Rogue, Prisoner, Princess

  “Anka, what were you thinking riding in here in such a hurry?” one man asked. He had the broad shoulders of a farmer, and a rough beard. “You could have compromised everything here.”

  “Were you followed?” a shorter man asked. He fingered the hilt of a knife. “Will we need to fight?”

  “We weren’t followed,” Anka assured him. “And there was no time for anything else. We have something to show you.”

  Sartes let her take the plans from him, then helped her to spread them out on the table.

  “As you know, I’ve been looking for Ceres’s brother Sartes,” Anka said.

  “Wasting time,” a woman said, “when everyone’s sons and brothers are at risk.”

  It was hard for Sartes to like someone who thought finding him was a waste of time.

  “Not wasting time, Hannah,” Anka shot back. “I found him. And he brought us these. Plans showing the Empire’s intentions. They show which of our bases they know about, and which they intend to move against. We even have the orders to tell us when they plan to get there.”

  “So we have plenty of time to evacuate our people,” the first rebel to speak said.

  “That’s one possibility,” Anka said.

  “What’s the alternative?”

  Sartes understood, even if the others didn’t. “We could ambush them.”

  “You’re Sartes?” Hannah asked.

  Sartes nodded.

  “So we owe you a great deal for getting these papers, but that doesn’t mean you know about tactics or strategy.”

  Sartes shrugged. “Only as much as I learned in the army.”

  “As a conscript,” the woman countered. “I doubt they teach you much about planning.”

  “They teach you how to stay alive,” Sartes said. “You learn about your enemies. You guess what they’re going to do before they do it, so that they can’t hurt you.”

  He paused as he realized that everyone’s eyes were on him. He almost couldn’t keep going, but then he felt his father’s hand on his shoulder. That presence was enough to give him the confidence to keep going.

  “I know what the army is like better than any of you,” Sartes said. “I can tell you which of the officers will rush in, and which will be cautious. I can tell you that the conscripts will run, if you give them any real prospect of escaping. We can ambush them. We can win.”

  “It’s what we need to do,” Anka said, adding her voice to his. “We can’t fight them head on, so what’s left? We either sit back and wait to be destroyed, or we take chances like this one.”

  “Do we have enough people?” one of the rebels asked.

  “We have some,” Anka said.

  “You’ll have more if you free the conscripts,” Sartes said. “They hate the Empire. The ones who don’t fight for you will run.”

  “And we fight smart,” Anka insisted. “Look here. If they want to get to our people to the north of the city, that means going through the burial grounds here and here. We know there are catacombs to strike from where they can’t see us. And if we do it here, we have the ruins of the old mausoleums to use. We could bring walls down right on them. Then we have tripwires, pits… we could halve their numbers before it even came to fighting.”

  “They’re still better armed and armored than us,” Hannah insisted.

  Sartes pointed to his father. “My father is the best smith you will ever meet. He can help you to make all the weapons you will ever need.”

  Sartes saw his father nod. “That’s true. Give me metal, a fire, and enough people to help, and I can produce whatever you need.”

  “How quickly?” Anka asked.

  His father seemed to consider for a moment. “That will depend on what kind of resources you can give me. But if you give me enough people, I can equip you as well as the army. Better.”

  “And we don’t need enough to take them all on at once,” Anka pointed out. “We just need enough people and weaponry to hit the weakest forces. We can hit supply centers to take more. Look. We could evacuate the people in the old quarter, leave traps behind, and hit their supply train while they’re still looking for us.”

  She started to outline her plans, and Sartes had to admit he was impressed. He’d expected things to be difficult for the rebellion without Rexus there, but Anka seemed to understand every detail. In some ways, Sartes thought, she was an even better choice than Rexus. Where the rebels’ former leader might have charged in, Anka seemed more cautious, wanting to plan everything as carefully as possible to ensure that their people weren’t hurt.

  Somewhere in all the planning, Sartes drifted to the back of the room. His father was there, and he put an arm around his son’s shoulders. For the first time since the soldiers had taken him as a conscript, he actually felt safe.

  “It sounds as though there’s going to be a lot of work to come,” his father said.

  Sartes nodded. “I don’t mind that. I want to help the rebellion.”

  “Are you sure?” his father asked. “It’s already cost me one son. You could go and be safe.”

  “Would you go?” Sartes asked.

  His father shook his head. “They need me to make weapons for them. But you could get away.”

  “Where?” Sartes asked. “Where is there that’s safe? Anywhere I go, the army could come and take me, or kill me just because they feel like it. The only way to be safe is if we help everyone, and I want to help everyone. There are still plenty of others like me stuck in the army, or getting attacked every day out there.”

  His father nodded. “I’m proud of you, son, and you’re right. We have to make this better. I guess I can do that making weapons.”

  “And I’ll do whatever I can to help,” Sartes said.

  He wasn’t sure what he would do yet, but he was sure of one thing: this time, when the time came to fight the Empire, he wanted to be there.

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

  The wall of water gushed over Ceres, so cold that it made her shiver. As it poured across her, it felt as though it was washing away some block or barrier, letting something open up inside her like a flower.

