He Who Breaks the Earth (The Gods-Touched Duology)

Knox woke with a start at first morning light, feeling around for a sword that wasn’t there.

His stomach churned the moment he realized what he was doing and he forced his hand to still. Out of everything in the Commonwealth, there wasn’t a single thing he wanted less than Willow’s sword.

Knox sat up and looked around. There was another bed in the room, the covers twisted around someone asleep. Two windows. The angle of the sun put them near dawn. He slid to the edge of the bed to get up and found Anwei.

She was curled up tight on the floorboards, as if even in sleep she had to protect herself. Her cheeks were pink, her braids spread across the blanket like coiled snakes.

A sick feeling washed over him. Anwei hadn’t needed to sleep on the floor. He would have shared. A month ago, Anwei would have just stolen one of the pillows and pushed him over to make room. But then, he blushed. Because the last thing he remembered before waking up here was kissing Anwei. Really kissing her. Forgetting someone was chasing them, forgetting his body was attempting to turn off, hanging on to her for dear life. And he hated that now he was awake again that she’d felt the need to send him such a clear message. To look away.

So Knox looked away. It was only then that he paid attention to the muted auras in the room. There were two people in the other bed: Noa and Lia.

Lia’s name was on his lips before he could think about whether waking her was a good idea or not. Her eyes opened before he’d crossed to the bed, her hands coming up to lash out at him before she saw him properly.

Lia rolled out of the bed, her curls standing out from her head in frizzy twirls. “I wasn’t supposed to sleep this long.”

“When did you get here? Does Anwei know? We’ve had some complications—”

“I spoke to her when I rode in last night, and I’m late. She wanted to talk to you first, so I’ll meet you out there.” Lia bundled her hair into a braid, pulled on her boots, and then went to the window. “There are Devoted in the forest outside Tual’s estate. I don’t know why they’re there, but… don’t take too long.” She pushed open the window and climbed out.

“What?” Knox stood at the window, watching his friend make her way up the street. When he turned back toward the bed, Anwei’s eyes were open, watching him. She sat up a little too fast, almost bumping her head on the side table, the bowl of wash water wobbling dangerously. “Good, you’re awake,” she croaked. “I need you.”

“Did you see Lia? She just climbed out the window!” He pressed a hand to his side over the bandages, everything feeling just a little… off. “And yesterday…” Heat flooded his cheeks. Yesterday she’d kissed him. And he’d fainted.

“Go after Lia. We came up with a new plan last night, and she can fill you in.” Anwei smoothed her rumpled tunic and skirts, checking her sleeve cuffs and high collar to be sure they were fastened. He caught a glimpse of a white scar on her ankle as she put on her shoes.

“You don’t have to hide those, you know.” He looked up from her feet. “I mean, not from me.” A thread of warmth bled across their bond, but then forcefully pulled back like a breath stolen from Knox’s lungs. “Sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“It’s fine. I’m glad you know.” She stood up and slid past him, not a single hair of hers touching him. She sat on the bed and took Noa by the shoulders to give her a gentle shake. “It’s time, Noa.”

Knox closed his mouth. Opened it, but then let it close again. Is this what you wanted, Calsta? To torture me? Giving permission for me to be with Anwei only once the possibility is gone?

This is the opposite of what any god wants. Calsta’s voice was amused. Desperate youths aren’t great at judgment, focus, or any kind of devotion when they’re frustrated by love. Why do you think most Devoted are told to focus on me instead of the girls and boys they’re sitting next to?

Knox chose to ignore her. Again.

“Knox? Is your wound bothering you? You’re not moving.” Anwei had begun braiding Noa’s hair despite the dancer’s sleepy grumbling in Elantin, a hairpin sticking out from between her lips. She started to laugh in response to the unintelligible grousing, batting Noa over the shoulder. “You really think I’m going to believe Falan requires all her devotees to sleep in past a certain hour? Hold still so I can finish your knots.” Anwei coiled the girl’s dark hair around her finger, then looked back up at Knox expectantly.

“I’m fine.” He smiled.

“Good.” She shooed him toward the window as she pulled the pin from her mouth to set one of the knots of hair over Noa’s ear. “One hour at the docks. Bring your goddess.”

“I need a scone,” Noa whimpered.

“You know about the Devoted—” Knox started.

“We know!” Anwei grinned at him. “Go!”

Knox went. Out the window, down the wall, full of energy as if Willow felt like sharing today. He wondered what Anwei’s brother was doing—did Knox being awake mean Mateo was asleep? Willow could not comment, lurking outside the wall Anwei made around his mind.

Morning crowds had already begun moving toward the market square. Knox slipped between embroidered coats and lace-trimmed dresses until he caught sight of Lia’s golden halo, Calsta’s energy zipping across her aura like little fireflies. She didn’t move to greet him, her face stony and a little gray. “Are you all right?” he asked, worry stabbing through him.

“I found Mateo.” She looked up at him. “Sort of. He ran away from me.”

The bitterness steeped in her words caught Knox by surprise. “Is that… not what you expected to happen?”

“I don’t know. He’s always been on Tual’s side. I just hoped that learning what he was… and with Tual kidnapping Aria…” She grimaced, her hands making tight fists at her side. “Calsta above, why does it matter?”

“He’s your friend.” Knox flinched when she aggressively pushed past a man wearing two separate knives on his belt. “You didn’t want him to run. He… didn’t want anything from you and liked you anyway.” He watched her from the corner of his eye, not sure how Lia would handle something like her trust, so fragile and tenuous, being shattered by some boy she’d just met. Everyone had always wanted a piece of Lia—to use her skills to their advantage, to best her in a fight, to take what she hadn’t offered. Back in Chaol it had seemed like a little light had kindled inside her, a hope that maybe the world wasn’t there to crush her.

A light that, if extinguished, would break something inside her.

What had happened while he was asleep to push her so close to the edge?

Lia’s chin tipped up to look at him, her lips pressed together hard. “It sounds so ridiculous saying it out loud. Mateo doesn’t matter at all now. Not as anything other than our way to get Aria, right?”

