Chapter 8 Quil
Quil
Aunt Hel staggered back, looking down at the arrow in her chest in confusion before rage flooded her features.
“Cover,” Quil shouted to his companions. He scooped Aunt Hel up. She wasn’t heavy, but she was tall and the woods were close. Quil had to move carefully to make sure he didn’t knock either of them unconscious against a tree branch.
“You shouldn’t have come on this mission,” Quil said. He needed to get her someplace safe. Aunt Hel’s magic allowed her to heal faster than anyone Quil knew. If they could extract the arrow, she might be all right. If it hadn’t hit her heart. If they were lucky.
“The old fort isn’t far,” Quil said. “We can get out from the rain. There will be tunnels into the woods from there too.”
His aunt nodded but didn’t speak. He listened for signs of pursuit, but when he looked back, he only saw Sufiyan. Elias, Tas, and the legionnaires were no doubt taking care of anyone following.
By the time they reached the fort, Quil’s arms burned from the effort of carrying his aunt. But she was still awake, her eyes alert.
“Here.” Sufiyan ducked into the fort. “There’s a central room. The light won’t be visible if we close the doors.”
Quil set his aunt down against a wall and lit a torch as Sufiyan hauled a bucket of water from a cistern and scrubbed his hands.
“What can I do?” Quil asked.
“Keep watch for Kegari,” Sufiyan said. “This will take a while. I have to get the arrow out, clean the wound, try to sew her up. When Tas gets here, send him in. He has steady hands.”
Quil had only been outside the fort for a few minutes when Tas and Elias appeared, the latter limping heavily. They were alone.
“Legionnaires are dead,” Tas said. “So are the Kegari pursuing us. In this rain, they’ll have a hard time tracking us. But we should move.”
“Suf needs your help,” Quil said. “He’s inside with Aunt Hel.”
Elias set out to secure the perimeter of the fort, and as Quil kept watch, he tried to make sense of all that had happened in the Kegari camp.
He’d only known U’qaya as a Raan-Ruku, a high-ranking Jaduna sorceress. When she’d been in Navium, Aunt Hel had said it was for a routine visit.
Her presence with the Kegari made no sense. As far as Quil knew, the Jaduna weren’t allied with the Kegari. And yet she’d been in the camp of her own volition. Had she known about the Kegari attack all those months ago in Navium? She’d left days before the initial assault.
Then there was what she’d said about Sirsha. For months, Quil had assumed that Sirsha wasn’t able to get him a message. That she was imprisoned or transformed. He thought he had to save her.
The coin will tell you. If it does not, then perhaps she does not wish to be found.
Quil gazed out at the forest landscape, blurred from the rain.
You’re a crown prince who must return to your people, Sirsha had told him months ago. I’m a tracker looking to get as far away from mine as possible. Let’s not make this more complicated than it needs to be.
The Adah coin burned hot and cold, as if reflecting the storm of emotions within Quil. He traced the lines of the coin, searching for a change in the pattern. But it felt the same. He held it to his lips and spoke.
“I wish you were here, Sirsha. I wish I could find you.”
The coin did nothing. She did not wish to be found. Quil glared out at the trees, lashed by rain, hunching in his cloak and feeling ridiculous.
As he began to berate himself for talking to an inanimate object, the coin burned so hot that he winced and nearly dropped it before it cooled as rapidly.
Quil?
“Sirsha?” he whispered, and looked around. Her voice was so clear in his mind that he was certain she would materialize before him. Then he understood. The coin. He held tightly to it.
“You’re alive. Skies, Sirsha. Sirsha—” Stop saying her name like a twit. “I’ve been so—”
Quil—I—I can’t talk to you again. Ever.
“What happened, Sirsha?” Quil couldn’t feel the rain, nor the wind, only a numbness that seemed to claw at his chest. “Why are you—”
Don’t contact me. Forget me, Quil. As I intend to forget you.
Her voice sounded tight as an oud string. She was afraid. No. Terrified. His anger rose, overcoming the initial shock of her rejection. Who the ten bleeding hells was making Sirsha afraid and how could he stick a knife in them?
She might not be able to say.
“Sirsha, if someone is harming you, tell me. I can help—”
A long silence. And then her voice again. Faraway. Soft. No one can help me, Quil. Stay away.
The coin went cold. And no matter how many times Quil called out to her again, she didn’t answer.
At a step behind him, Quil spun, scim at the ready, but it was only Tas.
“She’s patched up. She can walk, though not very fast. Let’s get out of here before the sky-dogs show up.”
Quil signaled to Elias and within moments, they were on their way down the mountain. As they left the fort, unease prickled across Quil’s neck. Kegari?
He turned, peering through the trees behind him. For the briefest moment, he thought he saw a flicker in the darkness, two tiny twin flames. But they disappeared so swiftly that he couldn’t be sure it wasn’t his exhausted mind playing tricks on him.
They approached Serra two nights later, and even now, after living in the ruins for months, Quil’s heart broke to see it.
At this time of year, Serra should have been aglow with sky lanterns to celebrate the Scholar Moon Festival and Tribal caravans bringing in summer wares.
Now the city was dim, much of its light quenched for fear of attracting the attention of a Kegari air patrol.
Its gleaming archways and noble pillars were gray rubble, its wide fountains dry and filthy with ash.
The Imperial hideout was spread among Serra’s ruins. Quil and his comrades waited until night to approach, in case of any Kegari scouts who’d managed to follow them this far. Elias and Sufiyan hung back as an extra precaution and would enter the city on their own.
