Chapter 13
· YEMI ·
The farther east they walked, the more the lush plains gave way to the stone lands.
Ancient rock formations re-created images from Ixian mythology through forced perspective, so the landscape itself told stories of the Old Gods and long-dead legends even the evolving world hadn’t forgotten just yet.
A string of rose quartz mountains known as the Crown of the Land God sparkled a dusty pink beneath the northern sky.
The fork in a rushing river called Sandoval’s Broom recalled the demigod who swept clean the wild lands to make way for Man’s expansion beyond the coast. It marked the entrance to the country’s quarries and copper mines as well, which meant more workers and material transports along the road, and less forest cover for Yemi and Nova to cloak themselves in.
They stuck to ridge lines as far from the roads as possible. The trees here were thin and the route was long, but it was the safest vantage point to watch for anyone looking for them.
“This is Loft’s district, isn’t it? Isn’t she always going on about manpower for quarry security?” Nova asked.
“Yes. We doubled it at least in the last year,” Yemi replied.
“Well, where are they?”
“What?”
“We haven’t passed an active outpost, transport checkpoint, nothing.”
Yemi thought a moment. Large transports had military escorts as a matter of protocol.
The senators had lobbied for added security for months, and she’d heard more than one story about copper bandits.
But as she searched the valley below them for patrols that should have been circulating for at least the last hour before the sun started rising, she found the only lights flickering were those lighting the edges of dig sites to prevent people tumbling into them in the dark.
“Dahlia’s consolidating forces in Chairre in case I come back for a fight, you think?” Yemi suggested.
“Yeah, maybe,” Nova replied, though she didn’t sound convinced. “But it feels like a trap. What if the Obé is the one who laid it?”
“She deals in deals. All we want is an audience with the Mer queen. Ursla is only a conduit—we have her direct me to the Mer queen, pool her resources with Muris’s, and take back the throne.”
“What price are you willing to pay for that? You know there will be one. What if it’s steeper now because you refused her the first time?”
“That’s why we have Muris,” Yemi assured her. “The less we rely on the sea witch, the smaller the price will be.”
The lengthiest stand of trees ended abruptly on a hill overlooking the Rakelands.
It was an objectively beautiful place with the bluffs and high edges of the riverbeds lined in fully bloomed blood orange trees.
A moderately sized town of dark wooden buildings on stone stilts had been built in the mouth of a dry delta now filled with crops in various stages of growth and harvest. It all slept now beneath a drifting morning mist.
“Welcome to the worst place you could possibly be,” Nova muttered.
“I can think of a worse one.”
“Not by much. They bulletproof their houses here.”
“What?” Yemi studied the buildings again. The walls that appeared to reflect the sun were indeed metal.
“They’re pretty sure your family’s going to violate the treaty first. Or figure out they want to violate the treaty first. So they’re ready for anything.
In fact, this is too pretty a perch to go abandoned for long.
There, see?” She nudged a patch of singed leaves and dry grass with the tip of her boot to reveal more than a few spent cigar ends. “Probably a sentry post.”
“Where’s the sentry?”
Nova shrugged. “Best-case scenario, they’re a little less on guard with you not on the throne anymore.”
Yemi frowned. This was an upside, of course, but it was hard to see past the insult.
“You know that’s part of their thing,” Nova insisted, reading Yemi’s face.
“I know,” she assured her. The Obéid differed from the Kept in their faith.
The latter was certain the Butterfly Queen had come to the throne through the will of Ursla; the former insisted it happened in spite of her.
It was the root of the civil rebellion of the Butterfly Wars.
The fact that Ursla had conspired with the Kept and not the Obéid in the most recent coup suggested the truth lay in one direction.
These people didn’t know that, however.
“Whatever their security situation, if we’re identified here, they won’t turn us over to the MPs. And that’s not a good thing,” Nova said.
“My military police, but understood.” Yemi returned her mind to the matter at hand.
“So, which one of those looks like tobacco?” She pointed to the crops.
Lines of hemp and arundo grass plotted at the edge of the town turned into lavender and canola and then low greens stretching long into the distance, lining the riverbeds in columns separated by stone-paved walkways and irrigation canals leading to the sea.
It could take hours to sample it all if they weren’t sure where to begin.