“It’s not ridiculous.” Knox took Lia’s arm, pulling her into an alleyway. “We’ve been taught our whole lives to shun feeling for other people.” He put his back to the wall, letting her stand there with her thoughts, hoping his presence at her side would be enough. Their relationship had never been forbidden—they’d been friends from the moment they met, watching each other’s backs when no one else seemed to want to, not even Calsta. Was that not love? “Maybe it’s not what you think?” He lowered his voice. “You won’t know what he’s doing until you actually talk to him. And you care about him, so why decide now when you don’t have all the information?”

When she looked up, her face was hard. “I’m a Devoted. How could I have made this kind of mistake? To care.”

The point of Devotion is to make that mistake over and over again, Calsta interjected. You think I like watching people half starve and sleep in hard beds and give up everything they love? But what I’d like worse is my Devoted using their power with no sympathy for those it could hurt. Sympathy comes easier if you know what it is like to have nothing.

“It’s not a mistake to care about people, Lia,” Knox breathed.

“It doesn’t matter. Mateo ran.” She shook her head, her hands still an awful knot. “And it was silly of me to think he’d stand up now when he…” Her lips twisted. “He did before. A few times. Just never against his father.”

“It’s a tall order, going against the person who loves you most.”

“Like us going against Calsta, no?” She smiled grimly. “Regardless, we have a job to do this morning. Your pirate friend, Ellis, is helping us steal a boat.”

“Ellis?” Knox blinked. “What boat? What’s the plan? Did we ever figure out if Tual is—”

“I’ll tell you on the way.” Lia grabbed his hand and pulled him out of the alley. “But first, we need to cut your hair.”

Mateo awoke to the sight of something watching him from the end of his bed, hollow black eyes and a mouth bared with sharp, jagged teeth.

He lurched back in horror, knocking his head against the bed and falling over the side, landing on his arm. Unable to care about the pain, Mateo froze there on the floor, waiting for the thing, whatever it was, to nose its way around the side of the bed. When nothing came, Mateo peeked up over the top of his mussed quilt.

There was nothing there. He stood, craning his neck to see over the edge just in case the thing was curled up beneath the foot of his bed, waiting to pop out and surprise him, but all he saw was a little brown shape on the floor.

He peered closer, stomach churning when he realized it was a dead mouse, arranged neatly where he was most likely to find it, like a present from a cat.

His cat used to do that, but then Abendiza had eaten her.

Slumping back down to the floor, Mateo tried to catch his breath. The house was quiet, sunlight streaming in through the windows. He couldn’t smell anything from the kitchen, but Hilaria had probably outdone herself since…

Something on the floor below him flashed gold. Aurasparks gathered together like flies on the first floor. That’s why he was having nightmares about monsters watching him sleep Who wouldn’t have nightmares with Devoted sleeping down the hall?

He slowly stood and went around to the other side of his bed to put on his slippers, then kicked them off again in a fit of petulance. If Calsta herself appeared in a flurry of wind and lightning, she couldn’t make him go down and break bread with the Warlord’s murder-happy minions. The night before, they’d stayed up so long talking to Father in the dining hall, Mateo had actually skipped dinner rather than face them. After such a terrible evening and a nightmare, Mateo deserved a bath.

Ringing the bell for hot water, Mateo went into his lovely bathroom and pulled out his favorite scents. After a few moments, the mechanism in the tub faucet began to hiss, and Mateo turned it on, water gushing out in a wall of steam to mix with the soaps and oils he added to make foam. One of the many little things around the house that had been salvaged from Basist leavings.

Soon the bath was full, and when Mateo lowered himself into it, he wondered if maybe he could stay there until the Warlord left since this was the one place they weren’t likely to come.

Which was, of course, when the door slammed open.

Hilaria came bustling in, her forehead and her lips both pinched. Mateo hunched down into the bubbles, frantically gathering them to cover himself, but Hilaria didn’t notice. She gave the rose-scented air an incredulous sniff and stepped inside, closing the door behind her. “A fine time for a bubble bath, Master Mateo,” she said in the most accusatory tone possible, as if he’d tempered the water by drowning someone before he got in.

“I hate to be a bother, Hilaria, but would you please remove yourself? Now?”

“There’s a dead mouse on your floor—did you know that? Who killed it? They got blood all over the Palatian carpet and just left it—”

“Hilaria, get out!”

He splashed some water at her and immediately regretted it when her eyes narrowed into a truly terrifying scowl. “The Warlord has been asking for you since the sun came up, young man, and if you don’t get down there, it’ll be her seeing all these bubbles.” She clicked her tongue in disgust. “When you go into town today, I need blueberries and yuzul from the market. Don’t forget.”

Mateo carefully gathered a mound of pink bubbles to cover himself more thoroughly. “You interrupted my bath to ask me to run an errand? For blueberries.”

“And yuzul. She won’t let us leave. I promised young Aria a special dessert tonight.”

Aria. The name fuzzed in Mateo’s brain. It was important for some reason. Someone he was supposed to talk to? Or maybe someone who… needed him. He pressed a hand to his forehead, setting the thought aside so he could deal with the cook invading his bath. “I wasn’t planning on going to town, but I’d prefer to discuss this downstairs.”

“The Warlord can’t keep you here. I need yuzul and blueberries. So, yes, you are going to town.” Hilaria went to the door, pausing to shake a finger at him before pulling it open. “You keep your head about you. That old harpy wants something she isn’t saying out loud, and I don’t like it. And make sure you have someone see about that mouse!”

“Would you close the door—” Mateo rolled his eyes when she walked away without heeding his request, a draft now washing in from the open window in his bedroom. He settled even lower, but then the auras below suddenly began to move. If the Warlord had been asking for him since dawn, he doubted she’d wait too much longer before seeking him out. He’d had enough old ladies in the bathroom to last him the rest of the day.

By the time he was dressed and standing outside the dining room’s arched door, Mateo was still too grumbly to go inside, contented to think about it and pick at the filigree on the wainscotting instead.

Two Devoted at his table. All the world’s ills—or at least the Commonwealth’s—just sitting there eating what looked like raw grain with silver spoons.

