“Should we attack?” asked Lila.
That drew looks from Kell, Alucard, and Holland.
“What?” she said.
Alucard shook his head, dismayed. “There are probably hundreds aboard those ships, Bard.”
“And we’re Antari.”
“Antari, not immortal,” said Kell.
“We don’t have time to battle a fleet,” said Holland. “We need to get to land.”
Alucard’s gaze shifted back to the line of ships. “Oh, you can make it to the coast,” he said, “but you’ll have to row.”
Lila thought Alucard must be joking.
He wasn’t.
V
Rhy Maresh kept his eyes on the light.
He stood at the edge of the spell circle where Tieren lay, and focused on the candle cradled in the priest’s hands with its steady, unwavering flame.
He wanted to wake the Aven Essen from his trance, wanted to bury his head in the old man’s shoulder and sob. Wanted to feel the calm of his magic.
In the last few months, he had become intimately acquainted with pain, and with death, but grief was new. Pain was bright, and death was dark, but grief was grey. A slab of stone resting on his chest. A toxic cloud stripping him of breath.
I can’t do this alone, he thought.
I can’t do this—
I can’t—
Whatever his father had been trying to achieve, it hadn’t worked.
Rhy had seen the river lighten, the shadows begin to withdraw, had glimpsed his city of red and gold like a specter through the fog.
But it hadn’t lasted.
Within minutes, the darkness had returned.
He’d lost his father for what?
A moment?
A breath?
They’d recovered the king’s body from the base of the palace steps.
His father, lying in a pool of cooling blood.
His father, now laid out beside his mother, a pair of sculptures, shells, their eyes closed, their bodies suddenly aged by death. When had his mother’s cheeks grown hollow? When had his father’s temples gone grey? They were impostors, gross imitations of the people they’d been in life. The people Rhy had loved. The sight of them—what was left of them—made him ill, and so he’d fled to the only place he could. The only person.
To Tieren.
Tieren, who slept with a stillness that might have passed for death if Rhy hadn’t just seen it, hadn’t pressed hands to his father’s unmoving ribs, hadn’t clutched his mother’s stiffened shoulder.
Come back—
Come back—
Come back—
He did not say the words aloud, for fear of rousing the priest, some deep feeling that no matter how softly he might speak, the sadness would still be loud. The other priests knelt, their heads bowed, as if themselves in a trance, brows furrowed in concentration while Tieren’s face bore the same smooth pallor of the men and women sleeping in the streets. Rhy would have given anything to hear the Aven Essen’s voice, to feel the weight of arms around his shoulders, to see the understanding in his eyes.
He was so close.
He was so far.
Tears burned Rhy’s eyes, threatened to spill over, and when they did, they hit the floor an inch from the ashen edge of the binding circle. His fingers ached from where he’d struck Isra, shoulder throbbing where he’d twisted free of Sol-in-Ar’s grip. But these pains were little more than memory, shallow wounds compared to the tearing in his chest, the absence where two people had been carved out, torn away.
His arms hung heavy at his sides.
In one hand, his own crown, the circle of gold he’d worn since he was a boy, and in the other, the royal pin capable of reaching Kell.
He had thought of summoning his brother, of course. Gripped the pin until the emblem of the chalice and sun had cut into his palm, even though Kell said blood wasn’t necessary. Kell was wrong. Blood was always necessary.
One word, and his brother would come.
One word, and he wouldn’t be alone.
One word—but Rhy Maresh couldn’t bring himself to do it.
He had failed himself so many times. He wouldn’t fail Kell, too.
Someone cleared their throat behind him. “Your Majesty.”
Rhy let out a shuddering breath and stepped back from the edge of Tieren’s spell. Turning, he found the captain of his father’s city guard, a bruise blossoming along Isra’s jaw, her own eyes lidded with grief.
He followed her out of the silent chamber and into the hall where a messenger stood waiting, breathless, his clothing slick with sweat and mud, as if he’d ridden hard. This was one of his father’s scouts, sent to monitor the spread of Osaron’s magic beyond the city, and for an instant, Rhy’s tired mind couldn’t process why the messenger had come to him. Then he remembered: there was no one else—and there it was again, worse than a knife, the sudden assault of memory, a raw wound reopened.
“What is it?” asked Rhy, his voice hoarse.
“I bring word from Tanek,” said the messenger.
Rhy felt ill. “The fog has reached that far?”
The messenger shook his head. “No, sir, not yet, but I met a rider on the road. He spotted a fleet at the mouth of the Isle. Ten ships. They fly the silver-and-green banners of Vesk.”
Isra swore beneath her breath.
Rhy closed his eyes. What was it his father said, that politics was a dance? Vesk was trying to set the tempo. It was time for Rhy to take the lead. To show that he was king.
“Your Majesty?” prompted the messenger.