The Shattered Mountain (8 page)

16

T
HE next day, Reynaldo says they have gone as far as he can take them. Now all they
can do is wander around until the perimeter guard finds them.

There is no indication that anyone is near, no sign of life or habitation, but one
moment they’re skirting a huge butte of layered sandstone, and the next, two young
men materialize as if by magic in their path.

“Who are you?” one demands, his hand on the hilt of a hunting knife at his belt.

Reynaldo whispers, “We’ve made it.”

“Refugees,” Mara tells them. “Our village was destroyed by Inviernos.”

The boys eye them warily. Their collective gaze roves over Julio’s body, draped over
the packhorse, but their expression gives away nothing.

Reynaldo steps forward. “I am cousin to Humberto and Cosmé. I have a standing invitation
to join your cause, and these are my companions.”

“Were you followed?”

Reynaldo doesn’t even blink. “We were. But we took care of it.”

The boys exchange a glance. One nods at the other and says, “I’ll take a look. Tell
the others we need to extend the perimeter for a few days.

As he melts back into the scrub, the remaining boy says, “This way. Keep quiet.”

They are led through a maze of twisting ravines and choking bramble. Mara considers
that the boy might be leading them in a roundabout way on purpose. If so, it’s a smart
plan, because she is well and truly lost in moments. Marlín’s tiny hand slips into
hers, and she gives it a reassuring squeeze. “Do you need me to carry you?” she whispers
down to the girl.

“No. I’m a big girl now,” she says.

The ravine opens into a small vale. Figures appear on the ridge above, surrounding
them, just like the Inviernos who attacked their village. Mara has a moment’s panic.

But instead of attacking, they pour down the slope. Some smile in greeting. Only a
few have weapons—all sheathed. They are children, mostly. Clean, well-fed, healthy.

These perfect strangers take their hands, murmur words of welcome. One young man lodges
himself under Hando’s good shoulder and supports him the rest of the way.

A beautiful girl with short, curly hair takes charge. She lifts the corner of the
blanket covering Julio’s body and says, “Too late for this one. Take him to the other
side of the butte.” Someone grabs the reins to the packhorse and leads it away. Mara
swallows hard, but does not protest.

“This one needs an amputation immediately,” the beautiful girl says when she sees
Hando’s black-streaked forearm. “Head gash here will need stitches,” she says of Teena.
“Too late to treat your burn,” she tells Marco. “But maybe some salve will help.”
Mara hadn’t realized Marco had been burned; he never complained.

One by one she goes through each member of their party, directing others to action,
until finally she reaches Mara. “You’ve been though a lot,” she says, her head cocked
quizzically.

Mara shrugs. “It’s war.”

The girl nods. “I’m Cosmé. Welcome to our camp. If you betray us, I’ll kill you.”

“If you betray me or these children, I’ll kill you first.”

Cosmé flashes a grin. She indicates a general direction with her head. “Head over
to the cavern if you want some hot stew.” And then she’s off, tending to the wounded.

An old man with a missing arm approaches next. “You are Mara, the leader of this group,
yes?”

“I guess.”

He reaches up and clutches her shoulder. “I am Father Alentín, priest to these wayward
miscreants, and you, dear girl, are most welcome. Come, I’ll show you the way.”

As they head up the slope together, Mara says, “Everyone here seems so . . . healthy.”

“Compared to recent refugees, I suppose,” he says with a sad smile. “We’re managing.
Lots of wounded, though. We lose someone almost every day. But!” His grin becomes
enormous. “This war may have just taken a turn for the better.”

They crest the rise, and Mara looks out on a small but beautiful village of adobe
hutas
built into the side of an enormous butte. Just beyond, the butte curves inward, resulting
in a massive half cavern that is open to the sky but sheltered from the worst of wind
and rain.

“What do you mean by a turn for the better?” she asks. Looking at this bright, warm
place, she can almost believe it.

“We found the bearer, you see,” he says. “God’s chosen one. There.”

Mara follows the direction of his pointing finger and sees two people standing on
the highest point of the ridge—a boy with wild hair, and a plump girl with a thick
braid. The boy doesn’t look like anything special. Intelligent and sturdy, maybe,
with a roundness to his features that gives him an air of perpetual surprise.

As Mara and the priest approach, he leans over and whispers, “Her name is Elisa. She
is a princess of Orovalle, and we stole her right out from under the nose of His Majesty
King Alejandro, may sweet wisdom drop from his lips as honey from the comb.”

The chosen one is a
girl
? Mara peers closer.

She can’t be more than sixteen years old, and she seems out of place in this harsh
desert. Her limbs are too soft, her gaze too wide with horror and shock. But her pretty
brown eyes spark, and there’s a stubborn set to her lips that makes Mara wonder.

