“I will make you proud, my lady.”
“I’m sure you will,” Stephania said.
Now, there was just the question of Ceres. There was a part of her that wanted to be simple and practical about it. To assume that the Empire would deal with her in time. Yet it was hard to believe that, when she had already escaped twice. And this was practical. After all Stephania had taunted her with, there was no doubt that Ceres would seek revenge. It was what Stephania would have done, after all.
“While you are gone,” Stephania said, “I will require another of the girls to attend me while I make a journey into the city.”
“Is that entirely safe, my lady?” Elethe asked.
If Stephania hadn’t heard the concern there, she might have struck the girl again, just to remind her not to question Stephania’s instructions. As it was, she went to fetch her cloak, letting Elethe settle it around her shoulders while she tucked a spare knife into a sheath at the small of her back.
“If what you’ve said is true, then the streets will be safe for at least the next day or two as people try to work out what the king’s pronouncement means for them. No one will quite trust it yet, and they won’t want to risk anything.”
It seemed so obvious to Stephania, when she put it like that, but her handmaiden still looked at her with surprise, as though only just learning the truth of her reasoning. It always came as a surprise to Stephania that others didn’t realize these things the way she did.
“Don’t worry,” Stephania said, “I will take a girl who is good with knives.”
“As you say, my lady,” Elethe said. “Even so, if something happens, where should I look for you?”
Where should she look? Stephania smiled at that hint of protectiveness. She’d always been so good at inspiring loyalty. Or she’d thought she was. She hadn’t been able to inspire it in Thanos, thanks to Ceres.
She would be dealing with her soon enough, though.
“There is a certain witch in the Tangled quarter,” Stephania said. “They say that she knows many things, and I plan to find out exactly how much.”
“What could some witch have to teach you, my lady?” Elethe asked.
“Oh, all kinds of things,” Stephania said with a smile.
Things such as how to kill an Ancient One safely, without the risk of being turned to stone.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Ceres, still soaking wet from her jump, barely felt the water dripping from her as she walked the city in a daze. People looked her way as she passed, but so long as none of them were guards, she didn’t care. She didn’t even care about the pulse of energy within her, there again after going missing for so long.
She was too busy looking at the damage in the city, the carnage that remained after their assault on the gate.
She should have been happy to be free, but how could she be happy when there were so many others who had lost everything? Their freedom, their lives, all given up in her cause.
Ceres walked down toward the gate where they’d entered. She kept from the main streets while she did it, but other than that, she didn’t try to hide. Right then, she would almost have welcomed the chance to fight with the guards who must surely be hunting her by now.
That leached away though as she started to see the damage in the city.
It started with broken windows and cracked plasterwork. An arrow lodged in the chimney stack of a house, obviously sticking there as one of her riders tried to return fire. It looked strangely lonely to Ceres, less evidence of a battle than the tale of one man, who had probably found himself cut down moments later. It was easier to mourn for one man somehow than for the thought of a host of them.
Ceres saw more evidence of the violence as she got closer. There was a bloodstain on one of the walls nearby, drying now into darkness against the wattle and daub. A stab of sadness shot through Ceres then, mixed in with guilt and anger at the thought that she’d brought them to this. She’d led them into the city, so sure it was her destiny. She’d been a part of their deaths as surely as Lucious had.
She saw Empire uniforms ahead and realized that she didn’t want to fight then. There had been enough deaths. Instead, Ceres hurried across to a set of stairs leading up to a flat roof, keeping low now as she progressed. She had to see this, and she had to see all of it.
Below, she could see soldiers, probably conscripts, dragging away bodies. Even after the time Ceres had spent locked away, there were too many to count. There were a few imperial uniforms mixed in, and a few more bodies Ceres recognized as members of the rebellion, but overwhelmingly, they wore the colors of Lord West’s forces.
Even as Ceres watched, a group of them descended on the next body, stripping away anything of value before throwing it on a cart. They did it so casually that Ceres could only stand there, trying to hold in her anger at the lack of respect.
She kept moving, hopping to the next rooftop. A glimpse of imperial armor up there suggested that at least one of the archers firing down at Lord West’s men had been hit, but that was no kind of comfort.
Below, she could see more soldiers taking apart the barricades they had built, ordinary people joining them to take back doors and tables, barrels and benches as they picked apart the joins that had held them. More seemed to be patching their homes, repairing the damage done as desperate soldiers fought to get away. Ceres saw one man contemplating a largely burnt out house, obviously trying to make some sense of it.
There was so much destruction there, but those who had died out here in the streets had probably still been better off than the ones Lucious had gotten his hands on. Ceres had to lean against the edge of the roof as she remembered the look on Anka’s face while the life had slipped from her. She thought of Lord West, who had only been there at all because he had believed in the power her blood gave her.
Power that hadn’t come when Ceres needed it.
“What use am I if I can’t save anyone?” Ceres asked.
