The driver rolled his eyes and looked down to see the Royal Treasurer climbing out of the coach. The old man looked terrible, but then anyone would look like death warmed over after being locked in a small carriage for a day and a night with the king.
“Seems there’s trouble in the city, my lord,” the driver said. “Just sent a rider up, so we should know in a moment.”
He heard hoofbeats as he finished and turned to see that the boy was already riding back.
“It’s a flood,” the young guard called as soon as he was in earshot. “River just wiped out the center of Zarin.”
“A flood?” the Treasurer cried. “The ground’s bone dry! How do you have a flood with no rain?”
“Could have been rain upriver,” the driver said, and then snapped his mouth closed at the Treasurer’s poisonous look. “Yes, my lord. If we’re fast, we can cut west along the ring road and beat the crowd to the north gate. Shouldn’t take more than an hour.”
“Just get us there,” the Treasurer snapped, stepping back inside. “The king’s impatient to get this over with.”
The king was impatient about everything, the driver thought with a scowl. Not that he was going to complain, of course. He’d been at the storm wall; he’d seen what the king could do with that hunk of metal on his back.
The driver whistled to the riders to fall back in. He was about to turn the horses off onto the grass when he felt the carriage shift. The driver cursed and reined his team back in just before the carriage door burst open and the king himself climbed out.
All the guards froze in place, saluting as King Josef hopped down onto the grass. For his part, the driver was doing his best to make himself as small and inconspicuous as possible.
Powers, the king was large. Large and deadly and dangerous; the kind of man you’d cross the street to avoid day or night. The girl he kept with him was no better. She jumped down after him, a leather sack swinging from her hands, her pale face hidden by the creepy coat she wore. He swore he’d seen it moving on its own sometimes, twitching like a sleeping animal even when she sat perfectly still, the cloth black as a nightmare no matter how bright the light.
“Your majesty!” The Treasurer scrambled out of the carriage, chasing the king like a mother after her toddler. It was a pathetic sight for a minister of Osera, and overbearing as the old bastard had been during the trip, the driver almost felt sorry for him.
“Please get back in the carriage,” the Treasurer pleaded. “It will be only another hour.”
“A minute in that coffin on wheels is like an hour anywhere else,” the king growled. “Forget it. We walk.”
The Treasurer went so pale the driver worried he would faint. “Walk? You are a sovereign monarch on an official visit to the Council of Thrones! You can’t just walk in!”
But the king was already striding down the line of traffic, his long legs quickly taking him out of sight behind the other wagons. As always, the girl stuck to him like a shadow, jogging to keep up.
The Treasurer cursed loudly and turned to the riders. “Follow the king! Make sure he comes to no harm.”
As the six horsemen took off, the driver was tempted to point out that, seeing how the king had killed half the Empress’s army with his own hands, the riders’ presence would likely be more of a hobble than a help if an actual threat did emerge, but the Treasurer was already climbing back into the carriage.
“Drive on!” he shouted through the little curtained window. “We’ll meet his majesty at the Council Citadel.”
“Yes, my lord,” the driver said, snapping the reins.
The carriage creaked forward, bouncing over the grass as they turned off the road and cut west through the open field. As he eased the horses into the grass, the driver leaned back, enjoying the sunlight that suddenly seemed far warmer and cheerier now that the monster king and his monster girl were out of his coach. Laughing at the thought, he urged the horses faster, whistling an Osera fishing song as they bounced onto the narrow, rutted cart track that circled Zarin and turned north toward the hopefully unflooded, uphill side of town.
CHAPTER
9
Eliton?”
Banage’s voice broke on the last syllable. Eli rolled his eyes. “Who else?”
The candle flame flickered as Banage stood, his eyes wide and bright in the shaking light. “It is really you?” he whispered.
Eli started to say something snarky, but the words vanished as Banage did something completely unexpected, something he’d never done before in Eli’s memory. The Rector Spiritualis reached out, grabbed his son, and clamped him to his chest. The fire hovering on Banage’s hand danced wildly as it skittered to avoid catching Eli’s clothes, but the Rector didn’t seem to notice. He hugged Eli with a bone-crushing fury, and Eli, feeling decidedly off balance, stood and took it, his hands resting awkwardly on his father’s shoulders.
Several long seconds later, Banage finally drew back. “Forgive me,” he said, surreptitiously wiping his eyes with the back of his sleeve. “It’s just—” He stopped, taking a deep breath. “It’s not many fathers who get to see their sons come back from the dead twice.”
“Well, no one’s happier I’m not dead than me,” Eli said, wincing at how awkward his voice sounded. “What are you doing here?” He glanced at Banage’s empty fingers. “Where are your rings?”
“Later,” Banage said. “How are you alive, Eliton? What happened? We all saw you vanish, but afterward nothing would talk about it. What was that light? Where did you go, and how did you return?”
Eli scrambled to think of a good lie, something plausible enough for his father to believe without giving too much away. But just as he started picking through his options, he stopped. What was he doing? The whole reason he was here right now was because he’d decided he was done being the Shepherdess’s dog. If that was true, then why should he continue lying for her? Why should he bother hiding her secrets?
The realization broke over him like a bucket of cold water, and Eli’s lips peeled away into a wide smile. He’d been so busy with his capture, he’d forgotten for a moment that he was free. Eli almost laughed out loud at the idea. Free. He lifted his head to look Banage in the eye, and then, with a delicious breath, he told the truth.
“I went to the Shepherdess,” he said. “That was the deal. I used her power to make sure the Empress’s fleet wouldn’t bother us anymore, and she got to take me back. But when she realized I’m not as easy to live with as I used to be, she kicked me out on the Council’s doorstep. She thinks it will bring me around to her way of thinking, but she doesn’t understand that I’d rather rot in the worst prison the Council can devise than spend another minute in her company. At least here I can escape.” He reached out to knock on the prison wall with a cheery smile. “Big improvement.”
He stopped there, waiting for Banage to comment, but his father just stared at him, utterly bewildered. Eli sighed deeply and tried again. “You remember when you asked me why I didn’t come home that night?”
Banage nodded.
“It’s because that was the night the Shepherdess found me,” Eli said. “I was just a kid, and I was so mad at you.” He shook his head at the memory. “She was kind to me, treating me like I was some kind of treasure. I thought she was my savior. We lived together happily for a few years, but then I grew up. Or, rather, I woke up to what she really was. After that, I decided it was time to get away, and I convinced her to let me go. It was also around that time I decided I wanted to be a thief, so the second I was out of her care I apprenticed myself to a master and started learning my trade. The rest is public record.”
“Hold a moment,” Banage said, his voice quivering with disbelief. “You mean to tell me that you lived with the Shepherdess? You’re saying that the greatest of all Great Spirits, the force that controls this world, isn’t some giant, sleeping mother spirit but a real woman who took care of a little boy?”
“I don’t know about the real woman part,” Eli said. “She’s not human. She’s not a spirit either. She’s something else altogether, a Power of Creation.”
