The Midnight Star (18 page)

Magiano saves me from responding by flashing the man a smile full of white teeth. “From a much friendlier place than this town, I can tell you that,” he proclaims. “Do you greet all the foreigners passing through with knives? That must take up an awful lot of your time.”

The man's scowl deepens, even as he looks at us in doubt. Raffaele joins Magiano at his side. “We have a friend who is very ill,” he says, nodding up to Violetta. “Can you tell us where the nearest inn might be?”

The man stays silent. More of his men have come behind us now, people whom I'd taken as fishmongers and passersby, gathering on the steps to block the way we came. There is fear in the air, sharp and dark, calling to me—and I hunger to call back, to grasp the threads draped around us and weave. My illusion over my appearance wavers, only for an instant.

The man narrows his eyes at me. “They said you'd be in disguise, White Wolf. We know you are Queen Adelina of Kenettra.”

I blink in mock surprise. “What?” I reply, keeping my voice surprised. “We're from Dumor to—”

The man interrupts me with a bark of laughter. “Dumor,” he replies. “You mean one of your puppet states.”

Magiano unsheathes two of his own weapons. His pupils have narrowed into sharp slits, and his body is tense. Near Raffaele, Teren stands tall with his sword half drawn, ready to move. For the first time, I'm grateful to have him with us.

There is no point in dragging this out. I've had enough.
“Let us pass,” I say, pushing myself forward. My anger is starting
to rise, and that energy becomes my defense. “And we will spare the lives of your men.”

The group stirs. The leader draws a second knife from his belt. Beneath his brave exterior, I can sense the tides of terror. He is afraid to die today. “For the Sealands,” he whispers. “For the Sunlands.”

Then he gives a nod, and his men lunge at us from both sides.

Magiano moves so quickly, I barely see him jump into the fray. His daggers flash silver in the light. Ahead of us, Teren sets upon two of the first men with a snarl of fury, unleashing his pent-up rage on them. He cuts them down easily.

“Move!” Raffaele snaps, rushing us forward. We dart ahead as Teren opens a pocket for us. But the narrow street continues filling with more people, forcing us to a stop again. How many of them are here? They must have been waiting for our arrival for months. Violetta's horse rears in the midst of the chaos, lets out a squeal, and throws her from its back. Lucent catches her—just barely—with a curtain of wind. Violetta falls on the steps, and instinctively, I push her behind me and force her against the wall. She is awake now, her body shaking like a leaf.

One of the men lunges at her, but Lucent lashes out with her sword, cutting the other man in the stomach. Ahead of us, Teren cuts the path clear even as more come. Blades catch him, slicing his flesh, but he seems oblivious to his injuries, his body slowly, laboriously trying to heal itself with each attack. It's even clearer now—he heals noticeably slower
than I remember. Behind us, Magiano leaps up against the wall of the building and twists in midair, slashing one man neatly across the throat and another in his chest. The smell of blood and fear fills my senses, and I feel the voices feeding on the darkness, growing louder with each passing moment, strengthening me even as they veer me farther from what I can control. I stumble forward, trying to stave off the rush of illusions that threaten to overwhelm me. Our attackers' smiles turn skeletal, their forms monstrous. Their hands extend like claws toward us, as if they were dead trees in a forest, and suddenly I am struggling through their grasp, trying to breathe.
Keep moving. This isn't real.
I tell myself this over and over again. Teren continues moving us forward through the fight, and behind us, Magiano keeps them back. I try to concentrate on them. We have to find a way out of this street.

Then, ahead of us, Raffaele stumbles. He grimaces in pain, then falls to his knees.

Lucent rushes to his side. As I look on, she grabs his arm and tries to help him to his feet—but he winces, clutches his head, and stumbles again. There he kneels, crouching in pain, his hair spilling past his shoulders in a black sheet.

His fear is a blanket over him, and my energy lunges for it. I glance around us. There is far too much chaos here for me to make all of us disappear behind a curtain of invisibility, and I want to save my power—but I can already see two of the attackers eyeing Raffaele in his weakened state. If I don't hide him now, he won't make it out of this fight.

I focus my energy on Raffaele. Then I weave invisibility
across him. He vanishes. I rush over to him and Lucent as blades flash all around us. When I reach them, I wrap one of Raffaele's arms around my shoulder and help her lift him. Magiano looks in our direction from where he's fending off an attacker.

A few steps ahead, Teren suddenly jerks backward as a team of attackers charge at once. One of them manages to get past Teren. We're invisible now, but even though the attacker can't see us, he swings his blade in an arc toward us. I only have time to get a glimpse of his silver mask.

