Chapter 29
The roads to Klatos heaved with travelers the day before the royal wedding.
Riella and Jarin had split from the rest of the Pandora’s dwindling crew. The pirates would blend into the masses, entering the city in twos and threes. The Pandora was docked leagues north of Klatos, in a secluded bay. Jarin dared not allow the ship anywhere near the city, because the Dark Tide Clan was still very much wanted for plundering the royal ship.
Ulyss and a few other crew members stayed behind on Hieros Isle with Ferrante and Kohara and the children. The old man was recovering slowly, but the worst of his injuries would never fully heal.
When the Pandora finally set sail for the mainland, the siren had mixed emotions. Although glad to take action, she’d spent the preceding days on an idyllic island with Jarin. They swam in the rock pools and explored each other’s bodies. During the headiest of moments, when carnal pleasure had altered her state of consciousness, she could almost fool herself into believing her time with him would never end.
But then, night would come. While Jarin slept, Riella lay in his arms, eyeing the moon through the window. Every night it grew fuller, brighter—every night brought her closer to the end of her life.
Spending so much time with him was a double-edged sword, though. Since she would die soon, she allowed herself to be close to him without boundaries or restraint. Caution seemed pointless. The consequence was the explosive growth of her feelings for him. She sought comfort in him, as well as pleasure. It was foolish of her. But then, if you could not be foolish in the face of death, when could you?
Perversely, she wondered if she’d know when she died. Would there be a warning? A slow and conscious demise? Perhaps it would be sudden and without ceremony, the way deaths often were in reality.
Jarin had spread the word about Polinth possessing her Voice, via his crew. They wouldn’t know if their plan to lure Artus had succeeded until they entered the city and found him, or at least his men. He’d be free to dock at the Klatos port, since Jarin took the fall for the royal ship scuttling. Jarin believed that Artus was arrogant enough to do little to conceal himself, and Riella prayed it would be true.
“Why’s this taking so long?” asked Riella with a groan.
While patience had never been her strong suit, the stress of her impending death and the difficulty of her mission made the siren unbearably restless. She stood on her tiptoes, trying to see past the city wall, to little success. Only the gleaming golden turrets of the palace were visible.
A stone wall, roughly double Riella’s height, enclosed the entire city except for the port. They’d approached Klatos midmorning, hoping to avoid the crowds, only to be greeted by a seemingly endless line of people, horses, and carts waiting to gain entry into the city. The queue moved at an agonizingly slow pace.
“The guards are searching everyone before letting them through,” said Jarin, whose height allowed him to see farther than Riella. “Ordinarily, we could jump the wall, but there are guards every few paces. I’ve never seen such heavy security.” He lowered his voice. “Not even when my mother was terrorizing the city.”
Royal guards in red and blue coats patrolled the wall on foot and horseback. They carried swords and crossbows and interrogated anyone who strayed from the dirt road.
A middle-aged man ahead of Riella and Jarin, who’d overheard part of what he said, turned around. “There’s rumor of an assassination attempt on the king before he’s wed, that’s why. I reckon it’s Prince Davron wanting to claim the throne.”
“Nay, I heard the king will be slain after the wedding, by the Garstangs,” said the woman with him. “So Meliohr can reign as queen alone, and transfer power to Morktland. Her nasty brother’s the real puppeteer behind everything. King Reynard.”
A young man behind Riella piped up. “I heard it was the High Magus who’ll get a blade in the back tomorrow.”
She and Jarin raised their eyebrows at each other. Were these rumors the usual chitchat and speculation of humans, or were they based on truth?
“Reynard,” repeated Jarin in a thoughtful voice.
“What?” asked Riella.
“My mother knew him when she was young.” Jarin shrugged. “She never told me how exactly, but her father was a baron, so she probably met him at some royal event.”
“Oh, that’s right,” said Riella, nodding. “Your mother’s from Morktland. Sirens don’t swim that far north, because the waters are freezing.”
“Wise. Only monsters lurk in those parts.”
When they reached the front of the line, Riella was sweating. A scarf was tied around her head, which caused her hairline to itch in the midday heat. Jarin’s clothes covered his body entirely, to conceal his Dark Tide Clan tattoos. Neither of them carried weapons.
Their story, should they be asked, was that they were visiting from a small village in the northern mountains, and would stay with Jarin’s relatives in Klatos during the celebrations. They’d arrived on foot instead of horseback, which was slower but added credibility to their story of being humble village folk.
The city gate was open barely wide enough for a cart to fit through, and was manned by armed guards. Two of them stopped and questioned every person who entered, and another pair conducted searches of any carriages or carts.