  She’d passed the islanders’ test. She’d learned the lessons they wanted her to learn. Even now, she could hear the whisper of the island in the background, pulsing like one living thing. For a moment, her own power pulsed in response, and the strength of it was enough that Ceres couldn’t concentrate.

  Only Eoin’s voice brought her back to herself, letting Ceres see that she was in a stone-walled tunnel, which sloped down sharply in a long spiral. She couldn’t tell if it was natural or if it had been carved out by the hands of the islanders.

  “This way,” Eoin said, and Ceres could see him a little way ahead.

  She followed him down it by the faint sunlight that seemed to reflect from the walls. The tunnel twisted and turned, so that soon, Ceres wasn’t sure if they were still under the ziggurat, or somewhere else entirely.

  Ahead, Ceres thought she could see a square of sunlight, with Eoin briefly silhouetted against it as he stepped out into it. Ceres followed, stepping through another curtain of water, this one a trickle compared to the previous one.

  She stepped out onto grass, into a giant, bowl-shaped depression. Trees hung over the rim at improbable angles, clinging to the rock as they stuck out. Ceres found herself wondering how many were forest folk who had succumbed to the curse.

  There were forest folk there, building a bonfire at one side of the open space with driftwood and deadfall. There were others setting out food and drink, obviously preparing a feast from forest fruits and fish from the shores.

  “We shall celebrate your accepting your power,” Eoin said.

  “And afterwards?” Ceres asked.

  Eoin held out a hand for Ceres to take. “That is up to you. You can stay with us for as long as you wish. You can return to the Empire to fight. Or you can go another way if you choose. We will help you, wherever you want to go.”

  At the very center of the bowl-sh
aped depression, there was a ring of what looked like wooden posts, surrounding a plinth. Yet, as she got closer, Ceres could see the eyes in the posts, moving even though the rest of them couldn’t.

  “In the last stages before the curse claims them fully, our people are connected to the jungle more than ever,” Eoin said. “They see things that the rest of us don’t. We come here for the most important decisions.”

  Ceres walked with him into that circle, feeling the eyes upon her. The forest folk gathered around now, their bonfire burning in the background.

  There was a bowl on the plinth. Eoin lifted it, offering it to her. It was sweet smelling and sticky looking. He pressed it into her hands.

  “If you want to accept the power within you, drink. Drink and see.”

  “Drink and see what?” Ceres asked.

  Eoin spread his hands. “Everything.”

  She took the bowl and sipped at it, then drank it down swiftly. No one there was going to try to hurt her. At least, not in ways that didn’t involve the normal rough and tumble of fighting. The drink was sticky and thick, tasting of sweet berries and the sap of jungle plants as she drank it.

  “What’s in this?” Ceres asked, but Eoin just smiled. Ceres looked around, and the flames of the bonfire seemed to swim.

  She heard a repetitive thudding, and for a moment she thought that maybe a drummer had started to play. Then she realized that it was the rhythmic pounding of the forest folk’s feet, stamping in perfect time. It seemed to join with the ever louder beating of her heart.

  It seemed impossibly slow, but then, so did the rest of the world. It seemed to Ceres as if the dancers were drifting along like leaves in the firelight, every movement so slow and precise that it felt as though they were barely dancing at all.

  The world seemed to swim, and Ceres felt herself falling. Eoin was there beside her, laying her down gently on the jungle floor.

  “Sleep, Ceres,” he said. “Sleep, and dream.”

  Ceres stared up at him for a breath or two longer. It was a good last sight before she closed her eyes.

  Delos spread out below her like some child’s toy. It seemed as though she was drifting toward the city, down and down, ever closer. Ceres could feel the rush of the air through her fingers, but she didn’t feel as though she was falling. She certainly didn’t feel in any danger.

  She fell closer, and she realized that she was falling toward her former home. Almost as soon as she realized that, the scene shifted, and she found herself looking at two people it took her a second to recognize.

  Her mother and father looked so much younger there; younger than Ceres had ever seen them. She could see a tiny boy toddling about, and knew it had to be her older brother, Nesos. The two of them were looking down into a crib.

  “What have you done?” her mother asked.

  “What I had to do,” her father replied.

  “If you think that we’re going to take in some brat, then—”

  “That’s exactly what we’re going to do,” her father insisted. “We will raise her as our own, and never give her any reason to think otherwise.”

  Ceres wanted to look closer, but the images in front of her shifted again.

  Now, there were armies clashing around her, the clash of blades mixing in with the screams of the dying and the thud of armored bodies slamming into one another. She saw people struggling against each other, stabbing and slashing as they fought for room.

  She saw herself at the heart of it, dressed in gold-edged armor, wielding a sword and shield. A man ran at her and she stepped aside, slicing with her sword. She heard herself shouting orders over the chaos of the melee, and to her surprise, those around her listened. They reformed, charged, and fought again.

  Ceres saw herself at the heart of the fight, her opponents falling until finally they turned and ran, the rout spreading out from the point where she fought until it encompassed all of the opposing forces. Ceres heard the battle cry of her soldiers repeated over and over.

  “Ceres! Ceres!”

