took me to places. The idea of spending time in a market such as this would be too…” He made a vague gesture.

“Ethnic,” I blurted out.

He blinked. “I’m sorry?”

“That’s the word someone like Lord Cato would have used. Our professors did. I’m sure you never heard it because your father himself was protection enough. Most people considered you Lord Cato’s trueborn son.”

“They never asked.”

“Do you know where this mysterious shop of yours is supposed to be?”

He gave an address. It was a street name I recognized, so I took over in asking for directions. We eventually reached a corner eatery, one with glass walls. A brown-spotted dog with a wavy coat stood outside, wagging its tail at every passerby on the street. When it saw us, it darted forward, ears pinned to the back of its head as it wiggled in delight. I leaned down to pet it. The collar around its neck said Rosy. When I said her name, she barked.

A dark-skinned woman with a bandanna wrapped around her head stepped outside to wave at us. “The stew won’t take long,” she said. “We have chicken or pork, or both if you want, with plantains on the side.” She had the slightest Jinan accent.

I glanced at the storefront, and then back at her. “Sang…” I began, my words falling back to the Jinsein honorific almost immediately.

Her eyes brightened. “You’re Jinsein, too,” she said.

I hesitated. I hadn’t been in Jin-Sayeng for so long. Was I? In Dageis, Jinseins weren’t as common as Gorenten, so I automatically became associated with my fathers’ people only. I glanced at Felan for an explanation, but he was already picking a table near the window. “My mother is Jinsein,” I began.

Evidently, that was enough for her. She broke into a wide grin. “Welcome, child. I’ll be right with you.”

I settled in the seat across Felan as he thumbed through the menu. “What are we doing here?” I asked.

Felan’s eyes barely even flicked up. “I thought you might appreciate the familiarity. You did say you grew up there, and the last few months, you seem…” He coughed. “Homesick. Maybe that’s the wrong word to use. Listless. Like a boat drifting out in open sea.”

“I didn’t know you have a gift for imagery.”

“I write poetry in my spare time.”

That shouldn’t have been surprising. I sighed. “I can’t see why you would think that, in any case. I’m not sure I have a home anywhere.”

“You don’t need a home to want one.”

I never once thought a home was anything I needed. Even my little house in Klossaka was just a thing I owned, an enterprise I was proud of, because it allowed me to subsist by myself for years. It meant the world that I could take care of myself without relying on anyone else. If that was what you called a home, then so be it, but I got the impression it wasn’t what he meant. He was talking about a home that you belonged in, where you could be yourself without fear or judgment. A place where your absence is noticed, felt, like a hollow that can’t be filled by time. “I have…my parents’ place in Triassa,” I began. “Though I’ve never lived in it for more than a few months at a time. It’s not really something I want to think about. I have a job to do here.”

“For how long it lasts,” Felan said. “And then what? What comes after this?”

I hesitated.

“You can’t…do this forever,” he added.

“Maybe I can,” I countered. “I’ve dreamed of being here since I was a child. To do something grand, and worthy. To feel like I’m making a difference. I would’ve been content just sitting at the side of the council. How many mages get to say they’ve controlled the emperor of Dageis? How many mages were the emperor themselves? I will never get to be a mage worthy of the council…never. My fate as an outlaw has sealed that. This chance…it’s all I get.”

He stared at me in silence. I flushed.

“What?”

“It’s just that…it’s clearly hard on you,” he said. “And I’m worried about how long you can do this. You’re barely keeping it together as it is.”

“I’ll do it forever, if need be,” I snapped. “It’s not your problem if I can or can’t.”

“The stew’s done!” the woman called from the back of the restaurant.

Felan glanced at me, and then back to her. “Both pork and chicken,” he said.

The woman nodded and returned behind the curtains.

“I’m not lonely,” I said, when we were alone again.

“I am,” he replied, easily.

I picked up the glass of water from the table and took a sip. “No one said you had to be here.”

“I am lonely in the way one gets when one had so many dreams but must now look into the abyss, going through the motions in the hopes it would buy him another hour in the presence of the glories he once dreamed for himself. You said something similar. You and I, we’re just standing on different sides of the same room.” His gaze remained locked on me as he spoke. “Rosha, the ridiculousness of this situation has not escaped me. We were both the best students in our year. Now we’re nothing but servants, scraping our foreheads on the whims of a woman who has lorded it over us since day one.”

“I didn’t realize you felt that way about Ceres.”

He made a vague gesture. “I feel many things about her. She was kind to me when we were in school. I suppose it is her fallback position, since nothing I nor my father has done has outright offended her. But I see her asking the world from us without risking her own neck in return, without making it worth our time. And what would be worth our time, I wonder? It’s not something I’ve ever thought of, but she could at the very least have offered.”

“Things have been much easier for me ever since I saw her as a woman who put her interests first above everything,” I said.

“I disagree. You seem to antagonize her every chance you get.”

I shrugged. “It’s entertaining.”

“We’re drifting.” Felan’s face darkened as he leaned back with a sigh. “We’re rubbing up against the world we once thought we would be part of, knowing there will never be a chance to join it again. I’m not sure if I like the constant reminder of what could have been. I’d leave if it wasn’t for you.”

“Then leave.”

He gave a grim smile. “You’re not hearing me, Rosha.”

“I’m not forcing you to stay. You’re helping me, I can see that. But you don’t have a reason to.”

Felan took a deep breath and gazed at the ceiling. “I am lonely,” he said again. His eyes turned to me. “Except when I’m with you.” He quickly turned to his plate awkwardly, and I saw a spasm of regret cross his features. He hadn’t intended to say that thought out loud.

The woman arrived with our food, interrupting any chance for me to save either of us from further embarrassment. Over the steaming cups of rice and stew, the conversation died down. But every bite—no matter how delicious—felt awkward, and I felt he was still expecting an answer no matter how long the silence went on. One unfortunate thing about him, I was learning. He could pick up a conversation days after the fact.

I took a sip of sour soup, a feature of nearly every Jinsein restaurant meal. The woman made it exactly as I remembered from the eateries at Shirrokaru, with tamarind, pork hocks, and pepper leaves; they had a similar version in Gorent that used vinegar, corn, and fish instead, but I always preferred the taste of the first. As I returned the bowl to the table, I happened to glance at the window, where someone had crossed the street. It was Ivasus.

I froze. His eyes fell on me. A look of surprise, followed by amusement, crossed his features. Before I could consider running, he went straight inside the eatery.

As the emperor, I retained all possible senses: not just sight and sound but also scents, taste, touch. But the skin-crawling sensation of looking at this man was something it couldn’t quite mimic. Now that I was looking at him as myself, I felt it in full force. I had to resist throwing the hot soup at his face.

“Never would I imagine running into a ghost in broad daylight,” Ivasus said. He held out his hand, as if he expected me to reach for it with mine so he could kiss it. I stayed motionless. I didn’t want to get an inch closer to him than I had to.

Felan cleared his throat.

Ivasus’s eyes shifted towards him. It took a moment, but then recognition dawned on his features. “Two ghosts,” he continued, placing his hand down. “You’re Lord Cato’s son. And here I thought you were just a myth.”

Felan bowed. “And I know you, sir, though I don’t believe we’ve ever spoken in person before.”

“You know of me, then.” He gave that smile of his, which only intensified my restlessness. “My condolences on your father’s untimely passing. We have missed him in the council. You did not sit in on the inquiries surrounding his death, if I recall.”

“I didn’t see the need,” Felan said. “My father’s murderer was found.”

“So you say.”

Felan’s face remained blank. “I believe the report was as thorough as I could make it, and I fully cooperated with authorities. The man who killed him was a mere thief, trying to scout the neighbourhood for break-ins. Lord Cato came upon him in the attic, and he was killed in the ensuing struggle.”

Felan said the lie with dead precision. If we hadn’t worked through the story in detail before he filed the report, I would have believed him. Clearly, Ivasus had his doubts, but all he did was smile as soon as Felan finished speaking. “Well,” he said, as if he didn’t really care what Felan had to say on the matter, “I’m an extraordinarily busy man, and there are people I have to meet I shouldn’t really keep waiting. But I wanted to say hello.”

Without warning, he reached down to clasp a hand on my shoulder. I attempted to pull away, but there was no gap left between my seat and the wall next to me. A smile crossed his features, even before he looked at me. “My dearest Rosha,” he half-whispered, a voice that slid under my skin like a cold knife. “You don’t seem happy to see me. Is there a reason for that?”

“I’m surprised to see you here,” I replied. “That’s all.”

“Are you, now?” He squeezed his fingers, hard enough to bruise. “I recall the last time we saw each other. You wanted to see me up in flames.”

I squirmed in my seat. He wasn’t wrong. I wondered if we could pick up right where we left off. As close as he was to me, I could probably at least give him a painful burn.

“Leaving Eheldeth without graduating is illegal, isn’t it?” Ivasus continued. “They sent bearers after you. I remember the Firekeeper was livid.”

“Not always,” Felan broke in. “I did the same thing. My father straightened it out with Eheldeth, and I was given a clear withdrawal. I’m sure her parents had a similar arrangement with the Firekeeper.”

Ivasus flashed him a cold smile. “No. You’re impotent. You could have never gone on, anyway. Your father made everyone believe you were dead because it was easier to swallow than admitting he had a worthless son, but I found all the documents detailing your transfer out. Dead to the agan, deader than a dead son ought to be. The last time I saw her, she remained as powerful as any other student. In any case, I didn’t recall asking for your opinion.”

Felan’s face tightened. “You have it, anyway. And if you’ll have another—”

Rosy started barking. The woman who owned the restaurant reappeared from the kitchen. “Is everything all right here, sir?” she asked, in a tone that indicated she knew it wasn’t. “We usually reserve the seats for paying customers here, so unless you’d like a table for yourself…”

Ivasus let go of my shoulder, turned on his heel, and gave the woman a mocking bow. “I will see you around,” he said. “Especially you, Rosha. We have a lot of catching up to do.” And with that, he strode back out through the door, remnants of a nightmare that persisted into my waking moments. I wished I could just snap my fingers and make him go away.

Meeting Ivasus face-to-face allowed the rest of the memories of those weeks with him to come rushing back. I stewed in silence for the rest of the walk back to our quarters, desperately wishing they would all leave me be. Why torment me? I asked for it, didn’t I? As much as I detested what the sound of Ivasus’s voice made me feel, I had no one to blame but myself. I had nothing to be ashamed about. Everything I did was to be expected, given the circumstances.

Because of course, that first time wasn’t the last. It couldn’t have been. He knew it, too. After that first time—the first time I’ve ever let anyone get close to me that way in my life—he left with this look of smug satisfaction, as if his coercion did the trick after all. He’d “won,” somehow. I was nothing more than a conquest, and one that didn’t even put up much of a fight. There was no trace of affection, false or otherwise, in his expression. Even the courteousness of our last few interactions had all but vanished.

He placed a cold hand on my cheek before taking it away. “You must really love books,” he said. “You realize I can’t just give you the key, you know. That would be a terrible misuse of the powers entrusted to me.”

“You can leave me here,” I said, smoothing my dress back down to gather what remained of my dignity. “I can lock the door behind me when I leave, and I’ll make sure to do it before anyone else is up.”

“If you’re discovered here, I didn’t let you in. I’ll deny it.”

“Of course.”

“And next time you want access to it again…” He placed his hand on my thigh and smiled, part charm, part snake. It seemed like a fair enough transaction. I told myself I would get used to it. I told myself it would be worth it. Both my mother and my father had done the same thing, and I suppose in many ways, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. When he left, I went straight for the aisles, pulling down as many books from the Alternative Magic section as I could. For the next few hours, I drowned out my disgust with knowledge they would have never given me in class.

It was there that I pieced together the truths they kept from us.

I have neither the desire nor the inclination to lay them all out here; most of it was terribly uninteresting. Anecdotal information, mostly—there wasn’t a single page or book that contained within the resounding conclusions, simply because it wasn’t knowledge that could be commodified for use out in the real world. Most books are written for a purpose: to entertain, to be sold to students, to be monetized in some way to justify the costs associated with production. Who would buy half-scribbled notebooks by mages unknown? So instead, I had to take notes, writing not just clues down, but blatant omissions. When I first started, I wasn’t exactly sure what I was looking for, but by the time I’d read a few books, I couldn’t get my mind off Gorenten blood magic. I had a hunch that the cure to my condition lay in my heritage.

For instance: I learned that the Gorenten of old were well-versed in blocking magic. The best known among these involved the last ruler of Gorent, High King Elian, in his last-ditch attempt to rid the peninsula of Dageian invaders. It was the only recorded instance in history of such a spell being used against a large number of mages at one time—most people agree he was able to block at least a hundred, if not more. They called the spell Elian’s Heart. Attempts to map out the specifics of it had been lost over the centuries, and no one knew exactly how to craft a spell of such magnitude again.

Once I focused my efforts, hiding them from Ivasus became more of a concern. First: because it turned out we were both staying over for the winter break, and so I couldn’t use studying for exams as a reason for my interests in seeking further knowledge. Second: because his own motivations for the unspoken arrangement became painfully clear within the first week. The other girls he flirted with over the year had all gone home, and so did most of his friends; his father was busy with some military campaign or other and didn’t want Ivasus home for safety reasons. I was that season’s entertainment, both company and relief wrapped up in one neat package. Which meant there were times that all he wanted to do was sit there…and talk.

“You are unbelievably cold for someone who agreed to this readily, you know?” he asked one time. He picked up one of the notebooks and held it up against the shine of the moonlight in the distance. “I figured Gorenten women…knew things.”

I ignored him. The sound of his voice made my bones rattle, and it was better not to listen to it, let alone his words. Outside, snow piled up on the rooftops.

He took the chair next to mine and tried to slide his arm around my waist. “Come on,” he whispered, right against my ear. “I know you’ve got something hiding inside all this.”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean,” I said, as I flipped through the page. The script was in old Gorenten. Kefier had taught me enough to read it to myself, even if it wasn’t a language I could communicate in; I was confident Ivasus wouldn’t be able to understand a single word, let alone know the gravity of my search.

Ivasus grabbed my ear between his teeth. Not hard enough to hurt, but he grazed the lobe with his tongue. “You can’t be as dead as you seem,” he said. “I’ve heard you’re adept at controlling fire, and yet—” He grabbed my left arm, his pale fingers running down the skin there. “Not a single blemish or scar. You’re a true fire mage. Surely you’re capable of more…heat.”

Maybe you’ve only got yourself to blame. “I’m sure there are establishments out there that can serve your needs,” I said, flipping another page.

He finally pulled away with a snort. “You’re hopeless,” he grumbled under his breath.

I didn’t care what he thought then. He held a key to the world I wanted, nothing more, but he wasn’t the center of it. Not even close. I was the one who was using him.

Now that he was back in my life, I needed to remind myself that.

CHAPTER 6

ROSHA

Preparations for the emperor’s trip up to Ivasus ban-Sokur’s went by without a hitch, mostly because everything was a blur. I couldn’t sleep, and spent the entire night pacing restlessly in my room. I thought about warning Ceres about Ivasus, but I wasn’t sure what to tell her without divulging…everything else. The Firekeeper would surely change her mind about an outlaw mage who heavily dabbled in blood magic while she was under Eheldeth’s safekeeping—she’d be forced to send me away if only to protect herself. I didn’t even know how much Ivasus knew about what I’d used him for, or if he was dangerous only because of his penchant for nosing about in other people’s businesses. Maybe ignoring it was the best option.

We left for the ban-Sokur family’s estate a good hour after dawn. The carriage took a long stretch of road next to the sea, and I found myself staring at the horizon and wishing I was anywhere but here. I wanted to be in a boat with my father on those waves. I wanted to visit the fields down south with him, to hear all those stories about his childhood and our people. Kefier had left Gorent when he was still a child, and sometimes I wondered if the stories were his way of coping. I didn’t feel the way he did about Gorent, but perhaps a touch of that homesickness brushed up against me. Second-hand homesickness…I didn’t know if that was a thing. Until Felan had brought it up yesterday, I always thought loneliness was a fact of life.

And yet there it was now, niggling in the back of my mind, intensified more by the prospect of facing Ivasus yet again. It was probably that my memories of him came with the tinge of the first time I’d ever been away from my family during the holidays. I always found those sorts of associations interesting, if inconvenient. I shouldn’t care at all about Ivasus. I didn’t. But in those weeks, it seemed as if there was no world beyond that snow and the two of us. Every day felt the same: a mind-numbing dance you knew you had to somehow get through, even if you’d rather stick your face into a fireplace instead. Having to spend time with someone I barely tolerated made it worse. It was why I couldn’t deal with the thought of having to marry. Jehar was much better company than Ivasus ever was, but spending weeks with just one other person was terrible enough. A lifetime seemed unbearable.

“How is this going to work?” I asked as the carriage drifted past the tall oak trees that marked the beginning of the ban-Sokur’s property. “I trust you’ve secured a room for us to stay in while I slip into the emperor’s skin?”

Ceres’s eyes flashed. “I couldn’t. Ban-Sokur was most insistent that his servants can provide for the emperor’s needs. You’re going to have to approach the gates as him.”

“Where would I be, then?”

Ceres indicated the carriage. “Felan will have the reins. He can take the carriage straight to the stables and refuse anyone access to it.”

I grew cold. “From the stables?”

Ceres smiled. “Will that be a problem?”

“I’ve never controlled the emperor from that far before.”

“From what I’ve gathered from what Lord Cato has left behind, he was able to control the emperor half a city away. It takes familiarity with the simulacrum and skill, both which you have. You’re more than capable—I trust you won’t have any issues.”

I swallowed. I’d spent years seeking Ceres’s recognition of my abilities, and now that I had it, I wasn’t sure I liked it. I could have used a bit of doubt.

We rolled up to the gates. I readied myself for the spell. Having Ceres watching my every motion didn’t help my nerves any. I pricked my thumb with the pin I kept on my collar at all times and pressed it on the seal. The small amount of blood hardly seemed to be enough to create a connection these days, but I couldn’t very well admit that to Ceres. I kept myself steady, holding the nausea in as I tried to force my spirit into the simulacrum. My body tingled.

Breaking into the emperor’s body felt like swimming through mud. I heaved myself onto the bank of his consciousness, fighting against the overwhelming urge to black out. In my head, I tried to remember everything I’d read in that hidden library: all the bits and pieces of advice on how to work with blood magic. Blood magic is just magic amplified, one text had said. It is dangerous only because it takes from you. Learn your limits, and you’ll be safe.

But I didn’t want to be safe. I wanted to be powerful. I wanted to breathe in a lungful of air and turn into a tornado. So I took more than I should. Some people say the agan is a river that connects you to souls from the other side, and that for most of us, these involve departed loved ones and ancestors. Well, I thought I could hear the horrified gasps of mine as I jammed myself through the barriers without regard for what it did to the rest of me. One little error, one mistake, and I might lose both body and soul in an instant. The spell was like walking on a knife’s edge, and my soles were already bleeding. I wondered if those other souls were watching me from the bank in rapture. Surely every mistake I’d made so far had made me into the entertainment of the century.

The moment I finally found myself in the emperor’s skin—a good few seconds longer than I did the last time—the carriage doors opened. Good, I inwardly thought. Ceres hadn’t noticed my struggle. What felt like ages must’ve only been a span of a few short seconds. I stared at the guards waiting for us from the other side and took my time in getting up. I was emperor; they could wait. I carefully took each step and finally found myself on the path leading to the garden. The guards bowed.

Ceres approached me from the side. “I forgot to mention one little thing, Your Majesty,” she said.

I straightened my sleeves before casting her a haughty glance. “You always do.”

“I was given the guest list last night, and it seems that there are other people in attendance.”

“Will that be a problem?” I asked as we strolled past the bushes of rose plants and an obscenely elaborate fountain. I resisted the urge to lean on the stone columns. “I always assume there are other people involved in these events, no matter how much Ivasus insists it is a private affair.”

“Mmm, well, Your Excellency, this person is nobody to you, but it might be worth noting. His name is Enosh Tar’elian, a merchant of some renown here in Lon Basden. It seems as if Lord Ivasus invited him here for his opinion.”

I hoped none of my surprise showed on the emperor’s face. “He’s not here because of you, then?”

“I’m not sure why you would think that, Your Excellency. I am merely acquainted with the man.”

I suppose mere acquaintance for Ceres involved romping through empty hallways in her smallclothes while the man chased after her. I had to stop myself from rolling my eyes—given my arrangement with the simulacrum, it would probably hurt.

Ivasus met us at the entrance. “Your Excellency!” he declared, with a glorious, swan-like bow, the sort he used to reserve for teachers he wanted to squeeze a passing grade out of. His teeth flashed as he smiled. “Would you like a tour of the gardens? My father was most proud of our selection of flora, some of which has been imported all the way from across the sea. I made sure they were well-cared for even after his death. I’ve been told you had a green thumb yourself in your youth, Your Excellency.”

“In my youth,” I said, cursing whoever mage had given the emperor that idiosyncrasy. I had no interest in plants…I can’t even keep a potted cactus alive. I also didn’t want to risk such a walk, especially if the gardens took us much further from the stables than the mansion. “The thought of spending another minute out in this biting wind is more than I can take. Nowadays, I just want a soft cushion and a glass of your best wine.”

Ivasus gave a quick nod. “That, we can arrange. If I may…?”

He held out a hand for my cloak and took a step forward. I had to stop myself from flinching. The movement was too familiar. Somehow, I unclasped my cloak and hand it to him without losing my cool. Even then, my fingertips trembled.

“Lord Ivasus!” a voice called as we reached the end of the hall.

Enosh. I barely glanced at him, but I could see his eyes flick towards me with amusement. He knew I was inside the emperor. Of course he did. Ceres would have told him everything about the arrangement. “Your Excellency,” he continued, with a bow. “I trust the trip was well? With such a charming Firekeeper at your side, why wouldn’t it be?”

He reached out to take Ceres’s hand, lifting it to his lips. Ceres tittered.

I wanted to hit them both. I kept my face calm. “Is this meeting room much further?”

“Just around the corner, Your Excellency,” Ivasus said, gesturing once more.

We followed him into a large hall, complete with an oval dining table that could easily fit twenty guests at once. Ivasus allowed me the courtesy of taking the head of the table. Velvet covered the soft cushioning of the carved hardwood, a style I immediately recognized as Gorenten. “Marvellous, isn’t it?” Ivasus asked, noticing my interest. “Tar’elian here connected me with craftsmen from the peninsula when I was looking to redecorate. Soon, Gorenten goods will be the envy throughout the empire.”

“That’s what you want to talk about, then,” I said. “Trade opportunities.”

“Trade, and Lord Cato, and what I’ve perceived to be the empire’s tendency to turn a blind eye to its favourites.” Ivasus strung his fingers together. The look on his face was now suddenly all-too familiar. He didn’t come here to discuss anything amicably, the asshole.

He came here to blackmail the emperor.

The audacity was…not unexpected, coming from Ivasus. The man drove hard bargains, and knew how to swathe villainy in thick layers of propriety. “What about it?” I said, folding my own hands in front of the table in return. If this was a game of wits, I wasn’t about to back down. I lacked his charm, but I didn’t need it. I was the bloody emperor.

“As I mentioned before, I found a list of irregularities concerning Lord Cato’s activities.”

I made a dismissive gesture. “Take it with the merchant guild.”

“This has nothing to do with his businesses, Your Excellency. I assume corruption runs rampant through all higher offices—all, that is, except you.” He pressed his hand on the pile of papers next to his elbow. “I have documentations detailing these alleged criminal activities Lord Cato was either involved in, or perpetuated himself. A raid on the premises of a political rival. Three assassinations. A kidnapping. Every allegation dismissed before ever being taken to higher court, orders which you signed yourself. What do you have to say about this, my lord?”

That Lord Cato should have been less obvious when trying to cover his tracks. Of course the man would use his position as the emperor’s puppetmaster to further his own interests, but he could at least have tried harder. I sighed, trying to gather my thoughts. “Concerning these—” I began.

Ceres got up. “Indeed. Lord Ivasus, anyone could have faked the emperor’s signature.”

“His signature and his seal? Well, I can imagine such a thing is possible in other nations, but in the Empire of Dageis?” Ivasus clicked his tongue and shook his head. “Unless to tell me your government has slid to such shambles, that we are not as infallible as we once were…”

“I signed them,” I said.

I noticed Ceres visibly struggling to stop her mouth from falling wide open. Even Enosh looked—if not shocked—then intrigued.

“Of course I signed them,” I continued, gazing at Ivasus coolly. “Lord Cato and I had an understanding, and I stuck to my end of the bargain. I keep my promises, Lord Ivasus.”

Ivasus cleared his throat. “Your Excellency, I apologize if I’m slow on the uptake, but are you saying what I think you’re saying? You’re admitting to breaking the law?”

I steeled myself and faced him. “I am the law.”

All the humour had left Ivasus’s face. He must have rehearsed a dozen lines, various responses he could use to try to kick the emperor down a notch. Not a single one relied on the emperor using his own tricks against him. Confidence was the core of Ivasus’s game—it was the only thing he ever really had. The man was unexceptional in everything else.

Before he could rustle up a proper response, a servant arrived to whisper something in Ivasus’s ear.

“It seems a servant of yours is outside with a message,” Ivasus said, regaining his candour. “A certain Adherent Felan. If this is the same Felan I’m thinking of, then it’s rather convenient that he’s here. Lord Cato’s son.” That rehearsed, smug smile reappeared on his lips.

“Think whatever you want.” I shot Ceres a glance before I followed the servant out of the meeting room. None of them stopped me—they were probably still trying to piece together what had just happened there.

Felan was pacing outside as I arrived. I dismissed the servant before acknowledging him. “You weren’t supposed to show yourself,” I whispered. I noticed his cheek was red, and there was a slight trickle of blood under his nose, as if he’d been struck by something. “What happened?”

“Something that may have consequences far worse than Ivasus learning of my presence,” Felan said, wiping his face. “Your father.”

“Yes, I know. The Firekeeper brought him. He’s back in the meeting hall.”

Felan glanced at the door. “Not that one. There’s another man out there who claims he’s your father, and he just broke into the carriage when he saw your unconscious body inside. He’s in the stables, trying to get you to wake up.”

If Ceres had trusted me enough to tell me Enosh was going to be here, I could have had the foresight to guess that Kefier would want to come along, too. I hadn’t visited my family at all since I moved to Drusgaya to be Ceres’s assistant, and I knew he counted the days of my absence like a farmer checking the sky for rain. I’d been meaning to send a letter to remind him I was well and that he needn’t worry about me, but it quickly became the least of my priorities.

I considered slipping back into my body, but decided it wasn’t the best time to do it now. Leaving an unconscious emperor in the middle of the hallway would provoke more questions, and I wasn’t sure I would be able to manage a second switch so soon after the last. Furthermore, Ivasus was still an Eheldeth-trained mage: he’d be able to detect the traces of agan from the transfer. The fewer clues I left behind, the better.

I walked to the stables with Felan at my heels. He looked like he wanted to ask what I intended to do without really finding the courage to do it. Maybe it was obvious enough. I went down the stairs and out the door to the stables. I saw my body first, on the ground where enough space had been cleared between the carriages. Kefier was bent over my prone form. He’d placed a jacket underneath my neck as a pillow. I wanted to run and hug him.

“Step away, sir,” I ordered instead. The emperor’s voice echoed through the stables like a drum.

He stood up, hands balled into fists, that familiar glower on his face. It was strange to see it directed at me. He had never been angry with me in that manner before. How much of ourselves do we reserve for different people? As emperor, I had been able to do things Rosha could never dream of. I, Emperor Cerknar, had power. Rosha Tar’elian didn’t. And yet it seemed as if some privileges were accorded only to her, no matter how small. Her Papa’s love, for one thing—something an emperor could never buy, even if he had all the money in the world. I straightened my chest as I faced him.

“Step away from the woman,” I continued. “We’ll take care of her from here.”

“Who’s she to you?” he demanded.

“She’s my assistant, supplied by Firekeeper Ceres herself. I order you to stand back.”

He laughed. I felt a flicker of unease on my brow. I made an oversight. Kefier was a mercenary commander, a man who had spent more than half his life instilling discipline into rough men and women in the hopes of making soldiers out of them. He had faced monsters and armies and the sting of near-death, and feared nothing when it came to his own personal safety. He would tolerate such a tone from two people only: my mother, and me. Even if he recognized the man before him as the Emperor of Dageis, he wouldn’t care. He hated Dageians. Loathed them, even, and not just the way many Gorenten did.

“Sir,” I said, in an even tone, trying to undo the damage I’d just wrought. “I am asking you to stand back. Let us take care of her. Adherent Felan here will ensure no harm comes to her until she wakes up.”

“She’s skin and bones,” Kefier replied. “Something tells me your idea of care is severely lacking. And there’s scars all over her arms. They weren’t there the last time I saw her. What the hell kind of work do you have her doing?”

“I am not at liberty to divulge such information. She is well, that is all you need to know.”

Another mistake—insisting to the man who had cared for someone as if she was his own daughter from the moment she was born that his assessment was incorrect, especially with the glaring proof in front of his eyes. The anger was hissing out of him like steam from a boiling kettle. “You fucking well know she isn’t,” he snarled.

I turned to Felan, who stepped in, hands held out. “Adherent Felan here can confirm. He knows your brother, and—”

“You’re telling me Enosh knows what’s been happening to her?” Kefier demanded. “That son of a bitch lied to me again!”

Mentioning his brother was my third mistake. “I am the Emperor of Dageis,” I said, trying to distract from where this conversation was heading. “You must leave us to handle our affairs, sir. If you have any concerns about her treatment, file a complaint. You—”

He struck me.

I could feel everything as his fist connected with my jaw. The simulacrum was made like a human being, with flesh and bones and ligaments, and I could feel them all twitching as I crashed into the straw, narrowly missing a pitchfork from stabbing me in the gut. Horses panicked in the stall behind me. My fingers twitched as the emperor’s body threatened to kick me out of it.

Before I could recover, he grabbed me again. “What have you done to her?” he roared. “You fucking Dageians are all the same. You see a Gorenten body and you think it’s yours to do as you please. You don’t even stop to think she’s a person, just like you. She’s human, just like you are. But you don’t care. You think this is normal? Necessary? You think the way you run things in Dageis is right? I know the bullshit you’ve fed your mages in this empire. You’ve made them believe what they can see and control is a right given by the gods and that it justifies everything they do! And yet if I sank a sword into each of their guts, I know they’ll bleed and die like the rest of us. Look at you. They say you’re immortal. But see…you’re bleeding, you asshole. Let me repeat my question, in case you’re too thick to understand. What the fuck have you done to my daughter?”

I managed a small whimper as I grabbed his hands in mine. I stared into his eyes, wanting to answer him. More than the rest of the world combined, I wanted him to see the truth, even though I couldn’t. He always understood me, even when I couldn’t understand myself. I don’t know what it is I’ve done to your daughter, I wanted to say. I’d bring her back if I could. But she needs to do this, even if she doesn’t know why anymore. It’s all she cares about, and I hate it. I want it to stop. Help me, Papa. Please. Help me.

He dropped me and turned around. Felan was coming up from behind him, sword drawn. I was certain he didn’t know how to use it, but still—a blade could catch anyone unaware, even a warrior as skilled as Kefier.

“No!” I screamed. “Don’t hurt him!”

Felan barely glanced at me. “There are answers for all your questions, sir, not one of which can be answered by all the commotion you’re making. Please listen to her and stand down.”

“Her?” Kefier snapped.

Before Felan could explain himself, the main doors flung open. Guards flooded the stables, charging Kefier. I saw the muscles on his legs twitch as he reached for his own sword. He met the first man who reached him with a roar, striking his jaw with a left fist before sinking his blade into the man’s thigh. The guard, in his thick armour, struggled to regain his balance, but Kefier now made another slash from the left, striking his helmet with such force that it seemed to rattle his brain loose. The man toppled over to where my real body still lay motionless on the floor.

Kefier didn’t even let him hit me. He grabbed the man’s arm, flinging his whole body—armour and all—to the other side as effortlessly as a dog shaking a rat. It caught the second oncoming guard on the torso, striking him so hard he tripped on his own feet. Kefier tore his helmet off before pressing the point of his sword into the man’s neck. The action stopped the third guard in his tracks.

“Stop,” I said, finding my voice again.

From the gardens, I could see Ivasus and Ceres appear.

Shit, I thought. An entirely uncharacteristic thought, but sometimes all it took was a few seconds in Kefier’s company. Enosh once told me I was too much like his brother, which was debatable. I was like them both, my own demeanour changing depending on who I spent the most time with recently. What Kefier never really understood, though, was that his way of dealing with the world didn’t work for most of us. Violence only kept enemies off your back for a second or two. A woman like me would never get what she wanted that way.

“For the love of all that’s holy, Kefier, this isn’t the time,” Enosh broke in. He stepped in front of Ceres. “Let them go.”

“I found your daughter barely alive in here,” Kefier snapped. “I don’t know what you’ve been up to, but before you say anything else, do me a favour and check if she’s still breathing. Be good for something, for once in your life!”

The undercurrent of hatred that normally drove their relationship was now a raging sea. Enosh couldn’t tell him the truth in front of all these people. I wasn’t even sure if it would be a good idea to tell him the truth regardless. He wouldn’t handle it well, especially once he realized it was a secret Enosh and I were keeping from the rest of the family. He still considered himself my father; if there were any secrets to keep, it was supposed to be between him and me, not me and the man who made me. It was that unspoken promise between us, ever since I found out I wasn’t his: no matter what happened, my real father could never take me away from him. Wishful thinking. No matter how much I denied it, no matter how much I wished it wasn’t so, the path I followed mirrored Enosh’s every step of the way.

Enosh, for what may have been the first time in his life, displayed a spark of wisdom as he turned away from his brother and walked straight towards my body. Without another word, he bent over to pick it up. Perhaps Kefier had been right that I had lost weight—Enosh wasn’t particularly strong, and yet he seemed to lift me effortlessly. I stared at my own gaunt form and saw what made Kefier so angry. There were dark hollows under my eyes, and the shadows only seemed to deepen the scars on my forearms, not to mention the bandages from the fresh wound I’d just received yesterday. I looked like I’d been dragged out of a grave.

“That’s—” Ivasus broke in as Enosh brought me to the light.

“Do you have a spare room for her, Lord Ivasus?” Enosh asked.

“She is a dear friend from Eheldeth,” Ivasus said. “Of course.” He snapped his fingers. One of the servants stepped forward. “Escort them to the guest chambers, please.”

“As for my foolish brother, he’s harmless. This is a family matter, Lord Ivasus, and if you would be so kind…”

“I can’t have an assault on the emperor go unpunished,” Ivasus said.

“He didn’t hurt me at all,” I blurted out.

“With all due respect, Your Excellency, you’re bleeding.”

I didn’t even notice. I hastily wiped it away. “Have him locked up until Lord Tar’elian’s departure,” I said. “But no harm comes to him, you understand? Harm a single hair on that man’s body, and your entire household will pay.”

Ivasus bowed. “As you wish, Your Excellency.”

Kefier dropped his sword, hands held up. He knew, at least, how to surrender. When they came to take him away, he didn’t even try to fight.

CHAPTER 7

NASUHA

Ironically, as the cleaning girl, she is allowed access to rooms most of the students aren’t. Classrooms. Libraries. Laboratories. “Unless something goes wrong, they won’t even know you’re here,” the servants tell her. “They don’t know anything about the work we do, the kind of things they pay us for so they don’t have to waste time themselves. Do as you will, child—just return everything where you found them. Leave no traces, and they’ll never know you exist.”

So as she begins her apprenticeship with the custodian, so does she begin her apprenticeship in the arts they thought to deny from her. The old man who found her, Liko, doesn’t mind her perusing the books or taking notes of her own, so as long as she finishes mopping the floor and dusting the shelves before their shift is over. He doesn’t do any reading himself, but he watches her through furrowed brows with a sense of satisfaction.

“How come you don’t tell me off?” Nasuha asks, one time. “What I’m doing could be dangerous.”

“I’ve seen all sorts of students come and go here,” he replies. “You’re far from the most dangerous child I’ve seen. You’re level-headed and smart and you know how to take instructions even if I need to remind you not to use too much soap for the bucket. That’s more than I can say for the rest of these idiots. You…I’m not worried about you.”

“Some of them will think this is stealing.”

“How can knowledge be stolen?” Liko asks, clicking his tongue. Coming from him, it is a genuine question, hardly an invitation for a philosophical debate. “Especially knowledge they stole from us?” He points at the shelf in front of them. Alternative Magic. Along the spine of the entire top row are words written in the Gorenten script.

He is right, of course. She finds herself engrossed with the Gorenten spells in particular. They seem the easiest for her to learn. Here, she picks up something simple: a spell that blocks her skill partway, stopping the fire from burning herself unless she allows it to grow stronger. She practices at night, away from the prying eyes of the rich students and haughty keepers, none of which ever give her a second glance. She learns more spells. The air stops smelling of roast meat every time she sparks flames on her fingers. It makes her feel like stomping back to the Firekeeper’s office and gives. See? You were wrong about me.

And then she runs into the first Gorenten student she has ever seen in the school.

Nasuha almost doesn’t believe it at first. It is fall, just when the new crop of students has arrived, many of them having just shown enough skill in the agan that Eheldeth deems enough to carry them through to the final years. It manifests at different ages, but most begin their studies in their thirteenth or fourteenth year—before this, most children are often simply tutored at home to build up basic skills. Some of the students hardly have a connection to the agan at all—their skill is mostly fabricated, often bolstered by their tutors. These often never make it far enough to graduate, but it doesn’t stop their parents from trying. Even a few years in Eheldeth is enough prestige to last a lifetime.

Nasuha figures this girl is one of these. Her father, it seems, is a minor count, a title easily bought; such opportunities are open to anyone regardless of race if they have enough coin. And even someone as ignorant as her knows it takes a lot of coin to grease the upper echelons of Dageian society. The count is clearly intimate with the Firekeeper, too, if his brief but scandalous interactions with her outside her office is any indication. Just like the Dageians, neither the girl nor her father notices Nasuha. The Gorenten absorb their colonizers’ faults like sponges. To Nasuha’s eyes, the rich ones and the Dageians are one and the same.

She doesn’t even learn the girl’s name immediately. She calls her Rich Girl in her head and views her with derision. The girl, she notices, keeps herself apart, refusing interactions with the other rich girls as if she is somehow better than the rest of them put together. Nasuha finds this dumb. Does she think the distance will elevate her? She should know by now that her father’s money counts for nothing. All these other students see her as Gorenten, no better than Nasuha of the shadows. Her best chances lie in bootlicking, in making them see her as a harmless clown or a handy ornament for their social circles.

It takes over a year before Rich Girl actually sees her, and then only briefly. She tells her there is a spill in the main library—a few quick words, nothing more. Her eyes turn away almost immediately. Nasuha has been hoping for a word of acknowledgment. Does the girl not see herself as Gorenten? If she thinks herself better than the Dageian students she mingles with, does that mean someone like Nasuha is a speck of dust underneath her fingernails? Nasuha can’t see why. Perhaps her skin is lighter than Nasuha’s, but beside any of the Dageian girls, the difference is still night and day.

“Is that it?” she demands, to Rich Girl’s retreating back. “I’m just here for you to order around, hey?”

Rich Girl keeps on walking.

“Hey!” Nasuha repeats, out loud. “I’m talking to you. You! Daughter of the sun!”

She says the last few words in Gorenten, says it in a way that makes it clear she means it as an insult and not praise. Rich Girl finally inclines her head. “Is there a problem?” she asks. Her tone is flat, disinterested. Nasuha’s anger has no effect on her.

Nasuha tightens the mop in her hands. She wants to take a swing, knock the end into Rich Girl’s mouth. “You couldn’t even say please,” she snaps.

“You’re the cleaning girl. This is your job. I’m telling you to do your job, which I assume you’re paid to do.”

“You think you’re so important, don’t you?” Nasuha asked.

The girl stares at her in confusion.

“You with your rich father and your pretty dresses,” Nasuha whispers under her breath. “I talk to you in Gorenten, and you reply in Kagosh. You think your ability to move between worlds makes you special.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Nasuha snorts. “You wouldn’t. Rich girl like you has never had to think about anyone at all.” She spits on the ground.

“You!” a voice calls from the other end of the hall. A keeper. “Are you harassing the students?”

Nasuha takes her mop and begins to walk away. Her fingers grip the wood so tight she can feel splinters digging into her scars.

It doesn’t take long for the keeper to catch up. “Cleaner!” the keeper demands. “I order you to stop right now!”

Stop, Nasuha reminds herself, in her mother’s voice. Don’t make this harder than it has to be. She turns around to face the keeper, who crosses her arms.

“What was that about?” the keeper repeats. Nasuha remembers she has been speaking in Gorenten, and so the woman wouldn’t have understood a word. All she heard was the anger uttered in a foreign tongue. This makes the exchange more potent in her ears. She could have been saying anything.

“I was asking her to get out of the way,” Nasuha says, her eyes on the ground. “My mop has shit in it. She might get shit on her pretty dresses, and no one would want that now, would they?”

“The audacity,” the keeper gasps. She raises her voice. “What’s your name? I’m going to write up a report. We can’t let people like you walk around like that.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. It won’t happen again.”

“The hell it won’t,” the keeper says, shaking a finger at her face. “I’ll make sure of it.”

Just like that, Nasuha loses her job.

None of the other Gorenten offer their sympathies. She knows they blame her. Actions have consequences. She should have never spoken up. She should have never raised her voice. Whatever explanations she has left to give would fall on unhearing ears. She crossed a line, and the others cannot protect her anymore. They can hardly protect themselves.

She packs her things on the eve of what would have been her fourth anniversary at Eheldeth, had the Firekeeper allowed her through. Good riddance, she thinks to herself. She has seen everything there is to see there, anyway. Most of the books she has read at least once, if not twice, even the ones she wasn’t supposed to touch.

Liko accompanies her in silence all the way to the gates. There, he stops. “I’ll miss you around here, girl,” he begins, before scratching his head. He finally offers her an awkward hug. “You came in here a cub,” he whispers. “Now you’re a tiger. I told you. With you, I’m not worried.”

“You’re the only person who has ever believed in me,” she says under her breath.

“I’m sorry I’m not a mage,” Liko replies with a sheepish grin. “I know your dream was to be recognized by someone up there, and not a humble groundskeeper.” He nods towards the tall towers behind them, the ones Nasuha will now never get to explore. She feels something tug in her heart. “But you’ve been here. You know they’re not what the stories make them out to be. They don’t hold the key to anything, least of all to what lies in there.” He points at her heart. “All that, my dear? That’s all you.”

He steps back to remove something from his pocket. It is a piece of yellowed paper.

“You’re a mage, no matter Eheldeth’s judgment,” he says. “If you have nowhere else to go, this is a start.”

She unfolds the paper. It is old and flimsy, like something that has been kept in the bottom of a drawer for years. The ink on it is almost faded. But she can make out symbols, an address. “What is this?” she asks.

“Some of us are gifted only in hiding,” he says with a small grin. “I am sorry to say that you are not the first such Gorenten to ever grace these halls.”

She grabs his arm. “You—”

He makes a dismissive gesture. “I don’t even know if it counts. I can see the agan, and that is it. I went out here to work without hopes of ever entering the school as you did—I just wanted to be near people who did. What you are, what I’ve seen you do, is more than anything I could have ever hoped to accomplish. That letter has an address. Perhaps it is still valid. Go to it. I once met a man who told me that gifted Gorenten are welcome in his abode. I didn’t know if I could trust him then, and I didn’t want to send you there back when you were young, but now…” He looks her up and down and whistles. “Now, you can protect yourself.”

“I always could,” she says. She hesitates for a moment before hugging him again. “Thank you, Tatang Liko.”

“Thank me?” He shrugs again. “I should thank you for reminding me there is some fire left in the world after all.”

The address is for a small district up north, in Bardes, which is not that far away. A few hours by carriage and she is there, overlooking the eastern sea. They say if she crosses it with her face to the south, she will come across another empire, one just as powerful as Dageis. She isn’t surprised. Surely Dageis is not the only place on earth that has realized just how much more you can have if you took from others. More, more, more, always more. That discontentment, trickling down the centuries like piss. Like shit.

A vendor passes her, selling a box of smokes. Overhead, airships fly erratically, more these days than they used to. A weakening in the fabric, she’s heard the keepers utter under their breaths. Too much reliance on spells, too much magic everywhere. They don’t teach this to the students so as not to send them panicking—she doubts even their rich parents know. She takes the letter and asks for directions from a brown boy helping unload goods from the docks. The boy gives it one look. “That’s Master Rasiad’s house,” he says.

Nasuha feels an uneasy flicker. “Master Rasiad is Dageian?” she asks.

The boy shakes his head. “He’s one of the richest Gorenten out there. His family is descended from High King Elian, you know!”

“Says him and just about every other Gorenten vying for self-importance out here,” she grumbles. Already, she doesn’t like what she’s hearing. She wants nothing to do with rich people, rich Gorenten especially. The few she has met cemented her opinion. There is nothing worse than people who ought to know better sitting in ignorance. Still, a name is a name, and she has nowhere else to go. Hunger gnaws in her belly, more persistent than her morals. “Tell me where to find him.”

The boy leads her to a well-maintained neighbourhood: one with crisp, clean streets, trimmed hedgerows, and tall walls with spiked fencing up top. He points the mansion out to her; she gives him a few coins for his trouble. Sucking in her breath, she makes her way to the house, and rings the bell. A woman greets her. When she drops Rasiad’s name, she looks at her in confusion, but allows her inside, anyway, asking her to wait in a massive lobby, easily twice the size of Nasuha’s childhood home. She walks around it in a circle, staring at the paintings on the wall.

She is so enamoured by her surroundings that she doesn’t notice the girl until she walks right into her.

“Oh!” the girl speaks first. Dark-haired, dark-skinned. Too young to be this Master Rasiad, and yet Nasuha can tell, by her extravagant dress with ruffles around her collar and sleeves and the jewellery dangling from her ears that she must be his daughter.

“I apologize,” Nasuha says with a bow. “I should have been more alert.” Her years in Eheldeth have taught her some manners.

The girl giggles. “No matter. I’m Somya. I hardly see anyone my age these days!”

Somya looks a few years younger than Nasuha, actually, but she doesn’t correct her. “I’m here to see Master Rasiad,” she says.

The girl’s face flickers. “Truly?” she asks.

Nasuha hands her the yellowed piece of paper from Liko. The girl unfolds it herself, reads it. Her mouth opens slightly. “You’re a Lost One,” she whispers.

“What?”

“A term my mother uses for Gorenten children gifted with the agan,” Somya says. “She took it from our old legends. Said the Dageians have done their fair share of meddling with our myths—why not do it ourselves?” As Nasuha struggles to get her thoughts around this, the girl reaches for her hands. The burn scars don’t seem to bother her. She presses Nasuha’s hands over her chest. “We’ve been sending these out for a while now, but you’re the first to answer the call. Despite my father’s best attempts to reassure them, most people seem to think it’s a ploy by the Dageians to gather more mage-thralls.”

“Your father is Master Rasiad?” Nasuha asks.

“Was,” Somya replies, dropping her hands. She grows sombre.

A woman appears at the top of the staircase. She has dark skin, and a noble face. “Master Rasiad son-Arkus has been dead for a few years,” she greets Nasuha, taking each step deliberately, like someone used to making people wait. “Ten years now, by my count. A tragedy. He was killed in a stampede while attending a protest for fair wages for Gorenten workers. A weak heart, the investigation later said, but I know better. I know the Dageians saw a threat in anyone who assisted our people, even if it was one of their own. If it was his name that brought you here, then that piece of paper in your hands must be one of the first we sent out.”

“A Dageian?” Nasuha asks. “I was told he was Gorenten.”

The woman shrugs. “People make mistakes. I am the one from Gorent, not he. And yet everyone still calls this Master Rasiad’s house—a deliberate effort to forget his wife who is still very much alive. Even in death, his name holds more weight than mine.” She stops in front of Nasuha, her eyes taking everything in—the dirt on Nasuha’s skin, her threadbare clothes, her worn shoes. And then, finally, she settles on the scars. In contrast to Somya, she seems particularly disgusted, leaving Nasuha suddenly self-conscious. Despite her best attempts, she has not been able to remove them over the years. Her skill in the agan seems unable to grasp the concept of either the glamour or healing arts. She can only destroy.

“How long have you had it?” she asks.

“Long enough,” Nasuha says.

“You don’t look like you’ve had an easy time with it,” the woman says. “A gift, a curse. So it is with most of us, as if the fates cannot decide which is which. It is time for us to decide ourselves.” She opens her flawless palms. Perfectly formed flames appear and hover on top of them.

Somya, who must have seen this trick dozens of times, claps her hands and giggles in delight.

The woman snaps her fingers. The flames disappear without leaving a mark.

“Teach me how to do that,” Nasuha blurts out. She reaches for the woman’s robes, grabbing it between her scarred fingers. She drops to her knees. Depths she has never thought she would sink to, and yet seeing someone like her carry out a task she has been trying to master for years has undone all her pride. “Teach me all of it, please.”

It is Somya, not her mother, who pulls her to her feet. “She will,” she says brightly. “Both of us. Oh, I’ve been waiting for someone just like me all these years!”

Nasuha looks up. “What do you mean?”

The woman now smiles for the first time, the shadows deepening around her face. Out here in the west, where the sun doesn’t shine as much as Gorent, her skin has paled to a sickly complexion. “I’ve been wanting to guide the Lost Ones for years,” she says simply. “Will you let us start with you?”

CHAPTER 8

ROSHA

After the guards escorted Kefier to the dungeons, I went to the guest chambers after Ivasus and Enosh. Ivasus was standing at the foot of the bed, arms crossed as he stared at my unconscious form under the sheets. He looked as if he had been dealt an insult personally—I could feel his eyes scraping over my body, even though I was standing right behind him as the emperor. I resisted the urge to drag him out and forbid him to ever step inside the room while my body lay there.

“I must admit, this is an unnatural amount of concern for a mere assistant,” I said.

“If you say so, Your Excellency,” Enosh replied. He was sitting on the mattress next to my body, arms crossed. “In any case, I disagree with my brother. I don’t believe any of this is your fault. You can hardly be expected to keep a close eye on your servants, and knowing my daughter, she would have insisted on coming to work even if she’s unwell. This must be a mere fever, brought on by self-imposed work. She needs to learn to take better care of herself.”

He meant that for my ears, I know. I sighed.

“The physician will be here in an hour,” Ivasus broke in. “She’ll be able to tell us more.”

“I could have called for a physician myself,” I said. Someone who wasn’t beholden to him—I’m sure Ceres would have found the person, even a mage who could put up an act.

Ivasus shook his head. “This is my abode, and as my guests, you are my responsibility.”

“You’re trying too hard for a blackmailer.” I didn’t even try to hide my disdain.

His lips twitched. “Not that hard, Emperor Cerknar. But I have other reasons for my concern. This woman used to be very important to me.”

I saw Enosh’s eyes flash. Ah. Was this new information for him? He always seemed to have a ready answer for everything, and I knew he always enjoyed being several steps ahead of everyone. I thought this was something he would have heard about way back when I was still in school. I sniffed. “I’m not interested in your personal affairs.”

For an answer, Ivasus reached for my—Rosha’s—hand. He pressed it over his lips.

In the midst of my own discomfort, I at least had the satisfaction of watching Enosh grow physically ill.

“You and my daughter had a relationship?” he coughed.

Ivasus gave a small smile. “Is that a problem, Lord Tar’elian? I hardly think that’s your business. I realize, being Gorenten and all, you might have outdated cultural practices, but you should know that you’re in the empire now. Not even my own father had a say in who I slept with.”

I wondered if Enosh would murder him for this. I wouldn’t stop him. “I don’t believe my daughter has been seeing you all these years,” Enosh said evenly. His eyes flicked towards me. “Isn’t that right, Your Excellency?”

“Why the hell should I care?” I asked casually, trying to keep the temper out of my tone. Even as removed as I was from my body, watching Ivasus so freely touch it was bringing up sharp spasms of memory. “I’m wasting my time here.” I walked out, slamming the door shut, and made my way down to the hall. I could still feel my skin crawling.

I heard footsteps behind me. “What by all the gods was that about?” Enosh hissed.

“As he said. It’s none of your business.”

“It is when it threatens to jeopardize this whole arrangement. Couldn’t have thought to mention that small detail before we went in? By the way, the host and I used to be ex-lovers…”

I raised my eyebrow. “You were?”

“You know what I mean, you damnable child. I never imagined this would be something I would ever worry about.”

“Not a child anymore,” I grumbled.

“Obviously. How long has this been going on?”

“Once,” I snapped. “Over winter break, years and years ago. He’s making it sound like more than it was. It’s not. It was nothing. I didn’t even know you were going to be here, or Kefier. If there’s anyone to blame for this whole mess, it’s Ceres.”

“Throwing blame around isn’t going to help us right now,” Enosh said. He ran a hand through his hair. “He believes he can blackmail us with information on Lord Cato alone. Who knows what he’ll do if he finds out everything else? You have to switch now. Wake up.”

“I can’t do that. He’ll detect a spell if I return to my body. You’ll have to get him away from it—and get the emperor to a safe place.”

Enosh sighed. “I’m not sure I know how to do that. The man is smitten.”

“He’s not. It’s all a show.”

“Same difference. That fake concern is troubling. Means he intends to use it against us somehow.”

“You’d know. You’re an expert at all of that.”

He smiled. “I’ve never once denied it.”

“Not once?”

We fell silent as some of Ivasus’s guards walked past. I crossed my arms, surveying the gardens with what I hoped was an expression of serene benevolence. Whatever an emperor is supposed to look like. I realized Enosh was still staring at me, and I made a small, snorting sound.

“You look like you’re smitten with the emperor if you do that, you know.”

He laughed. “There are worse things in the world to be accused of.” He flexed his jaw before speaking in a softer voice, in Gorenten. “I just wanted to say that this is not the first time I’ve been in Emperor Cerknar’s presence, but it is the first time I have seen him act so…natural. I look at you, and I see both Rosha and a living, breathing emperor. The last time, I believe he was under Lord Cato’s control. He was jerky, always giving excuses and disappearing under the guise of illness. And you…you’re actually…doing something. I’ve been keeping an eye out on your progress. The order you signed two months ago, releasing detained outlaw mages for rehabilitation…that couldn’t have been easy.”

“Nearly everyone on the council opposed it.”

“So what happened?”

I shrugged. “I overturned them all. I’m the damn emperor, and not all outlaw mages are dangerous. Judgment needs to be dealt on a case-by-case basis.”

“They’re going to file a petition to overturn your ruling in turn. You know that.”

I shrugged. “Then I’ll just mount a counterattack.”

“That’s exactly what I mean. Lord Cato wouldn’t have dared.”

“Is that praise?”

“I mean, Ceres is livid. You’ve gone and done a number of things without her approval. She thinks you need a shorter leash. I remind her you’re under her guidance, not mine.” Enosh gave a soft snort. “I’m not getting in the way between two warring women.”

“You’re such a coward.”

“Again, I never denied it.”

I looked away.

“Kefier doesn’t see it,” he continued in a lower voice. “Or maybe he just doesn’t want to, and I don’t know if I can hold it against him. We all know he loves you—no one’s ever questioned that. Me, on the other hand—you’ve doubted me from the beginning. But no matter what you all believe, I do care about you. You’re—my daughter. You—”

“I know,” I whispered.

“Don’t make me say it. Especially when I’m looking at this moldy old thing in front of me.”

I rolled my eyes. “Please. Spare us the sentiments. It doesn’t sound right coming from you, anyway.”

“I’m glad you understand.” Enosh scratched the side of his cheek. “My inability to say such things cost me your mother, you know.”

“I know.”

He cleared his throat. “Don’t make the same mistakes I did.”

Almost as if on cue, Felan appeared around the corner. His eyes settled on me first, and I got the sense that even underneath the emperor’s rotting vestige, he was looking right at me. “I have had…an interesting discussion with Lord Ivasus.”

“Oh God,” I replied.

He glanced at Enosh first before shrugging. “As it is, the details are irrelevant. He believes your condition is dire enough to warrant an investigation. He intends to have the physician—a physician under his family’s employ, I must point out—file a report. You know he’s going to use this to force our hand to assist him.”

“I can’t let it get that far.” I straightened my sleeves. “Let’s give him what he wants. We can always stop, can we?”

Without waiting for confirmation, I returned to the room. Ivasus was still there, still holding my hand, very much playing the part of a doting lover. I felt ill all over again. I’d handed him the keys to our undoing long before I ever knew he was the enemy. A damn mistake, on top of the others. I cleared my throat. “Lord Ivasus, you’ve made a point,” I said. “You want to make a big stink about what we’ve done for Lord Cato unless we do the same for you.”

“You wound me, Your Excellency. Are you suggesting I am asking to break the law with your blessing?”

I stared at him. “You want something, and all I’m saying is that we are willing to listen.”

His face brightened. “That was all I ever asked.”

“Tell me what you want.”

He hesitated. “I’ve got something more…interesting in mind. Will you let me show you?”

“What do you mean?”

“We’ll need to take a little trip. It won’t take more than a few hours.”

Nervousness clawed in the pit of my stomach. “How far?” I asked.

“As far as the southern borders,” he replied. “I trust that wouldn’t be a problem.”

I swallowed. Such a distance was all but a guarantee I would lose my connection to the emperor’s body. But losing the connection naturally, as opposed to kicking myself out, would leave fewer traces of the agan. If the timing worked in my favour, by then the physician would have finished with my body, which would only leave the inconvenience of what to do with an unmoving simulacrum. Perhaps there would be a way to distract Ivasus from him so as long as we weren’t alone—which Enosh should be able to take care of. Either way, it was better for him to suspect the emperor; he trusted him little already. It was imperative that as far as Ivasus was concerned, I, Rosha Tar’elian, was nothing more than the Firekeeper’s assistant.

“Lead the way,” I said.

I didn’t want to wait to see what Ceres or everyone else had to say on the matter. Accompanied only by Enosh, I clambered into the carriage like an ox being harassed into a cage. Ivasus had insisted on no other guards; he made a great show of expressing confidence in his own soldiers, and any refusal on my part would be seen as distrust. I wondered if he overthought my agreeable nature; not really being attached to this body meant I could take whatever liberties I wanted with it.

I glanced at Enosh, all while pretending to look through the window at the passing countryside. I couldn’t cast spells as the emperor—all my energy went into maintaining my connection with the simulacrum—but Enosh was a mage, wasn’t he? A spell would flush out his status, but I’d been pushing to have outlaw mages be decriminalized knowing it was only a matter of time he or I would be found out. Could he cast a spell to protect us if need be? I knew he was decent at glamour, but not much else. Perhaps it would be wiser not to rely on him at all.

I spoke little during the entirety of the trip. None of us fell asleep, which meant it was two hours of staring uncomfortably at each other, drumming our fingers across our knees. Occasionally, Ivasus would ask Enosh about the Gorenten settlement, and they would engage in that low-key, humdrum conversation that was nothing but an affirmation of each other’s observations. Small talk that bored me, that led nowhere. Listening to it come from the mouths of the two men whose company I considered less than pleasant made it all the more grating. On a good day, Enosh might have been tolerable, but this was far from a good day, and hearing him exchange pleasantries with Ivasus knowing what he knew was particularly irritating.

Which may not be a fair statement, I know. He didn’t know everything. He believed, as Ivasus wanted him to believe, that we shared an amicable relationship. Ex-lovers, he’d said, as if love ever played a role over our past. But there probably wasn’t a word in any language you could use to describe what happened between us. There was no way around it. A degrading arrangement, looking back, where the price was access to forbidden spells. Once, after we’d left the library, parting out in the hall without so much as looking at one another, I caught one of the cleaning staff laughing at me from the shadows. “Couldn’t you have asked someone else?” she whispered. It was a young woman’s voice, a girl about my age.

I frowned. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“That one—” She waved a broom at the direction Ivasus had taken. “That one is a jerk. You know his reputation. Aren’t you scared of getting sick?”

“Not really my concern now.”

“It should be. You know how many girls he’s been with?”

I balled my hands tight. “Lots, I’m assuming.”

She laughed. “Lots.”

“Are you saying there’s other students with these keys?”

“Everyone on the scholarship track, for starters,” the girl said. “I’m surprised you’re not on it.”

A seemingly thoughtless comment, and yet it allowed the seed of doubt I’d been nursing all my years in Eheldeth to grow into something insidious. Ivasus was on the scholarship track? Ivasus? As the break ended, I watched the other students with a nagging sense of discomfort. By then I knew not only about the scholarship track but that I would never be qualified for it; somehow, I still mistakenly thought it was about merit. That you had to be good enough, on top of all the other qualities the council deemed necessary. None of which described in Ivasus in any way. I was selling my body for what was being freely given to some of my peers, begging for the scraps thrown thoughtlessly to others.

I felt cheap. Worthless. Back when I was a child in Jin-Sayeng, I always thought such emotions were beneath me. I could observe things from afar without becoming involved in the mess afterwards. I suppose that came with a life that didn’t have you at odds with everyone all the time. In Jin-Sayeng, I was loved and respected, even when I was nothing but a loudmouthed little child with more opinion than sense. I could walk amongst people with my head held high, and most strangers were kind to me. Those who weren’t, weren’t unkind because I was different—their nature was just cruel at its core. Why did it feel otherwise in the empire, a place that was supposed to give me the opportunities and power the land of my birth couldn’t? In the empire, why did I feel like I had to fight for my right to belong, to be treated the same way as everyone, to exist?

I often wonder what would have happened if I’d been given access to the inner sanctum of the library from the very beginning. I knew I would have sought the Gorenten magic immediately. Even before my struggles, I’d been hungry for details from both my parents’ homes, and I could easily spend months sinking into each nation’s histories. If I had known some of these spells, I would have been better able to protect myself from that intruder. I knew, without a shadow of a doubt that the spells cast on me to block my connections to the agan were blood magic. They didn’t just clip your wings—they tore off your beak, your eyes, your talons…everything you had left to defend yourself with. As if you didn’t know already that you were nothing without them. If the keepers of Eheldeth had trusted me from the start, I might still have all my gifts.

My thoughts dissipated as we crossed the ruins of Fort Oras, which used to be the last Dageian stronghold in the peninsula. These marked the borders, which meant we were well into the southlands now. These were ancient Gorenten lands, claimed by the Dageian Empire a long time ago. I was surprised to still be inside the emperor’s body. I figured I would have lost consciousness already.

The carriage kept plodding on. I saw Enosh lift his eyebrows at last. “We seem to be going much further than I thought,” he said. “Where exactly are we headed, Lord Ivasus?”

He placed his hands on his lap. “Let’s just enjoy the scenery, Count Tar’elian.”

I felt my ears hum. This is it, I thought. I felt a trickle of blood under my nostril.

But the blasted connection wouldn’t degrade by itself.

My worries were far from over. As I wrestled with how to extract myself from the damned carriage, I noticed the road we were taking was a familiar one. This wasn’t a coincidence—the suspicion was thick on Enosh’s expression, too. The carriage was taking us to his farms—to the lands he had bought under his company’s name, granted to Gorenten farmers over the years. As far as I knew, Risen Industries kept very few of the profits for itself—a small percentage to keep staff for paperwork, and nothing more. The farmers were allowed to keep most of their earnings.

The operation was clandestine, as far as the Empire of Dageis was concerned. Resettlement of Gorenten on lands they rightfully saw as theirs was out of the question. But since the operation’s profits were small, and they were being done legally by a citizen of Dageis, and Enosh insisted on paying the exorbitant taxes and bribe money on top of it, it ruffled fewer feathers than it should. Money greased every wheel—it was one of the first lessons Enosh ever taught me.

My apathy turned to a sort of protective panic. This wasn’t just my father’s farms. This land belonged to people from my community, people I got to know when I was growing up, back when Kefier would bring me here. Just like in Jin-Sayeng, this was a place where I could just…be. I could remember all the doting mothers who saw their children in me and would force me to raid their kitchens, never mind that it was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. “Eat!” they would always tell me, before berating Kefier for not feeding me more. I still remember all those meals, the bowls of gamey cubed pork with plantains, the sour fish stews, desserts made of toasted rice flour and brown sugar…

The carriage pulled to a stop.

“What are we doing here?” I asked.

Ivasus held a hand out, as if I was being unreasonably impatient, before turning to open the carriage door himself. He held it aside as he walked out and then offered his hand. I hesitated for a second, wondering if he was flirting, before I realized I was supposed to be a frail, doddering, ancient emperor. Of course, maybe that meant nothing.

I grabbed his shoulder, not his hand, and heaved myself out of the carriage. We were on a familiar stretch of road, just at the first row of farms. I could see people working the rice fields in the distance. It was late afternoon, and it wouldn’t be long before they all left for their homes. I could hear dogs barking, roosters crowing, children laughing—remnants of a childhood long forgotten. It was amazing how quickly they all came back. Why hadn’t I visited all these years? I was running from Eheldeth, from Dageis, not from the rest of my life.

“I want permission to seize some of these villagers for my mages,” Ivasus said, out of the blue.

There was a moment of silence as my mind struggled to grasp the gravity of his words. They were uttered matter-of-factly. He really believed this was a reasonable request, and I suddenly realized it was because the man whose skin I was wearing would have thought so. Ivasus wasn’t looking at his childhood or his community. He’d brought us here under the guise of a business meeting; the people in front of us were mere commodities.

As I struggled to come up with a response, Enosh cleared his throat. “I’m not sure that’s—wise,” he began. “These, err, villagers, wouldn’t exactly come without screaming and kicking.” In spite of his calm demeanour, I could see the anger in his eyes. Ivasus saw him as a merchant, one whom he expected would also willingly reduce people to assets. Was this how Enosh had been dealing with him all this time? A part of me wanted to confront him about it. How did he talk about the Gorenten in front of Ivasus? Did he ever once mention their struggles and hopes, their wild dreams, their beating hearts?

“I don’t mean seize them against their will, of course,” Ivasus coolly replied.

“Ah,” I said. “Did you have a more diplomatic way to capture people in mind?”

He didn’t even flinch at my tone. “Of course I do.” He made his way to the gate.

Swallowing the dread stirred by his words, I followed him down the road.

CHAPTER 9

ROSHA

My arrangement with Ivasus didn’t last beyond the winter break. I could tell he was growing bored—of my non-cooperation, as it were—and the arrival of other students, of the other girls he pursued, meant the beginning to an end. We simply stopped talking to each other, and he returned to ignoring me in the classroom or in the halls, which suited me just fine. By then, I’d made enough notes for me to study the blood magic spells on my own. Continued access to the inner sanctum would have been nice, but I convinced myself it wasn’t necessary. If anything, it made me feel like I could breathe again.

So for the first time since that first, fateful night, I let myself look at his face, something I never even thought of doing before our forced intimacy. From the corners of the classrooms where I would sit, I allowed myself to observe his carefree expressions, the confidence with which he dealt with people in his circle. Occasionally, some of them would steal glances at my direction. They knew, because of course he told them. Why shouldn’t he? That was half the reason he went through with it. Surprisingly enough, that didn’t bother me as much as it should. I wasn’t overly concerned with the opinions of people I would never meet again.

But I wanted to know what made Ivasus so unafraid. I wanted to know what made him look at the keepers in the eye like nothing they could do could ever hurt him. Was it pure ego, nurtured by the influence his parents wielded over the university? The skeleton keys, the extra class time, the added attention from the keepers…I had a hard time believing those things alone could make him feel invincible. Offer those things to me freely, and I would feel more exposed, a raw wound in the hot sun. I’d be constantly afraid of having everything taken away from me.

I found myself falling back into that same pattern as we followed Ivasus deeper into the Gorenten village. I thought at first that there must be someone here waiting to greet us, but the staring eyes and open mouths told me otherwise. The villagers weren’t expecting us, especially not Ivasus or the emperor. Their eyes latched on us immediately. Enosh, who trailed behind us in his shadowy cloak, hardly drew attention. Dageians rarely appeared on that side of the border. As far as they were concerned, the lands around the Orasmus Peninsula weren’t worth visiting; they were dead lands, rumoured to be filled with ancient magics and whatever evils the Dageians thought up to justify no longer wasting the resources to guard it. Stories were cheaper than armies. Because the Gorenten hardly ventured north themselves, the Dageians seemed more than happy to keep things that way.

“Excuse me,” a woman interrupted. She was the first of the dozen or so villagers we’d passed who dared approach us. I thought she looked familiar—one glance at Enosh told me this was someone he knew. “To what do we owe this visit? Enong here—Count Tar’elian, that is—didn’t send word.”

“Someone with an excellent command of Kagosh,” Ivasus said, reaching over to take the woman’s hand. I cringed as he lifted it to his lips.

The woman seemed unaffected by his attempt to charm her. “I asked a question, sir.” She seemed like an expert in polite detachment.

Ivasus gestured to me. “You are in the presence of Emperor Cerknar.”

The woman gazed back at us with hardly a flicker on her expression. “Am I supposed to bow, then?”

“If you value your life,” Ivasus said, still all charm and sweetness. But there was a hint of a bite underneath the honey.

The woman crossed her arms. “Emperors come with entourages. A retinue bigger than what you’ve got here. If you truly are an emperor, you seem lost, like a little girl left in the marketplace.”

The soldiers behind us drew their swords.

Enosh lifted his hand. “This isn’t the time, Ailat.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You. I should have known it was only a matter of time before you betrayed us.”

“You’re throwing words around,” Enosh said, shaking his head. “I haven’t betrayed you yet, and—”

Her eyes flickered. “Yet?”

The conversation was drawing a crowd. Enosh, whom I always thought seemed to have everything under control at all times, looked flustered. He could handle a crowd of Dageians. A crowd of his own people, on the other hand, wasn’t something he’d ever really practiced for. “We need a quiet place to talk,” Enosh said, drawing Ailat aside. “He wasn’t lying,” he whispered in Gorenten. “These are important men.”

“Then why are they here, of all places?”

We were interrupted by the arrival of two girls, both in their teens. “Mother,” one said. “We can prepare the meeting square, and I’ve asked the boys to prepare some refreshments. We don’t need to stir up trouble.”

A shadow touched over Ailat’s brow. Eventually, she nodded. “Thank you,” she grumbled.

Gande, I suddenly remembered. The older girl. I knew her when she was still a baby. She was so tall now. I’d been gone for far too long. I pushed away my inclination to call out to her. I was nothing but a stranger to her, anyway.

The village square was also bigger than I remembered, which went against how things usually look smaller when you visit them in adulthood. It had once been a square section of pounded earth, lined with wooden benches. Now the floor was made of stone, and so were the benches, arranged in clean lines so they formed seats around the center, which was marked with arches. Gande led us down to the first row of benches, which seemed to please Ivasus. I wanted to burn the smirk off his face. He came here knowing they would give him this hospitality.

“Thank you,” he told her as she bade us to sit. “You have a lovely daughter,” he said, turning to Ailat. “Truly, if you ever need employment for her—”

“You may go,” Ailat told her daughter sharply, with the barest incline of her head.

Gande drifted away.

“As I was saying—” Ivasus tried again.

“You were here for something else,” she said. “Not my daughter. Never mention her again.”

He looked flustered, out of his league. He tried to give a quick nod, as if he was actually respecting her wishes. I knew better. I could see him briefly glance at the direction Gande had disappeared to and wondered if there was any way I could gouge his eyes out now and get away with it. If only he hadn’t brought his soldiers. “I am under the impression you’re in charge of Count Tar’elian’s farms,” Ivasus finally declared.

“These are our farms,” Ailat replied.

Ivasus scratched the stubble on his jaw with a finger. “I’m sure you have some sort of arrangement, but by Dageian law, Count Tar’elian legally owns these lands.”

She kept her eyes on him. “You are not in Dageis.”

Ivasus’s face flickered. He gave a long sigh before smiling. “Let me start again, madam. You’re in charge here, correct?”

Ailat hesitated before nodding.

Ivasus clapped his hands together. “Good! Excellent. That’s a start. I was just telling Count Tar’elian of my proposition. Now, farming might very well suit your community now, ever since Count Tar’elian helped you settle here some fifteen odd years ago. You have how many people here now?”

“Four hundred and twenty, by my last count,” Ailat said. “With more to come.”

“You have plenty of youth. Do all of them want to be farmers?”

“What kind of a question is that?”

Ivasus cocked his head to the side. “Not all young men and women want to live like this, certainly.” He gestured haphazardly at the farms.

I could see Ailat’s expression tighten at his insinuation that their years of labour amounted to no better than a dungheap in a Dageian’s eyes. She was just too well-versed in propriety—or at least Dageian servitude—to jump on it. “It’s better than Gorent,” Ailat said under her breath. “Better than having our islands raided by your people. If you just came here to insult us—”

“I came here to offer your young men and women an opportunity to be citizens of Dageis,” Ivasus said, expertly skirting the topic of Dageian raids with ease. This was a man who knew the only way out of uncomfortable topics was to pretend he didn’t have to engage in them at all. It definitely gave one the impression he was intelligent, if you didn’t know any better; the art of deflecting to a topic he deemed more important so he could abandon things out of his league was something he had practiced since our school years. It rankled to see him display it out here in the real world.

Ailat immediately turned to Enosh, as if she was afraid the smallest delay would betray the slightest hint of hope. “What is he saying?” she demanded.

“What I believe he is,” Enosh said. He crossed his arms and turned to Ivasus. “You are…if I may be frank, Lord Ivasus…not exactly in the position to just hand citizenships out like candy.”

“But I am,” Ivasus said. He flashed his white teeth. “The emperor is right here.” He gestured at me.

“There’s a catch,” I said. “Speak clearly, Lord Ivasus. This is all becoming so tiresome.”

“Legend has it that your High King Elian once created a spell that could take away a mage’s ability to cast a spell, just like that,” Ivasus said, snapping his fingers. “I want it.”

I laughed. “All right. I’ll bite. Why?”

“Why not? I’m an ambitious man. I thought I wouldn’t have to explain myself around similarly ambitious sorts like you. This spell gives me leverage in my dealings with the mage council. They take great offense to me, you see—a soldier’s son refusing to feel grateful to them and choosing instead to stick his nose where it doesn’t belong. I graduated Eheldeth and was grudgingly bestowed a rank, which I refused, and they’ve been snarling at my backside ever since. The spell would take me far in ensuring their cooperation henceforth.”

“You want to blackmail the mage council.” I wanted to laugh, though I shouldn’t have been surprised. This was the sort of audacity that could come only from him. “Even if that thought alone isn’t enough for me to think you’re insane, Elian’s Heart is blood magic.”

Ivasus turned to me, undeterred. “Obviously.”

“How are you even going to insinuate to the council that you possess blood magic and intend to use it without having them turn on you in an instant? It wouldn’t matter whether you sat with the merchant guild or with them—they’re responsible for every mage in the empire. They would burn you alive.”

“Rumours can do wonders,” Ivasus replied, almost calmly. “As do a few well-chosen targets. To investigate me, they’d have to come up with proof, and I’ve got no intention of letting them have it. The fear of becoming drained of magic is a potent thing, Your Excellency. I don’t know a mage who hasn’t had a nightmare about it at least once. Imagine: to be full of life one instant, and then an empty husk the next…”

I felt my fingers twitch.

“First, I need the actual spell,” he said. “It would prove disastrous to simply attempt to stir up rumours without actually having the means to back them up, and I’ve got my targets meticulously lined up. Don’t fret, Lord Emperor—those in the list aren’t important to you, but I happen to hold a personal vendetta against them, and I’d love them to be made examples of. These people are the key.” He said these people as if Enosh and Ailat weren’t sitting right next to him. His eyes were on me only, not knowing I was one of them, too. As far as he was concerned, he was presenting this proposal to me alone.

