Chapter Sixteen #2
Seth rounds on me. “I’ve been out here all night while you were off doing whatever it was that you were doing.
If I wanted to signal a Nithyrian vessel, I could have.
” I highly doubt Larus, Taran, or Octavia would have allowed that, but I know better than to interrupt him during one of his tirades.
“If I wanted to betray you, I could have done so as we left the camp. If you want to risk everything that they’ve fought for because you’re not willing to trust me, fine.
Carry me into that damned palace if you must.”
I look at Ronan, but he shakes his head. “Your call. You know him better than any of us.”
I’m not certain that’s true. I still haven’t managed to wrap my head around this version of Seth.
A part of me is still clinging to my childhood fear of him, even while another part of me is forced to remember some of the kindnesses he showed me in our youth.
The way he heated my food at dinner once his magic settled.
The secret passages he showed me in the castle when I was hiding from my lessons.
The times he shielded me from Adria’s wrath, turning her ire towards him.
A thousand little actions that went unnoticed until very recently.
I know what I have to do.
“Seth, if I were willing to trust you after so little, you’d lose all respect for me.” I turn to Larus. “Knock him out, and then you can change his clothes. We’re carrying him.”
Seth seethes and protests with a string of curses against all of us and our mothers, which is somewhat ironic considering I’m the one who restrains him with my shadows.
At least he’s too fascinated by that unique magic to fight me as I use a large amount of the ship’s sleep elixir on him, being unwilling to risk him waking before we arrive.
“Would you take him?” Ronan asks Taran, his voice falsely innocent, and the look that passes between them lets me know that although they haven’t discussed the situation, Taran is fully aware that Ronan knows of his…crush.
“Of course, sir,” says Taran as he lifts Seth with some effort over his shoulder without complaint, the picture of professionalism.
“You’re terrible,” I whisper to Ronan as Larus and Octavia help Prima and Taran onto the gangplank. “You shouldn’t encourage him. You should warn him to run for the hills.”
“What, like he warned me off of you?” says Ronan with a grin. “The heart wants what it wants, Sylvie. Who am I to fight it?”
“I’m blaming you when this ends in tears. Or bloodshed.”
“Or marriage.”
I throw up a little in my mouth. “Don’t put that evil into the world.”
Ronan laughs, and the sound of it fills me with joy in spite of the reason for it. “War makes strange bedfellows. We’re not the only ones who deserve happiness, you know.”
In the end, we split our disguises so that some of us—myself, Ronan, Seth, and Prima—wear Selaran plainclothes while the rest—Octavia, Larus, and Taran—wear Nithyrian leathers. We bring as much of the rope as we can carry, changing who’s bound depending on which patrol we spot.
It’s only a couple of miles into Faros, but the journey is made slow by the circuitous route we’re forced to take to avoid the worst of the troop movements and constructed barricades.
At least we don’t encounter much in the way of fighting.
The clashes of steel on chain and shield intensify as we approach, but most of the fighting is concentrated near the Gap, the space between the Faros’s walls where the Mara flows into the city.
Our route will take us far from there to a small, unassuming shack near the wall between the Minar and South gates.
I chat with Prima along the way. She’s a sweet girl of sixteen, a water-born who found herself separated from her family during their flight from Dalven, a village on the outskirts of Faros near Seth’s second encampment.
She recognizes me from the Festival of Sport.
She was there the night I shot my arrow into the royal box, saving Ronan from an assassin.
“We thought it was your fault at first,” she recalls, braiding and unbraiding her long brown hair as she talks, talking about me committing murder in the sort of unaffected way that only the young can.
“It was hard to see from where we were. Someone a few rows down from us in the stands said you must have paid the woman to kill that man so you could win. I’m sorry,” she says suddenly, her brown eyes widening as she realizes her offense.
“I didn’t think that. It’s just…a lot of us hate Nithyria. ”
“For obvious reasons,” I say, gesturing broadly at everything.
“And then someone said you killed the God-King, and we all ran. I thought the war was going to happen that very night. My parents did too. They wanted to take all of us back home, but as we were packing up in the inn, someone came running in to tell us King Ronan was alive!” Her eyes crinkle at the corners as her smile fills her whole face.