The princess stares as they come face-to-face. Stares hard and with keen interest,
the way Julio always did. And just like with Julio, she is compelled to fill the silence.
“I’m Mara,” she says. She’s not sure what makes her add, “Thank you for coming.”

Mara feels the girl’s eyes on her back as she heads into the half cavern. Somehow,
in this moment, Mara knows that nothing about her will go unnoticed ever again.

17

S
HE has barely gone from sunshine to shadow when Teena thrusts a bowl of stew at her.
Mara is stunned for a moment as she breathes in the scent of venison. It’s so thick,
with huge chunks of meat. Even carrots. And suddenly Mara’s lips are on the side of
the bowl and warm, generous stuff is sliding down her throat, filling her stomach.
It leaks past her mouth, smears her cheeks and chin, but she doesn’t care.

“That’s what I did!” Teena says, laughing. “But then my belly hurt.”

Mara forces herself to stop and take a breath. Stew drips from her chin to the ground.
She looks around to find the other children slurping with equal abandon, especially
tiny Marlín, who sits cuddling her bowl, her eyes closed in perfect ecstasy. For the
first time in days, Mara smiles.

“They’ve already assigned huts to us so we can rest,” Teena says brightly. “You get
to share with me. They even gave us some blankets. Do you want me to take you there?”

A hut. Rest. Blankets. Words that feel like home.

Mara takes another, less hurried sip of stew. Across the cavern, the beautiful girl
Cosmé is tending to Hando’s arm, preparing it for amputation. Belén, the boy she briefly
loved before she met Julio, interviews the children, trying to find matches with friends
or relatives who might already be in their camp. Mara was relieved when he left the
village last year, but she’s surprised at how glad she is to see him now.

Even the princess is busy, carrying buckets of water from the pool to the infirmary
area.

These rebels are people of accord. Of purpose.

Mara throws back her shoulders, as if by doing so she can shake off their long journey,
her father’s abuse, Julio’s death. It’s not enough. The memories will cling stubbornly,
maybe forever, but she finds that she can stand under their weight after all.

Teena peers at her questioningly, for she has been silent too long.

She takes a deep, cleansing breath. Her hope can’t come from Julio anymore. She must
nurture it inside herself, and she must fill it with purpose. Mara says, “Thank you,
Teena, but not just yet. Do you know where the kitchen area is? I want to get to work
right away.”

Excerpt from
The Crown of Embers

Read on for a preview of Elisa’s and Mara’s

continued adventures,

in book two of Rae Carson’s epic trilogy!

1

M
Y entourage of guards struggles to keep pace as I fly down the corridors of my palace.
Servants in starched frocks and shined shoes line the way, bowing like dominoes as
I pass. From far away comes a low thrum, filtering even through walls of stone and
mortar, steady as falling water, hollow as distant thunder. It’s the crowd outside,
chanting my name.

I barrel around a corner and collide with a gleaming breastplate. Firm hands grasp
my shoulders, saving me from tumbling backward. My crown is not so lucky. The monstrous
thing clatters to the ground, yanking strands of hair painfully with it.

He releases my shoulders and rubs at red spot on his neck. “That crown of yours is
a mighty weapon,” says Lord-Commander Hector of the Royal Guard.

“Sorry,” I say, blinking up at him. He and the other guards shaved their mustaches
to mark our recent victory, and I’ve yet to adjust to this new, younger-looking Hector.

Ximena, my gray-haired nurse, bends to retrieve the crown and brushes it off. It’s
thick with gold and inlaid with a single cabochon ruby. No dainty queen’s diadem for
me. By tradition, I wear the crown of a fully empowered monarch.

“I expected you an hour ago,” he says as I take his offered arm. We travel the corridor
at a bruising pace.

“General Luz-Manuel kept me. He wanted to change the parade route again.”

He stops cold, and I nearly trip. “Again?”

“He wants to avoid the bottleneck where the Avenida de la Serpiente crosses the merchant’s
alley. He says a stranger in the crowd could spear me too easily.”

Ximena takes advantage of our stillness to reposition the crown on my head. I grimace
as she shoves hairpins through the velvet loops to hold it in place.

Hector is shaking his head. “But the rooftops are low in that area. You’ll be safer
from arrows, which is the greater danger.”

“Exactly what I said. He was . . . displeased.” I tug on his arm to keep us moving.

“He should know better.”

“I may have told him as much.”

“I’m sure he appreciated that,” he says dryly.

“I’ve no idea what advantage he thought to gain by it,” I say. “Whatever it was, I
was not going to give it to him.”

Hector glances around at the people lining the corridors, then adds in a lowered voice,
“Elisa, as your personal defender, I must beg you one last time to reconsider. The
whole world knows you bear the Godstone.”