Enosh cleared his throat. “I’ve heard rumours of how Elian’s Heart is supposed to be cast,” he said, trying to draw attention to the fact that there were Gorenten sitting there at the moment. “It requires the participation of Gorenten, yes. Mages, I assume. But we don’t have mages like you do in Dageis, not anymore, and our gifted youth…if we have any…are hidden away.”

“You don’t need mages,” I whispered.

He turned to me. “What do you mean, Your Excellency?”

I didn’t want to show how much I actually knew, but I couldn’t help myself. “Elian’s Heart needs Gorenten blood to work from both sides,” I said. “One Gorenten mage, to carry out the spell. Gorenten blood, to supply the energy needed. But not just any Gorenten blood. You need those receptive to the particulars of the spell in the first place, and the only way to find out is to test everyone individually. In short—you need a person trained in the agan and people receptive to the agan. Valuable people, on both sides of the equation.”

Enosh frowned. “A procedure, I assume, that doesn’t come without risks.”

“Of course not,” I said. “Anything that requires mages is risky. Throw the unskilled into the mix, and…”

Ivasus clapped his hands. “You truly are the emperor of the mightiest empire in the world. You’ve done your research, Your Highness!” He lifted a finger up. “All I need are volunteers. The testing will take time. I won’t lie to you. It will be dangerous. Since these people aren’t adept in the agan in the first place, this sort of testing will definitely hurt some, even kill them.”

“No,” Ailat broke in. “I can’t believe you think we’ll even consider this. No, absolutely not.”

“But those who make it through will be granted a Dageian citizenship,” Ivasus continued. His own voice had yet to break—it remained cool, calm. Collected. To the untrained eye, he seemed like the reasonable person, even though what he’d just said amounted to genocide. He was probably counting on making Ailat look like the illogical one.

Ailat shook her head. “You’re mad.”

“I’m not. It’s a perfectly reasonable trade. How valuable is a Dageian citizenship, madam? The world opens up. You won’t just be a Gorenten anymore. You could be anything you wanted to be.”

That’s not true, I wanted to say. “And you believe I can give citizenships to people who make it through,” I said. “You brought me all this way in order to blackmail me into doing what you want, for your interests alone. Me, the emperor of Dageis.”

“I just thought you would want to assist people the way you assist people who bend the rules,” Ivasus said. He kept his voice light. “The mage council might be interested to know, for instance, exactly just how much leeway you’ve given certain members of the merchant guild. Lord Cato—”

“—is dead,” I finished for him. “Whatever skeletons you’ve unearthed can stay in their graves. Aren’t you a member of the merchant guild?”

“I am my own man, Lord Emperor, doing what I feel is right considering my obligations. The rest of the merchant guild won’t be thrilled to know you prioritize some of them, and not others.”

“We will not be coerced because of what you think we did for one dead sorcerer. An empire as grand as Dageis is built on secrets. Revealing one won’t be enough to topple it.”

“I was going to say, rather, that he is just one of many names. The others might even be closer to home.”

I folded my fingers over my knees. “Well?” I asked. “You really do love to draw out the dramatic, don’t you? Tell us.”

“Rosha Tar’elian,” he said, his eyes flicking to Enosh and then back. “She dropped out of Eheldeth years ago. You must have known. Both of you, the Firekeeper included. And yet she’s under your care, mere weeks after you’ve made efforts to reform laws on errant mages. I looked into it. A coincidence? I think not, Your Excellency. The papers call her an Adherent. And yet not only did she not graduate—a fact I can testify to with my own eyes—I happen to know she was never in the scholarship track at all. Just like I told you earlier—we were close back in school, and there are things I know about her status that renders your whole arrangement implausible. If you don’t grant my rather simple request, you’re going to find just how relentless I am in pursuing what I want. I will bleed every single one of you if I have to, Your Excellency. It will be far, far better for everyone involved if you just give this to me now. Citizenships, for every Gorenten who volunteers for my mages’ experiments, and you have my eternal gratitude and partnership.” He held his hands out, as if to draw me into an embrace. “It is all up to you.”

I had taken for granted that no one ever paid attention to me. It was a habit I’d picked up in school. I was a shadow, as good at it as any full-blooded Gorenten. I’ve had teachers walk into a classroom thinking it was empty for at least an hour when I’d been sitting in the corner, reading a book the whole time. A curse, for most people, but I flourished in the darkness. It made it easy to hide my secrets—to deflect attention from my fading magic while ensuring I could practice my experiments in blood magic spells in peace.

Ivasus’s words cut a hole the size of a fist in my stomach. I thought once we had parted ways that that was the end of it. For the two years after and until the finals, we never spoke to each other; he never glanced my way in the few classes we shared. I was certain he’d forgotten me. But then the portals exam happened. A prank gone wrong, except now he’d decided to go back and make more of it than it was. I couldn’t very well blame him, either, even if I was standing there as myself and not as the emperor. He lit the match that torched down my time at Eheldeth, but I had spent all those years gathering kindling.

And yet he didn’t know me well enough to have guessed that. From where he stood, he knew what he did, and he still had the audacity to use it for his own purposes. I felt like sticking my thumbs into his eyeballs.

We were interrupted by the arrival of a feast, one the Gorenten shouldn’t have bothered with. But even if it was not an emperor in their midst, their hospitality wouldn’t have allowed them to throw us out in the middle of the night without a bite to eat. Trays of roasted meat, stewed vegetables, and fragrant white rice arrived, one after the other. Before the elders could do anything about it, Ivasus turned to whisper his proposition into the ears of the young man who brought our food. A citizenship, in exchange for assistance. Then he turned to me with that knowing smile on his lips, as if daring me to contradict him. He wanted me to say no in front of all these people, to squash their dreams before they were even fully realized.

We’d walked into a trap, one far more elaborate than I could have ever expected.

“Is it true, Your Excellency?” Gande, who was serving us alongside her peers, asked when Ivasus took a moment to excuse himself for what, I presumed, was a trip to the lavatory. “Is there really a chance we can join Dageis as citizens?”

Enosh interrupted her with a wave of his hand. “His Excellency hasn’t agreed to anything,” he said. “Come on, child. Isn’t this enough? Quiet fields, far from raiders…”

She turned to him and frowned. “It was never enough for you.”

“I—”

“There’s a big world out there. Cities, airships, tall towers. Why would you deny us the chance to live out there?”

I heard laughter in the distance, one removed from the conversation. Enosh kept his face steady, but there was a flicker of impatience in his eyes. He wasn’t used to having his decisions debated in front of a crowd, especially a crowd involving his own people.

“Mother told me about you,” she continued, drawing courage from his silence. “She said you had big dreams when you were a child, and you left the islands because they never gave you what you needed. I don’t blame you—none of us do. How can Gorent ever grant our dreams? If all you ever wanted was to be a fisherman on some distant shore, it won’t let you have it without a fight. But even you needed help to get out. Without your patrons, your rich benefactors, you’d be nothing. Now rich men have come to offer help, and you want us to refuse?”

“It’s not the same,” Enosh replied. “Gods, child, what do you think I’ve been doing all these years?”

“Trying to give back, I know,” Gande said. “But this is bigger than you now. This is everything, Uncle Enosh, and—”

Ailat broke in with a click of her tongue. “You’re forgetting your manners,” she said evenly.

“I’m sorry,” Gande grumbled. “But he has to know. Not all of us want to be farmers. We’re better than this.”

“What’s better than feeding yourself with your own hard work?” Ailat asked.

Gande frowned. “I knew you wouldn’t understand. Mother, I want to be part of the world. The real world.”

“This is real, too,” Enosh said under his breath. “The Empire of Dageis is a beautiful illusion, and nothing but. Keep your dreams to yourself, child. The empire might make them come true, but it could just as easily eat you alive. Wouldn’t you rather be alive?”

She looked like she wanted to argue further. Her mother dismissed her with a click of her tongue.

“Why did you bring these people here?” Ailat asked, as soon as she was gone.

Enosh poked at his rice listlessly. “This man has my brother in chains and my daughter effectively a prisoner. I had no choice.”

“Because you couldn’t have left your brother and child alone to be happy, huh? They could’ve lived here, among us.”

Enosh sighed. “We’ve been through this before.”

“Not often enough, it seems like. You have your ambitions. I get it. Why drag everyone else with you?”

“In case you haven’t been paying attention, I’m trying to stop that from happening as we speak,” Enosh snapped.

“Empty words, Enosh. You say you want to do this for us, but how much is for you? How much of this is supposed to just make you feel better about yourself, because you never rose as high as your old benefactors would have you believe? A count is nothing, after all. You wanted a lordship, at the very least, didn’t you? Here, or in Hafod, doesn’t matter so as long as you got to be something we can’t. So you can prove to all of Gorent that you are of High King Elian’s blood after all. Yet look at you now. You’re nothing but a pet.”

Once, Enosh would have waded into the fray, trading barbed words with her as easily as a man who didn’t know any other way to deal with people. Now, he simply cast his eyes downward and ate in silence. Eventually, Ailat drifted away, and I caught a shadow of relief on his face. Being around our people strained him. I didn’t even know why he kept coming back.

After the meal was over, the villagers didn’t want to send us on our way. The road, they reasoned, was too dark, too dangerous. Lord Ivasus graciously accepted it, compelling me to do the same. But I knew they weren’t doing it to be kind. If anything were to happen to such important people, to Dageians, who would bear the repercussions? It wouldn’t take long before someone would order the village razed to the ground. The details, the fact that it was Lord Ivasus’s whim that brought us here, wouldn’t matter. I could see equal measures of fear and delight in the eyes of the girls who brought me to my quarters for the evening. It was one of the bigger huts, which I recognized immediately—Enosh had it built for whenever the whole family visited. I had to stop myself from looking for shadows of my brothers as they darted through the stilts. These days, they wouldn’t even fit under there.

I turned my head to the mountains to the west. We had another home out there too, on top of a hill near the beach. Even as I moved inside the skin of the aging Dageian emperor, I couldn’t erase Rosha’s thoughts and memories from my brain. You belong here, the trees seemed to whisper. Here, and there, everywhere but the empire. You can feel at home in so many places, Rosha—why pick a prison as your domain? Is it really only about the magic—the same magic you’re slowly losing every day?

“You’re celebrating,” I told the girls. “But there isn’t any special occasion today, is there?”

“You’re here,” they pointed out. “It’s not every day the Emperor of Dageis pays our humble home a visit.”

“I daresay it’s never happened before.”

They shook their heads. “And probably never again. Good night, Your Excellency.”

I wanted to call them back, to ask for their names—I must have known them in the past, too. But they slipped away before I could even open my mouth. I watched them rejoin their friends near the fire and felt a wave of longing. I wanted to shed everything like a blanket, to slip in amongst the Gorenten in the distance. I had no desire to engage in chatter, but I thought I wanted to at least sit amongst them and let their voices wash over me like waves on sand. These people were my people. We shared skin colour, ancestors, maybe even blood. But they have never fully embraced me as one of theirs, and there was absolutely no chance of that now, in this body, with the stench of Dageis all over me. Here I was, the most powerful man in all the known world, and I had never felt so alone. Perhaps that was why Cerknar remained a construct. Who would want to be him at all times? Sitting on a throne got old.

“How are you doing?” Enosh asked, appearing from around the corner.

“Waiting to slip back,” I said under my breath. “And finding it utterly inconvenient that I haven’t, yet. We could have saved ourselves from this farce.”

“You can do it while he sleeps. If there’s any trouble back in his estate, I’m sure Ceres will clean it up for you. This has gone on too long. I’ll take care of the emperor’s body—I can reason the journey has taxed him and find a healer that can verify my claims.”

I nodded and turned to climb up the ladder.

Enosh cleared his throat. “I need to ask,” he said. “Ivasus, back there in Eheldeth. Did he…did he force you in any way?”

I hesitated. “Not…like that,” I finally said. It was strange to have this conversation with him. We didn’t have that kind of relationship.

A look of distaste crossed his face. “Then—”

“Good night,” I whispered, leaving it there.

CHAPTER 10

NASUHA

In the years she spends under Rasiad’s care training as an outlaw mage, her scars heal.

They don’t go away completely. But the rough bumps grow smoother, leaving behind only silvery lines in places, like small pebbles worn down by a raging river. She takes pride in them, allowing herself to forego sleeves whenever the weather allows when before she used to hide them. Mistress Rasiad doesn’t think this is wise, but by then she knows the risks she can take, and people would rather believe a Gorenten burned herself carelessly in an oven than that she was an outlaw who could form fire with her fingertips. Somya, for her part, doesn’t care. Company is all that matters to her, and she seems happy that Nasuha has grudgingly found a home at last. She sees Nasuha for everything she could be, which is strange for a girl who grew up with so much.

“My mother is entertaining another man,” Somya declares with distaste one day, while they practice making rocks levitate in the garden. She lifts one up and flings it at the base of the rock tower she has been forming by the fountain. The rocks topple over and splash into the water, making the fish scatter in an explosion of gold and orange. “My father has been dead for years, so I suppose it is about time she start courting, but still. Still. It feels hard to imagine a worse betrayal.” She stomps her feet before turning to face Nasuha. “What am I supposed to do?” she asks.

Nasuha blanches. “I don’t know,” she replies, truthfully. The Rasiads’ domestic disputes are beyond her comprehension.

Somya gestures at the mansion. “She seems to favour this one, even when I’m convinced he has no intention of marrying her. And she must be at least ten years older than him! I don’t know what he sees in her other than her money. She’s not the most pleasant woman, is she?”

Nasuha keeps her mouth shut. She knows better than to be ungrateful. Rasiad is a harsh teacher, even on the best of days, but she offered her guidance where everyone else would rather look away.

Somya crosses her arms and taps her foot. “You’re allowed to speak, you know,” she says.

“Your mother tries,” Nasuha manages. “But you know teaching us while keeping us away from Eheldeth’s gaze can’t be easy. I’ve heard this guest of hers—this merchant—knows people from the school. Perhaps she’s not really interested in him, but in using his influence—”

“I’ve already seen him leaving her bed chambers at night,” Somya sighs.

Nasuha walks over to the fountain to pick up the rocks. She stacks them back the way they were.

“Stop that,” Somya declares. “That’s cheating. You know I have to start again.”

“You were upset,” Nasuha reminds her. “We’ll pretend it didn’t happen.”

“Mother abhors excuses. Will the Dageians offer us such mercies when the time comes for us to face them?”

Nasuha shakes her head. “No.”

Somya’s expression flares. “Then—”

“But we can give it to ourselves,” Nasuha whispers. She pats Somya on the shoulder before directing her to the rock tower.

Somya sighs and lifts a rock next to her foot. Nasuha takes a step away to watch her. She is good at this, actually—much better than Nasuha can ever hope to be. They all have different gifts, Mistress Rasiad says. Nasuha isn’t quite sure why she never tried to send Somya to Eheldeth. She could easily afford the tuition, and the school isn’t closed to Gorenten who could pay. Somya’s gifts were the sort that could be vastly useful in transportation. The mage council was in charge of airships, too—maybe she could discover why so many were failing over the years.

And what, Mistress Rasiad’s voice echoes through her brain, would helping the Dageians do?

She shakes her head. One of Mistress Rasiad’s many lessons is to erase the desire to prove herself in Dageian society. “To crack the façade, you must set yourself apart from them,” Rasiad would tell her in every lesson. “You cannot break Dageis from within if you choose to play by their rules. Their rules are designed to keep you in chains. Forget them.”

“Girls!” Rasiad’s voice cuts through the garden like a well-sharpened blade.

Nasuha turns to greet her mistress with a bow. There is someone with her—a sharply dressed man of middling height. She takes this as a cue to step back even further, letting the man walk past her. “Somya, my daughter,” Rasiad says with a sweep of her arm.

“We’ve met,” Somya replies.

The man simply smiles, merriment dancing in his eyes even if Somya’s tone was less than amused. “We have,” he agrees. “It seems as if your daughter is less than pleased with me.”

“It is not you, sir, but your presence in this household,” Somya continues. “Just because you’ve charmed your way into my mother’s quarters doesn’t mean you can just—”

“Somya,” Rasiad breaks in.

Somya falls silent, her hands immediately collapsing to her sides. She stands on tiptoe for a moment, as if to gather a lungful of fresh air before allowing her heels to fall back to the ground. “I’m sorry,” she declares, in the sort of voice that indicates she is anything but. “I forget my manners. Welcome, Lord Tar’elian. It is good to finally meet you formally at last.”

The sting is clear in her voice, and yet the man graciously takes her hand, anyway. He kisses the back of it with a flair that belongs to a prince straight out of a storybook. And yet he is Gorenten—there is no mistaking the fact. He has the ageless look of someone in his forties, with a few lines here and there—mostly on his forehead, some in the corners of his mouth but none at the edges of his eyes, as if he has smiled a lot but laughed little. “It is good to meet you too, princess,” he says lightly, with practiced charm. He said the affectation in Gorenten, too.

“Count Tar’elian has a daughter your age,” Rasiad continues.

“And as much as I’d love for you to meet, alas, she is much, much too busy with her studies at the moment,” Tar’elian replies.

Rasiad sniffs. There is a palpable tension in the air. Somya senses it before anyone else does. “She is studying…in Eheldeth?” she blurts out.

Tar’elian pauses, his eyes on Rasiad before he nods. Rasiad’s face tightens. “Lord Tar’elian’s daughter is the first Gorenten mage to breach Eheldeth’s walls in decades,” she declares. “But he doesn’t think this means anything.”

“With all due respect, my lady, you know that’s not quite true,” Tar’elian says. “We didn’t consider the broader ramifications when we enrolled her—we only cared that it kept her safe, both from Dageis and herself.”

“Show him what you can do, Somya,” Rasiad orders.

Somya hesitates, but only briefly. She turns to the rock pile and sucks in her breath. All of them begin to float. Nasuha holds her own breath, knowing the amount of energy she is drawing on for this. Precision is all but forgotten. She lifts them higher and higher before hurling them at the fountain. The jar statue set in the middle splits right in the middle, sending rock chips flying in a spray of dust.

“She is only fifteen,” Rasiad calmly says. “Imagine where she will be, with the right guidance. Imagine where they can both be. Their heritage alone is a gift lying dormant all these centuries. Elian’s legacy can live on. Your girl carries his blood—this means something.”

“Your idea of the right guidance involves training these children behind Eheldeth’s back,” Tar’elian coolly replies. He examines the broken statue with a whistle under his breath. “She is good, my lady, no doubt about that. But let’s be honest. What makes you think there is enough power between her and my daughter to topple down the entire empire? Thousands of mages, against two girls?”

“High King Elian was one man against several hundred. A mage blocked of their connection to the agan is worthless. With the right support, we can mimic his success, and none of his failures.” She places a hand on his shoulder. “And you can provide that support, my lord.”

“I can’t see why,” Tar’elian replies. He picks up a rock shard and tosses it into the water before wiping his hands together and turning back to her. “Last time I checked, you’ve got more money than me.”

“But I’ve got none of your influence. Especially when it comes to certain people of importance.” Her mouth gathers into a slight ‘o’, and Nasuha thinks that they’ve had this discussion before under more…intimate circumstances.

Tar’elian brushes it off with a shrug. “Such influences are overstated, especially given that you’ve had the opportunity to make them yourself when you were a student in Eheldeth—an opportunity I never had.”

The coyness departs from her expression like summer charging straight into winter. “Pull your child out of that blasted school,” she demands. “You owe me.”

“I know,” Tar’elian replies. “But I can’t. Demand payment in every other way but this, my lady. I swore to myself years ago that I will do whatever it takes to stop my child from being used as a weapon.”

“Not a weapon, Lord Tar’elian. A means for the liberation of your people.”

“Under certain lights, it is one and the same.” He straightens his sleeves and gazes upward. “I do not regret our time together, my lady, but given the frequency of these conversations, I think perhaps it is best we go our separate ways for the time being. When I find the appropriate way to repay my debts to you that doesn’t involve my daughter, I will reach out.”

He must have this speech practiced already, because he barely moves to offer Rasiad another glance. He walks away slowly, like a man pretending he hasn’t just walked into a lion’s den and is grateful to still have his head. Nasuha walks up to Rasiad, who dismisses her with a wave. “He’ll come around,” she says. “What we’re doing here is too important, and he knows it. He says he’s concerned about our people.”

“He pretends he is,” Somya breaks in. “Men like that are dangerous. They make our people believe the only solution lies in joining the empire instead of standing our ground. That all they have to do is gain their approval, however way they find it. That all it takes…is to be like him.”

“It is forever a dilemma,” Rasiad sighs. She snaps her fingers, making Nasuha stand to attention. “Perhaps it’s time we convince him another way. Something a little…closer to home.”

“What do you have in mind, mistress?” Nasuha asks.

Rasiad smiles.

CHAPTER 11

ROSHA

The emperor’s body had no state you could reasonably call sleep. But I tucked him into bed anyway, drawing the sheets up to my chest so I could slip away and leave him in a state as least alarming as possible. I was growing weary of the simulacrum’s old bones and sluggish heartbeat; it was the longest I had been in its skin, and it was the first time I had to come to grips with just how irritating tasting the acrid, ancient breath in my own mouth could be. Emperor Cerknar was the most powerful man in the world, and yet when night fell, he was just like everyone else: a lonely bag of meat and bones. I longed to be back in my own body. Broken as it was, it was all mine.

I placed the finishing touches on the blankets and closed my eyes. One sigh, and that was it. I felt myself drift inwards, like someone on the cusp of falling asleep. Stars rolled above. I wove through the strands of agan, finding that one current, the stream, that would take me home. It was the brightest among everything I could see. I felt a flicker of amusement at that. It must only mean one thing—I wasn’t just following the stream to my body. Someone else was there, sitting beside me, someone whose presence was starting to feel as close to home as possible.

Felan, I thought, and he stirred, responding to my presence as if I’d called his name aloud. He must have fallen asleep. Those without the skill in the agan are still connected to it, and the pathways are clearest when their conscious mind isn’t in the way. I decided to get as close to his essence as possible. It wasn’t just his state of mind that made the road so clear—I was connected to his body just as strongly as I was connected to mine. I hovered right at the doorway. The moment he had lent me his blood months back, during the battle with Targus, must have established something more permanent. I could, without his permission, slip into his consciousness and touch his soul. It wasn’t something I was tempted to do, but as an Eheldeth-trained mage, I’d been taught to consider all possibilities.

I wondered why the man didn’t bother setting up spells to protect against me. He couldn’t do them himself, but he could have gone to any spell shop and bought at least a necklace to ward off against intrusions. Perhaps it simply slipped his mind. I made a note to remind him as soon as possible. It wasn’t like him to forget about something so important. The boy I had known had been ruthless in just about everything—his studies, his spells, his skills. It was the only way he could have kept up with me, because if I had found a weakness back then, I would have exploited it. It couldn’t have been mere trust. It would be oddly touching were it so, but I knew Felan; at least, I thought I did. This was sloppy, plain and simple. Apathy.

Ever since he’d lost his magic, he’d stopped caring.

I felt an odd mixture of pity and irritation. I had been wondering why he seemed to have grown so amicable. Had he really accepted his fate, just like that? He and Ivasus were both raised by rich men from prestigious families, but they couldn’t have been more different if they’d tried. Felan, for all the advantages offered to him, actually deserved the attention. He worked hard. He never cut himself slack, even if the keepers were all but willing to give it to him. I remembered watching him practice the beginning of a portal spell inside a field once—how he’d laid out each marker carefully, out in the pouring rain, and then went through the steps patiently. Even when the spell went wrong and he was thrown straight into the fencing, he never uttered a word of complaint. He was a good student, a boy who had everything it took to be a great mage. Why did he give it up so easily?

I heard a scream.

It wasn’t from inside the stream, but outside, in the physical world. I hastily made my way to the current. Right as I was about to slip in, I realized the scream wasn’t coming from there, but the body I’d left behind.

My consciousness split. It was too late for me to prevent myself from returning to my body, but a part of me drifted into the emperor’s long enough to open his eyes briefly. I saw the hut shaking, heard the scream again, doubled in effort. It was a woman’s. Gande’s. I recognized her shape through the window. She was clutching a sheet around her body.

“Don’t scream,” a voice called. “I promise I won’t hurt you.” Ivasus appeared, a dagger in his hand. Blood dripped down the blade, gathering in his hand. Something told me it wasn’t his.

I tried to lift my hand to stop him.

Then everything spun around me, and I bolted up in bed, all the way back in Ivasus’s guest quarters. Felan was sleeping with his head on the mattress. I swore, and he shot upright.

“Rosha?” he gasped. “You’re back! How do you feel?”

I struggled to form a response. My head was spinning so fast, I was certain it was going to fall off. “Like something thrown out of an alley. I left at a bad time. Ivasus is attacking someone back there.”

His face tightened. “Can we send a message to Enosh?”

“It’ll take forever to establish connections, and that’s if he’s even awake to receive them. I need to find a way back.”

“Back where? To the emperor’s body?”

I swore again. “It’s at least three hours away, if not longer. The girl—I think he seduced her, and now he’s going to do something worse. He wants to find the secret to Elian’s Heart.”

Felan blinked. “What is that?”

“A spell made by the last Gorenten High King in an effort to fend off the Dageians from his lands. It blocks magic from you.”

“Like what that intruder did to us?”

I stared at him. The connection had not occurred to me before, simply because of how implausible it was. To be able to have access to the proper Gorent blood and a Gorenten mage seemed like a shot in the dark already. But now that Felan had said the thought out loud, I had to wonder. Why couldn’t it have been? All you needed was someone in Ivasus’s position.

I shook my head. “This isn’t the time to be speculating,” I said. “Someone’s life is in danger.”

“I’ve never seen you care this much before,” Felan commented.

I didn’t know I would care so much, either. But Gande was someone I knew, someone who used to look up to me when Aunt Ailat had first taken her in as her own daughter. I remembered her big wide eyes, the way she called me big sister even when I was only one or two years older than her, how she would remark on how beautiful I was because she didn’t have the words to explain to herself that beauty to her simply meant everything Dageis promised. As someone from Dageis, I represented a life she dreamed of, a world so completely different from the one she’d known. And I led Ivasus to the village. I led the son-of-a-bitch right to her, knowing full well what he was capable of.

I grabbed the vase from the side table and flung it against the wall. Felan watched in horror as I picked up a porcelain shard. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“I have to get back there. That’s the only way I can stop him.”

“You can barely activate the spell when you’re touching the rune. How can you expect to do it from this distance?”

“I’ve still got connections to the body. Activating the spell makes it easy to slip through, but if I try hard enough—”

He grabbed my shoulders and looked me in the eye. “You are not strong enough. Trying won’t make a difference.”

“I have to.”

“Rosha, listen to me. You are not strong enough. You might have been once, but you’re losing your magic, remember? You’re putting your body under tremendous strain. All this blood magic—there’s a reason it’s forbidden.”

“The reason it’s forbidden is because the Dageians are afraid of Gorenten magic,” I hissed. “They fear it, they don’t want students learning it, so they tucked it away. Blood magic is just magic.”

“Even if that were true,” Felan replied, taking a deep breath, “even if this was just an ordinary spell, it is still risky. You haven’t sat beside your own body these last few hours, Rosha. Your breathing is shallow. Your pulse is weak. Your father pointed out the obvious, something we’ve all missed and shouldn’t have. This is killing you.”

“I’m not dead yet.”

His fingers dug into my skin. “Why are you being stubborn?”

I gave a thin smile. “Have you known me to be anything else?”

“I’ve known you to be pragmatic. Logical.”

“That’s how you were able to let go of your future, then. Logic. You told yourself you couldn’t do magic anymore, and then just like that, you stopped being a mage. You gave your whole life to this and suddenly just because the world decided you couldn’t, you stopped.”

That familiar anger flared in his eyes. A thin smile flitted over my lips. “You don’t know what you’re saying,” he said under his breath. “This is about you, not me.”

“I don’t give up easily, Felan. Not like you did.” Without breaking my gaze, I slashed my left arm with the shard. I hardly felt the sharpness as it dug into my flesh. The blood flowed freely. I pressed my right hand into it, trying to keep the wound closed as the blood gathered in my palm. The heat pulsed through, from the wound, through my fingers. I reached back inside, trying to find any remnants that would take me back to the emperor’s body. In the darkness, it was hard to see.

“You have used nothing but blood magic spells since we started this,” Felan whispered next to me. “Rosha, do you understand? You’re not just a mage anymore. You’re a blood mage. An outlaw blood mage. The lowest of the low, scum in the mage council’s eyes. If they find out, they’ll overturn every progress you’ve made in court, and tack on added punishment to anyone who would dare follow you. And you know they will. The empire is full of people just waiting for the opportunity to tear it from the inside out, and they’ll use you as its figurehead. You’re giving them the arrows to shoot you with, while lighting them on fire.”

“Go away,” I gasped.

He grabbed my arms, his fingers slipping through the blood as he tightened them around my wrists. He stared at me for a second before he reached for my chin, tilting it towards him. And then he kissed me. I slowly dropped my hands to the side, getting blood all over his shirt. He pulled away, one hand cupping the side of my cheek as he picked up the shard by my foot.

Without a word, he stabbed his own arm.

His lips returned to mine as his own blood mingled with mine. I realized he was giving me permission to draw from him, just like before.

I didn’t even hesitate. Reaching for those strands, I propelled myself back into the void, with only the faintest memory and longing of the heat of his mouth.

I stumbled forward as the emperor, even before my senses had fully returned. I kicked the door open. Gande was on the ground, a withered thing in the shadows. Ivasus’s hand was on her neck, as if he was strangling her. From the bite marks along his arms, it was clear she’d tried to fight back.

“Release her at once,” I ordered.

Ivasus looked like he wanted to ignore me. It probably wouldn’t take another second for him to break her neck. But then sense returned to him, and he relaxed. I saw Gande flinch as air rushed into her lungs. He slowly got to his feet. “Your Highness, she allowed this to—”

I didn’t even wait for him to turn to me. The rush of energy from both my blood and Felan’s filled my head. I felt like I was floating, like I could do anything. The feeling manifested itself into my fingertips and turned to fire, which I flung at Ivasus.

He stumbled back. Confusion stirred on his features. “Your Excellency,” he began. “But you—you’re not a mage.”

I stepped closer to him and struck him with a force so strong, he slammed against the hut’s stilts. I grabbed him again and flung him the other way, towards the bushes. He scrabbled to regain his footing almost as soon as he fell.

Without even looking back at him, I knelt next to Gande and placed a hand on her forehead. She was warm, and the colour had returned to her face, but that was it; she remained unmoving, oblivious to my presence. I hoped he hadn’t stabbed her. It was too dark to see. “You’re pathetic,” I said, turning to him.

He straightened his robes before smoothing his hair back, as if he actually still had some dignity left to salvage after this. “She came to me.”

“And you encouraged her.”

“She wanted out of this hovel. She came to me,” he repeated, “and let me do what I will.”

“You took advantage of someone who didn’t know any better.”

“I never lied about my intentions. They knew what I wanted. Of course I couldn’t help myself, but she knew. If she survived this, she would have been the first.”

I struck him again. He fell a second time, clutching at his belly. “Your powers…” he gasped.

“You think a man like me can live for centuries without a spark of connection to the agan?” I whispered over his ear. “You think an emperor would bow to filth? Think again, Lord Ivasus. Because you’re not half as smart as you made yourself seem this whole time.”

He smiled and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Maybe not. I’m smart enough to have figured it out, though. You’re not real.”

Before I could respond, he drew his sword and stabbed me in the gut.

I was expecting a sharp pain, even searing heat. But I felt nothing. Pain was the one thing the simulacrum was not built for. I watched Ivasus slowly pull the blade out, with only the faintest tinge of blood on it. The wound immediately closed around itself, feeling no more than a tickle, a breeze on a hot day.

“There’s a mage inside you,” Ivasus laughed, stepping back with a bow. “There always was. My family has suspected it for a while. We believed Lord Cato was controlling you and the handler changed with his death, and this all but proves it. Whoever is inside you now is a fire mage, the first it’s had in centuries.”

There was no point denying it. Instead of speaking, I created another ball of fire, letting it hover over my palms. I flung it at him.

He threw up a shield-spell. The fire struck it, hard enough for it to shatter. I prepared to assault him a second time, but then he crafted something I didn’t recognize.

I made my own shield-spell, sidestepping at the same time. Another mistake, because I saw his eyes flashed. “You’re Eheldeth-trained, too,” he remarked. “A shield-spell with a sidestep. A classic first lesson.”

“You are, too, and yet you stood in front of your shield like an idiot.”

“What can I say? Maybe I like shards on my face. I was never that good at class.” He laughed, before charging. The spell in his hands whipped outwards, curling itself over my head. I reached back with a flick of energy to deflect it. The spell shattered as soon as I touched it.

The amusement on Ivasus’s face didn’t die down. If anything, it intensified.

I felt the remnants of the spell gather like a cloud over my face. I stepped back, realizing it wasn’t meant to be damaging. It was a passive spell. It was…

“Blood magic,” Ivasus said, noticing my confusion. “Blood magic works from the inside, drawing on connections, messing with it, like strings on puppets.” He smiled, lifted his sword, and tightened his left hand around the blade. As the blood coated his fingers, he lifted them.

I felt something wrap itself around my throat. I stumbled to the ground, coughing.

“You’re blocked from returning to your body for the next little while,” he said simply. “I’d kill you if I could, but I need you as you are now, Emperor Cerknar. Don’t make this too hard for me, and we can move on from this simple…misunderstanding.” He snapped his fingers.

I felt myself settle into the body, as if someone had attached lead weights to my ankles before casting me into the ocean. Even without trying, I knew he was speaking the truth. Until I broke the spell he’d cast, I couldn’t return.

“Blood magic,” I gasped as he turned around.

“Gorenten blood magic,” he explained.

I felt my stomach turn. “How?” I asked.

“Your assistant used to be so interested in it, a long time ago,” he said. “I simply followed her trail, and here I am.”

Here you are. I had a flash of memory, of all the times I thought I was using him. The books I’d taken from the shelf. He must have read them himself, committed them to memory. My people’s legacy, my people’s secrets, left out in the open for this man to feast on. How careless could I have been? My insides screamed as I watched him disappear into the darkness. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I had to stop him. I had to kill him, even if it was the last thing I did.

CHAPTER 12

NASUHA

When Nasuha returns to Eheldeth, nobody recognizes her. With Mistress Rasiad’s recommendation, they allow her to join the guards, a job that gives marginally more respect than cleaning ever did. Here, no one questions her on anything but her ability to fight and look threatening, to which the scars helped. She hones her skills in other ways, growing more formidable, a fighter who knows how to deliver blows and not back down.

All she ever wanted was to be a mage like in the stories, but by now, she knows the truth. The books were penned by those who never even glanced her way. People like Nasuha never get to be the heroine.

She sees Rich Girl again a few months later. She hardly recognizes her at first—she is all but a woman now, just like Nasuha. And just like before, she is invisible to her. It makes her angry, but by now, she knows to hold it in. Mistress Rasiad has warned her about wasting her energy on things she cannot control. Lock up your anger, Mistress Rasiad says. Swallow your pride. Ignore your own helplessness—you have power in so many other ways. Be patient, bide your time, and wait for the right moment. Wait, always wait. The Lost Ones cannot be revived overnight. Mistress Rasiad has big dreams, and Nasuha has been entrusted with the future—she cannot waste it on a whim.

The envy is the only thing that refuses to go.

She feels it lift her senses whenever she sees the other girl. Rosha, she hears them call her. Rosha, Tar’elian’s child, with her pristine hands and unblemished skin. She knows from one look that the girl has never known hunger, has suffered nothing beyond mere discomfort or inconvenience. She wonders what that must feel like. What did it feel like to be loved, to be considered precious and worth fighting for? Mistress Rasiad wants her to train with Somya and will move heaven and hell for the chance, even when Nasuha is right there. But then, her own father threw her to the dogs. She knows, for as long as she lives, that she will never forget that.

One evening, she sees Rich Girl steal away with one of the boys in her class, heading straight out of the school grounds and towards the ruins that were supposed to be forbidden to them. The keepers must have warned them, over and over again, to avoid leaving the yard. Nasuha feels anger over how easily students dismiss these warnings. She must have screamed at a dozen students to return to their dormitories just this last week alone. Inwardly, a part of her has thought Rosha would be much smarter than the rest of them. A foolish notion. Clearly, the girl is just as spoiled as the rest of them, just as thoughtless. She must think herself above the rules, too, even though she is Gorenten.

If she was born in my skin, she would be dead by now.

Before she can stop herself, she follows them in silence. Not running up to stop them before they can get into the ruins, as she is supposed to do, but letting them go off on their own. She watches them argue just as the storm breaks above, sending torrents of water rushing from the skies. The envy stirs in her heart, pulling back all the other emotions Mistress Rasiad has said she must manage. The rage, the fear, the pride. Does this girl not realize what her screaming is going to do? Does she not realize what attacking another student—another rich man’s child, just like everyone else in that school—will do to her? She is going to throw away all her opportunities, her gifts, for nothing save the fact that she takes them for granted. She thinks she is entitled to them, just because.

Nasuha fingers the vial of blood hanging from her neck. Gorenten like Rosha need to understand. No matter how well they dress or how eloquent they sound, they cannot erase the past nor change the rules. She needs to see the truth. She needs to understand. And the boy, this small but powerful boy she seems to be enamoured with, is a good start.

She attacks Felan without provocation. Rasiad’s instructions were clear: do whatever it takes. And if it takes breaking Tar’elian’s daughter’s closest rival just to show how powerful they can be, then so be it. Not just a rich man’s son, but Lord Cato’s; he is as good as dead. But as she discards the husk of the boy on the ground, she sees her standing there without even moving to protect him, and realizes this is not enough. She will never know suffering she hasn’t lived. She will leave this place with a frightening story, go back to her spoiled, unfettered life, and remain as worthless as ever.

Nasuha decides quickly. She knows she won’t find an opportunity like this again. She can use the spell on the girl at half the strength, just enough to make her hurt. Rasiad is counting on her abilities to see them through, but Nasuha thinks she is overestimating her capabilities. She can more than make up for what the girl can’t do. Hasn’t she gotten this far?

Drawing one long breath, she lets her envy do the rest.

Much, much later, when the dust has settled, she forces herself to walk out of campus, though not without alerting the administration that two of the children had last been seen heading to the ruins during the flood. She returns to Bardes like a loose hound slinking back to her master. She gets off the coach outside the city and takes the long road back to Mistress Rasiad’s mansion on foot. As she walks, she wonders how she can break the truth to her. It probably isn’t necessary—she probably already knows. The girl she has wanted for her cause is next to useless, and all because Nasuha could not contain her anger. There is another word for what she is feeling, probably. Wrath, with a tinge of hubris. She wonders if it is possible to make amends. The mistress will have the final say. She knows she has sealed her doom.

But she lets herself through the gates, and through those doors. There is nowhere else for her to go—less now than ever before. She prepares herself to take whatever judgment the mistress deals.

It doesn’t take her long to find the mistress. She is in her study, back turned to the front door as Nasuha walks in. “I’m home, Mistress,” Nasuha says, lowering her head.

Rasiad makes a small sound under her breath, a sort of hmm that barely registers past her lips. She does this unconsciously, usually when she is deep in thought. Nasuha sucks in her breath, waiting. The woman doesn’t answer and remains with her back to her.

“Mistress,” Nasuha tries again. “I know what I did was wrong, but the girl…you do not know her like I do. That one is determined to be a Dageian dog. She would rather eat the scraps under their table than dine with the best of us. Blocking one of her classmates wouldn’t send a message to Tar’elian at all. I didn’t block her all the way, but—”

“What are you babbling about?” Mistress Rasiad asks.

Nasuha swallows. “The girl. Rosha Tar’elian—”

“Is still in Eheldeth, barely, after an incident involving her classmate, Felan Cartos,” Rasiad says. She turns her head to the side slightly. “Lord Cato tan-Tarsius’s son.”

Nasuha wipes sweat from her brow. “You named him as the target. Did I do wrong, Mistress?”

Rasiad makes a sweeping gesture with her left hand. “My only regret is not seeing Lord Cato’s face when they told him his son can no longer cast magic. He’s not saying anything, of course. All he did was pull his son out of Eheldeth for his health. But oh, we all know what really happened, and life seems so much sweeter for it.” She draws a deep breath before giving a burst of laughter.

“I don’t understand, Mistress,” Nasuha says.

Rasiad shrugs. “Old wounds. Lord Cato was a classmate of mine in Eheldeth. A friend, for a time.” She gives that hmm again, more pensively, her long fingers tapping the edge of the windowsill thoughtlessly. “There were six of us. Quite a group, all students with different skills and abilities. We had big dreams. We thought we could change the world. And we were right, in many ways—but not how we thought it would be.”

She leans back against the wall, waiting. Daring Nasuha to ask her how, exactly. But Nasuha’s mind is on something else. A spark of memory makes Nasuha speak before she realizes what she is doing. “Lord Cato was a member of the Fabled Six incident of Eheldeth,” Nasuha says. “When six students caught a dragon and brought it to school grounds to test their spells on, with disastrous consequences. Security tightened in Eheldeth after that.” She stops and stares at Rasiad. “You were one of these students.”

“Six students. Three died. Two others were injured. One was removed from the school.” Rasiad tugs at her dress, letting her bare leg show through the slit. There is a long gash running from her ankle up to her knee. The rest of her leg is twisted unnaturally, as if it had been put together after breaking. No wonder Nasuha has never seen her run or walk without a cane. “Although the incident was his idea in the first place, that most of us attempted to dissuade him and were threatened for it, Cato showed no remorse. He blamed the rest of us. For getting ourselves injured, for dying. And he went on to be hailed as a hero for pretending like he tried to save us. When he graduated, both the mage council and the merchant guild threw bribes left and right to get him to join them. He eventually served one and then the other—a rare honour, to be sure. The rest of us were forgotten—as good as garbage, as far as Eheldeth was concerned.”

“I’m sorry, mistress,” Nasuha says, though she isn’t entirely sure what she is apologizing for.

“You did good,” Rasiad replies, in the sort of voice that makes Nasuha suddenly understand that she doesn’t know what happened to Tar’elian. She isn’t angry—she isn’t even alarmed. Rich Girl didn’t say she was attacked. Rich Girl has not spoken about the attacker at all, because if she had, then this Lord Cato would certainly be on her tail already. Maybe Rich Girl blocked Nasuha’s spell, or recover from it. If Nasuha shuts her mouth, then no one ever has to know.

Rasiad claps her hands together. “You shouldn’t have taken so long in getting back,” she continues. “I was just about to show you something amazing.” She walks to the closet and tugs it open, beholding the cloaked figure of a man.

Nasuha’s hand flies to her sword belt. “Who—” she begins, before she notices the man isn’t moving. It isn’t even alive. But it looks alive. It stands there motionless, mouth slightly agape.

“Not who,” Rasiad says. “What.” She walks over to the figure and takes its hand.

The man steps out of the closet. Its features are vaguely familiar—Nasuha can’t quite put a finger on it, but she knows she has seen him before. “Is it a doll?” she asks. It is a safer question than what she really has in mind—that perhaps Rasiad has been so lonely since her husband’s death and Count Tar’elian’s abrupt departure from her life that she has taken to alternative means of companionship. She isn’t quite sure she wants to know the answer, anyway.

Rasiad pulls out a dagger and stabs the thing in the arm. It doesn’t flinch, but a slight trickle of blood drips down its elbow and onto the carpet below.

Nasuha holds her breath. “It’s…”

“Alive enough,” Rasiad says. “A soulless body, if you will—one that takes nourishment and instruction from its handler.” She places a hand on its shoulder. The body turns around, revealing a blood-soaked glyph on its neck. It glows when Rasiad gets close to it.

Nasuha immediately catches onto the connection. “It’s a puppet. You can put your consciousness into it and make it move as if it were alive.”

“You always were smarter than you looked. Can you believe Somya thought I’d brought it in to replace Tar’elian?”

Nasuha tries to stop herself from smirking. “What do we need it for?”

“He doesn’t look familiar to you?”

Nasuha hesitates before shaking her head.

“Age him a few more years, dress him in elegant robes, sit a crown on his head…” She steps back and makes an elaborate bow.

Something snaps inside Nasuha’s mind. “The emperor of Dageis,” she gasps.

“Or would be, in a few more decades,” Rasiad says. “The mystery of our ageless, immortal emperor, revealed at last. This is why the man never dies. He was never alive to begin with.”

Nasuha tries to grasp for words. “How did you come across it?” she finally manages.

“I have my ways,” Rasiad replies. “I’ve been trying to find weaknesses in the empire all these years, and I’m now closer than ever. Unfortunately, as you can see, this thing is a dud. It is one of many that they grow. Only one is allowed to reach the ripe old age of close to death, and that then becomes the true emperor, to be replaced only when it finally rots away into nothingness. Targus here is a mere spare.”

She says the name with affectation, which doesn’t surprise Nasuha. She names almost everything. Her horses, her sword, her carriages, even her cane. “What will you use him for, then?” she asks.

“To assist us in finding out where the true emperor is hiding, and who is using him,” Rasiad says. “Control of the emperor isn’t everything in Dageis—not with the mage council, the merchant guild, and the entire hegemony controlling the grand scheme of things. But you can admit it will help our cause quite a bit.”

“You want us to find the true emperor and then…control him.” It sounds even worse said aloud than just inside of her head.

“Yes,” Rasiad says, unaware of Nasuha’s growing discomfort. “When I control the emperor, I won’t need the support of anyone else. Certainly not weak merchants like Count Tar’elian. We can proceed with our plans to subdue the empire’s mages, Nasuha, even when there’s only a few of us. We’ll show the rest exactly what a dedicated few is capable of.”

Nasuha swallows. It is not in her to correct Rasiad. She has already dodged an arrow—she has no desire to come running back to the shooting field.

Someone knocks on the door. Expecting Somya, Nasuha is surprised to see Rasiad’s housekeeper appear, her face deathly pale. “Mistress…” she begins, her voice weak.

“What’s the matter?” Rasiad asks.

“It’s Mistress Somya,” the housekeeper stammers.

“Is her ship delayed? Or did she purposely oversleep and miss her flight? I swear, these unnecessary trips to Pon Massei has been nothing but an inconvenience. She’s going to stop having to prioritize her friends over every little thing. Tell her—”

“The airship she was on,” the housekeeper continues. “It fell into the sea. They say there’s no survivors.”

Rasiad’s face grows pale. Nasuha has never seen someone die without losing their life before.

The rest of the conversation fades in the background. Nasuha walks to the window as her mistress grapples with the knowledge that her daughter is gone and thinks back to her own mother, all the way in Gorent, and how she lived with it. A puzzle for the ages.

ACT TWO

CHAPTER 13

ROSHA

I can’t sleep when I am in the emperor’s body, but I found within the day that there was only so much concept of time my soul could take. Without a body going through the motions necessary to sustain life, I began losing grip of reality hours after Ivasus left me on the ground for Enosh to find. I dipped in and out of hallucinations, which felt increasingly real even as they grew more bizarre. The worst thing was when the hallucinations mixed with memory. I walked down in those ruins again, with Felan as a boy ahead. I found my own shade standing nearby, screaming for me to stop and turn around. Turn around. There’s an enemy behind you. It’s—

The figure drifted out from the mist, a lithe, well-muscled warrior in a hood. Everything about them was drenched in shadow, but looking back, I thought I saw the gleam of golden earrings. I thought I saw someone staring back at down with me with pride and hate, like an enemy you’ve killed rising out of the abyss. I certainly remembered the blue in their hands when they grabbed me. Blue, and red, blood that tinged the room with the smell of iron. I realized, for the first time, that the spell that took my magic away was blood magic. More than that: it was the very same spell High King Elian created to protect us from the Dageians.

As soon as my consciousness stumbled on the realization, it was suddenly so clear. The seal they wrote on my forehead in blood. The way my veins tightened as they seemingly sucked the magic out of me. A soul drenched from the moment it was born, writhing as it shriveled. It’s not gone. It’s just blocked. I’m still a mage. I’m not broken. The magic’s still there!

I shot up, screaming. Enosh was standing at the foot of my bed, a cup of steaming tea pressed against his chest. His face twitched, which always happened whenever he was trying to suppress a wave of emotion.

“About time you joined the land of the living,” he said wryly.

“Ivasus,” I gasped. “Where’s the bastard?”

He took a long sip of tea before he cleared his throat. “He’s gone. I didn’t think it was wise to chase him. It was more important to get this body, and you, to safety.”

“He used a spell. He used blood magic to block my path. I can’t return to my body at all.”

“Ceres figured,” Enosh said. “You should have returned by yourself as soon as the emperor lost consciousness, but you didn’t. Your body and the others are still in Ivasus’s mansion.” He glanced away, as if the admonition alone caused him pain.

I reached out to grab his arm. “You left them? All of them? Papa and Felan?”

“The choice wasn’t up to me,” he said.

“How can you even be so calm about this? Who knows what Ivasus will do to them!”

Enosh stared back at me carefully. He took another sip of tea, even with my fingers digging into his skin. He seemed unperturbed. By now, he was used to my outbursts. Or maybe it had ceased to affect him now that I was no longer eight years old. “No doubt he has something foul up his sleeve.”

“And you’re not going to do anything about it?” I gasped.

He was quiet for a moment. “Ceres thinks we shouldn’t,” he finally said. “She believes that it’s exactly what Ivasus is expecting from us. We can’t rush into things. We could end up making the situation much worse than it is.”

“You’re both idiots.”

“Nothing happens without this body,” Enosh said, indicating the emperor. “He knows it. He won’t hurt you, and he certainly won’t hurt the others unless it serves his purpose.”

“Not all of them,” I countered. “He could hurt one, to make a point.”

Enosh mechanically took another sip of tea.

I struggled against the inclination to knock it out of his hand. “You could at least care more,” I snapped. “Your own brother’s in danger. I can’t imagine you’d willingly put him in harm’s way, unless—”

Enosh shrugged away. “Don’t start.”

“You want him gone, don’t you? You want him dead!”

“This is an old argument, Rosha,” Enosh said. “I advise you leave it in the past where it belongs. If you honestly think I want to see my own brother dead so I can take his place with your mother and their many sons, you’re out of your mind. Why on earth would I want that responsibility? Have you seen those boys? You know I value my sanity. You’re more than enough, thank you.” He tugged at his sleeves as the door opened.

Ceres walked in unceremoniously. Her clothes looked slept in, and even her hair was in disarray—a rare look for her. She was normally so put-together. “You’re finally awake.” She grabbed the tea from Enosh’s hand and downed it in one gulp. “Care to enlighten us on the order of events so far?”

“I don’t know why you’re asking me. Ivasus should have returned to his mansion already.”

“He didn’t,” Ceres said. “When Enosh sent word on what happened to you, he wasn’t home. But when I tried to return to check up on your body, his guards refused entry. I intend to launch an investigation soon, but I’m waiting to gather enough evidence. The last thing I need is the mage council deciding I’m using my position for personal reasons.”

I glanced at Enosh before I burst out laughing. I could hardly believe my ears. “You realize if my body dies, this whole thing is over.”

Ceres looked nonplussed. “Of course. But I have reason to believe your body is safe at the moment. Ivasus doesn’t want you harmed.”

“We don’t know what will happen the longer I’m out of it,” I said. “And with this damn block in the way, I’ve lost sense of how it’s doing. I feel lost, Ceres, like a ship with no anchor. I’m floating in the middle of nowhere. It’s nothing like I’ve ever felt before, and I just want it to stop. Please, make it stop.”

She placed a hand on my forehead. “Calm down.”

I bristled. “Do something. You’re the head of the mage council. Perhaps you should use your position for personal gain. You’re too concerned with propriety. Have that man arrested. He prepositioned a young woman, Firekeeper! Used her interest in him so he could experiment with blood magic! Have him tossed out of the mage council! Isn’t your organization supposed to keep mages in check?”

Ceres hesitated. She crossed to the end of the room, where she placed the cup down on the windowsill. Eventually, she sighed. “Believe it or not, none of those constitutes grounds for removal from the council—especially if she gave her consent.”

“Because the people involved are Gorenten,” I said. “Experimenting on Dageian citizens would at least warrant a suspension.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to. I know how things run in the blasted empire and I especially know how your mind works.”

Ceres glanced at Enosh, who held his hands up. “I’m not picking sides,” Enosh said. “But her concern isn’t unfounded. The longer she stays away from her body, the more dire the possible consequences. I’d start with the spell block. Is there anyway to undo it?”

Ceres gestured at me. “I need your permission, Rosha.”

“Like you need it.”

“I do. I want to do this the right way. Stop being so stubborn.”

I sighed and gave a small nod. She took my hand and looked into my eyes. I felt her presence immediately slide through mine like a well-sharpened knife. Ceres didn’t become Firekeeper for no reason; she was an excellent mage, one of the best in the empire. Her consciousness remained whole, even as she propelled her spirit along the agan-channels to get into me. The invasion was one-sided, too, a mark of a skilled mage—protecting yourself while forcing the enemy to submit to you is trickier than it sounds.

Eventually, it was over. It felt like only seconds had passed, but perhaps it was a lot longer than that, because the sun was sinking on the horizon and Enosh had gone and changed clothes in the meantime. “Are you both back?” he asked. He looked both bored and amused, an expression he had mastered. The staff in our store in Triassa hated him for it.

Ceres frowned. “Ivasus did a thorough job.”

“What do you mean?”

Ceres hesitated. “Do magic, Rosha. A ball of fire. A shield. Anything.”

I remembered last night. Drawing on both my blood and Felan’s had made it easy to do both, even inside the simulacrum’s body. But it had been hours since then, and not a single trace of the connection remained.

“You should be able to,” she continued. “It’s not advised, but I can hardly see the harm in a small demonstration.”

Licking my lips, I decided to indulge her. I lifted one hand and attempted the smallest spark. The thought alone seemed to suck the energy out of me. I felt the simulacrum shake. Ceres immediately grabbed my arm. “He’s used blood magic to block every channel that connects you back to your body, and more besides,” she said. “I believe he’s made it impossible for you to cast magic, too. There are seals everywhere.”

He didn’t do that, I almost blurted out loud. I forced myself to keep my mouth shut. I was learning to play Ceres’s game. If she thought Ivasus was responsible for all of this, then I needn’t have to hide my difficulties. She would blame him, and perhaps she could even help remove every spell block—even the ones he didn’t cause. The thought was dizzying.

“Get rid of them,” I said quickly. “If you can see the seals, you can undo them, can’t you?”

Ceres grimaced. “These kinds of spells can only be undone by the mage who cast them.”

How quickly she could drag me back to the ground. I knew what she really meant by now—she wasn’t even going to try. “So that’s it?” I asked. “We’re to be outdone by that ambitious bastard?”

Ceres sighed. “I didn’t say that. But it proves my initial suspicions. I can hardly have your uncle, Felan, and your unconscious body dragged out of there all while accusing him of inappropriate use of magic without stirring his ire. We need him to think we’re cooperating. Once he removes the seal and I have proof, I can drag him to the mage council to pay for his crimes. But not until then. I need proof.”

“I don’t know how long that will take,” I said.

“Patience,” Ceres replied. “As always, Rosha. You need patience. We’ll get there in time.”

It was easy for her to say; she wasn’t the one stuck in the equivalent of sitting inside a vast house with no furniture. I spent the rest of the afternoon pacing, unaware of time or the movement of others around me. It reminded me of when I was engrossed in my studies or a particularly important piece of reading—everything faded in the background like a muted symphony. The body didn’t grow hungry, so even the familiar call of dinnertime didn’t snap me back to reality like it normally would.

Enosh found me practically digging furrows into the floor with my feet later that night. “I thought you might appreciate a bit of exercise,” he said, throwing a sheathed sword in my direction. It struck me in the elbow before falling to my feet.

I glared at him. “What do you mean?”

“Ceres is asleep, and—”

“At this hour? It’s way too early.”

He scratched his jaw. “Do you really want to know?”

I realized what he was getting at and grimaced. “No. No, please. Forget I said anything. Exercise. Right.” I picked up the sword and buckled it. The sword hung on my left hip. Enosh stared at me with disgust for a moment before unstrapping it and fixing it so it hung at my right.

He thumbed his nose as he drew back. “Good. The woman is a deep sleeper. We might actually get away with this before she realizes what we’re up to.”

“Which is…?”

“Why, breaking into Lord Ivasus’s mansion, of course.” He grinned, looking way too pleased with himself. It was the sort of thing that didn’t bode well. But I was bored out of my mind. If he’d told me we were going to the pond to throw rocks at frogs, I would have agreed.

We made our way out of the flat and into the street. It was empty, a far cry from the streets in Drugsaya or even Triassa, which remained chaotic well into the early hours of the morning. Lon Basden was rural compared to those places, and nothing but a stray dog crossed our path. “I take it this isn’t the first time you’ve stolen away from a woman you’ve bedded in order to partake in criminal activities,” I said.

Enosh sniffed. “After the years you spent as an outlaw mage, you’d think you’d be kinder about throwing words like criminal around.”

“I’m not kind,” I said. “You raised me better than that.”

I meant it as a joke, but something about that seemed to upset him. He was quiet until we reached Ivasus’s mansion. The streets remained empty, and one glance at the gates told me there weren’t guards out there, too. “That’s strange,” Enosh said, his voice changing. “You’d think they would post more people, considering.”

“He’s a smart man,” I replied. “I believe he’s made a move well before any of us could.”

We stood in front of the gates, which were wide open.

Enosh took a deep breath. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “You’re probably right.”

“Probably?”

“I’ll hold judgment till later.” We strode through the gates, down the path. Enosh hesitated for a second before drawing his sword.

I laughed. “Like you can actually use that.”

“Says the woman who can’t fight with a sword to save her life.”

“I enjoy having smooth hands. Calluses rub at a pen.”

He waved the sword haphazardly around—giving me absolutely no confidence that he’d be able to defend us if any of Ivasus’s guards showed up—before slamming a spell against the front doors. “You’re no good as a thief, either,” I said. “We should have gone through the back.”

“They’ll be expecting that.”

“Because they think we’re smart. Now, are we going to prove them wrong?”

“I’ve already opened the damned door, girl.”

“That is the oddest thing to tell a moldy old man such as myself.”

He rolled his eyes as he kicked the door open. I braced myself, expecting a counter-spell of some sort. Breaking into a mage’s house was ill-advised at the best of times. Smashing right into a member of the council’s abode? We would be lucky not to be obliterated on sight.

And yet luck seemed to be on our side. The door swung open, and there was nothing. Enosh glanced back in disbelief, his eyebrows quirking upward. I gave a nervous laugh. He returned to the open doorway before throwing the sword through. It clattered as it bounced off the marble floor.

“Great,” I said, after a moment of silence. “That’ll scare them.”

He smirked. “I hope you’re right.”

“You just threw away the one weapon we have. You really don’t know how swords work.”

“May I remind you there’s still one strapped to your waist,” he replied.

I gestured at my belt. “Do you want to throw it away, too?”

“Perhaps when the guards finally show up.”

He glanced around again before taking a deep breath. Gesturing at me to step back, he crossed the threshold, half-cringing. A part of me wondered if I should stop him; another part of me was mildly curious as to how he would react to exploding to bits.

Nothing happened. He lifted his hands, testing the air with a neutralizing spell. “It’s deserted,” he said at last. “Come.” He strode to his sword, picked it up from the floor, and returned it to his waist. I followed him into the great hall. The candles on the chandeliers weren’t lit, strange for a rich man’s house. Normally, he’d have servants to keep the hallways bright at all hours. God forbid the lord stub his toe on the staircase while he grabs a drink.

We went up the staircase, to the guest’s quarters. The hope of just walking right to where my body was dissipated. This was deliberate, not an oversight. Enosh started opening doors, grumbling under his breath with every push. “He found time to empty his home in a few hours,” he said. “Took all the valuables, too.”

“Ceres can look into this.”

“No doubt she’ll say something to the tune of it’s not illegal to sell your house in the middle of the night.”

I crossed my arms. “Why do you sleep with her again?”

“Because you don’t have to agree with someone to sleep with them?” He coughed. “Sometimes I wonder if you’re angry at her because you think your mother and I should have a chance.”

“I’m angry because you ruined the only family I’ve ever known for nothing,” I said. “You couldn’t have my mother, but sure, you still want her to carry your name. You still want to say she’s your wife. You still want to say I’m your daughter.”

“But you are.”

“It’s…” I sighed. “Never mind.” We reached the door where my body had been resting. I wasn’t surprised when we opened it and beheld nothing but an empty room, including a bed stripped of its mattress. “Figures,” I said, pointing. “I believe Lord Ivasus has vacated the place, along with my body. And if Ceres is going to let this slide under the guise of maintaining the peace in the council or whatever excuse she comes up with next, then I don’t know. If she had marched here with guards hours ago, she might have caught him red-handed. Now, who knows where they are? Felan, Kefier, and my body.” I took a deep breath. “Her inaction may cost us our lives.”

“I’ll talk to her,” Enosh said.

“I thought you already tried doing that.”

“I’ll try harder. Rosha—” He spun around to face me, and perhaps it was the emperor’s face staring back at him, but he suddenly drew a soft sigh. “We’ll get to the bottom of this,” he grumbled. He hesitated before gently patting my shoulder twice.

“You never were good at the fatherly comfort,” I said. “This isn’t the time to start.”

We heard banging. It was coming from the next room. The hair on my arms prickled. I didn’t even know the emperor had them.

“Got your sword ready?” I asked.

“I don’t need it,” Enosh said recklessly. “I have magic, remember?”

We returned to the hallway.

CHAPTER 14

ROSHA

Felan was tied up in one corner of the room, bleeding from one side of the face. He looked dazed, as if the last reserves of his energy had been spent kicking the desk by his feet straight into the wall. A pointless act, if there’d been no one around to hear it, and yet it must have kept him calm to have something to focus on. Even when we walked in, he continued; I got the sense he’d been doing it all night.

I grabbed him by the shoulders, hauling him to the middle of the room. I flipped him to his side. He coughed. I turned to the rope around his wrists. They were bound behind his back, so tightly the rope was digging into his skin and his fingers were turning purple. I didn’t know how to cut them off without injuring him, too. Whoever tied it had no intention of ever releasing him again.

“Let me see,” Enosh said. He pushed Felan’s arms back into his body. Felan gave a small groan. “This will hurt, boy. Bear with me.” He drew a dagger from his belt and began flicking the tip across the rope, scoring the fibres with every strike. Eventually, the rope weakened, and the tension did the rest. The rope unraveled and Felan dropped his arms to the side with a groan. Blood ran down his wrists.

We flipped him to his back. He stared at the ceiling, his breathing shallow. I noticed the wounds he had gathered the night we did the blood-ritual were still bleeding—the rope must have prevented them from closing properly. “What happened?” I asked.

“He knows,” he said. Even his eyelashes were caked with blood. I bent down to wipe it away.

“He knows Rosha is behind the emperor?” Enosh asked.

“That she’s part of the group helping conceal his secret,” Felan said. “That we’re all in on it.”

“Well, that’s not surprising—we’ve left a trail anyone with half a brain could figure out. But why did he do this to you?”

Felan lifted his arms, showing his wounds. “I kept my mouth shut, but he drew conclusions from all the connections. He asked his guards to rip my bandages off and dip the wounds in vinegar.” He spoke almost calmly, creating a distance between his own pain and the words. The wounds, he said. Not his wounds.

Enosh stared at him. “Blood magic?”

Now Felan closed his mouth. He turned to me. I remembered last night, and heat enveloped even the simulacrum’s old bones. The blood transfer, the rush of energy, the kiss…

“Keeping myself in the body during Ivasus’s attack was too difficult,” I said. “Felan assisted me by offering his blood.”

“You did blood magic?” Enosh asked.

“I was under attack,” I reminded him. “I didn’t have much of a choice.”

“As if he didn’t have enough on us already,” Enosh said. He took a deep breath. “Wonderful.”

“Tell me what you really think,” I drawled.

His eyes flashed. “Don’t goad me, child.”

“Look at who you’re calling child.”

“I realize none of this is your fault,” he began. “But you could have been more careful. Toying with blood magic on such a night—what were you thinking? You could have just slid back into your body, just like we were planning all along. Don’t you trust me?”

“Figures you’d make this about you sooner or later. If you must know—I don’t. Anyway, I didn’t have time to think about it. He would have killed Gande.”

“Anyway, he doesn’t have proof,” Felan broke in, before the argument could get much further than that. “And even if he did, we know he will not bring it to the council. He’s made it all clear that he’s nobody’s man but his own—he wants this secret for personal gain. We can hold on to that. What does Firekeeper Ceres want us to do?”

“The bastard tried to leave you for dead,” I said. “The least you can do is stop acting like it doesn’t bother you.”

“It bothers me,” Felan said, ripping out his sleeve to wrap around his wounds with a grimace. “It bothers me because it means he won’t stop at anything to hurt you, too. Even as he was adamant that torturing me was his way of taking vengeance. He…he thought at first that I was the person behind the emperor. At least one of them. He’s convinced there are others, and he means to track them all down. He said he was going to start with Rosha’s—with your family.”

“He emptied his whole mansion for this?” I asked.

“It wouldn’t have been difficult. I believe this was merely a family vacation home, and it has been up for sale all year. All I know is he intends to go to Triassa, where your family is. He must have taken Kefier with him, too.”

“Does he have property there to hide Kefier and my body in?”

He shook his head. “He doesn’t. If he took an airship, it’s unlikely he brought them along—it’s hard to hide such things from the authorities, and even a member of the mage council would get some raised eyebrows if he dragged an unconscious woman and a prisoner on board. He wouldn’t hide you both in a hotel for the same reason.”

“Whenever that man does something, I get nervous,” I said. “I suppose he left you here to die to make a statement. He knows Ceres would have returned sometime in the morning. Stumbling on you in a pool of your own blood—” The imagery was suddenly too painful, and I stopped before I could show it on my face.

Felan slowly nodded. “In his eyes, we’re the traitors. It gives him confidence.”

“A fool’s confidence,” Enosh said. “If he’s going after our family, then he’s made it very personal. He doesn’t know what’s coming to him.” He made a fist and walked out of the room without even so much as a glance backwards. I helped Felan to his feet and out the hall.

“How are you?” he asked, once Enosh was far enough ahead of us not to hear.

“I’m fine,” I said, all too fast. The man’s voice turned into a squeak even before it left my throat.

“I stayed with you all night,” he said. “Before he arrived. Your eyes were flickering for a bit, and then they stopped. Normally, even when you’re inside the emperor, your body remains responsive. But after last night, it looked…nearly dead. I panicked and called for the doctor. You were breathing, but shallowly. Then Ivasus returned, and I learned while he was torturing me he’d spell-blocked your body.”

“He hasn’t made the connection that I’m the mage behind this?”

“He thinks I used you for blood magic,” he said. “That we were both in on it, but that you were being forced against your will. He seems to believe you’re nothing but a helpless maiden for him to rescue, and I was happy to leave him to his notions. Who knows how he’ll act if he learns you’re the only mage capable of controlling the emperor?”

“Not the only one,” I reminded him. “If I die, the simulacrum is open for a new puppetmaster.”

He craned his head towards me. “Don’t ever let him know. He pretends to be concerned about you, but I feel the moment he finds out, he’ll smother you with a pillow.”

“I have no doubt he will,” I said, feeling the bile rise to my throat.

A figure was waiting for us out on the street as soon as we left the gates. Enosh went ahead, his sword drawn before I could utter a word of warning. “Who’s there?” he called. The moonlight was nearly as bright as morning’s light, and I could see his coat rippling slightly with the breeze.

A woman stepped out from under the shadows. I felt a spasm of panic, which seemed to be an overreaction on my part as the clouds shifted, letting the moonlight reveal a scarred face I hadn’t seen for months. Caution gave way to relief. It was Nasuha.

“I’ve had a hell of a time tracking you all,” she said as she stared down at all of us. Her eyes settled on Felan and his wounds. “Is this a bad time?”

“Probably,” I said under my breath. “It’s good to see you, Nasuha.”

She turned to the emperor. She’d seen him before, when we traveled on the boat to Genthal, but she never really questioned his presence then. It seemed like she recognized my voice from inside his own. “You—”

“It’s me, Rosha.”

The softest of smiles touched her lips. “You don’t say. You’ve looked better.” She chortled at her own joke. “So much easier on the eyes the last time I saw you.”

“It would take too long to explain.”

“I bet.” She smirked as she glanced at everyone else. “Do you need help?”

I coughed. “It would be appreciated. This…this body is giving in to exhaustion. It shouldn’t tire, and yet it does. And the longer I’m away from my real body, the worse the feeling gets.”

She was silent for a second. “You all really have some explaining to do,” she finally said. “But let me guess—the Firekeeper has you doing whatever this is under her behest, and you can’t say no because you’re an outlaw mage and she has your proverbial balls in her clawed grip. I’d really love to know, though. Does that thing have balls?”

“Can’t say I’ve ever looked,” I said honestly.

“Do you trust her?” Enosh broke in. “I know you’ve assisted us before, Nasuha, but this is a delicate matter right here.”

“Ceres has my proverbial balls in hand, too, no thanks to your daughter here,” Nasuha said, glancing at her fingernails.

“She could have turned me over to the council months ago, when she found out I was an outlaw mage,” I added. “I trust her.”

Nasuha’s face flickered. She didn’t say anything as she bent over to take over helping Felan down the street. I’d spoken truthfully, in any case—as soon as his weight was off me, I found myself able to breathe easier. I tried to remind myself that the simulacrum didn’t need air to survive, but the habit was hard to get rid of.

“So how long has she had you doing this?” Nasuha asked. “I assume it’s why she called on you to serve her in the capital. Sounds like a dangerous arrangement, considering you’re on opposite sides of the proverbial ladder.”

“Ceres doesn’t look like it, but she enjoys taking the easy way out,” I said. “It will be more trouble to find a replacement for me. I’m attuned to this…thing.”

“I have, incidentally, done some reading on such things the last few months,” Nasuha said as we continued down the road.

I paused. “You?” I asked. “Why?”

She shrugged. “Why not?”

“You don’t strike me as the reading type.”

“So appearances can fool even someone as smart as you,” she said with a smile. She made a dismissive wave. “I knew that thing was fake when she loaded it on the boat with us back then. And Ceres never tried to hide the fact after you left us to chase after Lord Cato’s killer. I was curious.”

“So what did you find out?”

“There’s a fair amount of knowledge on transferring your consciousness to inorganic bodies over the years, if you look hard enough.”

“And where exactly have you been looking? This isn’t the kind of knowledge you just stumble upon in some random bookshop.”

She flicked her nose with a thumb. “Do you want me to tell you where I read this information, or do you want me to tell you what’s in the books? Because I’m not sure we have enough time to mince through it all—especially the boring bits. You know I have my ways of getting into places I shouldn’t.” She waggled her eyebrows up and down.

I glowered. “This body is organic, just not alive,” I reminded her.

“Inert, then. Lifeless bodies. Whatever you want to call them.” She coughed. “Some mages have used it to preserve their consciousness beyond life. It’s impossible. A soul needs to be tied to a living, breathing body. I’m guessing your desire to breathe, your predisposition to exhaustion—as if you were still attached to the frail muscles of your birth-body—means you’re still connected to it somehow.”

“This man, a mage from the council, blocked me from returning to my body.”

“Blocked doesn’t mean the access has been cut. You’re still connected to it. But forgetting all those little things that nourish your body, even if you can’t feel it, may very well be fatal. This one may not need to breathe, but the other does. If you forget…you die.”

Felan muttered something under his breath.

“Explain this other mage,” Nasuha continued.

“He was a boy from school,” I said. “Not a friend.”

“You didn’t really have any,” Felan interjected.

I stared at him. “I’m sorry—did you want us to leave you to bleed out on the street?”

He gave a sheepish sigh. “I was just…”

“Being factual, yes. He’s right, I suppose. I didn’t have any friends, and even if I did, Ivasus was most certainly not one of those.”

“You never did explain what he was,” Felan said. “Why he’s so interested in you. When he saw us in that restaurant, he crossed the street just so he could say hi. From what I remember of the man, he’s not exactly the friendly sort. If anything, he was the kind of boy who would pretend he didn’t know you just so he could lord it over you—which he’s done to me once or twice.”

“He did that in the restaurant, too.”

“Yes, he did. I gave him the courtesy of agreeing. We had talked in the past—plenty of times. He used to copy my notes, and my homework, too.” He gave a small shrug, as if such a thing was nothing to him. And yet Ivasus had left him to bleed to death. “You never told me about you and him, though.”

I didn’t think this was the sort of thing Felan paid attention to or cared to know about. “You…you never asked,” I managed.

He took a deep breath. “I’m asking now.”

I glanced behind us. Enosh was purposely letting us walk ahead. Perhaps the company of so many young people at once made him feel his age a bit too much. “We were lovers,” I blurted out. There was no easy way to skirt around the fact.

“Damn,” Nasuha said.

Felan remained silent.

“Though lovers is too strong of a word for what we had,” I quickly amended. “I didn’t love him, and he didn’t love me.”

“So you just messed around with each other,” Nasuha said.

I lifted an eyebrow. “That’s worse.”

“You’re not denying it.”

“I…needed him to get access to the inner archives in the library,” I said. “And that was the easiest way, so—”

“I reserve no judgment,” Nasuha replied. “Smart of you to use what you have, to be honest.”

Felan didn’t seem to think that way. He was still quiet.

Ceres was pacing the street outside her rented flat when we returned. She walked right past us and went straight for Enosh. “You could have left a note,” she snapped.

“Which would have given you more time to stop us, my lady,” he said, in that detached courtesy he loved to use on women when he wanted them off his back. He gestured at Felan, who was still struggling to stand on his own. “He tried to kill the boy. Who knows what would have happened if we got there too late?”

“He was sending you a warning,” I said. “If we had found his dead body, it would have been stronger.”

“If he thinks he can frighten the Firekeeper, he’s got another thing coming,” Ceres said. “Take Felan upstairs. I need to make arrangements. Enosh, come with me.”

“My lady,” he said with a brief nod.

“I hope these arrangements include Ivasus’s arrest,” I called.

She ignored me as she walked away.

I didn’t bother trying to chase Ceres down. It was more important to tend to Felan’s wounds, the sight of which was likely to make her question them, anyway. Enosh likely wouldn’t broach the subject of blood magic to her, and I would rather delay the discovery, even as it seemed inevitable. I took him to one of the bedrooms while Nasuha raided the cabinets for bandages and slowly guided him to the mattress. He seemed to have difficulty keeping his head up, and when I slid a pillow under his neck, he nearly fell off. The blood had caked into his hair.

I carefully touched it. He grimaced.

“You and him,” he finally grumbled, giving voice to what had been on his mind this whole time. “How long ago was that?”

“A few weeks after you disappeared, over the winter break.”

“You ended it? Or did he?”

“It just ended,” I said. “I told you. We weren’t close.”

“And yet he acts like an obsessed, forlorn lover around your body. Like he…owns it.” Felan shut his eyes briefly. “Perhaps my concern is unfounded. Perhaps he’ll act like a gentleman when he’s alone with you, and this worry is all for nothing. And yet…” He drew another quick breath, and he turned to me, as if he wanted to take my hand from across the bed.

“No, I understand,” I said.