Mateo lurched back when one paused in consuming his pathetic excuse for breakfast to glance in his direction. The night before, Mateo had come blustering out of the watchtower only to find the sky-cursed Warlord sitting peacefully at that very table with a stalk of celery in one hand and a cup of plain water in the other. The two ogres she’d brought with her had been inspecting the gardens, leaving Tual to sit at her feet, bowing ever so nicely as she took bite after bite of celery. His father hadn’t even blinked once as the Warlord took control of the whole house, directing the hostlers, the maids. Apparently that included Hilaria too, which meant there were no scones, sweet rolls, or muffins for breakfast.

You already spoiled the whole Commonwealth for anyone with magic, he wanted to yell toward the blue morning sky. Did you have to take my breakfast, too? Instead, Mateo sniffed just loud enough for the Devoted to hear, readjusted his drawing satchel, and headed toward his father’s study with his nose in the air. The two of them probably couldn’t string more than three syllables together, much less…

Mateo blinked, sure he’d been walking. Positive he’d been headed toward the cheery office with the birdcalls and the jars of whatever, but his feet hadn’t moved, the dining room door there in front of him. Willow was at the back of his head, panting.

They’re so bright, she wheezed. Surely we could take just a little?

The two auras shone from inside the dining room, bright even through the wall. Mateo rolled his eyes at himself, realizing they’d been able to see him standing there dithering about whether to enter for as long as he’d been there. The walls here didn’t block auras, not like in the abbey with Lia’s.

A trill of worry thrummed through him at the thought of her, and he wondered where his father had taken Aria.

Aria.

Mateo slammed a hand to his forehead, pulling at his hair. Of course he knew Aria’s name. How could he have forgotten it? She’d almost died. He could still feel the sick pull of power, her cold skin, and the relief when she’d finally choked out a breath. Father had said she had to be moved somewhere safe. He peeked around the doorway once again, hoping for a glimpse of Hilaria. She wouldn’t stand for this rabbit food nonsense, would she? If he was going to find Aria, he needed muffins.

“Mateo Montanne?”

Mateo jumped in surprise at the voice, accidentally jamming an elbow into the wainscotting. “Great Calsta’s swollen left—”

He broke off, teeth bared, mid-furious elbow rub at the sight of the Warlord standing behind him, her head cocked as if she very much wanted to hear the end of his sentence. Unlike Lia’s wild curls, the Warlord’s hair had been shaved at the sides to show her oath scars, the top cut short so her wiry, graying curls stood out like springs. Her eyes and forehead were deeply lined and her lips pinched. She looked as if her armor had grown too large for her, or perhaps as if she’d dried up like a parched shrub, leaving nothing but shriveled leaves behind in her pot.

Wasn’t the Warlord a little old and frail to be riding auroshes and blustering into someone’s home to steal everything including the celery? Clearing his throat, Mateo dropped a half bow that was at least five degrees too shallow for her rank, but with his heart beating so quickly and his stomach empty, Mateo couldn’t muster much better. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you there.”

“An honor I am not often granted.” Her amusement seemed much less natural than the sword strapped between her shoulder blades. “I rather liked that little spin you did just now.”

“I save my entertainment routines for the really important guests.” Mateo returned her smile as best he could. He pointed to the sword. “Did you find our table’s silverware wanting last night and decide to supplement?”

The smile turned to a grin. “I’ve lived long enough to know when a situation requires a little supplementing, I suppose.”

Willow’s breaths were coming in quick pants that felt marginally indecent. Stop it, he thought at her.

Do you not see how much there is to eat? the ghost hissed. Whoever took a bite of her left more than enough for us.

Mateo blinked at the woman’s aura, the golden sparks swirling over her head like a crown a little dull and sluggish. Was it possible her wrinkles and sagging muscles, her armor seeming too large… could they be symptoms of wasting sickness?

That would mean his father had already been at work draining her. Which seemed like an insane risk, sucking life from the very woman sworn to root out magic like theirs and destroy it.

Trying to cover his agitation, Mateo bowed again, this time to the proper depth, though the last flourish at the end was not strictly necessary. “I don’t believe we’ve ever been formally introduced.”

“Your principal purpose in life is to dig things up and then draw them.” The Warlord leaned forward an inch, squinting at the whorls and flowers embroidered across his lapels before grabbing hold of one. “I don’t believe an introduction was warranted until now.”

It was a little awkward, standing there with her fingers knotted around his lapel. Perhaps someone so bent on keeping the Commonwealth under her control couldn’t help but clutch at anything within reach. She’d employed an aukincer when most thought that aukincers were no better than the dirt witches they emulated. She’d put a veil on Lia’s head and set a monster on her in the hopes of producing more little monsters.

She had freckles across her nose and scars across her knuckles.

“Well.” Mateo pulled back, and she let him go, leaving him free to bow yet again. “It’s an honor you’re wasting time on me now, even if it wasn’t warranted before. I don’t suppose I could interest you in some breakfast?” He nodded toward the dining room. “I believe that’s what they’re calling that stuff on the table, anyway.”

“If you hold that thing any tighter, you’ll ruin your charcoals.” The Warlord nodded toward his hands.

Looking down, Mateo found his fingers clutched tightly around his drawing satchel. He forced his hand to relax. It was hard for Mateo to breathe so close to a woman with so many deaths to her name.

She tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow and nudged him into the dining room. Inside, Tual sat at the head of the table, a plate of something drenched in cream in front of him. Mateo waved only a little frantically, and Tual started to stand, carefully dabbing his mouth with a napkin. “Mateo! I wondered when you would finally get up the nerve to come in here.”

“Where did you get that food?” Mateo hissed.

“Hilaria likes me.” Tual grinned, licking a bit of cream from his lip. “I have something very important to show you! You remember the guest we’ve been expecting?”

“Um, yes?” Mateo’s nerves all trilled together. What game was his father playing now, bringing up Lia right in front of the assembled murder crew? What’s more, why was he sitting at the head of the table, the place the Warlord should have claimed?

“Well, I’ve made some progress on the research we meant to do before she arrived, and I can’t wait to get your opinion.” Tual’s hand snaked down to touch the dagger, which Mateo hadn’t noticed sheathed at Tual’s hip. A grim satisfaction dripped into his thoughts from Willow. Not many shapeshifters managed to take caprenum blades from other shapeshifters. Her voice crinkled at the edges, sounding like the ghostly death she was. Of course I managed it. I managed it a lot. They were my trophies.