I sigh against the truth of his words. Yes, I’m now the target of religious fanatics,
Invierne spies, even black market gem traders. But my birthday parade is the one day
each year when everyone—from laundress to stable boy to weather-worn sailor—can glimpse
their ruling monarch. It’s a national holiday, one they’ve been looking forward to
for months. I won’t deny them the opportunity.

And I refuse to be governed by fear. The life stretching before me is that of a queen.
It’s a life I chose. Fought for, even. I cannot—will not—squander it on dread.

“Hector, I won’t hide in the sand like a frightened jerboa.”

“Sometimes,” Ximena cuts in, with her soft but deliberate voice, “protecting Elisa
means protecting her interests. Elisa must show herself publicly. These early months
are important as she consolidates her power. We’ll keep her safe, you and I. And God.
She has a great destiny. . . .”

I turn a deaf ear to her words. So much has happened in the last year, but I feel
no closer to my appointment with destiny than I did when God first lodged his stone
in my navel seventeen years ago. It still pulses with power, warms in response to
my prayers, reminds me that I have not done
enough,
that God has plans for me yet.

And I am sick to death of hearing about it.

“I understand, my lady,” Hector is saying. “But it would be safer—”

“Hector!” I snap. “I’ve made up my mind.”

He stiffens. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

Shame tightens my throat. Why did I snap at Hector? Ximena is the one I’m frustrated
with.

Moments later we reach the carriage house, which reeks of steaming manure and moldy
straw on this especially hot day. My open carriage awaits, a marvel of polished mahogany
and swirling bronze scrollwork. Banners of royal blue stream from the posts. The door
panels display my royal crest—a ruby crown resting on a bed of sacrament roses.

Fernando, my best archer, stands on the rear platform, bow slung over his shoulder.
He bows from the waist, his face grave. Four horses flick their tails and dance in
their jeweled traces. I eye them warily while Hector helps me up.

Then he offers a hand to Ximena, and in spite of their recent disagreement, a look
of fierce understanding passes between them. They are a formidable team, my guard
and my guardian. Sometimes it’s as though they plot my safety behind my back.

Hector gives the order, my driver whips the reins, and the carriage lurches forward.
My Royal Guard, in its gleaming ceremonial armor, falls in around us. They march a
deep one-two-one-two as we leave the shade of the carriage house for desert sunshine.

The moment we turn onto the Colonnade, the air erupts with cheering.

Thousands line the way, packed shoulder to shoulder, waving their hands, flags, tattered
linens. Children sit on shoulders, tossing birdseed and rose petals into the air.
A banner stretches the length of six people and reads, H
APPY
B
IRTHDAY TO
H
ER
M
AJESTY
Q
UEEN
L
UCERO
-E
LISA
!

“Oh,” I breathe.

Ximena grasps my hand and squeezes. “You’re a war hero, remember?”

But I’m also a foreigner queen, ruling by an accident of marriage and war. Warmth
and pride blossom in my chest, to see my people accepting me with their whole hearts.

Then Ximena’s face sobers, and she leans over and whispers, “Remember this moment
and treasure it, my sky. No sovereign remains popular forever.”

I nod from respectful habit, but I can’t keep the frown from creeping onto my face.
My people are giving me a gift, and she takes it away so soon.

The steep Colonnade is lined on either side by decadent three-story townhomes. Their
sculpted sandstone cornices sparkle in the sun, and silk standards swing from flat
garden rooftops. But as we descend from the height of the city, cheered all the way,
the townhomes gradually become less stately, until finally we reach the city’s outer
circle, where only a few humble buildings rise from the war rubble.

I ignore the destruction as long as I can, gazing instead at the city’s great wall.
It rises the height of several men, protecting us from the swirling desert beyond.
I crane my neck and glimpse the soldiers posted between the wall’s crenellations,
bows held at the ready.

The main gate stands open for daytime commerce. Framed by the barbed portcullis is
our cobbled highway. Beyond it are the sweeping dunes of my beautiful desert, wind
smoothed and deceptively soft in the yellow light of midday. My gaze lingers too long
on the sand as we turn onto the Avenida de la Serpiente.

When I can avoid it no longer, I finally take in the view that twists my heart. For
Brisadulce’s outer circle is a scar on the face of the world, blackened and crumbled
and reeking of wet char. This is where the Invierne army broke through our gate, where
their sorcerous animagi burned everything in sight with the blue-hot fire of their
Godstone amulets.

A ceiling beam catches my eye, toppled across a pile of adobe rubble. At one end the
wood grain shows pristine, but it blackens along its length, shrinking and shriveling
until it ends in a ragged stump glowing red with embers. A wisp of smoke curls into
the air.