“Ceres’s hesitation puts you in danger. Even if he doesn’t kill you, he can harm you in so many other ways.” He looked into my eyes. Even the old man’s visage I wore didn’t seem to deter him. Looking at his expression, you would have been fooled into thinking he was still looking at me, at my face. For a person who’d been hiding in plain sight for years, it felt both disconcerting and exhilarating to be seen at last. “I apologize for bringing it up like this, but—”

“I know. There’s nothing we can do, though. At this moment, patching up your wounds is our first priority.”

Nasuha cleared her throat. “Blood magic,” she began, appearing with a roll of bandages by the doorway. She tossed it in my direction. I reached out to catch it and frowned as it slipped and fell to my feet. “You think you two would know better than to engage in such indiscretions under the empire’s nose. But then again, what do I know? I’m a mere mercenary.”

“You’re a Lost One,” I said.

She smiled. “Your memory is a blight, you know?”

I picked up the bandages. She handed me a jar of salve, which I generously applied to Felan’s wounds. “The very name indicates rebellion against the empire, doesn’t it? You don’t get to lecture us when you’re hiding something yourself.” I stared right at her. “You told me you would explain in time. Well—this is as good a time as any.”

She gave a grim smile. “Perhaps you’re right.” She crossed her arms. “We’re trying to revive the High King’s legacy. The Lost Ones were once tasked with protecting the Gorenten people from the Empire of Dageis, and our goal is to be that to our people once more.”

“That’s why you said I was yours, not the empire’s.” I pulled Felan’s arm into my lap and began wrapping it in bandages. “You said that when I was under attack by Bearer Lontas.”

“These Dageians come in and think they can use people like pieces in a game. Look at what the Firekeeper has done to you. Forcing you to risk yourself for very little reward, doing absolutely nothing to protect you when all is said and done...if you were among our kind, you would be so much more than this. If you were with us, you would be an outlaw with power.”

“You say we,” Felan broke in, his voice very nearly a gasp. “There are others like you, then?”

“Yes,” Nasuha said. “And if you promise to join us, I can tell you even more. You understand the secrecy, otherwise. You’re both working for the Firekeeper. We do not consider her an enemy, but she is a very real complication. Find a way to break away from her first.”

“How am I going to do that?” I asked.

“Your problem, Rosha,” she said. “I’m not the one that got you into this mess.”

CHAPTER 15

NASUHA

They had been insufferable as children. Watching both Felan and Rosha converse filled Nasuha with a sense of lingering guilt over what her actions had caused them, and she excused herself almost as soon as Felan was all bandaged up. She walked out of the flat and found a moment to breathe under the staircase. Keeping calm and collected in front of them was a lot harder than she thought it would be.

She would be lying if she said she hadn’t gotten an ounce of satisfaction from blocking the channels to their magic. They were both spoiled, arrogant children, too focused on the games Eheldeth had them playing against each other instead of learning about the wider world and their role in it. Genthal, Gorent…they were all the same, places and people ruined by the Dageians’ quest for domination, and both of them could at least have tried to learn more about their people and their history. Mistress Rasiad was right—if let unchecked, these children would grow up to be servants of Dageis. What if Rosha had graduated without issue? What if Felan were part of the mage council now? Nasuha wouldn’t have gotten this far with those two in the way.

Of course, she might have gotten further if she’d taken care of them way back then. If she had been more careful, Rosha would have never discovered the damn simulacrum in the first place, and she would be the one controlling it. Rasiad’s orders were always so simple, and the one that brought her here had been simpler than most. Find Lord Cato. Kill him. Assume control of the emperor, and let the Lost Ones rise again.

Rosha’s words—I trust her—made her feel like shit. She was happy to hate her all those long years ago, when they thought she was a lost cause. Her father continued to refuse to support Mistress Rasiad. no matter that he owed her his own fortune. Nasuha’s warning hadn’t been enough; the girl managed to crawl her way to her last year in Eheldeth before disappearing into thin air, taking along Mistress Rasiad’s hopes for the future. With Somya’s passing, Rasiad was forced to move on and rely on Nasuha in ways she couldn’t quite bring herself to before. Many of the agan-connected Gorenten they had found over the years weren’t half as strong as they needed to be.

And it would have all worked out, if Lord Cato hadn’t launched an investigation into Rosha Tar’elian herself. Nasuha herself didn’t know what triggered it—the man seemed happy to leave the girl who nearly got his son killed alone all those years. But a certain Lord Vazon had requested he look into it, possibly because it occurred to them that Rosha had faced the same attacker Felan did and yet somehow retained the ability to cast spells. Nasuha, of course, knew the answer: she blocked Felan completely while she left Rosha just enough magic to make her think. To make her suffer.

Her oversight did the trick and brought them all together under that one roof. And now she was going to have to confront the fact that she’d brought suffering to children who didn’t know any better, all because they’d gone and unwittingly gotten themselves tangled in her business. Now, there was no way to move forward without Rosha. If she died now, Ceres would take over the emperor, putting them back exactly where they started.

She heard footsteps. Rosha’s father appeared at the bottom of the staircase. He grunted in surprise at the sight of her. She often wondered why he didn’t recognize her from Rasiad’s household. Perhaps she’d blended in too well, and she’d been a girl and much too thin those days. Maybe he did recognize her, and just didn’t want to talk about it. He was difficult to read.

“What’s the Firekeeper’s decision?” Nasuha asked.

“She’s going to find mages from the council inclined to be sympathetic to our cause and seek their assistance without outright telling them what’s going on,” Enosh said. He grimaced in distaste. “She is frustratingly obtuse about matters like these. She wants to skirt around a glaring problem and thinks we all have time to wait for things to sort themselves out. In the meantime, Ivasus is free to make as many more steps ahead of us as he can take, and we know he will.”

“Ready to take things in your own hands?”

“I’m already committed to it,” he said, with a boyish grin.

“Let me assist,” Nasuha replied. “I’ll be a lot more helpful than your daughter will be at a time like this. She can’t be seen walking around in that body.”

“I was hoping for Lord Cartos’s assistance, actually,” Enosh said.

Nasuha flicked her nose with her thumb. “Which means you intend to infiltrate Dageian high society somehow. As if I’m not an expert on that.”

He wrinkled his nose. “No offense, but are you?”

“I know I don’t look the part, but I have my ways. Tell me what you have in mind first.”

He hesitated, as if he was trying to size her up in as short amount of time as possible. This man, Nasuha figured, wasn’t used to making decisions on the fly. He wanted to sit with his options and draw them out as long as was humanely possible. He detested trusting people, too, and she was probably at the bottom of the list, whether he recognized her or not. Nasuha couldn’t blame him. Given what she’d done to her daughter, it was smart of him not to trust her at all.

He took a deep breath. “I know someone else on the council. A young woman, as it happens who lives in Triassa. It would be…completely inappropriate for me to show up unannounced in her abode, given my reputation.”

Nasuha raised an eyebrow. “I wasn’t aware you had a reputation.”

“One cultivates one, depending on the choices one has made in his youth,” Enosh began.

“A roundabout way of saying you don’t want her to see you as a lecherous old man.”

He bristled. “I’m not old.”

“Oh, I agree there, but I admire the self-awareness that has you concluding she might see you as one.”

“In any case, I don’t want to suddenly start asking her for favours,” he said. “Especially if she immediately traces it back to my daughter. Which she might. I want to tread lightly.”

“How are you acquainted with this woman, anyway?”

He coughed. “I knew her mother.”

“Knew? You mean—”

“Let’s just say the mother will not be happy to see me there. The daughter was always sympathetic, but may view my desire to talk to her with suspicion. That’s all I will say on the matter.”

Nasuha tugged at her collar, resisting the urge to ask the man how many illicit affairs he’d had throughout the continent in the last decade alone. “And of course, Firekeeper Ceres won’t like hearing any of this at all.”

“Of course not.”

“Were you hoping Felan can smooth this introduction?”

“They were all, I believe, classmates in Eheldeth for a time,” Enosh said. “Berinda was in the same year as both of them.”

“Your daughter was classmates with her and yet you still slept with her mother?”

Enosh cleared his throat. “I don’t recall giving you permission to judge me.”

She pressed her face close to his. “I don’t need your permission to do that.” She pulled away. “Look, I’ll make this easy on you. I’ll go with Felan, and she never needs to know you’re involved in any of this.”

“I don’t know if she’ll remember Lord Cartos,” Enosh said. “He has been gone a very long time.”

“That’ll make it all the better,” she replied. “He’s reconnecting with old friends after his father’s death. There’s never been a better time for a reunion.”

“I suppose.”

“What do you have in mind? How is she supposed to assist us?”

“You’ll have to give her a reason to launch an investigation on Lord Ivasus,” Enosh said.

Nasuha smiled at him. “I’m quite good at getting people in trouble, too. Leave it to me.”

Felan was well enough to depart for Triassa two days later, which wasn’t saying much. He needed a cane to walk—Ivasus’s guards had tried to crush his leg while bashing his head in—but the thought of finding a way to assist Rosha seemed to invigorate him. His eyes seemed bright, his cheeks flushed. Nasuha felt herself drawn to the clear joy on his expression, despite herself. She didn’t dare bring it up till they were both alone on an airship, heading back inland. “You’re madly in love with that woman,” she finally declared.

Felan looked back at her calmly, as if what she’d uttered was nothing but a fact, as obvious as the sun shining over the sky or the clouds drifting overhead. His shoulders gave a slight shrug. “I am,” he said.

“Why?” Nasuha continued.

He shrugged again before looking back across the railing.

She slumped down on the bench next to him. “She told me about your past. How you were both rivals and made each others’ lives miserable. Yet you’ve risked yourself for her. You’ve not only done illegal magic for her sake, but put yourself in harm’s way and made a very powerful enemy in the meantime. And then this—you agreed to it so fast I can tell you didn’t have time to think it through. Why? She doesn’t exactly strike me as the type who would reciprocate your—or anyone’s—affections.”

He cleared his throat. “It doesn’t bother me.”

“The hell it doesn’t. Look at me, Lord Cartos.”

Felan turned his head. “I’m not sure what you want to know,” he said, after a moment of silence. “I do care about her, despite everything. Our rivalry was a thing of the past. We’ve both grown since. In the meantime, both our concerns are similar: we just want to survive.”

Nasuha took a deep breath. “You don’t have magic.”

Felan’s eyes flickered. He remained calm, but she noticed him letting his arms fall to the side, as if he was suddenly conscious of his wounds. He cleared his throat.

“I mean, it’s not exactly a secret, is it? Why else would you, the venerated Lord Cato’s only son, drop out of Eheldeth so young?” Nasuha said, to his continued silence. “There must be a reason why you’re so willing to let her feed off you. Most mages would offer their own magic instead—only the desperate will go through the lengths you did. It requires a tremendous amount of sacrifice—and trust. She knows, too, doesn’t she? She knows you’re a dead mage walking. She knows drawing on another mage is dangerous. And yet…”

“She didn’t force me,” Felan said carefully.

“Ah. So you dangled it in front of her, and like a ravenous wolf, she couldn’t help herself.”

Felan didn’t reply immediately. Instead, he fixed her with a long stare before eventually settling back into his seat. “You know more about mages than I could have guessed.”

“A mercenary can’t pick up a few things?” she asked, almost innocently.

“Not in my experience,” Felan said. “Especially not soldiers from Gorenten who can’t see the agan themselves.”

“Everything interests me,” Nasuha replied. “You have to learn about how the world works to find your place in it, you know.”

“And yours is…?”

“In the bottom of the dungheap,” she continued. “Maybe it’s hard for the son of Lord Cato tan-Tarsius to understand. But when you’ve got nowhere to look but up, you want to shake those foundations a little. Makes you feel like dragging everyone else to your level, you know? Makes you want to make them feel your pain.”

Felan crossed his arms. “The Lost Ones have their work cut out for them. Dageis is a whole empire on at least half of the continent. How many of you are there now?”

She laughed. “Even if I wanted to tell you, I can’t! You can hardly expect a secret society to reveal itself to everyone it comes across.”

“You want Rosha to throw away everything she is accustomed to in defense of something she barely knows.”

“Yes. We’re her people. That’s all she needs to know.”

Felan shook his head. “It can’t be that simple.”

“All the luxuries and comforts she enjoys exist because of all that was robbed from her ancestors,” Nasuha said. “Yours, too, if I understand your own history correctly. Everything she is accustomed to is a lie, and frankly, this arrangement with Firekepeer Ceres is temporary at best. Why not fight for something of worth? A woman like that may seem sympathetic, but she will never understand what she’s asking from you. Body and soul is not enough for the hungry maw of Dageis.”

The airship drifted to the docking towers. Nasuha got up, patting her legs. “If you do love her, you’ll help her see the light.”

“She won’t listen to me,” Felan said dubiously. “As you said. Her affections…don’t work that way.”

“But she respects your knowledge and opinion, which may even be more important. Perhaps if you’re convinced, she’ll come around.” Nasuha smirked. “But first, you have to believe it, too. Are you ready to throw away your father’s inheritance? This gilded, if empty, life you lead? The mansions and parties are nice, but you know it’s not all there is. Those are nothing but distractions.” Without waiting for his response, she turned on her heel and jumped off the gangway. One of the crew yelled at her, which she ignored. Behind, she heard Felan slowly shuffling after her, still limping every step of the way. She knew she should help him, but a part of her wanted to see how the boy would keep up if he was in pain. He had every right to be angry with her, and he didn’t even know the half of it.

She watched him lean on his cane as he took his time down the steps in silence. He had been the first, come to think of it. When she cast Elian’s Heart on him, she had enough time to be thorough. She didn’t seal off everything, but given the amount of power he was used to, the boy would have given up attempting to cast spells once he realized it was worthless. The fact that he wasn’t doing magic now wasn’t at all surprising.

Rosha, on the other hand, still made it as far as the final year in Eheldeth. Nasuha found it impressive, if foolhardy. She’d expected her to give up attempting magic. Instead, she found a way to use her own blood and ancient spells to harness her existing connections. Impressive and foolhardy and mad. Nasuha took a deep breath. She still couldn’t come to terms with how she really felt about the other woman. She had hated her as a girl, but the way she had overcome her problems was exactly what they needed. If The Lost Ones had someone like Rosha among their ranks, the possibilities were endless.

“Come on, Lord Cartos,” she called as soon as she reached the bottom of the steps. “We’ve got a dinner date to catch. Remember, Tar’elian said we need to get a gift first, and—”

She felt the tip of a dagger in her back.

“I thought I recognized you,” a voice whispered next to her ear. “You paying me a visit, my dearest Suha?”

“Go to hell, Asera,” she snapped, turning and grabbing the woman’s arm from behind. She twisted it hard enough to make her drop her dagger. Before she could recover, she bolted down the street.

CHAPTER 16

NASUHA

Nasuha didn’t get far—Asera’s men were waiting for her at the end of the alley like jackals out for the kill. She guessed there would be others further down the road, to make sure they got her no matter what direction she’d picked. The woman knew her too well. She stopped before she reached them and turned to confront Asera’s grinning, nonchalant face.

“Missed me?” Asera asked. The smaller, lithe woman approached her with her hands behind her back. She dipped her head in greeting, a mockery of a Dageian gesture.

“Not particularly,” Nasuha replied.

Asera suddenly reached for her hand, gathering her fingers into a fist before she kissed the back of it. “You wound me,” she replied. “After you left me for that woman, I was heartbroken. What did she have that I don’t?”

“A brain?” Nasuha asked sweetly.

Asera sniffed. “Those are overrated. And it never occurred to me you were the type who liked someone who looked good in a dress. Should I start wearing them? What do you think, Lamos? Something frilly, just like her perfumed bitches like them.”

One of her men scratched the back of his head. “Uh, if you think so, boss.”

Nasuha peeled Asera’s fingers off hers. “Do us all a favour and don’t. What the hell are you doing here?”

“Cutting purses off rich folks’ pockets, as usual,” Asera said, backing away. “We’re diversifying, though. There’s this new trick that involves dropping weapons in people’s luggage and waiting for the city guards to catch them. It’s easier to make off with valuables when they’re distracted with explaining their situation. We’ve made a killing so far. How’s that for a brain?”

“Good for you,” Nasuha said dryly. “I didn’t realize your territory has expanded this much.”

“We cleaned out our rivals a few months back,” Asera replied.

“Congratulations. No, don’t give me that look. I mean it.”

Asera narrowed her eyes. “Right. And then next you’re going to ask me if I won’t reconsider this life so I can join you and your mentor in this ridiculous quest to get yourselves executed by the empire in style.”

Nasuha had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. “You can’t judge me. Look at yourselves.”

Asera held up a finger. “Ah! Theft is not a state crime. There are always thieves. What you’re doing, on the other hand, could land us all in the mage council’s idea of hell. I’ve no desire to find out what it looks like.”

“The Dageians are thieves, too,” Nasuha grumbled.

“Not this again. Please, Suha. We haven’t seen each other in so long. I’m not in the mood for a history lesson and debate all at once.”

They were interrupted by the sound of someone’s muffled screams. More of Asera’s men appeared, dragging Felan into the alley. He was trying desperately to regain his dignity while giving off the appearance of a flailing cat. “That’s my companion,” Nasuha said. “Let him go.”

“We figured, when we spotted you get off the tower with him,” Asera said. “Did you replace your frilly-dressed Miss Tanitha with a fop? This one looks way too young for you.”

“Find someone else to extort, Asera,” Nasuha said. “We have important business to attend to.” She shoved her men away from Felan before bending down to pick up the cane he’d dropped. She placed it back into his hands before glaring back at Asera.

Asera shook her head. “When are you going to drop that air of self-importance? Ever since that woman took you as her right hand, you started acting as if you’re too good to be around us.”

“That’s the furthest thing from the truth,” Nasuha said. “She needed me after Somya’s death. The old woman has no one else.”

Asera crossed her arms. “Is that right? So you’re not ashamed to be seen with us?”

“Don’t take it personally. You’re thieves. If I’m seen with you, I could jeopardize my mistress’s plans.”

“Her plans, which are treason no matter how you mince words. You’d rather be branded a rebel than a thief. A terrorist. An insurgent.”

“We are none of those things because the empire doesn’t know about us,” Nasuha said with a grin. “And I would like to stay it that way until we’ve grown powerful enough to fight back. I begged you to stop this, remember? If I’m arrested and they trace me to Mistress Rasiad, all our hard work will be for nothing.”

Asera crossed her arms. “How about we escort you to this meeting of yours?”

Nasuha frowned. “It’s like you’re incapable of hearing a single word falling out of my lips.”

Asera ignored her and whistled to her men. “We’ll escort you,” she insisted. All traces of humour had left her voice. “Maybe for once your rich associates would be good for something.”

“You’re going to switch from robbing tourists to home invasion, just to spite me?” Nasuha asked.

“Oh, my dear,” Asera said, walking ahead with her hands folded behind her head. “Not to spite you. Never. The whole world doesn’t revolve around you.”

Nasuha sighed and gave Felan the quickest of glances first. They had been conversing in Gorenten, but she could gather from the look on his face that he understood enough what was going on. To his credit, he remained quiet. Asera would probably take note of his deference—she was still old-fashioned that way. The years in the empire might have hardened her, but unlike Nasuha, she approached everything from a Gorenten perspective. To her, life in the empire was about carving out a hollow for yourself, filled with your own people, and staying distinct and impartial. Nasuha had loved it once. She hadn’t been back to Gorent since she was a child, but Asera reminded her of home, of sandy beaches and sea breeze. Looking at her stride up ahead to lead them out of the alley, she had a sudden tinge of regret. Such simple things had been enough for her once. She’d let the world sour her perspective, and she didn’t know how to go back.

Meeting Asera years after their first tumultuous acquaintance had been a coincidence. It was in Bardes, not long after Mistress Rasiad took Nasuha in as an apprentice but before Somya’s death. On the surface, Nasuha was nothing more than a secretary to Seina Rasiad’s bookkeeping business—they kept accounts for smaller merchants and other such business owners who couldn’t afford to hire their own staff. Nasuha liked the front. It was mundane, but it gave her a sense of importance. All of a sudden, she wasn’t just scrubbing chamber pots and mopping up spills from hallways. She was now knee-deep in Dageian society, seeing how they made their money, and most importantly, what they paid for their goods or for people in return. Mistress Rasiad never just let her copy down the numbers mindlessly—she always added a lecture, which Nasuha took to heart. No one else had ever offered her that sort of attention before, and she gobbled it all up with ease.

Their office was situated right across the docks, facing the frigid waters of the northeastern sea. She had been doing her work over some barrels on the deck overlooking the pier. She liked seeing people come in from the ships, especially since so many were Gorenten. She didn’t speak to them all the time, but listening to their conversations made her feel at ease. Compared to the Dageians, their talk could be so mundane. Where to find a certain ingredient for a meal back home, for instance, or the best way to keep warm when you’re not yet used to the cold. Dageian interference had made a mess of the weather in the northern tip of the continent in particular—in response to an attempted invasion, one of the High Kings in the eastern isles had cast a spell that encased his entire kingdom in ice, a phenomenon that rippled through the northeast. Those coming in from the warmer shores of Gorent were always taken off-guard.

The sailors disembarking from the most recent ship were no different. One of the girls approached her, all wrapped up in what looked like three layers of fur, and demanded, “How the hell are you sitting out there with just a shirt on?”

Nasuha blinked, realizing she was talking to her. “I’m used to it,” she said.

The girl rubbed her nose, which had grown red. “How do you get used to this? It feels like knives on my skin! Like nails on my delicate, porcelain—”

Nasuha started laughing. “First off,” she said, after she’d gotten her breath back. “Your delicate skin might not have to be so delicate if you actually let it get used to the cold. Your pores sweat more in Gorent—you have to give them time to close up.”

“That’s a load of bull,” the other girl replied. “What else do they say?”

“Nothing you can repeat in polite company.”

Now it was the other girl’s turn to laugh. “You sound familiar,” she said, drifting closer. And then she squinted. “You look familiar, too. Those scars—”

Nasuha turned away.

“You’re that girl from the canoe,” she breathed. “The one who burned down those men. The one whose parents—”

“Stop,” Nasuha whispered.

“It’s me, Asera. Surely you remember.”

“I’ll never forget, but please—”

“Your father—”

“I don’t want to know,” Nasuha said. “That life is over. I don’t care what happened to them. I just don’t.”

Asera closed her mouth. “What are you working on?” she asked.

“Nothing,” Nasuha said, gathering up her notebooks and pen. She could see Somya emerging from the garden and prepared to dash over to her. Nothing got rid of people faster than pretending you had more important business to attend to. “Good day to you.”

“Snob!” Asera called to her retreating back.

Somya laughed about it all, when Nasuha explained to her what was going on. “There’s nothing wrong with making friends, you know,” she chided gently. “Go ahead and do it. My mother’s dreams can always wait.”

Her easygoing nature rubbed up against Nasuha, and the next time she ran into Asera, she turned to small talk about life in the empire. Asera, eager for a friend, snapped up the opportunity, and to her credit, she never brought up Nasuha’s parents again. As the years wore on, they grew close, fell apart, grew close again until Asera decided she’d had enough of the seafaring life and joined a group of other Gorenten heading inland. Couldn’t Nasuha join them? “They say there’s this city, Triassa, where there are entire streets filled with Gorenten,” Asera had said. “A home away from home, Nasuha. Can you imagine?”

“A home away from home is a lie,” Nasuha told her. “Don’t believe anything the empire offers you, Asera. I’ve heard of those communities. They’re garbage dumps. Gorenten go because the empire won’t give them a home anywhere else. It’s where our elders rot to death, where our children are born knowing nothing but the Dageians’ heels, and I’ll be damned if I ever consider such a place paradise.”

“Because you’d rather dream about your precious Eheldeth, is that it?” Asera asked. “For you, it’s be accepted by the Dageians, or nothing else.”

“I don’t need their acceptance,” Nasuha said. “I want their respect. I want them to see us as equals. This wouldn’t be a rich, powerful empire if they didn’t steal from us.”

“Come on, Suha. You know you can never be one of them.”

“We can’t,” Nasuha said. “So we have to make noise in other ways.”

“Ways that will get you killed,” Asera reminded her. “Well, then! When they hang you for treason, don’t expect me to be in the crowd! I won’t mourn a woman like you.”

Nasuha wondered if she would mourn her if she was executed because of her. She doubted it. Asera was many things, but sentimental wasn’t one of them. Nasuha agonized over her own decisions until it made her sick; Asera didn’t have such difficulties. Now, strolling through the streets of Triassa with Felan in tow, she remained cheerful even after they reached the sol-Daran mansion—a dizzyingly obscene building that took up most of the block. The rose-covered walls were so high, the mansion looked like a fortress. Guards stood at the gate.

“You can help us get in from the back.” Asera stood on tiptoe so she could whisper into Nasuha’s ear.

Nasuha sniffed. “What makes you think I won’t just tell on you?”

Asera pouted. “Because you’d never do that to me. You love me.”

“You’re really pushing your luck,” Nasuha snarled.

Asera flashed her a lopsided grin. “You know you can search the whole world and never find a woman that makes you feel the way I do. So please: oblige me. When you’re done with your business, open the back doors. You never have to see me again, unless you want to.” She gave a soft smile and a wink, one that told her she was all too aware of her effect on Nasuha.

Nasuha flushed and swore under her breath to drive it away. A moment later, the thieves finally allowed her and Felan to walk down the street on their own.

“You have interesting friends,” Felan observed.

“Pretend it doesn’t bother you,” Nasuha said.

“It doesn’t.”

“Good. Keep it that way.”

They stopped in front of the guards. Felan pulled out a letter from his pocket. “I am Lord Felan Cartos, here for a meeting with Berinda sol-Daran. She’s expecting us.”

“She was,” one of the guards said, without even looking at the letter. “You’re an hour late.”

“We had some issues at the airship docks,” Felan said, without missing a beat. “They’ve been cleared, however. Please extend our apologies. We will wait here.”

The guard glanced at Nasuha and then back at him. He let out a deep sigh. “Come on in,” he finally said. Nasuha had the sense this was the instruction left with him all along—he just wanted to lord it over them for a moment.

They followed him through the gates, into an enormous courtyard with a fountain set in the middle. Dageian aristocracy loved their fountains—Mistress Rasiad told her they even had contests. People would hold parties across the empire revolving around various hosts’ fountains. Nasuha never understood; they all looked the same to her. Mistress Rasiad assured her they most certainly did not. “Some,” she said, unironically, “are filled with wine, not water. And in the meantime, children in Gorent starve to death.”

The guard led them into the mansion and immediately up the stairs. Lady Berinda’s meeting room was on the second floor, past a hallway with floors so shiny Nasuha felt she would trip on them. Even Felan, who must have grown up around such trappings, looked slightly uncomfortable. Lord Cato’s mansion was a hovel in comparison.

“We forgot the gift,” he whispered to her.

“It’s all right,” Nasuha replied. She unclasped a dagger, scabbard and all, from her belt and handed it to him.

He stared at it indignantly.

“Too filthy?” she asked. “Fine.” She wiped the handle with her sleeve before holding it out again. “Tell her it’s a valuable Gorenten artifact, handled by one of High King Elian’s mages himself.”

“Is it, really?”

“I bought it from a flea market in Drusgaya. It could be true.”

With a sigh, Felan wrapped his fingers around the dagger and walked into the room holding it with both hands. “Lady Daran,” he said, as soon as he laid eyes on their host, who sat on a velvet armchair with a glass of wine with one hand. “We came to bring you this…valuable artifact…that may have been…King Elian himself—”

Nasuha groaned inwardly. But before she could interfere, Berinda shot up from her chair and reached out to envelope Felan in a warm hug. “My dear Lord Cartos!” she exclaimed. “Forget these formalities! It has been too, too long! I have been wanting to see you for ages. Ages! I knew you’ve been back for months, but you never even sent a letter. I was wondering when you’d finally come out of that hole. Did you receive my flowers for your father’s funeral?”

He looked flustered. “Yes, thank you. They were…extravagant.”

“Not too extravagant, I hope?” Berinda drew away from him, an eyebrow quirked. Nasuha cleared her throat. She wanted to know more about that eyebrow. But the answer wasn’t going to come from Felan, who seemed to continue to be at a loss for words. Berinda tittered, grabbed the dagger from his hands, and called for her servant to take it away.

“This study is so fusty,” Berinda continued, wrapping herself around Felan’s left arm like a snake getting ready to consume him. “Let’s head down to my tearoom. We could talk so much better there.” She pushed him aside and walked past Nasuha, whom she barely offered a second glance.

Half-amused, Nasuha followed them down to the tearoom, where an elaborate spread had already been set up. Small sandwiches, cut up into cubes, were stacked on lettuces; there were slices of cured meats dotted with fat and spices, at least five different kinds of bread, and roasted goat on plates, swimming in their own gravy. Far from talking, it was clear that Berinda wanted to impress Felan in some way. Nasuha gave a furtive grin. This might be easier than she thought.

Nobody offered her a seat, but she took one anyway, at least two seats from Felan and Berinda, who were now chatting as if they were in their own little world. Eventually, one of the servants seemed to have realized she was part of Felan’s retinue and offered her some tea. She took it with a smile before turning her attention to the sandwiches. She took a bite. There was cream cheese, cucumber, and a strip of meat that could have been lobster or crab.

She chewed, swallowed, and thought of Asera’s bandits waiting in the alley. It was getting late, and they were probably hungry. Asera wasn’t the sort of woman who left anything half-done. Normally, this would’ve been the kind of household she didn’t mind turning over to them. If she didn’t need Berinda for anything, she would have already excused herself to unlock that back door. If she didn’t need Rosha at all…

Out of the many things Nasuha’s powers have taught her, the most inconvenient one must be to hold off on regret until it was too late. She remembered watching Felan and Rosha lie motionless on that drenched floor, the shadows dancing on their pallid skin, and felt like she’d written the story of her own damnation. They were children. She was only a few years older, but that didn’t change anything. What did they know? Rob anyone of the knowledge of what they had to be and they, too, would grow up foolish.

She remembered Somya’s funeral. How grand it had been. Over a hundred guests, an entire band of musicians, and so much food and drink it might as well have been a feast. She remembered staring at her coffin as it was lowered into her grave. Mistress Rasiad stood closest to the edge like an unyielding soldier in a black dress. “I need to remind myself she is just one child,” she whispered to Nasuha later on, when the burial was over and they were both alone. “There are so many others still waiting for our guidance.”

It wasn’t Nasuha’s place to tell the woman it was all right to grieve that one child if it was hers. She knelt down to pick up a handful of dirt and rubbed it between her fingers before throwing it over Somya’s grave. “How is controlling our children supposed to bring us freedom?”

“Life doesn’t start or end with us,” Rasiad reminded her. “Those children will grow up and take the reins. Without them, we can’t go on.” She turned to Nasuha, willing the expression on her face to harden. For the tears to go away. “That girl—Tar’elian’s child. We need her more than ever. I can only attune myself to one simulacrum at once, and I intend to remain connected to the younger bodies we’ve found in order to carry out errands too dangerous for my own body. Somya was supposed to control the emperor, and now she’s gone. We need the girl.”

“We can’t even get Tar’elian to cooperate with us on the small things,” Nasuha said. “I don’t think his daughter will be much help.” She hesitated. “If you need me, I can try. My skill—”

Rasiad shook her head. “Controlling a simulacrum requires a certain kind of mage. Perhaps if we run out of choices, you can give it a try. But I would rather not risk you. You’ve just barely learned to cast fire without burning yourself to a crisp. Tar’elian’s child will be the safer choice. She has a reputation in Eheldeth, does she not? Top of all her classes, the sort of magical genius that comes once in a blue moon. You’d think the council’s publications would mention her more.”

“Yes, Mistress,” Nasuha said, wisely keeping her eyes to the ground. She didn’t really want to argue any further, for fear of revealing what she had done. Mistress Rasiad’s words were true, in any case. Tar’elian’s child was powerful. Sealing her connections took more effort than with Felan’s, and Nasuha suspected that even if she had wanted to block her completely, she wouldn’t have been able to. She could only imagine what a fair fight against her would look like—Nasuha might be obliterated where she stood.

But what good was power if it wasn’t used properly? She stared down at her scarred hands, at the bumps along the tips of her fingers. The world was cruel enough already. Perhaps in time, she could believe that the end justified the means.

“Now, my dearest Felan, what brings you to my humble abode?” Berinda’s voice broke into Nasuha’s thoughts solely because the tone had changed. From fawning, to business-like—a transition so swift only an expert politician could have done it. “I know you very well, after all. You don’t just show up out of nowhere for no reason, especially after how we parted last time.”

An icy layer had penetrated her voice. Nasuha glanced at Felan and tried very hard not to smile. After having had a similar conversation recently, she could imagine what was going on through his head. Part of it probably involved fantasizing about jumping into a fire so he wouldn’t have to carry out the rest.

He did a better job of keeping his composure than she did, though. “Sorna was years ago,” Felan said. “Nevertheless, I apologize for my actions. Those years were…difficult for me.”

“Because you’d lost your magic, and no one could find a cure. Yes. I quite remember. I even remember how your father warned me to keep quiet about it. To keep quiet, and stay away from you. As I recall, it involved the death of a dear servant, one of my closest companions.”

Felan lowered his head. “Hence my surprise at why you would bother to send flowers. I know what my father was capable of. He doesn’t deserve half the sympathy you offered him.”

Berinda smiled sweetly. “Sympathy? Oh, no, my dear man. That wasn’t sympathy at all. It was nothing but spite. I am not the spoiled airhead he thought I was. After all, he’s in a casket six feet under, and I’m still alive!” She placed her hand over his. “Without him, will you consider picking up where we left off? I’ve been thinking of you all these years, and especially lately. We didn’t get much of a chance back in Sorna, but now that there’s no one to say no. Is there?”

Felan stiffened. Berinda probably didn’t see it, but Nasuha could see him glance at her briefly. She could see him sifting through his thoughts, trying to determine which course of action would be most useful for their mission. Because she could tell if it was up to him, he would gather his robes and flee from that room without another word.

“No,” Felan said, after taking a deep breath. “There is no one.”

“Oh! I’m so glad to hear!” She wrapped her arms around him before kissing him.

Nasuha coughed and looked away. In her head, she started to count to ten. “The favour, Lord Cartos,” Nasuha finally said. “You can rekindle your affairs more privately, perhaps.” It was better to play the instigator sometimes—it at least took the pressure off Felan. Even if it was slightly more fun to see him squirm.

Felan’s cheeks were red as he tried to extract himself from Berinda’s grasp with the desperation of a man who really would rather be burning to death at that very moment. “We want a meeting with Lord Ivasus, who, as I recall, is a business partner of your father’s,” Felan said. “We were hoping you would be able to send an invitation. Since you are a member of the mage council and an old friend, it is unlikely he will deny your request.”

She raised an eyebrow. “That’s it?”

“Yes.”

“You could have made the request yourself. Your father was an important member to both the empire’s parties, even if he’s very much deceased now.” Berinda seemed amused by the idea.

Felan tugged at his collar. “I have reason to believe Lord Ivasus might not be amenable to a meeting from me. I am, at this moment, a nobody. You, on the other hand…” He swallowed. “I was also hoping you would ask for this meeting without mentioning I would be there at all. He doesn’t know our connection. No one does.”

“Because it all happened so fast, on that long summer so long ago,” Berinda said, breathlessly. Nasuha could swear she saw her eyes flutter. “Very well, my lord. I will make those arrangements. But you—you must stay the night. After such an ardent request, you can’t very well deny mine.”

“No, my lady,” he said. “I cannot.” It was the voice of a man who had foregone the flames—he was now flinging his entire body into a pit of vipers. All for Rosha’s sake? Nasuha couldn’t imagine why else. And she wasn’t sure what it made her feel other than that he could have done so, so much better for himself.

CHAPTER 17

ROSHA

I left for Triassa an hour after Nasuha and Felan did. Enosh didn’t want the entire group to be seen together, especially with Firekeeper Ceres expecting us to wait for her summons from Lon Basden. With just him and me, it was easier to pretend we were nothing more than a man and his companion. “Or an old, rich man and his excruciatingly handsome servant,” Enosh amended with a grin. “I’ve played that role many times before and told myself I was done with it. But for you, I could do it again.” He gently guided me up the steps of the airship, playing the doting guardian more than he ever did when I was little. It felt strange, and I drifted away from him just as quickly.

“Back when you were a merchant’s apprentice,” I said.

“I started wearing glamour because it was tiring to insist I belonged at his side. People could never believe I was his right-hand man, and not merely his footstool.” Enosh smirked. There was a shadow of pain in the smile, a touch of a past that hid in plain sight.

I gazed at his visage now. He was wearing a loose shirt with unbuttoned sleeves, and his hair, which he normally kept tied at the nape, was splayed all across his shoulders. “I remember the glamour. It was one of the first things I remembered about you. I thought it was excessive. For one thing, I could see through it easily. It was like looking at a clown with a painted face. I thought it was ridiculous.”

“You could see through it. Many people couldn’t.”

“Why don’t you wear it now?”

Enosh shrugged. “The glamour got tiring, too. Isn’t life ironic? You spend half your life learning how to hide, and the other half realizing you would rather die than do it again. When I embraced you and your mother back into my life, I promised I would do it as myself. And yes, that goes for my brother, too. You deserve better than me, but the least I could do was offer you all of me at last.”

I closed my eyes. The simulacrum’s eyelids weren’t quite as good as blotting out the sunlight as my own were, and I could see the red glow right up against its pupils. They felt like large, red circles burning over my eyeballs. “Could we live as we are, though? As Gorenten, as mages openly practicing magic without bowing to the council? As people?” I turned away from the sun and glanced at the simulacrum’s skin. “I don’t feel like a person, especially not since I’ve had to hide in the emperor’s skin. I don’t like these choices, Father. Face the world in disguise, or rot in prison. I hate caring about their aches and concerns when I would rather be back in my shop, tinkering with spells in silence.”

“Were you happy there?”

I blinked. He’d never asked me that question before, not with any of the things he had foisted on me. And I had never stopped to think about it that way, either.

“Your store,” he continued, in case I misunderstood him. “Kefier said he was impressed at what you built for yourself when you were supposed to be on the run. Apparently, you had an excellent reputation, even when you weren’t actually providing magical services to those people. People paid just to have a moment of your time. They loved you.”

I shrugged. “Kefier would be impressed if I made a mud cake and told him I’d learned to bake at last.”

Enosh burst out laughing. “He would.”

“I love the man, but he pretends like I can’t do anything wrong, and sometimes I’m not sure if that’s what I need all the time.” I stared back at him. It was strange how much easier it was to talk to him when it wasn’t my own voice I was hearing. The emperor’s heavy, booming voice provided a good layer, and I found myself in a state of oddly lowered defences—the complete opposite of how I usually was with Enosh. “You’re…you’re the only person in the world who knows what I’ve been through. So perhaps you, more than anyone else, will understand that I was not content in Klossaka. I was happy, for a time. But happiness is fleeting. You know I’ve always wanted more for myself just like you did, even if the world will never give me that chance. I would rather be there than hide for the rest of my life, but I would also rather be doing something important with the years I have left.” I held up the emperor’s hands. “I don’t regret this. At least I could say I did something worthwhile.”

“You’re still so young. This is not the end of the road for you.”

I took a deep breath. “The only certainty for me today is that my youth will fade. Look at you. How much closer are you to achieving your dreams now that you are grey-haired and bending to the rigours of time?”

Enosh sighed. “A part of me always hoped you would be an exception to what I had come to accept was my truth.” He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, Rosha.”

I craned my head towards him. I wasn’t sure those words had actually fallen out of his mouth. I used to think there was absolutely nothing but a hollow cavern underneath his prickly pride.

“I’m sorry,” Enosh repeated. “I wasn’t there for you the first few years of your life, and when I finally stepped up, I made things worse. You had more than I ever did, and I thought that should have been enough. I thought a fraction of the education I received would have been enough to shield you, especially when so many mages I respected were schooled in the same place. I was wrong—I had no idea Eheldeth would turn out as badly for you as it did. We should have never sent you out there to be out on your own; we should have at least heeded the many warnings over the years and pulled you out before it was too late. If it’s any consolation, you’ve done remarkably well for yourself. Better than I would have in your position. I’m not Kefier, Rosha. You know I’ve never hesitated from speaking my mind, to the detriment of all the relationships in my life. So believe me when I say I am proud of you, and I am here to do whatever it will take to make you whole.”

As soon as he was done, Enosh turned his head away, as if the torrent of emotions was too much for him to handle.

“One of the many reasons I couldn’t be happy in Klossaka forever was because it was too far away from everyone,” I said, after a few moments of silence. “I did miss you all. Even you.”

“I always did believe you take after Kefier more than me.”

“Please. I’m more you than I ever wanted to admit.”

“I’ll take it as a compliment.”

“It’s not. We’re both screwed up the same way.”

He laughed. “At least we’re back to normal now.”

“I never stopped thinking you’re a despicable man and a terrible role model,” I reminded him. “But maybe I appreciate you more than I let on. You could have thrown me to the wolves the moment you knew what I was. Instead, you…”

I choked. The damn simulacrum actually knew how to cry.

I’m sorry, too, I wanted to say. I’m sorry for causing all this trouble. You all threw aside your differences to shelter me, to keep me safe, to give me everything you thought I deserved. I’m sorry it hasn’t stopped. But the words wouldn’t come out, and then a moment later Enosh had already turned away, and it was too late. I took a deep breath. I couldn’t get back into my own body fast enough; this one was pulling me apart in ways that were deeply uncomfortable. Living in someone else’s skin made me think about my own and all the ways it brought me both sorrow and joy.

We disembarked by sunset. I expected Enosh had booked lodging for us downtown, but to my surprise, he called for a carriage, which whisked us away out of town, towards the family home. The moment we stopped on the road, I stared at him for an explanation; he simply shrugged. “I can’t lie to her,” Enosh said. “Not about Kefier. If I did, she would never trust me again.”

He helped me off the carriage, and we strode up to the little path leading to the house. Mother was waiting for us in the garden. “Boys!” she called.

I glanced to the distance, where there was a field of trimmed grass. Haro and Ryo were chasing each other in a circle while Omer toddled after them. At the sound of Mother’s voice, they stopped and carefully approached the edge of the path, faces flushed red. How fast did babies grow? Every time I left home, my brothers seemed to catapult through time until I next saw them. Haro was now nearly my mother’s height.

“I got your letter,” Sume said, taking Enosh’s hand and squeezing it. “Do you know if he’s alive, if he’s eating well, if…?”

Enosh shook his head. “We don’t know anything. All we know is the bastard intends to go for you next.” He gestured at me. “I told you I’m bringing someone.”

Sume’s eyes narrowed before she finally laid them on me. There was a long moment of silence.

“I’m sorry,” I blurted out. Words that had been so hard to say in the airship, but in front of my mother, I couldn’t help myself.

Recognition stirred in her expression. “Rosha,” she said, without blinking. She rushed forward and enveloped me in her arms.

“How did you—” I began.

“I’d know you anywhere, child,” she breathed. “Oh, what did you do now?”

We spent most of the evening telling Sume everything. Enosh was adamant that no secrets be kept from her this time, so she learned what had been keeping me in Drusgaya the last few months and my arrangement with Ceres. Sume’s face was far from amused, and it grew only sourer the deeper we got into the story. “You knew about this,” she told Enosh, as soon as she could get a word in. “You knew about this, and you kept it from me?”

It wasn’t a genuine question. She knew his lies were a way of life, and she wouldn’t have been married to him this long without having an idea of the falsehoods that propelled him from one day to the next. But there was shame on his face, anyway. He opened his mouth before glancing at me, as if willing me to save him. “It was her wish,” he finally blurted out. “She’s an adult.”

“We never actually had that conversation,” I pointed out. “But yes, I suppose it’s true enough. Ceres never forced my hand, if you must know.”

“She just didn’t think twice about exploiting you.”

Enosh took a deep breath. “She does care about Rosha in her own way,” he said. “But she’s terribly misguided about what this entails.”

“A person who cared about my daughter would have put a stop to the arrangement as soon as she found out,” Sume replied, getting up. “She is not just an impartial associate. Even if you hadn’t been sleeping with her the past two decades, she was still Rosha’s professor—someone who has seen her grown up. More so, she is someone in a position of authority who could make or break Rosha with one word. Her well-being should have been her first priority.”

“Her duties as a Firekeeper—” Enosh began.

“Are irrelevant,” Sume said. “I’ve seen the kind of self-importance that makes a person unable to see when their decisions are actively causing harm. It’s really easy, actually, to fool yourself. To lie to yourself as well as you lie to other people. For the greater good is easily twisted. If you can’t make a decision for the good of one person, what makes you think you can do it for others? You both forget—I’ve been in the thick of war before, and I’ve seen people like Ceres go over the edge. Once you start thinking one sacrifice is worth the cost, you start believing more won’t go amiss. If you can spare one, you can spare two, and before you know it, it’s ten. And then it’s twenty. And then you’re sacrificing an entire goddamned city, innocent souls be damned.” She took a breath, willing herself to calm down. “You were both right to act behind her back. I don’t for a moment believe she still has your best interests at heart. If she has treated you like this all this time, how much of a priority would saving Kefier be to her?”

“None at all, I know,” I said.

“The people you sent to your mage council associate…how well do you trust them?”

“With my life,” I replied.

Sume narrowed her eyes. “That’s unwise. You’ve got way too much at stake here, and in the meantime, what’s in it for them?”

I blinked. “That’s not something I ever really thought about. I stumbled on them along the way, and they’ve been nothing but helpful this whole time.”

“A mistake,” Sume said. “No one just helps. Or, to a point—some people do, but you cannot make your decisions based on them.”

I closed my mouth. She was speaking the truth, and she couldn’t have survived all those years in Jin-Sayeng’s most terrible war to memory without having a fair idea of what she was doing. “Lord Felan Cartos was a classmate of Rosha,” Enosh broke in. “He agreed to the plan because I believe he has a connection to this Lady Berinda. He believes he might be able to ask for her help.”

“This is the same boy they said she drove out of Eheldeth?” Sume asked.

“We’ve…come to an understanding,” I said. “I know what it sounds like, Mother. But he’s had plenty of chances to betray me before, and he hasn’t yet.”

“Just because he hasn’t yet doesn’t mean he won’t. He could be waiting for the right time. You also said he was Lord Cato’s son. Even if you have nothing to do with the father’s death, the son might still blame you. And it looks like he has more than enough rope to hang you with.”

I looked down. From every angle, she was right enough, and I didn’t know how to explain to her why I didn’t agree. Why didn’t I agree? Because of what Felan had so freely offered so many times in the past? Giving me access to his own blood was a sign of trust, one that was just as easily ill-advised from his perspective. I always prided myself in being reasonable, in being the sort of person who read the writing on the wall before she reacted. I saw myself as calm, methodical, logical, and all it took was my mother opening her mouth for all that to blow up in my face.

“What about this other person?” Sume continued.

I didn’t want to get into The Lost Ones, not when I barely knew anything about them myself. “She was one of Lord Cato’s servants,” I said. “Someone I met on the road.”

I could see the words idiot child jump out from the expression on Sume’s face. She expertly kept it in. “Why does she want to help you?” she asked instead.

“Your daughter is not as prickly as she seems,” Enosh broke in. “I’m convinced they’re both doing it out of loyalty to her, and nothing else.”

“I’m surprised to hear you say that,” Sume said. “Years ago, you’d be the last person who would make decisions based on trust. You don’t even trust your own brother.”

Enosh cleared his throat. “I learned,” he replied. “I learned that trusting people is sometimes all you have because it doesn’t matter, anyway. If they want to betray you, they will.” He fixed her with a gaze. I felt something there that I didn’t want to step on—an old wound, far from healed. Sometimes it was hard to remember they loved each other once. But once in a while, it was all you could see. They loved each other when they had me, and they even tried to love each other again, and I would forever be a walking, breathing reminder of their past and their failures.

But Sume held her chin up. Her own eyes held no glimmer of shame. “Sometimes it’s not betrayal,” she said. “Sometimes it’s just a matter of refusing to see the truth. You can’t put your own expectations on others when they’ve made the truth clear.” Her eyes flicked back to me. “If this Lord Cartos has plenty of reasons to resent you, Rosha, then I suggest you rethink his loyalty. We need to seek help from the Gorenten elders.”

“No.” Enosh slammed his hands on the table. “I refuse to be involved with those fools. It’s one thing to bend Dageian laws—we all do that. It’s called survival. But to openly revolt simply because they can’t get their way—”

“You know about the Lost Ones?” I broke in.

Enosh’s face grew sour. “So you’ve heard about those bastards, too. I’m not surprised.”

I felt my face flush. “Nasuha…” I began. “Nasuha says they sent her after me.”

His face tightened. “Those assholes have been trying to get me to support their movement for over a decade. Money, connections, time, my head on a stake…I had no idea this Nasuha was part of them. How long have you known?”

“She told me they were guardians of agan-touched Gorenten,” I said.

Enosh shook his head. “You’ve been duped. They’re extremists looking to upend Dageian rule without a plan in place, and so all they can ever hope to sow is chaos. You should have told me sooner.”

“I didn’t know,” I grumbled.

“They couldn’t get to you, so they decided to go through your daughter,” Sume broke in. She cleared her throat. “What was I just saying? Nothing is ever given for just nothing. I would have done the same thing.” She walked to the doorway, grabbing a cloak from the hooks. “Stay here with the boys.”

“Where the hell are you going?” Enosh demanded.

“The elders once made contact with Kefier, too,” Sume said. “He rejected them out of respect for you. That man loves you more than you deserve.”

“I never said I wasn’t going to save him.”

“Well, your plan is far from sound, and this might offer up an alternative. They might agree to help him.”

“In exchange for something far worse,” Enosh said.

“That’s just your assumption. You haven’t even heard them out yet,” Sume replied. “One way or another, they’ve already gotten their claws into Rosha, and ignoring them isn’t going to make them go away. Perhaps it’s about time we open up a dialogue.”

“Sume—”

She was an expert at ignoring him and slammed the door behind her before he could get another word in.

CHAPTER 18

ROSHA

Enosh was in a foul mood all throughout the night, so I waited for Mother in my brothers’ bedroom, right on the floor next to the door where I could keep an eye on all three of them. I wasn’t going to let what happened to Ryo last time happen again—I would sooner die than let anyone touch a hair on their heads. Once again, the simulacrum’s body was making all my emotions difficult to contain, as if the act of holding them all in was muscle memory. The fierce protectiveness was new to me. I couldn’t help but observe how much they resembled me, and Kefier, and even my mother. Family was such a strange word. It wasn’t just people you knew and cared for—it was people you saw yourself in, or at least parts of you, even though you might have lived your whole life believing you were alone. It made me wonder why I ever felt that way. My brothers were made from the same mould, and if I stopped to think about it, the blood running through our veins was the same, in spite of all the other differences. Why did I feel like it was me against everything else?

The littlest ones started snoring almost as soon as their heads dropped on the pillows. Haro, on the other hand, stayed awake, his grey eyes staring.

I finally cleared my throat. “Can I help you with anything?” I asked. “Do you need a glass of…milk?”

“You know I’m nine years old, right?” he asked.

“I lost count,” I admitted. “Somewhere in the back of my head, I still think you’re a baby. Anyway, you’re never too old for a glass of milk.”

“You really are Rosha.” He gave a furtive grin. “I was afraid Mama and Father were lying to us and wanted to see us on our best behaviour.”

“You really think Mother would let a strange old man into your bedroom to stare at you while you sleep?”

He held up a finger. “She didn’t know you’d do that.”

“Fair enough.” I glanced at the others, their limbs splayed all over the pillows, chubby cheeks flushed with sweat. Ryo turned to his left, his arm wrapping over Omer’s balled-up form. “Does Ryo talk much about what happened last year?”

“Not really,” Haro said. “He talked about how it was a grand adventure. Creepy mansions and monsters. He said none of it frightened him because you were there, and he knew you would protect him no matter what. But sometimes at night…”

Haro paused to gaze back at his sleeping brother, whose other arm went up to drape over his eyes. Ryo was still snoring, his mouth open. Haro carefully picked up his arm and placed it on his side. He wiped the sweat off Ryo’s forehead, pushing his curls out of the way in a gesture of brotherly affection. “He has nightmares,” Haro continued. “Not just regular nightmares. Sometimes he wakes us up because he thinks he’s running in his sleep. Then he calls for you, like he’s convinced you’re in trouble somehow. He sleepwalks, too. Papa had to fetch him from the garden several times.” He furrowed his brow. “Are you in trouble, Rosha?”

“I guess I can’t lie and say I’m not,” I replied. I gestured at the simulacrum’s body. Trouble wasn’t even the right word, but I doubted a nine-year-old cared to know about the details.

Haro nodded. “I caught a bit of what you, Mama, and Father were talking about. You’re stuck there until they find where your body is.”

I nodded.

He reached over the bed and placed a hand on my arm. “Does it hurt?” he asked.

He probably meant physically. “No,” I replied.

“What does it feel like, to be there?”

I closed my eyes. “Like nothing, actually,” I said. “I feel as if I’m swimming in my own thoughts, which only grow stronger as the minutes pass, and I’m afraid it won’t be long before they’re all I know. The rest of you will just fade away and I won’t be able to see you, or hear you, or feel your presence anymore. And it strikes me how much that scares me. I thought I could live without you, that I was brave and strong enough to be on my own. I don’t know what to do with these feelings.”

He suddenly embraced me, a movement so swift it caught me off-guard. All I could do was lean slightly back as he wrapped his arms around my neck. “We’ll always be here for you, Rosha,” he said. “Even if you can’t see or hear or feel us, we’ll be here. They say the agan is really just our souls connected, and that you studied it for so many years. So if you’re ever lost, just reach out. You’ll find your way back home.”

The damn simulacrum wanted to weep again. I cleared my throat and thought about excusing myself. But the conversation must’ve jolted Ryo awake, because he bolted up with a cry. When he saw us on the floor, he crawled out of bed and wrapped his arms around us, too—one over his brother’s shoulder, the other over mine. I had never, in all my life, felt more like I belonged than I did in that moment. And it was strange, but I’d never felt more like myself before, either. Almost as if their heartbeats, their breathing, their souls, made up for the lack of mine. I wanted to pull away and examine the feeling under a magnifying glass. I used to think life would be a lot better if people left me alone, but now I wasn’t sure. Maybe I wasn’t as intelligent as I once believed.

Eventually, I tucked them back into bed, and they finally fell asleep just as I heard the dogs begin to bark. I left my brothers’ bedroom in time to see Enosh unlocking the front door. Sume walked back in, followed by the last person on earth I could have ever expected: Jehar.

“You’re still here,” I said. “I thought you went back to your mother in Klossaka. Don’t you have a job?”

He looked at me with confusion. Sume placed a hand on his shoulder before directing him to a chair. “Should I get you some tea first?” she asked.

“Some water will be fine, ma’am,” Jehar said. He dropped into the chair, still perplexed. It looked like ants were dancing on his forehead.

“What would your mother say?” I continued. “You left her all alone for someone who told you a thousand times that she doesn’t want you.”

He finally glanced helplessly at Enosh. “Who is—” he began.

Enosh cleared his throat. “This one, you trust?” he called to Sume from the kitchen.

She returned with the water. She handed it to Jehar silently before turning back to him. “Right now, Jehar works for a security company across the building the elders live in,” she said. “He accompanied us the last time Kefier was called up there. Kefier didn’t want to draw too much attention, but he was afraid we would get attacked and he thought he would rather have Jehar at his side than any of his mercenaries.”

“You’ve got to be joking,” I said under my breath.

Sume raised an eyebrow at me. “Thankfully, it all went smoothly,” she continued.

“How long ago did this all happen?”

“Just a few months ago.”

I remembered telling Kefier about the Lost Ones. He must have been asking around for my sake, which must have alerted them. If they’d wanted Enosh’s help from the beginning, then they must have seen significant value in attracting interest from his brother. I swore under my breath. If Kefier was in this mess because of my thoughtlessness…

Don’t start down that road. You won’t be able to live with it, I know. But you can’t help him if you think that way.

“I still don’t think this is a good idea,” Enosh said. “I highly doubt the Lost Ones have the capability to take action, even if they wanted to.”

“Jehar?” Sume asked.

Jehar glanced up, startled for a moment. He was still trying to piece everything together, which, knowing him, might take some time. Sume held out her hand, and he eventually reached into his pocket, pulling out a piece of parchment. Something was scribbled on it in brown ink. Sume held it up against the fireplace to show us.

“That’s Ceres’s seal,” Enosh said. The layer of outrage in his voice was real. He all but yanked it out of Sume’s hands so he could read it closer. “It’s a seal requesting the temporary cessation of activities in the elders’ building. The mage council wants it…demolished?”

“She has never told you about this?” Sume asked.

His face was indignant. “No.”

“Nothing during your late nights, or—”

“I wouldn’t think she would have thought I cared. And frankly, I don’t.”

“Then why are you angry?” Sume asked.

He didn’t reply. His eyes were blazing.

“You still feel that she should have brought it up with you, considering this very much concerns the fate of your people—and all the Gorenten families who live in that compound. She should have made the connection and spoken about it even just out of respect. You can see why I don’t trust those mages. I was never happy with the idea of sending Rosha to Eheldeth in the first place, and the more I learned as the years went on, the surer I was that that was not the path for her.”

“You never said,” Enosh replied.

“I did voice out my concerns. Plenty of times. Neither of you listened. Because of course.” Sume sighed. “They posted this on the front doors the day we left the meeting. Kefier took it with him, hoping that would delay things—we asked Jehar to hold on to it for safekeeping. Obviously, once the city and the council both realize nothing is happening, they’ll simply file the order again. But perhaps this will be enough to convince the elders to file a counter-petition. We can accuse the mage council of holding one of their own to force them out of the building. It’s true enough, in any case.”

“They’ll drag Ceres’s name through the mud,” Enosh said. “She’s been on the council so long she’s made enough enemies who will see this as an opportunity to take her down.”

“That’s exactly what I want,” Sume replied. “Without this, any request for an inquiry we make will be ignored. With this? They will pin it on her, and she will be forced to fight back. She’ll have to direct their attentions to this Ivasus, then.”

Enosh narrowed his eyes. “The things that war in Jin-Sayeng have done to you…” he began.

“It taught me to act before someone can sink a dagger into my back,” Sume said. “Negotiating for your life, or the life of people you love, is an unfortunate reality. And it doesn’t matter if you see it or not—you are at war right now. You and your people, against Dageis. Don’t ever forget that they started it, too.”

“I told you I don’t have any intention of helping those bastards,” Enosh replied. “First you’re working for each other’s mutual benefit, and then the next they’re dragging you into their ridiculous revolt, with no end in sight. Once Dageis catches wind of this, there’ll be nothing we can do to stop them from raking our name through the mud.”

“It’s about time you accept they already are, Enosh,” Sume said. “They’ve already begun. And if you don’t move now, it’s not just your name, but our very lives that may be at stake. Or don’t you care about your family at all?”

He stared at her in silence for a length of time. “Damn you,” he finally said, under his breath. “Damn this all to hell.”

Portia came by to watch the boys, and I walked with my parents and Jehar back to the city. Enosh wanted to take a carriage; Sume thought, for propriety’s sake, that arriving on foot would make a better impression. I could see on Enosh’s face that he wanted to argue with her about knowing his people better, but I was willing to side on her with this one. He’d been around high society too often to know how commoners react to the smallest show of opulence. Carriages, clothes, even the way you turn up a humble offering could all be misconstrued, and if Sume let Enosh take the lead on how to move through the upper echelons of society—I don’t remember her ever arguing about his insistence at every little extravagance—then it was only fair he let her take the lead when it came to dealing with working men and women.

And the elders, from what I understood, comprised mostly of such people. Many of them were still working odd jobs around the city, despite being so old they should have long retired in the company of grown children and grandchildren.

They lived in what the local Gorenten called the elders’ building. Officially, it was named the Triassan Inn. A few decades ago, its owner had died with no heir, leaving the building under the care of the empire, who didn’t think much of it. The building gradually became run-down, surviving only because of the Gorenten, Shiu-uin, and Agarenthen who began settling in the area. They fixed up the rooms, partitioning off living quarters for various families—many of whom were Gorenten sailors suffering from debilitating injuries from their life at sea. Over time, development in Triassa pushed small businesses out and some of the families moved to the outskirts or disappeared to the bigger cities, where more work could be found. A handful of elders remained behind, most of whom had nowhere else to go. Dageian raids had razed their villages and taken what family they remembered.

The building was like a living monument of the Empire of Dageis’s crimes to its colonies, and if one wanted to be impartial, it was easy to see why they would want to get rid of the elders. The document Sume had taken, of course, said no such thing. Instead, the empire insisted that redevelopment of the old inn into a destination people across the empire and beyond would visit would mean more opportunities for the elders—who would just have to find a new place to live.

My mother saw through all of this with the fine precision of a surgical knife. Underneath the seemingly mundane life of a mother of three young sons and a merchant’s wife still lay the brains behind Jin-Sayeng’s elusive peace. I think a part of her was itching to broker deals once again, even without Kefier’s life on the line. She was good at it, too—she just wasn’t the sort of person driven by monetary gain like Enosh was. It simply took problems of certain proportions to get her into action, like a sleepy old bear who only took a swipe at you if you kicked it in the face long enough.

I must have been sitting in awe of this transformation for so long that I forgot where I was. When Jehar cleared his throat, I realized we were already in front of the building. I let my hands fall to the side.

“Is that really Rosha inside of you?” Jehar asked as I walked past him. His face was tight. It wasn’t just that he distrusted the magic that pinned my consciousness into the simulacrum; I got the sense that he never really thought of me as a mage all these years. I remembered he hated mages. They’d left Klossaka to rot. I was supposed to be the exception, the one who cared about people like him. The words imperial and government had nothing to do with me, and yet here I was, carrying the emperor’s own visage, without even having offered a word of explanation. I understood his desire for one, even if I felt like I didn’t owe it to him.

“It is, and it isn’t,” I said.

He hated cryptic talk. His brow furrowed more than it already had.

“The woman you loved was in hiding,” I told him frankly. “She was an outlaw that would have brought the full force of the mage council on your little town if she had stayed there any longer. So she kept you in the dark. You didn’t really know her, and it would be better if you stopped trying to learn more. You won’t understand.”

He muttered something under his breath. “I never could,” he grumbled. “Understand her, I mean. You’re right about that.”

I hesitated before touching his shoulder. He immediately shrugged it away and faced me with an angry stare, and only then did I remember what he was still seeing. It felt like a blow. I had never been more myself these last few days than now, and yet here he was, looking at me like I’d stolen the person he loved. He wanted her back, even if he had to cut me open to get to her.

I forced away my attention away from him and the discomfort he stirred up, and joined my parents further down the hallway. An old woman was directing us to a meeting room. “You called at such an ungodly hour,” she told Sume. “We should’ve done this during the day.”

Sume simply nodded before entering the room. I followed her.

The seats in the meeting room were filled with disgruntled-looking elders, all looking like they’d been dragged out of their beds. “What’s this about?” one demanded, as soon as Sume took a seat.

She handed the letter to him without a word.

The old man looked like he didn’t even want to read it. He passed it over to the woman behind him, his face twisted into a scowl. The old woman read it with no emotion. “We know about this,” she said, after a few moments. “It’s not exactly a secret. Every official around these parts have been gossiping for months.”

“And you all chose to do nothing, anyway?” Enosh broke in.

“What can we do?” the old woman asked. “I can barely get to the market without my hip breaking. You’re one to come down here and interrupt what may be one of our last peaceful nights for a while. I always thought Count Tar’elian wouldn’t be caught dead mingling with his lessers.” There was a roar of agreement around her. I glanced at Enosh, who looked flushed. Between the Lost Ones and the elders, I was starting to suspect that life amongst other Gorenten simply got messier the further away from home we were.

Sume held out a hand and waited. The elders eventually stopped to turn to her. “And this one,” the woman continued. “Don’t the Jins have enough to deal with? Just because you married a Gorenten doesn’t give you the right to stick your nose into our affairs, girl!”

Sume hardly flinched from the insult. “It’s true,” she said, giving a quick bow of deference. “That said, my child is still of Gorent, despite this. You all know of her.”

“The mage child,” the old woman said. “Yes. Everyone has heard of Tar’elian’s spoiled brat. Genius, golden, good-for-nothing. What’s that got to do with us?”

“She’s missing,” Sume continued, ignoring the insults with expertise. “Along with my brother-in-law Kefier, whom you all know well in the years since we’ve established our family business in this city. We don’t know if their disappearance has anything to do with the order on your building, but we’re giving you the chance to file a counter-investigation on the mage council over it. We can pressure them to do two things at once: find my family, and delay your eviction.”

There was a moment of silence. I thought she’d spoken clearly enough to erase any doubts on the elders’ faces. But something about a ray of hope, cast haphazardly onto a dark sea, seemed to make it all the more turbulent. The arguments started again, with renewed vehemence. Now even Sume’s attempts to engage in thoughtful conversation were drowned out by yelling and raised fists. Enosh strode over to where I was. I turned to him, mouth half-open in shock.

He simply shrugged. “Now you know why I stay away,” he whispered.

CHAPTER 19

NASUHA

Lord Ivasus’s response was swift, even to a letter delivered to him late at night. Of course he would be happy to pay Lady Berinda a visit. Delighted, overjoyed, honoured! It had been far, far too long. In fact, he was going to be in the neighbourhood the next morning—would she like to take a walk near the dikes and then grab a bite to eat in one of the elegant cafes along the seaside after? It was a better arrangement than Nasuha could have hoped for. An hour after everyone had gone to bed, she snuck out of the guest room and went out to the alley, where a lone figure in a cloak leaned against the stone walls, drenched from the drizzle of rain.

“If you were hoping I’d just forget about you and walk away…” Asera began.

“They’re going for a walk first thing in the morning,” Nasuha said. “Likely will take half the household guards with them. It’s the perfect time for you to get in, grab what you can, and get out. No one doesn’t even need to know you were here. I trust you know how to be discreet with your theft.”

A look of surprise flitted over Asera’s face. “And here I thought you really have gone and joined those dogs.”

Nasuha pressed a key into her hand. She’d stolen it from a hook near the entryway to the kitchens. “This will open the back door,” she said. “I suspect the servants will be up early to get a basket ready for their mistress and prepare their own breakfasts along the way, but they won’t have to make lunch. There’ll at least be half an hour, maybe a whole hour, for you to get your business done without anyone suspecting.”

“Why are you doing this?” Asera asked.

Nasuha felt like slapping her. “I don’t know. You asked nicely, I guess. The blackmail also helped.”

Asera shrugged. “I didn’t think you’d agree this easily.”

Nasuha yanked the key away. “Maybe you don’t need this after all. Good to know I wasted my time.”

Asera quickly grabbed it back. “I was just making an observation,” she said, tucking the piece of brass into her pocket. She made a quick bow. “You’re way too serious, you know. Lighten up a little. Those wrinkles won’t fade once they appear.” She hesitated. “I just…I’m just surprised. That’s it. You could let a woman be wistful once in a while, couldn’t you?”

Nasuha gazed at the falling rain before letting a small sigh escape her lips. She tightened her hands into fists. “If we had the luxury to be wistful for the rest of our lives…”

“And why can’t we?” Asera asked.

“Because we can’t. I told you. To pretend we’re free to just live our lives is to live a lie.”

“There you go again,” Asera said, shaking her head. “You should have been a poet, Suha. Your head’s been in the clouds from the very beginning. Ah, hell, if I knew you’d turn out like this, I probably wouldn’t have helped you escape your island that day. I would have left you there—”

“To rot?”

“To grow some sense,” Asera said with a sigh. “The way things are is the way things are, and there’s not much we can do about it. Just take it day by day, and enjoy what you can, where you can. It’s all over too fast. Look at us. How long has it been since we were still so young it felt like just about anything was possible? It wasn’t that long ago. And now we’re fast approaching our thirties, and if we live as long as the people I’ve known, if we live as long as my own damn parents, that means we’re already halfway through our lives. You’re going to waste it on ideals, Nasuha?”

“Yes,” Nasuha said, without hesitation.

Asera sniffed. “You’re truthful, I give you that.” A moment later, she reached up to touch Nasuha’s scarred cheek with the back of her fingers. “I was never afraid of you, you know,” she whispered. “Even when you killed those men. You ran away before I could tell you. You thought I would call you all the things they’ve called you, including your own father. Demon. Cursed. Lost One. And I think you’ve spent the rest of your life trying to prove you are anything but and I understand that more than you know, but you don’t. You don’t have to prove anything. You don’t have to try to make a difference or change the world the way that old woman has twisted you to believe. You are—the way you are—still takes my breath away.” She wiped the rain from Nasuha’s brow before pressing her forehead against hers. “Stop this before it gets you killed. Please.”

“I could ask you the same thing,” Nasuha whispered. “You act like what you’re doing is the only way we can survive.”

“I’m not smart, like you said. This is the only thing I know.”

Nasuha gritted her teeth. “You know I didn’t mean that.”

Asera chuckled. “Mmm, you did.” She kissed Nasuha’s cheek, close to the corner of her lips, before gently stroking the side of it. “I won’t disappoint you,” she said as she pulled away. “You’ve given me the easiest job I’ve done in a long time, and it would be awfully embarrassing if we walk right into the guards while we’re at it. I still have my professional pride, you know. But just to make sure—you won’t be there, right?”

“I’m accompanying Lord Felan on their errand,” she said.

“So this is a goodbye.”

“I suppose it is,” Nasuha said, shrugging. She could still feel the warmth of the kiss. Not the heated ones they’d shared in the past, and yet for all its coldness, it pierced her all the same. She watched her disappear under the cloak of the rain before turning her attention back to the task at hand.

Even from a distance, the sight of Ivasus sent a shock of nostalgia down Nasuha’s spine. She remembered him clearly. It was hard not to. He was one of those boys who could suck up all the air wherever he was, even if it was something as simple as a stroll down a crowded hallway. Back then, he was always followed by a retinue of boys, all of whom resembled him in some way: fair skin, blonde or brown hair, freckles, eyes always on the lookout for the next amusing thing to pour their attentions on.

He didn’t have his retinue now, but the energy remained all the same. He carried himself with an air of confidence and charm that hid the last few days—the sort of man people would look at and call harmless. “Like he can’t hurt a fly,” she could imagine a fair number of elders she knew would say. “Look at that smile!” So charming, so handsome, precious boy.

She pulled out a dagger from her belt and flipped it, catching the handle before it fell to the ground.

“Please don’t,” Felan nervously said.

“I’m trying to soothe you,” she replied, smirking. “You look like you’re about to make a puddle where you stand. Look—even Berinda doesn’t know where we are. If it makes you feel better, you can hide behind the window—he won’t recognize me.”

“I wish we’re close enough to hear what they’re talking about,” Felan said, rubbing his arms. “Following them from rooftop to rooftop was not exactly how I envisioned this would go.”

“And what’s wrong with my idea?”

“What if he hears us?”

“We make animal noises. I can do a mean horse.”

He stared at her.

She laughed and slapped him on the back hard enough to make him cough. “And Asera tells me I’m too serious. She hasn’t spent enough time around you or Rosha. Compared to both of you, I’m a walk in the park.”

Felan looked like he didn’t know how to take such comments. “They’re about to reach the end of the street,” he grumbled.

“That’s our cue, then.” Nasuha made her way to the edge of the balcony and began scanning the next house for an appropriate landing point. “There,” she said, pointing to another terrace overlooking the alley. “Follow my lead.”

Felan hesitated. “That’s way too far of a leap for me. I’m going to climb down and take the street like a sane human being.”

Nasuha made a scoffing noise under her breath. “Suit yourself,” she said, before taking the jump.

She landed right on the edge of the stone railings, a feat that made her slightly proud of her prowess. Past halfway her life already? Asera was talking out of her ass. Still crouched on the edge of the railing, she turned halfway in time to see Felan making his way down the ladder to the alley. She knew she was pushing him too hard—he was far from recovered. But it was amusing to see him push right back. She fully expected a rich man’s son to be more difficult. Somewhere along the way, he’d grown not just a backbone, but some sense and self-sufficiency. Nasuha pushed the guilt away again. Maybe she was to thank for all of this. If she hadn’t done what she did, who knew what he would have turned into?

She clambered up the rooftop and spotted Berinda and Ivasus still strolling along the canal. Berinda was twirling the parasol in her hands, making the shadows behind her dance. She, too, was a pleasant surprise; Nasuha didn’t think she would be able to carry out a conversation as effortlessly as she was doing now, especially considering the whole thing was forced. But Nasuha figured Felan had a point—it would be better if she could overhear snippets. Berinda had promised to make a full report to them later on, but she could miss details or outright lie altogether.

“Hey, you!” someone called from the balcony she’d just left.

Nasuha waved at the woman before taking another running leap for the next rooftop. Two blocks down, Ivasus and Berinda had to turn, and she could easily make her way to the closest house before they got there. Perhaps that was close enough for her to hear what they were saying to each other.

Heart pounding, she quickened her pace. Another rooftop, and then a third. At the edge of the last one, she finally dropped down to the balcony and perched, gargoyle-like, under the shadow of the eaves.

“—setting up a few warehouses down at the industrial district—” Ivasus was saying. “I thought they were a better investment than property to live on—I can always buy a house later on.”

Berinda tittered. “No wonder! I was wondering when you plan to move out of that hotel.”

“The food is very good, Lady Berinda—I think I’ll stay a bit longer.”

“It’s rather brave of you to think business as soon as you land here. The businesses here are a little resistant to newcomers setting up shop out of nowhere.”

“There’s no laws against it.”

“Of course not,” Berinda agreed. “But even you must know that every city, every district, have unwritten rules about how things work.”

“I’ve heard foreigners have gotten a foothold in this area. Many Gorenten-owned shops, among other things. Agarenthen grocers. I intend to bring a bit of balance. After all, we don’t want to walk into the heart of Dageis and wonder if we’ve left the empire!” He laughed.

“I always thought Drusgaya and all the different people that live in it was the heart of the empire. Feel free to disagree, my lord.”

“It’s not disagreement, but—”

They faded away again. Frowning, Nasuha quickly navigated down to the row of balconies. She spotted Felan still walking resolutely in the alley to the other end.

“—the outskirts are just as part of the empire,” Ivasus continued. “It’s about time we start to dominate the continent as we used to. We don’t want power to slip away from the old families.”

“Heaven forbid,” Berinda said, with a gasp that was entirely too much, unless perhaps you were someone who thrived amongst bootlickers. “But I’m impressed, my lord,” she continued, gesturing at him with her parasol. “Your ambition is quite something. I haven’t seen such energy for a very long time. The council—”

“—is filled with moldy pushovers, my lady. With all due respect. But you’ve sat in the meetings. Surely you know what I mean. Change can’t happen fast enough. Under the current leadership, the empire is going under.”

“You!”

The voice, this time, was a man’s, uttered with a low, grumbling authority. Nasuha had been so engrossed in listening to Ivasus and Berinda’s conversation that she had neglected to see the guard from one of the houses peering from behind the window.

“Just passing by,” Nasuha mouthed.

The guard’s gauntleted arm smashed through the glass and grabbed her wrist. “Thief!” he screamed. “I caught a thief!” He pulled her back into the window. Nasuha felt the shards dig into her skin as he attempted to twist her arm right towards the wall.

Nasuha held her breath for a moment before letting her hand burn.

She didn’t have to do much; the guard dropped her out of reflex almost immediately. Gritting her teeth, she yanked her hand back through the window. Rivers of blood dripped down the open wounds, the long slash marks she got from the glass, but her attention was now solely focused on the guard, who was dashing for the balcony door. She quickly drew a dagger and made a running leap for the man as soon as his head burst into the open air.