What are you even talking about? Is it safe for him to be carrying that? The Warlord could see, not to mention— he thought back at her, then stopped, wondering what was wrong with him, asking Willow for advice. Mateo pulled away from the Warlord—he tried, anyway, but her fingers clutched his arm tight, unwilling to let go. “Um… would you excuse me? I think you know we’re working on the artifacts we found in the tomb, or you wouldn’t have come here—”

“That great ugly sword in your trophy room? I think it can wait. Tual’s the…” She cleared her throat. “The aukincer. You’d just be in his way, and I think we all know just how important it is to get wasting sickness resolved once and for all.” She turned to Tual. “You can do it, can’t you?”

Tual gave her a cocky salute, and Mateo couldn’t help but stare again. His father wasn’t even trying to be deferential. “We’ve got everything we need. Now it’s just a matter of experimenting with the materials we managed to preserve.”

And he was lying through his teeth. She’d know in a few days that they had no cure. It was rash and poorly planned—two things Tual was never guilty of. Unless, of course, Tual’s plans had changed.

“Good.” The Warlord didn’t notice Mateo’s chagrin, her fingernails digging into his arm as she dragged him toward the kitchen door. “You don’t mind if I borrow your son for a few hours, then, do you, Tual?”

“Be my guest.” Tual gave a gracious bow. Mateo flapped a hand, making a bigger gesture when Tual didn’t seem to notice him begging to be saved. “Where are you taking him?”

“I want him to show me around Kingsol. If I take you, you’ll give me the whole history starting from before the shapeshifter wars, and I just want to know where the fresh apples are.” The Warlord gave Mateo’s arm an affectionate pat, then violently jerked open the kitchen door. “Cath? Berrum?” She gave a fond smile to the two Devoted who stood up from the table, their plates still partly full. “It’ll be nice for you to be with someone your own age after so many months locked in rooms with books and bones, right, Mateo?”

Mateo swallowed hard as she whisked him through the kitchen door, the two Devoted following behind, positively bristling with weapons.

“Your father has always been so accommodating.” The Warlord’s smile faded as she led him past the long prep table covered in raw vegetables, of all things, sharp knives laid out to properly desecrate them. A perfect day for Aria to sneak one, and Mateo wished he could have found her room to let her know. Hilaria was yelling at someone from inside the pantry, too far to appeal for help. Or even a muffin. “Running straight to outbreaks the moment they happened, dropping his whole life to stop this terrible disease.”

An ironic thing to say, considering Tual had created the illness he was credited with healing.

“Accommodating is my father’s middle name.” Mateo cleared his throat again, trying not to mind the way the Warlord’s lackeys hovered just outside his peripheral vision as they headed for the door that led to the courtyard. “It, um, caused some problems during his years teaching at the university. The head scholar thought for sure he was trying to make some kind of joke in the paperwork.”

The Warlord didn’t even chuckle as she swept him into the gardens toward the watchtower. It wasn’t until the bridge that he managed to pull himself free. “I’m so sorry.” Mateo stumbled a few steps back, rubbing his arm where the Warlord had been digging her fingers into his skin. “I haven’t even had breakfast yet, and I’m terrible company when I’m in this state.”

“Your father said we could use his boat while we’re here,” the Warlord said, ignoring him. “Isn’t it docked under the bridge?” She headed in that direction when he nodded slowly.

Mateo looked around for a way to hide. Escape. Find a plausible excuse like washing his many coats or feeding the giant snake. But the two Devoted waited behind him until he tripped after the Warlord toward the little dock where Tual’s boat bobbed in all its turquoise glory. One of Mateo’s first memories was helping choose that vibrant greenish-blue. He picked up a rock from the beach before going up the gangplank, tossing it up and catching it as he walked.

It wasn’t until he was in his accustomed seat in the middle of the boat that he saw the male Devoted’s eyes darting over him and the female one concentrating as if she were trying to hear something too quiet for the rest of them to detect. The Warlord herself even stepped carefully, as if there were invisible threads pulling tense between the three of them with him at the center. Which made absolutely no sense. Mateo propped up his boots on the bench in front of him, wondering if they’d stab him then or wait until they’d got out of the lake basin. “This boat is too big for two people to row. Are you sure you don’t want me to call a few servants?” he croaked.

“Cath and Berrum will be just fine.” The Warlord sat in Tual’s favorite chair kitty-corner from Mateo, the cushions bunching around her as if they didn’t fancy touching her any more than she seemed to want to touch them. “Are you planning to hit me over the head with that and flee?” She eyed the rock he’d snagged from the beach.

“Would it do any good?” he joked, tossing it up in the air, then flailing to catch it when the boat began to move. “It’s for opening the channel.”

The male Devoted installed himself at the back of the ship, ready with a paddle, and the female Devoted, a squarish specimen with a long blond braid and roses on her sword handle, settled two benches ahead of him, tying a sun hat over her hair before she began unknotting the mooring line.

“Well?” the Warlord asked. “Show us what to do.”

“You don’t need my help with that, do you? There are cliffs to the south that you can’t climb. Waterways block the foothills down below us. There are no roads, and there are beasts in the woods who like the kind of prey that puts up a fight.” Mateo shrugged, leaning back in his chair. “You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t know how to open the channel.”

The Warlord smiled with all her teeth. “The goddess favors her Devoted, Mateo Montanne. It was not an easy journey, nor one I could ask many Devoted to risk.” There was a tightness to her jaw, as if somehow she were frightened to be sitting in the boat with him. “I’m very excited to learn the easy way.”

Mateo let his feet drop, his chest tightening. She hadn’t known about the channel before Tual had mentioned it. Was that why she wanted to go into town? To learn the secret so that she could bring in her murderous horde and clean the place out from cliff top to lake bottom? The blond Devoted turned to look at him over her shoulder, her paddle ready.

They didn’t even need swords.

Neither do you, Willow whispered.

Mateo pointed toward the far side of the bridge. “The channel’s behind that boulder.”

The Devoted turned to contemplate the jagged edge to the bowl around the lake, the point he’d indicated as solid-looking as the rest of it.