She needed to know then if anyone had survived. Looking down, it seemed almost impossible that they had. She had to check, though, and that meant finding her way down to the rebellion’s tunnels and hideaways.
She kept to the shadows while she moved, looking for the entrances she remembered. Too many had soldiers near them, not guarding them, but working there. Some were filling in holes, bricking up entrances. Ceres saw others carrying out boxes and bags of possessions, obviously whatever had been left behind by the rebellion.
She had to creep around for at least half an hour more before she found an entrance that appeared unguarded. It was little more than a crack with a rough slope behind it, leading down into what lay beneath. Ceres scrambled down carefully, finding herself in the tunnels that the rebellion had made its own.
It was quiet there in a way that it hadn’t been before. The last time she’d been there, there had been so many people that there was always some sound in the background, no matter what else was happening.
She made her way through the near darkness of the tunnels, looking for any signs of habitation. It seemed more like a ghost town than a lived in place, though. Anka had taken so many of her people with her to fight, and now… what was left? Possessions left in the dirt for owners who would never return? Food left half finished, in some cases, already starting to go bad.
Ceres heard voices in the dark and advanced toward them. She saw candlelight, and approached that glow cautiously, seeing an older woman with a couple of children there in a room that looked as though it had already been picked clean.
Ceres saw her look up as she approached, and the older woman pushed the children behind her, drawing a knife.
“You don’t have to worry about me,” Ceres said, holding up her hands. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
“If you’re who I think you are,” the woman said, “you’re the reason this place is empty.”
“That wasn’t me,” Ceres replied, although she knew it was her fault. “We were betrayed.”
“I
heard that,” the woman admitted. “Me and the children came down here because there wasn’t anywhere else to go after all the fighting. When they didn’t come back, I had to try to find a way to survive, and I figured it was empty anyway. Soldiers came round. We stayed ahead of them.”
“Are there others here?” Ceres asked.
The other woman shrugged. “A few. They’ve been telling me things. Apparently, the king has announced that it’s all over.”
Ceres didn’t know what to feel about that. On the one hand, peace was good, but it couldn’t be at any price. The king couldn’t just decide that the rebellion was done with.
“Does he think they’ve finally killed enough?” she asked.
That got another shrug. “Maybe. People have started filtering back into the tunnels. The king ordered them let go.”
A brief flash of hope flared then. This wasn’t done.
“Lord West’s men?” Ceres asked. “The combatlords?”
“They say the nobles they released headed out of the city,” the woman said. “That they want to meet up with any of their friends still left outside and go home. The combatlords…”
There was something about the way she said it that made fear rise in Ceres’s chest.
“What happened?” she said.
“Lucious announced they were going to have one great games at the Stade,” the woman said. “The king stopped the rest of it, but that… I think it’s still happening. People say they’re just slaves anyway, and it’s what they’re there for.”
“So why not kill them all as one great sacrifice for peace?” Ceres guessed. No one would want to try to stop it, because of the risks of restarting the conflict. They would stand by. They would probably even watch.
Unless she did something.
“You said that Lord West’s men are outside the city?” Ceres said. “Do you know your way through the tunnels to the outside?”
***
When Ceres had first arrived at the city with Lord West, their army’s camp had been a wonder to behold, stretching almost to the horizon, filled with shining armor and fluttering banners.
Now, it looked like bones that were in the process of being picked clean, and the contrast was heartbreaking. Ceres saw men there: riders and their attendants, battered-looking warriors in dented armor. Many were injured, and even the ones who weren’t had a haunted look to them as they packed away what they could of their camp, getting ready to go.
Ceres could feel the hostility there from the moment she walked into the camp. It was there with every step, in the stares that followed her, quickly replacing any looks of surprise.
A group of the soldiers stepped forward, headed by a man with a reddish beard, whose armor still looked pristine. Ceres didn’t recognize him from the battle, though there had been so many men there at the start that it would have been impossible to remember them all.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded. His hand rested on the hilt of his sword.
“What are you doing?” Ceres countered. “Better yet, who are you?”
“I am Nyel de Langolin, third cousin to Lord West, protector of the lands around the village of Upper Flewt, and second rider at the trials of the north eastern grasses. I know who you are. You’re the one who led my cousin to ruin.”
That stung at Ceres, but she kept her temper, not least because this man had every reason to blame her. She blamed herself, but there was no time to think like that.
“You’re packing up?” Ceres demanded, looking around at the camp. Everywhere she looked, men seemed to be salvaging what they could from tents and getting the remains of their weaponry in order. Most were packing it away in a way that made it clear they weren’t preparing for another fight.
“What else should they be doing?” Nyel said. “You led them in a suicidal charge against the city, and they lost. The king has declared the fighting over, and it is only because of his graciousness that most of them have their lives. If I had been there when you came to Lord West’s keep, I would have advised him against this foolishness.”