  Ceres stood there, not understanding. What was happening? Were these just random images, or was there more to them?

  “You know what they are, Ceres.”

  Ceres turned, and she wasn’t standing in a battlefield anymore. She might have been back on the island again, but this island was different. Where the forest folk’s home was covered in the green of the jungle, here rainbow marble stood up in spires and arches above flat meadows.

  A woman stood there, or at least the vague impression of a woman. She wore what looked to Ceres like a cloak at first glance, but it was more than that. It was like a haziness she couldn’t quite see through; a gap in the vision that she couldn’t pierce.

  “Who are you?” Ceres demanded. “What are you?”

  “A vision, an image,” the woman said.

  “An image of what?” Ceres wasn’t going to let it go.

  The woman tilted her head to one side, the cowl over it shifting in response.

  “Of your mother.”

  The woman reached out toward her, and Ceres stood still as she touched Ceres’s brow. The power within her flared with that touch, and Ceres felt it like a living thing inside her. In that moment, it seemed to burst up through her, pouring out of her like dark smoke until it hung above her in a cloud.

  The female figure seemed to regard it. She reached out, shaping the smoke between her hands like clay, twisting it into strands and reshaping it into something else. It seemed to grow as she did it, becoming something different, something more.

  “Do you choose this?” the female figure asked.

  Ceres nodded. “Yes.”

  “Then be what you should be.”

  It poured back into Ceres then, and now it seemed to fill her to bursting point. It was there in her, and it was her, all at once. The power of it seemed to overwhelm her in that moment, and Ceres fell. The hidden woman caught her, laying her down gently.

  “When you wake, come and find me,” she said.

  “Where?” Ceres asked.

  “The Isle Beyond the Mist.”

  Ceres wanted to ask what she meant, and where it, was, but in that moment she felt the vision starting to fade. She dropped back into wakefulness, and realized she was lying on the grass by the bonfire.

  She saw Eoin looking down at her, in obvious concern.

  The aches and pains of her fights had faded, the power within her just below the surface. She let Eoin help her up.

  She still stood within a circle of the forest folk, and she could see the way they watched her now. She knew that they could see the new power within her, the same way that she could feel them all joined in their connection with the island.

  Slowly, they started to chant, and it took Ceres a moment to realize what it was that they were chanting, slow and solemn, as if a great leader were amongst them.

  “Ceres, Ceres, Ceres!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

  Thanos had made his way to the king’s chambers many times in his life, but he doubted he’d ever felt as much as he did now. Anger, betrayal, but also a strange sense of having found some kind of completion. All of them vied for space within him as he strode toward the entrance.

  The doors there were extravagant things, like so much of the rest of the castle, covered in painted carvings depicting scenes of battle and judgment. When he was younger, Thanos had traced them with his hands, imagining all the great deeds of kings long dead. Now, he saw them for what they were: a boast, a message.

  A guard stood at either side of the doors, in armor that practically dripped in gold, given their status as royal bodyguards. One raised a hand as Thanos approached.

  “I’m sorry, your highness, but the king is not receiving visitors.”

  Thanos fixed him with a look. Normally, he would have argued or tried to persuade. He understood that this man was just trying to do his job, but right then, nothing was going to keep him from speaking with King Claudius.

  With his father. Jus
t the thought of that was enough to send a fresh wave of emotion running through him.

  “Step aside,” Thanos said, and the guards must have heard something in his voice, because they hurriedly moved out of the way. That was good. In spite of everything, Thanos didn’t want to hurt them.

  He pushed open the doors. Inside, he found King Claudius drinking, attended by serving girls while he chewed on a chicken leg. He sat on an elegantly carved chair in front of a roaring fire, with a gaming board in front of him, the counters there suggesting a game already in progress.

  Thanos saw the king look up as he entered. He saw the initial flash of anger soften at the sight of him, and now Thanos could guess why.

  “Thanos, I thought I said I wasn’t to be disturbed. But no matter. Join me. Normally, the only way I can get a good game is to play myself.”

  Thanos stood there, looking around at the servants. “Everybody get out.” When they didn’t move, he raised his voice. “Leave, I said.”

  He watched the servants run for the door, then waited for the thud of it swinging shut. King Claudius stood, and for the first time in a while Thanos looked, really looked, at him. He found himself searching the king’s face, picking out features and looking for similarities. Was the arch of that brow the same as his? The slight raise of the cheekbones?

  Right now, it seemed as though the main thing that they had in common was their anger. King Claudius was reddening with it, and Thanos saw his arm sweep out to knock away the gaming pieces.

  “How dare you dismiss my servants? Have you forgotten who is the king here, Thanos?”

  “I have not forgotten,” Thanos said. On another day, he might have bowed or knelt, but not today.

  “And storming in here. Who do you think you are to do such a thing?”

  “I think I am your son,” Thanos said, and each word felt like a stone slab being put down. He hadn’t been sure how he would say it, but now that he had, it couldn’t be taken back.

  The energy of the anger seemed to drain from the room as quickly as it had come. If Thanos hadn’t already had confirmation of who he was, that would have done it, with no need for the king to say anything. Even so, he wanted to hear King Claudius admit it.