The Warlord gestured for the Devoted to row before turning back to him. “Why settle here? It’s so difficult to access.”

Gripping the side rail when the boat began to move, Mateo shrugged. “I can’t speak for my father. He bought it before I was born. He likes to be left alone with his experiments, I suppose.” When they drew near to the boulder, he tossed the stone up again and caught it, trying to remember where the trigger to open the gate was exactly. It was a little tricky getting it right, but…

Tricky? For you? Willow giggled. You don’t really need a rock, do you? Use your mind.

Bristling, Mateo stared up at the boulder, sure he’d only ever seen his father set off the mechanism using a rock, a boot, some thrown object. But just like Willow said, he could feel the shape of gears and springs in his mind, connected to an external trigger for people who couldn’t feel the rock. Exultation flowed through him, victory, because he’d never been able to—

The Warlord was staring. So Mateo cleared his throat, took what felt like an athletic sort of stance. Even if Willow was right and he didn’t really need to use the rock, opening it with his power would probably not be the best idea at the moment. Focusing on the trigger spot, Mateo threw his rock.

The stone barely made it to the boulder’s base, plinking against the stone, then splashing into the lake below with an embarrassing ploop. The three Devoted watched the boulder expectantly.

Go on, Willow hummed. Using the trigger is for little bugs who walk the earth with no energy in their humors.

I can’t use magic right in front of the Warlord. Mateo’s heart began to thump, something deep inside his chest stirring as Willow pressed him toward the warm spot on the boulder.

She won’t know. They never know until it’s too late.

Energy burst out from Mateo’s mind in a bilious wave. The magic touched the mechanism inside the boulder, and his hands began to swell and burn. A section in the rock shuddered, then turned, the water from the lake mixing with the channel through the narrow gap that appeared. Frozen, Mateo waited for swords to come out of their sheaths. But instead, the Warlord nodded for her Devoted to continue rowing. Mateo’s hands balled into fists, nails too sharp to be his digging into his palms.

The Warlord settled back into her chair as they passed into the tunnel, looking up with interest at the soft blue lights glowing in the ceiling to illuminate their way. It only lasted a few minutes before the other end of the path opened to let them through to the other side. Beyond was a little tributary that led to the Felac, a wide river choked with vines and hundreds of other little offshoots, a maze Mateo would not care to be lost in.

He kept his hands clenched in his lap even after the feel of claws in his skin receded.

“Basist wonders never break, do they?” the Warlord mused once they were through. “I’ve heard this was once a great fortress. Now it only protects an aukincer and his disappointing son.”

“I do know you could get that cuirass fitted, if that would help?” Mateo forced his voice to remain polite even as the anger began to boil inside him.

The Warlord looked down at the armor dwarfing her shrunken torso, the double auroshe crest tooled into the spot over her heart. She smiled softly, leaning back in the chair. “I think you’re acquainted with Lia Seystone?”

Mateo’s heart made more than a few undignified skips. “Sorry?”

“You met Lia in Chaol. I need you to tell me what you did to her.”

“What I did to…?” Mateo shook his head, trying to find words. Words were what he did. He could do words. And he hadn’t done anything to Lia, so it wasn’t difficult to feign confusion. “Seystone…? Are you talking about Valas Seystone? I never had the pleasure of meeting his wife… unless you mean their young daughter, Aria? She’s quite uncharming, but I wouldn’t call arguing as doing something to her—”

“Lia Seystone is Valas Seystone’s oldest daughter, one of my spiriters, and a very valuable member of the Devoted order. Red hair, freckles. Very sentimental about her auroshe? She’s about your age.” When Mateo shrugged, the Warlord pursed her lips. “You and your father were meant to play a very specific role in Chaol: to dig up a dirt witch’s grave and wrest an ancient cure from his dusty old claws. Instead, I have a missing spiriter, a tomb that was meant to be our last hope destroyed, and your father dancing around me with a sword and sparkly potions like he isn’t even trying anymore.” She waited until Mateo met her gaze. “You think I didn’t hear all the reports that put you with Lia at the center of all that?”

Mateo wished he had a mouthful of tea to spray out, but like the muffins, he hadn’t yet had any tea for the morning either. “No offense, but I’ve sort of gone out of my way to avoid your order. I’m an archeologist, not a warrior, and quite frankly, the lot of you make me uncomfortable. I spent every moment I wasn’t asleep underground painting things. The tomb’s destruction was one of the worst travesties of modern history.”

“If you spent all your time at the tomb, you must have met Lia’s partner, Ewan Hardcastle?” The Warlord drew the sword sheathed at her back. Mateo’s stomach jolted. The blade was familiar, the hilt tooled with a design burned into his brain because the last time he’d seen it, he’d been hanging six inches off the ground with the blade to his throat.

Yes, Mateo had met Ewan Hardcastle.

A thread of surprised glee needled through Mateo at the sight of the blade minus its owner, because if the Warlord had it, then Ewan didn’t. If Ewan had been relieved of his sword, did that mean he’d been kicked out of the Devoted? Or—

“He was found dead at the tomb, Mateo. Gored through by his own auroshe.” The Warlord looked down the flat of the blade, turning it to examine the edge before switching her gaze to Mateo’s face, watching for a reaction.

“I’m afraid I didn’t pay much attention to the Roosters patrolling the site.” Mateo kept his expression as blank as he knew how, a hot rush of satisfaction making his cheeks go pink. Then he remembered his father’s voice: You don’t want to kill until you do.

Perhaps he was right.

“You know he wasn’t a Rooster. Let’s not play games, you and me.” The Warlord let the sword’s tip sink to the boat’s wooden floor inches from Mateo’s silver-tooled boot. “The valas’s wife was one of hundreds with the plague in Chaol. There were some odd symptoms—truth telling? Surely you helped your father tend victims?” The Warlord waited for him to nod before continuing. “But the later stages were very familiar, don’t you think? All these years Tual has assured me wasting sickness was an energy imbalance due to Calsta’s touch.” She sat forward. “But it’s funny, because we didn’t have a single case of wasting sickness until you appeared with Tual in Rentara.”

“My father only went to Rentara to help treat—”

“And the plague in Chaol didn’t start until they day you arrived in town.”