Her blade spun as she twisted her whole body for a strike and sank it deep into the guard’s unprotected calf. “Pesky mage!” he screamed. He roared and lifted his sword, putting his whole body into an attack meant to cleave her body in half. But the balcony was too narrow, and she ducked, flattening herself into the space between the windows as the sword came clashing to the ground.

Only then did she lunge a second time. Her right hand jerked upwards, stabbing the guard right between the ribcage. Her other hand grabbed his shirt collar, which was poking through his armour. She twisted it, cutting off his air as he attempted to crush her with a fist and dragging him right to the edge of the balcony.

She stabbed him a second time. They crashed right over the railing and fell. Nasuha landed on top of the guard, who wasn’t so lucky; he fell headfirst, cracking his skull on the cobblestone and snapping his spine with a sound that could have been heard from the other end of the street. Nasuha heard more guards screaming from above and forced herself away from the body to limp down the street.

A figure grabbed her as she turned the corner into the alley. She lashed out, teeth bared, but the figure stumbled backward and uttered a low cry. She forced herself to look at him, ignoring the sweat and blood, and realized it was Felan. “So much for not attracting attention,” he said.

“Shut up,” she hissed. She heard another cry and saw a group of men gathered from the far end of the street, near the body, and spat to the side. They couldn’t waste another moment. “Run!”

CHAPTER 20

NASUHA

With her wounds still bleeding, the only place Nasuha could think of to hide in was down at the docks, to a place she knew she had no right to visit. Not after last night, and not after all the choices she’d made, over and over again. She had made it clear to Asera that her priorities lay with the Lost Ones; Asera had made it clear she wanted nothing to do with it. To throw doubt on her decisions would be to sow hope, which would only be cruel.

And yet she found herself there anyway, outside the tiny, rundown hovel right beside the fish market. A man had set up a stall right next to the narrow stairway leading to the apartment, where he chopped fish with a cleaver, cutting through flesh and bone as easily as if they were made of butter. Holding her injured arm close, Nasuha leaned over to the man. “Is Asera home?” she asked.

“She’s out on a job,” the man grunted, without even looking at her. He cut off a fish head and tossed it into a bucket on the ground.

“Yes, I know. I was wondering if she’d returned safely.”

The man finally stopped, still holding the cleaver. He fixed Nasuha with a stare. “Get out of here,” he said curtly. “You’re trouble. I don’t want to see you around here ever again.”

Nasuha showed him her wounds. “I just need to patch myself up. Give me something for my wounds, and I’ll be out of your hair soon enough.”

The man slammed his cleaver into the chopping board, making the stall shake with the movement. “You’ve really got some nerve.”

Nasuha blinked.

“You don’t recognize me,” he said, bristling underneath his beard. “Of course, why would you? You were always too good for us.” His eyes flashed.

“Jundi,” she blurted out. Asera’s little brother. He had been fifteen or so when she’d last seen him, when he’d gone out to follow his sister to the mainland. The last few years had seen a growth spurt—she could have sworn he was two heads shorter back then, with a face as smooth as a shaved pig’s backside.

Jundi wiped his hands on his apron. “She went off to fence goods,” he said. “I hope that’s the last time you dangled such a dangerous job in front of her. Next time you talk to her, tell her to get an honest job for honest pay. I can’t live like this.”

“I don’t control your sister,” Nasuha said. “Let me patch myself up before I start mixing human blood with your wares.”

He glanced at Felan, who had remained motionless and silent behind her this whole time, before dragging himself up the steps. He walked very slowly, wincing with every step. When he was a boy, the captain at the ship he was working on had beaten him with a club for so long they were sure he was dead when they found him later in the docks. He survived, but his bones healed all wrong. Nasuha kept her distance—she remembered he hated it whenever anyone noticed his struggles or offered to help. He stopped in front of the door to their house, which opened right into the outdoor stairwell, wiped his hands again, and turned the knob.

He stepped in. Nasuha and Felan followed a moment later.

“I’ll get the bandages,” Jundi said as he disappeared into the kitchen.

Nasuha heaved herself into the sofa. Nothing had changed—not even the curtains, which remained the same black fabric with pink flowers that Nasuha herself had bought years ago. Asera probably spent more of her time with her gang, especially if Jundi had set up shop just down the street. Knowing her, she wouldn’t purposely draw attention to her brother.

“I think it’s safe to say we’ve lost both the guards and Berinda and Ivasus,” Felan said, breaking the silence. “She doesn’t know exactly what we need from her, only that she speak with him about his plans. But that commotion would have drawn his attention—it may not be safe to return to Lady Berinda’s abode in the next few days. All of this might have been for nothing.”

“It’s not,” Nasuha replied. She glanced up as Jundi returned with a roll of bandages. He tossed it in her direction. Sitting on the floor with her arm on the seat of the sofa, she quickly began wrapping her wounds. The blood had mostly congealed, but the bandages removed the sting of the torn flesh. “I know where he’s keeping his prisoners. He mentioned he bought a few properties recently, all warehouses. He said he doesn’t own a house in the city, but it’s possible he’s sent either Rosha or Kefier, if not both, to them. A carriage from Lon Basden would take a week if everything went well.”

“They might already be here, then,” Felan breathed. “He wouldn’t risk carriages. He’d have done a portal.”

“Halfway across the continent? I didn’t even know those were allowed.”

“They’re restricted. Cross-city portals, in particular, have been frowned upon in the past decade ever since it’s been discovered how unstable the agan fabric in the empire has become,” Felan said. “You can do linked short ones, especially if you’re following pre-determined gateways—which I’m sure a family as old as Ivasus’s would have access to. And you could avoid an inquiry if you had the skill and knowledge of how to mask them—such as creating them right under an airship before it launches.”

“Oh,” Nasuha said. “Because the airship would require a large amount of energy, anyway.”

“Right. They must be here. They have got to be. I don’t see Ivasus separating himself from Rosha too much—not with the way he was looking at her.” He forced away his discomfort at the thought and got up. “I’ll go.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” she said. “They’ll recognize you on sight.”

“You’re injured.”

She glanced at her arm. “This? This is nothing.”

“Don’t even dream of asking my sister for help,” Jundi said. “Whatever mess you’re involved in now, we don’t want any part of it.”

“I wouldn’t dream of asking her, either,” Nasuha snapped. But then she sighed. “Thank you for this.”

“Eat before you go,” Jundi continued, the spark of hospitality at odds with the hostility in his voice. He placed a tray of biscuits on the ground. They were pure white, a kind of shortbread made with rice flour, butter, and the toasted rice grains, pounded flat. Without even making eye contact, he strode out of the door to return to his shop.

Nasuha picked a biscuit up and placed it in her mouth. It crumbled against her teeth.

“When you find Rosha…” Felan broke in. “When you find her, do you intend to force her to work for your Lost Ones?”

“I’m not forcing her to do anything,” Nasuha said. “We don’t want a puppet. She gets to decide. We need her—she just has to see how much.”

“I see.” Felan pressed his hands together. “I have to admit that I don’t know what to feel about any of this. Assisting her seems to push her deeper and deeper into trouble. If I could have reassurance that she will be safe, I feel like the best thing to do is just…walk away.”

Nasuha paused, halfway through a second biscuit. She wiped her mouth. Unlike Jundi, she could still clearly remember what Felan looked like as a boy. She could remember how frail he looked lying on the floor, as if blocking him of magic had the effect of draining his very life essence. If the years had hardened Jundi despite what it had done to him, it seemed to have had the opposite effect on Felan; he looked weathered, as if the years had worn down all the rough edges and left only the soft parts behind. “Arguably, her life was always headed in that direction, anyway,” she said, putting the biscuit down. “You and her. You didn’t really think you could just graduate, find yourselves seated on the council, and live out the rest of your lives in opulence and splendour like the rest of your ilk? You’re Lord Cato’s adopted son. One look is all it takes. The people you brush elbows with would never allow you to just exist. You’re reacting, that’s all it is. Protecting yourselves. You have no knowledge whether or not your next move will make things worse—only that inaction won’t bring you peace.”

“Have you been following her all this time, then? You followed her into my father’s home, and then you stayed because you wanted her abilities for your organization.”

Nasuha smiled. “Stumbling on her in the outskirts of Drusgaya was sheer coincidence. I took it as a sign from the gods that they have more in store for her, even if I wasn’t so sure myself.”

“Coincidence?” Felan asked. “So you did know about her, even before then.”

Nasuha closed her mouth. “The elders keep an eye out for all gifted children,” she said. “They’ve had their eye on Rosha for a while because of her father. That’s all it is. You don’t have to worry about anything, Lord Cartos. We’re family. The most important thing right now is to see her safe, and to make sure we haven’t inadvertently left her in the hands of the enemy.”

“Those are not the same,” he said softly.

Nasuha didn’t have it in her to tell him he was right.

As Felan made his way towards Rosha’s family to report to Tar’elian, Nasuha used the time to get more information from the warehouses Ivasus had purchased. When you had the bulk of the workforce gathered in such a small area, rooming and eating and gossiping together, the undercurrent of information was easy to get a hold of. In Nasuha’s case, she didn’t have to look far from home; Jundi had friends who worked down at the industrial district. By mid-afternoon, she knew not just which ones, but the schedule of the staff who worked there, including the breaks between shifts.

“As long as nothing valuable goes missing, eh, miss?” the old man who offered her the schedule said.

“Every item will remain accounted for,” she promised as she waved him off. People probably didn’t count.

Nasuha waited until sunset to begin her investigations, with nothing but a couple of Jundi’s shortbread biscuits inside her belly. Food made her slow and queasy, and if she was going to lumber through a warehouse filled with guards, she wanted to do it on pure adrenaline alone. As the sun slowly disappeared beneath the rooftops, she checked her weapons, sucked in her breath, and made her way up the roof once more. There, she scanned her surroundings.

The workers had pointed out four warehouses where the ownership had recently changed hands. Ivasus wasn’t named, of course; the company that had purchased them was new, but Nasuha figured that was proof enough. If Ivasus was serious about starting a business in Triassa, he could have easily just leased the warehouses instead—it was less risky. But the man had something else in mind, a plan that went beyond simply having a place to store his captives in.

Her skin prickled at the thought. She pushed it away and made her way to the skylights. They were locked, easily picked. Once she had removed them, she lifted the windows up and slid down to the rafters. Half-crouched, she carefully made her way to the end of the warehouse, where she had a good vantage view below.

Two guards patrolled the largely empty space. Nasuha could estimate maybe less than a hundred crates or so stacked way in the back—perhaps enough stock for a small store, but hardly enough to warrant an entire warehouse. She waited a few moments before making her way back to the skylight, pulling herself through the opening when both guards were too far away to see her. She returned the padlocks and made her way across the street to the others.

The next warehouse wasn’t much different than that first, though here, both guards were asleep in their chairs, which told her Ivasus hadn’t been careful enough with his hiring or the guards instinctively knew what they were protecting wasn’t valuable enough. Overcome with curiosity, Nasuha decided to take off her boots and drop all the way down to the warehouse floor. She snuck her way to one of the crates and carefully pried the lid open before pushing it ever slowly to where the moonlight was shining through the windows.

They were blankets. Not even good, expensive blankets, not shiny silk or soft cotton or even plain wool for travelling. They were made of rough linen, patchy, the sort of blankets you gave to a sick dog so he wouldn’t mess up the floor with his shit. She checked another crate—this time, it was filled with grain. Nothing valuable, nothing you would even stock a store in the middle of the city with. These were items that belonged in a barn somewhere. Nasuha could have sworn they were holding supplies for livestock.

One of the guards started coughing, and she quickly returned the lid and hid behind the crates to wait for him to fall asleep again. She went back to the roof without a hitch.

The third warehouse was right next to the second. This one didn’t have skylights at all. There were four guards on the main door, and one posted in every window. A small smile flickered over Nasuha’s lips. She must have found it. She circled the warehouse silently. Six guards in total, plus the two in the other warehouse who would surely come running if anything where to happen. Could she fight eight? She could just hear Asera laughing, never mind that the woman had seen what she was capable of. When she was a child and didn’t know any better. Mistress Rasiad had told her the way she approached magic was unhinged and bound to lead to disaster if she didn’t learn to control herself. Nasuha knew by then, of course—she had spent years roaming the halls of Eheldeth hearing students talk about the exact same thing. Eheldeth, which forever instilled the fear of all the things that would happen to you if you didn’t take their lessons to heart.

“But unhinged could be smart, too, if you play your cards right,” Rasiad had told her. “Forget everything you’ve ever heard from the Dageians. Your body has spent all these years learning to deal with the damage the agan has dealt it. You can use that to your advantage. Think. You could obliterate yourself, sure, but why not train yourself to be impervious instead? Can steel be forged if it doesn’t sit on fire?”

She couldn’t fight eight at once, of course. It would be foolish to try. But she could do two. She returned to the second warehouse and didn’t bother to pick the locks again. Instead, she picked up a rock and smashed right through them.

The sound alerted the guards inside the warehouse first. She spotted them running towards the skylight. She waited until they were right underneath here before jumping through the hole and setting the crates underneath her on fire. The guards saw her go up in flames and bolted out through the doors, screaming for help.

She waited just long enough until the fire became uncomfortable before returning to the roof. Years of training had given her the means to tolerate such flames for a minute or two without physical harm, though it didn’t come without pain. A few seconds was enough, though. As soon as she reached the rooftop, she heard the guards return with the others. “I saw it there!” one screamed. “A monster, all covered in flames! We need to call Lord Ivasus!”

“We need mages,” another snapped. “There’s something foul in the air.”

Nasuha didn’t wait around to listen to them argue while the crates, along with the entire warehouse, went up in flames. She made her way towards the third, which was already empty of guards. She made her way to the roof, swung down from one of the eaves, and while hanging from the rafters began kicking one of the windows open. The warehouse was old, and the rusty hinges caved in from the inside with a few swift blows.

She immediately jumped through the window. She landed next to a bed with a body on it.

“Rosha,” she said out loud.

The body didn’t move. Not that she expected it to, but she walked over to the side and gently placed a hand on Rosha’s forehead. It was warm, a touch more than she expected it to be—almost as if she was burning up with fever. Nasuha walked to the door and slid the bars in, locking the room from inside. She placed a chair against the knob as added security before she returned to Rosha. Glancing down at the woman, she felt that same old niggling regret again, the one that had kept her at Rosha’s side all throughout those days in Lord Cato’s mansion. The woman had been through so much trying to undo the damage she’d caused. Nasuha never once doubted what she’d done all those years ago; to give someone as powerful as this woman to the Dageians was a catastrophe waiting to happen. But you could feel different ways about the same thing, and Nasuha knew that if anyone had robbed her of her powers, she could never forgive them.

“I’d kill me if I were you,” Nasuha said under her breath. “I hate that it’s come to this.” She sat down on the edge of the mattress and took Rosha’s hand in hers. “Let’s see what that asshole has done to you.” She closed her eyes, allowing her consciousness to drift into the other’s body.

She found herself standing in front of the manifestation of Ivasus’s spell: a giant slab of rock the middle of which was marked with a symbol that glowed bright orange.

“How subtle,” Nasuha said out loud. She allowed her consciousness to take form. She had never been comfortable drifting in the agan without one. Skilled mages could, which meant she probably would be able to as well, but she didn’t like the idea. She didn’t want to lose control, not if she could help it, and the form grounded her. She always took her own, though she always added a bit to her height for vanity. Everything else remained the same, all the way down to the colour of her skin and her scars. Those last two she would never get rid of—they were as much a part of her as the air in her lungs.

There was so much stray agan floating around Rosha’s consciousness that she was able to fashion a staff without too much trouble. She used this to touch Ivasus’s spell, hoping the distance would be enough to protect her in case he’d left traps behind. The spell rippled with her touch, the symbol pulsing and turning an even deeper black, as if someone had drawn it on with charcoal and was now smudging the edges with their finger. But nothing happened; Ivasus probably wasn’t expecting intrusion.

Not that it was safe to assume he wasn’t. Mistress Rasiad said that the trickiest part about dealing with another mage was trying to get into their heads, trying to figure out how they approached magic so that you could reasonably come up with your own defences or decide how to attack them without harming yourself, too. It was like a swordfight, in that sense. People thought it was about trading blows, but really, it was always about finding openings, trying to be one step ahead of your opponent so you could strike him with his guard down. Mages in Eheldeth trained against each other in the same way. Nasuha only had Mistress Rasiad to fight against—she had never had to battle another mage before, not even try to undo their spells.

She stared at Ivasus’s spell and wondered if she should attempt to unravel it. Perhaps it wasn’t the safest thing for her. Working with fire out in the physical world was easy, but everything that had to do with the agan past the fabric involved theories that flew past her head. Even Elian’s Heart would have been difficult for her to understand without Mistress Rasiad’s instructions.

Nasuha paused, holding on to that train of thought. Ivasus’s spell was a very clunky version of Elian’s Heart. From what she’d heard of the incident, everything fit into place—he’d even used that girl, Gande, to supply the source of power needed to set it up in the first place. But it was nothing, in the end; a log thrown into an already narrow stream, one that happened to wedge itself into the channel of agan at just the right angle, just enough to prevent Rosha from returning to her body. Most mages would have enough of an agan flow to simply dislodge the log.

Not so with Rosha. The answer lay in Nasuha’s own spell blocks, the ones she created years ago to force all the magic out of the girl.

With a sigh, she walked around the stone wall. A path led away from it and into a thin forest. She found one of her spells down in the streams, looking like a pile of rocks that had been dumped right in the middle. Over the years, the agan had attempted to spill past the pile and simply created a crystallized wall around the rocks, inadvertently strengthening it.

She took her staff and jammed the bottom of it right into the crystals. The spells rippled, just like with Ivasus’s spell, but once it recognized her as the caster, it immediately collapsed. She clapped her hands, and the spell, along with the crystals, shattered into a thousand pieces.

The stream gurgled, and a trickle of agan immediately began flowing right down through it. It was pathetic. The years had done too much damage, and she wasn’t even sure if it would make it all the way. She crossed the stream and went off in search of the next one.

For the next few hours, she attempted to find as many of the streams as she could. Casting Elian’s Heart had created all those blocks with one spell; dismantling them all, she realized, would take forever. She was starting to get the nagging sense that she’d been there for hours. She needed to return to her body or else risk losing herself.

Nasuha removed one last blockage before finally allowing her consciousness to drift back. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness. She was immediately aware of Rosha’s hand in hers. Her temperature felt normal. She wondered if she had undone enough blocks. The agan was at least finally flowing through her again.

“Rosha,” she whispered.

There was a long moment of silence, and she braced herself for the possibility of having to return later to try again, because there was no way she had the energy now.

“Rosha, I beg of you, come back,” she repeated. “Come back. You’re needed here.”

She took a deep breath and watched as Rosha’s eyes fluttered open.

CHAPTER 21

ROSHA

One moment, I was standing in front of a crowd of enraged Gorenten elders. My attempt to wade in with an explanation and concern over Kefier’s well-being was dismissed almost as soon as I made it—I could already tell from their eyes that it was going to take much more than a few hurried words to convince them of the mutual benefit to our plan. It probably didn’t help that I couldn’t actually tell them who I was; all they saw was a Dageian offering them salvation through promises. “Your people have promised ours too much already,” an elder told me, as soon as I finished chiming in with my thoughts on Sume’s plan. “How much reassurance do we get that you don’t use this against us the first chance you get? That you won’t use us?”

I opened my mouth to answer. But before I could get a word in, I collapsed, all but slamming my head on the edge of a bench. My senses spun, as if someone had reached into my skull and squeezed my brain like a lemon. It was followed by the sensation of being pushed against a metal sieve, the pieces cutting me as I was forced through the holes.

And then I opened my eyes to the sight of Nasuha looking down on me, a spray of moonlight cascading behind her hair like ripples on the sand.

“Welcome back,” she said. She seemed amused.

I bolted up. “No,” I whispered.

Nasuha crossed her arms. “I normally like thank yous, but I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised.”

“I was in the middle of a meeting with the Gorenten elders,” I snapped. “We were going to band together to accuse the mage council of holding Kefier captive to force them out of the building granted to them in the middle of the city.”

Nasuha nodded. “I know about all of that. But I thought the plan was to wait for me and Felan to come up with something.”

I hesitated. “We…”

“You didn’t trust me,” she said in a low voice.

I hesitated. “More that my mother didn’t trust Felan. She thought someone in his position had very little to gain in helping me. I couldn’t disagree, even if I wanted to. It’s hard to disagree with my mother. She is persuasive in a way I can’t explain.”

“You could have told her that he loves you. Isn’t that a simple enough reason to want to help someone?”

I didn’t answer. Instead, I looked down at my fingers and my legs. It felt strange to be back in my own body after so many days. I could feel everything. I could feel cold, and hunger, and pain in my joints and skin. I could smell the staleness of my own sweat, the mold from the walls, the wet wind from the half-open window. The thought of life seemed to occupy every inch of my consciousness, after days of dwelling on nothing but thoughts. All I wanted was to walk out of there, stare up at the sky, and bathe in the moonlight.

“Rosha,” Nasuha repeated. “Can you hear me at all?”

“I hear you,” I said. “Did he tell you this?”

“Even if he didn’t, it’s as clear as day.”

I shook my head. “I’m not sure she’d care. Anyway, I think you’re misreading his intentions.”

Nasuha sighed. “He’s risking a lot for you.”

“What would have been the appropriate response?” Jehar had told me he loved me so many times before. What was I supposed to do with such knowledge, were it true? So what if Felan loved me? What difference did it make? It was a mistake, likely coming from his hunger for magic and the confusion of the last few days. I was the last link to what he’d lost, to that heady, intoxicating feeling of having power in one’s hands. It wasn’t love. An intelligent, well-adjusted man had nothing to gain from such sentiments, and if Nasuha’s assessment was correct, he’d change his mind soon enough. Of all the people I knew, Felan was one of the few who wouldn’t let his emotions cloud his judgment. It wouldn’t take long for him to see I wasn’t the kind of woman with anything to give.

Nasuha coughed and pointed at the window. “Perhaps we can talk about it later. Now that you seem well enough to give snark, perhaps it’s best we get out of here before the guards discover us.”

“It wasn’t snark.” I glanced around. “Have you seen Kefier?”

“No,” Nasuha replied. “When I’m out, I’ll check the other windows, but my priority is getting you to safety.”

“If anything happens to Kefier, I can’t promise I’ll cooperate,” I said.

“Well then, I guess that means I have to try really, really hard.”

I frowned and got up. After days of unuse, my legs seemed to have a mind of their own and wanted to bend in ways they shouldn’t. I stumbled. Nasuha caught me before I could hit my head; twice in one night was embarrassing enough already. She helped me up to the wall. “Just lean on it,” she said. “Give me a moment. I’m going to check for Kefier.” She opened the window and jumped through. I saw her pull herself up to the roof and heard the softest of thumps above me.

I closed my eyes and waited. Even the sound of my own beating heart felt like a stranger, and I relished in the sensation, the thought of my own blood rushing through my veins. It was soothing, in a way. I didn’t know how much time had passed before Nasuha poked her head back in, upside-down. “I couldn’t see him through the other windows,” she whispered. “But we need to go. The guards are getting close.” She reached through the window with her hand. I paused for a moment before grabbing it back. She nearly yanked me through the window as she pulled me up with surprising strength.

The surprise must have shown on my expression. “You’ve lost weight,” Nasuha explained. “A lot of weight, in fact, more than the last few days can explain. What have you been doing with yourself?” She turned to the scars on my wrists and the light of concern in her eyes turned real. For the first time, I felt a flush of shame.

“Felan has them, too,” I whispered.

“I know.”

“Blood magic. We’ve been using blood magic. Keeping myself inside the emperor is very difficult, Nasuha. I believe even skilled mages have trouble with it, and I’m…I’m not…”

She placed a hand on my shoulder. “What are you afraid of? You can tell me.”

“I don’t know,” I admitted.

“You’re ashamed of being seen as weak.”

I closed my mouth. She was right. I didn’t want to agree, but she was right. Weakness was a complication. I’d always had to be strong—it was the only way I could prove myself, to prove that I belonged and deserved to be in Eheldeth like everyone else. I always had to be good at what I was doing, I always had to be ahead…what value would there be in me if I wasn’t? And yet struggling to cast the simplest spells these days was proof enough; the classmates and keepers who didn’t believe in me were right, after all. I could bleed myself down to nothing and they would still be right.

Nasuha reached for my arm. Without a word, she ran her thumb across the scars so gently the caress felt like the edge of a sword. “The things you’re forced to do to survive doesn’t get to define you. I mean, look at me.”

I stared back at her. She had scars, too. I didn’t think they were the same thing at all. Her scars were because of what was done to her. I made these scars myself.

A dog began to bark from the adjoining alley.

Nasuha placed a finger on her lips. “We need to be careful. Those guards are on high alert.”

“If I could cast a don’t-look spell on us…” I began.

She squeezed my hands before I could even lift them. “Don’t try. You’ll pass out. We’re going to have to sneak out the old-fashioned way.”

“It’s the simplest bloody spell,” I hissed. “If I can’t even do one of them anymore, what good am I?”

“Then you’ll just be like everyone else, only smarter,” Nasuha replied. “That’s still something, you know.”

I closed my mouth, pushing away my desire to stand there and argue with her.

She could see that, too. She sighed. “You can try when you’re not on the verge of death, please.”

I paused. “How did you undo Ivasus’s spell? How do you know so much about what I can or can’t do?”

Nasuha took a deep breath. “I suppose it’s about time you learned what I am.”

I should have seen it. “You’re connected to the agan. You’ve got the gift, too.”

She gestured at her scars. “You’d call it that while looking at these?”

“But I never sensed it in you.”

“I’m very good at hiding it. It’s one of the few skills I’ve picked up.”

“But I should have sensed it.” I closed my eyes. As if I needed another reminder of how much the last few years had dulled my abilities.

“You probably did, and just thought it came from someone else,” Nasuha said. “Need I remind you that you were in Lord Cato’s mansion? There was agan everywhere there. Why would you bother with me? Let’s go before you start overthinking all of this. God knows, I’ve seen you do it too often already.”

I held my tongue and tentatively followed her down to the fence at the back of the compound. She went first, guiding me, very nearly carrying me even—I felt so weak that I was sure my bones would snap if she so much as let me go. But somehow, we made it to the street. She lifted my arm, wrapping it around her broad shoulders. Once we got out of the district, she called for a carriage.

Only when I was finally in the seat and no longer relying on my own muscles to keep me up did I turn to her. Despite what she said about overthinking, my mind turned to one thought, and one thought alone.

“Did he really say he loved me?” I blurted out.

There was a flicker of amusement on her lips before she nodded.

“Oh,” I said, and left it at that.

CHAPTER 22

ROSHA

Nasuha took me straight back to the Triassan Inn. It was in the early hours of the morning now, nearly dawn. A number of vendors had set up stalls right in the lobby of the building, selling freshly baked rice cakes, hot tofu with caramel, and fried plantains in batter. Breakfast not just for the elders, but the labourers from the surrounding area, who often got up early to get the bulk of their work out of the way before their Dageian masters came for inspection. The vendors smiled as we passed, offering us to sample their wares for free. Nasuha reached into her pocket for a coin and handed it over to the woman selling the battered plantains. “For two,” she said.

My stomach gurgled. The smell of the oily batter was making it twist in just about every direction. The vendor wrapped two pieces in newspaper and pushed it across the counter for Nasuha to pick up. She gave me one. I could feel the heat through the paper. I unwrapped it carefully and took a bite. It was still too hot, but I swallowed it all down, anyway. I felt like crying. I used to eat to get it out of the way. How could food do this now? I used to think solitude and the company of my own thoughts, without the distraction of food or sleep or other life necessities, was a sort of pleasure in itself, but now I couldn’t remember why. Being alone was only pleasurable as an escape. When it was all you had, it was a prison.

“I’ve never seen her before,” the vendor said, pointing at me. “Is she new?”

Nasuha glanced at me as she dabbed the oily paper over her lips. “Somewhat,” she said, a hint of sarcasm in her voice. I knew what she meant by it. Triassa was technically home, too, even though I’d only visited during the summers. But I didn’t even know about these people, even though they had always been here.

“Your parents did a great job sheltering you,” Nasuha said as we walked up the stairs. “Let me guess: that was mostly Tar’elian’s doing. He would rather see you grow up amongst Dageians than people of your own skin.”

“He never said it blatantly,” I said. “He simply thought if he tried hard enough, they would see me as one of them and I would get the sorts of opportunities out here in the empire he would have killed for when he was young.”

“Did it work?”

I frowned. “You don’t need to ask that question.”

“I know. I just like pointing it out.”

“I will only consider assisting your organization if Kefier is found safe, Nasuha. Even then, I can’t promise anything. All of this is happening too fast. I can’t—”

A shadow crossed the hallway across the landing, and I found myself staring at Jehar, who looked like he had seen a ghost. “Rosha,” he said. “Gods, Rosha. It’s you. It’s really you. They said something happened to you when you were in there and I didn’t understand. But—”

“You didn’t believe it was me, either,” I replied.

He swallowed, a flicker of shame crossing his features momentarily. But he looked over me, and his expression quickly turned to outraged concern. “Where the hell have you been, anyway? Why are you so thin? What’s going on here?” He tried to make a grab for my hand.

Nasuha stepped between us. “Not out here. Let’s go to Elder Nanga’s first.”

Jehar looked like he wanted to argue, but Nasuha simply walked past him with the look of a woman who could floor him with one blow if he protested. She led us down the hallway. Jehar muttered something under his breath.

“What was that?” I asked.

“You need to go home,” he said, in a louder voice. “All of this is just…it’s not good for you. I’ve never seen you like this before.”

“Where is home, Jehar? Back in Klossaka, with you?”

“Yes,” he said, without missing a beat. “We were happy there. We could have been even happier. Why this life, Rosha? You once told me you wanted to run away from it. Why did you return only to get yourself mixed up in all of this?”

“Is that why you followed me here?”

He nodded, without a hint of irony. “I wanted to see what was worth replacing me over.”

“I didn’t replace you, Jehar. We ended it before I got caught up with all of this. Believe me when I say I had no intention of going back to you, with or without this. Settling down…a quiet life…these aren’t things I want. I’ve seen my family scrabbling to get even a semblance of that, and failing miserably—I know it’s all a lie.”

“But this is,” he said, with a scowl. “This, you want.”

Nasuha cleared her throat. “You can leave us here,” she said.

“But she—” Jehar began.

“—is safe with us,” Nasuha continued. “You don’t have to worry.”

He hesitated. “You just don’t want me in there because I’m not one of you,” he said at last. “How is that fair?”

“It’s not,” Nasuha said. “But considering what the Dageians have done to our people, fair has completely lost meaning to us. Good day.” She all but shoved me through the door before she slammed it right in Jehar’s face. As soon as she’d locked it, she gave me a look. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for that type,” she said, half-amused. “Imagine that.”

“What type?” I asked.

She grinned. “A heartbreaker.”

“Arguably, he broke his own heart,” I said. “All his dreams about us were all his doing.”

“I can feel the northern wind blowing every time you talk about things that would set others’ hearts on fire,” Nasuha replied. “Is everything transactional with you?”

I paused. I didn’t know what she meant.

“Maybe this is why you’re so hard on yourself,” Nasuha continued. “You can’t imagine what it’s like to love someone for nothing, so you can’t imagine someone would feel the same way about you. Ah, to be young and stupid again.”

Someone began coughing from the common room. Nasuha gestured to me before walking ahead. A woman in a shawl was sitting on the edge of an old rattan sofa. Nasuha took her outstretched hand, placing it on her forehead. “Grandma Nanga,” she said. “I’ve brought a friend. I need a place for her to rest—it’s been a long night and their house is much too far away.” She jerked her head back towards me and gave me a look. She wasn’t one of the elders in the meeting room, which was just as well. I didn’t know how to explain that Tar’elian’s daughter wasn’t missing after all—it would make all the effort my mother went through for nothing. I stumbled forward, taking the woman’s hand and pressing it on my forehead, too.

“You’re free to use my spare room, as always,” the old woman said, patting the top of my head. “Though I daresay Asera would be hurt you didn’t go to her first, unless this is a friend you’d rather not introduce to her.”

Nasuha shrugged. “None of that sort, Grandma. Her brother doesn’t want me around, and I promised I’d respect his wishes.”

She smiled. “Asera is not her brother. But come.” She got up, knees creaking, and patted my shoulder before leading me to the closest door. She opened it. It was a small room, not much bigger than a closet, but I found myself sinking into the mattress almost immediately. The last hour felt like a day. As soon as the door was shut, I fell into a dreamless sleep.

I woke up to a trembling that felt like the building was being uprooted from the ground up. For a moment, I wondered if I was being dragged out of my own body once more and forced into yet another. The fear seemed to carve deeper hollows inside my bones. I opened my eyes and immediately saw a crack appear on the stone compound of the ceiling above.

The shaking stopped. The crack remained. It stared back at me like a crooked smile, as if it was a stranger with a secret.

The door burst open. “The Dageians are attacking,” Nasuha said. “Get up!”

I rolled to my side. “How long was I sleeping?” I asked.

“For most of the morning and afternoon,” she said. “The Dageians surrounded us five minutes ago.”

“The Dageians,” I repeated. “Guards?”

“Yes. They came by a few hours ago and decided that the elders’ continued presence in the building was an act of rebellion. Said they should have vacated months ago.”

“But my mother was assisting them in filing a counterproposal,” I said, gathering my thoughts. “They didn’t sign the receipt of the eviction notice. Legally, if they’ve never seen it, they can’t be held accountable. The officials should have checked first.”

“A reasonable assumption if fair ever worked in our favour,” Nasuha said. “But it doesn’t. It never did. I need you out there.”

“Why me?”

“They want to talk to someone, and you’re a count’s daughter. Your word has weight.”

“Where are my parents?”

“I believe they went back home. You’re the closest we’ve got.”

“I’m an outlaw mage hiding under a fake title. My words don’t have weight—they’re cursed.”

“It’s more than anyone here has. We’ve sent word to Tar’elian, but until he gets here, you’re all we have. Please, Rosha.” Nasuha held out her hand. “Please,” she repeated. I could tell she hated having to beg.

I took her hand and carefully got to my feet. I felt much better than I did the night before, almost as if my body was now starting to remember what it was supposed to do. Only a yawning headache remained from my recent ordeal, and that I could push aside if I was busy. “These elders…are really important to you, aren’t they?” I asked.

“What a question,” Nasuha said under her breath. “They should be to you, too. These elders have no one else. Once they’re thrown out on the streets, where would they go? You’ve seen them. Even if they could make the journey back to Gorent, most of them no longer have families to return to. Remember this: every opportunity they get to hurt one of yours hurts you, too. You know they only get worse with every win. They only get worse. We’re not supposed to give them quarter.”

“The Lost Ones’ philosophy?”

“If we can ever get this thing off the ground…” She swallowed. “Your father thinks we mean to turn the empire upside-down. As if we have the resources for that! We just want a bit of dignity. A bit of dignity, in exchange for all the lands they’ve ransacked, the slaves they’ve captured, the children they’ve killed. Just dignity. But I suppose even that is too much to ask for. These Dageians are stingy on just about everything.”

The lobby was filled from end to end when we arrived. Many of the elders stood right behind the doors, physically holding them back. “The assholes are going to have to carve their way through our bodies if they want to get in,” an old man declared as we came within earshot. He shook his fist. “I was drafted by the Dageian military in my youth. I’ll show them exactly what that means!”

Nasuha squeezed through the crowd, forming a space for me to walk through. “Tar’elian’s daughter is here,” she called. “Make way, please!” Some of the elders stepped aside immediately. She had to gently push the others out of the way.

“They brought a catapult,” Nanga said. She was standing right next to the doors, beside the plantain vendor. “The bastards actually brought a catapult! They loaded it and fired!”

“Yes, I heard,” Nasuha replied. “We’re going to stop them. It’s just a show of force. We can still get them to leave. Rosha here will talk to them.”

I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say, but I found myself nodding along.

Nanga shook her head. “They brought a catapult and five mages. I don’t think they mean to leave tonight—not unless they’ve thrown us out, too.”

“They won’t destroy the building, and you won’t leave.” I wondered where Nasuha was getting her conviction from. It seemed endless.

Nanga’s lip quivered. “I don’t believe they care about preserving the building. It’s worthless. The land, on the other hand…”

Nasuha gestured at the men holding the door shut. They stepped away, allowing both of us to squeeze through before they closed it behind us once more. The first thing I saw was the catapult. Two men were reloading it with a boulder. I resisted the urge to burn the damn thing on the spot—I would probably make an embarrassment of myself, anyway. Across the catapult, I spotted the section of the wall that had already taken a blow—it was somewhere on the second floor and had taken out an entire window. Nanga was right—these people had no desire to keep the building intact. If anything, they were going to demolish it in front of our eyes, with or without the elders.

“Over there,” Nasuha said, pointing. A group of Dageian officials were gathered near the square. Guards stopped us before we could get close.

Nasuha’s hand dropped to her sword. “We’re here to talk on behalf of the elders,” she snarled. “Let us through.”

“This building is being evicted,” a guard said. “It’s best for your elders to leave while they still can. We’ve been told to do what it takes to make sure there’s an empty building by the next morning.”

“Then you’ll have nothing but rubble,” Nasuha said. “You heartless bastards. This is what you joined the city watch for? Pushing harmless elders around?”

“The empire has allowed them to squat there for the better part of three decades,” the guard replied without blinking. “We’ve been more than lenient.”

“You’re not the empire. You must be a fool to believe that.”

“We need to talk to your superiors,” I broke in. “I am Count Tar’elian’s daughter and these elders are under my protection. What you are doing is a clear violation of their rights.”

The guard hesitated. The title did the trick. I’d learned, in the time I spent in Emperor Cerknar’s skin, that sometimes all it took was the belief that you didn’t owe them anything. Demand, don’t request. It worked better as Cerknar, though—if I used that voice, people usually fell on their knees on the spot. This time, he stared at me, not quite understanding how a Gorenten could look him straight in the eye and make the requests she was. He glanced at his friend, who nodded.

“No funny business,” he growled, letting us through.

I barely glanced at him. I walked straight to the officials, afraid that to stop and take a breath might cost us the opportunity. The officials stopped talking amongst themselves and turned. I recognized their faces. Felan was there, along with another familiar face from the past. Berinda. I didn’t have time to deal with my confusion. Both looked startled to see me, for so many different reasons.

“Lady Rosha Tar’elian,” Felan said out loud, clearing his throat. He took my hand and pressed it against his other hand. I could tell he wanted to do more; could feel him shivering slightly, but for some reason, his cold skin felt warm to my touch. He seemed to remember Berinda was right beside him, because he immediately let my hand go before gesturing towards her. “You must remember Lady Berinda, from Eheldeth.”

“Even if she doesn’t remember me, I remember her,” Berinda said. She gave a soft smile before making a curtsy. “I remember her very well. Wasn’t it her fault you had to leave school, Lord Felan? Or am I misremembering?”

“This isn’t the time,” I whispered. “My elders are in trouble. They’re more important than the past.”

She ignored my words. “You’re the reason Felan lost out in the opportunity to join the mage council, as was his right as Lord Cato’s son. You’re the reason he doesn’t have magic anymore. And as the person in charge of the city’s property disputes, you’re going to have to try very hard to convince me why I’m supposed to care about your elders. Isn’t that right, Lord Cartos?”

I wasn’t sure what was happening, but I immediately turned to Felan for an answer. He looked flushed. “Lady Berinda,” he began. “The version they fed the school was false. You have to understand. My father was not…a diplomatic man, and he wanted someone, anyone to blame. It was easy for him to find journalists who would distort the truth, and he used those stories to try to have Rosha expelled from school. There’s a reason the accusations were dismissed.”

“The reason very well has to do with the fact that the Firekeeper was sleeping with her father at the time,” Berinda said with a shrug. “I don’t see why you’re defending her after all these years. She ruined your life, Felan.”

“She didn’t,” he said.

“I remember differently. I remember the things you said about her in Sorna. You hated this woman, right down to your very core. You would have watched her burned at a stake without pity. What changed?”

Felan flushed. I recognized that spark of impatience flaring on his face, an expression I hadn’t seen for the longest time. He was trying very hard to push it away.

“We don’t have time for this,” Nasuha interjected. “We’re here to talk about the elders, not your personal lives. Call your men away.”

“I can’t,” Berinda said, pretending to glance at her fingernails. “It’s not up to me. They were already here when we arrived.”

“Bullshit,” Nasuha snapped. “You should know you’re in violation of your own damn laws. These people filed a counterproposal to the eviction notice, which was never signed. You’re supposed to give them time to mount a defense. But this is clearly a retaliation, isn’t it? You’ve received that notice and you just have no fucking plans to acknowledge them.”

“You can believe whatever you want,” Berinda replied. “I’m just doing my job.”

Nasuha balled up her hands. If I waited another moment, I knew she was going to take a swing at the mage’s head.

Berinda saw it, too. She took a step towards me. “Ask your elders to cooperate, and I’ll be lenient. Ask them to step away. They still have enough time to gather their things. If they vacate now, I’ll look into this counterproposal. They’ll still get a chance to defend themselves. Who knows? They might be allowed to come back.”

“They won’t leave,” Nasuha said. “This is their home. Where would they go? You Dageians don’t know when enough is enough.”

“Nobody asked them to settle here. This building is the empire’s property.”

“They were here because you’ve made our own homes inhospitable!” Nasha roared. “Give it all back, and we’ll leave. Give us a sound, whole, prosperous Gorent to return to, and you’ll never have to see us again!” She drew her sword. The guards rushed forward.

I grabbed her arm.

An ear-piercing scream shattered the sky.

CHAPTER 23

NASUHA

Her first thought was that the scream sounded like Nanga. She remembered it from the one time a rat had gotten into her apartment when Nasuha was staying over. But now there was an urgent note to the timbre, one that chilled her bones to its core.

Without thinking about it, she yanked away from Rosha’s grasp and began to walk back towards the building, allowing fire to gather in her palms. Behind her, she heard Rosha cry out, followed by Berinda. “A mage!” a guard called. “They’re working with a mage!”

“An outlaw!” another screamed. “Arrest her!”

She heard footsteps to her side. A guard leaped in, blade flashing under the setting sun. She struck with flames, letting it whip out of her hands like a chain. It struck him on the cheek. He screamed, and she turned to face him fully before running her sword into his side. The tip of it went right down into his belly, past his breastbone.

She kicked the writhing body off her blade and watched as the guard died right on her feet. As if on signal, the catapult slammed a second boulder into the building, taking off an entire corner. The building creaked; rubble covered the guards below in dust. Before Nasuha could take another breath, other guards turned and charged her.

She knew she stood no chance at all against three fully armoured guards. If she somehow defeated them, she’d still have the mages to contend with, and she could see the bastards getting ready to turn her into dust from the corner of her eyes. Certain defeat suddenly seemed like a poor trade for single moment of triumph. She didn’t know what she would have done differently, of course. What could she do? Every action she had taken the past few years was so she could grow stronger, so she would never have to feel so helpless again. It made her angry to think about what the world demanded simply so she could live. Now it wanted her to give up everything so she wouldn’t feel like she had lost it all—to throw it all away for a semblance of control. In the meantime, the Dageians paid for their comfort in the blood of her people, and they seemed to get on just fine. Most of them lived and died with no clue.

She stopped thinking as soon as the first guard reached her. She swung, her blade catching against his pauldron. His own slashed over her chest. She ducked, nearly losing her balance; she regained her footing by taking another swing. She nicked the guard on the leg. He struck her with a closed fist, his knuckles connecting with her jaw.

The blow knocked her backward. The sky began spinning above her. She saw the guard looking down at her, yellow teeth bared. His stubble was flecked with white. To be killed by a Dageian, after all of this, felt like the ultimate punishment. She didn’t even know what she’d done wrong. She didn’t ask to be born Gorenten.

The sun flashed behind the guard. An arrow jammed itself through his skull before he could stab her with his sword. He stumbled backward, eyes widened before he died. Nasuha got to her feet and saw a rush of armed men breaking through the square, shooting arrows where the guards were crowded together. The newcomers were clothed plainly, with some in leather armour. Nasuha scanned the crowd and spotted Asera.

The other guards abandoned her to meet their new attackers. She lifted her sword and stabbed one from behind, watching in satisfaction as he fell to his knees, giving her enough room to swing it a second time and take his head off. It rolled across the street and stopped next to Lady Berinda.

Berinda screamed. Nasuha turned away from her. She didn’t have time for weak-kneed Dageians who couldn’t even look at the consequences of their inaction. Spitting to the side, she rushed into the fray and found Asera as she was calling on her men to tear the catapult apart. Its operators were already in pieces on the ground.

“Bad timing?” Asera asked.

“Just in the nick of time, actually,” Nasuha said. “What are you doing here? You said you wouldn’t help before.”

“I heard what they were doing to the elders and…just saw red. It’s one thing to stir up their ire without provocation. It’s another thing to defend your own.” Asera wiped her nose. “I think it’s over. Bastards didn’t stand a chance.” She winked at her men, some of whom had begun to cheer.

Nasuha didn’t see the reason for revelry. “They’ll bring more,” Nasuha told her. “They won’t just let this pass.” She glanced at the blood still dripping from her sword and flicked it away. Only then did she hear the screaming begin again, turning into wails of anguish. She pushed her way past Asera’s men and saw the shattered doors of the building. People had pulled the bodies out and laid them on the ground in a row. One of them was old Nanga.

She didn’t realize she was sobbing until she felt Asera’s arm around her. She pressed her lips over Nasuha’s head and said nothing. There was nothing to say. What good was all the power in the world if you couldn’t defend anyone with it? She crawled over to the elder’s body and forced herself to look at her injuries. She had been killed with a single blow to the head, probably when the guards were attempting to force their way through. Nasuha tried to force herself to remember her as she was. Loma Nanga hated rats but loved just about every other animal or creature that found its way to her small flat, even beetles and spiders. She left her windows open most days, even in the dead of winter, because she didn’t like birds hitting the glass. And she always left birdseed on her windowsill—whenever she was too ill to do it herself, she would ask her neighbour to do it for her.

Nasuha didn’t know much else beyond that. Nanga never liked speaking about her life in Gorent, or her family—if she had any left. She thought she had children, because she had seen a child’s rattle amongst her possessions before, but no one ever visited her. That wasn’t strange by itself. Living in the empire had fractured almost every family in some way. It wasn’t cheap to travel all the way back to Gorent. The airship fares Rosha’s family threw left and right would take years for some other people to save for.

“Get the other elders back to their homes,” Nasuha said, patting Asera’s hand. “Make sure they’re fed and warm. Tell them we’ll take care of them.”

“We?” Asera asked.

“Who else?” Nasuha asked. “I need to send word to Mistress Rasiad.” She got up, her knees shaking. Outside the rush of battle, she felt weak.

She left the compound, heading straight for the alleys. She hadn’t seen any of the mages’ bodies anywhere, and even Berinda and Felan, as well as Rosha, were nowhere in sight. She didn’t trust it to end there. She knew the mages would be back with more guards and arrest warrants for just about anyone they could get their hands on.

It took all of her strength to maintain her composure as she cleaned the blood off her hands in the first public waterway she found. She scrubbed her face, and once she was certain she looked acceptable, she walked into the first mage’s shop she found. Private operations asked fewer questions than council-approved establishments, and this one allowed her use of an agan-mirror for nothing more than a few coins.

She took a deep breath as she waited for the connection to reach Rasiad. Eventually, the woman’s proud face appeared on the other side. “We’re in trouble, Mistress,” Nasuha greeted. “They tried to evict the elders less than two hours ago and it turned into a bloodbath.”

Rasiad’s face barely flickered. “Slow down and start from the beginning.”

Nasuha took a deep breath and tried to do as she asked. It was hard not to stumble over the words. The memory of Nanga’s dead body was still fresh in her mind. She wanted to cry again, to wrap herself in the comfort of tears like it was an old blanket. If the Dageians meant what they said and the past truly belonged in the past, why was this still happening? How could they talk of history when the ghosts of their wrongdoings continued to drown the soil in her people’s blood?

“You told me last time that the Tar’elians were on the cusp of cooperating if we found their family member for them,” Rasiad said. “This Kefier Tar’elian, Count Tar’elian’s younger brother…he’s still missing, is he not?”

“Their plan was to file an investigation on the mage council, claiming they took Kefier as a hostage. I believe this may have been what triggered the attack, though you know they’ll deny it to their dying breath. It’s clear they have no plans to maintain an image of diplomacy. Mistress. What…do I do?”

Rasiad looked back at her, amused. “Your first real test, and you wonder?”

“We’re still building our numbers,” Nasuha said. “Tar’elian was supposed to provide us the resources to get an actual army. His Boarshind mercenaries would be invaluable, among other things. But the empire’s sights are on us, and we have yet to secure their cooperation. They’ll squash us before we can even get started!”

“This Kefier Tar’elian is the Boarshind’s commander. Appeal to them directly.”

“I don’t know where to start.”

Rasiad sighed. “I really do have to do everything for you, don’t I? You already have the daughter where you want her. Get Rosha Tar’elian to help. That’s her foster father you’re talking about. If memory serves me correctly, she’ll do anything for him.”

Nasuha frowned. “I believe Rosha Tar’elian is more concerned about her personal problems than anything. She might help long enough to find her father, but afterwards? Mistress—you know it’s a shot in the dark. She’s not Somya.”

A long pause. A painful one. She didn’t like reminding Rasiad of the fact, but there was no way around it. “No,” Rasiad eventually said. “She’s not. Somya had power. Somya had heart. She was willing to do what it took for our goals, even if it killed her. Her life…was wasted. All that talent…” Her face tightened.

Nasuha lowered her head. “Tar’elian is the one who is wasting hers. Even if I could explain how she could help, do you really think she’ll do it? Do you really think she’ll control the emperor for our sake? She bristles and bucks and rebels every chance she gets. Even her old mentor, the Firekeeper, can’t make her do anything she doesn’t want to.”

“You’ll have to find a way, Nasuha,” Rasiad said. “We do not just need a voice in the empire—we want a weapon.”

The way she phrased the words was odd. Nasuha felt something had shifted, and straightened herself so she could look Rasiad in the face. “Mistress…” she began. “Mistress, is there something you’re not telling me?”

Rasiad made a gesture. “There is something I haven’t told you yet. When you sent word of the trouble the Tar’elians are in, I couldn’t help but look into this Ivasus ban-Sokur. Eheldeth records indicate that he’s spent a lot of time in the archives, even after his graduation. Do I want to wager he has an unhealthy obsession with blood magic?”

“You’d win, Mistress. From what everyone tells me, that seems to be his intent. It’s a sure path to power.”

“He’s checked out a particular book several times, in fact. One on Gorenten blood magic. I know it, of course. I spent years studying the same book. Apart from that, he seems to have spent a lot of time around certain establishments in Lon Basden…all of which led me to several mines he had staked out under a false name in the area.”

“I thought he was gathering Gorenten to draw from,” Nasuha said. “Why would he need mines?”

“Because he’s looking for something buried in the ground,” Rasiad replied. “Something that rightfully belongs to us. We still need to find out more, but I have no doubt that once we do, Rosha Tar’elian will play a part. Remember, Nasuha. With Somya gone, I know no one else half as powerful.”

And if I hadn’t done what I did to her, that would still be true. Nasuha swallowed. “Remember that I’m here, too, Mistress. I’m willing to die for this, Mistress. If it stops our people from suffering, I will gladly die a thousand deaths.”

“I’ve always appreciated your candour,” Rasiad replied. “But you’re not Rosha, Nasuha. Never have been. It’s about time you accept that and move on.”

The more Nasuha repeated Rasiad’s words to herself, the more they stung. She wanted to be sympathetic to Rosha—she knew she’d had her fair share of challenges. She’d seen what Rosha had gone through the past few years, and she would be the first to admit it couldn’t have been easy. But in those moments when the elders were being attacked, where was she? Shocked into stillness, just like the rest of them, all those people who had never known the fear of death coming at you every minute of every day. Nasuha could feel the rage burn through her lungs. Why was it so easy for them to just step aside and watch other people lose their lives? She could imagine that Lady Berinda washing down the horror she had just witnessed with sparkling wine and a lavish dinner of stuffed goose and roasted squash.

She knew she would probably find Rosha in her parents’ home, but she decided against going there tonight. She needed to worry about the elders first. Weighed down by both emotion and exhaustion, she took the familiar road towards the docks. By now, the stars were shining bright in the clear sky, as if the gods hadn’t witnessed the bloodshed just mere hours ago.

She stopped in front of the staircase leading up to Asera’s flat. With another deep breath, she started counting the steps as she climbed up. She lifted her hand to knock on her door. Before her knuckles could touch it, it opened.

Jundi stared at her, eyes hard, thick brows drawn together. Unsurprisingly, he wasn’t happy to see her.

“I know I promised I wouldn’t, but your sister—” she began.

“Get in,” Jundi half-snarled.

She didn’t want to argue. She stepped inside and realized there were others already there. Asera. Felan. Rosha. She glanced at one and the other before eventually slumping into the nearest chair. “There’s probably an explanation for all this, and I’m not sure I want to hear it.” She turned to Rosha first. “You could have stopped it, though. Forget everything else. You could have stopped it.”

“I tried,” Rosha replied.

“You could have tried harder,” Nasuha gasped. “If you had stopped them in time, they’d still be alive! Nanga—Nanga died.”

“I know,” Rosha said, her face tightening. “I saw. I’m sorry.”

“You should be,” Nasuha snapped. She glanced at Felan. “And you. You’re not much help, either. What were you doing there? Last I recall, you weren’t supposed to be encouraging your associate to help tear down our people.”

“I wasn’t aware that was on her agenda,” Felan replied, almost calmly. “I returned there to talk to her about what she’d learned from Lord Ivasus, on top of what you picked up from their conversation. By then, he was already gone, but he had apparently relayed those orders to her. They told her she needed to be in the Triassan Inn by evening. All I knew was that Gorenten were involved, so I decided to come along.”

“With all due respect, Lord Cartos, but I’ve always found it outrageous that you, as Lord Cato’s only son, know so little about what the council does to people in the empire. I don’t mean people like your rich classmates—I mean people like your mother. After everything you learned about her, what they were doing to women like her, you could have spent the last few months finding out, at least.”

“I did,” Felan said, looking downward. “But there is much to learn, and the last few months have been—busy.”

“Distracting, you mean,” Nasuha corrected.

He cleared his throat. “Yes.”

“We’re here now, regardless of the past,” Rosha said. “Ivasus’s interest in the Gorenten can’t be dismissed as a mere fancy any more. It’s here, and it’s dangerous. He remains a key in all of this. My mother’s idea is still sound. Create chaos within the council, and we can draw their attention away from us to where it rightfully belongs: Ivasus ban- Sokur. We need them to bring him down. As we are, we’re useless.”

Nasuha made a vague gesture. “Her plan didn’t work.”

“We need something with less subtlety.” Rosha sat up, her hands on her knees. “It’s about time I return to court. No one can create that chaos half as well as Emperor Cerknar can. I will tell them what we need them to do, to their faces. I will order them to.” There was a marked difference between how she spoke now, compared to when she apologized. Rosha the emperor was a different breed to Rosha the outlaw, and Nasuha couldn’t help but find the contrast almost amusing.

“Aren’t you going to wait for Firekeeper Ceres’s permission first?” she asked.

Rosha’s eyes flashed. “No,” she said. “She’s not going to like what I’m about to do, anyway.”

CHAPTER 24

ROSHA

I returned home with Felan later that night, shocking Sume and Enosh where they stood. Sume dropped everything to embrace me, and only then did I feel the exhaustion I’d been holding in the whole night through. Tears leaked through the corner of my eyes. Even when I was a girl, I couldn’t remember crying just because my mother hugged me, not even when I hadn’t seen her in years. But seeing those bodies on the ground seemed to have pulled the rug from under my feet. Watching those elders get hurt made me long for my own. I wanted them safe. I just wasn’t sure if I was allowed to sit with the sorrow. Nasuha’s accusations rang fresh in my ears. She was absolutely right—I could have tried harder. The old women and men who were killed back there weren’t just a few generations removed from us—they were us, and we had failed to protect them. I had failed to protect them. And the worse thing was, if none of this had happened, if I hadn’t seen the death with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have given a damn. If you took out everything that had happened in the last year and returned me to Klossaka without being any the wiser, I would have been able to live with my ignorance for the rest of my life. The thought filled me with shame.

I stared at my mother in silence, eyes to the floor. “You were there, weren’t you?” Sume asked. “We heard what happened down at the inn. The elders…”

Enosh offered a chair for me to sit on before whispering something in her ear. Sume hesitated briefly before going off to the kitchen. While she was gone, Enosh strode over to the fireplace, where he picked up a bottle of brandy from the mantle. He uncorked it and poured a glass, which he offered to me first. I glanced at it.

“Don’t hold out on me now,” Enosh said. “That’s from my personal stash.”

“I can’t tell.”

“It’s about time you learn about your drinks, girl.” He took a second glass and handed it to Felan. And then he crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. “Sip. Don’t gulp. This isn’t beer from a second-class pub.”

I sighed and did as he asked. The brandy tasted like fire, grapes, and mud churned with fresh rain. If this was good, I didn’t want to know what the bad stuff tasted like. “I know what it feels like to get angry that you can’t do more,” Enosh continued as soon as I put the glass down.

I stared at him in confusion.

Enosh gestured at me. “I could see it in your eyes. You were shaking when you walked in. It’s not often I see you like this, child. In fact, I can’t remember the last time you looked like you didn’t have all the answers.”

“If you know what it feels like,” I blurted out, “why haven’t you done anything? Nasuha told me her mistress had been asking you for help forever. Their group…the Lost Ones…they want to help our people live better out here in the empire. They want Dageis to give back what they’ve taken from us.”

Enosh took a deep breath. “When I was young—not much older than Haro, in fact—all I could dream of was liberating our people. My father was chief of a village, and I took that as a sign. I considered it my birthright—we’re direct descendants of High King Elian, after all. And then I learned the truth. Things came to me easily—I was smart, and I knew how to work hard. But none of these mattered out in the world, where they looked at me and saw nothing but a Gorenten, a boy who should have been a servant asking for too much. Even my own master seemed to think little of me. I had to learn to look away. Surviving was difficult enough. How could I help our people if I could barely help myself?”

“So you chose not to help them at all,” I whispered.

“I chose to help them in a way that mattered,” Enosh said. “Rasiad’s ideals were sound, but her plans are utter nonsense. The road she’s taking will only lead to war—if you could even call it that. Dageis could squash us in an instant.”

“They don’t need our permission to do that. What happened out there is just the beginning, and there’s no way we can stop it.” I set the brandy aside. “Father, it’s time we do more. Send a message to the Boarshind. Order them to help Kefier, to start with. And then—”

“The Boarshind don’t take orders from me,” Enosh replied.

“You own the company. You could.”

“I’m nothing but an investor. I run the numbers and take profits, which I invest back into our businesses here, and nothing more. The mercenaries get a say on what jobs they take, and I highly doubt any of them would travel all the way north for a job that pays nothing.”

“Even if their commander is in trouble?”

“Kefier has stepped back from his responsibilities in the Boarshind ever since Haro was born,” Enosh said. “I don’t know how much loyalty a commander-in-name only can gather.”

“Try. Send them a letter. For once in your life, Father—”

“I won’t court war,” Enosh said. “Bringing in soldiers—do you understand the implications of such an action, Rosha? They look at us as rats. Start biting back, and they’re going to view us as rats they need to exterminate. We have no means of fighting back—absolutely none. It would be a slaughter.”

“Are you going to send the letter, or should I?” I asked. “It will happen either way.”

Enosh bit his cheek. After a moment, he drained his brandy and set the glass back on the mantle. He looked like he wanted to break it.

Sume returned with bowls of steaming rice and chicken stew. “Do what you have to,” she said. Her eyes were on me.

Enosh got up. “You two are impossible.”

“She’s right. They clearly don’t need a reason anymore. You’ve heard what they said happened out there. Elders refusing to leave their own homes have been labelled rebels. They’ll find any way to justify murder.” She set the food on the table before turning around to face him.

He shook his head. “You made civil war in your own country. We can’t afford that here.”

“Did you think defending your own against a tyrant is something you do for fun?”

“You didn’t have to get involved back then,” Enosh said. “You certainly don’t have to get involved now.”

“Pray, tell me, why I shouldn’t get involved in an arrangement that seems to have landed both my daughter and my man in trouble?”

His eyes flashed. He had tolerated the arrangement between his wife and brother for decades, but it was clear that having her point out the truth was suddenly a step too far. Her man. She’d chosen Kefier in spite of everything. Perhaps Enosh had been hoping she would change her mind, that she would get bored of him and return to his arms once it was all over. It must still hurt—only his ego thus far made it possible for him to pretend it didn’t. “Rub it in my face, won’t you?” he said in a low voice.

“I can’t see why we have to tiptoe around the truth,” she said. “When you were in trouble, Kefier all but dropped everything for you. He found Rosha. She found you. Now that he needs your help, you’re dragging your heels. You’re making it sound like it’s a decision I can choose to be impartial in. Your brother, the father of my sons, is in trouble. Do you need it laid out in clearer terms, Enosh? Or have you been living with a blindfold all these years?”

“A blindfold would have been preferable to what you’ve put me through,” he all but snarled.

She opened the door. “I’m not doing this again. Get out.”

“For God’s sake, Sume, this isn’t—”

“It’s my house. Get out.”

He walked out, slamming the door behind him as he left. I felt the house creak a little at the impact. I hoped the boys remained asleep and that they missed the worst of the exchange. My mother dropped down into a chair, pressing her hands over her eyes for a moment. “It never ends, does it?” she asked, softly.

I cracked a smile. “It was always up to you. But you couldn’t choose one and say goodbye to the other at the same time, so here we are.”

In my youth, she would have taken my head off for such words. Now she took the criticism without flinching. She knew I was right—her choices had landed us here. “We moved here for him. For you, because he thought it was important to get settled in the empire, to make something of ourselves here in order to keep you safe. He always insisted he knew what was best for all of us, and Kefier—Kefier believed he only knew how to swing swords, not navigate the twisted web of politics necessary to protect you the way you needed to be protected. Why does it feel like it was all for nothing? What was the use of all of this if we can’t even protect one person in this family?”

It was a rhetorical question. I knew Sume wasn’t the sort of person who needed my insight or comfort. I was just her daughter.

“If anything happened to Kefier…” Sume began, and then she swallowed down a sob, as if the thought was too much even for her to bear. That stoic resistance was all an act. She was tired of trying to protect us, knowing there were forces behind each of us bigger than she knew what to deal with. It was my turn to take the mantle. I was no longer that girl, hiding behind her skirt. I had the power of the emperor in my hands.

“I won’t let it,” I said. “I promise, mother. He won’t come to any harm.”

Sume made a dismissive gesture, as if she was ashamed to show me weakness. “The simulacrum is in your room,” she said. “Your friend may sleep in ours.”

I hesitated. “You said you didn’t trust Felan.”

“He’s here now. I’ll work with what I have. Get some rest. You have a long day ahead of you.”

Sensing things were only going to be more chaotic soon, Sume begun to make arrangements to send the boys to Gorent almost immediately—a few family friends in Sen’senal could take care of them until she could find another place for them to hide. There was a finality to the decision that felt difficult to grasp. For one thing, it meant that Kefier really was in danger, that we couldn’t afford to make any more mistakes. We didn’t want what happened to Ryo last time to repeat itself. “I’ll meet you in Drusgaya once I’m sure they’re safe,” she told me as she loaded the carriage up. It would take them south, to Lasta, which she hoped would be enough to throw any potential pursuers off track. From there, she then intended to take an airship to Lon Basden, where she could charter a small fishing boat to take them to the Gorent Islands.

We never stopped to find out how Enosh would react to all of this. But he was—predictably—absent the next morning, and Sume felt it would be imprudent to wait for him to come around. She called on Jehar, who was more than happy to serve as both driver and bodyguard on the trip. I felt guilty having to rely on him to protect my mother and brothers at such a precarious time. Jehar noticed me watching him load up the carriage and paused from his task long enough to stop in front of me. I could tell he wanted to hold my hands. “Your mother and I intend to follow you to Drusgaya once your brothers are safe. You may not want me around, but you know I don’t feel the same way, and I’m going to do whatever it takes to get you to change your mind.”

“I don’t want to change my mind about us,” I said. “I thought I’ve made that clear.”

Jehar shrugged. “You can take it however you want, Rosha. I’ve never been able to stop you before.” He returned to loading up the carriage. I didn’t want to look at him again, so I said my goodbyes to my brothers in the house.

Sume squeezed my hand before they left. “Be careful, love,” she told me.

“I’m always careful,” I replied.

She paused, looking at me the way she always did—the way a mother regarded a daughter so different from her, they may as well be night and day. And then she shook her head, kissed me on the cheek, and walked away.

I took a carriage down to the docks with Felan. I wanted to take the sea to Drusgaya this time—it was slightly slower than airship, but the route to Drusgaya was normally pain-free and I didn’t feel well enough to risk the turbulence up in the skies. Portia travelled with us, taking on the guise of the simulacrum’s nurse so that it would look like they were on their own, a party apart from us; it seemed to follow her without complaint. They boarded a few minutes before we did. As we made our way up the gangway, I spotted Berinda pushing herself through the crowd. Her clothes were in disarray, as if she’d put on her gown in a rush.

Felan looked uncomfortable as she all but pounced on him. “Lord Cartos,” she said, pulling him into an embrace. “You didn’t even say goodbye.”

“I didn’t see the need,” Felan said. “Last night was…terrible, Lady Berinda. We made some grievous errors. There is blood on our hands.”

Not yours, I wanted to correct him. But I kept my mouth shut.

“I didn’t want that to happen,” she gasped. “I didn’t want them to die.”

“But you stood and watched them get killed.” He hesitated, his eyes glancing towards me for a moment. He cleared his throat. “We all did.”

“I asked you to stop, and you said you were powerless to,” I broke in. “I have a hard time believing the guards wouldn’t have listened to a member of the mage council. They would have. But you didn’t want to risk it, did you? If you’d called for them to stop, they would later investigate why.”

She pulled away from Felan, shaking her head. “I expect you’re going to be filing a complaint straight from Teleres.”

“I am,” I said. “Brace yourself, Lady Berinda. What happened last night was unacceptable. Leave those elders alone, or else—”

Her eyes narrowed. “Or else what? What could you do? Last I recall, you’re an outlaw.”

“She’s not,” Felan quickly broke in. “She’s an adherent. Check the records.”

Berinda’s eyes glimmered. “She walked out before her final exams. How could she be?”

“You’re misremembering,” I said. “Goodbye, Lady Berinda. Our ship will be leaving soon.”

Felan coughed before granting Berinda a quick bow. She seized both of his cheeks with her hands and suddenly pulled herself up for a kiss. I didn’t want to see him kiss her back, so I kept walking, my hands at my side, until I got to the other side of the ship. There, I stopped and stared at the sea.

The ship was moving when I heard movement beside me. I glanced back and realized Felan had followed me there. It was the first time I found myself alone with him since yesterday. Since I’d returned to my body, really. Since we’d kissed.

The memory burned like fire. I didn’t know how I was supposed to feel about any of it. Nasuha was right about me. I saw intimacy only as a transactional exchange. With Ivasus, it had been access to the archives. With Jehar, it had been for acceptance to that small town where I was a stranger. I’d learned from the best, after all. My parents married each other to keep me alive, to see me thrive in a world none of us belonged to. Love only brought them pain and misery.

“There’s nothing wrong with asking for help, you know,” Felan said, out of the blue.

I adjusted my sleeves before I turned to him. His shirt was slightly open and there was a breeze ruffling his hair into a mess. His cheeks were covered in stubble—he must have forgotten to shave even while he was staying in Berinda’s. Normally, he kept his beard neat. “What’s this about?” I asked.

“Jehar,” he said.

“Ah,” I replied. “Sifting through my personal affairs?”

Felan frowned, an expression that seemed to fit with his messy black hair. “I’ve just started to pay more attention, because I feel you should have been more forthright about them. If I had known about Ivasus’s interest in you, perhaps we would have avoided a lot of this. We would have tried harder to protect you.”

I shrugged. “And perhaps it might have been nothing more than unnecessary information. It wasn’t important, so I didn’t think it was anyone’s business to know. What about you and Berinda?”

“What about that?” he asked.

“Don’t think I missed that goodbye she gave you.”

“It’s not important,” he said with a straight face.

“Throwing words right back at me. Two can play that game, sir, and you don’t want this battle, not with me.”

He flushed. “If you really must know, Lady Berinda and I were briefly involved during my stay in Sorna a few years ago. She went there for vacation right after graduation and we ran into each other. It wasn’t serious, and I made it clear afterwards that I had no intention of courting her formally. Knowing my…deficiencies…her family wouldn’t have been happy, anyway. I thought it best to end things before we went too far. She understood.”

“Her tongue didn’t seem to understand enough to stop itself from going down your throat.”

“Weren’t you looking?” he asked, with a flicker of impatience. “I told her off.”

“What are you doing, Felan?”

He furrowed his brow. “I don’t understand.”

“You didn’t want to go too far with her,” I said. “So what do you want out of this? With us?”

“I don’t understand,” he repeated. An air of exasperation was on his brow.

I turned to face him. “She was right. You hated me. I remember. You hated me so much if I’d had gotten lost in the woods that first year and got torn apart by wild dogs, you would have celebrated. What changed?”

His face tightened. “I came across you in my father’s mansion. I didn’t recognize you. I got to know you better, and—”

“No, Felan,” I said in a low voice. “That’s not what happened at all, and you know it. Why didn’t you recognize me before? Think about it.”

His eyes looked unfocused.

“You saw me with your father’s eyes,” I continued. “I was a servant, and then later, an outlaw. An outlaw mage struggling to cast spells she used to be able to do in her sleep. Felan, I think…you became sympathetic only when you saw me struggling. When you thought I was just some girl who would be grateful for the attentions of a lordling. It made you feel good, didn’t it? To have no magic to yourself anymore, but still have your father’s status over me. But when I was your equal, when you saw me as competition—”

“That’s a vile accusation,” Felan gasped. “You were never competition.”

“Is that right? I’m not just imagining those years, then?”

“If you’re going to mince words, need I remind you that I was always a step ahead of—” He drew a deep breath. “No. That’s unkind. What I meant was…”

“You worry about being unkind now?” I asked. “You were plenty unkind in those years. No—you’re right. You couldn’t have seen me as a threat, because your father’s position all but guaranteed the best for you. The best tutors, all the help you need—”

“Not this again,” Felan said under his breath. “I thought we were over this.”

“We’re not,” I reminded him. “If you have feelings for me, you’re going to have to ask yourself why now. Is it because you truly care about me, or because you feel good that I am not who I was and can never be again? I can never be a rival again, Felan. I can never make you feel bad about your own abilities anymore or prove myself worthy of all the things that were just handed to you because you were Lord Cato’s son and why shouldn’t you be anything but a success? Maybe you’re confusing that feeling with love.”

He turned his head away. “You forget you can still cast magic,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I can’t.” Without another word, he left me to mull over my own thoughts.

CHAPTER 25

ROSHA

We arrived in Drusgaya in the early hours of the morning. Felan and I didn’t talk the whole time, which suited me in a strange sort of way. I liked not being beholden to anybody’s feelings but my own. Besides, the fact that he couldn’t come up with a suitable enough answer told me I’d unearthed the truth. Why fool yourself into thinking you’re in love when it is always, always something else? If only my parents had half the wisdom. I saved both of us a lot of trouble that way.

I wasn’t surprised when he parted from us at the docks without a word. Portia watched him walk away and made a sound of surprise. “Isn’t he coming with us?” she asked.

“I think he’s finally realized he needs to find his own problems to deal with,” I said. “He’s stuck around enjoying watching me with mine for far too long.”

“Oh,” Portia said. “That’s too bad. I thought he was nice.” She helped the simulacrum down the gangway. The old emperor took very slow steps, all while smiling that empty smile of his, which he’d started to give more often. I felt a layer of disgust at the thought I was going to have to go back inside that decrepit body. If I never had to do it again, I would die happy.

“I’ve lived long enough to know that people are only nice because they want something out of you,” I said as we walked along the street.

“You’re probably misinterpreting something your mother had said,” Portia replied. “I’ve heard her say something like that before. When negotiating, know the stakes.”

“I have stakes. He had none. Therefore, his assistance was anything but benign.” Saying the words brought me a small measure of comfort, especially against the sting of the memory of our kiss. I was more comfortable pushing people, more comfortable keeping them at arm’s-length. That far away, they couldn’t hurt you.

“It must be nice to be able to make decisions just like that,” Portia said wistfully. “I envy you and your family, Rosha. You’re all so…level-headed. You should see mine. All teeth and hurt feelings.”

I tried to remember she hadn’t seen Sume and Enosh snarling at each other in front of the fire back home, and left her to her mistake. My family was level-headed in all the wrong ways. I could only hope it didn’t spell our doom.

Returning to the palace without Firekeeper Ceres’s authorization was tricky. So many people worked in Teleres that it was impossible to slide past the guards just because they recognized you. Showing up with a dead-eyed, unresponsive emperor would probably get me arrested on the spot. A quick walk down at the riverside stores offered a chance for Portia to chat with shopkeepers about the state of affairs, and we learned the emperor was still technically back in Lon Basden, vacationing to his heart’s content.

“If I can just slip inside his skin back in the palace…” I grumbled. “I can’t have him walking around the city in his fine clothes, but once I’m in there, he needs them. Isn’t it ironic? The world demands we fit in according to what it deems necessary.”

“It’ll go through great lengths to force you into the role they think you should play, too,” Portia said, tapping her chin.

“You’ve got an idea,” I observed.

Portia rubbed the back of her head. “Maybe? I’m afraid I’m not exactly the best when it comes to them. It might be dangerous.”

“I want to hear it.”

She took the simulacrum’s hand. It gave it eagerly, empty smile drifting on its lips. “I assume everyone considers the emperor as a powerful, all-knowing man. Which means if he shows up as anything other than this image, they’re going to scramble to make sure he doesn’t…make the empire look bad.” She drifted back to one of the stalls. “A bottle of wine, please,” she called to the vendor.

The vendor cackled. “Wine? You got lost on your way to the fancy district, girlie?” She took out a bottle and yanked the cork loose.

Portia twitched her nose. She looked ill. “What in all the noxious hells is that?”

“Gin, and the best I’ve got. No need to insult it if you can’t afford better!”

Portia dug out a few coins and handed it to her. She returned with a bottle of the clear liquor. As I continued to stare in confusion, she turned the simulacrum aside and spilled half the bottle on his robes.

“Oops,” she said, before sticking her thumb into the bottle opening.

“Have you gone mad?” I asked.

“Maybe,” she said with a grin. “Now, add some of this on his face…” She bent down, patting the sandy soil with her hands before she reached up to wipe it on the simulacrum’s smooth face. The specks of sand looked like stubble. I realized what she was getting at.

“You want him to walk into the palace after what looks like a bad night,” I said.

Beaming, Portia nodded.

“But that’s—”

“Brilliant? I know.”

“I was going to say marginally less insane than I thought, but I’ll give you that. It might work.”