An arrow sings through the air from the rooftops. It hits our attacker straight through his throat. He freezes in mid-movement, stunned, and then he drops his weapon and reaches up to clutch in vain at his neck. As I look on, he falls backward onto the steps.

More arrows cut through the air from the roofs. Every single one of them finds its mark. I search the rooftops until I catch sight of a blur of armor darting by. Behind us, Magiano lets out a whoop of laughter—in a flash, he has leapt onto one of the signs dangling in front of a door and swung forward, flinging a dagger down at the attackers.

As I look up to see another figure dart by on the roofs, I finally glimpse a tall young woman with braids woven high on her head, the strands half black and half blond, crouched with one elbow resting on her knee. She has a bow stretched back and pointed down in the direction of one of our attackers. She lets the arrow fly.

The Beldish queen has finally arrived.

More and more of her soldiers appear on the roofs. The Saccorists, now recognizing the crest of her men, start to break apart in their confusion. Several of Maeve's guards appear at the end of the street. The sight of them seems to be the last straw for the Saccorists. Someone shouts an order to retreat, and the remaining attackers scatter immediately, dropping their weapons and making a run for it. Teren continues to fight, but the battle is already over. The attackers melt away as quickly as they appeared, until all that's left in the street are the fallen.

I lift the illusion from all of us. My own strength leaves me, and suddenly Raffaele feels overwhelmingly heavy. Magiano hurries to our side and takes Raffaele's limp body in his arms. My attention turns to Violetta. She is still crouched against the wall where I left her, curled into a tight ball and looking as if she were concentrating on staying conscious. I walk over, then extend a hand to her.

Violetta turns up her face to me. Some of the lingering fear and distance in her eyes that had so defined our last few weeks together has faded, replaced by a familiar glimmer. It is a light I remember from when she used to walk at my side through Merroutas, when we were the only company we needed in the world.

The whispers still haunt the air around me, but I refuse to listen to them, pushing them aside. Violetta takes my hand and I help her to her feet. She leans against me, barely able to
stand. “Teren,” I say as he approaches us. There are slashes in his tunic and smears of blood on his armor, but otherwise he seems unharmed. He gives Violetta a cold look, then hoists her effortlessly onto his back without a word.

“We have an encampment,” Maeve calls down to us from the roofs. She has heavy black powder rimming her eyes, and a streak of gold war paint on her cheeks. “You all look like you could use a rest.”

I see Maeve searching for me from her perch, and when our eyes lock, we stare for a long moment. I stiffen—there is an air of uncertainty hovering around her at my presence. I think back to the last time we set eyes on each other, when she had watched me call on Enzo's power to destroy a devastating number of her fleet. Even now, I can envision the flames roaring all around us.

She straightens and nods in the direction of the city's outskirts. “My men will lead us there.” Then she disappears over the edge of the roof.

Tragedy follows those who cannot accept their true destiny.

—
Crime and Punishment in a Reunified Amadera
, by Fiennes de Marta

Q
ueen Maeve is thinner than I remember, and her face has become harder in the months since we last met. The Elite who aligns with death. With my weary demeanor, sunken cheeks, and hard gaze, I imagine she thinks the same when she looks at me. She and her battalion traveled over the Karra Mountains, the crooked range of long-dead volcanoes that divides Beldain from Amadera, and set up an encampment of sheepskin tents here on the outskirts of Laida, where humanity ends and a horizon rimmed completely by ice-capped mountains begins. Torches light the snow in patches between the camp's tents. The air has turned cold and cruel, cutting straight through my riding gear. As evening washes the bleak landscape in blues and purples, the Beldish queen makes her way through puddles of slush from her tent to ours, flanked by her soldiers.

I wonder what she has gone through since we faced each other on the seas, and what the state of her navy might be. A part of me calculates whether it will be worth invading Beldain in the future or not. No doubt she wants to do the same to Kenettra—but we both bite our tongues now as she nears. She gives me a stiff nod of greeting.

“We leave at dawn,” she tells me. “If your sister does not wake by then, carry her.”

I return her nod, even though my whispers hiss. This is the closest we will come to civility. “We'll be ready.”

Maeve walks past me without acknowledging my words. I turn and watch her disappear inside our tent.
Show her what you can do, and then she will respect you.
The Queen of Beldain and I may be forced allies for now, but there will be a time after this when we will all return to our sides, and our enemy state.