Mateo pulled his feet back from the sword’s tip, panic like a live animal jumping inside him. The wasting sickness was because of him. The plague in Chaol was his fault, even if he hadn’t been the one extracting energy. But that truth sounded more than a little fantastical. Causation and correlation were not the same thing, and the Warlord hand no proof of anything. No one did.

So, he furrowed his brow and licked his lips. “I don’t think I understand what you’re trying to say.”

“The plague came with you. Then, days later, one of my most valued spiriters disappears. A few days after that, a girl with her face and hair covered stole an auroshe from the illegal fights and rode out with a boy behind her—a boy with a drawing satchel and a few too many words for his own good.”

“I fail to see any connection to—”

“Days after that, the stolen auroshe was spotted fishing on the beaches directly beneath the house your father rented outside of Chaol. You were seen at the dig with a girl whose face was covered. In fact, Ewan, before he died, told me specifically that he had seen her with you and that you’d lied to prevent him from finding her.”

Mateo tried very hard not to remember just how good Devoted ears were. Could they hear his heart beating out of his chest? “I guess I’m just as disappointingly unintelligent as you thought. Are you telling me that after the destruction of an incredibly valuable find by shapeshifter magic—yes, I think we ought to say it out loud—despite the fact my father managed to salvage what you need to preserve your army, you’re concentrating on what? A completely baseless theory about me spreading a plague?” He gave a dismissive wave. “You do know how sickness is spread, I hope? Because if it were me, my whole household would be in the ground already. I would be dead. And how is any of this related to your spiriter?”

“Lia Seystone.” The Warlord’s voice was hard as stone, the trees behind her riffling with a cold breeze. The air was far too quiet. “One of my Roosters was killed, and his auroshe was sent to the fights. Only a Devoted or a shapeshifter could manage that, and he disappeared from your house. Lia wouldn’t have done that in her right mind. In her right mind, she wouldn’t have run away at all—”

“What in Calsta’s name are you suggesting?” Mateo’s cheeks burned. “That my father, after devoting his entire life to curing your little minions, is a shapeshifter?”

“No. That’s not what I’m suggesting at all.” The Warlord licked her lips. “In fact, I’ve been quite sure since I left Chaol that the shapeshifter is you.”

Knox felt naked before he’d made it even a street closer to the docks. A woman picked up her young child to get out of his way, the boy gawking. Lia had cut Knox’s hair clear to the skin on both sides and braided the top back, his oaths to Calsta now on full display. Lia hovered at his shoulder as they walked, ignoring people pushing to make way like the wolf she was. Devoted were supposed to draw attention, but after a year of no one caring who he was, all Knox wanted was to go back to the shadows.

Altahn was waiting just inside the archway that led to the docks, holding out a sword like a greeting. Knox waved it away, narrowing his eyes over the Trib kynate’s hair, the loose tail he usually wore switched for a Rooster’s three tight underbraids.

Lia broke the spell when she started laughing, dancing forward to circle the two Trib riders standing behind Altahn, their long tails also swapped for lopsided underbraids. She grabbed hold of the smaller, wider one’s arm to bend him down so she could fix one of the plaits. “Don’t you look handsome,” she said, grinning as he tried to bat her hands away.

“We’re not Commonwealth trollops,” the taller one grumbled. “Have you never seen Calsta’s statues in her temple? Her hair is free.”

Mateo wasn’t the only friend she’d made, as if taking off that veil had untied something else inside Lia. Knox couldn’t help but love the sight of her, so angry and sad and worried and unhappy most of the time he’d known her, now grinning up at the lanky Trib. “You think Calsta’s hair is free under that helmet she wears?” she asked.

Friends who weren’t Devoted had never been allowed.

Theat isn’t true, though, he thought, the feel of Anwei at the back of his head. Why have we been denied normal relationships for so long?

It’s the Warlord who doesn’t like you consorting with outsiders, Calsta’s voice guttered. She’s afraid they’d like you instead of fear you.

Why haven’t you stopped her? he asked. Why haven’t you stopped any of the Warlords from holding those you touch like prisoners?

Because gods need their devoted, and there weren’t any other choices. I’m trying to change things now—there’s a window, and you’re in it. Don’t fail me.

“Obviously Calsta understands not wanting hair blowing in our faces, Miss Lia,” the lanky rider was saying with an exaggerated eye roll to go with it. “Why do you think we tie our hair back? It’s all these braids. So you can judge who is above you and who is below just by looking at each other. Even Devoted do this blasphemy, shaving the sides to show off their oath scars.” He shot a nervous glance at Knox and loudly cleared his throat. “The two of you Devoted excepted, of course. You’re only doing it for the plan. Like Miss Lia and her veil.”

“It’s only for a few hours, Bane.” Lia’s smile was suddenly faint, one hand straying to the bag looped beneath her sword. She pulled the tie from one of his braids. “I’ll fix it so you don’t look like a little boy in a costume.”

“I understand why we have to…” Bane shut his eyes tight as she began to plait. “Just promise you won’t tell anyone.”

“You’ll need this.” Altahn held out one of the cast iron tubes that had caused him so much anguish back on Ellis’s boat. The anguish seemed to have returned because it took the Trib a moment to let go when Knox grabbed hold of it.

“Salpowder?” Knox asked, looking down the hole, odd striations disappearing into its belly. When he looked up, Altahn was biting his lip. But he handed over a bag that looked far too small, opening it to show Knox the leather-wrapped packets inside. “So I just… strike a flame? With flint?”

Altahn held out his arm, and Knox didn’t understand what was happening until Galerey’s frilled head popped out, her scaly little body launching toward him. He startled back, swiping at the feel of little prickly claws scrabbling across his body.

When he glared toward Altahn, the Trib only smiled. “She’ll help you.”

“Where is the other carom?” Knox asked, skin prickling as Galerey nuzzled her way down the back of his tunic.

“Anwei gave it back to Ellis.” Altahn’s smile seemed fixed in place. He turned away, gesturing for Bane and Gilesh to follow him. “But she said she’d get it back.”

Knox hefted the carom’s strap over his shoulder, watching Altahn walk into the crowds. Lia sighed, fingering her sword hilt and checking the sun. “We’ll give him a few minutes head start?”