“Just walk to any of the gates,” Portia said. “And talk about the emperor’s unfortunate incident last night. Wine, gambling…do you know anything about the emperor’s affairs, come to that? Half-dressed women, and—”

“I’ve heard there were a few men in the beginning of his reign, but none in the last couple of decades.” I glanced back at the simulacrum. “Cerknar doesn’t exactly have that reputation. Almost every handler he’s had hasn’t dared to portray him as anything but a calm, effective ruler—a true puppet emperor. He’s had to be. Anything controversial and questions would be raised.”

“We don’t need anything earth-shattering for this to work. He could have found one or two to spend time with. Even an immortal man is allowed to have his distractions, and it’s not important for them to know the details. I’m sure the guards wouldn’t want to know, anyway.” She tugged at the emperor’s robes, ripping the fabric near his collarbone. “All we need is for the potential for scandal.”

“You’ll have to do the talking,” I said. “I’m just his assistant. Besides, it looks like you’ll do a much better job. I’ll stumble over my words and make them more suspicious than they have to be.”

She gave a smug smile.

I narrowed my eyes. “You’re going to ask for a raise, aren’t you,” I drawled.

Portia’s face brightened. “You’re not as stingy as your father, at least. Ten percent, please! There’s these dance classes I’ve always wanted to take. I know I have two left feet, but I’ve read somewhere that happy workers are efficient workers, and—”

“You realize it’s very possible we won’t have businesses by the end of this,” I pointed out. “I’ll put at end to this, whatever it takes, even if it means throwing Risen Industries under the bus. We’re going up against the mage council and the merchant guild. Neither will be so generous when all of this is exposed.”

“Just lie, like every other business owner,” she said, almost happily. “It’s about time you learned.”

We waited until evening to carry out the plan. The back gates of the palace seemed to be the best place to bring the emperor to—the chances of running into Ceres were less there. It went better than I expected. The kitchen staff recognized him at once and brought him in, which meant we didn’t even have to talk to the guards at all. Portia explained everything along the way, and the kitchen staff handed all of us over to the emperor’s attendants in less than an hour. The simulacrum was oddly cooperative—it simply sat perfectly still and refused eye contact with anyone, which added weight to our story of his unfortunate last couple of days.

The emperor was scrubbed clean, outfitted in fresh clothes, and settled in his own bedchamber by the time the first stars were rippling through the night sky. Portia had managed to secure a room in the servant’s guest quarters, having established herself as a guide the emperor had hired on the road; she’d probably be able to stay there for a few days before arousing suspicions. I locked the door behind the last attendant before dropping to the ground, exhausted. I was finally left with the emperor alone. I could slip into his skin now and call on the council for a meeting any time.

But I couldn’t quite muster up the will to do it yet. The emperor was supposed to be resting, anyway, and I wasn’t sure if I had the energy to enact the blood spell that would rip my consciousness into that half-smiling, wide-eyed body. So instead, I stared at him, lying back against those fancy pillows and silk sheets. And even though I knew he had no consciousness, even though I knew he was nothing but an empty shell, a mirror that simply reflected whoever stood in front of him, I felt resentment over what appeared to be a state of blissful unawareness. This was the image of the same man who ordered the attack on Gorent all those years ago. This was the same emperor who ordered High King Elian to bend his knee or suffer the consequences, who gave the command to kill every Gorenten child over the age of ten because he saw everyone who could hold a sword as a threat. His were the lips that uttered vile words about so many of our peoples: savages that needed taming, treacherous leeches that could never be trusted to live within the empire amongst civilized citizens. Gorent was just the tip of the iceberg. Agarenth, Shi-uin, Jin-Sayeng, Gaspar…though every place dealt with it differently, none of our lands had been spared from the empire’s mad grab for power. Places like Gorent and Agarent were colonized before being squeezed dry in the name of profit; others like Jin-Sayeng and Gaspar had civil wars funded by the Dageian hegemony to foster unbalanced trade deals. Then there were those like Shi-uin, who ended with lands rendered inhabitable—the price to pay for refusing not to bend to Dageis’s whims.

And now all of us, descendants and survivors of that tyranny, had to live with the consequences. Our lives continue to be shattered by the after-effects, suffocated by a one-sided history that pretends there is grey to be found in all the wrong, and many of us will never be whole…and in the meantime, the damn thing got to lie back in all that luxury. Not an ounce of the suffering it had created was reflected on its face. I found the affection I held for the simulacrum, for that doddering, eccentric old man that it appeared to the naked eye, turning into outright revulsion.

I knew so little of my own histories while growing up. Maybe my parents didn’t think I needed to learn, and the empire itself certainly had most of these details blotted out from their own books. Maybe my parents didn’t know themselves—both Kefier and Enosh were just trying to make sense of a world they had to survive before they even knew who the enemy was. But it wasn’t that complicated. Once upon a time, the Empire of Dageis came to be, and the whole world suffered.

I rose from the floor and walked away from the emperor’s bed. My feet took me to the adjoining study, which led to a secret door that led down a corridor. I soon found myself in my own room, the one I had occupied since I first moved into the palace. The quarters seemed more luxurious than they had any right to be. Even though I was supposed to be nothing more than a mage the Firekeeper had assigned to the emperor, I still got an enormous bed, bookshelves, hardwood desks, all in a room easily the size of the elders’ flats back in Triassa. I felt guilty. Did I really think all of this was enough? I got to enjoy a crumb or two, even though I didn’t get power, not really, even though it meant I had to contort myself in every way possible to fit the empire’s whims; and in the meantime, my people were still being driven out of their villages, forced to live along the fringes of an empire that could only survive if it kept them there. How could one be powerful if there was no one to lord it all over?

I was so deep in thought that I didn’t notice the room was occupied until I saw the fire from the lamp dancing on one of the desks. Felan was sitting there, right beside a pile of books. He looked like he had spent the whole evening reading. He looked worse than me after hours spent with no other company than myself. I was almost certain he hadn’t had a bite to eat all night. Not that I’d eaten anything myself, either. Eheldeth really did train us to subsist on nothing but brief bites between pages of reading and notes. If a person could survive off air alone, I’m sure it would have found a way to teach us how to.

“Firekepeer Ceres went off to one of the isles for a meeting of some sort,” he said, before I could react to his presence. “I wanted to make sure she was suitably distracted before you arrived with the emperor. It seems all my efforts were entirely unnecessary. She’ll be back within the day, no doubt; you should carry out your plan before she has the chance to put a stop to it.”

“You could have told me,” I said.

“With all due respect, Adherent Tar’elian, your input was unnecessary. My decision was sound.”

“I thought we were working together.”

He snapped the book shut and placed it on the desk. “You say that after all but accusing me of seeing you as nothing but competition. You are allowed to get angry, Adherent Tar’elian, but do us all a favour and be consistent about it, too. Otherwise, I will come to the conclusion that you merely find joy in picking fights with people. You want to be alone so badly that you resent people who are just here to help you. I do not believe it is my position to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do with your life, but the least you can do is not accuse others for the consequences of your choices. If you want to be alone, fine. But don’t make it seem like it’s my fault because of some secret agenda you believe I have.”

It was my turn to bristle. “I believe you’ve worn out your welcome, Lord Cartos,” I said. “This is, if I recall, my quarters. You have your own. Leave now.” I remembered all those exercises in Eheldeth when we were children. There were things he excelled in over me, but I was always the best at creating barriers.

Felan got up and made his way to the door. But a few steps in, he stopped and turned around. “You want to know, so badly, if I still resent you after all these years?”

I held my gaze. “I think it’s clear you do.”

“You could have left me alone,” he agreed. “I wouldn’t have gone to those ruins if you’d just left me alone. I was trying to escape you, but you were always too short-sighted to see beyond problems but your own.”

“So where would you have gone instead? Back to Eheldeth on your own? The stranger wasn’t there by accident. They were stalking you. If I wasn’t there, you’d be dead.”

“I guess we’ll never know now, will we?” he asked. “All I know is you get into my business, and everything turns to shit.”

“You see? I was right all along.”

He stepped towards me, his hands balled into fists. “Of course you’re right. Isn’t that what you want to hear? You’re right, you’re always right, you’re better than everyone else! Competition, rivalry—it doesn’t matter what I think, Rosha, because as far as the facts are concerned, you’ve already won! They took my magic away. They tried to take yours, and failed. Do you know what I would give to have a taste of what you still have? Do you know what I would give to still have a reason to get up in the morning, to get the chance to fight, even if it’s for a fraction of my old abilities? You’re a mage waving a twig, not a staff, and yet you are daring to go up against a whole empire. They could crush you and you don’t care. I want that courage, too, Rosha. I want that carelessness. I want whatever keeps you here when you’re well within your rights to run from all of this and never look back. I want…you.”

I grabbed him by the collar and kissed him.

His lips felt like a brush of fire as he pulled me closer to him, as if this was his idea all along. I found myself falling into the bed with him over me. His hands drifted down my waist, down my legs as I tried to loosen his robes. He shrugged away for a moment to pull his shirt off.

Against the moonlight, the injuries he had suffered from Ivasus’s torture suddenly seemed impossible to ignore. My fingers drifted down his collarbone to his chest, where the wounds were still scabbed over, the bruises spreading like an explosion of purple and black flowers on a field. There were also other scars I hadn’t noticed before, and I wondered if I’d lost track of time and he’d had enough time to heal. Injuries he had sustained in defense of me. Perhaps my accusations were not baseless, but they were unkind, and I felt a flurry of regret over the words I had chosen to throw at him. He grabbed my wrist before I could go further and pinned both my arms to the mattress. His teeth grazed my neck. I felt a spark of something that wasn’t quite magic, but was just as heady. As if the act of physical intimacy was igniting every connection we’d ever made in the last few months. I’d never felt it before, not with anyone else I’d been with.

He was wrong, you see, about me wanting to be alone. You sought solitude for your own sanity sometimes, and I can’t speak for everyone who found the company of their own thoughts vastly preferable to the wagging of empty tongues and even emptier skulls. But I embraced loneliness because I thought it was all there could ever be. People find ways to cope with situations less than ideal, even if it means lying to themselves. Lacking the company of others, of my own family or friends loyal to me, I could say that I loved being alone because the alternative would be to accept that I might be unhappy forever. But it wasn’t true at all. It became clear that night. I wanted to belong, too. I wanted to belong to someone, to not feel like I was always on the outside looking in, no better than a simulacrum learning to be human. Who else knew me half as well as Felan, and not just the parts I wanted him to see? I tasted myself in his mouth, and I suddenly wondered if the finality of loneliness wasn’t guaranteed in life. Perhaps our bodies are nothing but barriers. We are all agan, drawn to one another, seeking to be one, longing to drown the world in energy and light and possibilities.

Later, once we’d caught our breaths, he turned to his side and picked up my arm. He pressed his lips over my wounds with a gentleness he didn’t display during our coupling. We still had yet to speak to each other. I placed my head over his bare chest. “Your scars,” I whispered. “I’m sorry Ivasus did that.”

“They weren’t all him,” he replied. I got the sense he didn’t want to delve further into it and didn’t ask about what he just said. We fell asleep wrapped up in each other’s arms.

CHAPTER 26

NASUHA

Nasuha took charge of the dead and tried to hold her anger at bay for as long as it took to have them buried and put to rest. It was more work than she figured. With each step, she found a reason to leave everything in ashes and walk away. For instance, every funeral parlour in the block refused to take care of the elders, afraid that the elders’ resistance to eviction made them criminals and accepting the bodies would make them just as liable. Nasuha wanted to scream and tell them it didn’t work that way. Why was it a crime to fight for your home? To stand your ground? To exist? They’d been doing it since the Dageians landed on the continent—fighting for their land, for their families, for every little scrap of dignity that could be thrown their way. Fighting was exhausting, and they’d barely begun.

Eventually, she found someone willing to help from the outskirts of town: a butcher shop that lent them wagons to take the dead to a cemetery in a village an hour from there. The bodies were wrapped up and gently carted away. Nasuha took charge of the transport party, half-wishing the Dageians would show up with guards to stop them from leaving. She had no desire to be arrested and was willing to go down fighting if it meant taking a few to hell with her.

But no one stopped them, and even the gate guards were strangely absent when they rolled out of the city. Nasuha’s anger felt like a wire string, growing tauter by the minute. Asera, who rode next to her, broke the silence with a prayer, one she hummed from the pit of her stomach.

Tears stung Nasuha’s eyes as she listened to the prayer-song. The last time she had heard it, she had been a little girl at her mother’s side. She would sing it almost every night ever since she discovered Nasuha’s powers in the vain hope that God would hear her pleas and make her…normal. Push it away, Suha. We can be content with the way things are. To dream of more would be unwise. Nasuha wiped her eyes, forcing the tears back. To be content with the way things are…many of her people told themselves that to get by. But it didn’t give them much of anything. They were at the mercy of the fates. Sometimes it was kind, but most of the time, it wasn’t.

It started to rain when they reached the cemetery. A lone priest greeted them at the gates, a sympathetic follower of one of the Dageian gods. He stopped them with one hand. “A moment,” he called.

Two attendants appeared beside him with incense. Nasuha clicked her tongue impatiently as they began to sway on the spot, letting the air fill with incense smoke. The priest bowed before chanting his own prayer, in his own tongue. Nasuha didn’t miss that he said it behind the closed gates, as if it wasn’t so much a prayer to welcome them as it was a prayer to purify them before they joined the other departed souls in the cemetery. Rain dripped down her jaw as she once more pushed away the temptation to set everything on fire. Asera caught her muttering something under her breath and reached over to touch her arm.

“Even their charity comes with disrespect,” Nasuha said out loud. She didn’t care if people overheard. She was on the edge, itching for a fight.

The priest’s prayer eventually ended, and he gave a sharp whistle, directing the attendants to pull the gates open. Nasuha pushed her horse forward to lead the group, resisting the urge to tell the priest off. She didn’t want to risk having the elders thrown out. They’d suffered enough in life already, and Nasuha wasn’t going to add to it in death, even if it came at the expense of her own pride. She steeled herself for what she knew was going to be the final blow. The cemetery had earmarked a small plot of land in the corner of the cemetery that would serve as a mass grave for the elders. If they found no other place to put them in within a year or so, they were going to be dug up and thrown away.

She got off the horse, tied it to a tree, and returned to guide the wagons up the road. Along the way, she saw some shovels leaning on one wall of a garden shed. She picked one up and gestured at the priest. “Let’s get this over with. Where do you want us to dig?”

The priest blinked. “The cemetery take care of that. Individual plots have been purchased in advance—by two noble benefactors, in fact. Their men can take it from here.”

“We sent word of our arrival just an hour ago. What benefactors?”

The priest nodded at the temple in the distance. “They should still be there.”

Nasuha glanced at Asera, who looked just as confused as she felt. She passed by her, letting their fingers touch briefly, before she strode ahead to the temple. The doors were half-ajar. She pushed through, breathing a soft sigh of relief to find respite from the rain.

She spotted two figures standing on opposite sides of the aisle. One she recognized as Enosh Tar’elian. The other was Mistress Rasiad.

Nasuha stopped at the edge of the threshold, her breath coming up to the edge of her teeth. She was afraid if she let go, Tar’elian would be alerted to her presence. A foolish thought. Of course he knew she was there. He knew everything, it seemed like.

“I was wondering why you seemed familiar,” Enosh said with a smile that could’ve been friendly or vile, depending on how you viewed it. “This is a reunion of sorts, I suppose.”

Rasiad crossed her arms. “Tar’elian doesn’t like to be reminded of his past mistakes.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, woman. You’re not the first one who ever tried to use me.”

“Use me,” Rasiad mocked, rolling her eyes. “As if the man ever needed encouragement to pay more than his fair share of respect to a grieving widow.”

“It was a single evening,” Enosh said.

“Which you happily took advantage of. You seem to have forgotten the others.”

“Those don’t count. By then, you were the one who sent for me.”

“Should…I even be listening to this?” Nasuha broke in.

“No,” Enosh said. “But Lady Rasiad seems to think bringing up the past is appropriate in just about every circumstance. Perhaps she misses those nights.”

Rasiad shrugged. “Your distrust, Tar’elian, is poisonous. You are not the sole defender of our people—not even close.”

“And you think you are,” Enosh replied, tapping the pews. He eventually sat down on a bench, one leg over the other. “I came here to pay for the elders’ plots. She had the same idea.”

“Great minds,” Rasiad said, almost amused.

Enosh rolled his eyes before glancing back at Nasuha. “I was about to guess that you told her about all this so she could undermine my plans yet again.”

“I didn’t,” Nasuha said. “I had no idea she was even planning to come here. You could have spared me the trouble, Mistress—I’ve spent the last few days begging funeral parlours to accept the elders.”

“And what was Tar’elian doing this whole time?” Rasiad snorted. “He could have helped from the beginning, too. Greased a few wheels, called in a few favours…”

“I was dealing with family problems,” Enosh said. “I didn’t even know you were having issues. She could have come to me.”

“She didn’t. Doesn’t that tell you anything, Tar’elian? She’s been hanging around you and your family the past year, and yet she doesn’t trust you.”

“Perhaps that’s for the best,” Enosh said. “Especially seeing as to how she’s been working for you this whole time. Nasuha, did you come out to Drusgaya to spy on my daughter at her behest?”

Nasuha bowed. “Yes.”

“You’re not even going to try to lie about it.”

“You know what’s at stake,” Nasuha said. “The details don’t matter. What matters is where we go from here. This blow to our people…it’s too much. Disgraced in life, disgraced in death, and it’s only the beginning. If they realize all we’re going to do is sit back and take it, things will become much worse for all of us.”

“Let’s start with that first thing,” Enosh said, the impatience seething through his voice. All the charm and wit that usually carried him was gone. He turned back to Rasiad. “Where do you plan to go from here?”

“I’ve been trying to tell you for years,” Rasiad said.

“Right. All those half-baked theories and insane illusions about overthrowing the empire.” Enosh sighed. “I should have told you this years ago, Lady Rasiad, but here it is—Lord Rasiad and your daughter’s deaths were happenstance, not conspiracy. Why should the empire care about silencing a decrepit washout from the merchant guild, even if he was a Gorenten sympathizer? What good would the death of a girl, a talented mage and a future asset to the empire, do? Both were accidents, not assassinations. Other important delegates died in each event, and I can hardly think of a reason why the empire would put them in danger to make a point to you. The empire has never treated the Gorenten fairly, but to use your own personal vendetta as a reason to put our people in danger invalidates whatever claim you think you have. All these people who support your cause, who would die for you—you owe them the truth. Let them decide if they want to contribute to your vengeance. Tell them the only reason you want us all to burn is because you’ve lost the reason to live.”

“Are you done, Lord Tar’elian?” Rasiad said evenly.

Enosh shrugged. “Not really, but I highly doubt you’re going to let me speak some more. You hate hearing the truth. You’ve done nothing but brand me a coward who hides behind my rich, Dageian friends. Even supposing I had any, you really think it’s that easy, don’t you?”

“It could be,” Rasiad said. Her eyes glimmered.

Enosh sat up. “What the hell are you planning to do now?”

“I plan to raise High King Elian from the dead.”

Enosh was silent for a moment, and then he began to laugh.

Nasuha’s senses reeled. She had no idea. Rasiad had always assumed an air of letting her in on plans when it suited her, and she didn’t know what to think about this one. And yet she couldn’t voice out her concerns. She was in too deep, with no room left for doubt. If her mistress told her to jump off a cliff to save their people, she would do it in a heartbeat.

But raising a dead king, of all things…

Tar’elian was having as much difficulty, if not more, in processing the information. His face was twisted with fury. “I know it. You’ve embraced madness with glee, and you want to drag us all in with you. What would you even do with that bag of bones? Make it dance around and shame the hegemony for their crimes? Control it?”

He might have meant it ironically. Nasuha wasn’t sure. But as soon as he spoke, he realized, along with Nasuha, exactly why it could work. Rasiad’s expression confirmed it. “Your daughter has been controlling another dead king,” Rasiad reminded him. “Why is this any more insane than what the Dageians have been pulling off for centuries?”

“Cerknar isn’t even human,” Enosh gasped. “He’s a construct. You could do the same thing with High King Elian, I suppose, but for what purpose? You plan to file appeals under his name? Ask him to restore the Triassan Inn to the elders and make a bunch of reforms to ensure better treatment and lives for our people in the empire? This was their enemy. Dead or alive, High King Elian is just another Gorenten and just as powerless against the empire.”

“That’s because you’ve always been such a small-minded man,” Rasiad said. “I’m not talking about building a construct. I’m talking about using whatever connections existed in that body. His magic. Elian’s Heart.”

Her words stunned Enosh into silence. He knew what she was talking about.

“We’ve recreated the spell,” Rasiad continued. “But it can only be cast one at a time, and not easily, especially if you’re dealing with a mage who knows how to defend themselves. To use it as a weapon against a multitude of Eheldeth-trained mages safely, we need—among other things—his body and the remnants of his soul. It can be done if he is controlled by someone with the right sort of power and temperament. My daughter, Somya, could have done it. But she’s gone. She died, like you said, in an accident.” The words seethed through her teeth like hot water hissing through a spout.

“I know where this is going,” Enosh said under his breath.

Rasiad’s eyes blazed. “You said it yourself, Tar’elian. We can overthrow the empire this way. What is Dageis without its mages?”

Enosh closed his eyes and began to laugh again. This time, it was more subdued, as if he was actually trying to stop himself. “Gods,” he finally said, stopping for breath. “I thought I’d heard insanity when Ivasus laid out the same plan. I grant you, it almost makes sense. Subdue the mages, and you control the empire. But do you realize you won’t get very far. Dageis’s bottom line depends on magic. You’ll have the empire all right, and it’ll be nothing but a pile of rubble and ash. Every industry, every resource...”

Rasiad crossed the aisle to get close to him. “I have that boy Ivasus to thank. Investigating him yielded so many surprising things, like how he figured we can use the same tactic the empire itself used on the inhabitants of this continent when they first arrived. Take away their magic, to start with. Not all of them. They’ll soon see that those who choose to work with us can get it back. We can piece the hegemony, and thus the empire, back that way, to our benefit.”

“So you’re going to meddle in their politics. You’re going to use Elian’s Heart to take down some mages and blackmail others into compliance. Are you working with Ivasus now?”

“Not yet,” Rasiad replied. “But I believe that an alliance may be possible. He’s already done most of the work, and we have the same goals.”

“Ivasus believes the spell requires the participation—and possible sacrifice—of gifted Gorenten. He never once mentioned an undead king.”

“He had the right idea, but not the background. The undead king removes the need for sacrifices. The only person at risk would be its handler.”

He sniffed. “So you want my daughter to risk her life to raise and control the High King, and then work with Ivasus to cripple the mage council. You know she will never agree to it. Especially not if she finds out Ivasus will be in on it, too.”

“He’s one man. An ambitious, unappealing, arrogant man, but he is not the enemy. The empire is the enemy. If your daughter just sees this, everything will fall into place.”

“The empire is as much of a construct as its emperor,” Enosh said. “People run the empire. People like Ivasus. Encourage someone like him, and it will only be worse. Hand him this power and you will regret it. And if you think hearing any of this would make me feel better after everything he’s done, then you’re really out of your goddamned mind.”

Rasiad snapped her fingers.

The air in front of the altar rippled, followed by a circular ball of light. An image appeared behind it. In there, Nasuha spotted an overturned carriage. Someone was bleeding on the ground. She recognized Jehar, the tall Dageian who had been hanging around Rosha a few days ago. A woman and three boys stood around him. Nasuha recognized Ryo, and quickly realized the rest were her other brothers.

Anger blazed in Enosh’s eyes. Without a word, he drew his sword and lunged towards Rasiad. Nasuha screamed and tried to stop him, but he got to Rasiad before she could.

The tip of his sword struck a barrier she flung just in time. It quivered for a moment before shattering into dust. Unfazed, Enosh tried to strike with his bare fist instead, and she grabbed him by the throat with a strength that seemed almost inhuman.

“Mistress!” Nasuha screamed.

Rasiad ignored her. “Listen to me, you stubborn fool of a man,” she said, digging her fingers into his throat. He gave a small grunt as he attempted to dislodge her fingers, to no avail. “This goes beyond you and your family now. Cooperate, and they will be safe. I have no desire to kill helpless women and little boys. But you won’t jeopardize our mission. You’ve seen what those people do to us. Enough is enough.”

She dropped him. He fell to the ground, coughing. She stepped on his back before he could crawl away and bent down. “Stay out of the way and no harm will come to them. You understand, Tar’elian?”

He didn’t move for a few seconds, and Nasuha was almost sure he didn’t hear. But eventually, he gave a small nod.

“Good,” Rasiad said, letting him go. “It’s time to set things aright. I’m done playing tag.”

Without waiting for him to reply, she walked past them and left the temple.

CHAPTER 27

ROSHA

I called for a meeting of both mage and merchant council two days after I arrived in Teleres Palace. As Felan had guessed, Firekeeper Ceres returned almost immediately. Ignoring her own protocol, she went up to the emperor’s quarters and stumbled upon me just as I was leaving them, having pretended to give the emperor his breakfast and lock him up in his studies for the rest of the day.

“You’ve got some nerve,” Ceres said.

“Firekeeper,” I greeted. “You must have had a long journey. Now, if you could please excuse me…”

Ceres grabbed me by the shoulder, forcing me to face her. “That’s it,” she said under her breath. “You’ve now decided you don’t owe me anything—not your freedom or the privileges you still enjoy, when by all rights you should be rotting in some cell somewhere.”

“And that’s it with you?” I asked. “Not a word of relief or thanks that I got out of that ordeal alive? Or perhaps you were hoping I wouldn’t. I think you secretly wanted me to die and leave the emperor’s body—which you knew I would once my own was no longer viable—so you could control him yourself, as you’ve intended all along.”

Her face flashed. “When have I ever wished you harm, Rosha? All your life, you’ve mistaken my generosity for hostility.”

I shook my head. “A truly generous person wouldn’t keep count. You wanted to help me only so long as it proved convenient for you. Don’t tell me it’s all been for nothing, Firekeeper. If I recall, my father’s contributions have helped keep you in that cushy seat of yours for decades. Your own family lacked the funds to campaign between the terms you’ve served.”

She looked like she wanted to strike me and lifted her hand halfway up her chest. I was more than ready for it. But I never got to find out whether she was truly going to hit me or simply trying to threaten me, because someone began knocking on the door to the emperor’s study. We both stood still. I’d made sure to dismiss the servants earlier, asking not to be disturbed until it was time for the meeting, which wouldn’t be for a few more hours. The guards should have ensured the emperor’s command was obeyed right down to the finest detail.

I waited a moment, hoping whoever it was would be stopped by one of the guards so I wouldn’t have to answer. But then the knocking began again—urgent, heavy, as if it wasn’t someone trying to attract attention but was simply making their presence known. “I know you’re in there,” a voice said.

My heart began racing. It was Ivasus’s voice.

“I arrived early, my Lord Emperor,” he drawled. “I didn’t think it would be right to leave His Excellency waiting, even with all the troubles I’ve ran into with some of my businesses in Triassa. I was hoping, by the way, that you could offer an explanation for that. She’s in there with you, isn’t she?”

I glanced at Ceres. She was shaking her head, though it wasn’t directed at me. She just looked like she was devastated beyond words.

“I don’t think I need to sit and explain who,” he said, in a voice that almost seemed gentlemanly. “But Rosha Tar’elian is very important to me, Your Excellency. Harm a hair on her head, and—”

“Why?” Ceres suddenly asked out loud.

The air shifted. She had used a spell on her voice, masking it to sound like a man’s. Not quite like the emperor’s, but perhaps behind closed doors, it wouldn’t matter.

We heard a short laugh. “Why, indeed?” Ivasus replied. “I could ask you the same thing. I’ve wondered, from the very beginning, why you would keep an outlaw around. The woman never passed her Eheldeth finals. Surely you know. Someone in a higher position would have, because your records show she is an Adherent when she is anything but. She shouldn’t be here at all. The woman has slowly been losing her skill in the agan. Has been since we were young.”

Ceres’s eyes widened.

“I figured it out around the time we were fooling around back in Eheldeth,” he continued with a chuckle, as if he was reminiscing some fond memory instead of dropping a barrel of burning oil right onto Ceres’s head. “I always knew her reputation, how frightened half the teachers were of her because of how good she was. Top of her class, in every class where she didn’t have to compete with Felan Cartos. I figured getting involved with her would be like getting cozy with a keg of explosives. All my friends told me it was a bad idea. But I couldn’t help myself—I always did like bad ideas.”

I felt Ceres’s hand on my shoulder. She squeezed it. I didn’t know if she was being sympathetic or if she was angry. Probably both. “I don’t know why you think I’d be interested in this,” Ceres continued in the glamoured voice.

“I didn’t think you would be, either,” Ivasus said with a laugh, like he was a boy sharing a joke with friends. “I do like remembering. As I said—I expected more, and got nothing but a girl who barely participated or protested. I was curious why that was, given what I knew of her. Did something happen to her magic? My curiosity grew, and so once, when we were together, I attacked her. A quick invasion, a snapshot of her state of mind as it was.”

“An illegal intrusion,” Ceres drawled.

“Of course. And if she was like any other student in Eheldeth, she would have made it impossible for me to cast the spell, even if we were intimate at the time. She would have thrown a shield before I even got close. But she never even noticed. I learned, in an instant, that she was using me to get to the knowledge hidden in the inner sanctum. The Gorenten blood magic. She was using them to maintain the illusion that she was a capable mage, better than the other students in class, even as it was slowly fading from her like an aging woman’s memories.”

“What was she drawing on?” Ceres asked. I tried to shrug away from her. She kept her grip on me—I think she was scared I would try to run away. “Blood magic requires a sacrifice. Without a rune-tattoo to facilitate the transfer of agan, then someone’s blood is needed for her to draw on. And there usually aren’t many willing to offer theirs—in the hands of an unskilled mage, the sacrifice could easily die.”

A quick, scoffing laugh. “Isn’t it obvious? She used her own.”

Ceres turned her eyes back to me. She grabbed my arm and saw the scars, actually saw my scars, for the first time. Her thumb grazed across one. “Her own blood,” she said, the words meant for me. “That’s—”

“Brazen, isn’t it? I didn’t even know it at the time. Only now, looking back after all I’ve learned of blood magic myself, do I see what drove her to it. I don’t blame her. It’s cheating, but it’s still impressive. Risking her own life, she had to create her own channels, her own network of the agan in order to continue casting magic...the sort of channels anyone can tap into. I can’t imagine the pain she went through to get that far—it must have been tremendous. We mages use tattooed mage-thralls to assist in casting difficult spells, but we’ve never tried such a deranged arrangement with other mages because we know such an intrusion would result in energy we wouldn’t know how to contain. Well—at least, that’s what we were taught in Eheldeth.” He cleared his throat. “But you, of course, as Emperor of Dageis, know better. And you’ve stumbled on the rare mage who can provide this sacrifice without any of the potential side effects. The worst that can happen, I figure, is that she dies.”

I managed to pull away from Ceres this time.

“You think I use this woman,” Ceres continued.

“I know you do,” Ivasus said. “She reeks of blood magic from head to toe. You’re using her as energy to give you the means of controlling that sack of meat the whole empire worships.” He laughed again. “I told you. You need not worry that I’ll talk. All you have to do is give me what I want, and we can both have a very profitable arrangement, Your Excellency.”

“This is why you think you can just walk in here and threaten an emperor after you assaulted him. You fool. I can have you arrested and killed on the spot.”

“But you won’t,” he said. “Unless you want to find out what else I know, you won’t. I’m too dangerous to kill, Lord Emperor. Remember that.”

I dropped to my knees as soon as I heard his footsteps disappear out in the hall. Ceres grabbed me by the arm again. “Explain all of that,” she hissed. “Explain, Tar’elian! Is it true? Gods—it has to be true. The scars—I thought they were something else. I should have asked. I should have known!”

“It’s not as bad as he made it sound.”

“It is. Blood magic. You know better! Those vile spells—”

“—are my heritage,” I said evenly. “You should know this, having been with a Gorenten all this time, too. Everything I learned was knowledge you stole from my ancestors. And then you told us it was twisted, vile…why? To keep your people frightened of us? It’s been five years since I left Eheldeth, Firekeeper. Seven since I started using those spells. I have yet to turn into a ghoul or a monster. I’ve never felt the slightest inclination to.”

“Because you’ve been doing it wrong,” Ceres said. “You’re risking yourself instead of someone else. You shouldn’t even—you shouldn’t even be alive! And this…the emperor…” She took a deep breath. “How? Wearing the emperor’s skin does require vast amounts of magic. I never questioned your capability for it, but after everything I’ve learned—”

“Blood magic requires skill, too,” I replied. “It’s not cheating, like you and the other keepers love to say. It’s just hard, and dangerous, and you need someone who knows what they’re doing.”

Her eyes flared. “Cartos. Cartos has been helping you, too. He lost his magic just as well. That accident in the library—what really happened there?”

I swallowed. “Someone attacked us.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know, Firekeeper. It doesn’t matter. I have to stop Ivasus. He has my whole family wrapped up in this.”

“I told you to let me handle it,” she snapped. “What do I have to do to make you trust me?”

“I have to go.”

Her fingers twitched. She looked like she wanted to strap manacles on me in that instant and drag me to the dungeons without delay. But something was stopping her. Perhaps she knew that if she ever laid a hand on me, Enosh would never forgive her.

“I have to go,” I repeated. I didn’t want to look at her again. I needed to steel myself for what I was about to do. Surprisingly enough, she let me go. I got the impression that for the first time since I’d met her, she was all but willing to let someone else take the lead.

The meeting was a subdued affair, quite possibly because Ceres chose to keep her hands off it. What she learned in that room wasn’t just surprising—it changed her very perception of what she thought she was capable of handling. The fact that I had been practicing blood magic under her nose while in Eheldeth, of all places…I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel slight satisfaction over being able to hide it from her all this time. No matter how much skill I displayed, she always thought she had me under control, that my trajectory and growth depended on her. She was willing to grant me room to excel if it supported her purpose. Instead, I had been playing with the forbidden, all while I entangled myself in her affairs so much that it was impossible to extricate me without harming her, too. It was as delicious of a revenge as I could have ever thought of, and I wasn’t even finished.

Felan reappeared just as the delegates were filing into the enormous dining hall, where the meeting was to take place. “You’ve come just in time to enjoy the cooks’ hard work,” I greeted him, gesturing at the enormous spread on the various tables. Honey-glazed ham, duck stew in pepper and onions, mountains of potatoes roasted in olive oil and garlic, and breads of every imaginable shape and size were just some of the cuisine. There were also noodles coated in butter, stuffed eggs, baked salmon, and wheels of smoked cheese. The rest blurred into a cacophony of colours and dull scents, none of which made any difference in the emperor’s skin. But I thought that even if I was in my own body, I would still find it all very unappetizing, if only because of the company I had to share it with. Felan was the first friendly face I’d seen, if you could even call it that.

We hadn’t spoken at all since that tumultuous night we spent together. When I woke up the next morning, he was gone, with not even a single note behind. The few times I’d seen him in the hallway, he greeted me with polite emptiness. I wondered if he was trying to bury the memory in the recesses of his mind. Shame and regret could do that. He cleared his throat and made a sweeping bow before taking a chair a few seats down, which as the emperor’s attendant and Lord Cato’s heir was an honour that could be accorded to him. It gave me a better view of him from where I sat.

I tried not to look at him, because I wasn’t sure how odd it would look to see the emperor so enamoured with his own attendant. But it was difficult not to, given my own blur of memories. I felt neither shame nor regret over what we had done. If anything, I wanted more time to go over the details, more time to think about them some more so I could understand what actually happened there. I wanted to probe the memory for answers I knew neither of us were capable of saying out loud. It wasn’t just that I cared deeply for him—that part, I now knew, was true, but this wasn’t just about that. I wanted to know what he was thinking when we were together. I wanted to know why, if he resented me so much, he still kissed me like he did. Why was this so hard? I always thought affairs were the easiest things to initiate. I got the sense I might have judged my parents too much for their inability to get their shit together. You could feel all sorts of things and not have a name for what they made you feel.

Chancellor Pacano appeared in a huff. He looked terrified. I had been making decisions the whole year without considering his input, like I usually did, and I think this meeting, in particular, was making him nervous. “Come, sit, and stuff your face with ham,” I told him. “You look like you’re about to burst into tears.”

He dabbed his face and tried to smile. It was like watching a dog try not to piss itself in front of you. “Of course, Your Excellency,” he said. “But I really have to say this. Such a meeting is—”

“Can’t an emperor do what he wants?” I asked.

“You can, but protocol—”

“Then sit,” I said. I laced my hands together. “I’m done with protocol.”

I said that last part out loud, loud enough for everyone else in the dining hall to hear. It looked like everyone was in their seat, anyway, even Ceres at the far end. I got up, picking up a wine glass as I did so. “I am done with protocol,” I repeated. “Considering everyone around here has been dancing around protocol themselves. Firekeeper Ceres—stand up.”

She kept her gaze on me as she slowly got to her feet.

“I want you gone,” I said. I took a swig of wine and then smiled at her.

The dining hall fell silent.

“Your…Excellency…” she began, finding her voice at last. “I’m afraid I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“I want you removed from court,” I said. “You’ve been a thorn on my side all these years, you know. Harassing me, sending out investigations on my whereabouts—as if an emperor can’t go wherever he wants! You really fancy yourself the emperor, don’t you? You think I’m your puppet? You’re Firekeeper, nothing more. The head of Eheldeth, which I grant you is an important institution to this empire, and head of the mage council because of it. Such a glorious position, but it doesn’t give you the right to be a god.” I placed my hand on a scroll on the table and lifted it for all to see. “I’ve granted a new edict: the emperor, from now on, will choose the Firekeeper.”

There was a cry of outrage from the people who, as far as I could tell, were members of the mage council. The members of the merchant guild, including Lord Ivasus, remained silent.

“Lord Emperor,” Lady Berinda spoke up. “Lord Emperor, a word!”

I lifted my hand. Everyone fell silent and turned to her.

“The Firekeeper has traditionally been voted by the mage council as the person best suited to represent our voices,” she said. “Firekeeper Ceres has done commendable work. If there were concerns about her performance, this is an avenue best kept between us mages. For the rest of the court to delve into it is an intrusion, Your Excellency. We’ve had arrangements. To break protocol on a whim—”

“The mage council does not rule the Empire of Dageis,” I said. “Weren’t you listening, Lady Berinda? All these protocols have resulted in a Firekeeper that represents only the mage council’s interests and not the interests of the entire empire. And yet the Firekeeper, more often than not, is here in court instead of sitting in Eheldeth and worrying about the problems there instead. Is it a matter of servitude, or influence? When was the last time you ever looked at how things are in Eheldeth, Firekeeper Ceres? I know you used to be more active there than you are now, but it seems as if either way, nothing has changed. The students of Eheldeth go on to serve the empire, so you say, but just like you, do they serve the empire or the mage council?”

“There is no difference…” Ceres began, finding her voice at last.

“Yes there is,” I said, keeping my gaze steady.

“Without mages, the empire would fall.”

“Exactly. So that makes you think you can do whatever you want. One can serve without power, and yet I don’t see your mages doing that. Eheldeth has become breeding grounds for politics, and you’ve done nothing to stop it.” I cleared my throat. “I want you to step down, Firekeeper Ceres. I called on this whole meeting as a matter of courtesy, so the land can see how lenient and generous I am, considering how you’ve undermined me all these years. In place of you, I appoint Lord Ivasus as Firekeeper.”

The outrage now turned into a roar. Like Lord Cato had been, Lord Ivasus was a mage, but a member of the merchant guild. The appointment was an insult. Half the people in the room began screaming. Only Ivasus himself seemed deathly calm, if a little shocked. He wasn’t expecting this.

I turned my gaze on him. “Well, Lord Ivasus?” I asked. “Speechless? You’ve been begging for a chance to prove yourself, have you not?”

“He’s not even from an old mage family!” someone roared. “His father is a soldier! The man is connected to the agan, but the intricacies—”

“I am educated in Eheldeth,” Ivasus said. “I don’t see the cause for concern, Lord Naru. Eheldeth gave me a rank that qualifies me for a seat in the mage council.”

“A rank you turned down!”

“A formality. Once a mage, always a mage. You know I’m still in your records.”

“You’re a member of the merchant guild,” Lord Naru snapped.

“Then I quit the merchant guild, as of this moment,” Ivasus said. “Granting the title of Firekeeper—I must admit, Your Excellency, that it is a rare, unexpected honour. But I am more than willing to live up to the task.”

“Of course you are,” I said, calmly. “And of course, I hear everyone else’s concerns. Merchants and mages—in this empire, one could be both. But positioning a member of the merchant guild as the Firekeeper opens up certain problems. We’ll have to make sure you don’t abuse this new honour. You’re going to get an audit.”

The look on Ivasus’s face turned cold. “Your Excellency…?”

“We need a record of all your accounts, properties, and personal assets. Everything you’ve owned or touched…will need to be perused in painstaking detail and kept for official records. And you will cooperate. He will cooperate,” I repeated, turning my gaze to the enraged mages. “You will ensure he will.”

Ivasus realized what I’d done. I’d given him what he wanted while feeding him as bait at the same time. There had been no reason for the mages to view him with suspicion before, but now…now, I had given him at least three dozen enemies, all with a few choice words.

I turned my attention to Ceres, who seemed to have yet to process the sudden turn of events. I had always seen her as this untouchable figure of authority, a woman as awe-inspiring as she was irritating. But now all I saw was someone who had struggled under the weight of so much power even if—and quite possibly because—she was alone. And now that the power has been stripped from her, all I saw was a woman past her prime, one who might be wondering if she’d made the right choices at all. Without her title, what did she have?

I drained the wine and walked away, leaving the entire room to their outrage. They could burn in hell for all I cared; I had no desire to remain an emperor. All I wanted was to save the people I loved. If it meant taking an empire down, so be it.

CHAPTER 28

ROSHA

Felan was waiting for me in the secret passageway as soon as I ditched the emperor’s body under the bed in his own chambers. “We don’t have a lot of time left,” I said, even before he could open his mouth. “Ivasus is going to be cleaning the skeletons out of his closet soon. We can’t waste time.” I handed him a scroll.

He flicked it open. “You got this from the archives?”

“Requisitioned it as soon as I left the meeting. I wasn’t going to give him time to get rid of evidence. It’s every property he’s purchased in the last six months.”

“The warehouse Nasuha found you in is here, too.”

I nodded. “He was going to use them to hold the Gorenten should I—that is, the emperor—command Tar’elian to offer him able bodies for his sacrifice. With the investigation in place, he’s unlikely to purchase more properties to complicate things, and he’ll be busy fending off the infuriated members of the mage council. We’ve got his back to the wall.”

He cleared his throat. “It worries me that you seem pretty pleased with what you’ve done.”

“You saw the look on his face, Felan. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel good.”

Felan didn’t share my revelry. “With his back to the wall, he’ll be more dangerous.” He rubbed his forehead. “He caught me out in the hall earlier. You’re slippier than a snake, Cartos, he said. I told him snakes aren’t slippery at all, and Chancellor Pacano interrupted us before he could say anything else. You know he’s not one to leave things undone.”

“No,” I said.

He hesitated. “Back out.”

“What?”

“He still thinks you’re being used in all of this. You can use that to your advantage.”

“I know. He went on a whole spiel outside the emperor’s chambers before the meeting. He…” I swallowed. “He found out about blood magic because of me. He dropped a mind-reading spell one time, when we were together, and that’s how he learned about all these Gorenten spells.”

Felan looked sick. “That man…” he began.

“I know,” I said. “Forget I said that. I don’t know why I even brought it up.”

“Such an intrusion is not…right.” A flicker of fury touched his face. “He’s an abomination.”

“I should have known what I was getting into.”

“But how could you?” Felan grabbed my wrist, his fingers wrapping around my scars. “You were just a girl. Desperate to hold on to something you knew was your right. I would have done the same thing in your place.”

I gave him a thin smile. “I’m not sure you’re his type.”

“Probably not.” Felan let go of my wrist only so he could pick up my hand. He let his fingers weave through mine briefly. “All of this for the man who raised you…”

There was a note in his voice that seemed almost pensive. I turned my head towards him, catching my breath for an instant. “What do you mean?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Felan said under his breath. He cleared his throat and let my hand go. “Which of those places should we check out first?”

“I believe the first property on the list is the most important one. It’s in the Orasmus Peninsula. Most of the Dageians think it’s barren, cursed land and have avoided it for decades, but look here. It says he’s staked out well over several acres of land a few hours north of my father’s farms.”

“Building his own farms?”

“What goes on in that man’s mind is beyond my comprehension. But I’ve already asked Portia to deliver the message to Enosh as soon as possible. I want him there before Ivasus can cover his tracks.”

“Give me that scroll again.”

I handed it to him. By now, we had reached a portion of the hallway so dark you had to squint to read anything at all. But I saw a shadow cross his face. “He’s marked the property as a mining operation. Is he diversifying? Specializing in human bodies and ore?”

“High King Elian is buried somewhere there,” I said. “The asshole doesn’t just want to desecrate the living. He plans to do it to the dead, too.”

We walked out into an overhanging street overlooking the section where the river connected to the sea. A quick exit for the emperor, should it ever be necessary. There, I stopped, wind whipping my hair, and faced him squarely. “You can still walk away,” I said. “This whole mess is about my family, Felan. My people. I couldn’t remove myself from it even if I was able to scrub the Gorenten off my skin. You, on the other hand, can still get out. With Lord Cato as a father, the Dageians don’t even view you as Agaranthen, and even if they did, it doesn’t hold the same weight as being one of my people.”

He shook his head. “I can’t. Not until you’re safe.” He took my hands in his.

A crossbow bolt struck the rock cliff next to us, imbedding itself deeply into the crevices. I twisted my head in time to see Ivasus on a boat in the river, crossbow in his hands. “I thought I recognized that unshapely shadow!” Ivasus roared. “I shouldn’t be surprised you’ve taken her for yourself. Unhand her, Cartos!” He reloaded the crossbow. He didn’t seem to care that he was going to hit me and aimed, pulling the trigger.

Felan pushed me out of the way as the bolt struck him on the leg.

Ivasus’s boat drifted to the shore at the same time. I ran down, blocking the crossbow’s path with my body as Ivasus jumped onto dry land. He looked amused, hardly flustered. “It’s good to see you walking around at last, my dear,” he said. “Still, it’s a wonder what you’re doing with him, after what they’ve done to you. Have you no self-respect?”

“They didn’t do anything,” I snapped.

Ivasus stopped a few feet away from me. He reached out to grab my chin. He stroked it with his thumb. Despite my every attempt to remain calm, I found myself shuddering. Learning what he had done to me was a step too far, and not just that he’d attempted it. Such an intrusive spell required for me to have lowered all my defenses down to nothing. A misstep. I had been so focused on making sure he didn’t suspect anything that I ended up handing him the keys to my own demise. He couldn’t do it now, of course. He could try to probe as much as he wanted, but mind-reading spells worked the same way as glamour spells—the moment you know, it loses all power. The spellcaster would have to try so much harder to break your defenses down again.

Behind me, I heard Felan groan. “Stop that,” he called. “Leave her alone.”

He reloaded the crossbow as I watched and then aimed it directly at my heart. “Who’s behind the emperor?” he asked. “Talk.”

I held my tongue.

“It can’t be Ceres,” he continued. “I’ve been checking her movements the last few years. The woman is frightfully dull. Cartos should know more, but torture seemed like an ineffective way to loosen his tongue.” He glanced behind me. “What if I put a bolt through her skull, Cartos? Will that get you to talk?”

“I can’t tell you what I don’t know,” Felan said. “And if you kill us both, you’ll be left without answers. I believe you have other things to be worrying about than two old classmates, Firekeeper Ivasus. Imagine what the rest of the mage council will do when they realize the extents of your ambitions. Imagine what they’ll do when they unearth the truth about the emperor and blame you with the rest of us.”

Wordlessly, Ivasus pulled the trigger again. The bolt struck the ground. He smiled from the corner of his mouth, looking like he’d missed on purpose. “Stop whining, Cartos, and come with me to the ship.” He turned to me. “You too, my lady.”

“You must be joking,” I said. “What makes you think we’ll go with you willingly?”

“Because you don’t have a choice,” he said simply. “Think he’ll get far with that leg? If it doesn’t get treatment within the hour, it might get infected. Scratch that—I’m sure it will get infected. I kept those bolts in the kennels.”

“You’re mad,” I gasped.

“I’m not, actually,” Ivasus said, unironically. “I’m just a man who knows what he wants and what he’s willing to do to get it.”

“I just want you to leave my family alone,” I said. “Tell me where Kefier is, and maybe we’ll give you everything you need.”

“I have an even better idea,” he replied. “How about I take you both to him?”

“You should have kept us together from the start.”

He laughed. “Oh, no, Rosha. No. Kefier had to tie up some loose ends for me first, to earn himself your safety in exchange. It’s delightful, knowing what that man would do for you. I could have asked him to set himself on fire and he would have done it without hesitation.”

The revulsion turned to fear. I don’t think I’d ever been as afraid in my life before as I was when he uttered those words. “What the hell did you make him do, Ivasus?” I gasped. It sounded like I was begging, and I didn’t care. I would set myself on fire for Kefier, too.

Ivasus reached over to snap the bolt on Felan’s leg. As he roared in pain, he calmly reloaded the crossbow again and motioned over to his boat, where his men remained waiting. “Get yourself down to the boat first,” he said. He gestured to me. “You, on the other hand, will come with me. Cooperate, and I’ll grant you your reunion. You know I make fair trades, Rosha. You always did. I’m not as cruel as you all think I am.”

His eyes gleamed as he spoke. I slowly nodded.

He pushed Felan over for his men to tie up while he loaded the crossbow a third time. “Now,” he said, with a small smile. “Grant me an audience with his majesty.”

I led him back along the hallway, the crossbow bolt trained in the center of my back the whole time. A few steps down, Ivasus began whistling. The cheerful tune of an old Dageian ballad seemed almost eery as it bounced against the tunnels of the bowels of the palace.

“You seem to be in a jovial mood for someone who will soon be torn to pieces by both mage council and merchant guild alike,” I broke in.

He whistled for a few more moments before he burst into laughter. “Maybe. Your emperor played a mean trick. I was surprised he would dare. Perhaps he was more than willing to knock me down a notch, self-preservation be damned.”

“All of this...” I began. “Your daring to go up against the emperor himself…why, Ivasus? If you wanted influence in the council, it should be easy enough for you. You’ve got the connections. Just work your way up, one corrupt deal at a time, like the rest of them.”

“You talk like you know me, my dear. I don’t recall ever having divulged my personal life to you. Have I? Perhaps I’m misremembering our affair.”

“Then tell me.”

Ivasus was silent for a few more steps. Eventually, he lowered his arms. “I don’t have much time left,” he said. “I’m dying.”

I turned around. “You can’t be serious.”

He smirked. “Does it look like this is something I would joke about? Believe me, Rosha, the only ones laughing are the gods. I’ve got—that thing you get when you’ve been exposed to too much agan and your body’s not capable of handling it because they forced you to take mage studies when you’re barely a mage yourself. That. The one our classmates used to chuckle about. Loser’s Disease.”

“The Wasting Illness. If I recall, you were the one who called it Loser’s Disease.”

“Yes, well, that’s why I said the gods are probably laughing. If there’s anyone who had it coming to him, it would be me. No question about it. It’s why I’m not even angry. Not anymore.” Ivasus shrugged. “I’ve got—if I’m lucky—another five years, most of which I’m bound to spend as an invalid unable to even get up to clean myself for fear of my own tainted blood clogging my heart and stopping it in its tracks. It’s a hell of a trip down the worst your mind can conjure, knowing every day brings you closer to death’s door. You’ll be happy to know that all of this is me keeping it together.” He smiled at the bleakness of his humour.

“And you think Elian’s Heart can cure you?”

He waved the crossbow in my direction. “That’s an interesting thought. I never actually saw it that way.”

“It blocks magic and if your body can stop taking in the agan long enough to heal—”

“Gods. Perhaps. Damn. I should have found you years ago—maybe you would have told me this sooner and spared us all the trouble.” He shook his head. “As it is, it’s probably too late. The damage has been done. You think the mages in Eheldeth would have known better, eh? Known better than to stop pushing a student who didn’t have it in him. But my father was paying them excessive amounts of money, and they didn’t want to tell him no for fear of losing out on both tuition and donations. So instead, they pretended his son was gifted, talented. They kept pushing me so they could show my father all the spells I was supposed to be really good at.”

“Have you always suspected you shouldn’t be doing it?”

“It was you, actually, who tipped me off,” Ivasus said. “Long before we ever spoke to each other. I heard about you. Saw you do a spell once, a demonstration for students in your year. I remembered walking up to one of the professors and demanding an explanation over how you—a Gorenten, of all people—could manage such a spell in one try. You didn’t even look like you were in pain. That was the first seed of doubt. I pretended nothing was wrong when I learned about you and your blood magic, of course, and that kept me going all the way until after graduation.

“I didn’t join the merchant guild immediately after I turned down the opportunity to work with the mage council. I joined the army first, just like my father did. Thought I could make a name for myself there. The opportunities of a mage-soldier of my calibre…are just about limitless. Or so I thought. A year out of military academy, and we had to do a physical exam. Standard procedure. They prodded me with a bit of agan and I suddenly felt like I was coughing out a lung. I passed out right in the clinic and woke up in my father’s home.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

Ivasus’s eyes flickered. “You don’t mean that.”

“You’re right. I was being polite.”

“They told me the news, and I felt numb for a long time. Took to drinking, whoring. Pissed my father off enough that he started looking for a cure, just so he wouldn’t have to look at me. Like this wasn’t his fault in the first place!” He shook his head. “Well, he didn’t know, that’s the thing, so perhaps it really wasn’t. He found out from a couple of associates that there were files on me within Eheldeth warning the keepers I shouldn’t push forward with my schooling. Ever since First Year, year after year: Ivasus must not proceed or he would be risking his health. The files were ignored, under orders from someone higher up.”

“The Firekeeper?” I asked.

“I thought so, too,” he said. “See, my father died right before he could ever find out. I had to pick up the investigation where he left off, which led me to two conclusions: one, that he wasn’t killed because of a drunken brawl in an alley. He was assassinated. Someone didn’t want him to find out who’d signed the orders to keep me on so they could keep pocketing the substantial donations he was giving the school. Guess who it was.”

The look on his face made it clear he was going to enjoy having me play that game with him. I chose not to answer instead, and continued walking. We reached the emperor’s chambers, where I pushed at the hidden door. The gears clicked as it began opening.

He blocked my path with his arm before I could take a step forward. “It’s Lord Vazon,” he said.

“I don’t know who that is,” I replied, irritated.

“You should. He was an important member of the mage council, and a contender for Firekeeper many, many times. Lord Cato was his lover.” He crossed his arms. “Lord Vazon kept me, and possibly so many other undeserving students, in Eheldeth in exchange for vast sums of money that never went into Eheldeth’s coffers. When my father came close to finding out the truth, Lord Cato ordered the assassination. Because it’s not enough to rob a young man of his life, you see—he had to kill his father, too.”

I silently led him to the emperor’s bed, allowing the weight of what I had just learned to wash over me. It still didn’t make me truly feel sorry for him, not after all he’d done, but I suppose it wasn’t too much of me to have a touch of sympathy over the boy he had been. He was an asshole, but he didn’t deserve any of that.

His attention drifted to the simulacrum. “So, we meet once again, Lord Emperor,” he said out loud. When the simulacrum didn’t respond, he sat at the edge of the bed. “What’s the matter? Mage got your tongue?” He laughed at his own joke. “The mage I blocked inside of him must have gotten out at last. I suppose that’s to be expected. If only I knew all their names, this would all be so much simpler.”

I didn’t want to correct him. He still believed I was only being used as a source of energy for whoever was controlling the emperor in the first place. Maybe his rage against the hegemony was so great that he couldn’t think beyond vengeance. “You want to use Elian’s Heart against these mages.”

“Really, I’d settle for just learning their secrets, but punishing them along the way wouldn’t be a bad turn of events. I couldn’t figure out anything past Lord Cato and Lord Vazon,” he said. “This way, it doesn’t matter: I can take all of them out in one fell swoop. I’m going to take them all to the grave with me.” He placed a hand on the emperor’s cold arm before shaking his head. “If it wouldn’t kill me to stick myself into this thing, I’d do it in a heartbeat, but alas…we’ll have to trap them the hard way.”

“Leave my family alone, and I can help you,” I blurted out. “I hold no love for these mages, either. Leave my family and my people alone.”

Ivasus looked surprised. “You’re really going to work with me willingly?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“But you hate me.”

I stared at him. “I do. But I can hate you and work with you at the same time. Maybe I can stop you from getting carried away with all your bad ideas.”

His eyes danced, as if he was remembering that conversation with the emperor. Surely he would have considered that I would have overheard, being so close to him and all. “And what if I ask you to pick up where we left off?” he mused, placing a thumb on my chin.

I pulled away. “I didn’t think you’d fancy spending your last few years with someone as cold and unfeeling as I am.”

He shrugged. “Maybe you’ve learned a few things since then. I’ll consider it if you do.”

I returned to my chambers, feeling for all the world like I was dragging a ball and chain. I could’ve fooled myself into believing I was back in Eheldeth, over that winter break with the taste of his breath in my mouth and the distinct feeling that I was better than this. It didn’t matter that I had no intention of walking down that road again. I wasn’t a girl anymore—I shouldn’t have to walk on eggshells around anyone ever again. How was it that the very act of navigating the world freely still felt so hopelessly out of reach?

Portia was waiting for me outside, a letter in her hand. “A letter from your father,” she said. “He wanted to come himself, but felt it was better not to waste time. There’s something very important in it for your eyes only, he said.”

I cracked the seal open and took out the letter. From its abrupt tone, I could tell it was written in a hurry, but Enosh, ever the perfectionist, still tried to make his penmanship stand out. It spoke about the Lost Ones and an undead king. My senses began to blur as the words formed an image in my head. Kefier’s stories of our people started to come to life. I imagined scenes from the annals of history—of our ancestor, High King Elian, facing down multitudes of mages, knowing our survival lay in a spell that would drag him straight to the grave.

Magic is energy, so went my first lesson in Eheldeth. Energy is in everything that was and is alive.

“If it’s not too much prying,” Portia broke in, “what does it say?”

“After a lifetime of forcing me to learn Dageian propriety, my father has finally asked me to embrace life as an outlaw.” I cracked a smile.

She looked confused.

“He says there is a way to get Ivasus what he wants without hurting the Gorenten,” I continued. “It just requires a bit of…necromancy.”

Her face paled. “The empire will burn you,” she whispered, half-jokingly.

“After everything I’ve been doing, that’s the least of my problems.” I folded the letter and walked over to my desk, where I tore it in half before feeding it to the lit candle. The flames swallowed up the paper, dancing over my fingers and nails. I could hardly feel them. “He says to do this, one requires the essence of a powerful mage. Do you know how you get that, Portia?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know anything about what mages do.”

“Well, this process requires blood magic,” I said. “He doesn’t say so, of course, but he trusts the depth of my knowledge.”

Portia smiled. “That’s good that he does.”

Her naivety was almost touching. “To facilitate the process, a mage must be sacrificed,” I said, ignoring what her words made me feel. “I don’t know anyone who’d willingly allow me to experiment on them, which means I may very well have to figure out how to kill a powerful mage.”

“Ivasus?”

I thought about what he’d disclosed to me and had to stop myself from laughing. “Not powerful enough. But I’m sure he’ll be able to provide a few names if I deliver this news to him. Maybe he’ll even do the hard work for me.”

“You’re going to be working with him?” Portia asked. “But he—”

“I know,” I whispered. “Believe me, Portia, I know.” The thought lingered in the air like a foul smell.

CHAPTER 29

NASUHA

Nasuha heard of the events at Teleres Palace almost as soon as they disembarked from the airship in Lon Basden. It was all anyone could gossip about. Enosh didn’t look shocked—in fact, he threw his head back and gave a small chuckle. They boarded a ship, this time heading south on the water, along the coast. “Did we expect anything less?” he asked, as soon as they found a chance to talk. “That girl was born to make chaos. Did I ever tell you about the first time I met her?”

“I assumed it was the day of her birth, like any responsible father,” Nasuha replied.

Enosh shrugged. “I’ll ignore the jibe.”

“You really shouldn’t.”

He gave a dismissive wave. “It’s true I wasn’t around for the early years of her life. That wasn’t by choice. I had no idea she existed. Or…well, I thought I didn’t.” He paused, allowing someone else to pass him by on the street. His face assumed a different expression—one that was almost wistful. “I felt her in the agan somewhere one time, when my life was in danger. Her existence…plunged like a bright sun into the void that used to be my life. But that pales in comparison to the day I actually met her. She was eight, enraptured in a spell that would make any mage quake in their boots. You think it’s difficult controlling a single doll, an emperor? Lady, when I first met my daughter, she was controlling many. She wasn’t trying to imbue them with human characteristics as she does with the emperor—but she was jerking these dolls around, making them walk, run, fight. I don’t think she even remembers. I do, though. You can’t imagine what it felt like to be in the presence of so much magic and then realize it was coming from this little child, and that she was yours.”

“She told me you’re an outlaw mage, too.”

“A poor one,” Enosh said. It didn’t seem like the kind of thing a man like him would readily admit to, and yet he didn’t seem to care. “Skill in the agan was nothing but parlour tricks for me. It made my life easier in some ways, but I could always ignore it when I wanted to. It was different for her. Almost everyone who knows anything about the agan say the same thing when they meet her. Her predisposition to it is uncanny. She walks through magic without even knowing it. Do you know about salmon, the fish that started moving into the sea from the north after centuries of delving in the agan has lowered the temperature of this continent’s waters? They’re particularly prevalent in the northeast, around where King Hyougen froze the Shiu-in island.”

“I know people who worked on fishing boats.”

“The agan…Rosha swims in it like salmon, travelling from rivers to ocean and back with ease. She knows her way through it, even against the flow, even when she’s not conscious of what she’s doing.”

She made a soft sound in the back of her throat. “I would caution you against the comparison. Salmon bear wounds when they return to the rivers from the ocean. Most of them die along the way.”

“Another joke?”

“I’m making a point. Her skill in the agan means she has gone through most of her life delving in magic without even having to think about it. But that skill doesn’t stop it from harming her. You can see its mark on her.”

“Why do you think I enrolled her in Eheldeth?”

Nasuha sniffed. “Eheldeth knows nothing about how to guide a gifted Gorenten. It teaches how to control only a certain kind of magic, designed for the rigours of the empire. Not too much, not too little; just enough to give the impression of power. Dageis is built around this perception, after all. Gorenten magic is raw, unfiltered, a wildfire that can torch the very forests it seeks to grow.” She looked down at her own scars and sniffed. “Someone like Rosha…could have never received the guidance she needed in that place. She stood out in all the wrong ways.”

“You speak like someone who has seen her grow up there,” Enosh observed.

Nasuha shrugged. “It’s obvious enough if you just look at her. The empire…is not the sort of environment where she could have ever thrived. Not the way it is. Never. Because why? Why should someone that talented have to make herself smaller in order to fit in the boxes the empire has predetermined for her? Why should she shave off the strongest, most powerful parts of herself to please the self-appointed gatekeepers of her skill? She isn’t alone. There are far too many voices in this empire that have been used for all the wrong things, silenced, kept in the dark. All Mistress Rasiad wants is to even things out. To make it fair for our own. Because Gorent can’t give that to our children, either. Too much is broken back there, more than any one person to fix. We have to start with the little things.”

“Little things like reviving a dead king and unleashing it on the most powerful men and women of the empire,” Enosh said dryly. It was amazing how much sarcasm he could dole out without ever once changing his tone.

“Maybe it will work,” she said. “Dead kings know things we don’t. I’ll tell you one thing he won’t know how to do, though: call on his old mercenary friends to help his newfound friends. I’m glad we have you for that.” She nudged him with her elbow.

Enosh crossed his arms. “I’ll have you know, I haven’t spoken to these bastards in years. They seemed gracious enough to agree to this meeting, but I don’t know the sort of reception we’re going to get there.”

“You better hope it’s a good one,” Nasuha said. “Mistress Rasiad’s patience isn’t one to test.”

“Don’t I know it,” he grumbled under his breath.

Calm waters greeted them as the ship docked at Sen’senal. Nasuha finally allowed herself to feel a sliver of unease. She had been trying to hold it back ever since Enosh had chosen the Gorenten city as his meeting place with the mercenaries. Not that there were other options. The Boarshind, and other organizations like it, were not legally allowed to operate in Dageian territory, which struck out even the port of Lon Basden and the Orasmus Peninsula. Enosh was adamant that if Mistress Rasiad wanted him to do this, he was going to do it right.

Despite the pelting heat, Nasuha found herself rubbing her arms. Enosh got off the gangway behind her and sniffed. “Nervous?” he asked.

She glanced at him.

“I haven’t been here in years, either.” He gestured. “You look like you can’t decide between bursting into tears or turning around and declaring this a bad idea. You’ve got family here, I wager. Family you haven’t seen in years.”

“Not here,” Nasuha said. “But close enough. The nearness is terrifying, to be honest. Makes me feel like I could take a stroll in the market and just run into them. Knowing my mother, it’s likely. She used to buy spices here.”

“Why have you never visited?”

She shrugged. “Never saw the point. Wasn’t the sentimental type. You?”

“Same reason,” Enosh replied. “Besides, what family I have left are…in various stages of being held against their will at the moment. You’ve met them. Charming bunch, eh?” He glanced at the city sprawling under the sun’s haze in the distance. “Funny how it all feels so much bigger and smaller at once. Those houses didn’t go up to those hills before.”

“There’s always been houses there for me,” she replied.

“You can say it. You’re old. I won’t be offended. Jokes on my age don’t hurt me.” He sniffed. “Not when you look this good.” Enosh jumped down from the ramp to the beach. He must’ve been trying to make a dramatic landing. Instead, he paused, his hand twitching.

She glanced down at him. “Broke something?”

He gritted his teeth. “Ask me again in half an hour.”

Someone whistled from the street above the beach. Nasuha shielded her face against the sun’s glare and saw a well-dressed man looking down on them. “Well, if it isn’t Count Tar’elian himself,” the man whistled. He spoke with a smooth Kag accent. Coupled with his fine clothes and the jewelled earring hanging from his left ear, he seemed almost nobility.

“Lord Caiso apn Willem,” Enosh said, making his way up the rocks. He held out his hand, as if expecting the other man to help him up.

Caiso stepped back. “Really?” he asked. “You want to be friendly now?”

“I can’t see why we can’t be,” Enosh said, pulling himself up to the street himself. He wiped dust off his trousers and grew serious. “You can’t still be mad about business.”

“That fifteen percent you cut us out of could have bought me a lot of farms, Tar’elian,” Caiso said, stroking his red beard. Streaks of white dotted his temples. “But that’s beside the point. Drown in your money for all I care—it’s your brother I’m concerned about.”

“That’s why I called you,” Enosh said. “You care about him, quite probably more than anyone in the Boarshind.”

Caiso shook his head. “Plenty of people care for him. I’m just the loudest. What kills me is that you didn’t think it was necessary to tell us he was in trouble until now. You could at least have sent a letter.” He clicked his sword. “If it’s weeks too late—hell, if it’s hours too late, I’m not sure I can forgive you.”

“If you’ve been keeping in touch all these years, you should have figured something was wrong the minute he went silent.”

“I knew something was up for a while now,” Caiso said. “But he wouldn’t say why. Family problems. Always family problems with you. Never stopped to think about just letting the man live his own life. You had to shackle him to all of this. He’s not a mage, but because of all of you, it’s almost as if he has to worry about being one himself.”

Other men were appearing from the alleys of the adjoining street. Nasuha looked at them in alarm and found herself automatically grabbing the hilt of her sword for comfort.

Enosh didn’t seem disturbed by their appearance. He seemed more upset by the accusations Lord Caiso was levelling at him. “I’m not going to have this argument with you,” Enosh said. “This isn’t why I asked for a meeting.”

“Right. You want us to rescue your brother.” Caiso drew his sword and flung it over his shoulder. “Point the way, and we’ll smash the bastards. Kefier may have retired, but he’s still our commander. Isn’t that right, lads?”

The other men began to cheer.

Enosh took a deep breath and waited for the cries to die down. “About that…” he began.

The smile on Caiso’s face died down.

“We don’t exactly know where Kefier is,” Enosh continued.

Caiso waved his sword in the air, as if he meant to lop off Enosh’s head with it. He grabbed him by the shirt instead, hauling him close. “What do you mean?” he repeated, lifting Enosh up in the air just so that his feet dangled.

Enosh coughed and grabbed Caiso’s wrists, trying to force him to let him down. “We do know the possible whereabouts of the man who took him,” he managed. “My daughter—you remember Rosha—sent me a letter informing me of a mining operation in the peninsula, which is apparently guarded by several well-armed members of another private army. Now, we can’t exactly just walk up to these people and ask if they’d let us poke around in search of my brother, can we? I daresay we’re going to need some force.”

Caiso finally allowed him some air. He stepped back, coughing. “So you want us to attack a well-guarded camp with no guarantee that Kefier will be there at all.”

“We’ll be making a dent on the bastard, either way,” Enosh said.

Caiso glanced at his men and then back. “About the payment—”

“And here I thought you were here out of love for my brother.”

“Well, of course. But I can’t very well ask these fine men and women to risk their lives on principle. It would be breaking the Boarshind’s codes.”

“My mistress will pay,” Nasuha spoke up.

Caiso glanced at her, as if noticing her for the first time. “Your mistress,” he repeated. “Well, this is getting more interesting by the minute. Is this another one of your women, Tar’elian?”

Enosh gave a painful smile. “You know me.” He shot Nasuha an irritated glance.

“You didn’t exactly have the situation under control.” She shrugged and turned to Caiso. “She’ll pay. More importantly, there’s an opportunity for spoils. We’ve been told this mining operation was made in search for the High King Elian’s burial grounds, which contains the details of a high-level spell we want to get a hold of. Kings aren’t just buried under six foot of soil, you know. We’re talking a tomb with riches and—”

“I’m going to stop you right there, missy,” Caiso said. “Forget the gleam in my soldiers’ eyes—I’m not messing with any tomb. Even if they fetch a good price, those are precious Gorenten artifacts. We are talking about the Gorenten High King Elian, aren’t we?”

Nasuha nodded.

Caiso sighed. “We’ll go, out of love for your brother. But don’t think I’m happy about this, Tar’elian. Not one bit. You should have told us sooner.”

“What would that have done?” Enosh asked.

“Nothing,” Caiso replied. “Absolutely nothing. But it would’ve been the decent thing to do.”

When it looked like the mercenaries wouldn’t kill Enosh at all, Nasuha found herself travelling to the southern edge of the island. She could see the silhouette of her home in the distance—a faint grey strip of land on the horizon. She didn’t know why something that could be reduced down to a colour on the horizon could fill her with so much emotion.

One of the men down by the boats whistled to her. “You need a ride?” he called, wiping the sweat off his brow with a towel.

Nasuha hesitated. “Do you know people over there?” she asked.

The man nodded cheerfully. “Sure do. I head out drinking twice a week.” He placed a finger on his lips. “Just don’t tell the wife.”

Nasuha shook her head and chuckled. “I won’t.”

“Appreciate it.”

“Do you know someone named Panara? She was—well, I suspect she’ll be an old woman now. Probably toddling after grandchildren, huh?”

The man left his boat and walked up to her. “You know that family?” he asked.

She slowly nodded. “It’s been fifteen years, but yes. I knew them once.”

“Oh, ineng. I don’t know how to tell you. But there was a terrible typhoon many years ago, and…”

Her heart tightened as the man continued speaking, oblivious to what his news was doing to her. Years of practice made it easy for her to maintain her composure, even when she heard the news of how the typhoon had taken her whole family. They’d unearthed the bodies from the ruins of their home three days later, all of them in their bedrooms. With any luck, the man said, they died in their sleep. It happened only two years after Nasuha left them.

“It’s the Dageians and the agan, you know,” the man continued, wiping his face again. “The typhoons are getting worse, no thanks to their unhealthy dependence on it. The elders say that every time a Dageian taps into the agan, the fabric wears out just a bit more, causing all sorts of turmoil elsewhere.”

“Energy cannot be created, only moved around,” Nasuha agreed. “Gorent gets the brunt of it because of how close we are to the ocean.”

“I always wondered why the empire made such a mess,” the man said. “We used to practice magic too, didn’t we?”

“Not the way they do,” Nasuha replied. “We spared our magic for when it was necessary. The Empire of Dageis will use any excuse to show off. Teleportation, instead of walking. Spells to protect their property and treasures instead of getting stronger locks. So many little things, drawing on those connections…it takes a toll. All that progress, envied by the rest of the world, comes at a cost.”

“But it’s not a cost they have to bear,” the man pointed out.

Nasuha shook her head. “No. Not yet.” She stared at the island in the distance again. The images of the tearful homecoming she must have somehow been looking forward to vanished. She realized she didn’t even remember what her mother’s face looked like. Fifteen years, and she’d already forgotten. It shouldn’t be so surprising…fifteen years was more than half her life. Somehow, she’d imagined the woman growing older and more handsome during that time. Not dead and rotting; she never dared imagine the worst.

“I don’t think I’ll go, after all,” she said, sitting down. “Thank you for the offer, though.”

“Are you sure?” the man asked. He scratched the back of his head. “Lots of nice people there. Beautiful hills. Pretty streams. You sound like a tourist—you’ll love it there.”

“I sound like a tourist?”

“You grew up in Dageis. There’s much here to enjoy for people like you, as long as you don’t stay long enough to drink the sorrows of the land.”

“It’s all right,” she repeated, with a shrug. “I’ve been there already. I don’t think I need to see it again.” If she had forgotten her mother’s face, she hadn’t forgotten what her island looked like. She thought it best to leave the images untouched.

CHAPTER 30

ROSHA

I delivered the news about the undead king and the mage sacrifice to Ivasus on the way to his ship, which he took with barely a flicker on his usually expressive face. I couldn’t tell if he was grateful for my seemingly newfound trust, or angry at the thought I might’ve kept this bit of knowledge from him until today. The uncertainty was grating.

Ivasus’s ship was anchored a stone’s throw away from Drusgaya, near a small island about half an hour from the coast. He rowed both me and the simulacrum without complaint, an action I would have taken as mere arrogance before—he dismissed me with a snort when I offered to help with the oars. But now I gathered a sense of pride in it, as if he wanted to prove to himself in the little time he had left that he was still capable of physical prowess. Rowing had been one of the few outdoor activities in Eheldeth that wasn’t related to magic in any way, and he’d been part of the team at one time. I wondered how much easier life would have been if his father hadn’t forced him into something he wasn’t capable of. He would still be an asshole, but one, at least, with the prospect of a full life ahead of him.

We reached the ship, from where Ivasus whistled for his men to get the boat. They stared in shock as the emperor himself clambered out, a silent, obedient shadow of what he once was. I took his hand and followed Ivasus into the ship. It was a merchant’s ship, the kind built for long voyages down east and south—the empire traded in goods as voraciously as it studied the agan, and it wasn’t surprising that Ivasus’s family had enjoyed enough fruits of their labour to afford at least a ship of their own.

Felan was being treated for his wounds out on the deck. He opened his mouth at the sight of me, upon which Ivasus immediately grabbed me by the waist, like a viper lashing out on its prey. Shock coursed over Felan’s expression, especially as he must have expected me to shrug away. Instead, I stayed perfectly still, driven by my own fear that any attempt to reject him now would result in something terrible happening to Kefier. We were so close. Ivasus pulled me closer, clearly enjoying that he still had this effect on me in front of the man I had yet to decide I had feelings for. Not that he knew anything about it. I decided if I kept my eyes down, he wouldn’t even have a clue.