“We didn’t know until the next day that you saved him.
Papa said it was all part of your plan, but Mama said it was the most romantic thing she’d ever seen, and that shut him right up. ”
We don’t talk about what happened the night before when we found her. I gently nudge the conversation in that direction, offering her a chance to talk about it with me, but she quickly changes the subject to our clothes and how unbelievable it is to be traveling with the God-King himself.
Later, when we’re hiding from a Nithyrian patrol in a stable, Larus tells me that the men we fought had already robbed her and beaten her by the time we found her. Ronan had healed her injuries before I could see them.
My stomach sinks like it’s filled with lead as I think of this girl out there on her own, another victim of this terrible war.
We talk of strategy and numbers, defensive weaknesses and supply lines, the logistics of fighting, but at the end of the day, it’s people like this who live and die at the hands of every decision we make.
It’s an impossible burden. I watch from my seat on a haystack as Ronan approaches Prima, cheering her and charming her like he does with everyone. Her life is in his hands.
And I thank the gods for it. If anyone can see us out of this mess, it’s him.
It’s long past noon by the time we reach our destination. We watch from an abandoned house one hundred feet back, Taran peeking through a window to watch as people come and go, making sure the passage hasn’t been compromised.
“How many ways like that are there into the city?” I ask Ronan while we wait. “If Adria finds out about them, couldn’t she use them to attack from within?”
“There are many of them, but most are like this one. A narrow passage through a cellar that can only accommodate a few people at a time. This one exits in the Temple of Vayla. If they were to enter that way, the priests there would have something to say about it.” The temples are better guarded than many people realize.
Everyone knows of the armed acolytes of Sai, the God of War and Vahlo, the God of Death, but few know that even the Goddess of Life herself sees the value in a holy smiting or two.
Ronan explains that the Farosian Temple of Vayla is home to the Royal Order of the Sun, a group of paladins sworn to uphold the faith and protect the crown.
“And I’m their leader,” he adds casually. “Not that I do much with them. It’s more of an honorary title. In practice, the temples don’t give much of a fuck about what I think.”
He says it with the bitterness of an old grudge, but before I can ask more, Taran gives us the signal that we should make our move into the passage.
We file out into the dusty streets of the southern outskirts of Faros, the afternoon sun on our backs and an eerie quiet in the air. The last of the Nithyrian gear has been shed, leaving us looking like nothing more than a group of Selaran refugees.
And we’re far from the only ones of those around.
Just as we approach the shack, a pair of young boys rounds the corner, beating us to it. Taran holds his hand up as a signal to wait out of sight. We duck into the nearest alley, my shadows concealing us as Taran watches the exchange.
The older of the two boys knocks firmly on the shack’s door. The windows are boarded, but we hear movement from within, and then a gruff voice greets him through a crack.
“Toll?” says the voice, its tone uncompromising.
“Toll?” repeats the older boy.
The younger boy drops something shiny on the ground. A coin, I think at first, but no. Just a rock.
“Toll,” repeats the voice at the door. “Pay the toll, or no passage. Ten gold.”
“Ten?” says the older boy, his voice incredulous. “I’ve never seen ten gold in my life.”
I’m not surprised by that. Even with as much gold as Selara produces, most of the commoners live on very little. Ten gold is enough to keep the average family fed for several months. And these two are children. Few children have any gold of their own.
Fewer still during wartime.
“No gold, no passage,” says the man at the door, slamming it in the boys’ faces.
“Please!” says the older boy. The younger boy, sensing his panic, starts crying. “We need to find our mother.”
Taran looks back at Ronan, who is listening to every word. “What do you think, sir?”
“I think it’s time to teach someone a lesson about war profiteering.”
These people are Selaran, both the children and the man inside.
It’s been so easy for me to see the good in the Selaran people lately, to hear about their courage and strength in defending their city from the onslaught of my own people.
And it’s been easy to vilify Nithyria, to look at what Adria and Seth have done and see only the evil in it.
The greed, the lust for power and revenge. To look at Nithyria as the enemy.