Knox nodded. “What did Bane mean about you only wearing your veil for the plan?”.

“He thinks I put it on to scare Mateo last night. Veiled Devoted are scary, I guess.”

“Did you?”

“No.” Lia put a hand to her forehead. “I need to get Aria.”

“What does that have to do with your veil?”

“I need everything Calsta can give me.”

“You can’t stand keeping it on long enough for her to give the oaths back.” Knox shook his head. “I can’t think it counts if you’re wearing it only to get your sister back. We don’t need you to be a spiriter. We can track people without your extended aurasight, and I think we all know what Tual’s thinking.”

“But we don’t know what Mateo’s thinking.”

“That’s a personal conflict, not a big picture one. You have to earn answers just like you have to earn Calsta’s power. You never wanted to be Devoted. Why lean on her now? Being gods-touched is what’s making you a target, Lia. Can Mateo turn you into a sacrifice or whatever it is if you aren’t keeping oaths?”

There has to be a bond before someone can betray it and become a shapeshifter, Calsta whispered, almost eagerly. I give power to those who sacrifice, but it hurts me to see sacrifices offered that are too much.

“You don’t have to be everything, to do all of it. I don’t think Calsta even wants you to do all of it. Some fights can’t be won with a sword.” Knox didn’t like the way Lia bit her lip, her hands twitching at her sides. “Your sister is going to need you as yourself, not a spiriter. I promised I’d help. Anwei promised—”

“Anwei makes a lot of promises, doesn’t she?” Lia interrupted. “She promised to help get the carom back. To help you fix the sword. To save my sister.” She looked away when he blinked. “I’m beginning to see why she made such a good underworld crimey sort of person.”

Knox turned his gaze back to the gap in the buildings and the muddle of people, horses, and wagons washing by just past it. “Because she keeps her promises?”

“No. Because we all believe she will.” Lia squared her shoulders and strode out into the street, looking as if she meant to destroy something.

Which, they did.

Knox followed a little more slowly, turning over what she’d said in his mind. We all believe she will. The crowd split before them as he followed Lia’s blaze of curls toward the marked ship she’d told him about, people falling quiet when they saw Lia’s sword hilt and Knox’s oath scars bared to the sun. He caught sight of Anwei down the dock, her hands gripping Noa’s tightly as the two talked.

Why wouldn’t we believe Anwei’s promises? He shook his head, wondering what pebble had got into Lia’s shoe. Anwei always comes through.

Striding up the gangplank, Lia ignored the half-hearted protest from the man standing guard. “Bring me the captain,” she said to no one in particular on the deck, and three sailors jumped to obey her, casting nervous looks over Knox as he followed her up the ramp.

The captain came out in a flurry of annoyance and bluster, at least until he set eyes on Lia’s sword. “What… what can I help you with, Devoted?” he stuttered. “We’re already having an unlucky sort of day, and—”

“We’re going to kill the pirates who marked your ship.” Lia went to the tiller. “Get this boat off its moorings. Now.”

When the captain went shouting down the deck, Lia inclined her head toward Knox, glaring at a sailor swabbing the deck behind him until the man took his mop and ran “Is that how you say it?” she whispered. “Get the boat… off its moorings?”

Knox shrugged. “I have no idea.”

Noa’s bracelets felt like shackles. She tried not to groan as Anwei pulled her toward the docks. They passed under the city’s arched gate, and Noa’s eyes found the low, ugly boat that belonged to her father’s fleet at the end of the dock. Her stomach erupted in worms.

She dug in her heels, bringing Anwei to a stuttering stop. The healer had twined all her braids into one long plait that fell down her back, her long skirts exchanged for trousers and riding leathers like a Devoted. The most convincing part of the costume was the sword sheathed between her shoulderblades. Noa itched for a weapon, for a costume, to be anything but the part she was meant to play: herself.

“What’s the matter?” Anwei asked, pretending she’d stopped on purpose to check her vest’s buckles. The linen shirt she wore underneath was buttoned primly to her chin, the sleeves pulled down to cover her wrists.

“You know,” Noa looked back toward the city with longing. “Pretending to be fire dancers wouldn’t be a stretch this time. There aren’t even any books to set on fire. Everyone would stop and watch, and when word spreads, Mateo will come, and—”

“We can’t be fire dancers this time, Noa. Not with Paran on the hunt and Tual himself wandering through town.” Anwei smoothed down the leather tunic, her chin dipping as her eyes caught on something behind Noa.

Noa turned to look and found Altahn, Bane, and Gilesh hulking between them and the little dumpy trade boat, Noa’s house mark bright red on the prow. Altahn looked quite dashing with a sword at his shoulder, though the braids seemed a bit much. All their trunks were in a pile behind the Trib, somewhat spoiling the effect. “Let’s think this through, Anwei,” she said. “If Tual hears about a pretty show in town, maybe he’ll come see for himself. We can grab him instead of Mateo! Cut out the middleman.” Noa twirled a few steps, ending in a perfect bow, missing only her fire tethers. “It’s much simpler than Ellis and pirates and boats and—”

Anwei sighed, squaring off between Noa and the boat. “I know you don’t want to do this.”

“No. I don’t want to do this. If anything goes wrong, I’ll be—” Noa swallowed, panic rising in her like a malt-doused fire. Either her father’s lackeys would catch her or Ellis would, and both would take her right back to the cage in Chaol.

“Nothing is going to go wrong. Gods above!” Anwei looked down. “I wish this weren’t the only way. We came here thinking we were miles ahead of Tual, and instead he’s brewing Sleeping Death, and there are pirates, and Devoted assembling in the forest? We have to get out of sight before… I don’t know, another shapeshifter arrives in a golden chariot with two swords and a halo made of ears.”

Noa nodded eagerly. “No one ever figured out what happened to that curse lady, so it’s possible—”

Anwei shook her head. “This isn’t a story to brainstorm into a new fire dancing routine. Aria Seystone is trapped. Altahn’s sword, the man who made my whole family go crazy—they’re all at the old Basist fort. Tual is dangerous. Devoted are dangerous. And if we don’t get out of sight, we’re not going to end up with Aria, the sword, or any of it. We’ll just end up dead.”