The outer ring is rife with these glowing reminders of the war we won at such a cost.
Months later, we still cannot wholly quench their fire. Father Nicandro, my head priest,
says that since magic caused these fires, only magic can cool them. Either magic or
time.

My city may burn for a hundred years.

So I smile and wave. I do it with ferocity, like my life depends on it, as if a whole
glorious future lies before us and these sorcerous embers are not worth a passing
irritation.

The crowd loves me for it. They scream and cheer, and it is like magic, a good magic,
how after a while
they
win
me
over to hope, and my smile becomes genuine.

The street narrows, and the crowd presses in as we push forward. Hector’s hand goes
to his scabbard as he inches nearer to the carriage. I tell myself that I don’t mind
their proximity, that I love their smiling faces, their unrestrained energy.

But as we approach the massive amphitheater with its stone columns, I sense a subtle
shift, a dampening of spirits—as if everyone has become distracted. The guards scan
the crowd with suspicion.

“Something isn’t right,” Ximena whispers.

I glance at her with alarm. From long habit, my fingertips find the Godstone, seeking
a clue; it heats up around friends and becomes ice when my life is in peril. Do I
imagine that it is cooler than usual?

The theater is shaped like a giant horseshoe, its massive ends running perpendicular
to the avenida. As we near it, movement draws my gaze upward. High above the crowd
stands a man in a white wind-whipped robe.

My Godstone freezes—unhelpfully—and ice shoots through my limbs as I note his hair:
lightest yellow, almost white, streaming to his waist. Sunlight catches on something
embedded in the top of his wooden staff.
Oh, God.

I’m too shocked to cry out, and by the time Hector notices the white figure, it’s
too late: My carriage is within range. The crowd is eerily silent, as if all the air
has gotten sucked away, for everyone has heard descriptions of the animagi, Invierne’s
sorcerers.

The top of the animagus’ staff begins to glow Godstone blue.

My terror is like the thick muck of a dream as I struggle to find my voice. “Fernando!”
I yell. “Shoot him! Shoot to kill!”

An arrow whizzes toward the animagus in blurred relief against the crystal sky.

The animagus whips his staff toward it. A stream of blue-hot fire erupts from the
tip, collides with the arrow, explodes it into a shower of splinters and sparks.

People scream. Hector gestures at the guards, barking orders. Half tighten formation
around me; the rest sprint away to flank the sorcerer. But the crowd is panicked and
thrashing, and my guards are trapped in a mill of bodies.

“Archers!” Hector yells. “Fire!”

Hundreds of arrows let fly in a giant
whoosh
.

The animagus spins in a circle, staff outstretched. The air around him bends to his
will, and I catch the barest glimpse of a barrier forming—like glass, like a wavering
desert mirage—before Ximena leaps across the bench and covers me with her own body.

“To the queen!” comes Hector’s voice. “We must retreat!” But the carriage doesn’t
budge, for the milling crowd has hemmed us in.

“Queen Lucero-Elisa,” comes a sibilant voice, magnified by the peculiar nature of
the amphitheater. “Bearer of the only living Godstone, you belong to us, to us, to
us.”

He’s coming down the stairway. I know he is. He’s coming for
me
. He’ll blaze a path through my people and—

“You think you’ve beaten us back, but we are as numerous as the desert sands. Next
time we’ll come at you like ghosts in a dream. And you will know the gate of your
enemy!”

In the corner of my eye I catch the gleam of Hector’s sword as he raises it high,
and my stomach thuds with the realization that he’ll cut through our own people if
that’s what it takes to whisk me away.

“Ximena!” I gasp. “Get off. Hector . . . he’ll do anything. We can’t let him—”

She understands instantly. “Stay down,” she orders as she launches against the door
and tumbles into the street.

Heart pounding, I peek over the edge of the carriage. The animagus stares at me hungrily
as he descends the great stair, like I am a juicy mouse caught in his trap. My Godstone’s
icy warning is relentless.

He could have killed me by now if he wanted to; we’ve no way to stop his fire. So
why doesn’t he? Eyeing him carefully, I stand up in the carriage.

“Elisa, no!” cries Hector. Ximena has trapped his sword arm, but he flings her off
and rushes toward me. He jerks to a stop midstride, and his face puckers with strain:
The animagus has frozen him with magic.

But Hector is the strongest man I know.
Fight it, Hector.

Shivering with bone-deep cold, I force myself to step from the carriage.
I
am what the sorcerer wants, so maybe I can distract him, buy enough time for my guards
to flank him, give Hector a chance to break free.

Sun glints off a bit of armor creeping up on the animagus from above, so I keep my
gaze steady, and my voice is steel when I say, “I burned your brothers to dust. I
will do the same to you.” The lie weighs heavy on my tongue. I’ve harnessed the power
of my stone only once, and I’m not sure how.