Behind her soldiers walks Magiano. When he sees me, he removes his cloak and wraps it around my shoulders. I relax as it blocks the bite of the wind; the lingering warmth from Magiano feels soothing against my body. “I can't talk him into getting inside a tent,” he says, gesturing over his shoulder as ice crystals flake from his braids. Some distance from the tents, where the land fades off into the blackness of the mountains, I can see a lone blond figure kneeling in the wind, his head down in prayer. Teren.

I put a hand on Magiano's arm. “Let him stay,” I reply. “He will talk to the gods until he feels comforted.” But my stare lingers on Teren for a moment longer. Does he, like Raffaele,
now feel the pull of the Elites' origin calling from somewhere deep in the mountains? I can sense a pulse in the back of my mind now, a knot of power and energy lying somewhere beyond what I can see.

Magiano sighs in exasperation. “I've told Maeve's men to keep an eye on him,” he says. “Let's not have come all this way only to lose him to frostbite.” Then he turns and walks alongside me as we head back into our tent.

It's warm inside. Lucent sits in one corner, grimacing as she wraps her arm in a hot cloth. She has injured her wrist again during the battle, but when she notices me looking, she quickly glances away. Nearby, Raffaele rises from his chair and bows his head in Maeve's direction. Maeve stands near the tent's entrance, her body turned subconsciously toward Lucent, her eyes on Violetta's bed.

Even in the lantern light, Violetta still looks deathly pale. Her eyelids flutter now and then, as if she were lost in a nightmare, and a sheen of sweat covers her forehead. Her dark waves of hair fan out across the cloak folded under her head.

“Snow is coming from the north,” Maeve says, breaking the silence. “The longer we stay here, the more we'll risk having our routes cut off. The snow breakers are already heading up to the ranges.”

“Snow breakers?” Magiano asks.

“Men who are sent up to the snow packs. They break up the snow into small, controlled avalanches in order to prevent larger ones. You probably saw them in town, with their
ice picks.” Maeve nods at Raffaele. “Messenger.” At the mention of his name, her stony face softens a touch. I'm surprised at the twinge of envy I feel, that Raffaele can so easily draw others to him. “Are you well now?”

“Better,” Raffaele replies.

“What happened?” I ask. “We saw you freeze—you crumpled to your knees.”

Raffaele's jewel-toned eyes catch the light, glinting a dozen different shades of green and gold. “The energy around me was overwhelming,” he explains. “The world became a blur. I couldn't think, and I couldn't breathe.”

The feeling overwhelmed him.
Raffaele's power is to sense each and every thread in the world, everything that connects with everything else. This must be how Raffaele's powers are deteriorating, the equivalent of my spontaneous, out-of-control illusions, of Violetta's vicious markings, and Lucent's fragile bones. Unless we can succeed in our mission, his power will be his undoing, like the rest of us.

I can tell by the look on Raffaele's face that he is thinking the same thoughts that I am, but he just gives Maeve a tired smile. “Not to worry. I'm well enough.”

“It seems you stumbled across our traveling band at exactly the right time,” Magiano says to Maeve.

In the silence that follows, Lucent pushes herself to her feet, wincing as she goes, and heads for the tent flap. “We should all get some rest, then,” she mutters. She hesitates a step as she passes Maeve. A flicker of expression—something lonely, longing—crosses her face, but nothing more than that,
and before Maeve can react, Lucent ducks out of the tent and disappears.

Maeve watches her go, then follows. Her soldiers leave in her wake.

Raffaele meets my gaze and sits back down in his chair. “Your sister is growing weaker,” he says. “Our nearness to the origin of Laetes's fall has intensified our connections to the gods, and it is ravaging our bodies. She will not last much longer.”

I stare at Violetta's face. She furrows her brows, as if aware of my presence near her, and I find myself thinking of when we once lay side by side on identical beds, struck down by the blood fever. Somehow, it never has left us.

I glance at Magiano, then Raffaele. “Give me a moment alone with her,” I say.

I'm grateful to Magiano for his silence. He squeezes my hand once, then turns away and steps out of the tent.

Raffaele stares at me, doubt on his face.
He doesn't trust you alone with her. That is what you inspire, little wolf, a cloud of suspicion.
Perhaps that's what the expression is—or perhaps it is guilt, some lingering hint of regret for all that has happened between us, all that could have been avoided. Whatever it means, it disappears in the next breath. He tightens the clasp of his cloak and folds his hands into his sleeves, then moves toward the tent flap. Before he can step out, he turns back to me.

“Let yourself rest,” he says. “You will need it, mi Adelinetta.”