The boat wouldn’t disappear from its place at the dock no matter how many times Noa blinked. She could see a man standing up on the covered deck, his white hair in a long braid. Captain Loren. Bracing herself, Noa slid one step closer, then stopped, scuttling backward.

Anwei took both her hands. “I will not let them take you,” she said in Elantin. “And if it all goes to plan, your father will never come looking for you again.”

Noa swallowed down ideas still boiling up in her thoughts—that they could let the Devoted destroy Tual for them, that they could steal any other boat, like the rowboat left completely unattended less than ten feet away, for example. Anwei anchored her there, making her want to believe.

“I won’t force you to do this.” Anwei’s hands squeezed hers. “If you can’t, I understand. We’ll find something else.”

“Really?”

The nod came too slowly, and Anwei’s head dropped. “I can’t see another way. But you don’t belong to me, Noa. Our crew—it only works if everyone wants to be here.”

“You made me prove myself before you let me stay with you at the apothecary, then again to help at the tomb. I set fire to the excavation barriers right in front of the Warlord herself because you told me to.” Noa hadn’t known what she was getting into when she first followed Anwei home, only that it was somehow outside the walls her father had built around her. It had started as a game. An escape. A yearning for home, because Anwei spoke her language and, though Noa hadn’t understood it at the time, knew what it was to be trapped. But this was asking too much. “Is this what it means to be in your crew, proving myself over and over again?”

“You know who I am.” Anwei met Noa’s eyes. “Being in my crew means there will be fires. But some of them will be the fires I set for you.” She gripped her hands hard. “I will not let them take you,” she said again, her gaze fierce. “If we do this, you’ll finally be free.”

Noa swallowed, gripping Anwei back, remembering Knox from the day before saying she mattered—all the more true because he hadn’t wanted to say it but still grudgingly acknowledged her place among them. “You won’t let them take me,” she repeated, the feel of her own language like a balm on her tongue. “And…” This was the much more frightening question, the one she hadn’t even wanted to acknowledge to herself. “If Loren doesn’t care when he sees me? Or if Ellis sent a pigeon to my father and all he gets back is a note that says, ‘Let her drown’?”

Anwei pulled Noa close, wrapping her arms around her tight. “Noa, the people who are supposed to love us do the worst job. That’s why you have me. I chose you, and you chose me.”

“But you’re the one who is making me risk shackles and a boring husband,” Noa sniffed, holding Anwei back as if not letting go meant she wouldn’t have to face the ugly little boat behind her. “And if I disappear, you’ll still have your shadow man.”

“No shadow man is enough. Not when I can have you too.” Pulling back, Anwei pointed to the docks. “He’s waiting for you on the other boat with Lia. They’re better than I am at taking care of people, and their job is to protect you from Ellis, Loren, sea monsters, and the Warlord herself if she comes floating down the river. We’re all behind you.”

Noa breathed the words in. If she became the flag that started this fight, it would be because she wanted to, not because her father told her not to. If Anwei, Lia, and Knox protected her, it wasn’t because she was worth more without scars.

It was because she was one of them.

“What do you want, Noa?” Anwei whispered.

The one question no one ever asked her.

When Noa turned toward her own house mark, toward Captain Loren with his pockets full of silver and the threat of her father roiling in her head like storm clouds, it didn’t feel like she was on some jaunt south or running away.

She wasn’t running away. She was running toward something better.

So Noa let go of Anwei and took a step toward the boat. Then another.

Loren caught sight of Noa long before she got to the end of the dock. Dropping a rope he’d been tying, he vaulted over the rail and started down the gangplank, arms open toward her like she were some long-lost child. “Noa? Sky Painter protect you! Do you remember me? Fancy meeting you here!”

At the sound of her name, two other sailors on the ship bobbed up from pushing crates. Noa’s skin pebbled at the way they immediately climbed up to the gangplank, not looking away. Her father knew she was gone, then, and had told his crews to watch for her.

“May she keep her storms far from us!” Noa shouted the second half of the Elantin greeting, stumbling to a stop farther away than she’d meant to. “I… I need help. You can’t tell my father.”

“Finally running, are you?” Loren didn’t stop walking toward her. “I always wondered when you’d try it.”

From the corner of her eye, Noa saw the pirate-marked ship begin untying its lines, Lia a burst of fire at the prow and Knox a shadow behind her.

The two sailors closed in behind Loren. Noa backed away, one of her shoulders bumping into a passing sailor. “You and I were always friends, Loren. I saw the house mark—”

He grinned, a gap in his teeth where he’d pried out the tooth that marked him as some other house before coming to work for her father. “I’m touched.” And lunged at her.

Over on the pirate-marked ship, oars dipped into the water, inching it away from the dock. Lia drew her sword, pointing it toward the bay like some kind of hero. The signal to move.

Noa dodged Loren’s widespread arms, gasping when arms clasped about her middle from behind, because she’d forgotten to watch the other sailors. Pivoting the way Lia had taught her, Noa smashed a fistful of Anwei’s foul-smelling leaves into his face. The sailor cried out, letting go, and Noa ran toward the water.

Knox grabbed hold of the ship’s rail as they lurched away from the dock. Lia stepped up to the prow and drew her sword to signal Noa.

Knox cast his sight out, searching for Noa’s aura. Anwei was out there, a bluster of purple, but Noa…? “Where is she?” Knox gritted his teeth, frustration lancing through him. “Are we going to have to start a fight on deck to stall them?”

Lia focused on the crowd. “Noa will come.”

“Seriously? The sparkle girl?”

“She’ll come.”

Which was the moment Noa came crashing through the crowd. She slammed into a man with a basket of palifruit, sending fruits rolling down the dock. Hopping over a box of leather slippers, Noa tripped into a bushel of red blooms that cascaded into the water like blood. Noa kept stumbling toward them, though, her eyes glued to Lia and her sword. But the boat had already pulled too far from the dock for her to jump aboard. Three men rushed after her, one tripping over a rogue palifruit as they gave chase.

“She’s not going to make it.” Knox looked up at the sails, trying not to be annoyed that even rumpled and running for her life, Noa had somehow found a way to glitter. The dancer gracefully leapt from the end of the dock in a perfect dive, looking all the world like a swinging fire tether.