I caught something in that silent exchange—a palpable rage boiling over from both sides, for vastly different reasons. I knew Ivasus didn’t care about me at all, but it was suddenly clear that laying his hands all over me in front of Felan was supposed to elicit exactly the kind of reaction I knew it would. After he finally pulled away, he glanced at Felan with a grin that was almost cheeky. “It must sting, doesn’t it? To realize you’re less in so many ways. Lord Cartos, in almost every angle you look, you could have been better than me. Your family is richer than mine, with more influence. You had the skill and the intelligence most of the students in Eheldeth could only dream of. Even if you were a foundling Lord Cato must have discovered in a garbage heap, you had the love and adoration of all the keepers. Look at you now. You have nothing. You are nothing. What a damn waste.”

Felan’s jaw twitched. They’d had this discussion before, probably the night he had Felan tortured. Ivasus’s issue with him wasn’t even for anything Felan did. Felan was simply a walking reminder of his perceived injustices.

“Even this woman is superior to you,” Ivasus continued, placing his hands on my shoulders. “I bet it never even crossed your mind to go where she did. Playing with forbidden magic to keep herself alive, right under the keepers’ noses…I admire it more than I can ever hope to explain. That’s what was always wrong with you, Lord Cartos. They spoon-fed you everything, but they couldn’t give you ambition. Weak men like you make me sick.” Felan wasn’t even looking at me anymore. The ground suddenly seemed much more interesting to him than anything else.

I drifted over to the railing, a good arm’s length away. It was the closest I dared approach Felan, but I wanted to be as near him as possible. He must have guessed it already, but I still felt the irrational desire to tell him this was all an act.

Beside us, the simulacrum started clapping its hands.

“You’re right,” Ivasus said, pretending to consider the emperor’s motions as if it was a reaction to what had just transpired. “We really should get things moving. Why save the best part for last?” He whistled, gesturing at a sailor standing next to the ship’s wheel. I assumed he was the captain.

The captain called to his men, and they began breaking out the anchor.

“I still want to know how your father died,” Ivasus continued without missing a beat. He walked over to where Felan sat and crouched next to him, his brow furrowed. “I had a whole thing planned for him, you know. I wanted him to go right in front of you and Lord Vazon. Rather rude of him to interrupt such grand plans. Oh, well. One can’t have everything, I suppose.”

“Lord Ivasus!” the captain called. “A moment, please!”

He got up again, making a mocking bow before he took the stairs to the top deck. I turned to Felan. “You knew about this,” I said. “About what’s happening to him, why he’s doing this.”

Felan took a deep breath. “I had a clue,” he finally replied. “My father had mentioned it once.”

“You didn’t tell me.”

“I didn’t—”

“—see the need,” I finished for him. I frowned.

“Why does the man’s motivations matter?” he asked. “It doesn’t make any of this right.”

“Sweeping it all away doesn’t make it right, either,” I said. “Your father was involved in worse things than I thought he was. Controlling the emperor and letting the empire fall in ruins because he was more concerned about profiting from his time on the throne—that’s a given. Using women as artificial wombs for their undying emperor—ah, we’re getting close. But letting children die so he could continue profiting from their families…”

I paused as the ship slowly began to rock with the waves and the sails turned to capture the incoming wind. We were making our way across the sea.

“I don’t think he knew the details,” Felan said as the seagulls began crying above us. “Knowing him, he would have found the thought simply detestable and found a more acceptable alternative. Uncle Vazon must have kept it from him.”

“Don’t defend a man like that, Felan,” I replied. “If what you say is true, then he didn’t even bother to get to the bottom of things before he ordered the assassination of a man who might be getting close to the truth.”

“He was a good father,” Felan said under his breath. “He started charities, scholarships. Gave to orphans. He was firm with me, but never cruel.”

“People aren’t good or bad,” I replied. “We’re all capable of right and wrong. But I know this much—all the good things people do can’t erase the bad.”

“Is that why you’re with him now? All of this, and suddenly he gains your sympathy?”

I crossed my arms. “Aren’t you listening, Felan? I said the good never erases the bad. But right now, he’s the closest I’ve got to saving Kefier. His unexpected promotion and the chaos back at the council has him leading us right to him, and I’m not about to let it all go to waste.”

“Rosha!” Ivasus called from the top deck.

I offered Felan one last glance before shuffling up the steps to join him.

He pushed over a velvet chair for me to sit on as soon as I arrived. “You still haven’t told me where we’re going,” I said, “or what any of this has to do with Kefier. You said you sent him after some loose ends. What were they?”

“We’re sailing full speed towards a small estate built along the cliffs of the wild coasts on the south,” Ivasus said. “Your foster father is quite the capable man, my lady. I asked him if he has the balls to lead a group of my men to arrest Lord Vazon in exchange for your safety, and he said yes without hesitation. With any luck, we’ll be there just as the action starts, and after that little tidbit you told me, I’m suddenly much more eager about it than I was.”

My mouth went dry. “You sent my father to attack a mage’s hideout?”

Ivasus held up a finger. “One he’s been holed up in the past few months, hiding out of fear that whoever got Lord Cato would kill him next. He’s done a fantastic job on the place. I sent three others to lead the attack before, and they were all killed. Let’s hope Kefier has better luck than they did.”

“Go to hell,” I said under my breath.

He smiled, almost as if the only thing he lived for now was to incite rage in those who would outlive him.

Picture any old sorcerer’s fortress and then place it firmly right up against the side of a cliff overlooking a vast ocean. I can’t conjure a better image of Lord Vazon’s hideout than that. Lord Cato’s mansion was dull in comparison. Whereas Lord Cato seemed perfectly happy with plain architecture belied only by a secret attic and secret passageways in his family crypts, Lord Vazon seemed to live for style. I had little knowledge of buildings, but I knew they cost money. The larger they were, the deeper your coffers ought to be, and I especially knew that installing gargoyles in every corner of the multiple balconies wouldn’t have come cheap. I also felt there were far more buttresses on the towers than necessary. For that matter, there were far more towers there than a building made to house one man had any right to—I counted at least five from the ship and wondered if there weren’t more hiding behind the treeline.

We anchored at the beach, where another ship was waiting for us. My excitement at the thought that Kefier might be inside there was dashed the moment we stepped on the shore. Five armoured men were waiting for us there. “They went in about two hours ago,” one said, greeting Ivasus with a wave of his sword. “Haven’t heard from them since.”

“I hope you didn’t go barging through the front doors like the last one did,” Ivasus commented.

“No, sir. We’ve been tunneling near their water supply the past few days—Kefier thought it was the path least likely to contain protection spells. Didn’t think even the most paranoid mage would risk tainting their own water. It would lead straight to their cellars.”

Ivasus flashed me a smile. “I’m impressed. I was expecting to hear he’s all ash and bone by now. Not a mage, and yet the man thinks like a mage. How about that?”

“Of course he thinks like a mage,” I replied. “He’s surrounded by them.”

“Let’s not hold our breaths just yet. Lord Vazon might not have been paranoid in the beginning, but I have been sending people to harass him for months. The first one, a mage herself, tried to get my soldiers straight down from the cliff to the rooftops. She thought she could handle any protection spells he’d set up there—she reasoned the awkward angle would mean they wouldn’t be strong enough. And she was right: they weren’t. She just wasn’t counting on the vicious bear-dogs Lord Vazon keeps as pets.”

“Kefier knows his way around dogs,” I said. “I doubt those would stop him.”

“We can only hope. She thought she could stop them, too, but no matter how powerful the spells a mage can cast, she can’t do much once her wrists are gnawed off. Lord Vazon sent me a box filled with the few pieces his dogs were willing to give up.” He gave a grim smile.

“He knows this is you, then.”

Ivasus nodded. “Couldn’t help myself. Thought I had him right where I wanted him. I wanted him to know what all this was for. I wanted him to feel the full extent of his crimes.”

“Why hasn’t he alerted the council?”

“Because the little rat thinks he can still salvage this, and he’d rather risk dying by my hands than lose out on everything he and Lord Cato have worked for. Life, or power? These men don’t know what’s more important. Their confusion is almost amusing.”

We followed his guards around the beach to a break in the walls, which was the first mark of Kefier’s assault. According to the men, he had ordered for cannons to be fired straight out from sea. Subtlety was never his style as a mercenary commander, and chewing through a good portion of those walls, while costly, would have taken out most of the first line of Lord Vazon’s defenses. He probably wasn’t expecting an attack from an entire army, and Kefier clearly didn’t care about a clean job, especially when his own people and resources weren’t on the line. I couldn’t help but notice there were no bodies, though. Most people, forced to do something they didn’t particularly care for, might not have cared about keeping casualties to a minimum. And yet Kefier clearly did. I turned to the man who’d greeted us.

“How many did Kefier take with him?” I asked.

“Two others,” the man said. “He said he wanted to make sure they took care of any traps first. A breath of fresh air, really. We’ve lost way too many people trying to break into this fortress. The way he asked us to use up all our cannons on the wall—I was expecting him to ask us to charge the whole damn place, too.”

“I was afraid of all of that,” I whispered. I wasn’t the praying sort, but I seriously started to consider which of the various gods and goddesses might listen. My thoughts drifted to the litanies my mother used to whisper at night. Sakku was the goddess of the seas in Jin-Sayeng, a deity that matched Gorent’s sun god Ab—whose prayers I never learned—in all the right ways. Kefier showed reverence to both. Perhaps if one heard me, the other would, too.

Felan walked right behind us as we made our way through the wreckage, which a few of Ivasus’s soldiers were still picking through. “Vazon was one of The Six, wasn’t he?” Ivasus asked, as we walked into the courtyard. “One of the three that survived. He returned to Eheldeth two years later and still managed to graduate.”

“Not that you care, but he had to struggle to do that. The incident left him injured.”

“It doesn’t excuse what he did to me. If it’s not clear enough, I’m trying to make my mark, Lord Cartos. I will not let what happened to me happen to another generation of youth.”

“How generous of you, Lord Ivasus. I suppose it hasn’t occurred to you as well not to create carnage while you’re at it?”

Ivasus smiled. “I think Rosha here might have a thing or two to say about how many lives are lost due to inaction. Isn’t that why you turned against Firekeeper Ceres, my dear?”

I shrugged.

“Watch as she turns on you, too,” Ivasus continued. “They’re all rotten. You don’t take a seat with corruption and expect to come out untainted.” He wiped his hands together before striding over to inspect the mouth of the tunnels Kefier had made.

“Rosha, tell me you’ve thought of an exit plan,” Felan whispered. “You always know of a way out.”

“When did I ever give you that impression?” I whispered back.

“You—you always have it together. You’ve always had it under control.”

“I’ve been winging this from the beginning,” I said. “I have no magic and my family is in danger. How much control do you think I have?”

“Enough,” Felan replied. “Enough so he doesn’t—so he can’t…” He took a deep breath. “When I thought this was all for power, I figured we’d know how to keep him at bay. But it’s vengeance he wants. He wants to burn the world, never mind that he takes us down with it. Never mind that he burns with the rest of us.”

“He was right, about all the inaction,” I said. “And if you knew as much as you did, I think perhaps I blame you a little for not doing anything else. You call this man, Lord Vazon, your uncle? Then call on him to reveal himself and spare my father harm.”

“I thought I was keeping you all safe by not rocking the boat,” Felan said.

“I might have agreed with you once.” I took a deep breath. “Well, blame can only go so far. We’re here now. Call on Lord Vazon, Lord Felan. End this before anyone else gets hurt.”

He balled his hands into fists. After a moment, he strode forward.

The mere mention of Felan’s presence seemed to do the trick. We—that is, me, Ivasus, and Felan—were allowed into Lord Vazon’s sitting room. The promptness with which he welcomed us made me uneasy, as did his confidence at meeting with three people when he seemed to be all alone in his fortress. All alone, save for his knobby-jointed butler, a man who looked ancient enough to have crawled out of a tomb himself. I could tell he had something up his sleeve. I wanted to ask about Kefier, but I didn’t want to give him away in case Vazon wasn’t aware of anything digging underneath his basement at that moment. But if he had broken through and Vazon somehow had him…

I kept my face expressionless as Vazon’s servant bade us to sit on the giant armchairs surrounding the fireplace. Ivasus smoothed his robes out with a flourish before sitting down, as if this was nothing but a meeting between friends, or at the very least, friendly acquaintances who haven’t been trying to murder each other for the last few months. He even thanked the man for offering us seats. Only when the butler asked, “Would you like some tea, my lord?” did Ivasus click his tongue with impatience. He flashed him a smile.

“Come on, Hilsus,” Ivasus said. “I didn’t get this far to die in a foamy-mouthed stupor in what, admittedly, are some very luxurious armchairs. These look like original Bucestos make. How…how did Lord Vazon get his hands on these? I thought most of Bucestos’s creations have been lost.”

“Is this really the time?” Felan blurted out.

The butler glanced at Felan before turning back to Ivasus. “The master will be with you shortly,” he said.

Ivasus read into the quiet exchange with a smile that only seemed to grow longer. “You two know each other,” he said, pointing. “Of course you do. You’ve been in Lord Vazon’s service a long time, haven’t you, Hilsus? Where, then, is the acknowledgement? You must have known Lord Felan since he was a child, too. Come on. Spill it. Why this tension between Lord Felan and a man that by all rights could be his stepfather?”

“He isn’t,” Felan snapped.

“Ah,” Ivasus said, with a quick nod. “I’ve hit the nail on the head. You dislike the man. Hate him? Is that word too strong? You really have to answer some of my questions at some point, Hilsus—it’s poor manners to keep someone hanging.”

“Is your intention to bore me to death with all this mindless prattle?” a voice called from the other end of the hall.

I turned my head in time to see a tall, thin man enter the fray. He had a mop of curly brown hair trimmed just enough to keep it out of his eyes—looking every which way like a man who hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in a long time. Even though his skin had the complexion of someone in his fifties at least, there wasn’t a single grey hair on his head. I suspected hair dye; if the man was using glamour, he would have done it to his whole body. Maybe he wasn’t up to it with only a handful of young people as his guests. Ivasus leaned back against the armchairs, elbows and all. “Lord Vazon, at last,” he greeted. “We should have done this sooner. It’s a lot more convenient than screaming at each other from across the courtyard.”

“I agreed to this meeting because I was promised a ghost,” Vazon said. His eyes fell on Felan. “Perhaps that is too generous of a word. A ghost would, at least, have a reason to invite me to the funeral of the man I loved.”

“You were in hiding,” Felan replied, without blinking. “I didn’t want to disturb you, Uncle.”

Vazon started laughing. “Ah,” he said. “But where are my manners? I haven’t been introduced to everyone here yet. Who is this lovely damsel with you?” He reached for my hand and kissed it.

“Her name is Rosha Tar’elian,” Ivasus broke in.

The smile on Vazon’s face faded. “Her? The Gorenten brat? The one who took your magic away?” He turned back to Felan incredulously.

“She did no such thing, Uncle,” Felan said. “It was an accident.”

“Did you two have relations?”

Felan’s face turned red. “That’s—what? What does that have to do with anything?”

“When you were young,” Vazon continued, almost patiently. “I always suspected you did, but your father wouldn’t hear of it. But that’s how these women work. They’re—”

“That’s enough!” Felan snapped, with a voice that seemed to send the whole fortress shaking.

There was a moment of silence, broken only by Ivasus’s burst of laughter. “This is such an entertaining turn of events. If I knew about this, I would have brought Lord Cartos here sooner. Hindsight, and all. And here I thought he was hiding you to protect you. I went about this all wrong. Lord Cartos, you were trying to protect her from him, weren’t you?”

“Now why would he need to do that?” Vazon asked. “Felan holds no love for me, but I wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“Your actions say otherwise,” Felan said.

“You were broken, boy,” Vazon snapped. “You needed to be fixed. Your magic wasn’t lost—you just wanted to believe it was so you could reject all your responsibilities. You just wanted to be a lazy, good-for-nothing son who didn’t think twice about jeopardizing his father’s position. Let me tell you something I’ve been waiting all this time to say: your father is dead because of you, boy. With no powerful heir, his stance amongst the council was weakened. Why else was he assassinated?”

“You know who killed him,” Felan breathed.

“No,” Vazon immediately said. “I don’t know who, but I know a few who might have. And it’s certainly not a thief in the night, as your reports suggested.” He fell silent, as if suddenly remembering the rest of us were still there.

Ivasus pretended to look surprised. “Go on, Lord Vazon,” he said. “You can’t possibly think after all of this time that you still have anything to hide from me. We followed a trail of dead fathers, and here you are. You had my father assassinated. You knew he was onto you, that he knew about those same secrets that got Lord Cato killed.”

Vazon laughed. “You actually think I had something to do with both deaths? One was a man I loved. The other was a gnat on the wall. Guess which one your father was.”

Ivasus spat on the ground before trying to lunge at him.

CHAPTER 31

ROSHA

I grabbed Ivasus’s arm before he could do something we would all regret, and not a moment too soon. Vazon looked like he was going to attack Ivasus for the attempt. His hand grazed his side, as if seeking a sword that wasn’t there. But then he ran his fingers through his hair instead. It seemed as if he was swept with a wave of exhaustion, one that had nothing to do with any of us. He’d been running, hiding, all these months. He almost looked relieved it had all caught up to him at last.

He finally sighed and took the empty seat closest to the fire. He folded one leg over the other. “What else do you want to know that you haven’t already figured out?” he asked in a weary voice. “Lord Cato, I, and many of our associates were involved in influencing the empire towards…loftier goals. We wouldn’t be the empire we are without that ruthless eye towards progress, all risks be damned.”

“You were controlling the emperor,” Ivasus said, impatiently. “Yes. Yes, you look surprised, Lord Vazon. But you said I should have figured it out by now.”

Vazon’s nostrils flared. “The emperor,” he began. “It was the man’s dying wish not to be replaced with sycophants who would bring the empire to ruin. In those days, he feared that the empire was bursting at the seams, and that under the care of a new leader—that is, someone who didn’t have the reputation he had built for over six decades of division and conquest—it would all quickly fall apart. None of his sons or daughters were worthy successors. He directed his most loyal servants to form an organization—a group responsible for making sure his wishes were upheld. The group formed the backbone of the merchant guild.”

“The merchant guild,” Ivasus repeated. “Not the mage council?”

“At the time, yes. The mages who find themselves seated in that circle tend to be shortsighted, with ambitions that only stretch so much as they’re able to maintain the illusion of power,” Vazon said. “They certainly want to play, but they’re not interested in progress beyond themselves.”

“Merchants only care about money,” I blurted out.

Vazon’s eyes glimmered. “I mean, yes.”

“And you’re part of the mage council.”

“You’re no longer children. Even you should know appearances can be deceiving.” He shrugged. “I share Lord Cato’s vision. To change the world, one requires vast amounts of resources. Unfortunately, money isn’t made overnight, no matter what the rest of the empire want to believe. And acquiring those resources requires a bit of forward-thinking. To move the pieces where you want them, before you ever need them. The emperor’s power allowed us to do that. Of course, by the very nature of the arrangement, it required people entrenched in merchant families who are also mages—a rare opportunity that isn’t given to just about anyone. The only way to join the Emperor’s Heirs is through invitation, signed by at least ten members of our society.”

“The Emperor’s Heirs…” Ivasus said, turning to me incredulously. “Can you believe this man?”

“I didn’t come up with the name,” Vazon said, his jaw taut. “Lord Cato and I were invited years ago, quite likely because our accomplishments made us stand out. You would have been a contender, too, had you the proper skill.”

Ivasus, of course, because it was always position first, always about the influence they deemed you could wield. Skill was only an afterthought. A long time ago, it would’ve rankled that he didn’t even look at me.

“Instead, you forced my body to do so much magic it decided to start killing me.” Ivasus shook his head. “Gods—that’s what you made my father believe. That I could have been one of you if he continued his donations, because I’m the heir of a prominent merchant family and have some magical skills. You’re not on the mage council—how did you even access those funds?”

“I acted as the in-between,” Vazon said, without a hint of shame. “The money went to me and I partitioned them to the proper individuals, who never asked why or what for, to keep you in a position that made your father happy enough to continue his donations. Money is money. And to ensure that no one person ruled the rest of us, we made sure that the emperor is controlled by a single person only for a set amount of time. Who, and for how long, was decided by blind voting—three people chosen at random and in secret verified the results, making it so that only three people, plus the man himself, knew who the emperor was. And no one was supposed to know who these three people were.”

“Maybe I will take that drink,” Ivasus said, coughing. “Hilsus—get me something that you’re willing to serve your master. Pour us both a cup from the same bottle.”

Hilsus glanced at Vazon, who nodded. He bowed before retreating.

“As I was about to say,” Ivasus continued, folding his hands together. “This all sounds like a very convoluted way of keeping yourselves in power. I commend the lengths you went through—”

“All of which have been smoothened out by time, I assure you. And it worked. For a time, it all worked very well. Once they’ve served their time, most puppetmasters are replaced without issue. Lord Cato is the first anomaly to happen in decades. He was killed two years before he was supposed to relinquish his position as the emperor’s puppetmaster—a procedure that isn’t easy, mind you. Those same three mages were supposed to meet at an appointed time and combine their abilities in order to cut the connection between the emperor’s body and the controlling mage. Any divergence from such plans is punishable by death, and so the only other solution to break ties with the emperor is to kill them and then trigger the blood-spell on the simulacrum before anyone else can connect with it. I was one of these mages for Lord Cato. I don’t know who these others are, but if anyone could have known Lord Cato was the puppetmaster to assassinate, it would have been them.”

“So you don’t know who’s controlling him now,” Ivasus said.

Vazon shook his head. “I’ve been trying to find out all these months—a thing that you haven’t helped with. Having to stay locked up in my fortress for fear of your next attack has not exactly been convenient.”

I sucked in my next breath. It was oddly satisfying how easily they ignored me, how quickly they brushed me off as no one of worth. I imagined myself slipping into the simulacrum and stomping right into their midst. I’m the emperor, you fools!

“You cannot give me the names of the others, even out of fear for your own life?” Ivasus asked.

“I want to rid myself of two pests,” Vazon said. “I have no desire to stir up the whole hive. I have no intention of giving up my position—I only want to mete out justice to these interlopers.”

“That’s too bad.” Hilsus returned with the wine, which he poured for both Ivasus and Vazon into two glasses. He allowed Ivasus to pick the glass he wanted before offering the other to his master. “Drink, Lord Vazon,” Ivasus said, lifting his glass.

Vazon sighed before picking up the other glass. “I am not going to work with you.”

“You will give me what names you have, and you can only hope to trust that I do the right thing.”

Vazon grimaced as he finally took a long gulp of wine. “This wretched quest for vengeance will do nothing. Even if you kill me, even if you kill the others, what then? We didn’t give you this disease. We can’t cure you. What you have is terminal. You will die, Lord Ivasus, and you can’t do a damn thing about it.”

Ivasus smiled as he took his own drink of wine. He squeezed his fingers around the glass, still half-filled, and broke it. Before the glass could even fully hit the floor, he pounced on Vazon, his hands around Vazon’s throat, as if he intended to shatter his windpipe the same way.

Felan jumped from his seat. “Let him go!”

“Or what?” Ivasus asked. “I thought you hold no love for him. You never did answer that question about why you wanted to protect her from this man, did you? Is it because you suspected she killed your father, Lord Cartos? And you knew if he so much as caught wind of this, he would have her killed, too?”

Vazon snarled, his hands attempting to tear Ivasus’s fingers from his throat. “What?” he managed, turning to me.

“I didn’t kill Lord Cato,” I said out loud. “I couldn’t have. It is as I told you, Felan: he was already dead when I found him.”

Felan looked away in discomfort. And then it suddenly occurred to me why I had left him so conflicted, after all this time.

He actually believed I killed his father.

Ivasus pushed Vazon away with such force that the man struck the wall, breaking at least one vase along the way. The man struggled to get up. As soon as he got to his feet, he smiled, even with the blood dripping down his nostrils. “You brought his killer to me,” he said. “Quite a most unexpected gift! Who gave the command, girl?”

“No one,” I repeated. “And if you’re going to insist I had anything to do with it, you’ll never find out who.”

“Never you mind. We’ll know soon enough.” Vazon rubbed his neck, turning to Ivasus. “You’re in my abode. If you think you can just barge in and demand answers from me, you’ve got more to learn, my lord.”

“We outnumber you,” Ivasus said. “I have your fortress surrounded.”

“I know,” Vazon said, simply. “What makes you think I wouldn’t prepare for your arrival? You gave me more than enough time. You really think I intend to be defeated by a boy who couldn’t even stop a smidge of agan from eating away at his bones?”

As soon as he dropped those words, the torches in the room began to dance. I opened my mouth, but no words came out, and I suddenly imagined myself suspended in the air, as if being held by strings. Everything turned dark.

When my consciousness returned, I found myself standing in the middle of a courtyard that reminded me of Eheldeth’s. No—it was Eheldeth. I could see the way the buildings were angled at the corners—from above, Eheldeth formed the image of an all-seeing eye, a symbol of its deep influence in the way the empire was run. Eheldeth’s history was the empire’s history; it was built in the decades following Dageis’s occupation in the continent, its remote location chosen specifically in order to keep the population safe from magical accidents.

As I grew accustomed to my surroundings, I got the sense that I was just in a recreation, not the actual place itself; the images were built from the agan, by someone who knew how to manipulate it so well he could make his own little world from beyond the fabric. I used to be able to do that, too. When I was a child, I could build castles of my own and wander it for hours—an activity I was warned against once I ran into adults who saw what I was doing. They would wag their fingers and tell me I could get lost doing that. So I tried to limit myself, especially after I started attending Eheldeth.

I wished I didn’t listen to them. I should have never stopped. I missed what it made me feel—the power to create something out of nothing, even if it was only in my mind’s eye. To seemingly craft, out of thin air, elaborate walls of stone, arches, parapets, gardens, fountains, and endless paths to walk through. Getting lost in the agan wasn’t so bad, come to think of it. I could have wandered my own creations forever. The last time I did it was that last summer before the incident that stripped my magic away, when my dog Daisy—the first Daisy—died. I built a bamboo grove in my mind, along with the shrine, in the hopes I could touch her presence on the other side. She never visited—I’ve been told souls rarely do, even when they were as loved as that dog was—but the bamboo grove gave me a sense of peace. I remembered crafting a stone bench, where I sat down and watched the bamboo grove and pretended life was still as simple as my childhood had been.

I strolled down the recreation of Eheldeth wistfully, trying to keep my bitterness down. All the feelings the familiar surroundings stirred up…I wasn’t sure I was ever ready to face them. I left these gardens thinking I would be happy never laying eyes on them again. And yet here I was, strolling down a mere recreation, and it was all I could do not to weep. How many times had I walked these grounds in my dreams? How many nightmares of forgetting to attend class, of not being able to find rooms until it was too late, of sitting once more in those final exams, staring down at a page demanding I draw out a spell I could no longer give life to?

“You’re not even remotely frightened, are you?” I heard Vazon’s voice echo through the air. Vazon—of course. He’d laced his fortress with spells that, if triggered, could force someone through the agan fabric and into a prison of his own choosing. I didn’t even want to think about the power and skill a single man needed to have to establish such spells in the first place; I’d turn numb with envy.

“I have nothing to fear,” I said. “I’m in the agan, and your capability to hurt me is hampered by just how much you’re willing to sacrifice. Triggering this spell alone must have hurt. You won’t risk it, not when I’m not the person you want.”

He appeared from behind the fountain, his face shadowed with grief. “Tell me how he died,” Vazon said.

“I told you. I don’t know. He was already dead when I found him in the attic—which I didn’t even know existed. He’d been missing for a day or so.”

His face flickered. “He died…alone?”

“Yes.”

Vazon seemed pensive for a moment, and I felt sorry for him. I knew I should have said so, at least—it wasn’t something a person still grieving the death of a loved one would want to know. But by then, it was already too late. He took a deep breath. “If you found him like that, what about the emperor?”

“What about him?”

“Cato kept him in the attic whenever he had to bring him back to his house.”

“He wasn’t there,” I said with a straight face. “Nor anything that resembled him. I found the attic because someone had left a lamp and I saw the light from the garden. I assume whoever killed Lord Cato took him, too.”

“You’re lying.”

The wind shifted a little. I felt the details of the courtyard go fuzzy around the edges, as if he had a hard time maintaining the image while he lost his patience.

“You’re lying, because you don’t just walk into an occupied house, kill someone quietly, and carry a man-sized simulacrum out along the way without anyone knowing days later. You would’ve told me if there were intruders. If you didn’t kill him, then someone in the household did.”

“The only people there were Lord Cato’s servants.”

“His servants were all loyal. I vetted most of them myself. Was there anyone new? Anyone at all?”

“Just me, and…”

My mouth felt dry, all of a sudden. Nasuha, I thought. Nasuha was there. Lord Cato died the night she joined me in his household.

The only person who could have killed Lord Cato was Nasuha.

I was still trying to come to terms with that realization when everything started to shake. An explosion shattered the vision, and I found myself blacking out once more, this time completely.

CHAPTER 32

NASUHA

She counted at least two dozen men in the camps surrounding the dig site and thought there would be more down below. They didn’t look like miners. She noted swords hanging from the belts of each, and she suspected one, at the very least, was a mage. A straight attack in daylight would be suicidal. Not including her and Enosh, they only had ten mercenaries in all. They would have to strike in the middle of the night and dispose of as many as possible before the others were alerted to their presence. Maybe with the enemy’s numbers sufficiently reduced, or if they were rattled enough with surprise, they would stand a fighting chance.

She hated that word. Maybe. Especially when it involved killing. Outside of clean fights, she hated killing. When she first joined Mistress Rasiad’s cause, she thought it was to serve as her assistant all while learning about how to control her powers at the same time. She didn’t remember signing up to be her assassin.

Nasuha mechanically went through the process of wrapping leather gauntlets around her wrists and palms as she watched the camp from afar. She hoped she didn’t have to cast magic in front of everyone there, but she would if she had no choice. The idea of having to explain it all to Tar’elian was distasteful. He was the kind of man who would dig into the details, and he looked like he could smell bullshit from a mile away. If it was up to her, she would have sat them all down and told them the truth already, right from the very beginning. About Mistress Rasiad, and what the mages of Dageis were doing to the children and the entire continent. About Lord Cato, and what she had to do to his son, and what happened to Rosha as a result.

But Mistress Rasiad trusted no one, and Nasuha was sworn to her. She knew loyalty, if nothing else. As she finished tightening the gauntlets, she heard rustling from the bushes. The leaves parted and Enosh strode up to her, stopped a few feet away, and took a deep breath, almost as if he could read her thoughts from the past few moments. “Will your mistress really hurt my family?” he finally asked.

“I wouldn’t trust that she wouldn’t,” Nasuha replied. She cocked her head to the side. “Why? Scared of a little bloodshed?”

“I just want to know,” Enosh said.

His earnestness took her aback. It made it impossible for her to lie outright. “She’s ruthless,” she found herself saying.

“Ruthless enough to kill little kids?”

Nasuha knew the answer, and didn’t want to think about it. “As long as we do this, as long as we make an attempt, she’ll be happy, and no one needs to die. Focus on that.”

“How can a woman who claims to be fighting for fair treatment and justice use children to blackmail me?” He shook his head. “I am not…a clean man myself, by any means. But I don’t recall ever using children, though. Children. That’s a step too far, even for me. And I once tried to sell my wife to another man.”

“One of these days, I’m going to have to squeeze that story out of one of you.”

He smirked. “It won’t be from me. I’m not proud of the things I’ve done.”

Nasuha sighed. “They’ll be safe. Your wife’s there, isn’t she? War hero of Jin-Sayeng, and all. I’m sure she won’t let them come to harm.” She let her hands hang loose and gave another soft sigh. “I admit it looks extreme when you approach it from the point of view of a man who can live out the rest of his life in comfort, if not opulence. That’s always bothered her about you.”

“I’m sorry she feels that way, but why should I risk what I don’t have to?” Enosh asked. “I want a quiet life with my family, one rife with opportunities for the children. Your mistress would have me upend all of that for nothing.”

“And why not? It’s all a lie. Otherwise, you’re telling me that the responsibility for change lies only on the shoulders of those who have nothing to lose. Unfairness, on top of more unfairness. No wonder nothing gets done. I don’t even know why you’re so opposed to all of this. If everything works out well, it’ll be no skin off your back.”

“Sure. Apart from the continued involvement of my daughter in all your plans, it’s all going great.”

“It could be worse, Tar’elian.”

Enosh narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?”

Nasuha shrugged. “Figure of speech. Stop worrying about this, and focus on keeping yourself alive for the upcoming attack.”

“I’m good at that, thank you very much.” He took a deep breath and shifted his gaze to the camp. “I’m good at escaping, come to that. At running away. At evading just about the worst. Did you know the Dageians attacked my village years after I’d left it?”

“I heard.”

He glowered. “I was hoping some of that would rub off on my family. I keep trying to get them out of trouble and they just keep getting dragged back in.”

“Almost like it’s you causing all their misfortunes, eh?”

“I’ve heard that before. Doesn’t bother me coming from you.”

Someone whistled from the bushes. She got up and strode back to their own camp, which really was nothing more than their equipment neatly stacked against a couple of trees. “Captain Eswenna went back to get a better look of their camp,” Caiso said, as soon as they arrived. He was scrawling on the dirt. “But this is what we have so far. They’ve got guards posted here”—he began scratching out Xs—“here, and here. With the angle of the terrain, it might be impossible to sneak up on them in the middle of the night. We’re going to need a distraction.”

Nasuha cracked her knuckles. “Can we set fire to their tents?”

“No way to get to them without getting spotted. They were smart enough to set them up well away from the woods, too.”

Nasuha spat. “No problem. I’ll scout myself and see what I can find.” She made her way down the short trail they’d cut through the bushes earlier and emerged down a section of undergrowth, which would lead her around the outskirts of the mining camp.

She hadn’t gotten far when she heard the twigs cracking behind her. “You know,” she said, before Enosh could even fully catch up to her, “the mistress mentioned to me that you were the one who approached her in the first place. During the funeral, in fact. You were, in her words, relentless. I can see why, now.”

“She shouldn’t flatter herself.”

She grinned. “But seriously—during the funeral?”

Enosh shrugged. “Your mistress is a beautiful woman, Nasuha. Batshit insane, too, but that’s neither here nor there. I’ve been with plenty of those.”

“I’ve heard you attract the type. Is that why you married someone like Sume Kaggawa? Trying to even out the odds?”

“She struck me as an unassuming woman, at first,” he agreed. “Turned out I was wrong. War hero of Jin-Sayeng…barely scratches the surface of what she did for that kingdom. And no, I would have never guessed it. Perhaps your mistress should have gone to her first. If she had wanted this family’s cooperation, she should have appealed to Sume. She’s just like you, in a way. Wants to right the wrongs of the world, never mind what it does to her. I’ve never been that type. You can’t fix the world. It’s hard enough to fix yourself.”

They found themselves at the edge of a hill, overlooking the camp from behind. Enosh gazed at the horizon for a long time. It looked like he was trying to gather his thoughts, trying to piece together not just what he was looking at, but what he couldn’t see. Nasuha found herself staring at him, waiting.

He cleared his throat. “Squint, and you’ll see the scars.”

Nasuha didn’t understand what he meant. But she squinted, just as he asked.

Enosh pointed to the left, to the grassy field that stretched out in front of the grove of trees. “The old road,” he said. “If you follow it, it should take you all the way out to the sea. There was a small city there, a port. Sen’senal, just like the one we have now, but thrice the size.” He pointed with his other hand, indicating the hill directly next to where they stood. “Over there was his palace.”

She turned back to him. “Now you’re just pulling my leg,” she said.

He dropped his hands down. “Why would I joke about something like this?”

“That’s just hills and fields, Tar’elian. His tomb and his palace, in the same place? Come on. I know no one knows where his palace is—they’ve even checked Lon Basden, though that bears no resemblance at all to the city it had been when our people owned it—but I expect there’d be more markers than this. Ruins.”

“Why would there be ruins?” Enosh asked. “They razed it all to the ground with their mages. The ones who didn’t fall to the old king’s tricks. They were angry, after all. He threatened to take their magic away. Dageis is a fierce enemy at the best of times, but this…this is no joke.”

“You learned this how?”

“I’ve had a lot of time on my hands over the years. I am not as removed from the history of our people as your mistress would have you believe. I’m sure I’ve forgotten more about it than you know. Yes, they buried him right where his palace was. Dageis wanted the final say. You think they would have let his family, the ones who fled to the islands, return to give him a proper resting ground? No. They found no better place for his tomb than the place of his defeat. A single king, against all of them. They didn’t want the world to know, especially not us. They had to deny us that strength.” He nodded towards the mining camp. “Let me offer an alternative to getting our heads chopped off there. We wait. From the looks of it, they’re getting close to unearthing the tomb. It’ll be Dageian-make, laced with Dageian spells. Let their mage take care of it. Either she knows how to undo the spells, or…” He gave a grim smile. “Or we have ourselves a show with tonight’s dinner.”

Nasuha opened her mouth and then closed it again. She couldn’t argue with that, not when it meant she wouldn’t have to bloody her sword tonight. For a moment, she wondered what Rasiad would say about her relief, if it meant she was faltering in some way. Was she truly angry enough to fight a whole empire, if her anger was conditional? She decided it wasn’t worth worrying about.

Instead, she spent the rest of the night thinking about Cato’s death. After years of trying to locate the true emperor, Rasiad had sent Nasuha to his mansion to assassinate him and finally take the simulacrum home. But Rosha had intercepted the body and attuned it to her before Nasuha could steal it off into the night. Fate continued to bind them together, and Nasuha couldn’t even blame her. She could think of a thousand worse options than to be tangled with Rosha and her family.

She did find it funny how easily a man who claimed to be one of the most powerful sorcerers in the kingdom fell to a blade in the dark. A simple blade, not enchanted, not even painted black to hide it in the shadows. It slid into his throat like butter and spilled his blood like he was nothing but a pig on the slaughterhouse floor. She didn’t think she could ever shake off that irony if she tried.

CHAPTER 33

ROSHA

I woke up to Kefier peering down on me. His expression was a mask of grief and worry, one that seemed to have aged him since we last saw each other. And this was in spite of the blood dripping down his jaw—there was an open cut on his cheek, partly smeared with dust. I reached up to touch it, my fingers trembling. “What happened?” I croaked out.

He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Gods, child—how long do you intend to do this to me?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“When you were born, I didn’t think I was signing up for a lifetime of having my heart ripped out.” He let loose a soft sigh, as if he had been neglecting to breathe all this long, before he bent down to kiss me on the forehead. “I thought I’d lost you for real this time. I thought you’d finally left me.”

“I’ll never do that, Papa,” I said. “Everyone else I’d leave, but never you.” I meant it, too, but he must have thought it was a joke. He gave a quick burst of laughter, which I could tell physically brought him a lot of pain. I finally got up and realized the cut on his cheek was the least of my worries. He was wounded all over, including a huge gash on his shoulder. It was a miracle all his limbs were still attached. I suddenly remembered the explosion.

“Where’s everyone?” I asked.

“Gathering the wounded,” he replied. “That Ivasus…never told us he found a way into the mansion. I would have stopped if I knew. The whole place was riddled with spells. We got into the basement just fine, and the mage he provided us got us through the first few, but the man was more paranoid than we figured. The thing that got us was on a damn step in the staircase—the kind of place you wouldn’t think to put a trap on unless you wanted to be tripping on it yourself all the time.”

“He thought whoever killed Lord Cato was out to get him,” I said. “Ivasus should have warned you.”

Kefier grew serious. “Are you with him, child?”

“I—”

“And I mean with him with him. He indicated as much when we dragged you out of that burning room. Him, not that boy Felan? Not that it’s any of my business, but I could’ve sworn otherwise. What’s his long game?”

“He wants vengeance against the mages of the empire. I’m just making him believe I’m on his side. I didn’t want to do anything to hurt your chances of escaping his clutches.”

Kefier sighed, his eyes softening. “I know why you keep things from everyone else, but you could tell me, at least? I won’t tell your mother, or Enosh.”

“That’s not what I’m afraid of,” I grumbled. “I’m—I’m afraid you’d think I let you down.”

“Not a chance in hell.”

“You wouldn’t say that if you knew half the things I’ve done.”

“I doubt it. Nothing you do will ever make me feel that way.” He smirked before he leaned back against the wall. He lifted his eyes to the sky and squinted against the sun. “Some mess we’ve found ourselves in, huh?”

“Told you we should have never left Jin-Sayeng.”

I expected him to disagree. It was such an old argument. And yet for the first time, I saw him hesitate. Eventually, he took a deep breath. “I always felt you were right about that. Our life there…made sense. But then again, our life together always did.” He finally got up, wiping the clotted blood off his face. “I’ll hold you to that promise, all right? That you’ll never leave me.” He grew serious. “Never leave me, child. Please. If anything happened to you, if I ever lost you…”

He swallowed. It was only then that I realized how long I must have been unconscious. How close to death I must have looked to him these last few months. I’d been walking down a road of self-destruction, and if I myself couldn’t see a way out, how could the people in my life?

We were interrupted by Felan’s arrival. The look of relief on his face to see me awake rivalled Kefier’s, and I found myself flushing and looking away. “The ship’s ready,” he said. “We’re heading down to the peninsula.”

“What?” I asked. “Now?”

Felan nodded. “Ivasus got what he wanted here, I think.” He grimaced, his face assuming a look of disgust. “Names, among other things: Samal son-Arus and Tania Martan. That was all Vazon would say while Ivasus tortured him after the explosion. I didn’t think it was necessary…the man could barely walk, but Ivasus wouldn’t—listen. We were more concerned about getting you out of the ruins.”

“Where is he?”

Felan jerked his head back. “Still there.”

I started limping down the path. “Wait,” Felan called, before I could get far. I thought he was going to stop me, but instead he offered me a staff.

I took it gratefully, if only to use as a crutch.

“I didn’t kill your father,” I said as we walked. “Think what you will about me, Felan, but I’m no murderer.”

He nodded. “I guess I knew that. Even though sometimes I have to remind myself.”

Impulsively, I reached for his hand. My fingers trembled as I pressed them against him, the tips of them running over the lines in his palm. He paused for a moment, impassive, his face expressionless. I wondered if he was thinking about that night, too. The longer the hours stretched, the more intense the details grew. I couldn’t get the memory of his scent or the taste of him off my mind. I wasn’t sure what I was telling him with that brief touch, if I maybe just wanted the smallest reminder of what it felt like.

The moment broke, and Felan shrugged away in visible discomfort. We returned to the main entrance of the fortress in silence. I saw why he walked like a man on a tightrope. Ivasus stood there with a sword, hacking away at a bloody heap that I could only assume by the colour of its robes was Vazon. He seemed unfazed by our arrival, stopping only long enough to wipe the streak of blood off his eyes before lifting the blade once more and letting it strike the mangled body. He did it over and over again until the blade dulled and wouldn’t sink anymore, and then he kicked the body to the side and screamed so loud it felt like his lungs were being ripped through the sky.

The scream still haunts me. I understood the agony behind it, the sharp threads digging all the way into my bones. If I had been in his place, I would have screamed like that, too. If I knew who my enemy was, who it was that robbed me of the chance to follow my dreams, I would have done worse. When Ivasus finally stopped, I felt myself choking back tears so neither of the men would see me cry.

“I mean, who gave him the right?” Ivasus snapped, the blue veins in his neck popping through the surface of his pale skin. “Who gave them all the fucking right to make up the rules and offer up our lives as fodder? Do you know what the asshole told me before he died? Do you?” He stared at me, demanding not an answer, but the certainty that I was going to hear him out. I found myself reluctantly giving a small nod. “He said if I was worthy, it would have never been a problem! If I was worthy!”

He turned around and kicked what looked like Vazon’s head. It snapped as it whipped to the side, the flayed skin spraying blood everywhere. “I’m still alive, you son of a bitch!” he roared. “I’m alive and you’re dead. Is that worthy enough for you? If you gave me a chance, you would have seen true power. All you had to do was give me a chance!”

The corpse didn’t answer back. Ivasus was panting, his whole body shaking. The self-assured, smug man was gone, and I saw the boy he had been, one who couldn’t quite accept that all the glory and prestige promised to him were lies. I couldn’t blame him. Deep inside, I felt that way, too. Something about people like Vazon kept us in a perpetual child-like state, eager to prove ourselves, waiting for that inevitable pat on the back and the permission to join the world we once dreamed of.

“You do have a chance now,” I said, when it became clear he’d grown too weary to keep screaming. “You’re Firekeeper.”

“I’ll be dead soon,” Ivasus said, bitterly. “What good does the title do?”

“Plenty, if you’d let it.” I hadn’t been controlling the emperor for long, but in less than a year of sitting in the throne, I had undone at least half the damage Lord Cato and his cohorts had done in the last decade. I imagine he could do more, given his own ambitions. But I could see that his hate had blinded him. He couldn’t see the gifts that still lay in his palm. All he wanted was everything he wanted the way he wanted it, not the scraps that fell to the side. It made me angry to think about what he was squandering away simply because he saw himself as someone who deserved more than scraps. What about the rest of us? What about me?

He lifted his sword, the edges of which were noticeably chipped, and flung it across the yard. “Burn him,” he said. “Burn him, and we can go.”

“Do it yourself,” I grumbled.

He bared his teeth. “Do it, Rosha!”

I glanced at Felan, who cleared his throat. “Perhaps she is too tired to—”

“Burn the bastard,” Ivasus hissed. “We talked about this. You know the spell. We’ve both read it, remember?”

He sneered as he forced the memory of those winter trysts back into my memories. My eyes watered as I pressed a dagger into my palm and traced a glyph on the corpse with my blood. It was a spell meant to intensify fire, to reduce the energies of the mage’s still-warm body into something physical. Now all it needed was for someone could douse the bloody heap with oil and light it with a match. The spell would draw from my own energies, but I was prepared. A passive transfer like that was still very much doable.

I stepped away.

“I said burn it,” he repeated. I realized then that he didn’t just want me to carry out the spell. He wanted to see me struggle. He wanted to remind himself he wasn’t the only one around here with burdens to carry.

I ignored my pulsing headache as I forced fire to my fingertips. I could feel the heat on my skin, but no flames appeared. I forced the agan, what little strands I could still see, to connect to my body, and began to shake from the effort. My ears began to ring. It felt like someone had dropped a rock on my skull.

“Stop!” Kefier roared from the edge of the courtyard.

I fell to my knees, still shaking. The cool soil was a balm to my burning hands. I tried not to think that was partly because it was still soaked in Vazon’s blood.

Ivasus laughed. He laughed as he pushed Felan out of the way and grabbed a torch from one of his men, and he laughed as he returned to Vazon’s body. Without another word, he dropped the torch. The oil spread to Vazon’s robes, which caught ablaze immediately. My body momentarily convulsed as the spell leeched the agan from me. Kefier grabbed me before I could fall, and as I leaned on his familiar warmth, I felt something spark along the air. Vazon’s body was surrounded by a blue glow, one that deepened as the fires consumed it. I watched, mesmerized, as his body turned to ash, leaving only his skeleton and a small blue crystal right in the middle of his ribcage. Ivasus sauntered over to it and picked it up. He held it against the sunlight before he turned to show it to us.

“Look at that,” Ivasus said. “I believe this is what they call essence of mage.” He grinned at his own joke as he rubbed the crystal on his shirt. “To the ship, now,” he said. “Poor Lord Vazon here is going to help me bring down the rest of them.”

The trip south along the coast took a whole day, with fair winds that didn’t hamper the route any. I woke up just at the cusp of dawn just as we reached the peninsula. I wasn’t really watching the time or anything, but something in the air just felt right. It was the feeling of coming home. It didn’t feel all that long ago since I was down there with Enosh in the emperor’s body, but that was different. For one thing, we came by land, and I wasn’t really myself.

It was a new thing altogether, coming by sea. Cranking the window open and feeling the salt-breeze envelope my skin like my own mother’s embrace. Listening to the waves and the gulls in the distance, the endless crashing of water on rock. Both sides of my blood came from the sea, and I suddenly understood why Papa could never sit still unless he could get out there on a dinghy ever so often. One time, he told me, over the setting sun, “When the time comes, throw my ashes out on those waves. Let me be as much a part of Gorent as the sea. Promise me, Rosha.” I promised him, but only, I said, if Mother let me.

I opened the door and found Kefier sleeping outside. He opened his eyes as soon as I stepped into the hall. “Don’t trust the man,” he said, still groggy. “He’d have to get through me to get to you. Felan there had the same idea.” He jerked his head to the side. Down the narrow hallway, Felan sat on a bench right next to the door that led to the upper deck. He slept with his head against the wall.

“You both should have gone and gotten some actual rest. This was pointless. He didn’t try anything.”

Kefier’s face softened. “You have to tell me what’s really going on. What it was I saw out there, when he asked you to burn the body. He looked like he was daring you. What happened? When you were little, you could have done that in the blink of an eye.”

I looked away.

He carefully patted the ground next to him. “Sit, girl,” he said, softly.

I carefully lowered myself to the floor, my arms around my knees.

“Tell me,” he repeated. It was as soft a request as he could manage. The man had led mercenaries into bloody battles, faced opponents tougher than him and gotten out with hardly a scrape, and yet here he was, begging me for the truth.

“I’m losing my magic, Papa,” I croaked out.

Shame flooded my senses as soon as I spoke. I didn’t know why. What was there to be ashamed of? I lost it through no fault of my own. I was attacked, the connections to the agan seared off with magic more powerful than I could have ever dreamed of. And yet I found myself starting to cry. No, it wasn’t my fault, but I could have told him sooner. I could have spared them all this trouble, all the years of worrying over me and what I was doing with my life. If they had known that all the things they used to fear about me would no longer come to pass, they could have breathed a sigh of relief, maybe packed up their things and finally started doing everything they couldn’t do when they thought they had to sacrifice it all for me.

I felt as if I had grown very small, the words hammering me down to fine dust. One breath from the man who raised me, and I could be swept away. I turned my head away, not wanting to see the disappointment on him.

Kefier took a deep breath. “Isn’t this a good thing?” he asked. “You can tell them to leave you alone. We can just walk away from this.”

“I don’t think it’s that easy,” I gasped. “Ivasus won’t just let us.”

He made a fist. “I’ll take care of him.”

“No,” I said. “No. You don’t know what he’s capable of.”

“He’s got you wrapped up around his little finger. Why?”

“He…he knows I did blood magic,” I whispered. “That I’d been doing it all those years in Eheldeth, in order to get by and pretend like I’m as skilled as I used to be. And if I don’t see this through, it won’t be long before he realizes…” I struggled to find the words, and not because I was afraid Kefier wouldn’t believe me. The man would believe anything I told him. I just didn’t want him involved any more than he already was.

“Damn it, girl,” Kefier growled. “You have to trust me now. I’m not going to do anything rash.”

“That’s like a lion telling a goat he won’t feast on him,” I said wryly. He gave me a look, and I sighed. “The emperor. I’m not just his assistant. I am him.”

“What the hell do you mean you’re him?”

“That thing…is not alive. It’s a simulacrum, a puppet. Powerful mages have controlled him over the years, and I started controlling him by accident after Lord Cato died. The process requires blood magic to activate in the first place, and I’ve been using more blood magic to maintain the illusion that I’m capable of this in order to make Firekeeper Ceres happy.” I showed him my scarred wrists. “Ivasus doesn’t know. If he finds out—if anyone else finds out—my life will be in danger. The fastest way to take control of the simulacrum yourself is to kill the puppetmaster before it.”

Kefier didn’t reply, and I finally forced myself to look at him. He was thinking it over, like a man surveying a rising storm in the distance. But there was nothing hostile in his expression. Something caught in my throat, and before I knew it, I started to sob. He drew me into his arms as I cried on his shoulder, reduced to a child of three once again. The warmth of his embrace was as it had ever been. I realized he wasn’t disappointed in me at all. He wasn’t disappointed in me.

He was grieving, too.

“All I ever wanted was to see you all safe,” Kefier whispered against my hair. “I’m starting to realize now that I can’t…do it at all. It doesn’t matter how well I swing my sword, how much more vigilant I become…it doesn’t matter. It’s far bigger than I am, and you’re all caught up in things I can’t even begin to comprehend. It’s never going to end, is it?”

Numbly, I shook my head. I didn’t have it in me to lie to him.

Kefier leaned back against the wall, his expression hardening, as if he was steeling himself. “Do you know what you’re doing?” he finally asked.

I shook my head again.

“But you’re trying?”

“You know I am.”

His eyes softened. “That’s all I need. I’m only good for one thing, Rosha, but I’m very good at it. Point me at your enemies, and I’ll crush them. I’ll protect you if it’s the last thing I do.”

But Papa, I don’t want it to be the last thing you do, I thought, helplessly. I want you to die with great-grandchildren at your bedside. But I knew there was no sense in arguing with him. I simply nodded. It was just as well. We had reached the shores of the ancient Gorenten homeland at last.

ROSHA

I landed on soft, black sand on the shore right after we disembarked. I longed to step out of my shoes and feel it between my toes, but Ivasus was already calling us. I could tell he hadn’t had a good night’s rest—his hair was in disarray and there were black hollows under his eyes. He looked at me with contempt, as if a part of him detested the thought that I had to be there at all. He placed a hand on my shoulder, squeezing it as he forced my eyes on the dusty road ahead. “Do you know this?” he asked.

I slowly nodded. “The High King’s tomb lies at the end of this road.”

“Good. Yes. Perfect.” Ivasus flashed me a smile, that rehearsed one he usually saved for the keepers back in Eheldeth. “You’ve more than made it clear to me that this plan of mine is beyond detestable, and in a past life, I would have agreed with you. I’m not the kind of person you think I am.”

“I think you are. You’re the kind of person who holds himself on a pedestal, whose feelings eclipse everybody else’s.”

Ivasus shrugged. “Your judgment, my lady, brushes against me like cold steel. Save it for later.” He took a deep breath, and his face softened. “You’d think after everything they did to you, you would be eager for vengeance, too.”

“I don’t think that way,” I said.

He looked surprised. “Really? You don’t?”

I shook my head. “Vengeance is a pointless waste of time, as pointless as hatred. There are far more important things to spend one’s days on. I don’t hate anyone, Ivasus. Not even you.”

It wasn’t an answer he expected. “Well,” he said, licking his lips. “Perhaps I shouldn’t be so surprised. I always thought that was an act. Perhaps you truly are incapable of anger.”

I shook my head. “I said hate. Not anger. I’m angry about all of this, Ivasus.”

He cocked his head to the side. “It doesn’t look like it.”

“Does anger have to show to be real? Do you want me to take a sword and hack away at you like you did with Lord Vazon?”

“Me? No. The rest of the empire? Yes. Imagine a world where you no longer have to be afraid of mages.”

“Unless you mean to kill all of them, that would do nothing. Take away the ones sitting in the council and others will only come to replace them.”

“Which is why I want to hit them where it hurts,” Ivasus said. “Did you think I just mean to take away the magic of the ones in the council? Of course I will do that, but like you said—they’ll be replaced soon enough. When I’m done with the council, my next target is Eheldeth. All those children, everyone next in line to run this empire to the ground…” He mimicked an explosion with his fingers.

I felt his words slide under my skin like an icy knife. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do. I’m saving them from a worse fate. I imagine there are others there like me.”

“A situation that can be easily remedied simply by stopping them from pushing their bodies to their limits. But if you’re talking about robbing innocent youths of their future…”

“Don’t tell me you feel sorry for them.” He gave a sideways grin as Felan appeared nearby, like someone just stumbling into a lion’s den without so much as a lick of preparation beforehand. “You would, I suppose. The same way you feel sorry for him. The same way you feel sorry for yourself. What did happen to you both back in Eheldeth, anyway? Did someone just wander in with the knowledge of King Elian’s spell and use it on you both?”

“Yes.”

“Pity. You should have led them to me, too.” He gritted his teeth and turned around to face Felan. “You, sir, have done such a terrific job assisting your benefactors in leeching Rosha that you’ll do wonderfully for what’s about to come.”

“You’re still going on about that,” Felan said flatly.

“Scars don’t lie, my friends.” Ivasus grew serious. “Let’s see how much you know about blood magic, and if you both truly deserve your old reputation as the brightest Eheldeth had to offer.”

He was right about one thing: scars don’t lie.

If the Dageians had left our lands untouched, you would see the hills covered with tall trees, not the sparse, second-hand forests that fringed the edge of the road. Or so I’d love to believe. Enosh would probably disagree and tell me there are no guarantees that the Gorenten would have left them alone. He always went on and on about how the farmers cut down every tree they came across, instead of consulting with him like they’d agreed to before he allowed them to settle there. It was almost amusing how Enosh seemed perpetually driven by both irritation and love for his own people, as if he couldn’t quite decide on what he wanted to feel. No matter what his quibbles were over what they had become, it was hard to put the blame solely on their shoulders. The Dageians came. No matter what we could have been, even if it was to our ruin, we would never know now because the Dageians came, and the rest simply settled themselves around that fact, like flies around a rotting apple.

The flies were crawling all over the hills that used to form part of the city that preceded Lon Basden. They greeted us as they arrived, all sweat and dirt-stained in an effort to show their Lord Ivasus that they were hard at work. Ivasus whistled to a mage, who approached us and bowed. “There are protection spells, just as you suspected, my lord,” she said. “I’m not sure I know how to proceed further. The Dageian runes have been mixed with something else, and I fear for the safety of the crew.”

“Forget that all,” Ivasus said. He turned to me. “You know both Dageian magic and your own ancestors’. I’m sure you can’t wait to show off.”

I hated that he was right about that. The mere suggestion that the Dageian runes had been altered was like music to my ears, and I couldn’t wait to get inside the damn place, Ivasus’s plans aside. I unclasped my cloak and left it on a boulder as I took the first of many steps down the tomb. It went deep underground, and the farther I walked down the length of it, the clearer it became that it wasn’t intended as a tomb at all. It was a corridor of a building, buried in several feet of soil. Shafts of sunlight were bursting through the rafters Ivasus’s digging crews had damaged in their quest to unearth the entrance.

I reached the bottom of the corridor, where a guard waited with a torch. I found myself reaching for it, and instantly felt a flush of guilt over my relief at having a source of light I didn’t have to make myself. All the things I used to do mindlessly…

Footsteps echoed from behind. Two sets. I gave a small grunt. “You both should stay outside.”

“No chance in hell,” Kefier growled. “Besides, I don’t like looking at your damn lord’s ugly mug. I’d hit it before I could help myself, and I’m sure you won’t like that.”

“He’s not my lord,” I replied, with half a mind to roll my eyes.

“Back me up here, Felan,” Kefier continued. “You have thoughts about them, don’t you? You must have. For fuck’s sake, I’ve seen you glaring at that Ivasus when you didn’t think anyone was watching, like you intend to murder him when everyone’s backs are turned. I will gladly help you with that.”

Felan’s cheeks coloured. “I—” he stammered.

Kefier turned back to me. “If I knew you’d be the heartbreaker your mother was, I’d…”

“You’d what?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.

Kefier scratched the side of his face. “I’d have prepared myself more, that’s all.” He coughed. “You both do your…magic thing and I’ll…stand here and watch. Tell me if bones need crushing.” He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. For a moment, I expected him to trigger a trap or something, but nothing happened.

I managed a soft sigh and turned my attention to the wall in front of me. I couldn’t erase the awkwardness of having to stand right next to Felan with Kefier looking over my shoulder. “This is it?” I asked, gazing up at the markings. There was a giant circle, over which runes were etched, spiralling towards the center in a mixture of Kagosh and the thing that frightened the mage so much: Gorenten script.

“What does it say?” Felan asked.

I traced my fingers over one. “It’s an epitaph to the High King. It’s…oh, gods.” I closed my eyes for a moment, the words digging into my soul, carving away with a knife parts I didn’t even know existed.

“What?” Felan repeated.

“Nothing,” I whispered. “I know how to undo the spells. They’re just Dageian spells. The woman was being unnecessarily cautious. She saw Gorenten text and assumed right away it was evil. It’s just a dedication to the king. The spells came after.” Swallowing back the grief, I carefully ran my fingers back along the runes, which glowed in the presence of someone who had the agan—even when it was someone grasping at strands like me.

“Here,” Felan said, offering his hand. It was already bleeding. I didn’t even notice he had cut himself. I frowned, once more torn between refusing and using a ready source of energy. But the blood was dripping fast, and before I knew it, I’d clasped his hand in mine and was drawing from him again. Kefier, watching from the distance, probably didn’t know what we were doing.

The glow on the runes grew stronger. I heard gears unlocking behind the wall, followed by a sharp sound.

“Duck!” I screamed, too late, as daggers jumped out from hidden chambers and flew into the air.

They struck the wall a hair’s-breadth away from Kefier. He looked unfazed. “Did you think I was an amateur who would stand right in front of the thing?” he asked, to our look of surprise. He glanced at his fingers before taking a step forward.

He stopped as he struck something we must have missed along the way: a switch plate right under the stone. More daggers flew from the opposite side of the wall. Most slid past him, but one nearly got him on the throat. He caught that one before it could open a hole in his jugular.

“Good reflexes, Master Tomb Explorer,” I said.

Kefier gave a nervous chuckle before dropping the dagger, as if it was cursed. “Nothing to it,” he gasped, wiping the sweat from his brow. “Just wanted to check it still works. You got everything there?”

“I suppose so.” I tightened my fingers around my staff, which still felt sticky with Felan’s blood. I couldn’t feel anything else in the air, not the sharp humming that usually hovered around the presence of defensive spells. Of course, with my dulled senses, I could have been walking right into a spell that would shatter my very bones into a thousand pieces, but the thought didn’t stop me. If I was right, I could prove to myself I still knew what I was doing. If I was wrong, well… A part of me didn’t mind the thought.

The room seemed to flicker as I found myself inside. I braced myself. “Don’t follow me, Felan,” I called immediately. “Something else is here.” It was very faint, like listening to music from across the hall inside a locked room, but I could feel it.

I saw him lift his hand. “Do you need help?”

“No,” I said. “I think whatever’s in here…is designed to let me through.” My eyes turned to Kefier. “You’d be safe too, Papa.”

“Are you sure?”

I gave a grim smile. “No safer than out there.”

Kefier laughed as he sauntered through the doorway. “If I die, you’ll have to answer to your mother anyway and I don’t have to worry a damn thing. I—” He stopped as he beheld what awaited in the center of the room. “What the hell is that?”

“Our ancestor, I believe,” I said. I turned my attention to the armoured figure lying on a stone slab in the middle of the room. The slab stood on top of a pedestal, and I had to climb a few steps before I could get a closer look.

Whoever put High King Elian in his final resting place didn’t care very much about cleaning him up or making the body presentable to anyone. Of course, if my memory of history was correct, most of the Gorenten had already fled the peninsula by the time he died, so whoever left him here might have been in a hurry and wasn’t going to waste time preparing him for a funeral. He looked like he had fallen in battle, fought right there on that slab. The dead air in the tomb had done a good job of preserving his remains and I could still see the expression of pain on his face, the gaping wounds on his skull, and his limbs…

I wasn’t prepared for what I was about to see. The epitaph outside had spoken of the state the king was in when he died. His hand, which was barely attached to his body, wouldn’t let go of his sword, which he had used to continue channeling energy into his spell. He dealt with the blows as if they were nothing more than gnats he just couldn’t be bothered to swat away, because every mage whose power he sapped was one less mage to harm his people. The epitaph ended with a question: from henceforth, who could love the Gorenten people as much as the High King did? Who could ever love them again?

Kefier cleared his throat as he stood beside me. He placed a hand on my shoulder before drawing his gaze to the king’s body. “I used to tell you stories about him. Do you remember?”

“I’ll never forget them.” I felt that sharpness again, as if my heart was being stabbed in all directions. I stared at the king’s skull. Something in the mummified expression was almost familiar, like a memory from a dream. I felt like I knew him, a knowledge that brought—not patriotism, not love for a country you have never really known, but the sort of grief that comes with the thought of all that was wasted. Perhaps Kefier’s stories had done more than instill those old tales in my mind. “What would have happened if more people stayed with him?” I asked, out loud.

“He forbade people to stay. He wanted to fight the Dageians with a skeleton army—no more than a handful of his most trusted generals and their best soldiers. He knew they wouldn’t win.”

“But what if they chose not to let him fight alone?”

“Then they would have died with him.”

“Somehow, I want to believe they wouldn’t have. If they had all stood together against the invaders…”

“Let us count our fortunes that the past remains in the past,” Ivasus called from outside the entrance. “I trust you’ve disabled all the spells, Rosha. That is what I brought you here for.”

I glanced at Kefier and took a deep breath. I lifted my hand and briefly waved it in the air. Our presence there had undone it, anyway, but I wanted to make a show of it.

Ivasus smiled before grabbing Felan’s arm, catching him by surprise. He shoved him through the doorway to test it.

“You son of a bitch,” I growled, as Felan stumbled into the room.

Ivasus shrugged. “Wanted to make sure you weren’t lying.”

Felan straightened himself. “You could have asked,” he said, under his breath.

“My apologies, Lord Cartos. You know by now that I have absolutely no manners. None at all.” He gave a mock bow in my direction. “Now, if you will make room…”

Kefier gestured at me to back away. I stepped down from the pedestal, half-curious over what he intended to do. From the corner of my eyes, I saw his mage. He directed her to the head of the slab before pulling out the crystallized agan from his pocket, the one he had claimed from Lord Vazon’s body. He dropped it right on the king’s remains.

A blinding shaft of light burst from within the body, and my first thought was that it was dangerous. Dageis thought of agan as nothing but energy, to be harnessed and used to their hearts’ content, but it was also very much not just that. It was also made of souls, of those that used to be or were still living. Agan left untouched for centuries might have no memory, but something as fresh as Lord Vazon…

The remains rose from the slab. “Ban-Sokur!” the king’s undead body screeched. “Did you think you were rid of me?” It lifted its rusted sword, one that looked like it could still cleave a person in half.

Ivasus jumped back, casting a shield just as the undead struck him with a strength that rivalled a living man’s. I could hear the blade striking the agan like a battering ram. Unfazed, the undead king made another sweep with its sword.

Kefier grabbed me before I could watch any further. “Get to safety!” he ordered. “That thing isn’t what you think it is!”

“I am High King Vazon, Lord of Gorent!” the undead king roared.

The flash of blue light turned darker, with a shadowed purple glow that was almost sinister. The undead king backed away from Ivasus and without warning pounced on his mage, who was attempting to make a speedy exit. As soon as the pressure left Ivasus, he tore through the door like a coward. The mage, hounded by the undead king, screamed; the undead king slammed her head right into the wall. She didn’t even have time to draw another breath as her skull shattered into a thousand pieces. The undead king twisted her limp head in its claws, as if it was plucking a grape from a branch, and tore the head off her body. An arc of blood sprayed over the room as it flung the head towards us. It rolled on the ground before it stopped right by my feet.

My heart seemed to stop as I watched the spectre slowly making its way to the doorway. Its movements were deliberate, as if it was relishing in the carnage and fear.

“Come,” it said, its voice assuming a deeper timbre. “Show me what you can do, children.”

“Ivasus went right through that door,” I called out. “He’s the one you want.”

Its eyes glowed yellow. “You first, and then him,” it said. “You first, child.”

Kefier drew his sword and motioned for me and Felan to step behind him. “You can’t stop that thing with a blade,” Felan whispered. “You saw its strength.”

Kefier shook his head. “I can distract it long enough for you to get through that door.”

“Papa, I don’t like this,” I said.

“I know,” he replied, almost calmly. “But I’ve done worse. I’ll be right behind you.”

“Papa—”

“Now!” He swung his blade as he charged. My first instinct was to tear after him. The undead king’s attention turned on him, rusted armour all glowing now, and then I felt Felan yanking me to the door.

“You can’t waste this!” Felan breathed. “Run, Rosha!”

I ran, just in time to see the undead king’s sword strike Kefier’s. I could see that the single blow was more than Kefier had prepared himself for; he spun backward immediately, his head striking the wall at an angle that must have hurt. But at least his skull was intact. The undead king tried to grab him the way it did with the other mage and Kefier sidestepped, managing to strike its rusty armour from the side. His blade slid down, digging into where its belly would have been. Had it been a living man, its guts would have spilled on the floor by now.

“Weak,” the undead king babbled. “Weak, all of you! And you call yourself Gorenten? You’re a shame on our people, a taint on our kind!”

“Lord Vazon’s soul is interacting with the body,” Felan whispered behind me. “But those movements…it retains a memory of how High King Elian must have. It knows how to handle a sword. Vazon never did. He would have dropped the blade.”

“High King Elian was a king and a warrior,” I whispered back. “And also the most powerful mage to have ever come out of our people.” I felt my stomach sink as I heard the words with my own ears. The undead creature had both Lord Vazon and High King Elian’s strengths combined. What were their weaknesses?

Kefier attempted to dislodge the sword so he could strike at it a second time, and it disappeared in an instant, only to reappear a few paces closer to us. I jumped to the side.

“The most powerful mage indeed,” it hissed as its claws went for my head. No—for Felan’s head, I realized with shock. It was closer to him than I was. I couldn’t watch him die, and even as they all screamed for me to get out of the way, I doubled back towards him. I roared, my fingers flying upwards out of instinct. And yet even if I could have sworn nothing would come out of it, a faint, blue shimmer appeared above us, like a lace curtain. Perhaps the after-effects of drawing on Felan’s blood were still fresh on me. The undead king’s claws struck the barrier a second later.

“Go!” I screamed at Felan.

“But—”

“I have a better chance of surviving this than you do, and I’m not going to leave my father there. Go!”

He saw the wisdom in my words and immediately dashed out of the way just as the barrier shattered. The undead king lunged a second time, its sword spinning through the air. I could still feel the remnants of the agan pulsing through my veins and forced half of it into the staff for reinforcement. Not a moment too soon; the sword reached me and I lifted the staff, catching the sword in mid-air. The blade, already rusted beyond repair, was buried deep into the hunk of wood.

I flung it away, well out of reach of both of us, before leaping out into the hall. The undead king thundered after me.

Ivasus was on the ground a few feet away, his hands clutching his stomach. He was having an attack from his disease. The undead king saw his chance and turned towards him instead.

“Oh no,” I called, grabbing the torch from the sconce. “You’re not getting away that easily!” I hurled the torch over its head.

It turned around and grabbed the torch, its mummified fingers wrapping around the flame, trying to snuff it out. I smirked and focused what was left of my energy into making it explode.

The undead king caught on fire and began to dance around, its body turning to ash where it stood. I managed to let a small sigh of relief escape my lips. “It’s over,” I called to it. “Leave the High King to rest in peace, Lord Vazon. It’s—”

It took one step towards me, the glow in its eyes growing stronger. The ash on its body started to harden. It lifted its claws, which grew longer, knives turning into swords. I had my back to the wall, with nowhere else to go.

But before they could pierce my flesh, I saw Kefier standing between us. The pointed edges went into his body—his belly, his chest, his lungs. His heart.

I screamed so loud I didn’t know if I would go deaf or lose my voice first. The undead king pulled away, allowing Kefier’s body to fall to the ground. I threw myself on his body as he slowly bled to death and without thinking about it, drew from his own blood to slip into his soul. I didn’t care what happened to me anymore. My father couldn’t just die like that. Not him. Anyone but him.

Everything faded away, leaving me in the choking blue of agan dust, as it had ever been all my life.

ACT THREE

CHAPTER 34

ROSHA

I wiped my mouth and stared up at the sky, or whatever passes for the sky in the other world. I felt the urge to just stare at it for as long as I would be allowed. A few minutes, a lifetime…whatever it took to put off having to decide about what just happened. If the only thing left for me to do was grieve, I would rather wait.

So I stared until the light made my eyes water, and I remembered the first time Kefier ever spoke of the agan to me, back in Jin-Sayeng where they’d rather not speak of such things. He told me of a Gorenten legend of how the world came to be: how the god of the sky and the goddess of the sea, once lovers, had a spat that split them apart. In their bid to outdo one another, they formed the earth from both sides, a vast wall that would ensure their separation was permanent. This not being enough, they retreated further in, bringing their powers with them; the world as we know it, the physical world, is nothing but a barrier. I later learned that Kefier’s version was not entirely accurate, or that at least he withheld information he didn’t think a little child would care to know. The land was actually formed from the bodies of the deities’ children, who fell during the war between their parents—but the essence remained the same. The blue-lit agan was both the sea and the sky, a reflection of our mother and father at once; we come from it and return to it when we die.

This, where I am, is the real world. Not the messy, broken, half-hearted world we leave behind when it is all over, but this. What was the point of it all, if this wasn’t? My schooling as a mage has left this one imprint on my beliefs: the physical world is too erratic, too uncertain, too cruel to be real. In the agan, nothing is ever random. Everything can be controlled; everything has a reason for being.

In the agan, none of us die. And so my father couldn’t be dead.

Tears flowed from my eyes, floating upwards like grass seeds in the wind. Wishes, Kefier once called them. Those seed fluffs fly to the heavens or sink to the seas—if you catch them and whisper your heart’s desire before setting them free again, they could carry the wishes to your ancestors. If they were wishes, I knew I would ask for nothing but for my father to return to my mother and brothers safely. Such a simple wish, come to think of it. Maybe the world had no room for such desires. I knew what it rewarded, at the end of the day: ruthless ambition, the desire to win at all costs. My whole life I had set limits on what I was willing to sacrifice to accomplish my goals, and perhaps that was the dagger in my back all along. How could I have ever hoped to compete with the others when my desire not to cause harm to the people in my life had forever held me back? And now here I was, unable to conceive of a world in which my father didn’t survive, in which my family would forever be consumed with grief because I had the audacity to exist.

I wanted to fade away with my tears and the rest of the blue.

“How long are you going to lie there feeling sorry for yourself?” a voice asked.

I held my breath for a moment before getting up. I couldn’t see anyone around.

“Down here,” the voice continued.

I looked down. A red fox sat on its haunches nearby, its whiskers twitching. I opened my mouth and then closed it, realizing where I was. “You’re a mage,” I blurted out.

“You didn’t strike me as a stupid child before. I should’ve known better. Seeing as to how you’re that blasted Tar’elian’s…”

“All right, so I pointed out the obvious,” I sighed. “Forgive my bluntness. Only mages can hold such distinct forms out here. To hold one they clearly didn’t have in real life must mean you were a powerful mage.”

“You don’t know that. I could have been a fox. Certain animals are born with as much of a connection to the agan as the best of mages, you know.”

“What do you want?” I asked.

The fox flicked its tail. “I saw what happened out there, with Kefier.”

“You know us.”

It flicked its whiskers into an expression resembling a grimace. “Stating the obvious again—”

“Yes, I know. Who are you?”

“Doesn’t matter. Almost everyone has spirits who hover around the fringes of the fabric. You ought to know. I happen to be one of those spirits.” It flicked its tail again. “Call me Sapphire.”

“Sapphire,” I repeated. The name was almost familiar. “You’re a woman?”

“I suppose, if such distinctions can still be made out here. If it helps you place me, then I suppose I am.” She drew closer, close enough so she could prod my cheek with a tiny wet nose. “You want to find Kefier out here, don’t you?”