“The green bits, hopefully. She really gave you a trinket for someone else and not a tobacco leaf to use for this?” Nova asked, desperate to get through this quickly.
“I may have antagonized her a bit,” Yemi admitted.
“This would be easier if you hadn’t,” Nova chided.
The bulk of the town was nestled in the western delta before a waterfall, which only dribbled to a stream this time of year. A single bathhouse and large utility and storage buildings straddled the riverbeds as the centers of wooden bridges.
Nova pointed to a central building of deep-red polished wood straddling the mouth of the largest riverbed.
Its broad chimney birthed a thick white mist. “That’s steam.
A bathhouse. That,” she said, pointing to a row of buildings toward the town’s interior with chimneys belching something darker, “is smoke.”
“A smokehouse?” Yemi squinted. “Meat?” Yemi quieted her growling stomach.
“Not all of them. I know the smell of cigars. Nobody chain-smokes like the godly.”
“There are also people that way.”
“Yes, but… my people, one could say.”
“Your people,” Yemi repeated evenly.
“Don’t overthink it. Look, the Hot Gates are just there.” Nova pointed to a narrow pass in a wall of sheer white rock barely visible beyond the edge of the town. “It’s either this or we forgo this plan that I, again, do not love and head back to join up with Cutter.”
“We’re continuing with the plan, but your protest has been noted.”
“Right. Well, there’s nowhere to hide you. You stay here. I’ll pop down, find the thing, and pop back before the fog clears.”
“I’d rather I went with you,” Yemi insisted. “This is, subjectively, among one of my more harebrained ideas and you shouldn’t have to deal with it alone.”
“Calm down, Combat Queen. I trust you to manage one potentially sleepy guard if they come back. I’m not walking you directly into Murder Town.”
It annoyed Yemi that she was right, that it made more sense for her to cower like a child and wait for her escort than to tempt fate as if she hadn’t been in every newspaper her entire life. She appreciated Nova waiting for her to agree and rewarded her by relenting.
“We’ll talk about your need to play the hero when you get back.”
“Who’s playing?” Nova replied and kissed Yemi quickly on the lips before looking her very seriously in the eyes. “My Light, My Dark.”
“Your moon and stars,” Yemi replied.
“Back in a blink.”
Nova descended the cliffside quickly, keeping her footfalls soft on the crunching brush before skidding down a silt bank and into the weeds. Yemi watched her head bob among the tall grass as she edged toward the town and eventually out of sight.
· NOVA ·
Nova inspected what she could of the town through spaces in the patchwork fog.
It was a quiet place. Farmers hadn’t yet taken to their fields, but a blacksmith’s hammer rang out.
Few to none were on the streets. The metal walls of a few homes were opened like vertical shutters, and people milled about in their front rooms instead.
The roads seemed scant and in disrepair—less than ideal for the wheels of a military force, Nova thought, but well suited to the ambler vehicles popular in the mountains.
A set or two of bouncing headlights traveled the one road that extended back toward the mines.
She tucked her undyed hair tightly beneath the broad farmer’s hat and walked the gray gravel pathways between stilted homes at a gait that she hoped registered as common and not at all stealthy.
The fog seemed denser as she kept her eyes up, looking for the buildings with smoke in their chimneys. She found herself some distance behind a person illuminating pathway and doorfront lanterns on high stalks with a long stick bearing flame. They were singing in a familiar voice as they did it.
Van?
Nova followed them as they rounded a corner and lit a brazier over a broad street between the bathhouse and what appeared to be a row of commercial buildings. An elderly someone slid open a bathhouse door and greeted them with nothing conversation.
It was Van.
Nova stayed tucked beneath the bathhouse bridge, aware that this would become a dangerously busy place once the town woke up completely. She could continue up the path to the smoky chimneys and hope no one caught her, or flag down Van and hope they would help.
Van approached a stairway that would lead them to the top of the bridge. Before they could reach it, Nova stepped just out of sight of the old-timer and grunted softly, raising her hat just high enough to be visible.
Van stopped mid-stride, did a double take, and then squinted.
“Ennov—”
Nova shook her head aggressively and pulled her hat lower, ducking again beneath the wall. Van excused themself and reversed course down the stairs, pinching Nova’s arm in a manner that could only be described as violent.
“This way.” They blew out the pilot light on their staff.