Riella noted with relief that very few people were turned away. One exception was a man known to the royal guards for selling a chewing leaf that induced hallucinations. Another was a woman who tried to bring a live snake into the city, slung around her neck like a scarf. She appeared genuinely confused by the panicked refusal of the guards, and she chose to stay outside the city walls rather than surrender or release the animal.
Finally, it was Riella and Jarin’s turn.
“Where’re you staying?” asked the guard as he looked Jarin up and down. He’d given Riella a disinterested glance.
“With my uncle,” replied Jarin with a distinct note of impatience.
Riella bit back a smirk. As a pirate, he wasn’t used to being questioned and operating through proper channels. He’d probably wanted to ditch the line and scale the wall, consequences be damned, even more than she had.
From inside, another guard muttered to a colleague while looking at Jarin. Then he nodded decisively and hurried away, out of sight behind the wall. Riella suppressed a huff, wishing the guards would wave them through and be done with it.
Her impatience morphed into apprehension when the guard returned moments later with a colleague who was clearly recovering from an injury. He wore a thick bandage over part of his face, covering one eye, and listened intently to whatever the other guard was uttering in his ear.
Jarin had watched this exchange, too. Riella sensed his energy shift, his shoulders stiffening fractionally.
“He was on the royal ship I scuttled,” breathed Jarin at Riella, hardly moving his lips.
The injured guard looked up, finding Jarin with his one good eye and squinting. Then his face transformed in recognition, his eyebrow flying up. Riella groaned inwardly. She and the pirate were about to run or fight. Perhaps both.
Sure enough, Jarin reached down and grasped her wrist in preparation for action.
Should they steal a horse from a traveler? Weapons from the guards? Plenty of people around them carried daggers.
But they couldn’t fight an entire platoon and hope to get away. It was a risk they couldn’t take—far more was in jeopardy than their own freedom. Polinth and Artus were on the loose, and poor Seraphine had no one.
A bang erupted directly overhead.
Riella ducked by instinct, looking around for the source of the attack. More ear-splitting bangs filled the air, accompanied by streaks of colorful light. To her surprise, no one seemed concerned by the assault. The children in the line clapped and cheered.
“Firelights!” one squealed.
The metallic scent of smoke from the so-called firelights singed Riella’s nostrils. She craned her neck and spotted Berolt’s distinctive red hair and beard. The firelights came from his direction, and she suspected he meant to provide a diversion.
Jarin ran at the closest guard, hitting him square in the throat, which Riella took as her cue.
The one-eyed guard tried to grab Riella as she dashed past, but he misjudged the distance and nearly fell over. Other guards drew their weapons as a fresh wave of firelights soared overhead and exploded, filling the air with bright lights and blinding clouds of smoke.
Riella sprinted, ramming red and blue coats indiscriminately, making the guards bellow with surprise and pain. They hadn’t expected her preternatural strength and had focused mainly on Jarin. Their misjudgment made it easy for her to carve a line through their defenses.
She quickly became separated from Jarin, because the guards had drawn their swords on him and attempted to close in. Once she’d run far enough beyond the gate for the smoke to clear, she cast around for him. If they caught him, he’d be imprisoned and hanged for the attack on the ship. And when they figured out they couldn’t hang him, they’d surely do something far more gruesome.
He charged out the smoke unharmed. As he ducked around a flailing red and blue coat, he stole the guard’s sword with a deft sleight of hand. From up on the wall, guards sounded the alarm, blowing horns and shouting for reinforcements.
“Follow me!” yelled Jarin, running up the cobblestone street with a small army of royal guards in pursuit.
They’d entered the city in an impoverished residential area, with open drains in the streets, tightly packed houses, and laundry hanging from ropes strung between neighbors’ dwellings.
Although the streets were crowded, no one made any move to intercept the obvious fugitives, nor did anyone assist the guards by making way.
Jarin and Riella ducked around a food cart, and he made a hard left into a cramped alleyway between buildings, only wide enough to enter single-file. They pounded up the uneven cobblestones until they reached another corner, turning into an even smaller walkway.
Drum-heavy music played somewhere overhead and the sounds of the street, including the guards’ shouts, became muffled by the density of the buildings.
Jarin stopped at a metal grate that lay inconspicuously among the rough cobblestones. He inserted his fingers between the metal grills and hauled the grate aside.
“You go first,” he said.
She looked down into the space he’d opened. A surprisingly fresh gust of air blew up in her face, and she could see nothing but impenetrable black. From the street, the enraged shouts of the royal guards grew louder.
“Jump!” said Jarin. “Trust me.”
The siren took a deep breath, and leaped into the darkness.