Chapter Eighteen #2
Along with rummaging through the library—and maybe, very carefully, the treasury—I decided that making a mental map would be my “work” while I was here. As Wren pointed out, one never knew when one might need to sneak into or out of a royal palace.
We walked through a corridor paneled in more of the palace’s favorite pale green stone.
Arches rose, tapestries lined the walls, and light was shed from ornate standing candelabras and reflected in golden mirrors.
We reached a large round space where several corridors met, the domed ceiling gilded and held aloft by multicolored marble columns too big for me to put my arms around.
The walls were covered in tiny mosaic tiles that must have taken decades—and thousands of strongholders—to finish.
“Library is that way,” he said, pointing to the left. A small scroll had been carved into the stone arch that separated the passageway from the vaulted space. I looked around. The other passageways had small stone carvings, too: a crown in the direction we’d just come from, an apple, and a sword.
“Kitchens and armory?” I guessed.
“Small armory,” he said. “Most of the weapons are stored in the barracks. And the dining room. The kitchens are in another wing.”
We reached an alcove where a stairway of pale stone spiraled upward.
He stopped and looked back at me. “Do heights bother you?”
“I don’t think so. Is it taller than a pangan tree?”
“Much,” he said with a smile. “If it’s too high, we’ll come back.”
I nodded, but curiosity beat out fear every time.
It took time to climb the stairs, and both of us were breathing heavily by the time we reached the top.
The stairs ended in a plain wooden door—no mountain lily this time.
My balance wasn’t completely back and my head was spinning a bit, so I paused at the threshold until I was sure I wouldn’t fall over.
“Ready?”
When I nodded, the prince pushed open the door to a brilliant blue sky dotted with fluffy clouds. He took a step outside, then turned back and offered me a hand.
I didn’t take it. But I stepped outside and onto a narrow wooden balcony that ringed the exterior of the dome we’d stood beneath downstairs. And beyond the balcony railing was…everything.
The palace’s tower was behind us, the central spear flanked by four buttresses that rose halfway along its height. The rest of the palace was a long box that swept back from the tower, its roof steeply pitched, all of it covered in more of the pale green stone.
The surrounding grounds looked like a painting.
There were courtyards and gardens, and paths that led to a large pond and then over it, with a gazebo perched in the middle above the water.
There were small waterfalls, flowering trees, and benches where the Western Gate princes could contemplate their wealth and power.
Another pond with a high arching bridge, then a rolling meadow that led to a deep wood, the trees beginning to bud.
Beyond that was the river, then the palace wall.
“Where’s your army?” I wondered.
He pointed toward a cluster of buildings in the far northeast corner of the grounds, not far from the river. “Barracks, stables, main armory. They also have rooms in the palace.”
“And servants?”
“Palace servants have quarters in the palace. There are also working areas to the south.”
Beyond the palace wall, Mount Cennet was surrounded by her daughters, the shorter peaks and foothills where rain-fed waterfalls now cascaded. The mountain’s peak was still white with winter snow.
“How did you get here?” I asked, watching the tiny dots of carriages moving back and forth across the mountain switchbacks, the trees not yet leafy enough to hide those paths. “Did you come down the pass?”
“Yes. It was open early this year. Still difficult going, but the southern pass would’ve added weeks to the trip and my people were tired. Come with me,” he said, and without waiting for an answer, he took my hand and led me around the dome to the western side.
More glimmering green palace, and beyond it a large empty courtyard, a long range of steps, then the palace wall.
Beyond the stronghold to the west lay the Vhranian flatlands.
They extended into the distance, so it seemed I was looking at the edge of the world.
People leaving the stronghold formed a narrow multicolored ribbon across that dun-colored canvas.
Where were they walking? Toward family or work or new opportunities? Or away from tragedy, the end of a love affair, fear? I wondered what it might be like to have the freedom to choose a gate and direction and simply walk out. To see what the world had to offer.
“Terra is enormous,” I said quietly. “Thank the gods.”
“What do you mean?” He stood just behind me so he wouldn’t block the view, but close enough that he could grab me in case I panicked.
“Our lives haven’t been the easiest. We’ve survived, but there’s been pain, hunger, cold.
Trying to predict the Lady’s moods, to stay out of the garrison’s sight.
But looking out here—at the vastness of the world—all those things seem insignificant.
We’re insignificant, and so are our problems. You can also see how the world fits together.
How the melting snow feeds the waterfalls, which feed the river, which the farmers use to water their crops.
It’s all connected, regardless of how much coin we have. We’re all part of the same tale.”
“Beautifully put.” His voice was low and soft.
“I want to see it all,” I said, committing as much of the view to memory as I could manage. “I want to visit every hill and valley in Carethia and Vhrania. The snows of the Edgelands and the City of Flowers when everything is blooming. I want freedom.” And maybe a little bit of adventure.
I glanced at him, his gaze over the landscape, and I wondered where he might be imagining himself. On the throne in the City of Flowers? In a train of soldiers in the pass? Or back with the Eastern Army near the border with the friends he’d made there?
“What do you want, Cassander Ashketh Nikalos Lys’Careth, Prince of the Western Gate?”
He lifted his gaze to the landscape. “I want to fit somewhere. The Lys’Careths are Carethia’s bloody past and uncertain future. We’re part of the tapestry of this place.” He paused. “But we still stand apart from everyone else.”
“Because you stand above everyone else. In terms of power, I mean.”
He nodded. “And because safety demands it. People want us dead, usually so they can enjoy a greater share of Carethia’s riches, so we stand alone. Harder for assassins to do their work that way.”
