Chapter Thirty
Thirty
The haze cleared. I opened my eyes, still on the ground, the battle continuing beyond me. It looked no different than it had when I’d fallen. And what felt like days had taken only the span of a few heartbeats.
I rose to my feet.
The Aetheric practitioner stared at me with wide eyes still tinted with sickly Aether, his brow sweaty and damp. He’d been sweaty in the market, too, when he’d possessed Wren, as if working hard to use his power.
“I knew it,” he said, avarice in his eyes. “You have power, and it will make me even stronger.”
Luna said he was no Luminae, and while he could manipulate Aether, it had a strange color, like Aether spoiled in the process. That same color was in his eyes. And he’d asked if I was using Anima.
I looked at him, and this time I finally saw. He’d meant to ask: Was I using Anima, too?
He was a thief. And there was nothing righteous about what he’d done.
“You kidnapped them,” I said, moving a step closer.
He looked startled. “What?”
“You took Anima. Not just Aether, but Anima. The souls of the departed. You possessed them, used them up. That’s how you pretend to be an Aetheric practitioner.”
“I don’t pretend anything.” He beat a hand against his chest. “I have power.”
I just looked at him. “Not Aetheric power. Not really. You have only the power to take. The power to steal.”
He looked away, as if searching for answers. “The Aetheric owed it to me,” he decided. “I have power, but not enough. I’m owed more.”
“No one owes you anything, and certainly not Anima.” I took a step closer. “They want to go home. I can hear them in the Aether. Let them go, or I’ll take them from you.”
“No. I’ll have them and more. Get her,” he said, teeth bared, and the assassins stopped their fight with the prince and the others, and moved around him to face me.
Yue’s team emerged from the woods. “Let’s not do that,” she said.
“Not advisable,” Red agreed from behind me, swords in both hands.
“Let them go,” I said again.
He looked like he wanted to run, to dart through the woods like he’d done before. But he knew he was surrounded, that his ploy to capture me or the prince had backfired.
“So be it,” I said.
I opened the doorway, creating a corridor for what remained of the Anima he’d trapped, and who were too weak to return home.
I could feel them now—not just the heat of Anima and Aetheric, but the rhythm of their lives, the roundness of their love.
To the gasps of the soldiers, they flew from the practitioner’s body like stars, visible to all, and up toward the River of Souls.
One soul at a time, on their way home again.
The practitioner had survived on Anima so long there was almost nothing left of him. What was left turned to ashes with the heat of an Aetheric fire, then fell to the ground, leaving only the golden mask, charred and tarnished, behind.
“Daughters of Tommen,” I said quietly, because I could feel them gathered again. “Your father is avenged.”
I waited until the Aether had dissipated and birds began to chirp again.
Then I looked around. The prince and Galen stood nearby, their faces bearing a few more scrapes than before, but all parts attached.
They both nodded at me. The other soldiers had formed a ring around us, some of them holding assassins at swordpoint.
And around us all, a pale blanket of white.
It had begun to snow, as if the water god had lifted her head from sleep in the Floating City and decided to put away what had happened here, cover it with a blessing, and allow us all to forget.
“You still look tired, Little Fox.”
“I still am tired.”
The prince stepped forward, unfastened his cloak, and swept it around us. For a moment, it blocked out my view of everything but the two of us, and he pressed his lips to mine. Then he settled the cloak on my shoulders.
“What did the note say?”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Suspicious and stubborn.”
“Tenacious,” I corrected. “Let me guess: He demanded you bring me to him or, what, he’d overrun the stronghold with Anima and tell the Emperor Eternal?”
“Close enough.”
“We could have planned it together.”
“I was hoping to protect you from this.” He paused. “You’re the Luminae.” He looked like he wished he could have protected me from that, too.
I nodded. “So it seems.”
“Let’s go back to the stronghold and drink wine until we’re sick.”
“Yes,” I said, nodding vigorously. “Yes, that.”
I walked through the men to where Grim stood waiting, Galen holding his reins. He nodded at me. “Good work.”
“If you keep complimenting me, I’m going to get used to it.”
He smiled.
I mounted Grim and the prince climbed up behind me, wrapped an arm around my waist, and pulled my body against him. He clicked his tongue to get Grim moving.
And nothing happened.
“Grim. Home. Let’s go.” He shook the reins, tightened his thighs, nudged his flank with a toe.
Grim whinnied, shook his head, and pawed at the ground.
“Apparently,” Yue called out, “Grim has decided he doesn’t much like snow.” A few of the soldiers, bloodied but tired, laughed, which relieved a lot of the tension.
“You can take my horse,” Galen said. “I’ll walk.”
“I’d prefer to walk,” I said. “But thank you.”
“There’s an inn,” Red said, walking toward us. “We didn’t find a house, but there’s an inn up the road. Only a few minutes’ walk. There’s also a stable. Maybe the practitioner stayed there.”
“Good,” the prince said. He dismounted and offered me a hand. Even though I didn’t pay for the service.
It was decided that most of the soldiers would return to the palace with their prisoner assassins. Grim was apparently willing to walk without riders, so the prince and I walked him, Yue behind, while Galen rode ahead to the inn to make arrangements.
The snow nearly reached our ankles by the time we arrived. The inn was old, but tidy. Two floors of aged wood, with a porch across the front and cheery flowers in boxes. The stables beside looked clean, and a man was shoveling hay into bins for feeding.
Yue took Grim to the stables, and we mounted the stairs.
“I thought the stronghold was supposed to be warm,” the prince said as we shook snow from our clothes.
“Spring snow,” I said with chattering teeth.
Galen whisked us through the inn’s front room to the surprise of the few people who’d taken shelter there, huddled over steaming cups of what smelled like sweetwine and spice.
My stomach rumbled audibly as we climbed creaking stairs to a narrow balcony that ringed the second floor. I had no more love for balconies, and hewed close to the wall as we moved across dark wooden floors to a second corridor, and then a heavy wooden door.
Galen opened the door and gestured for the prince to enter. “Your Highness.” Then he pointed to the door beside it. “Fox, this one’s yours.”
“Thank you.”
“Food and sweetwine,” the prince said. “Leave it outside the room.”
“Outside?” Galen asked.
By way of answer, the prince took my hand, pulled me into his room, and closed the door. Then he put down the wooden bar to lock it.
“Outside,” the prince said, through the closed door. And when Galen’s footsteps disappeared down the hallway, he turned around and looked at me.
My heart had never beaten faster.