I stared back at her, unwilling to voice out my heart’s desire. I could see, from the expression on her face—for as much as it was capable of expression—that the answer wouldn’t be easy. “But he’s not dead,” I said, holding on to that last thread of hope. “If he was dead, you wouldn’t say that. If I had failed…”

“You didn’t fail,” she said, carefully. “You took everything you had left to surround him, his spirit, to stop it from leaving his dying body. A commendable, if foolhardy experiment. Most people wouldn’t dare. The agan lets us perform these seemingly impossible feats. But magic is not supposed to be used to cheat death. People have tried since the beginning of time. And since the beginning of time, they have failed.”

“You can’t fault me for it,” I said.

She shrugged. “Perhaps not. I understand the sentiment. But again, it is impossible. The fundamentals of nature—”

“You’re Eheldeth-trained. I can tell from the way you speak.” I hardened my expression. “I didn’t use Eheldeth magic for that spell. I used blood magic.”

“I know.”

“Blood magic doesn’t follow Eheldeth’s rules. That’s why it’s forbidden. In Eheldeth, spells are superficial. Blood magic goes deeper than that. It can mend what Eheldeth says you can’t even see. I did that. I kept his soul from leaving his body. And once his body heals—”

“You know it doesn’t work that way.”

“Then how?” I all but screamed at her. My patience was wearing thin. “How is it supposed to work? What is the point of learning about all this if we can’t use it to protect the ones we love? Is it only supposed to be for power? For show?” The air hummed as I spoke, crackling like lightning.

Sapphire flicked her tail before jumping on my shoulder. She weighed like nothing—it was the intensity of the soul inside her form that took me aback. “You make excellent points,” she said. “But they are, ultimately, naïve. The laws of nature do not need a reason for being. They just are. People use what is in front of them for however they see fit.”

“So I used it to protect my father.”

“What you did doesn’t stop his body from expiring. He will die, and his soul cannot join the flow back. All you did was lock him up in a prison of your own doing. You denied him death.”

“No,” I whispered. “No. That’s…”

She sighed, flicking her tail against my neck. “A theory. But come. Let’s go look at what you’ve done.”

I felt myself frozen to the spot. She placed a paw on my head.

“Don’t tell me you’ve suddenly lost the nerve. A mage must always be able to face the consequences of their actions. Didn’t they teach you this in Eheldeth? Come,” she repeated, this time in a more insistent voice. “Your hesitation will only make things worse.”

With a sigh, I started walking. I could feel her tugging at the strings of the agan up ahead, shifting the path so that it didn’t matter where I went—the road adjusted to my footsteps and took me where I needed to go. I knew, because the bright blue of the landscape in front of me had turned black, like the evening of a storm.

A statue blocked the path, carved in the image of a man in full armour. Its arms were crossed, each hand laid on the opposite shoulder. Its eyes were closed.

“Well, that’s new,” Sapphire commented. “Stop right there.”

I obeyed and watched as she jumped off my shoulder and approached the statue tentatively. There was so much caution in her movements that I wasn’t surprised when the thing’s eyes flew open as soon as she got close. She stopped then, a glimmer of a smile on her lips. Her tail flicked to one side. “This isn’t good.”

“Did someone put it there?”

“You could say that,” she said. “It’s a guardian. A protection conjured at the last moment, because what you attempted was so unexpected. Did you know if anyone left protective spells on your father’s person?”

“He would have never knowingly allowed that,” I said. “Not even if I did it. He despises magic, to be honest. He—” I stopped, realizing I’d just answered her question. “He used to be a mage-thrall,” I whispered. “But that was a long time ago.”

“Mages consider such servants their property,” Sapphire replied. “Such property sometimes warrants protection. You don’t want anyone just tapping into what’s yours and turning it against you.”

“Don’t talk about my father like he’s an object,” I said.

Sapphire flicked her tail. “A remnant of Eheldeth. I…apologize.”

“What will it do if we get closer?”

“Pound us into dust, I imagine. Look at the size of that thing—I don’t think either of us are up for a fight with it. I’m already dead, but such an action will be most inconvenient—it may take me centuries to piece myself back together. You, on the other hand…well, it won’t be healthy, I can assure you.”

“So we have to get rid of it another way,” I said.

She nodded, making a healthy arc around the statue. It kept a close eye on her like a lazy dog that would only pounce if she took just one step closer. If I was to see how Kefier was doing at all, it needed to go. I made a fist. I didn’t mind fighting. The statue could have a weak spot that would make my job easier.

“Before you do anything we both regret, I think I have an idea,” Sapphire broke in. “It still thinks Kefier is in danger of intrusion by a mage, and the magic you cast was against his will. All you have to do is remind him it was you.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

She flicked her tail. “I distract it, and you run straight through and…wade into your father’s consciousness. Find memories of yours that match his.”

“Will it save him?”

“I don’t know,” Sapphire said. “But it might give you enough time to say goodbye.”

I wanted to reject her words. Such a heavy sentiment had no business feeling me with hope. It made me sick to think of how much we cling to life. Another moment with my father was nothing. Yet if that was all I had left…

I steeled myself. “Do it,” I said.

She didn’t need another word. I saw her form a bubble of blue light around her small body as she plunged towards the statue. Its hands dropped to its side, and a long polearm appeared out of nowhere and landed in its grasp. It swung it with vigour.

Gathering my courage, I waited until the polearm had crashed to the ground, missing Sapphire by a hair’s-breadth, before I dashed towards Kefier.

I didn’t have time to get myself ready, and my worries had forced my mind blank. The memory I jumped into was his and his alone, from way back in his boyhood. He was half-asleep in front of a communal fire, his head leaning on someone’s shoulder. It took me a moment to recognize the other boy in the memory was Enosh. He looked like he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to place an arm around him or push him away, so he just sat there looking like he’d swallowed something bitter.

Up ahead, an old woman was telling a story.

I couldn’t hear what she was saying, which meant Kefier probably didn’t remember what it was about. His attention was transfixed on another woman, who sat with a man right in front of them. I realized I was staring at my grandparents: the lovely Soshain and the chief-to-be Meirosh, who carried her back to Gorent after he studied in Baidh. Soshain was said to be part Baidhan herself, but you wouldn’t know it looking at her—the Gorenten blood was strong and showed through in everything. Her dark skin, her dark eyes, her dark hair. The only thing the Baidhan blood did was give her a touch of elegance, and nothing more. Everything on her that looked like it could withstand time was handed down from Gorent.

“You had a family before it all turned to shit,” I found myself saying out loud.

Kefier, of course, didn’t hear. He simply drew his arms around his knees as he started shivering.

“We could sit closer to the fire, if you want,” Enosh said, irritated. “Could hear better there, too.”

“Don’t want to,” Kefier mumbled.

“You’re so stubborn,” Enosh grumbled back.

“I want to look at them from far away.”

“Who?”

“Mama and Papa. Look. They’re so happy. I like seeing them like that.”

Enosh grunted. “You’re so strange.” He was quiet for a moment, his scowling face still shadowed. But then it softened, just for a touch. “They’re happy because they’re not arguing.” It didn’t even sound like he was talking to Kefier, but making an observation to himself.

Kefier slowly nodded.

“Stupid,” Enosh grunted. But he seemed to find a spot of pity in his heart for his brother, because he scooped him up in his arms. Kefier gratefully drew him into an embrace, which only seemed to irritate Enosh even as he let it happen. “Always so soft,” he admonished. “Where’s that ever going to take you, huh?”

“Don’t know,” Kefier mumbled.

“Life is bigger than family,” Enosh said in a low voice. “There’s so much we can do for ourselves. Dream big. Outside of this village, away from our parents. Isn’t there stuff you’ve always wanted to do? Places you want to see? If you worked hard, you could be anything you want to be.”

Kefier’s eyes seemed distant for a moment. But then he carefully shrugged. “See them happy first,” he said softly. “Then, maybe, the rest.”

“Stupid.”

“I know,” Kefier whispered.

I sat down next to them. “It’s not stupid,” I declared, even though I knew neither could hear me. “Family meant so much to him that even after everything that happened to you both—even after Grandma and Grandpa died, and you were separated—he never stopped dreaming he could bring you back together. Even if it hurt to stick around…” I felt tears rolling down my face. “Even if it hurt to stick around, he stayed,” I whispered. “It’s not stupid. What do you think we would have become without him?”

My eyes were on the boy Enosh, who looked just as smug and insufferable as the man he was today. “Without him, we would have killed each other a long time ago, you and I,” I said. “To us, family was just dead weight and criticism and responsibilities we never asked for. We had ambitions. We wanted power. Without him, we wouldn’t know any better. Without him, we’d have nothing but ourselves and the hell we would have created.” I felt a lump the size of a fist in my chest. “Damn this all.” I turned back to Kefier. “Papa, it’s me. I’m here, Papa.”

The memory faded as I forced myself out of it. I began forming my own, one I knew he would never forget simply because it wasn’t just a one-time thing. We were on a passenger boat on Lake Watu, heading up to the northern half of the city to visit Mother, who was working for the Dragonlord at the time. I stood on Kefier’s lap as he let me look over the side of the boat to the lake below. In those days, I didn’t know he wasn’t my father. Looking back at the memory was staring in the face of a life I knew I could spend a lifetime chasing after and never get back again. How do you take it all back—all the heartbreak and revelations that changed how simple it used to be?

A shadow stood in the corner, staring at the memory.

“Papa,” I said, approaching it.

It flickered before taking that familiar form, one I would know in life or death. He sat on an empty bench, his shoulders hunched. I placed my hand on his back.

“If it hurts, leave,” he whispered. “That’s what they used to tell me when they learned of what I’d gotten myself into. Caring for my brother’s woman and child—a brother who hated me, at worst. Who cared nothing for me, at least. Why give my life up for that? Why stare in the face of all my regrets for all of time?”

He took a deep breath. “But look at that girl. Not my responsibility, I know. But I could have never left that child.” He glanced at me, recognition dawning on his features. He placed the back of his hand on my cheek. “Love is not always convenient. That’s what makes it so beautiful, you know?”

“Papa…”

“You grew up so fast. And even when I couldn’t stand everything else anymore—your mother and Enosh certainly haven’t made anything easy—my decisions were easy enough. I wanted to watch you grow up. Didn’t matter what you became, what you chose in your own life. I just wanted to be there. And I was. All those things you’re feeling—that guilt, that regret, the thought that maybe you could have made me prouder? Throw it all away, girl. You exist. That’s enough. You made a man who thought laughter was behind him laugh again. You gave him a family when he thought he was all alone in the world. You made him belong. Look at what we made together. It could have been so terrible—we could have been one of those families who went around with poisoned words, tearing each other apart. We didn’t, even when we had every reason to.”

“Don’t talk like it’s over, Papa,” I said. “It’s not.”

He gave a small shrug. “You don’t know that.”

“I’ll make sure it’s not. I—”

He laughed, the shadows drifting to make his form more substantial. I could see his face clearly now. “You’ve always been convinced you can find the answers.”

“Because I can,” I said.

“And if you can’t? Will you be as hard on yourself as you ever were? I don’t want to see you do that to yourself again. It’s easier to let go. You need rest, too, more than you think you do.”

“I’m only as stubborn as you taught me to be,” I insisted. “I won’t let you go, Papa.”

His eyes softened. “Ah, Rosha.”

I formed a staff and struck the ground with it. “I love you, Papa,” I said. “No matter what happens, remember I love you.”

“Rosha—”

I ignored him as I forced myself out of his consciousness. Without missing a beat, I turned to the stone guardian, held my breath, and struck it with a spell.

CHAPTER 35

ROSHA

The guardian toppled backward as I gathered my energy for a more concentrated assault and tripped, landing on its side. I heard the fox swear.

“What are you doing?” she called. “I thought you were supposed to wake your father up!”

“Change of plans,” I said, striking the ground with the bottom of my conjured staff. It rippled, like the surface of a still lake struck with a stone.

She came tearing through the bush to land in front of me. Her snout was curled into a half-snarl. “Child. You might be swimming in agan now and I get the temptation, but might I remind you your body is still out there and your soul is still attached to it. Such chaos—”

“You talk like every other keeper in Eheldeth. Help me or stand back.”

“No!”

I charged the stone guardian as it got to its feet. She was right about one thing—I was swimming in agan, a rush that filled my lungs to the brim. It was painful to remember how I used to feel like this out in the real world, that even with my body in the way I could tug at the strings and be engulfed in an ocean at once. I tried to push the longing away and focused on the task at hand. The stone guardian’s weapon turned into a halberd—I managed to stop myself plunging right into its path as it crashed into the ground.

I leaped, aided by the agan, and used the halberd as a landing to catapult myself straight at its head.

The guardian lifted its other hand and struck me with a fist, which landed on my right arm. I managed to throw a shield just in time to avoid what felt like being blown into smithereens. The inhuman strength created a force that sent me flying through the air; I made another shield to soften my landing. Not a moment too soon. The guardian was bearing down on me now, its weapon having transformed into a broadsword this time. I could feel the air vibrating with the agan left behind in the spell. Good mages know a master craftsman’s work, and whoever left the spell on Kefier—a throwaway one, no matter how you looked at it—was merely showing off their abilities. Too much. The detail that went into the statue, the changing weaponry, all spoke of a mage who just didn’t know when to stop. There was absolutely no need for a protection spell this extravagant; most mages would have been content with things that make intruders explode.

I conjured another shield. The sword glanced off it, the tip crushing the ground next to my foot. I finally found an opening and slammed my staff into its neck. Using it as a conduit, I sent a pulse of agan deep into the guardian, not enough to destroy it. Just enough to peel back the layers of the spell.

My senses swam. I saw myself standing next to Kefier as a boy again, though one a few years older than the last memory I saw. He had his back to a wall, his hands balled into fists. I turned my head and saw a woman walking towards him. She had long, golden hair that went down to her back. A man stood behind her, brandishing a club.

“Don’t break him,” the man was saying. “You don’t want the bleeding hearts in the council screaming slavery. As far as they’re concerned, Dageis no longer takes in slaves.”

“But we don’t,” the woman said smoothly. “When did we ever? We just offer these poor, uncivilized children a way out of the muck of their lives. Honest pay for honest work—and who among them can claim they aren’t paid? Isn’t that right, boy?” She glanced at Kefier. The expression on her face told me she wasn’t really seeing him—not as a human being, anyway. She wasn’t even speaking for his sake.

He gritted his teeth, half-snarling. She smiled, amused. “I mean, look at this one. Nasty little savage. They use those teeth to strip coconuts, you know. It’s impressive, if you think about it. Useless skill, though. He needs to be put to work, and life as a mage-thrall is much more prestigious than toiling out in the farms. Pay’s better, too. Listen, boy. You have a chance to get out, to be someone and stand shoulders above those monkeys you call your kin. Consider this a gift.” Like a snake, she pounced on him, her hand grabbing his neck before he could say anything else.

“Careful, I said,” the man behind her called.

She hardly seemed to hear him. Kefier lashed out, but his fists only struck the air. “Hush now,” the woman crooned. “You’re acting so ungrateful. You do realize you’re here because you were trespassing on Dageian soil without the proper permits. Blame your parents for not giving you the citizenship required to step in this glorious kingdom. If you had stayed in your backward nation, where you belong, we wouldn’t have a problem. But you’re in Dageian property, which means you’re Dageian property, which means you do whatever we tell you to. Understand, boy?”

Kefier was rapidly losing air and slipping into unconsciousness, and the only thing stopping me from running up to him to help was the knowledge that this was just a replay. Nothing I did would matter—it had already happened. I watched helplessly as the mage pulled out a dagger and began to carve a spell right into his chest, slow and meticulously. She was enjoying every minute of this. The power she held over Kefier might just be the only power the Empire of Dageis allowed her to have, and she seemed determined to wield as much of it as she could. And though this seemed clear to the man behind her, to the point that it horrified him, he did nothing to stop it. As far as he was concerned, the sooner it was over with, the better.

I finally stepped forward to clasp my hand around the mage’s, just as she was about to finish her spell. “I’m sorry they couldn’t give you a better outlet for your talents,” I said, not really caring that she couldn’t hear me. “But even children who have grown up in worse places than Dageis know right from wrong. I’m sorry you can’t tell the difference, or don’t care to know. But your grip on my father ends here.”

I drew from the spell on her palm. In this particular instance, it was more than a memory; the spell remained etched somewhere in my father’s soul, a well of agan he had carried for most of his life. And I was using it now, at great risk to my own soul, to fix what was broken. The memory started to fade, drifting away like a wet painting dredged in a river. The mage’s face twisted into an expression that bordered on fury. I caught a faint echo of what she’d left behind. How dare I meddle with her masterpiece? She took pride in her work because she was good at it; because out of all the women and men they could have put in charge of stray children in the west, they chose her. I shouldn’t take it personally—Kefier wasn’t the only one. Thousands of children bore her mark. Thousands of children, of my own people…

The spell broke. I captured it like someone throwing a noose on a wild horse, directing it back to the present, to Kefier who still lay in a pool of his own blood. “She did give you a gift!” I found myself screaming as I toppled back into consciousness. “Wake up, Papa! Papa!”

Kefier’s eyes flickered, and I felt a gasp of life ebb inside his body. And then…

There was a flash. Something else was reacting to the spells.

Papa, I realized with a start. Papa was connected to the agan, too. The mage had severed the connection before anyone ever knew. And now that I had broken her spell, it was roaring anew, eager to consume everything in its path. Even me. And out here, I couldn’t protect myself half as well as I did on the other side. I screamed.

Our shared memory flared up for an instant. In it, I had fallen asleep on Papa’s lap, and he had reached down to tuck a hair over my ear. “No matter what they do to us, we have each other,” he whispered. “We’ll always have each other.”

The darkness swallowed me like the gaping maw of a dragon awakened from its slumber.

I woke up on a pillow drenched with tears. My body felt like it had detached at every joint. Every limb felt loose. I tried to get up and found myself tumbling straight to the ground instead, dragging blankets down with me. I kicked and screamed, as if the tangled sheets were an intruder. Someone yelled my name. The door opened a few feet away. Footsteps flooded the room.

“Papa?” I called, seeing his face. My heart tightened. No—I only wanted it to be him. The man who picked me up and returned me to the mattress wasn’t Kefier, but Enosh. “Where’s Papa?” I asked.

Enosh’s face darkened. “You’ve been asleep for days. Gods, Rosha. When will this foolhardiness end?”

My eyes watered. “Tell me my spell worked. Please. Tell me he’s alive.”

Enosh’s jaw tightened. “He’s alive,” he said. He sounded anything but pleased.

“There’s a but there somewhere. Gods be damned, Enosh, for once in your life care about someone’s feelings but yourself!”

His hands tightened around the sheets. “He’s alive. You’ve both been at death’s door the last few days, him closer than you. I don’t know why you did what you did. Why you risked your life for a man who by all rights should be dead already.”

“We’re talking about Kefier. I don’t know why you’re even asking.”

He swallowed. “I’m trying to find the words to tell you this without devastating you. The doctor…the doctor says Kefier’s internal organs are a mess. He doesn’t know how it happened. He wants to open him up, but I forbade it. We’re playing with fire here. My inclination is to let him heal and stabilize first, but he doesn’t think we have time—that if he is allowed to heal as it is, the damage might be permanent and he might die, anyway. He—” Enosh turned his head, striking the wall with his fist.

“Kefier isn’t dead, but he’s dying,” I repeated, trying to make the words stick.

Enosh took a deep breath. “And he won’t get better on his own. Trying to save him will kill him, anyway. The doctor is the best we could find from Lon Basden on short notice, but my gut says I need a second opinion. I’m heading to Drusgaya to find it. They have the best doctors there, and money isn’t an issue.”

“You need a mage, not a doctor,” I said. “I undid the protection spells left on him when they were turning him into a mage-thrall as a boy and used that to try to heal his wounds.”

He paused. “You’re insane.”

“It would have worked effortlessly,” I countered. “Except he tried to protect himself.”

“That would require him to have the gift in the agan.”

“He did,” I said.

Enosh’s eyes widened. “Impossible.”

“The spells they put on him blocked it somehow. But it was always there.”

“Even so, if my memory is correct, Kefier was at least twelve when that happened. The agan usually manifests itself earlier on, and I can tell you it didn’t with him.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

He stared at me, confused.

“You’re an oblivious man, Enosh Tar’elian,” I said. “Particularly when it comes to matters you don’t consider important enough to spend any time on.”

“If you’re going to accuse me of not caring for my brother again, this isn’t the time.”

“You got a woman pregnant, refused to communicate with her for years despite her best attempts, and you still had the audacity to act surprised when you met me—a full eight years later.”

He snorted. “I can be oblivious if I choose to be, yes. But this isn’t about that. I would have known if he had displayed any signs of being attuned to the agan. My father would have considered it a gift, and I would have loved having a right-hand man who understood everything I had to go through. But there were no signs—at all. You must be mistaken. A flaw in the spell you made, or—”

“I don’t make mistakes with my spells.”

“You inherited that arrogance from me. I’ll let it pass. What you believe you can’t do doesn’t change what could still happen.”

“Take me to him,” I said. “I’ll show you.”

Enosh frowned. “We don’t have time for this, but if it will shut you up…”

He took my hand and allowed me to use him as a crutch on the way out of the room. I was starting to get used to feeling like an invalid all the time, which probably wasn’t the sort of observation I wanted to linger on. He didn’t let me go even when he stopped to open the door to the room beside mine.

I saw my mother first, sitting on a chair next to a bed. Kefier lay with his face to the window. “The sun’s in his eyes,” I said. I limped over to tug at the curtains.

Sume grabbed my hand. “Let him get sunlight,” she said. “It might help.” Her voice sounded frail. She looked like she hadn’t slept in days.

“It’s just sunlight,” I gasped.

“You don’t always know what’s best for everyone,” she replied, curtly. “Stop pretending you do.”

The abruptness in her tone seemed to pull the rug out from underneath my feet. I opened my mouth and then closed it. She very rarely directed her anger at anyone. She could talk to you while she was angry, but she wasn’t like my fathers, who could scream at everyone and each other all day just to get a single point across. I felt like I had been slapped. “I’m not pretending at all,” I managed. “But—”

Her eyes hardened. “Right. No—you’re convinced you know what’s best, even when you don’t have a damn clue what you’re doing. You think if you go at it alone, you’ll soak up all the attention and praise you think you’re deserved, even when it’s all an utter failure.”

“Mother—”

Her voice started to shake. “You knew, ever since you first gained a spark of consciousness inside that big brain of yours, that he would do anything for you. Anything. All you had to do was ask. You know that he loves you more than the rest of us put together, his own sons included.”

My stomach unbuckled. “That’s not true.”

“It is. You know it is. Everyone came with baggage, Rosha, except you, because in his mind you’re the only person in the world who could love him for nothing. You never needed him—you never needed anyone, and for that reason your love meant more to him than anyone else’s.” She turned her head away, forcing back her tears. “I’ve accepted it from the beginning. What woman wouldn’t fall in love with a man who would risk his own life and limb for her daughter, even if she wasn’t his? But this—all of this…” Her face tightened. “Forget it. What’s done is done. My anger won’t solve this problem.”

But she couldn’t take back what she’d already said. For the first time in my life, I found myself at a loss for words. There was a time when I always had something to throw back at them. I, who was always so convinced the world would go my way if people just stopped and listened to what I needed, agreed with her. “I had to do what I had to do, Mother,” I found myself saying. “I couldn’t let him die. I didn’t know this would happen.”

“What were you two even doing in that tomb together?” Sume croaked out. “The last time I checked, he was missing, not running errands.”

“That’s what Ivasus had him doing,” I said. “And then we went to revive the old king.”

“Just like Enosh’s associate wanted,” Sume said, bitterly, her eyes falling on him. “This family could do with less secrets.”

“You and me both, my lady,” Enosh replied flatly. “She let you and the boys go. That’s the important thing.”

“Maybe.” Sume turned back to me. “Did you come here for something? He’s still asleep, as you can see. You should go back to bed, too. I’ve been told you’ve been pushing yourself to your limits. I don’t know anything about being a mage, but I can tell whatever you’re doing has been weighing on you. Maybe it’s time for you to take a step back and…rest.” It was forced politeness. The cold layer remained on her voice like frost after a wet winter’s night.

“I didn’t know Kefier’s body would react the way he did,” I said. “I was trying to redirect a spell left on him years ago.” I lifted my hand and allowed it to hover over his body.

Sume grabbed my scarred wrist before I could attempt to draw on the agan. Her thumb pressed lightly on the indentation on the flesh, and I could tell she wanted to comment on it. Instead she pushed my hand back on my lap. “Rest,” she ordered.

“He has a gift in the agan, too,” I replied. “Something has stopped him from embracing it all these years.” Against my mother’s will, I snapped my fingers. Nothing happened.

“Take her back to her room,” Sume said.

Enosh grabbed my arm. “Let’s go.”

“But—”

He said nothing as he half-dragged me out. In the hall, he slammed the door shut.

“You don’t believe me and yet you won’t let me prove it,” I hissed at his face.

“It’s got nothing to do with that,” Enosh said flatly. “Perhaps what you’re saying is correct. But it’s irrelevant.”

“Mother will want to know.”

He shook his head. “She’s in mourning.”

“He’s not dead yet!”

“Let her grieve, child!” he roared. And I realized then that there were tears in the corner of his eyes. Enosh, who never cried, was on the verge of a meltdown. He turned his head, as if just noticing this himself. “Let us all grieve,” he said in a lower voice. “By all the gods, Rosha, give us a break. We’ve been through enough.”

“You said you were going to Drusgaya to find a better doctor,” I said. “You told me you were going to try!”

His eyes flashed.

“You don’t really believe it will work,” I gasped. “You’re giving up on him already. You always—”

“I’m warning you,” Enosh said. “Don’t make this worse than it already is.”

“Sume was right. Nobody in this family loves him half as much as I do.” Leaving those words hanging in the air, I limped down the hallway alone.

CHAPTER 36

NASUHA

It had been days, but every time Nasuha closed her eyes, she found herself catapulted back to that terrifying moment when she watched the Gorenten king emerge from the tunnel leading down to his crypt, claws first. She had been on patrol with Tar’elian, sitting on the edge of the forest; the mercenaries that had gone on before her had said there had been newcomers, but they had missed them.

When the High King’s mummified corpse appeared, she immediately realized she should have been more alert. Ivasus—she should have figured that his arrival didn’t bode well, at least. Whatever he’d done to the king was beyond what Mistress Rasiad had in mind. When she saw him stumbling a few feet ahead in terror, her first inclination was to step back and let the undead king have his way with him. The man was a blight on their plans, as far as she was concerned, never mind Mistress Rasiad’s reasoning. You didn’t work with a mad man. She could tell Tar’elian was thinking the same thing, the way he considered the mage with an expression bordering on disgust. Here was a figure who considered himself worthy of toppling down the best the empire had to offer, cowering like a little boy.

“You willing to take bets on what limb gets ripped off first?” she ventured.

Enosh gave a short, harsh laugh and paused, as if even that question was too far for him. But then he smiled and said, “His rotten little head.”

A figure appeared behind the undead king. Nasuha blinked and recognized Felan. He spotted them too, and immediately pointed back at the crypt, his face dripping with sweat. “Rosha,” he mouthed.

Beside her, Enosh swore.

Nasuha didn’t need more than that. She drew her sword and tore down the hillside, down to the staircase where Felan had just emerged. An explosion rattled from behind, but she paid it no heed. If Tar’elian was smart, he would call on the men to surround the thing, Ivasus’s mages be damned.

She found Rosha doubled over on the ground beside a man, whom Nasuha recognized as Tar’elian’s brother. Both were unconscious, covered in blood. Undeterred, she reached down to grab Rosha by the shoulders, hauling her up. She lay limp in Nasuha’s arms, but she was breathing.

“Idiot girl,” Nasuha said to her face. She set her down again, in a much more comfortable position. “Dumb, idiot girl. Never did know when to give up, did you?”

Because whatever Rosha had done, one thing was clear to her: she’d thrown all caution to the wind once again. The look of determination was etched on her face, reminding Nasuha of what she used to tell herself. I’ll beat the odds. Sometimes the things you tell yourself lose all meaning, become nothing more than background noise. How does one beat the odds when one doesn’t make that first step herself? She’d given up before she’d even started, after all. One little setback, two…she had looked at all her disadvantages and decided she was doomed to failure, anyway. Better to reject the world before it rejected you.

But Rosha didn’t think like that. Getting to know her the past few months had taught her one surprising thing: Rosha knew the odds, too. Perhaps not the same way she did, but there was no question that Rosha didn’t grow up considering herself among the Dageian elite who entered Eheldeth every year. She could have left Eheldeth at any time after what Nasuha did to her. With fading magic and nothing riding on her but her pride, she chose to stay instead. Nasuha could only imagine the courage that took her through those years with nothing but a hunch and her own, damned belief that somehow, somehow, she was going to make it work.

And now she was dying. There was no way to put it lightly. She was dying on that floor, her body unable to contain whatever strain she’d decided to put it through. Nasuha likened it to a dam about to burst. “Hold tight, you little bitch,” Nasuha said, loosening Rosha’s collar so she could press a palm on her chest. If she could unblock a few of her own spells in time to stop Rosha’s body from becoming obliterated by the agan, she might stand a chance.

“What are you doing?” Felan’s voice called from the staircase.

“Back off, Lord Cartos,” she said. “This isn’t safe. Stray magic gets into things. I don’t have to school you.”

His eyes were on her hand. “Stray magic—what’s happening?” The glow appeared at her fingertips. “You’re a mage?”

“And here I was going to surprise you on your birthday with a show.”

“You’ve been a mage all this damned time?”

This wasn’t how she wanted any of them to find out, but Nasuha forced herself to nod. “And if you would just give me the room to do this, it will be over soon. I don’t think we have time.”

“What are you going to do? I can’t let you harm her.”

“This won’t harm, hopefully.”

Felan drew a dagger from his belt and waved it in her direction. “Then explain!”

Nasuha kept an eye on his blade. She wondered if he had the guts to use it, never mind if he did have the skill for it. But the boy’s courage was commendable. Commendable, and inconvenient. She didn’t want his death on her hands, either. And she had to hurry. She had to say something.

“I know the spell that blocked her,” she said. “I can’t reverse it, but I can carefully chip away at some of the connections to alleviate her suffering. I can only do it while she’s unconscious.”

“How do you know this?” Sharp eyes, staring at her. He was always intelligent, that boy, and with only a fraction of the naivety that made Rosha easier to deal with. She’d been wondering why he’d been hiding it all this time, pretending to be agreeable and allowing Rosha to take the lead in all things. Adopted or not, he was Lord Cato’s only son, and she knew he was capable of more. Perhaps it was his way of nursing his injured pride. Perhaps the thought that Rosha did what he couldn’t do had kept it all under a lid.

But there it was now—that barbed tongue and sharp wit. She had to bite back a smile. The dagger wasn’t a threat. Her eyes glanced briefly on the scars along his arms, which mirrored Rosha’s. The two had found a way to survive together, in spite of everything. Not just commendable. Astounding. Worthy of examination, at the very least. It was the sort of thing she needed to set Mistress Rasiad aside for and talk about, if she had the time and everything wasn’t crashing over their heads right now. Maybe they shouldn’t have been so hasty. You weren’t supposed to fear the youth. Look at them—in spite of everything, they had figured it out. Why douse that fire? Just because the world wasn’t kind to them didn’t mean they couldn’t learn to be kind in return.

It occurred to Nasuha that she wasn’t young anymore. Her moment had come and gone without sparking, a flame lit in the depths of the sea. The whole substance of it, everything that drove her once upon a time, was now in that boy’s eyes. She’d been lying to herself. She’d chosen the easier road, no matter how difficult it felt at the time. By choosing to run, by choosing the battles that nursed only rage and nothing else, she’d given up on that little girl who thought she could be everything. She had envied these children for the opportunities seemingly handed to them on a silver platter, and now she was envying them for their courage. Envy was nothing but a poison that had rotted her to the core. Perhaps it was time to step out into the sunlight and choose something else.

“Because I did it,” Nasuha said, gazing back into Felan’s eyes.

They widened. Of all the answers he had been girding himself for, this wasn’t it.

“You,” he began.

“It was me, Felan,” she said softly. “I was the stranger in the library. Mistress Rasiad supplied me with the spell. We didn’t want children like you and Rosha to turn into Dageis’s weapons. You, because of who your father was. Rosha, because of what her father couldn’t be.” She hesitated. “I killed your father, too.”

She didn’t know which of the news hurt him the most. He stood there, trying to wrap his thoughts around it. “And you pretended you’ve been helping us all this time?” he finally gasped.

He couldn’t mask the outrage in his voice. Nasuha took a deep breath and shook her head. “I wasn’t pretending. I know that might be hard to believe, but right now, I just need to undo a bit of the damage I’ve dealt, if you would let me.” She took a deep breath. “I never wished harm on either of you, but it felt necessary at the time. Look at what Eheldeth did to Ivasus. Look what it turned him into.”

“We would have never stooped so low.”

“Are you sure? You were Lord Cato’s son.” The words must have hurt more than she intended them to, because his face slowly darkened. He allowed his hand, the one holding the dagger, to fall to his side.

“Save her,” Felan said in a low voice. “I’ll deal with you later. For now, save her, if what you say is true. Save her if it’s the last thing you do.”

She didn’t waste another moment. She grounded her body before diving into Rosha’s.

Whatever Rosha was busy with kept her full attention. Nasuha was happy to leave her to it; it was better that way. She found the channels again, just like last time. The first one she’d stumbled on showed how fraught Rosha’s situation was. The agan stream pounding against the blockage had turned into a monster.

The agan wasn’t strictly souls or spirits. To Nasuha, the most accurate description for it was consciousness. It followed the same rules as one’s mind, the same beats, the same flow. What you could conjure, you could shape, you could control, you could use against another. You just had to find a way to let it exist outside of you. It was why it was commonly accepted that general education and skill in the agan went hand-in-hand. The strongest mages had the strongest minds. Mistress Rasiad used to say that attacking a group of mages was easy enough if you could sniff out who pissed themselves first. They always proved to be the weakest links.

Rosha wasn’t that. Rosha had a mind you had to be careful with. The monster was a clear sign. The years Rosha had spent unable to tap into those channels had resulted in a beast that seemed to have walked straight out of a nightmare. It had three eyes with a light you could only describe as corpse-like. Its mouth was pinched at the tip, like a beak made out of flesh. It had five arms and eight legs. And even though in the agan you weren’t supposed to have senses, Nasuha found herself swimming in a distinct sensation that she couldn’t scrub out of her skull no matter how hard she tried: it felt as if she was standing there having eaten her fill of a rotting carcass. A sick, nauseating stench was rising from her own belly, and she knew the creature in front of her was to blame.

Nasuha forced the nausea down, conjured a sword, and rushed it.

The creature stepped out of the bank where it had been walking for so long it had dug furrows in the bottom of the stream and charged her. Half-dead as it seemed, it moved with a litheness that surprised Nasuha. It was more than a monster—the thing was battle-ready. She had to bite back that rush of envy again. Only Rosha could conjure such guardians unconsciously. Frustration, rejection, failure…to her, these were nothing but words. Somehow, the woman who had spent years carving out her own flesh to keep herself upright had grown stronger. She didn’t know it, but she had. The thought that she had nothing to lose and no one to impress had made her into a force to be reckoned with. Before Nasuha’s sword even touched the beast, she knew she was in for the fight of her life.

She wasn’t wrong.

One of the creature’s arms struck her, and she barely rolled out of the way in time to avoid her body from getting broken in half. She fixed her footing, angled her sword down, and pushed herself forward, aiming for one of its legs. It turned on a dime, feet crushing the ground beneath them. She sank her sword into her target, willing her mind to fuel her muscles and cut through. She managed to slice the offending limb, which felt like attempting to slice a hunk of meat with a butter knife.

It tried to twist around again to attack her. Too many limbs, all at once. Rosha was talented, but Nasuha ought to be glad the thing wasn’t made by her conscious mind, because she knew she would be the first to point out the design flaw. The monster found itself tangled in its own arms and legs. Nasuha managed to cut her way out as it attempted to strangle her where she stood. It eventually reached down to pluck her from the ground with its razor-sharp teeth; Nasuha flung the hacked off leg she still carried around straight into its face.

It grabbed it out of reflex. She turned around and lunged, her blade forming a vertical arc. As the monster wrestled with its own leg in its mouth, she sank her sword between its eyes. A flash of blue, a spray of blood, and her blade went all the way through, cutting the thing in half. As both sides of it fell in a heap of rotting guts and flesh, Nasuha turned to the side and began to vomit. The black liquid that spewed out of her belly had the same substance as what she’d just defeated, and it felt like it wanted to crawl out of her mouth forever.

Eventually, she got a moment to breathe. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and looked up in time to see the monster’s body dissolving back into the stream. The surge from the flow on that side was enough to dislodge the rocks blocking the current. She felt the air rumble and knew Rosha’s consciousness was drifting back into her body; if she stayed there too long, it was going to be disastrous for both of them. She quickly propelled herself out.

Felan grabbed her by the collar right before she crashed into the wall. His eyes seemed to pierce a hole into hers as she struggled to return to her bearings. After a moment, he pushed her away and turned to Rosha. “They’re still unconscious,” he said.

“But safe, I think,” Nasuha whispered. She could still taste the corpses in her mouth. She had the inkling that Rosha’s other channels would be much, much more difficult to open up. It was easier to break things than to fix them. “Get Tar’elian to bring men to carry them out of here. We have another problem out there.” She stumbled back to the staircase.

Felan stood blocking her path.

“I said—”

“Tell me why I shouldn’t run you down right now,” Felan said. His hand was still gripping his dagger. “Tell me why I shouldn’t get my revenge for what you did to me. To us!” He looked spent. The years he must have sat in rage, not knowing where to direct it, was coming back to haunt him.

Nasuha narrowed her eyes. “Because if you do, you would have proven me right,” she said. “You would show yourself a worthy successor to your father’s murderous legacy.”

Felan recoiled from the accusation like a child accidentally touching a hot pan. His hesitation was all Nasuha needed. She left them to join the chaos outside, which was only growing louder. By the time she located the undead king, it had already cut through half a dozen mercenaries. The field sprawling up ahead looked like a meadow strewn with red flowers from all the blood.

“Get to your family, Tar’elian,” she called as she passed Enosh. She didn’t have time to worry about his reaction—she made her way up the hill, where Caiso was keeping a healthy distance from the spectre.

“What the hell is that thing?” he roared, as soon as she came within earshot.

“Our salvation,” she said. “Apparently.”

Caiso spat to the side. “You’re kidding.”

She wasn’t when she’d first spoken. But suddenly, the absurdity struck her. This is what they were counting on to give back everything the Dageians had taken from them? This? She gazed at the carnage the thing had left in its path and saw Ivasus in the center of it all. He was forming a shield while screaming at his men to protect him.

“Is it just going after him?” Nasuha asked.

Caiso nodded. “This is why I’m here, and unscathed.” He thumbed his nose before pointing a stained finger in the distance. “It seems to react to movement within a certain perimeter from where it’s standing.”

She nodded. “And within that, everything else is an irritation. It’s Ivasus it wants.” She flicked her sword to the side and dashed down to the field, where Ivasus was now struggling to keep his shield up. He didn’t even look like he’d tried to fight the thing at all—there wasn’t a single scratch on him. He looked startled when she appeared and struck him with a spell from behind. He dropped the shield.

Nasuha grabbed his arm, yanking him back just in time as the undead king’s sword crashed in their direction.

“What—” Ivasus began.

“Run,” she said. “For the shore. Run, and don’t look back.”

He stumbled forward, as if her words were all he needed to justify to himself that he wasn’t a coward after all. The undead king’s assault turned to her, and she dropped a shield and left it there. Willing her legs to move faster, she dropped another, and then another. In less than a few breaths, she had it surrounded by several shields, all of which could be broken easily. But meeting the thing’s assault wasn’t what she had in mind. She dropped one last spell, one meant to disconnect her connection to the shields and pass it over to what would be the next mage, if there was one.

But only the king stood nearby. The spell latched on to him, drawing on the agan that somehow kept him alive. Only then did she sprint away, towards where Tar’elian and his men were extracting his daughter and brother from the ruins.

“Leave it,” Nasuha said, to his look of confusion. “We’re too far away from the bastard. Look.”

The undead king stood still, sword hanging loosely in its hands as it seemed to stare in the distance in confusion. The shields, which remained intact, were blocking its view of everyone. As fragile as they were, they did the trick.

“Maggots have rotted his brain,” Enosh said. “So we’re just going to leave him there?”

“Until we figure out what to do with him, yes.”

“Your Mistress will have something to say about that. I thought her plan was to bring this thing right to the council.”

Nasuha took a deep breath. “She can do it herself,” she said at last.

He looked amused, as if he knew exactly what it meant.

Felan appeared in her room with a bowl of rice porridge, chasing the memories away. “Rosha’s awake,” he said.

“That’s good news,” Nasuha replied, taking the bowl from him. She didn’t know who had been doing the cooking this time, but this one smelled marginally better than the oatmeal sludge they had the day before. She dipped a spoon into the steaming concoction and took a taste. It was laced with chicken broth, ginger, and scallions, which was better than she’d expected. Tar’elian must have followed through with his promise of hiring a decent cook.

Felan’s face twitched. “Shall I tell her, or will you?” he asked.

Nasuha set the bowl down. “And here I thought you were bringing me breakfast out of the goodness of your heart.”

“She’s got family troubles at the moment,” Felan said. “I wasn’t sure how to approach it.”

“How about not at all? Knowing how their family is like, sounds like she doesn’t need more on her plate.”

“She needs to know what you did. If she doesn’t, she will never get past it.”

Nasuha sighed. “Maybe you’re right.”

“I’m right,” Felan said evenly. “Consider that I can do more in light of this news. All I’m asking is that you be straightforward with her.”

“And then?” she asked. “How do I deal with her wrath, and the rest of the Tar’elians? What are they supposed to do with the knowledge that I’ve betrayed them?”

“Penance isn’t easy,” Felan said. “Trust in their generosity. You did save all of us back there.”

She sighed. “I don’t know if making so many enemies in less than a week is wise. But if it will set your mind at ease, then I’ll tell her.”

He gave a small nod before walking out.

CHAPTER 37

ROSHA

No library existed in Lon Basden that would tell me what I didn’t already know. For one thing, it wasn’t exactly seen as a necessary resource in those parts. As far as Dageis was concerned, Lon Basden was just a backwater city you sent your family on vacation to get them out of the way of much more important businesses. The growing number of Gorenten citizens amongst the city’s population wasn’t seen as a priority; they would be lucky to be considered an afterthought. It was one of the reasons Enosh had been so eager to ship me out of there when I was little. There weren’t any good schools—the closeness in proximity to the Gorenten islands and the fact that the city itself was built on old Gorenten territory had the Dageians fearing that their own people would turn native, and they thought it best to starve the city of resources. The best and brightest weren’t going to come out of Lon Basden, not if they could help it.

But I didn’t have anywhere else to go that would take me away from the suffocating grip of my family’s problems. I figured jogging my memory on the basics was a good start. It was a well-known fact, after all, that the reason you tried not to mess around with the agan too much was because you didn’t know how people were going to react. Mages dared around those they called blind to the agan all the time, but they considered those connected to the agan a different matter altogether—a sort of lofty assumption that saw some people as easier to control than others. I suppose I was just as guilty of that pompousness. Now Kefier was doomed to a slow death because of me, because I presumed. I could have taken precautions. I could have respected his space more. I could have accepted his death. And if I couldn’t fix my mistake in time…

I pushed the books away, the words in them making me ill. I was starting to see the empire’s greatest folly unfolding in front of my eyes. Everything could be reduced to words. People are complex. Everything that is alive or was once alive is complex. And yet the empire, in its quest to be seen as a harbinger of knowledge and bastion of enlightenment in all corners of the world, chose to create neat categories that painted over the truth. Simple lies, masquerading as fact. Forget the thousands of subtleties; here, here is the only way to do it. Stray from it, and you’re wrong, and if you’re wrong, you have no value. You don’t fit in. You don’t matter. Enosh once told me that the Dageians’ destroying Gorenten records was only part of the problem; the glaring issue was that there weren’t a lot of records in the first place. Gorenten mages passed down knowledge mage-to-mage, leaving no room for misinterpretation. The elders molded you with precision instead of forcing you into an image of what they thought a mage ought to be.

Well, where were they now? All these years of struggling, and they couldn’t even show themselves in a dream or a vision, those sages of the past. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. I’d wasted my gifts. Perhaps someone better, more worthy, could have done more with it. I probably wasn’t as good a mage as I always thought I was, or else I wouldn’t have made such a fatal error. The thought made my eyes blur with tears, made it harder to read. I didn’t notice I wasn’t alone till I’d wiped them.

Nasuha pushed the books away. “I just heard what happened with Kefier.”

“If all you want to do is offer sympathies, I’d rather not talk about it.” I started to grab the books back, even though I must’ve already gone through them twice at least. I just needed something to do, and reading words was comforting, at least.

Nasuha blocked my arm. “I may know a way to undo the damage.” She gave a grim smile. “But you won’t like it.”

“In case you haven’t been paying attention, insane solutions seem to be my specialty, Nasuha. Give me anything. I’ll consider it.”

Nasuha took both my arms in her hands and turned them upward, showing the scars. She stared at them longer than I expected her to.

“What—” I began.

“First, I want to say I’m sorry,” she said.

My skin tingled. “For what?” I croaked out.

Her eyes softened. “I can’t lie and tell you I didn’t know what I was doing. I knew. Deep down inside, I knew what it would do to you.”

I pulled away. “I don’t understand.”

“I blocked your connections to the agan, Rosha,” Nasuha said softly. “That stranger in the library—that was me. I was the one who took your magic away.”

I had always prided my ability to take in information. A book that took my classmates weeks, if not months to read, I could finish in a few hours. I knew how to parse it all down to the most important pieces, usually by noticing patterns and rearranging them to manageable chunks so that by the time I sat down with the details, it already more or less made sense. I made connections before I even knew what they were good for, figured out answers before the questions were even asked.

What Nasuha just told me caught me like a rabbit in a hunter’s trap. The fact fit nowhere. I almost wanted to ask if she made a mistake, if she meant something else, but the look on her face told me to shut up and think. Think. The memory of that night, the storm, the smell of the rain in the wind was etched into my consciousness. I’d resigned myself to that image and the knowledge that I would never know anything more all these years. Nasuha. Was it Nasuha? I didn’t even want to believe her. I took a deep breath, squinted. In most of my recollections, I had been convinced it was a man. Women of Nasuha’s height and her thick, muscular frame were rare. Another mistake, though one not as great as the fact that I’d let this woman into my life without knowing all that much about her. Was she connected to the agan, too? The intruder had been. I never checked Nasuha; I had very little energy to spare on needless tasks. I trusted her. I trusted her too soon.

Somehow, my body seemed to know more than my brain and pushed me to get out of the way. I got up. She grabbed my wrist and yanked me back to my seat.

“I know this is a lot—” she began.

“A lot?” I gasped. “No. No. It’s—” I felt like someone was striking my head and I needed to get out of there fast, if only to get a chance to breathe. “It can’t be you,” I finally said. “That person was…I remember the way they moved…the way they flung Felan to the corner like they didn’t care if he lived or died after what they did. We were left in those ruins in the rain. It was flooding. If they hadn’t found us in time, we would have drowned. Everyone said so. If that person was you, you didn’t just steal our magic. You left us to die.”

I wanted my words to break the sudden haze of uncertainty. If she stopped now and told me she was just making a joke, even one I couldn’t understand, I was willing to let it go.

Instead, Nasuha took a deep breath. “I know.”

“We…we were children.”

“I know,” she repeated. “I was there for Felan under Mistress Rasiad’s orders. I was supposed to show you that you weren’t safe inside those walls by using him as an example. But I went too far. I decided I wanted to teach you a lesson, too. I spent years in Eheldeth before that, working with the staff. I knew you. You probably don’t remember me, but I knew you, and I saw what Eheldeth was teaching children like you. I knew you would never listen to reason. Unless it happened to you too, you would go on to use your skills to help the empire, not stop it.” She bared her arm, showing me her own scars. Burn marks. I should have figured her story about her father was, at the very least, an exaggeration.

“You were born with a connection to the agan,” I said.

“In Gorent, children like you and me are called the Lost Ones. Children cursed with the touch of the agan. But I didn’t explain that it was a Dageian lie. Such legends didn’t exist like that in the old days. They thought if they could make us get rid of our own, they wouldn’t have to deal with hordes of Gorenten mages in the future.”

“How was hurting me supposed to help you?” I asked, my voice finally rising.

“All I knew was that you were one of the most powerful students in Eheldeth and they were going to use you as a weapon. I—”

“You treated me like they treated me,” I said. “You were frightened of me.”

“More than that,” Nasuha whispered. “I wanted what you had.”

“So you took me down instead. Did that give you anything, in return? Did it make you more powerful?”

“No,” Nasuha said. “It set us back.”

“You put me in a position where I had no choice but to assist you, or damn myself forever trying to run and hide in this blasted empire. You—”

“You’re allowed to be angry.” Her voice remained calm.

I swallowed. I still wasn’t sure what I was feeling. A part of me wanted to curl up in a ball and scream. The rest wanted to burn things down. “Kefier,” I said, turning away from her. I didn’t want to look her in the eyes again. I trusted so few people already, and I thought she was one of the few I could. “He’s more important than this. You were going to tell me how to save him. Tell me, and maybe I won’t tear you apart.”

She nodded. “There is no guarantee. There never is, with the agan. But happened with him was caused by a reaction to it. All you need to do is put a seal back up, stopping the flow from within his body, which will cause it to relax and abandon the defences. The tension causing his organs to distort will disappear.”

“Then he’ll die,” I said. “Agan is what’s keeping him alive, too. He was bleeding uncontrollably before I managed to rearrange those connections. If you’re proposing we cast Elian’s Heart on him, he will die.”

She shook her head. “Not necessarily. You just need to cut some of the connections. It’s…it’s the same thing I did with you. Elian’s Heart is a spell that blocks all connections to the agan instantly, but if you have another mage on standby, ready to reconnect some of them…”

“We would just have to redirect the flow to where we need it,” I said, clicking my tongue. With a solution in front of me, it was difficult not to think of anything else. “Relieve the tension, but not remove everything. Yes. It could work.”

Nasuha looked almost apologetic, but I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of forgiveness after what she’d just confessed. I just wanted to save Kefier.

I tapped the table. “Can you cast the spell now? On him? At this very instant? I can reconnect the channels.”

She shook her head. “Kefier’s body has already been alerted by your attempts. You’ll need to break down the defences, too. This second mage must be someone who can do the reconnections at the exact moment I need them to, which means anyone but you.”

“Enosh could be one, maybe. He’s not a good mage, but reconnecting threads…I could guide him.”

“Whoever wades into this thing will be risking his life,” Nasuha said. “Could you ask him that?”

I hesitated. Already, I was playing that dangerous game of trading one father for the other. I didn’t know how I was going to bring such an idea up to him. I knew if you prodded Enosh the right way, he could be guilt-tripped, but I could still feel the traces of that morning’s argument and had no desire to talk to him anytime soon.

She seemed to know what was going through my head. “There’s another thing. I was able to cast the spell I did on you because the spell-blocks made it safer. For Kefier, casting Elian’s Heart on him directly will probably backfire on the caster. I’ll need a buffer. Better yet—if I can get someone else to cast the spell while I do the reconnections…someone who knows how to cast it, and is in fact such an expert at it that he could cast it in his sleep…maybe the source of the spell itself…”

I swallowed. “The old king,” I ventured.

Nasuha’s eyes flashed. “That could work.”

“How do we can convince him to cast the spell on the very man he tried to kill?”

She crossed her arms. “More than that. A king who was revived at the cusp of a murderous rampage. But the mage whose crystal you used must have taken over. Lord Vazon, you said? Securing his cooperation will be tricky, especially if he’s not exactly conscious. But maybe we don’t need to hold a proper dinner meeting with the damn thing. The walking corpse is still the king’s. It still holds a map of the last spell he ever cast inside of it. We just have to find a way to keep him immobile while someone wades into his agan channels and triggers the spell from within.” She glanced at me. “This, you could do, I think. I can’t promise it’ll be safe, but you did say you were fine with insanity.”

“It’s something. And if only we knew how to control the damn thing…” I got up and walked away from the table. She followed me.

Felan was waiting for us outside on the street. “Ivasus is gone,” he immediately said. He fixed Nasuha with a steely gaze. “I take it she’s told you everything.”

I nodded.

“And you’re not angry?” he asked.

“I will be once I’ve saved my father,” I said. “Where did Ivasus go?”

He handed me a letter.

I opened it. Ivasus, for some reason, had decided to pen a note that was almost affectionate. He spoke about how pleased he was that I’d gotten better. That he wanted to say his goodbyes in person, but wasn’t sure I was up to it, never mind the angry looks everyone else was throwing him. But he was glad I had faith in him. So glad that he was going to show me just how he was going to prove himself.

I closed the letter and turned to both Felan and Nasuha. “The asshole just went back for the undead king,” I said. “He says he intends to bring it to Eheldeth to destroy the very foundation on which the empire sits.”

“How does he plan on doing that?” Felan asked.

I glanced at the back of the letter. “He didn’t say.”

“He must have found help,” Nasuha replied. “It’s got to be the mistress. She’s the only one with the resources for this.”

“Must have reached out to him while we were all busy,” I said.

“Should we head back to the tomb?” Felan asked.

I hesitated. The conversation I’d had with Nasuha was still fresh on my mind. Perhaps Ivasus had just handed me the answer to my problem. The answer, in fact, to all our problems. “There’s no point in stopping him if he’s got his mind set,” I replied. “In fact, perhaps the best thing we should do is stay out of his damn way.”

Felan’s eyes widened. “He’s going to set that creature loose on the council. You understand what that means, don’t you?”

“An upheaval,” I said. “Chaos. The inevitable reckoning to all of Dageis’s crimes. And I’m willing to let him do it, if it helps me save Kefier.”

Felan took a deep breath, but he didn’t try to stop me.

The ability to run on spite seems like a special sort of heaven and hell at once. I didn’t think I would ever understand it until then. Now that I was on the verge of losing Kefier, I suddenly saw everything clearly. I suddenly saw what was wrong with the world and how that wrongness had made it impossible for some to ever achieve a life of peace. Every injustice seemed to stand out like a beacon in the night. There was probably an irony in that, too: that I only understood when I, too, was neck-deep in the fire. The same way Ivasus only really cared about anything when he realized his life was slipping right between his fingers. Therein lay Rasiad’s frustrations: people are moved to action only when it suits them. The suffering of others is a distraction, at best.

Spite fuelled me through our travel preparations. Airships would have taken us to Eheldeth the fastest, but it was all but impossible to charter one for private use and it was ultimately decided that a regular ship travelling along the coast was the only way to transport Kefier safely. I pretended to listen to Enosh as he laid out his plans.

“We’ve got to play it safe,” Enosh said, his eye on me. “Rushing headlong into this might lead us all to something we regret. Who knows what else Ivasus has up his sleeve? If some of you had trusted me before, perhaps none of this would have happened.”

“Blame isn’t necessary,” Sume broke in. “Though I would like to know who thought it was a good idea to let the man walk around without a guard or two. We own a mercenary company—you think we’d have the blades to spare.”

He gave her a look that could curdle milk. “In case you’ve forgotten, we were preoccupied.”

“That man belongs in chains.”

“We didn’t think he would try again. The thing wanted to kill him.”

“Your mistress got to him. Of course he would try again.”

Enosh sighed. “This is my family, too,” he said in a low voice. “Let me make the decisions here. For once.”

“And here I thought that was what you’ve been doing all these years,” she smoothly shot back.

“Not when you’ve been busy making children with my brother behind my back,” he growled under his breath.

Sume had been holding a pencil in one hand; it snapped. For a second, I had the vision of her jabbing him in the eye with it. “Are you done?” she asked instead.

He shrugged. “I can’t tell if it’s me you’re actually angry with, or the whole damn world.”

“Of course it’s the whole damn world,” she retorted. “But here you are, conveniently irritating as always.”

Enosh didn’t reply. He looked like he actually regretted speaking at all, or perhaps knew that what was going on inside his head was best kept there. Instead, he folded the map in his hands, looking like he was actually trying to rip it apart instead, which was my cue to walk out of the room. I walked all the way to the deck, to step on seawater-drenched wood and feel the blast of the icy wind on my face.

As soon as the full blast of the sea breeze reached my lungs, I turned my head to the waves splashing against the side of the ship, and screamed.

I didn’t ask to be any of this: to be constantly pulled in all directions by things that had nothing to do with me. That my parents were a product of their circumstances, of the burdens of their people, shouldn’t have anything to do with me. Why couldn’t I go anywhere or do anything without being dragged back into what made me? Why couldn’t I just be myself? Why couldn’t I just exist?

I heard footsteps behind me. Expecting it to be Enosh, I turned around, gearing myself up for another argument and what it meant that I both loathed my family to my very core and yet couldn’t live without it. But instead, I saw Felan staring back at me. Without a word, he leaned over the railing, tiptoeing forward so he could look over the ocean, as if he meant to throw himself overboard. There, he took a deep breath and followed what I’d just done, cursing at the open wind so loud I felt the timbers of the ship quake. I had never seen him that upset before. And for the first time ever, I saw that everything I dealt with, he had to deal with, too. He just had the one dead father, of course, but the man had actually done things he couldn’t just ignore. Mine were far from perfect, but they weren’t Lord Cato. And unlike me, he was alone. All he’d ever had was his father, and now even the memory of him was tainted.

He wiped his face and turned to me. “When this is all over, let’s go to Sorna.”

“Together?” I asked.

He pushed himself away from the railing until only his fingers were touching it and nodded. “She said the channels were blocked. There must be a way to unblock them. There are mages there, too. If not there, somewhere in the world. We don’t know everything there is to know. I’m sure there’ll be answers out there.” And then, realizing what I’d just said, he nodded again. “And yes. Together.” He grabbed hold of my hand.

I flushed. The warmth was more than I expected. Tentatively, I squeezed back, and he pulled me into him until my forehead was right on his chest. His arms wrapped around my body.

Funny enough, the first thing that dropped into my mind was when had he grown so tall? The little boy I’d loathed for far too many years had grown up. The little boy I had resigned as a pest I would never be rid of was now someone I would willingly follow to the ends of the earth. No decision I had ever made in my life ever made half as much sense as this one did. I used to think falling for someone was like locking yourself up in a cage and throwing away the key, and perhaps I had resigned myself to the idea that it wasn’t for me. But this felt more like freedom. I wanted to analyze why that was, but I didn’t really want to ruin the moment. There was a time to dig into it later, I supposed.

Because…I hadn’t said it yet, but I knew the answer was yes. More than that. Whatever future lay ahead, I suddenly realized I wanted him to be in it.

I placed my hands on his chest. I reached up to kiss him, and…

The ship shook as it turned. Felan’s arm grabbed my waist, stopping me from planting head-first into the railing. I looked up and noticed another boat in the distance—a smaller vessel. It was sailing towards us at top speed.

Enosh stepped out on the deck, followed closely by Nasuha. His eyes scanned the horizon and settled on the ship. He didn’t look surprised. “It’s time,” he announced.

I stepped away from Felan. “What do you mean?”

“Ship’s taking us to the port so we can get to Eheldeth faster,” Nasuha said.

“By us, she means us, not including you,” Enosh added, looking a tad irritated that she’d spoken before he had a chance to.

“You’re not leaving me,” I said.

He stared into my eyes for half a second before shaking his head. “If you ever feel the desire to question why I hid this from you, you have your answer right there. You’re smart, Rosha. I don’t think you need me to tell you why I’m making this choice.”

He lunged, grabbing my wrist before I knew what was happening. There was a glint in his eye. My first instinct was to throw up a shield-spell, and it was the correct one. His own spell struck me on the side, glancing off the weak shield and striking the wooden deck hard enough to splinter it. I could barely contain my surprise. The asshole was actually attacking me.

Without thinking about it, I turned and threw my own right at him.

The days of rest and Nasuha’s most recent unblocking of the channels of my magic had given me the confidence to cast more spells in succession than the last few months had allowed me. I figured I had five, maybe six, before I lost the energy and had to start bleeding myself again. From what I knew of Enosh, he wasn’t even that good of a mage, and I figured I could knock him off his smug feet if I could just catch him unaware. Perhaps the man just simply needed someone to put him in his place after all these years. Who better than the daughter he had abandoned for most of her childhood?

I charged. He looked shocked I would. He really thought one blow would do it. One blow would be enough to floor me, of all mages? I had to hold back my laughter. I dropped another shield, waiting for that split second when he would inevitably attempt to break it to get to me. His reflexes, I noticed, were too slow. When he finally lifted his arm, I spun on my heel and darted around him in a wide circle.

He managed to throw his spell just as I changed directions. “Quit showing off,” he snapped, his hand dropping to his sword.

“You’re old and slow,” I said. “Are you going to cut me down, Father? Your own daughter, because you’re convinced you know better than her? You should have done it a long time ago. I’ve always wanted to tell you how funny I thought it was that you felt like you had to carry a sword around all these years. Only weak mages carry swords.”

“Your education has rotted your brain,” Enosh retorted. “Maybe I should have listened to Kefier. Maybe I should have left you in Gorent and let the elders decide what to do with you.”

I held myself back from throwing the next spell. “What?”

He shrugged. “You heard me. You knew he didn’t want you here. If he had his way, your abilities to the agan would have been cut off a long time ago.”

“He wouldn’t have!” I roared. I renewed my effort for the spell.

My arms suddenly couldn’t move.

Behind me, I heard Felan give a small gasp. “It worked,” he said. He sounded surprised.

I tried to turn my head, but even that wasn’t working. It felt as if I was frozen on the spot.

Nasuha stepped within my field of vision. “Given time, we might be able to unblock some more of the channels. There’s no guarantee you’ll go back the way you were, though.”

“A little is everything,” Enosh croaked out. An immobility spell wasn’t a simple thing, and for him to throw it first, after years of inactivity was surprising. Or daring. Perhaps both. He looked spent, as if the single action alone had drained the very blood from his veins. He limped to my side and drifted close to my ear. “I didn’t want to do this. But they have it right. It’s too dangerous to take you with us. Stay here with your father until we have everything ready. Once we’ve secured the king and made sure Ivasus isn’t going to cause any more harm than he already has, you can join us with Kefier.”

I wanted to scream. What made them think they could stop Ivasus by themselves? The more of us there were, the better.

“Ceres is going to join us,” Enosh said, as if he was privy to my thoughts. “I will ask her to trigger the spell herself, instead of you as you and Nasuha talked about. You’ve stripped her of her privileges, but she still knows the ins and outs of the place better than anyone. I’m sure if you can talk right now, you’ll approve. In that, you’re too much like me. You’re too much like Kefier, too, in case you feel like arguing about that. You’ve got in you the worst of us. The best. You would’ve driven your grandfather mad with delight.” He gestured at Felan, asking him to step away from me so he could cut in between. Enosh looked me right in the eyes, and the hard shadows on his face softened. “I know you don’t believe I love you. You never needed me—you had him all this time. But me? You’re all I have, Rosha. Maybe someday you’ll see that.”

And then, as if afraid gazing at me any longer would break the façade that had kept him alive all these years, he turned away and called for the others to join him.

CHAPTER 38

ROSHA

The spell broke mere minutes after they boarded the smaller ship, when they were too far away for me to do anything about it. I couldn’t very well swim after them. As soon as I could move again, I found myself drifting to the edge of the railing, wanting to burn it from afar.

Instead, I closed my eyes. If I cried, I paid it no heed. I only opened my eyes when I felt a hand on my arm. Ryo was tugging at my sleeve. “Mama wants to see you,” Ryo said.

I swallowed my tears and numbly followed him back down. She had left the captain’s cabin and was back down with Kefier. “Did you know what they were planning?” I demanded.

“You know how useless it is to argue with Enosh once he’s made up his mind.” Sume sighed. “To his credit, he didn’t keep it from me this time. You may find this a surprise, but that man has changed in many ways, and it’s quite clear it was mostly against his will.”

“I find it a surprise because you looked like you wanted to murder him earlier.”

“One can feel many ways about a single person, sometimes all at the same time.” Sume paused to adjust Kefier’s sheets. “And if I can be honest with you, I never know what to feel about Enosh. I waft between things until I eventually settle on the easiest, from sheer exhaustion. If things were a lot different, I would probably just rather he go away. That I could just say goodbye, and…leave it there. Leave him in the past where he belongs, to the girl who thought she could love him forever.”

“But I exist.”

“But you exist,” she said, her face growing darker. “And so does he.” She placed her hand on Kefier’s. “And mostly everyone left alive for me to love, so don’t think that I resent any of you for it. It is what it is, damned as it may feel sometimes. I regret nothing of this life, Rosha, even if…” She let her words trail off as she gazed at Kefier. Whatever was on her mind, she must’ve lost the courage to say it.

“I…” I tried to swallow back the rage. “I wish you didn’t have to put me in a place where I would forever have to choose between them.”

“You don’t have to,” Sume replied. “That was all me, and it’s about as unpleasant as you could’ve guessed. I think the easiest solution would have been to leave them both. I suppose I wasn’t strong enough to do that, and now it’s too late.” She got up to fetch a wet cloth from the basin on the table next to the bed. She returned to wipe the sweat off Kefier’s face.

“Is that why you left to join the war in Jin-Sayeng?” I asked, out of nowhere.

She hesitated before nodding. “Will you forgive me for saying this?”

“For saying what?”

Sume took a deep breath. “I wanted to escape. I’m only human, Rosha. Just a woman trying to move past her girlhood mistakes and finding herself sinking deeper and deeper into them instead. And I feel no ounce of guilt over it, though the gods know there must be so much to feel guilty about. Not spending enough time to watch my child grow up, for one thing. I’ve missed too many years of your childhood. But I always felt it was better for you to spend time with a person who needed you more than I did, who could treat you better and wouldn’t see you as anything more than someone to care for. Kefier loved you in a way I couldn’t. I never admitted this to myself, not until I had that first child with him. I remember thinking this is what it’s supposed to feel like.”

“You pretend to be nice, but you really can cut with your words,” I said wryly.

Sume gave a grim smile. “Only because I know you can take it. I know you don’t like lies. I wasn’t ready when I had you. I was so young, and there was so much I wanted to do that I suddenly couldn’t. A child gets in the way, and I had no one but Kefier to help me. With the second one, that weight was no longer on my mind. By then, I thought I could do it. I could sit there and give to my second daughter everything I couldn’t give to the first. So when I lost her…”

I looked away.

“I felt the gods laughing.” Sume continued to speak so calmly. I detected tears in her voice, but none on her face. This woman had mastered the art of keeping her emotions on a leash. Against her, I looked like an amateur. “Married to one man while I slept with his brother—what was I thinking? Name a religion, any deity, and I’m sure they would consider it a blasphemy. I…I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I’m not trying to gain your sympathy. Most days, I’d agree with you. I’m not the mother you deserve. But because I was a terrible mother, I stopped a civil war in its tracks and prevented more deserving mothers from losing their daughters or the other way around. I’ve seen too much death and destruction in my life to feel regret over things like who I choose to spend my time with and what other people feel about it. What I’m asking you is simple enough. Could you, as a woman, accept the help of another woman who loves the same man you do? No matter our disagreements, you and I can at least agree on one thing. We would both die for him.”

I found myself at a loss for words.

“I distrust Enosh just as much as you do in matters like these,” Sume continued. “Especially after he told me he’d brought Ceres on board. The man allows himself to be undermined by his women left and right, and he doesn’t even think it’s a weakness. Did you know he slept with Rasiad the night of her husband’s funeral?”

“I’m not surprised.”

“Nasuha slipped when she was talking to me. Forget my blasphemies—the man has committed about a hundred more, and that’s just the things I know about.” Sume gestured. “This ship docks at Noraya next. I’ll speak to the captain about taking a detour to Triassa. I know I can find someone there who I can trust to watch Kefier and the boys. In the meantime, you and I will be taking the airships straight to Bardes. We’ll be a few breaths behind them. Does that plan seem sound to you?”

I didn’t know why she was asking me. She was a tactician who worked for the contender of Jin-Sayeng’s Dragonthrone. The loser, from what I understood, but only because my mother insisted she lay down her arms for the good of all. The feat, I’ve been told, is in how she was able to convince the woman at all when by all accounts she was as ferocious as any of Jin-Sayeng’s warlords. A story for another day, Sume would probably tell me. I gave a small nod.

“Good,” Sume said. “With any luck, it won’t be too late to stop them from—”

We both fell silent when we realized Ryo was still standing behind us. I didn’t know why we didn’t realize he hadn’t left the room at all—he’d been so quiet. I blinked, feeling a faint tingle in the air. “Ryo,” I began. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing.” He took a step to the side, his hands drifting behind his back.

The tingle transferred to my skin. “Show me what you’ve got there.”

He looked like he wanted to run away. But before he could have a chance to, Sume was suddenly beside him. He gave a quick gulp of air before allowing flipping his palms upside down. It was coated in blue light.

“Everything’s fine,” Ryo stammered, when both Sume and I continued to stare speechless at him. “It’s nothing at all. Just a trick. Haro showed me, you see, and—”

Sume’s face was pale. “Haro showed you,” she repeated.

Ryo nodded, as if foisting the blame on his elder brother was all it took to make this problem go away. “He’d been doing it for a while. Making himself disappear even when he was standing right there. I thought it was a neat trick so I asked him to show me how to do it and he did but then he made me promise not to tell you, and…” He squinted. “Don’t tell him I told you. Please.”

“Haro and Ryo both,” I whispered.

“I missed it,” Sume gasped. “How did I miss it?”

“In your own words: you’re a terrible mother.”

“Not the time for jokes.”

“Not a joke.”

“The baby. Where’s Haro and the baby?”

“In the other room, where you told them to stay before you went off to talk with everyone. Shouldn’t you remember?”

She gave him a light tap on the forehead before stepping out of the cabin. I trailed behind her wordlessly. Both brothers displaying a gift in the agan, right at the heels of my newfound discovery that Kefier had been hiding it himself. It wasn’t difficult to imagine that the youngest might have it, too. The whole world was crumbling around us.

We found him playing with a wooden, wheeled dog on the ground while Haro read a book on the bed. Nothing was amiss. But I could see the worry drifting over Sume’s forehead as she stared at the baby for far too long. I bent down to whisper in her ear. “Wondering what you’ve gotten yourself into? It’s a little too late to back out now.”

It was a joke this time, but I didn’t think Sume noticed. “It runs in families,” she breathed. “I should have figured. It’s supposed to work that way in Jin-Sayeng, too.” Her eyes flickered, and she fell silent, chewing on her lip.

“You’re thinking about something.”

“You do have a gift for stating the obvious. Do you notice that most of the Gorenten I’ve known are gifted in the agan in some way?”

I blinked.

“It can’t be a coincidence,” she said. “In Jin-Sayeng, such a gift is rare because it is reviled. Some people believe children with such an affliction, so they say, are sacrificed to the gods discreetly. So people hide it. Perhaps there are more of them than we want to accept. And perhaps this is truer in Gorent than anywhere else. I imagine there must be a reason why Dageis couldn’t trust your fathers’ people.”

“They didn’t trust Gorent because they wanted a gateway to the south and why share what little you could salvage from that war with the people you’ve defeated? Anyway, Gorent has its own version of those sacrifices. Nasuha told me her father threw her to the dogs.”

“In certain villages, superstition reigns above all else. In others, the elders volunteer their blood and enact a version of Elian’s Heart to protect the child.”

The expression on my face must have changed, because she suddenly turned to me now, her eyes softening. “Did Enosh tell you? About what Kefier wanted?”

“You knew, too?”

Sume took her left hand and pressed it over his right. “We…fought about it. He was so very tired, Rosha, especially seeing what your connection to the agan has done to you all your life. The people it attracted. How often you’ve had to hide. He went in search of answers because to him, the glorious life Enosh had planned out for you sounded like a prison. He learned there was a way. He learned what it might cost, and was more than eager to risk his own life to make sure you never had to suffer again.”

I could feel the walls collapsing as I sat on the edge of Haro’s bed. He didn’t say anything—too well-trained in not speaking up when elders were conversing. “But he knows…he knows what it meant to me.”

“He does,” Sume said. “So it was you who convinced him in the end, though you probably don’t remember. He said you showed him a trick you learned from a book, and he realized he couldn’t lock you away forever. The world needs people like her, he told me. And he admitted he was curious what it would look like if someone like you was given everything she ever needed to succeed.”

“He was wrong,” I whispered.

“Was he?”

I stared at Haro again. He must’ve understood all of this had something to do with him. I called to Ryo from the doorway, directing him to sit next to his brother. Side-by-side, there was no question of their heritage. They had my mother’s black hair and eyes, and Papa’s dark skin. Something inside of me unbuckled. The loneliness that had lingered by my side like a shadow all these years was gone, just like that. I could have sworn I would be running with it forever. The answer lay right in front of me. More than half a lifetime ago, I was just like them. What would the world look like if they got everything they needed?

“Let’s go to Eheldeth, Mother,” I said.

It seemed ironic that in all my twenty-two years of existence, I had yet to travel with my mother alone. I’d travelled plenty of times with both my fathers, but with my mother, it felt like walking with a stranger. I realized the mother I knew—the placid, soft-spoken woman whose indecisions I’d blamed for our unhappiness over the years—was a figment of my imagination. Perhaps I needed to be an adult to see that.

Outside of her personal relationships, Sume was abrupt, resolute, even cutthroat at times. I watched her convince an airship captain to fly an empty ship out to Bardes past the last trip in awe, catching that she used a combination of blackmail and bribery so that the choice was all but made for the man. He didn’t even seem upset, in the end. Now I could believe she was Princess Ryia’s tactician and right-hand woman. I even understood how she must have survived five years of a civil war that saw so many people dead.

“Everyone seems to foolishly believe that the key to a fight is to arm yourself to the teeth and charge right where the crowd is the thickest,” Sume told me later on. “As if such a thunderous rush would inspire courage in others and get them to join you. Mind you, it works for many people. Men, mostly. But someone like me could stand in front of a crowd and even if I scream, they’ll never listen. It doesn’t fit, you see. The world wants women like me to just bend over and stay in their place. Should I try to fight back, I’d be punished simply for trying.”

“But you did fight. They said you directed armies where they needed to go and rode into battle yourself to do so.”

“Enemy propaganda,” Sume said. “It says a lot that out of all the figures in the war, I had the least death threats and offers of a reward in exchange for my head. They just didn’t see me as important enough. My own enemies were convinced if they could get rid of the others, I’d simply just fade away. And for a time, I did. The fighting did wear me out, and Ryia was not always gracious in the face of inescapable defeat. Until I got right to the enemy warlord and offered him a deal he couldn’t refuse.” She glanced at me. “Close your mouth, girl. It’s rude not to believe your own mother.”

“It’s not that I don’t believe any of it,” I said. “I just…don’t see how what you say makes sense.”

“Because of what they teach you in Eheldeth?”

“Eheldeth doesn’t have to teach it explicitly. Everywhere you look, the story is the same. To change the world, you need power. You need might. You need strength. You did it without.”

“I don’t know if I changed the world, per se,” she began.

“You said it yourself. You stopped a lot of people from dying. That’s enough, isn’t it?”

She pointed in the distance, where Eheldeth’s silhouette was rising sharply from the plateau. “And that’s what we’re going to try to do now. You see that? It’s been there for centuries, built on ash and bone by the power-hungry. Even if you could crush it with a single blow, all you would be doing is drawing out a legacy of death and destruction. It goes on and on, such a thing. Death is a debt that can never be repaid. You could spend a lifetime chasing what you think is justice only to turn around and realize you’ve become the villain yourself. Maybe I’m weak and soft, but I just don’t see the point. The answer isn’t in tearing things apart. It’s in building things anew.”