“And where were you?” Ceres asked. “Where were you when the rest of us were marching here? Where were you while we were risking our lives? Your armor looks remarkably clean to have been anywhere near the fighting.”
She saw him go almost as red as his beard at that.
“How dare you, girl! We received my cousin’s message late, and then we were caught up on the road. Had we known the dire straits you would bring our forces to, we would have found a way to save you from yourselves!”
In other words, he’d hung back, wanting an excuse not to be part of it all. Ceres ignored him then, turning to the others and raising her voice so that the men packing away their tents would hear.
“Listen to me, all of you! This is not the time to leave. We aren’t finished here.”
“Finished,” Nyel said. “Of course you’re finished. The king has declared the conflict over.”
“King Claudius doesn’t get to decide when we stop fighting,” Ceres replied. “Especially not when his son is about to slaughter the combatlords. The king might not know about that, but they’ll be just as dead when Lucious is done.”
“Slaves and brutes,” Nyel said. “You expect these men to risk their lives for them?”
“I expect you all to honor the oath you gave to me, and to Lord West!” Ceres replied. By now, a crowd of men was starting to gather around her. She talked to them, not to Lord West’s conveniently delayed cousin.
“We still have a chance to win this,” Ceres said. “We were beaten at the gate by treachery, but the barricades they used are coming down. The army isn’t prepared now. The evils of the Empire don’t disappear simply because the king has declared victory. With the combatlords and what’s left of the rebellion, we could still do this. At the very least, we could get the combatlords to safety.”
“So what do you want us to do?” Nyel countered. “Charge in there on glittering steeds to assault the city? Look at the men around you. Look at them. They have tried that once. They put their trust in you once. Look what it cost them.”
Ceres knew exactly what it had cost everyone who had followed her. She knew what the rebellion had cost her. She still had no idea if her brother or father were safe, while thoughts of Rexus, Anka, Garrant, and everyone else who’d died haunted her dreams.
“You swore oaths,” Ceres said, but she knew that wouldn’t work. She couldn’t force these men to fight for her.
“Lord West put his stock in oaths,” one of the men around her said. “Look what happened.”
“And we swore to you as one of the Ancient Ones,” another shouted. “But when the time came, your powers did nothing.”
Ceres could see the pain there on the faces of the men who’d fought. She tried appealing to them one last time.
“Please,” she called out to the soldiers around her. “Good men are going to die down there in the Stade, when they could be helping us to bring an end to the Empire. I know what happened last time. I was there, in the middle of it, but that’s no reason to stop. This is a moment to act!”
She expected at least some response to that. If not a rousing cheer, then at least a few men willing to step forward or announce that they were with her. Instead, Ceres found herself greeted with silence.
“It seems you have your answer,” Nyel said.
It seemed she did, but Ceres couldn’t let the men in the Stade die.
The combatlords were going to die, and she couldn’t let that happen.
She turned and set off, heading back toward the city, alone, and prepared to face her death.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Thanos’s heart was in his mouth as Felene guided them into Delos’s harbor. He could see the tension in her too as she held the tiller, their boat slipping between the merchant vessels and the galleys, the fishing boats and the smaller skiffs.
“It’s been a long time since I came into Delos this openly,” Felene said. “I keep expecting
to find a row of guards waiting for us on the docks.”
Thanos knew exactly how she felt. He was returning to a city he’d only escaped from with difficulty, and where, for all he knew, the guards might have been ordered to kill him on sight. He knew he had to show confidence though. This had been his idea, after all.
“Just keep your head down,” Thanos said. “It will be fine.”
“You need to work on your lying,” Felene told him. “You’re terrible at it.”
“I kept secret the fact that I was helping the rebellion,” Thanos said. “I lied to generals and courtiers. I lied to my own family.”
“All for this Ceres girl,” Felene said. “She must be something special.”
Thanos bit back a flash of annoyance, because it was true. Ceres was special. But he’d become involved with the rebellion for more than just her.
“I did it because it was the right thing to do,” Thanos said. The same way that coming back for Stephania was right, whatever she’d done. Whatever else had happened since.
“It’s a rare thing these days to find a noble who thinks like that,” Felene said. “I’m glad I’m a thief and a killer. It makes things a lot simpler.”
Thanos doubted it was that simple for her. After all, she’d been the one to talk him into this.
He saw her nod toward the docks. “Looks as though there’s at least one person waiting. I’ve changed course twice, and they’ve moved so they’re on the part of the dock I’m heading for.”
Thanos looked, and saw a figure in a cloak there near the edge of the dock. He had the impression of a female figure, and for a moment, hope rose up in him. Maybe it was Stephania, there waiting to escape. Maybe they would be able to do this and get away before anyone noticed. Maybe he wouldn’t have to offer up his own life.
As they got closer, though, he could see it wasn’t Stephania. He knew her figure by now, the way she stood, the way she did things. Stephania would never have waited looking that frightened for anyone. Even with her life in danger, she would have stood as if she owned the world around her. This was someone else.