“Our welcoming party.” Tas, hooded and hunched against the rain, nodded ahead to the crumbled outer wall of Serra, where a lean shadow had materialized. The Empress’s second-in-command, the Blood Shrike.
The Shrike was whip-thin, square-shouldered, and a bit taller than the Empress. Her auburn hair was short, and with her mask gleaming in the moonlight, she had a cold, chiseled beauty that made her seem unworldly.
Skies-kissed, her troops called her, for all that she’d survived—including the siege and occupation of Antium twenty years ago, when her entire family—including her elder sister—had died.
Before Helene had selected her as Blood Shrike—a title that would supplant her name—Chryssa Lignan was a field commander in the borderlands.
She was only six years older than Quil, but he’d fought under her command, so grateful that she treated him like the other soldiers that he’d developed a bit of an infatuation.
Thankfully, it died quickly. Now she was just a friend.
“Greetings, Shrike,” Tas called out, gesturing to the two royals riding up behind him. “Here they are, alive and well, as promised.”
“And you live to see another day, spy,” the Shrike murmured before examining Aunt Hel. She narrowed her eyes. “What’s wrong?” She turned on Tas, teeth bared. “She’s injured.”
“I’m fine, Shrike,” Aunt Hel said. “Or I will be, in a day or two. Tell the Paters the mission was successfully completed. Maybe it will keep them off my back for a few hours.”
The Shrike nodded and handed Aunt Hel a note. “For your eyes only,” she said. “From Musa. And”—she looked to Quil now—“our scouts picked up a Kegari messenger shortly after a Sail left him in the night. Said he has an urgent missive for you from the Tel Ilessi.”
“Then she knows we’re here,” Quil said.
The Shrike nodded. “We questioned him, but he’s refusing to speak unless it’s to one of you. We’ve spotted no other Sails in the area.”
“Tas, make sure Sufiyan and Elias got in safe,” Aunt Hel said. Then she drew herself up and glanced at Quil. “Come, nephew,” she said. “Let us see what games the Kegari play.”
The Shrike led them through the labyrinthine ruins of Serra, all the while muttering updates to the Empress.
Quil should have been paying attention, but he couldn’t stop looking over his shoulder.
More than once, his fingers itched for his scim, and he was certain someone—something—was about to burst out of the night.
But as they made their way to the old Martial barracks, nothing appeared. Quil followed the Shrike down into the jail cells below the barracks, antsy and ill-tempered. Three Masks stood guard outside the messenger’s cell, and they entered it before the Empress, scims in hand.
For a man with three sharp blades pointed at him, the Kegari envoy appeared remarkably calm.
He was tall as a Martial, and hale, as if he’d never met a plate he couldn’t empty.
He wore the dark blue robes of a Kegari cleric—an interesting choice of messenger, but perhaps Aiz wanted the Empress’s guard down.
The man straightened noticeably when Aunt Hel and Quil joined him in his cell.
“Empress Helene Aquilla of the Martials,” he began. “Prince Zacharias. I come on behalf of the Holy Tel Ilessi, Chosen of Mother Div and Savior of Kegar. She wishes to offer terms of peace. We believe you will find them generous.”
The Empress’s jaw tightened, but she nodded and the messenger began to recite.
“Empress and Prince, I am grieved that our inability to reach terms on the transfer of Loha has resulted in the needless destruction of your land.
Your recent attempt at destroying a weapons cache indicates a desperation that I hope may lead to reconciliation.
I am prepared to cease hostilities and ground all aircraft if you meet the following terms:
“First,” the messenger said, “you will order your people to cease revolutionary activities immediately. Second, you will give us all Loha currently in your custody. Third, you will round up and deliver all Masks at a place and time of my choosing.”
Quil felt as if he was watching himself, Aunt Hel, and this entire horrible tableau from a great height. He wanted this infernal messenger to stop speaking. He wanted to stick a knife in the man’s eye.
“Last,” the messenger went on, “you will acknowledge the sovereignty of Kegar as a nation by opening trade and entering into a treaty to last for no less than a period of two hundred years, during which the Empire will make no war against the nation of Kegar. Violation of this treaty will result in full decimation of remaining Imperial cities as well as any bordering allies.”
Bordering allies. He meant the Tribespeople and the Mariners. The Tel Ilessi was threatening the ruination of the entire Northern Continent.
Quil could practically see the silence in the room, seething with the wrath of every Martial who had heard the Kegari offer.
Aunt Hel’s jaw was clenched so tight that Quil didn’t think she could speak. So he spoke for her.
“Go on,” he growled at the messenger.
The messenger glanced at Quil with a little more than nervousness. But he cleared his throat and delivered the final blow.
“You have until sunset three days from now to accept these terms. If you reject the terms, the Tel Ilessi will consider it an act of war and the city of Antium will be destroyed, with no quarter given.” The messenger nodded, as if assuring himself that he hadn’t forgotten anything. “Do you accept?”
A lifetime of observing his aunt had taught Quil much about her. Sometimes, he knew what she was thinking before she did—and he didn’t need magic to figure it out. The moment the messenger fell silent, Quil took a step back.
A second later, the messenger’s head was on the floor, the body it had been attached to swaying gently in place before crumpling slowly to the ground.
Aunt Hel held up Musa’s note. “Musa discovered that the offer was a ruse,” she said quietly.
“They will attack Serra, not Antium. They will strike at dawn. Rallius”—Aunt Hel lifted her gaze to her guard captain—“drop him in a ravine. The rest of you—” She looked to the guards, to her Shrike, and to her heir.
“Evacuate everyone. Serra is lost.”