“And you don’t want a greater share?”
It took him a moment to answer. “I believe Carethia is its people. The Lys’Careths are some of those people. Nothing more, nothing less. If we hold the throne, our obligation is to protect and preserve its riches and use them for the benefit of all.”
“The Emperor Eternal might call that treason.”
“Probably. That doesn’t make it wrong.” He looked down at me. He seemed taller up here, or maybe I just felt smaller given the view. “You aren’t bitter about your circumstances.”
I snorted. “Of course I am. I’m furious and sad just like anyone else would be.
But I’ve seen worse, and I know circumstances are a matter of luck.
Wishing I’d lived someone else’s life would be pointless.
A waste of time. I survived.” I looked back at the sky and closed my eyes in the warmth of the sun. “This, right now, isn’t so bad.”
“No,” he said after a moment. “It’s not so bad.”
The gods loved a dare.
Pain shot through my heart like a barbed arrow, and I sucked in a breath, gripping at my chest. There was nothing but the pain, the staggering burning in my heart.
My balance wavered; I couldn’t seem to make my body work.
I stumbled forward, hit the railing that stood between me and free fall, and managed to grip the balustrade.
But instead of stopping my progress, it shifted like sand between my fingers.
Something cracked and the wood broke free, balusters spinning down toward the knife-edge roof a long way below.
And then I was falling.
I’d die, and it would be my fault. I’d let myself be noticed. I’d taken more than I should have. I’d seen too much of the world, had enjoyed a moment that shouldn’t have been mine to enjoy. I’d tugged on that thread in my fate’s tapestry, and fate had tugged back.
The world lurched in front of me. Aetheric pain mingled with fear and seemed to weigh down my body, pulling it toward the inevitable.
And then a hand took my wrist, squeezed ferociously, and hauled me back from the edge, the momentum swinging me up. The prince caught me in his arms, wrapped them tight around me, and I began to shake.
“I nearly—”
“You didn’t,” he said. “I’ve got you. You’re safe.”
My legs were weak as porridge, my body shaking from fear, from relief, the pain still pounding in my chest. But I was alive. I was safe. I was protected, so I let myself stay in his arms.
“Aetheric?”
“Yes.”
“It was bad?”
“Very bad.”
When the pain in my chest began to ebb, and my heart to slow, I couldn’t think of an excuse to stay in his embrace any longer. So I stepped back, putting space between our bodies.
I glanced over at the railing. A stride’s worth had simply disappeared, leaving a gap like a broken tooth. “How did it break?” I asked quietly, my voice still shaking more than I wanted it to. “Did someone hope you’d fall?”
“That’s quite a chance to take—loosening a railing in case the prince comes up and stands in that exact spot.”
“You came up. And you might have stood there. I was too happy.”
“Too happy?” His words were so quiet. So soft.
“There was warm sunlight and a breeze and a view and I’m not hungry and I was happy. I tempted the gods.”
“Nonsense. The gods don’t begrudge us true happiness, least of all a person who’s already endured so much. But since it may be the work of a human, I’ll check it.”
“Take care.”
There was amusement in his face. “You’re telling me, a damned Lys’Careth, to take care?”
I growled.
A moment passed, and he still hadn’t moved. “You’re going to need to let go.”
I blinked, and realized one of my hands was still fisted in his jacket. I unclenched my fingers. “Sorry.”
He moved carefully to the gap in the railing. He crouched, examined the edges, then poked one of the remaining balusters. It wobbled in the frame. “It wasn’t cut. It’s rotted through. Looks like it’s needed repair for a long time.”
“Your brother had other concerns.”
“Yes. Himself.” Carefully, he rose. “I’ve seen enough. Let’s go in.”
“Not yet. I felt the magic.” The pain was easing now, less a stab through the heart than an enthusiastic kicking. “I have to look. Maybe I’ll see a trail, and we can find him. Stop him.”
“Or the balcony collapses beneath us.”
“I can’t stop him unless I can find him. Is there anywhere else with a view like this?”
“No,” he said after a moment, then took my hand. “Slowly and carefully.”
“It’s too dangerous for you—” I began, but he shook his head.
“It’s dangerous because of me.”
“At some point you’re going to need to stop using that to get me to agree to things.”
“But not right now,” he said in a tone that did not invite argument.
So we made our way slowly around the balcony, our hands linked and my gaze on the horizon. We circled the entire dome, saw Carethia from horizon to horizon, and I saw no magic.
“Nothing,” I said.
“He’s hiding himself again?”
“Maybe.” Or maybe this was just another effect of his prior attack. Maybe he’d well and truly broken me.
“Is there nothing that can help you?”
“I don’t know. Luna is looking.”
He nodded. “If you need something, just tell me. I’ll find it.”
“Right now, I need to get off this balcony.”
When we made it back inside, he gave instructions to a nearby guard to bar the door to the balcony, then walked me back to my room and helped me climb shakily onto the bed. I toed off my shoes.
“Thank you,” I said. “And sorry for the trouble.”
“You have nothing to apologize for. But you should rest.”
“I will.”
He turned for the door, and I found myself disappointed that he was going, and wishing that I had some reason to ask him to stay. Which was ridiculous, so I said nothing. “Be careful, Your Highness. Just in case anything else is rotten.”
“I’ll have someone take a look.”
“At all of it. Just in case.”
“At all of it,” he agreed. And if my eyes hadn’t been closing, I think I’d have seen him smile.