“And if, like Eheldeth, you use the thought of building things to control and rob and pit us against each other?” I asked out loud. “I believe the university was founded on that very same tenet. Look what it is now.”

Sume gave a wry smile. “You’re never supposed to let your guard down. Just like when you raise children, my love. There is never a day when you can just step back and say it’s all over. There are always adjustments, work that must be done. When you decide to leave the comforts of your own desires and join the world at last, you’ve got to be ready to face it every day.”

The sight of a cart rolling past us made her pause. She gestured at me to step aside as she waved to the driver. The man stopped. She exchanged a few words with him. I caught the words daughter and walking for hours before she gestured at me. The man kindly allowed us to board his wagon and sit amongst the fruits and vegetables he was bringing in to Eheldeth for what I gathered was an upcoming feast.

“Right in the fray, huh,” I said out loud.

Sume smiled. “People ought to know better, but they never look in the corners. And by the time they realize you’re there…”

“I see.” I gazed back at Eheldeth, and my thoughts turned to other things, not the least of which was the disbelief that I would ever find myself on this road again, even after I had sworn years ago that I would never return.

Life, I suppose, eventually makes hypocrites out of us all.

CHAPTER 39

NASUHA

If Ivasus had one gift, it was in his unusual skill in getting people together. The council arrived in Eheldeth faster than Nasuha expected. She gathered from the conversations with the kitchen staff that not even Firekeeper Ceres could convince them to show up in numbers like this. She wondered if bribes were involved, or the promise of lucrative business deals on the side. Ivasus must have had information on each council member ready to be used to his advantage. A part of her was tempted not to go through with Tar’elian’s plans. She agreed that destroying the council wouldn’t yield anything in the end, that the same sort of people would just rise up to fill those empty seats before they’d had the chance to grow cold.

But damn, a part of her just really wanted to see them go up in flames. A part of her wanted to see them scream in terror as the past caught up to them at last. Their actions, their inaction, all laid bare on the table. The people who called for the casual demolishment of the elders’ building could go first, for instance. People who could look at Gorenten names on a piece of paper and dismiss them as fiction, strange words that weren’t attached to living, breathing people—to grandmothers and grandfathers, great uncles and aunts whose only crime was to leave everything they’d ever known for a shot at something resembling a life elsewhere. How could they have known that the home they sought couldn’t possibly welcome them? How could they have known that the other side of people who just wanted to survive were people who simply didn’t care if they lived or died?

“You’re bleeding, ineng,” one of the cooks whispered.

Nasuha looked down. She’d crushed the cup of water she’d been holding, and the clay shards had dug into her skin. “Sorry,” she croaked. “I’ll clean up.”

“I’ll do it,” the woman said, drawing her aside. “You go get some fresh air. I think there’s too much on your mind.”

“How do you do it?” she asked.

The woman looked at her in confusion.

“How do you resist the urge to throw poison in their food and have it over with? You’re paid a fraction what those people are. Those Dageians…every time I look at them, I wonder how they ever expected us to live on what some of them spend on shoes each year. Or hats. Or—”

Nasuha was babbling, and the look on the woman’s face told her she’d heard it all before. “You’re asking how I don’t just fall apart in rage, living out here,” the cook explained for her as she gave her a small towel to wipe the blood with. “I don’t have the answers you seek, child.”

“I don’t think anyone does.” Nasuha got up and returned the towel to her. “I guess I’ll go bring them their tea. Is Asera—”

The woman placed a finger on her lips. “Her men are in place,” she said. “Be careful out there.”

Nasuha flashed her a grin. “When am I never?” She could just hear Asera opening her mouth to stick well, actually in there. Of course she would think so, as if the woman in her line of work wasn’t risking her own life doing careless things every day. Not for the first time did she wonder what life would look like if they didn’t have to throw caution to the wind for every little thing because to not to could be just as fatal, just as fraught with danger. How wonderful would it feel to get the chance to play it safe? To do nothing, and not drown? The life that Dageians took for granted still seemed like such a wild idea.

She held her breath as she carried the tray of sweets to the main dining hall. The smell of hazelnut made her nauseous, and for a moment, she wondered if the staff had poisoned the appetizers. She managed to hold it together long enough to get to set the tray on the table. When she turned back to leave, she found herself face-to-face with guards.

Eheldeth, of course, had no guards—not like these. They were Ivasus’s men. “You’re lost,” she found herself saying. “The dining hall is for guests only, and you don’t look dressed for the occasion.”

The guards glared at her.

“You,” one finally said. “You look familiar.”

“All Gorenten look alike,” she said, passing by him. She took three steps before he tried to grab her arm.

Her sword, concealed behind her cloak, came out first, jabbing straight in his direction. He leaped back. Before he could recover, she’d sheathed her sword again and was tearing down the hall, heading out for the wooded area where she knew Asera’s men were waiting. The guards chased her down to the small field and up the hill.

They caught up to her at the edge of the first line of trees. She drew her sword again, but it was hardly necessary. Asera’s men thundered past her, striking the surprised guards on the spot. A sword through the throat ended their impending death-screams.

Nasuha wiped her hands. “These two got past you,” she said.

One of Asera’s men grunted. “We’re not trained assassins, you know. I thought we’ve done a good job, considering. They haven’t been alerted that their guards are disappearing yet.”

“How many have you disposed of?” she asked.

“We were at one, till you led these right to us,” the other man grunted. “So three, I guess.”

“That’s not the answer I wanted to hear,” Nasuha said.

“The others have taken care of more, but I’m not keeping count. Asera said to just thin them out without anyone noticing. The entire grounds are crawling with mages, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“Mages die just like everyone else,” Nasuha grumbled.

“That’s what Asera said right before she took off,” the man replied.

Nasuha paused. “Took off where?” she asked.

“She heard a contingent of mages arrived altogether at the back gates, and went off to intercept them. She said the less there are together, the better it will go for you.”

Nasuha swore under her breath. Without replying, she turned around for the back gates. Leave it to Asera to turn covert assassinations into a battering ram. She just needed her help in infiltrating the area, to give Ceres and Enosh time to secure the undead king and perhaps deal with Ivasus at the same time. Far from a simple job, but Asera had enough experience stealing priceless artifacts from rich people’s homes. Nasuha had been hoping she wouldn’t overthink it. An oversight. Of course the woman would try to impress her. She hadn’t involved her this much in her personal life all these years for a reason, and now…

She heard loud voices at the end of the courtyard, just within sight of the gates, interspersed with her memories of sweeping autumn leaves out in the early morning. And then she saw something that seemed to blur the line between past and present. Ceres stood facing a group of mages, with Asera behind her. From her gestures, it was clear that she was telling them to back away.

Nasuha arrived just in time to place a hand on Asera’s shoulder.

“You’re not Firekeeper anymore, Ceres,” one of the mages called. “It’s about time you learned not to stick your nose into everything. We’ll deal with servants who overstep their bounds in our own way.”

“You’ve let Eheldeth become overrun in your time,” another chimed in. “There’s Gorenten everywhere. We know you’ve let one into your bed, but the rest of us don’t have to share your interests. These hobbies of yours—”

“I can understand you, you idiots,” Asera snapped. “I was just directing them to the right hallway. These assholes took offense for nothing!”

The mage grew inflamed. “Servants overstepping their bounds—”

“I’m not a servant!” Asera roared. “I’ve never been a servant! I’d sooner die first than bow to people like you!”

The mage didn’t look amused. “Are you threatening me? You all heard that, right?” He flicked his hand out, allowing a ball of flame to settle nicely on his palm.

“Enough!” Ceres barked. “This uncivilized behaviour is unbecoming for representatives of the mage council! I can’t believe the level you’ve all stooped down to now that you have an untried mage at your helm. Have you just been waiting this whole time?”

The mage gave her an angry little grin. And then he charged.

It felt like a moment, drawn out too soon. Nasuha leaped forward just as the mage’s spell wrenched loose, intending to cut Asera down where she stood. Her shield-spell flared up in time. It held against the weight of the mage’s attack.

The man stared back in shock. “An outlaw!” he screeched. “They’re outlaws! Arrest them at once!”

Ceres clapped her hands together, and the air was suddenly full of thick fog. As sparks flew around them, she turned to grab both Asera and Nasuha’s arms. “Quickly,” she hissed under her breath.

“The garden sheds aren’t far from here,” Nasuha said.

Ceres conceded. They tore down the road and around the corner. Nasuha clearly remembered how to rattle one locked door in just the right way so it would open for them. The other two women rushed past her, and she slammed the door shut and barricaded them from behind.

“Some Firekeeper I turned out to be,” Ceres said, after they’d all caught their breaths.

Nasuha turned to face her, remembering the first time they’d met. “I think it’s refreshing,” she replied, after a moment. “I used to think you were this grand, untouchable figure. Turns out you’re just human like the rest of us.”

Ceres’s eyes flickered.

“You don’t remember me,” Nasuha continued. “Well, I’m not sure I can blame you. I am forgettable.”

“I’m sorry,” Ceres said. “I really don’t—”

Nasuha held out her scarred hands. Ceres looked startled for a moment, but then the memory finally clicked. “The one whose magic ate her,” she finally said. “I see. No, I do remember. You’ve grown up, but I will never forget that girl. I pitied her.”

“I don’t need your pity,” Nasuha said. “But it’s good to know you’re not that callous.”

Ceres shook her head. “No. I am. I’ve had to be. You don’t get to stay Firekeeper by giving handouts.”

“Was that what letting me into Eheldeth would have been?”

“A poor wording,” Ceres said. “But you’ve seen the life back here. You’d have dealt with mages far more difficult than I. Mages with influence, and legacies to preserve.”

“Legacies my existence would tarnish.”

Ceres gave a small nod. “I gave you a gift, if anything.”

Nasuha shook her head. “I don’t know how you can still believe that.” She turned to unlocking the other door in the shed, the one that led to the greenhouses. It kept her anger at bay.

Beside her, Asera cleared her throat, as if she wanted to say something to ease the tension but didn’t know what words to say. Nasuha felt like telling her not to bother.

“I don’t know, either,” Ceres grumbled, after Nasuha broke the padlock and the door swung outward. “In many ways, I’ve just been waiting to be torn down the way I was. It’s ironic that Rosha was the one who did it after all, but it was only a matter of time that someone else did. Everyone in this damn place covets power.”

They entered the greenhouse. It had been neglected for at least a season—at least half the plants were in need of watering and the rest were in various stages of decay. Nasuha wrinkled her nose at the sight of moldy tomatoes and wilted zucchini. She wondered what Liko would have said to all of that. He must have retired a few years ago, but Nasuha remembered how strict he was about making sure the grounds were taken care of, even when the higher-ups couldn’t get their shit together. The old man took pride in his work and wanted everyone else to feel that way, too.

“Speaking of power…” Nasuha said, gazing up at a shaft of sunlight from the broken glass above—a clear indication of how the frost had gotten in. “Ivasus must have arrived already.”

“I believe his carriage was behind mine, actually,” Ceres replied.

“And he would have the undead king…and the living king…not far. Your first mistake, ex-Firekeeper—you should have pegged him as a king-collector from the start.”

She shrugged. “I know you all love to blame me, but part of me has already moved on from finding ways to absolve myself from this once it is all done.” The surprise must have shown on Nasuha’s face, because she immediately smiled. “I told you. I am callous. I can’t hold myself forever responsible for things I didn’t do. Ivasus’s ambitions and vengeance—that is all him. The old men and women who decided to play puppetmaster to a dead emperor for their own greed—that is all on them.”

Nasuha couldn’t quite argue against that. It made sense. But it did nothing to stop her from loathing Ceres. Perhaps it was true that she struggled, too, and that there wasn’t much she could do about the people around her, but it didn’t change the fact that she had lived so many years in luxury, in spite of it all. “Maybe someday I’ll understand,” Nasuha said under her breath. She didn’t think Ceres heard, but it didn’t matter.

They entered the main building. The meeting was supposed to be in the courtyard leading right from the dining hall—an outdoor festivity of sorts, which seemed fitting with Eheldeth in the middle of summer break. At least there weren’t many students in the dormitories.

Asera gave a loud cry.

She’d been walking ahead while Nasuha gathered her thoughts about Ceres, and Nasuha belatedly reminded herself she should have been the one leading the way. She started running. Asera stepped back as she got closer. She realized they weren’t under attack—she was pointing to a body in the middle of the hallway.

“That’s the emperor,” Ceres called from behind.

Nasuha stopped, her heart pounding. Ceres had it correct. The old man wasn’t wearing his emperor’s robes, but just rags. To the untrained eye, he could have just been somebody’s grandfather, left on the cold floor to die.

She bent over to pick it up by the arm. Perhaps one of Ivasus’s men had dumped it out here by mistake.

The emperor’s eyes opened, their startlingly blue shade filled with life.

Nasuha dropped its arm and watched in horror as it crawled to its feet. It turned to them and gave an unsettling, inhuman grin.

“Rosha?” she asked, though she already knew the answer.

“That gnat,” the emperor said.

A sick sensation crawled up her gullet. “You didn’t…” Nasuha began. “You said we needed her.”

The emperor flexed his fingers. “Ah. You think I killed her. You should have done it for me. The boy told me what really happened with her. You were trying to teach the bitch a lesson, and instead you broke it. You broke her.”

“Who is this?” Ceres spoke up. “You’re the people responsible for Rosha losing her magic?”

“Ah, the grand Firekeeper,” the emperor continued, limping up to Ceres. Its movements were jerky—far jerkier than normal. “Or should I say ex-Firekeeper? Perhaps you should learn to stay out of the way and enjoy your retirement. This is beyond your pay grade.”

“Who are you?” Ceres repeated, staring into its eyes.

The emperor’s body jerked back. “I am someone of no consequence,” he said. “A name you would have brushed over in your years of studies. Seina Mar’roga.”

Ceres’s face flickered. The name was familiar. “The sole, surviving girl of The Six.”

The emperor threw his hands up. “I was mistaken! You are quite the scholar! My name was a footnote. These days, I go as Rasiad. My husband’s name. It’s not ideal, but it opens doors.”

“A footnote in history is still commendable.”

“Why is it commendable that I survived someone else’s mistake?” the emperor asked. “Ah, look. Cat got your tongue. The boy and I are in agreement over this: you’ve been in power too long. If you’ve wasted our lives, it’s still not too late to shake the foundations.”

“I won’t let you,” Ceres said, holding up her hands.

The emperor lurched forward, sending an invisible shockwave rolling from his frail body and into Ceres. She flew backward, striking a pillar. The emperor dropped to the ground a moment later, like a discarded doll.

Nasuha rushed to Ceres’s side. “Are you all right?” she asked.

Ceres pointed. “That thing…”

“Her connection to it looked weak,” Nasuha said. “I can only guess that it’s still attuned to Rosha, and what we saw was a mere intrusion. She can’t hold on to the connection for any longer than a few seconds at most—certainly not long enough to rule. I don’t know what she’s thinking. She’s using up her strength for nothing.”

Ceres didn’t reply. Her eyes were on the emperor’s body. It was starting to twitch again.

“You’re right as always, Nasuha,” Rasiad said through him. He began to crawl along the ground like a lizard. “I’ve wasted enough time with you as it is. I have mages to subdue, and a new king to crown. This bag of bones, against an actual king. This emperor’s reign ends tonight.”

Nasuha drew her sword and slammed the blade into the emperor’s hand, pinning him to the ground. A flash of light started to leak from the opening she’d made through his flesh.

“Nasuha…” the emperor croaked.

“I’m sorry, Mistress. But this insanity ends now.”

The wind rushed around them. Nasuha felt a tremble in the air, far stronger than anything she’d felt in her life. On the ground, the emperor was starting to fill with light from all his orifices. Mouth, eyes, nostrils…all were glowing blue until he looked flooded.

Nasuha realized her mistake. An intrusion? No. Rasiad wasn’t using her magic. She was merely speaking through him. Something else was ripping control of the emperor from Rosha. Something much more powerful. Something not human.

Before she could voice any of this out, unseen claws struck her from behind, wrenching her consciousness from her body.

CHAPTER 40

ROSHA

The ride to Eheldeth was simple enough, but getting inside the university grounds without alerting anyone was easier said than done. The farmer certainly wasn’t going to risk transporting strangers into the heart of it. We ended up spending a few nights in the village near the coast of one of the lakes before we found a delegate who had gotten separated from his guide. He was hoping for someone to replace him and take him up to Eheldeth, even though it was right there, and impossible to miss. I volunteered before anyone else could. Sume, who had been calmly sipping a mug of beer, looked surprised, but not upset. Perhaps she thought I was trying to impress her. To be honest, I wasn’t so sure myself. But I wanted to prove, at the very least, that I wasn’t a child anymore. I’d gotten myself out of the damn place—I could very well get myself back in.

The man wanted to leave immediately. He wasn’t part of the council, but served as a transcriber to one of them, and tardiness would definitely be a mark against him. He was an impatient man, given to snapping before Sume or I could get a word in, but he was at least generous and bought horses for all of us. About an hour on the road, I suddenly remembered a dip on the road where I’d tripped and fallen the last time I was here. The memory was so strong that I found myself cringing against my will.

I’d been running that time. Not because anyone was chasing me, but because nightfall seemed to have crept up on me out of nowhere and I was suddenly aware of how alone I was. Eighteen years old, with nothing but a dog and a bag of coins in my hand; I remembered feeling like the most foolish girl who had ever lived. Why didn’t I just tell anyone about my struggles? Firekeeper Ceres would have paid out of pocket to send me home, no question about it. Instead, I ran away, like a petulant child. And even though I was filled with fear over what lay ahead, there was no doubt in my mind I wasn’t going to the village to send word to either Eheldeth or back home. I’d made my decision, face-down on that road, that I wasn’t going to give up. Even if I could never again be the mage I once dreamt I could be, I could still at least be someone who didn’t leave her battles half-fought. Somehow, I would find a way to carve my own future without anyone’s help.

Eheldeth seemed to loom larger than it ever did the closer we got to it. Against the moonlight, it was a giant waiting to swallow me whole after I’d so narrowly escaped its gaping maws the first time. I was filled with emotion, but not the sort I thought would plague me. There wasn’t pain or regret or shame, nor did I feel the desire to start all over again. Everything I’d learned about Eheldeth had erased that. Instead, I felt awe. Awe that I could survive what I shouldn’t have. The moonlight shone down on my scars, but I no longer hated them. They were proof I was stronger than my pain.

I noticed, after a moment, that Sume was staring at them, too. I don’t know if she had ever seen them before—she certainly had never mentioned it to me. I allowed my sleeves to cover them up again. “I didn’t die,” I told her simply. I didn’t know how to explain all of it.

“You wouldn’t,” Sume said. I detected a flush of pride in her voice and didn’t know what to think of it.

“Enough prattle,” the delegate broke in, though we had barely exchanged more than a few words in Jinan to each other. “We’re getting close, are we?”

“It’s just an hour away,” I said, urging my horse ahead. Really, the man didn’t need us; I think he was just frightened of being alone. We didn’t speak again, even as the moon started rising higher in the sky.

We arrived in Eheldeth with about half an hour to spare. After we turned the horses over to the staff assigned at the university gates to take care of guests, he threw us a bag of coin and never even glanced our way again. Mother tied the purse around her belt with a shrug. “Honest pay for a day’s work,” she said.

“I think Enosh would throw a fit at the idea of his wife working. You know he likes to keep up an image.”

“Don’t I know it. I’m going to rub it in his nose when I see him.” Sume glanced back at me. “I used to wash dishes in Jin-Sayeng. Do you remember?”

“I don’t.”

“You probably didn’t even notice when I came home.” She gave a wistful smile. “It might be time to come home again, if you want. It was right for us to leave when we did, but now…now, it might not be the worst thing in the world. You’re Gorenten and Jinsein, child. I know you hold no love for a land that forced you to leave it when you were still too young to even know why, but—”

“We were a family there,” I said. “All my memories in Jin-Sayeng were happy ones. The only reason I don’t feel as Jinsein as I feel Gorenten is simply because you never spoke of what it meant to me, unlike what Papa did. You barely speak to me at all, Mother.”

She accepted my words with a soft nod. “Perhaps it’s time we change that.”

“When this is all over, I may have promised my time with someone else,” I said. “But perhaps we can take a detour to Jin-Sayeng. Perhaps there’s more to life than just running away.”

“It’s a big world,” she agreed.

“Do you think we’re too late?” I asked, craning my head over to the crowd, which had gathered under the night-lights in the main courtyard. I’d seen it lit up like that before, during the winter dances and the summer games, both of which were events I tended to hole up inside my room for once the keepers’ attentions had wandered. Standing there on the outskirts with my mother seemed like the most involved I’d ever been in Eheldeth.

Sume took my hand. “If I know your father, he’ll be right there amongst them. The man never could resist a good party.” Before I could protest, she had dragged me right into the crowd.

“We’re a little underdressed for the occasion, Mother,” I said.

“Nonsense. No one looks at a woman’s dress when she’s got a pretty face.”

“I—”

Sume pressed a thumb on my chin before turning around to grab a glass of champagne from a passing waiter. She handed it to me.

I stared at her like she’d grown an extra five feet. “No, thank you. I think we need a clear head for what’s about to come.”

“Exactly. I always need at least a glass in me to deal with your father.” She drained it in one go before placing the empty glass on a table, which was heaped high with trays of fruit, cheese, and preserved meats. Her attention drifted to the middle of the courtyard, where music was starting to play. Someone had gone to the trouble of hiring a live band. A symphony of violins and flutes rose through the air—I recognized a rendition of an old southern play about a woman who turned her lover into a frog.

We drifted down to the hedges to avoid the dancing.

“Rosha!” a sharp voice called from behind. I shut my eyes for a moment, trying to work my way through the irritation before I turned around.

“Ivasus,” I greeted.

He was dressed impeccably from head to toe, all shaved and perfumed. He had a new haircut, too, a closely trimmed one that showed off the brown shade of his hair. He offered me his arm. “I’ve got a dress for you ready in my room, if you’re inclined to join me,” he said. “I had it tailored especially for you.”

“I wasn’t aware I was invited to this,” I replied.

He placed a hand on my shoulder. “I wouldn’t have left you that note if you weren’t. I knew you wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

“Not for the reasons you think,” I said. “You have to stop this, Ivasus. I understand the hate you hold for the council, but there are children in those dormitories. Don’t drag them into this. Think about what it felt like to have your life robbed from you without your say.”

“I am. That’s why I’m doing this.”

“And you don’t care about what it does to others? You don’t care about making sure no one else goes through what you did? The students here are blameless!”

Ivasus smiled. What started as an almost warm expression turned cold in a minute. He slammed a hand straight in my direction, a fist intended for my face. But it never landed. My mother had stepped in and pushed him away.

Ivasus turned to her, the cold smile turning to fury. “Who—” he began.

“You will not lay a hand on my daughter in my presence,” she said. “Stand down, Lord Ivasus.”

His face contorted further. He wasn’t used to women defying him, especially not unimposing, middle-aged women that appeared out of nowhere. I could see him debating running her down with his sword, in full view of his guests. I grabbed his arm from the other side.

The music stopped.

Something about that set me on edge. I had figured nothing was going to happen until Ivasus himself was there. He was Firekeeper and the one who called this meeting, which meant no one outranked him. But then I heard a cough.

“Council, friends,” a booming voice called from the other end of the courtyard.

My skin crawled. I had gotten so used to hearing the voice coming out of my mouth that hearing it disembodied felt like listening to a ghost. I turned to the sight of the emperor greeting the crowd.

I turned to Ivasus for an explanation. “I can grant you a closer audience,” he said, extending his hand. “Come.”

“Rosha—” my mother began.

“It’s all right,” I said. Numbly, I took his hand.

He kissed it before leading me down the courtyard. I barely noticed him there. My eyes were on the emperor. Without realizing it, I strode ahead of Ivasus, walking all the way down the garden path so I could get close.

Emperor Cerknar turned to my direction, his movements erratic. He knew me. He smiled.

“Come to join the party, Rosha Tar’elian?” he asked. “You’ve meddled in my business long enough, don’t you think?”

I felt everyone’s eyes on me. In the next moment or so, I probed the air with my senses in the hopes it would tell me exactly what I was dealing with. Immediately, I knew my connection with the simulacrum had been severed. But how? The only way to do that was to either get a few mages to cut it with my full consent, or kill me. Neither had happened. I tried to reach into it, to test the pathways.

Something cut me off before I could get far. I heard the echo of a roar inside my skull.

No, it wasn’t severed. But something was standing in the midst, like a block on the road.

“Who are you?” I asked out loud.

“Someone get that serving woman out of there,” a council member broke in. “She seems to have forgotten she’s in the presence of the emperor! You! Don’t you see you’re amongst important folk?” He pointed a shaky finger into my face. I recognized the delegate we had accompanied from the village. He couldn’t offer me the same courtesy—I could tell I was just one of many brown faces to him.

Out of nowhere, Cerknar grabbed him by the shirt. Fury was etched on the emperor’s face. He dragged him to the middle of the square, pushed him to the ground with his foot, and drew his sword. Without a word, he sank the blade into the back of the protesting delegate, right down from his neck to his ribcage. The man barely had time to scream as he died.

The crowd stood frozen to the spot, like rabbits caught in a hunter’s snare. Cerknar turned to them. “Does anyone else want to join him?” he asked.

The faces that looked up were both frightened and confused.

“I’ve got to give it to you, girl,” he continued. “No one saw through you, especially not that Cato. Arrogant, conceited son of a bitch. He never saw it coming. None of them saw this coming.”

“Who are you?” I repeated.

He placed a hand on my shoulder. “You don’t recognize me? No, you wouldn’t have. You thought you killed me back there in Genthal. You ought to have known better.”

“Targus,” I said immediately.

The simulacrum’s fingers gripped my skin as he forced me to gaze at the council, who were now in stages of drawing their swords and running away. “Not Targus,” he said. “That one is dead. But you knew he wasn’t alive. You knew there was someone behind him. Someone who made the mistake of connecting to the wrong body at the wrong time. I didn’t know they kept backups because of the bodies’ natural aging processes. I found out the real one was in Lord Cato’s safekeeping. Since I couldn’t very well just march into his abode, I sent a trusted servant to take care of him. Little did I know you were already there, meddling away. Oh, look at your face. Are you still confused? Nasuha killed Lord Cato for me.”

“Let her go, Rasiad!” a voice roared from the crowd. Enosh appeared, sword in hand.

“See?” Cerknar said, against my ear. “He got it immediately. You’re smart, girl, but not smart enough. You still have a lot to learn.” He pushed me to the side, just as his eyes turned blue. The air crackled, and then a moment later, so did the ground.

I drew a shield-spell just in time as the paved earth underneath us splintered in all directions and a monster tore its way out of the hole like a beast crawling out of its den.

The undead king had changed. Somewhere along the way, perhaps because of a fresh influx of agan, it had grown taller, its muscles more pronounced. The dead skin over its flesh had turned grey. Blue flames danced in its eyes with a touch of violet light. Enosh screamed at the council to flee; most were in various stages of panic. And then his eyes fell on me.

“Get back!” he roared, waving his sword in the air. “Rosha!”

I stumbled backward as more explosions sounded. The ground lit up in a pattern. Somebody had dropped a spell into the grass. It whipped shards of light through the air before rising through the air like a net, which promptly trapped the undead king in the middle of the courtyard.

Ceres dropped from one of the trees in the distance. “Listen to your elders, Rosha,” she said smoothly. “This thing and I have unfinished business.”

She tugged at her fingers. The agan net around the monster tightened even further; his desiccated flesh bulged through the holes, leaking small trails of black fluid.

The emperor leaped through the fray and went for her.

Ceres deftly cast a shield before dodging. I’d never seen her fight before—actually fight—and had to stare in awe for a moment as blue light struck blue light, creating clouds in the air. Ceres was a skilled mage, no question about it, but for Rasiad to be able to cast through the simulacrum enough to hold her own was something else. She shouldn’t be able to, but somehow, she did. I realized I was looking at myself in the mirror. The rules were meant to control, not guide you, and Ceres had grown up consuming nothing but Eheldeth’s doctrines. Mages like Rasiad and I could do what was seemingly impossible because we’d been given no choice, dandelions growing through the cracks of a pavement.

I could see Ceres beginning to sweat. Already, this was more than she bargained for. I turned to Enosh. “We have to find this Rasiad,” I said. “In the dressing room, or a closet in the dining hall. Somewhere she’s protected. Be careful. She shouldn’t be able to control him. She’s drawing on something strong enough to make her do this.”

He nodded and turned around.

Ivasus appeared in the distance, blocking the path. “Not today, Tar’elian,” he said. “Rasiad let your family go. Do you want her to pick up where she left off? You promised assistance.”

Enosh spat. “Do you actually think this will work?”

“Look around you. We’re almost there. We just need to take their magic away and have them bow to the undead king.”

“You’re not. Remove their magic—hell, kill them—and more will only follow.” He lifted his sword and charged.

Ivasus cast a bolt of lightning, which struck the end of Enosh’s sword. He spun to the left, all but letting the force glance off the blade. I knew Ivasus was just using it as a distraction so he could find an opening, so I lunged from the side, my staff striking the dirt a few feet from him. I let loose a small force that knocked him off his feet.

“Now!” I screamed at Enosh.

He didn’t even need more than that. He bolted past Ivasus as he got up and threw a ball of fire in my direction. It smacked the air above my shoulder, barely missing my head. Even then, searing pain exploded where the fire touched my skin. I could smell the crackle of my own burning flesh as I mindlessly struck at him with my staff. I caught him on the cheek.

He grabbed my arm, twisting it and driving me to my knees.

“This is ridiculous,” he gasped. “Just sit back and watch, Rosha. It’ll be over soon enough. Don’t you want to see the assholes suffer?”

“Their suffering does nothing for me.”

His eyes watered. He hated that I was still talking.

In the distance, I heard a blood-curling scream, one that was cut short in the end. A blunted sound. I knew before I’d even turned that it marked the end of someone’s life.

I saw Ceres fall to the ground with the emperor’s sword in her heart.

“Ivasus,” Rasiad snarled. “Stop wasting your time. Leave her. Get to the king before the worms slide away.”

Ivasus nodded and stepped away from me.

I ran towards Ceres. Blood was dripping out of her mouth. “Fool me once…” she started as I grabbed her.

“Stop talking,” I said. “I’m going to get help.”

Ceres gave a dismissive shake of her head before grabbing my hand. The look in her eyes grew soft. The light that had driven this powerful, ambitious woman was fading. Decades of being Firekeeper, the first woman to have held the position for so long, now slipping away, just like that. I thought she was about to say something poignant, last words worthy of history books. She was the sort of woman who could pull it off. I used to wonder if she kept a notebook with her, just writing down all the words she thought sounded good for the occasion. She always seemed to know what to say.

“I’m cold,” she whispered. “Stay with me, Rosha.” It almost sounded like she had forgiven me for defying her. Maybe she was just in too much pain to remember. She removed something from her neck and placed it in my hand, her shaking fingers covering mine. She looked like she wanted to say more, but her body wasn’t letting her.

I never liked Ceres, but I had always respected her, and maybe in the end, none of that mattered. I slid down next to her and allowed her head to lay on my lap as she slid into unconscious and then the inevitable. Whatever our differences were, nobody should die alone.

CHAPTER 41

ROSHA

I encountered Felan in the dining hall on my way back to the main building. He looked at my drenched clothes in shock. I looked like I had gone swimming in a sea of blood.

“It’s not me,” I said. “It’s Ceres.”

“Is she—”

I shook my head. I was still numb all over.

“Where?”

“Outside,” I said. “But we don’t have time to mourn. We need to stop Rasiad. Getting her out of the emperor’s body is a start.”

He looked shocked. “She’s—the emperor? Outside?”

“Where have you been, anyway?”

“Helping trace the spells for your stepfather,” he said. “I was in the far end of the courtyard. The wagon with Kefier’s body just rolled through the gates when I saw the lights.”

“Mistress Rasiad is working with Ivasus and she’s hiding here somewhere, controlling the emperor.”

Felan’s face paled. “How?”

“I don’t know. She’s blocked my connection, for now, but it’s shaky. The part that concerns me is that such a spell would require far too much energy for what appears to be a mere show. Someone’s helping her do it. Someone stronger than any of us, and far, far too malevolent to be just any mage.” I started to wipe my face with my hands and then stopped when I realized they were still sticky with Ceres’s blood.

“You’re shaking,” Felan began.

“I’m fine.”

He took me in his arms silently. It couldn’t have been for more than a second—we didn’t have the time. And yet when I pulled away, something had shifted. In these same halls where I used to think I would never be accepted, I suddenly felt at peace.

I held out the necklace Ceres had given me. Felan’s eyes widened. “That’s the Firekeeper’s,” he said. “She never handed it over to Ivasus?”

“She wouldn’t have. As far as she was concerned, his appointment wasn’t official.” I turned it over. Blood was caked over the golden surface, which dripped into the crevices of the etching of a key. I blinked. No—not an etching. I stuck my finger through the crack, and the key popped out. The end of it was smooth.

“That’s a master key,” Felan said, echoing my thoughts.

“The inner sanctum,” I whispered. “In the library. She’ll be there.”

“A hunch?”

“An educated hunch,” I replied. “It’s where I would hide. Come on.” Without waiting for his reply, I took his hand, and we bolted down the hallway, up the stairs, and into the darkness.

I only let him go when we reached the library. Ceres’s key slid into the inner sanctum’s doors smoothly.

“Be careful,” Felan said, as the door started to swing inward. His hand grabbed mine again, squeezing it. I realized he feared for my life. I wasn’t infallible, not like the Firekeeper was, and this woman had killed her without breaking a sweat. And yet he wasn’t going to stop me. The Felan of my youth would have told me I was in over my head, that he didn’t have to look very far to find someone more capable. This one believed in me.

I kissed him. I knew, in the back of my mind, that there was no guarantee I was going to survive this encounter. Ceres’s death had shoved me head-first into reality. Rasiad wasn’t playing games here, and I had nothing to defend myself with. And yet for the first time in my life, I wanted to be wrong.

Two moments, maybe three, and then I charged.

The woman was standing in the middle of the room, glowing all the way to the tips of her white hair with her eyes closed. Books had been pulled out of the shelves, as if a giant gust of wind had gone through the entire sanctum. Agan kept her aloft, a far cry from my unmoving lump of a body when I controlled the emperor. I gave the aisle a wide berth, my own fingers tingling. I needed to focus what few spells I could cast towards protecting myself. Attacking her with magic was out of the question—I didn’t have enough strength for that. But then, I didn’t really need to hurt her too much. I just needed to break her connection to the emperor, to stop him from wreaking havoc out there. I knew the undead king’s transformation had something to do with her magic.

I picked up a book from the ground and flung it towards her head.

It struck the back of her skull with a satisfying sound. Her body twitched at the intrusion. I picked up another book, and then…

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Her voice had an ethereal quality to it, the sound of an orchestra humming inside a temple—as if two or three voices shadowed her every word. I knew in an instant that this magic was nothing like mine. Whatever she had drawn on to block me and connect her to the emperor, whatever was keeping her afloat, whatever had turned the undead king into a monster beyond reckoning…wasn’t Gorenten blood magic at all.

“Who are you?” I asked. “What are you?”

“Questions for questions, little Rosha,” she snarled, teeth gnashing as she spoke. “You know who I am, and you know what I am: a harbinger of change, bringer of freedoms. Your people’s suffering ends here.”

“My people? Not yours, too?”

She lifted her hands.

“Who the hell are you?” I repeated. “If you were Mistress Rasiad, you’d have gone into a long speech about why you’re doing this! You’d still be trying to convince me to work with you! Why have you thrown all that away? One whiff of power, and suddenly—”

“Enough!” she thundered, loud as a midsummer storm. A wave of agan rattled through the room, sending me flying into the shelves. As books poured over me, something flashed in my head, and everything turned dark.

When I came to, I was still in that room. But I couldn’t move. It was as if something was dragging my limbs, holding them to the ground, pinning them with a force impossible to fight against. My mouth. My…tail.

As I struggled to grasp this, a heavy weight landed on my chest. Someone was stepping on my back, pushing the breath out of my lungs, squeezing my heart like it was an overripe lemon. Everything felt like fire. I wanted to burn whoever it was to the ground. I wanted it to go away.

“What a pathetic creature,” a familiar voice said above me.

I struggled to keep my eyes open. You’re dead, you shouldn’t be talking. I finally managed to turn my head. Cato stood over me—a younger version of him, with hardly a shadow of a beard on his smooth face, though his eyes remained the same. He lifted the staff in his hand to prod my rib.

I turned, hissing, and managed to snap at the very end of the staff. Splintered wood exploded in my mouth. I wanted to take more. I wanted to take his whole head off. But the ropes held me in place, digging into my skin so tight the fibres felt like nails in my sores. Someone laughed.

“It really doesn’t like you,” Vazon interjected. He sauntered past Cato and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. Unlike Cato, he looked much younger—as if the man I’d met not that long ago had been remade over and over again by the weight of his responsibilities. Thinner of bone than Cato, with a pointed chin and mischievous eyes, no different from any of the boys Ivasus spent most of his time with.

“I think it’s time we let it go.” A third voice. A girl appeared from behind them. Dark-haired, dark-skinned. For a moment, I thought she was me.

“Seina’s no fun,” Vazon said, stretching his arms out. “We’ve yet to uncover its secrets. Imagine all the spells we can learn, ahead of time. We’ll be the envy of all our classmates.”

“It’s a beast,” Seina said flatly. “It’s not going to teach you anything. How long do you think you can keep this behind the keepers’ backs? In a week, most of them will return to prepare for the next semester.”

“So we have a week, then,” Cato broke in. He picked up his shattered staff, unfazed, and placed his hand on the tip. Blue tendrils crawled from his fingers and onto the staff as he remade it, forcing the wood to hold itself together. Not even a bead of sweat dotted his forehead. They weren’t joking when they called him one of the most powerful mages to have ever come out of Eheldeth. “I can do this in a week. It’s still a living creature. Starve it, make it believe it’s going to die and then offer it a sliver of salvation and relief…it’ll bend in time.”

“You’re going to torture a dragon in the hopes of getting it to talk and teach you tricks that will get you expelled from the school,” Seina snapped. “I agreed with this only because you said you were going to study it and then let it go unharmed. No one said anything about hurting it.”

“Dragons fascinate you just as much as they fascinate us,” Vazon said. “No need to deny it, Seina. We wouldn’t have even caught it without you.”

“It’s a beast,” she repeated. “I wanted to see how the agan manifests itself in beasts. That’s it.”

“Mages across the empire draw from these things,” Cato said, wiping the last of the splinters off his sleeves. “They can’t just be beasts. I’ve heard it said that in the past, dragon-riders from Jin-Sayeng were able to transfer their consciousness into the creatures. Rumours aside, such an exchange can’t be done with creatures that aren’t sentient.”

“Shouldn’t be done,” Seina interjected. “You could do anything if you weren’t afraid of the consequences.”

Cato licked his lips. “I want to be inside this dragon.”

“Make it sound less weird,” Vazon offered.

“I want to wear its skin,” Cato said, half-snarling. “Power is nothing if the rest of the world doesn’t see you as powerful. Look at half the things mages do for this empire. Look at how little respect we get, considering.”

Seina sniffed. “They’re already afraid of us. Do you really want them to worship the ground you walk on?”

“Yes,” Cato said, unamused.

Seina turned her head. “Good luck with that.”

“Let’s start,” Cato said, turning to me. “Come, creature. Show me what you’re made of. Show me everything I’m not supposed to know.”

I backed away, the rope digging deeper into my skin. Blood trickled down my forelegs. Cato was holding a dagger in his left hand, a wicked-looking thing that grinned as the moonlight shone down on it. It was throbbing with blue light. Something told me it was going to hurt.

The air flashed, and then…

I was on the floor again, but in my own body. Each piece of furniture in the sanctum had turned into a shade of blue. I was in my body, but no longer in the world as I knew it. Someone had made a perfect recreation of the library’s inner sanctum in the agan.

I got to my feet. I found myself staring into the eyes of a serpentine-shaped dragon, a creature with glowing blue eyes, blue skin, and sharp teeth. It craned its neck as I faced it, hands on my side. Rasiad stood beside it, one hand on its arm, as if it was nothing more than a pet she was hoping wouldn’t harm me.

“Welcome to our domain,” Rasiad said in that same, three-layered voice.

“You…and the dragon?” I ventured.

Rasiad nodded. “Quelraiskan speaks through me. Moves through me. When that happens, I am nothing but a vessel for the true powers of this continent. For the longest time, we are one.” She gestured at the beast, who dropped its head, wings unfurling. It looked like a magnificent sculpture, a far cry from the stories of vicious dragons we all read while growing up. Its scales gleamed like jewels.

“You’re Seina, from the dream I just had,” I said. “You were a student of Eheldeth before all of this.”

Rasiad smiled. “They blamed her for the whole incident.” Her voice even deepened, so that there was no question the dragon was speaking through her. “Cato and Vazon knew the council would take their side. She was expelled from school. She, who tried to stop them, should’ve tried harder, so it seems.” She shrugged. “Old wounds. Cato’s death helped us forgive him.” She laughed a little, but it was a frail, exhausted laugh.

“So both of you…” I started. “Both of you have been seeking control of the emperor this whole time. Both of you, all along. Targus, and all those others…”

“Useless lumps of flesh. When we finally found the correct body and disposed of its handler, you weaseled your way in.”

“All this just for vengeance?”

Rasiad shrugged. “In part. But I think you know the rest.”

“Vengeance, power—”

“…and the chance to set things straight. You hold no love for these mages, their council, or the entire hegemony. Of all people in the world, you should understand.”

I swallowed. “Your woman meddled and forced me here. Without her, without your orders, none of this would have happened.”

“You don’t really believe that. The hegemony creates enemies everywhere, even within the people it chooses to serve. Look at your friend, Ivasus.”

“What will it take to make you stop?” I gasped. “I just need my family safe. That’s it. Tell me what you want from me.”

Rasiad held out her hand. “Your unequivocal obedience.”

“Done,” I said. “Now—”

She wagged a finger at me, shaking her head. “No. Your word isn’t enough. I want you to lend us your strength. You should know by now that the undead king rampaging out there holds a blueprint of Elian’s Heart. That spell must be triggered, and it requires finesse. It will take more than our skill and our raw power—human and dragon alike—to strike at every mage here.”

I blanched. “Every mage?”

“No one will be spared,” she reassured me. “Everyone within Eheldeth’s grounds will walk out of Eheldeth blinder than those they have treated like dirt.”

If Felan had it correct, Kefier was already in the area. He would be affected, too. I just had to make sure Nasuha was beside him, and I could save him. My fingers twitched.

“Come,” Rasiad continued. “Without you, I will have to draw on something else. Unwilling souls. Gorenten. But someone like you, who should be dead by now, someone who has no right practicing powerful magic when your own life is barely hanging by a string, can end this. You know you want to. Those mages will know everything you’ve ever suffered, and more. Don’t you want that? Don’t you want them to understand what true powerlessness feels like?”

I closed my eyes. I could see the keeper in that last exam, the one overseeing the portals trial, leering down at me. Blaming me for what he knew couldn’t possibly have been my fault. I saw them standing in the distance, begging me to rethink my options. Everyone who had ever called me a savage or a dimwit, who dared me to impress them all while knowing nothing I did would ever change their mind, who treated me with more disdain than a butcher treats an animal it wants to slaughter. Stop and think, Rosha. You know it doesn’t end here. You can’t take away the lifeblood of the empire without making everything else wither. Remember what you told Ivasus? Our suffering won’t remove yours!

Ah, but it would save Kefier. For my papa, I would watch in silence as they bleed.

I reached for Rasiad’s hand.

CHAPTER 42

NASUHA

She woke up with blood inside her mouth and dust in her throat. As Nasuha wrestled with consciousness, so did she struggle with the pervading thought that her mistress had turned on her. They had disagreements over the years, but this went beyond that. In the blink of an eye, she’d become useless. After all the woman’s grand speeches about the future of their people and how it relied on children like her, in the end, she saw her the same way as the Dageians did. A weapon. And weapons, in time, could become dull, useless.

“Are you still alive?” she heard Asera ask.

Nasuha slowly nodded. Her neck felt stiff. She forced herself up, her muscles straining with the effort. Asera grabbed her by the arm to help her find her footing.

“The bitch,” Nasuha said under her breath.

Asera made a sound that was almost, but not quite, an agreement. Nasuha grimaced.

“You’ve thought so all these years, I suppose.”

“I don’t want another argument,” Asera said. “We’ve been doing so well getting along again after all this time.”

“You’ve been trying to warn me about her all these years.”

Asera sighed. “It wasn’t a warning. You knew, too. But you’re the sort of person who doesn’t think twice about the company of a snake till after it’s bitten you. I’ve long accepted it.”

“I failed her, too. This is just as much on me as her.”

“That’s a lie, Suha. She just didn’t think much of you. People like that…” She took a deep breath. “Well, they’ve got their own ideas about who’s important and who’s not. Otherwise, their actions would be as much about not causing harm, you know? Most of us can’t take it. Most of us can’t go running into the abyss like we’ve got nothing to lose.” Asera swallowed before reaching for her hand. The briefest of touches—she withdrew almost immediately—but Nasuha felt her cheeks burn.

She wiped more dust from her mouth and looked around. There were footsteps at the far end of the hall, leading towards the main foyer. She drew her sword. Asera followed her carefully, like a doe knowing hunters lie waiting in the thicket. Nasuha wanted to ask her to leave now, spare herself the rest of this. She knew she would never listen, but the thought of something happening to her now was more than she could bear. Cerknar’s blade had nearly taken her head off—she could still see the vertical slice above her collarbone. The wound had stopped bleeding, but just another step closer and…

She saw two figures dragging a third along the ground. It took her a moment to recognize Felan and Enosh. The motionless figure was Kefier. She ran down to the end of the corridor to join them.

“About bloody time,” Enosh grumbled under his breath. All the humour was gone from his voice. He looked like a man who’d gone into the deep end of the ocean and barely got out with his life, though there wasn’t a single mark on him. Something else had cut him deeper.

“Did something happen?” Nasuha asked.

She knew it was a stupid question, judging from the look on his face. He let go of Kefier’s arm for a moment before pointing in the distance. Nasuha paused, listening. She thought she heard a roar from somewhere, followed by a flash. “Mages,” Enosh said with a grimace. “Having the time of their lives, or so one can assume if one believes the pamphlets they send out from Eheldeth. Most of those people haven’t battled a magical creature in decades, if at all. Rasiad has gone too far. And yet she’s decided to work with Rosha. They do want the same thing, after all.” He glanced at the clock in the middle of the hall, set above the grand staircase. “They’ll be casting the spell shortly. We have to get ready.”

“The spell—what do you mean? They’re not here.”

“She needs Rosha’s help to cast the spell on Eheldeth itself, not on a target,” Felan said. “It will affect every mage in the vicinity.”

Nasuha blanched. “That will mean us, too.”

“Well, yes,” Enosh replied. He didn’t look like he was in the mood for witty remarks.

“Maybe that’s not as much of a loss to you, but—”

“Yes, I know.”

“I need to be able to wade into Kefier’s consciousness to re-connect some of the agan threads. His body will destroy itself otherwise. But if I don’t have magic anymore, I won’t be able to do anything.” It took a lot of effort to stop her voice from shaking. It was ironic that she could suddenly fear a fate she easily handed over to a girl.

“Rosha instructed me to warn you,” Felan said. “She’ll be triggering the spell just as the hour turns. Enosh can have a spell-block ready while you dive into Kefier’s body. With any luck, it will hold until after the spell is over.”

Nasuha pointed at Enosh. “Elian’s Heart is strong. Can you create a shield-block that can withstand it?”

Enosh swallowed. “How long is the spell supposed to last?”

“Fifty breaths, at least. Two hundred, to be safe. She won’t be able to maintain it long from her end, either, but it’s not a very long spell. It’s just—”

“I’ve never cast a shield-spell longer than three breaths,” Enosh said.

Nasuha blinked. “What?”

“I said—”

“Yes, I know. But that’s—”

“I don’t even know how long a breath is supposed to be,” Enosh snapped. “You mages have very different definitions. The last one who tried to teach me held her breaths longer than most.”

“Just hold it. Pretend you’re with a woman.”

“What by the gods’ green earth has that got to do with anything?”

“We’re fucked,” Asera broke in, in a voice rather more cheerful than Nasuha would have liked. “Really. We’re stuck here with the one mage who can’t do that.”

“In that case…” Nasuha sighed. “We’ll have to switch roles. I can do two hundred easily. You’ll have to wade in.” She touched Kefier’s face briefly, just to check that he was still breathing. “I know you’ve said you’re uncomfortable going through the agan, but we don’t have another choice.”

Enosh cleared his throat. She was expecting him to argue. But he took one look at his brother’s still face, and resolve crossed his features in a way she’d never seen before. “Tell me what to do.”

As Enosh’s body slumped to the side and his consciousness drifted to the ether to meet his brother’s, Nasuha couldn’t help but note the difference.

Outside, an empire was on the verge of collapse. An event among events, the sort you could fill history books with. Nasuha had once believed Rasiad had thrown herself into her goals because of grief. Now, she wasn’t so sure. The goals had preceded the grief. If anything, the grief accompanied them. If she’d spent more time with Somya, she would have been on that airship with her. They would have died together, like her mother and her siblings. If all you had in the end were the people you loved and who loved you, you could still have everything.

They were going through all this trouble for one person. Rosha was risking her life. She didn’t want to voice it out in front of the people who loved her, but she knew what Rasiad required of her was more than what most people could withstand. She was the key Rasiad had needed all these years, a weapon so sharp it rendered everything else useless. Nasuha’s attempts to dull it had only made it sharper.

The shield flickered overhead. Felan glanced up. There was no tinge of envy on his features, nor anger that Nasuha could still do all the things he couldn’t. There was only awe, a sort of pleasure in the act of seeing magic even when he could no longer perform it himself. He glanced up at the blue ripples as if it was the first time he’d ever seen shimmers of agan in the air, though he must have seen such a spell hundreds of times in his youth. “Two hundred breaths, huh,” he said, off-handedly.

“Maybe it sounds pathetic to you…” Nasuha said.

He shook his head. “It’s impressive, actually. Considering.”

“That I didn’t study here?” she asked, with a tinge of temper.

Felan seemed largely unaware of the perceived insult. “Considering that you’ve got nothing at stake here. Two hundred breaths, or more, for people who aren’t your own.”

Nasuha shrugged. “I don’t need anyone to tell me I’ve done wrong. That sorry isn’t going to cut it.”

“You still have time to get out of here. Steal a horse. Be gone from Eheldeth as the hour strikes. I don’t believe the spell will go beyond the gates. You’ll be in a better position than if your shield breaks with the spell on top of us.”

“I’m not a coward,” Nasuha said under her breath. “I’m a woman who made a mistake. I still have the choice not to run from it.”

And with that, she gave Kefier’s body a push past the shield, so that only his arm was left sticking inside of it. She turned to Enosh, positioning him so that his body was right under the shield. He was still holding his brother’s hand firmly, which she thought was a good thing. That meant he hadn’t completely lost grip of himself.

The hour struck.

Nasuha closed her eyes and focused on keeping the shield up. She thought of waves crashing on the shore. She thought of the hermit crabs she used to pick from the beach when she was little, the ones she used to bring home to her siblings. She couldn’t even remember their names. It had been that long.

Someone yelled from across the hall.

Nasuha feigned indifference. She couldn’t let the shield-spell slip. The clock’s hands had slipped past the allotted time. She didn’t know if Elian’s Heart was in the air, but she wasn’t about to risk it. Behind her, she heard Asera swear. The woman drew her sword and suddenly slipped past the shield.

“Don’t—” she began, before Felan swiftly followed her.

“We’re blind to the agan, anyway,” Felan said without missing a beat. “Don’t worry about us. Keep them safe.”

Nasuha shifted her gaze to the distance. She saw Ivasus appearing in the hall where the library was, surrounded by his own shield-spell, which flickered with every step he took. A volatile, badly made shield. She didn’t know how long he’d expect to keep it up. “Where the hell are they?” he roared as he approached. “Where’s the bitch and her new pet?”

“She’s done with you, Ivasus,” Felan said, blocking his path. “You know it was always Rosha she needed. There’s still time. Leave now, while you can. You’re struggling with that.” He pointed at the shield.

“Mind your own damned business,” Ivasus roared, pushing Felan out of the way. The smaller man toppled backwards, but he recovered swiftly and kept his position. Ivasus grabbed him by the collar with one hand.

“I don’t know what that woman promised you, but she lied,” Felan said calmly.

“She wants to topple the empire,” Ivasus hissed. “She said she needed me.”

“She used you to get to Rosha,” Nasuha called out. “Sit and enjoy the show, Lord Ivasus. This is happening, with or without you.”

He flung Felan aside. “This is all happening because of me! Does she intend to rebuild the empire on her own, without the help of someone entrenched in the hegemony? They’ll just replace all these mages with more incompetent ones!”

“She has no intention of rebuilding,” Nasuha said, almost sadly.

Ivasus’s face flickered. “What?”

“She wants to tear it all down. That’s it. She has no plans beyond this.” Nasuha gestured. “Look around you. How do you fix this? She must have given up a long time ago. I’ve seen it with my own eyes—I should have known.”

“There’s something else,” Felan added. “She is borrowing from a dragon’s power. I think Rosha believes it’s all but taken over her own consciousness. When the spell is over, she intends to turn it against her.”

Amusement flitted over Ivasus’s face. “How the fuck does she expect to do that?”

“I’m not sure,” Felan said. “All I know is she’s stronger than you can ever hope to be.”

Ivasus’s shield began to dance around him. He tightened his face. “We’ll see about that!” He turned a corner, heading straight for the courtyard. Felan moved to stop him.

“Leave him,” Nasuha said. “She can take care of herself. It’s almost over, anyway.”

Felan held out his hand and looked upward. “I don’t feel anything.”

“I do,” Asera replied. “It’s like the ground after a long, hard rain.”

Something shattered in the distance, like an explosion filled with broken glass. The sky lit up and was silent.

Nasuha’s knees buckled slightly. A movement near her feet made her glance downward. She saw Enosh bolting forward, awake. “I did it,” he gasped. “That fucking agan. I never want to swim in it again.” He turned to his brother. “Kefier,” he whispered. “Wake up. Kefier!”

The man’s eyes remained motionless. Enosh’s face tightened. He reached down to grab Kefier’s arm, jerking his body upward. “You son of a bitch,” Enosh snarled. “You don’t get to stick your nose into my family’s business, turn things upside down, and then leave me with it. You’re not allowed. Do you hear me? You’re going to come back and you’re going to take your wife and your children away from all of this. If you don’t—”

He fell silent, his forehead on his brother’s. Nasuha realized he was weeping. She also realized, with alarm, that this was a man who didn’t really weep. But something in the last few minutes had changed him. Something he’d seen in the agan, where you were stripped of everything but what was inside of you. Maybe he finally realized all the things he’d done wrong. Maybe he was confronted with the reality that even if he learned all the things he could do to make it right, it was still too late. Fates might be kind enough to grant you a thousand lives, but you only get to live them one at a time.

Turag, she thought. And Amai. Her siblings. She needed to go back someday and make sure they were buried properly. Buy them gravestones. Make sure they could still be remembered. Someone ought to.

She heard a cough.

“Gods,” Kefier croaked out. “You always talked too much, you bastard.” He patted the back of his brother’s head.

Enosh started laughing, tears still running down the sides of his face.

Nasuha finally allowed the shield to slip. She cringed as she did so, knowing if the spell was still in the air, she was risking her own connections. Maybe she deserved it. But the spell was already over. She must have kept the shield longer than necessary.

Kefier got to his feet, one arm on Enosh’s shoulders. “I heard something about Rosha and a dragon in the darkness,” he gasped. “I sensed that thing’s presence, and hers. You should have warned her against facing a thing like that. She’s too weak now. We have to stop them.”

Nasuha reached forward to help Enosh carry Kefier down the hall. Felan ran ahead.

They reached the courtyard, which was littered with dead mages and mages who wished they were dead. In the center of the garden, near the fountain where Rasiad would have ordered Rosha to trigger the spell on the undead king, there was nothing but dark spots and burn marks. Rasiad, Rosha, and Ivasus were nowhere in sight. The undead king’s bones were in a pile in the corner, his skull set in the center, the undead hollows of his eyes staring at the sky as if he was thanking the gods for letting him finish the job at last.

CHAPTER 43

ROSHA

The dragon Quelraiskan’s recreation of the courtyard was even more impressive than the library. She rendered a likeness of her moment of triumph: of the mages she had detested just as much as Rasiad locked in agony, their faces frozen with the realization that they’d been robbed of their magic. Magic, the power that came with it…all gone in the blink of an eye. I thought of the ensuing chaos that would follow as soon as the news spread across the empire. Other mages, the ones unimportant enough not to have received an invitation to Ivasus’s party, might be sympathetic, but only at first. Then the jackals would come. The merchant guild would lick their lips. The outlaws would come out of hiding. The hegemony would turn on each other once in panic. In many ways, Rasiad’s plan was brilliant, if you only cared about inciting chaos.

But now that it was all over, it felt like we had done nothing at all.

I saw the dragon breathing near the fountain, its whiskers curled up against its snout like the wind. Rasiad stood next to it. Both were perfectly still, as if they were images cast by the agan-recreation itself. Something shuffled behind them, a shadow of the man who had forced himself into this pocket of consciousness just as Elian’s Heart faded from the air.

“What are you doing here?” I asked Ivasus. “You should be down there enjoying the fruits of your labour.”

He gave an expression halfway between a smile and a grimace, as if I had offered him a crown covered in shit. “And take credit for all of this, when I was set aside yet again?” he demanded. “Useless then, useless now. Always been a loser.” It looked strange to see him sneering when I knew the expression was meant for himself.

“You threw a grand party,” I reminded him. “Take credit for that.”

He crouched in front of Rasiad and Quelraiskan. “You did something to them. I saw, right before I jumped into the portal you made.”

“You need to learn to stop interfering with my portals.”

“And you need to learn to stop leaving them open for interference,” he snapped.

I shook my head. In spite of everything, it all seemed so amusing. “We’re not children anymore,” I said. “Maybe it’s time we move past that.”

His face tightened. “What do you mean?”

“You’re here because they didn’t think you were worthy, and you wanted to prove you were. Believe it or not, I know what that feels like.”

He snorted. “Like we could ever be the same.”

“Not the same. But similar. The empire only finds worth in those that could further its cause.” I approached him, just so I could get closer to the dragon and Rasiad up ahead. I pointed to them. “She was feeding off the dragon. She lent it her sentience, and in turn, it lent her its power. You must have heard of The Six. Of the accident that nearly obliterated that whole library wing and killed three other students besides. The dragon nearly died, too, and would’ve killed a fourth child as it crashed. But she helped it, and it kept her alive, in return. I believe they’ve formed a symbiotic relationship since. The dragon’s body was taken into the agan, where it kept connections with Rasiad, supplying her with a convenient supply of agan that she could hide from the authorities. The dragon, on the other hand, got to live as a human through her, and extended its life that way. All I did was use Elian’s Heart to cut their connection.”

Ivasus grimaced. The man who wouldn’t think twice of blood magic and sacrificing my own people found the thought of mind-melding with a dragon abhorrent. It was strange to see what lines he would draw—that he was, in fact, capable of drawing them at all. “Why the portal?” he asked.

“I wanted to make sure we didn’t level the entire school,” I said. “Siphon the energy, and so on…”

“Yes, yes,” Ivasus said, impatiently. “But why?”

“What do you mean why?”

“Why save the school? You hate the damn thing.”

I hesitated. It wasn’t a terrible question. I hated Eheldeth and everything it stood for, it was true. I told myself I wouldn’t be caught dead in it. And yet…

“I don’t hate the school itself,” I found myself saying. “Not the building, or the grounds. I knew it was all a lie, but…in a way, it offered freedom. Possibilities. The idea that I could fight back, and here are the skills I need to start. Before I went here, I only knew how to run.”

Ivasus sneered again. He probably didn’t know how to respond to anything anymore without disdain. “I know,” I said, before he could open his mouth to retort. “It broke you. It broke us. But lies can be comforting, too.”

“So you say,” he said, unconvinced. “You always were a fool, though.”

“The best of them all,” I half-whispered.

The air rippled. He got up and flexed his shoulders. “Now, how do we get out?”

I hesitated.

The grin left his face. “Don’t tell me you don’t know.”

I held up a finger. “You have no right to get angry. You followed me here, remember.”

Ivasus walked towards me. “You—”

“Stop right there.”

Ivasus didn’t listen. He continued walking, his hands reaching out to grab my wrist. He tried to drag me up to his face. I struck him with a fist, a blow that barely seemed to glance off him. “Take us back,” he snarled. “Take us back now.”

“This isn’t something you can force out of me,” I said. “Triggering the spell and then taking us here pushed me to my limits.” I pulled myself out of his grasp and showed him my bleeding arms. It was a wonder I could still stand after all I’d lost. Maybe transporting my actual body across the agan fabric helped. Nothing followed the rules of the physical world out here, and my body probably decided to play along.

“You liar. You’ve been saying you’re incapable of magic all these years, and yet you threaten to turn the world sideways at the same time.”

“I can’t control it,” I said. “That makes all the difference.”

“When you talk, it makes my head spin. You love that, don’t you? You always have. Now I’m trapped here with you.”

“You followed me here,” I repeated.

It seemed to finally sink in. Ivasus stared at me, eyes half-watering. “Are we going to die here?” he finally asked in a soft voice.

“You were going to die anyway,” I said, pushing myself away from him. “Enjoy your borrowed time.”

I walked to the extent of what the dragon and Rasiad had mapped in their years together. As far as I could tell, they recreated most of Eheldeth, all in shades of blue. It was even more impressive than I figured. Even the sculptures were etched in painstaking detail, some of which I didn’t remember from my time there. Either I’d forgotten about them, or someone—probably Rasiad—had decided to embellish them with her own flair, an artist’s touch invisible to all but those who knew.

It was hard to see it as anything but a labour of love. She cared more about the damned school than it ever did for her. And who was I, fool that I was, to say she was wrong? Long after Eheldeth had forgotten her, she still remembered it, and made her own version to staunch the anguish of its rejection. Every corner, every corridor, every door handle—the woman knew how to make her pain count. I had never seen anything more exquisite in my life.

“You admire them,” Ivasus said from behind me. He seemed loathe to be left behind on his own. “This woman.”

“I wish I’d met her sooner,” I admitted.

Ivasus sniffed. “So you could plan the fall of the empire together. Yes. She would have loved that, too.”

I ran my fingers along the stone columns that lined the great hall. “Sometimes all it takes is another person to see what you’ve gone through and tell you it’s not just you. It’s not your fault. You didn’t deserve what they put you through. You didn’t bring it upon yourself.”

“What the hell do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.”

He said something under his breath.

“My wounds are healing,” I said, at length.

“What?”

I lifted my arms to show him. He looked confused. But the long, jagged lines, the ones fresh from my last spellcasting, had turned pink. The agan could heal when it wanted to, and something about the pocket Rasiad and Quelraiskan made seemed to make it particularly potent.

“Something here is keeping us alive,” I said. “Nourishing us, even.”

“Which means…?”

“If we were going to die, we should have died already. I feel we’re going to be stuck with each other’s company a little longer. It sustained the dragon, didn’t it? So you might as well take the opportunity to learn to be more pleasant.”

“Funny. I was going to say the same thing about you.”

We stopped in front of the library. I paused, recoiling slightly at the memories of walking down this same corridor with him. But this was where I first encountered Rasiad and the dragon, and I knew I needed to see what lay within it. I placed my hand on the doorknob and pushed the doors open.

“Fun memories,” Ivasus remarked.

I didn’t reply. We went through the library in silence. The inner sanctum’s doors didn’t exist here, which immediately told me this recreation wasn’t exact at all. It was Rasiad’s idea of an ideal world, one where knowledge wasn’t tucked away to be sold to the highest bidder. The thought made my eyes water. In a world like this, we wouldn’t waste so much simply trying to exist. “She had the right idea,” I said under my breath. “If only she wasn’t driven by so much hate…”

“What’s that?” Ivasus called out.

I looked at where he was pointing. It appeared to be a glass mirror etched on the ground. I walked around the edge of the inner sanctum until I could get a closer look. There were figures there, walking, talking, like a moving painting.

“That’s your family,” Ivasus blurted out.

And now I saw them. They were huddled around in the rain, staring at the gates outside. My father, my stepfather, my mother.

“An illusion?” he ventured.

I held my breath, staring at Kefier’s form. He looked older, thinner. But he was alive. And the boys looked older, too. Haro was now up to Kefier’s shoulder. Tears filled my eyes.

“No,” I replied. “I think we’re looking at reality. And judging by my brother’s height…it’s been at least a year.”

He looked startled. “I’m supposed to be dead within the year,” he gasped. “What—”

“The portal ripped us through time,” I said. “Catapulted us forward. Or rather—made us feel as if only a few minutes have passed even though it’s moving normally out there. That’s why my wounds healed so fast.”

“How the fuck can you be so calm about this?”

“You should be dead, but you’re still not. I’m surprised you’re not more pleased.”

He opened his mouth.

I turned back to the image while he grappled for words. I didn’t want to bother to explain that it was seeing Kefier alive and well that was more than enough. It didn’t matter what was happening around me—what was happening in that image, were it true, filled me with joy. He’d survived the spell. I watched him lift something from the pack horse Enosh was leading, and realized it was a wreath made of a certain kind of white flower found in Gorent.

Funeral flowers.

“They think I’m dead,” I blurted. And all that, after I’d promised I would never leave him. I couldn’t look at his face. Even though he was wrong, the sorrow on it was too much to bear.

Ivasus made a sound. “Maybe that’s your answer. Maybe we are dead.” He glanced around, frowning. “The afterlife looks a lot worse than what the priests say.”

“Given what you’ve done with your whole life, I’d say you should count yourself lucky.” I glanced at my arms. “I don’t think I’m dead. But we’re in-between. I told you. If this place could preserve a dragon, it could preserve us.”

“But we can’t get out,” Ivasus said. “We have no connection to the outside world. We’ll stay here until…when? Until our bodies naturally expire, anyway? Until the end of time?”

For the first time in my life, I had no answer.

We walked through the entire length of Eheldeth and back until I nearly forgot what we were doing there. I thought about how the conversation would go if I was with Felan instead of Ivasus. The silence wouldn’t be so grating—I would want to reminisce about the paths we used to take, how the school had changed, or stayed the same, since he’d left. I’d been dying to talk to him about all these things, things that had nothing to do with the emperor or life as an outlaw mage or losing our magic. I thought I would have time once this was all over, and we went on that journey we said we would.

“You’re thinking about Cartos, aren’t you?” Ivasus broke into my thoughts as effortlessly as a gnat.

“Why do you care?” I countered.

“I saw how he looked at you. I loved seeing him squirm. Lord Vazon’s stepson doesn’t deserve anyone’s affections, not even yours.”

I gave him a sharp glance. “You make it sound like it’s a bad thing.”

He shrugged. “It is better than nothing, but not by much.”

“You’re pathetic.”

“Hey, I’m not the one pining over Lord Cartos over here. That wimp, of all people—”

“The library,” I started.

He rolled his eyes. “You and that library.”

“Mistress Rasiad put everything important to her in Eheldeth in here. The books there…she might have put something in them.”

He didn’t reply, which told me it wasn’t that bad of an idea after all. We returned to the inner sanctum of the library. I avoided looking at the mirror—I didn’t want to know how much time had passed in the hour or so it felt like we were walking there. I pulled a random book from the shelf. Just as I thought, the spells Rasiad had leaned on over the past few years were laid out there, in plain sight. It was almost as if she wanted to pass down everything she’d learned of blood magic to whoever was brave enough to venture all the way here.

I settled into a chair.

“You and your damn books,” Ivasus sighed.

“Felan would help me out by reading himself,” I said flatly. “It won’t kill you to do some of your own reading.”

He glanced at the shelves. “I don’t know. I’m pretty sure it will.”

I resisted the urge to tell him it would be an improvement, then, and turned my attention back to the book in my hand.

Hours passed. I could feel Ivasus getting antsy as the silence pressed over us like a dark cloud, but I found it refreshing to be able to read without distractions. I felt no hunger, no exhaustion, not even the desire to fall asleep. Ivasus got up several times to pace the length of the room, stare outside the window, and curse softly to himself; I stayed in my seat. At one point, I found myself idly wishing for a pen and a notebook to write on, and found both in the corner of the table, as if just waiting for me to discover them.

In time, I heard bell-like laughter coming from the mirror. Ivasus passed by to briefly glance at it. “Children,” he scoffed.

I got up, my knees creaking, and took a look. A man resembling Jehar, but someone who’d grown a full beard, was holding a boy up in the air. His mother Ivy had her arm hooked on his left—a young woman I didn’t know stood on the other side, smiling. His wife, I figured. They looked happy, the sort of happiness I’d always expected to be beyond me. And yet I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of envy. “Time is passing,” I mused.

Ivasus looked panicked, but not as much as he did earlier. “And you still haven’t figured out how to get us out of here?”

“Quelraiskan is the clue. She’s the one keeping us in here. Dragons are vast wells of agan—much more than anyone could have suspected. Rasiad is her link to the outside world—which makes them our link to get back out there. I just have to reconnect them to each other.”

“At which point, they’ll kill us.” Ivasus snorted. “If years have gone by down there, and hours have gone by for us, they’ll believe only a few moments have passed. They didn’t look too happy with your interference back there.”

“I’ve gotten my strength back,” I said. “I can fend them off.”

“Are you ready now?”

I nodded. “We just have to make our way back to—”

The mirror glimmered, and the images of Jehar and his family faded, replaced by a dark room filled with bookshelves, very similar to the one we were standing in. It looked like a private study. I saw a man bent over a desk. Unlike Jehar, he kept his beard short and trimmed, as he always did, and his face hardly looked a day older than when I saw him last. And yet his eyes were different.

“Not quite,” he said softly. He pointed at something on the notebook in front of him.

The young woman tilted her head back and gave a sharp cry of frustration. “I don’t get it,” she exclaimed. She had an accent. Jinan, I guessed. My mother had the same tilt.

“You will in time,” he said patiently. “But if you just keep guessing…”

I turned my head away. The sound of his voice was painful to hear. I wanted to see him again, to be in the same room and hold his hand. We strode back out to the courtyard in silence, and the minutes that followed lost all meaning. I felt like I had been there for centuries.

Quelraiskan and Rasiad were still by the fountain where we’d left them. I touched the dragon’s snout. It felt hot, like a furnace.

“Let’s go,” I said, and removed the spell-block.

The dragon surged to life as soon as I stepped back, her eyes flashing blue. I saw her look straight at me with an expression that could cut someone in half, and for a moment I thought I’d made a mistake. I pulled up a shield, readying myself for an attack. But instead, she turned to Rasiad, opened her mouth, and sank her teeth into the woman’s neck.

Rasiad didn’t even react as the dragon smashed her into the side of the fountain, blood trickling down its whiskers. It was as if she acknowledged it was over. Her work was complete, and she didn’t even care enough to watch the aftermath. The dragon could discard her as it saw fit. Our surroundings shook.

One blink, and then we were back in the physical world, in that courtyard once again, staring up at the silhouette of a dragon in the sky. Ivasus stumbled forward and fell, coughing. For a moment, I thought his disease was taking him, but then I saw him get to his feet. He looked at me with unfocused eyes.

I turned away from him to get back to the people I loved.

EPILOGUE

He didn’t think he’d ever find himself in charge of maths, of all subjects, but there it was. He had few students who learned as fast as Namra did, but even fewer who insisted she had nothing to learn after all. He wasn’t sure where that placed her. Gifted, he’d come to learn, came in all shapes and sizes. A student’s refusal to read a book back-to-back, all while they barely recalled important facts, didn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things. Talent was almost impossible to quantify. Some people, you just knew were meant for more, even when they didn’t strike you as anything but ordinary at first glance.

The Gorenten brothers were like that. They were thirteen and ten now, well on their way to becoming young men, and he felt a great obligation towards ensuring they got as much personal tutoring as the other students. When they first strode through Eheldeth’s doors, it didn’t seem right to ignore them. They seemed important, and he’d learned to pick up cues like that.

He closed what he promised was going to be his last book for the day and drifted over to draw the curtains over the window. It was close to evening, and today was lamb stew day, which was the only meal of the week he looked forward to. If he was lucky, he might be able to catch some of the keepers and engage in polite conversation. For some odd reason, he didn’t like talking to people anymore, but he got lonely sometimes. He’d decided the best solution was to engage in a few minutes of small talk every week, just to build himself up to it. He used to be such a chatterbox—perhaps he could be again. He thought he was getting the hang of it, too. Ask them about the weather, what their plans were for the upcoming semester break or vacation, or what their students had been busy with…and he could just sit and watch them talk until his yearning for company faded.

He closed the door to his study and made his way down to the courtyard. The moon had risen, though most of the afternoon light had yet to fade. He busied himself with wondering how to present tomorrow’s class on creating agan connections on inanimate objects. It was a subject that always fascinated him, even when he could no longer see it in practice. Architecture used to be a hobby of his. He'd heard one of Tar’elian’s secretaries, Portia, used to work as an architect—maybe he could invite her over for a talk.

Someone called his name from the other end of the garden. A strange voice, a woman’s, but also familiar, which told him she was someone of importance, too. He tapped his head, trying to search the memories. Was he hearing things? Something told him that something important had happened here three years ago. Pain marred the weight of the memory. He thought of a battle, her sacrifice, all the things he should have said and never got the chance to…things that just faded into thin air, as if they never existed at all. He found much irony at the human need for an end to every story. Some moved mountains just to find an end that suited their narratives. He wasn’t quite so brazen. He knew the concept of building, and lying in wait. There was nothing wrong with learning, and biding your time, and finding solutions beyond inciting chaos just because you could. Vengeance only deepens wounds, no matter how old.

“Felan.”

He stopped, holding his breath in his lungs for a moment, eyes shut. A hand clasped his back.

“Maybe you should go,” he said. “You don’t belong here anymore.”

A long pause. He felt her clutching his robes, pulling herself closer to him until her forehead rested on his back. “Are you sure?” she whispered. “I’m not quite a ghost yet, am I?”

He turned around, in time to catch the last traces of the blue glow dissipate from the surface of her skin. The memory in his mind sparked. No—she wasn’t just important. She was very important. And the smell of agan was strong on her. The memories told him she’d disappeared. Trapped in an agan-wrought world, was she? But she’d kept her body.

He needed to get to know her, and fast. “If you’re a ghost,” he said with a smirk. “Then so am I.”

She shook her head. “Don’t joke around. I did all I could to get back to you.”

Ah, he thought. How convenient.

She took his hands in hers, and without a word, he allowed her to explain.

THE STORY CONTINUES IN SHATTERED MAGE…

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Born in Daraga, Albay, K.S. Villoso writes speculative fiction with themes shaped by her childhood, with grim and grit inspired by both the streets of Manila, Philippines, and the wilds of British Columbia, Canada. Her books range from epic fantasy touched with the horrors of the aswang to long adventures through magic-strewn lands inspired by the engkanto. She now lives in BC with a pack of dogs and humans. When she isn't writing, she spends her days counting to when she can get lost in the mountains again.

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