Mi Adelinetta.

My breath catches; the whispers go still. The memory rushes to me, clear as crystal, of an afternoon long ago, when I sat with him by an Estenzian canal and listened to him sing. With the memory comes a rush of wistful joy, followed by unbearable sadness. I hadn't realized how much I missed that day. I want to tell him to wait, but he has already left. His voice seems to linger in the air, though, words I haven't heard from him in years . . . and somewhere, deep in my chest, stirs the presence of a girl buried long ago.

On the bed, Violetta lets out a soft moan and shifts, breaking through the turmoil of my thoughts. I lean closer to her. She takes a deep, rasping breath, and then her eyes flutter open.

I hold Violetta's hand, weaving my fingers with hers. Her skin is scalding to the touch, darkened by overlapping markings, and through it I can feel the bond of blood between us, strengthened by our Elite powers. Her eyes search the room, confused, and then wander up to my face. “Adelina,” she whispers.

“I'm here—” I start to reply, but she interrupts me and closes her eyes.

“You're making a mistake, Adelina,” she says, her head now turned to her side. I blink, trying to understand what she means—until I realize that she is talking in a feverish state, and perhaps not even aware of where she is.

“I want to turn back,” she whispers. “But your Inquisitors—they are searching everywhere for me. They have their swords drawn. I think you may have ordered them to kill me when
they find me.” Her voice cracks with dryness, hoarse and weak. “I want to help you. You're making a mistake, Adelina.” She sighs. “I made a mistake too.”

Now I understand. She is telling me what happened after she fled the palace, after my illusions had overwhelmed me and she had turned on me—after
I
had turned on
her
. A lump rises in my throat. I take a seat in Raffaele's chair, then lean toward her again.

“I told my soldiers to bring you back,” I murmur. “Unharmed. I searched for you for weeks, but you had already left me behind.”

Violetta's breathing sounds shallow and uneven. “Took a ship bound for Tamoura, at first light,” she whispers. Her hand tightens around mine.

“Why did you go to the Daggers?” I sound bitter now, and my illusions spark, painting a scene around me of the days after Violetta had first left my side. How I sat on my throne, clutching my head, refusing trays of supper from servants. How I conjured blackness over the skies of Kenettra, blocking out the sun for days. How I'd burned parchments in the fire after my Inquisition patrols would write me, one after another, that they could not find her. “How could you?”

“I followed the energy of other Elites across the sea,” Violetta murmurs in a trance. Sweat drips down the side of her face as she shifts uneasily again. “I followed Raffaele, and I found him. He found me. Oh, Adelina . . .” She trails off for a moment. “I thought he could help you. I begged him on my knees, with my face pressed to the ground.” Her
lashes are wet now, barely holding tears back. Beneath her lids, her eyes move restlessly. “I begged him every day, even as we heard you sent your new navy to invade Merroutas.”

My hand clenches harder around Violetta's.
Merroutas,
I'd ordered my men.
Domacca. Tamoura. Dumor. Cross the seas, drag the unmarked from their beds, bring them out into the streets before me.
My fury seethed, day after day. “I couldn't find you,” I snap, irritated at the tears that spring to my eye. “Why didn't you send me a dove? Why didn't you let me know?”

Violetta is silent for a long moment, lost in her fever world. Her eyes open again, vacant and gray, bleeding color, and find me. “Raffaele says you are lost forever. That you are beyond help. I think he's wrong, but he sheds tears for you and shakes his head. I'm trying to convince him.” Her whispers turn urgent. “I think I'll try again tomorrow.”

I reach up and angrily wipe my tears away. “I don't understand you,” I whisper back. “Why do you have to keep trying?”

Violetta's lips tremble with effort. “You cannot harden your heart to the future just because of your past. You cannot use cruelty against yourself to justify cruelty to others.” Her gray eyes slide downward, away from my face, until her gaze rests on the lantern burning low near the tent flap. “It is hard. I know you are trying.”

All my life, I have tried to protect you.

The room blurs behind my curtain of tears. “I'm sorry,” I whisper. My words float in the air, quiet and lingering. Before me, Violetta sighs, and her eyelids drift closed again.
She murmurs something else, but it is too quiet for me to hear. I squeeze her hand, unsure what I am holding on for, hoping she will wake and recognize me not in a fever dream, not in a nightmare, but here at her side. I stay long after her breathing turns even. Finally, when the lantern has burned so low that the tent is all but shrouded in darkness, I put my head down against her bed and listen to the wind howl until sleep finally, mercifully, claims me.