her deception. Though Captain Greene had been a clever woman, he doubted that she had constructed these alliances with the geistlords Hatipai and the Wrayth by herself. Someone else was moving the game pieces. Someone he’d very much like to meet face-to-face.
They had walked for maybe half an hour, before the brick tunnels of what had to be the sewage system of Vermillion broke through into another area he recognized.
Sorcha did too, for her head jerked upright and she stammered, “The White Palace.”
The boneyard of the city was buried beneath everyday citizens’ feet. It was naturally an eerie place, with all the bones arranged in patterns and stacks around them, but even more so when seen through the veil of memory. It was here, two seasons past, that he had been part of the being made up of himself, Sorcha, Merrick and the Rossin. They had battled the Murashev for the city and all the citizens in it. Raed reminded himself of one vital fact. They had won.
Raed had only spotty memories of that time, but when he looked into Sorcha’s eyes he caught flashes of it. The power and the rage that they both had experienced while melded with the Rossin. It still called to them both.
“Strange isn’t it,” she said with a twist of her lips, “that the last time we were here we were all-powerful… now look at us.”
He glanced back, and saw what she meant. Only a few of his crew members remained. Aachon’s weirstone had been destroyed, as had Sorcha’s Gauntlets. The only thing he had to show for the pursuit of his missing sister was the fact that Fraine was with them. However, even that was not the joyful reunion he had once imagined.
Sorcha touched his face, a stroke along his chin. “I have to find Merrick, but…” She stopped and caught her breath before going on. “But how am I to find him?”
Raed had never seen her like this, and while he loved that she was ready to show him her vulnerable side, the larger part of him was distressed by it. Brushing a lock of her red hair back behind her ear, he said as soothingly as possible, “He’ll be at the Mother Abbey of course. Let’s go.”
Aachon checked the tightness of Fraine’s binds, and Raed overheard what he said to her. “My princess, we are going aboveground, and it would be best if you do not cry out. You, like your brother, have a bounty on your head.”
She clamped her lips shut, but her eyes gleamed angrily. Raed knew his sister was lost to him—there were just some places a soul could not come back from—but he knew that he would still try to reach her. Maybe the clever, all-seeing Merrick would have some ideas.
They climbed up through the mausoleum doors that Sorcha directed them to and out onto the streets of Vermillion. Raed pulled up his hood and Fraine’s—though she glared at him for this consideration. However as soon as they were out in the fresh early evening air, he felt something else apart from the chill. It was the Rossin, close to the surface, and he was relishing in something he tasted on the breeze.
Raed did not repeat the words to his companions, because he immediately knew what that meant. He didn’t need to have it explained—he could feel them out there. The geists were stirring.
Yet when he shot a look at Sorcha he knew she didn’t feel a thing. So he urged them on through the streets of Vermillion, across the gilt bridge that was strangely calm, and to the Imperial Island itself.
His crew tried to hide their awe as best they could. A few of them had been with him last time they were in Vermillion, but the Imperial City always impressed, with its canals gleaming under the moon, and its vast network of lamps on every street. By rights, the crew of
Still, it was what it was. Raed gestured to Aachon, and they broke up the crew into three smaller groups, so as not to draw the attention a small mob would. However all of them strolled as casually as they could toward the same goal.
It was quiet out. The fancy residences on the lower slopes had many lights burning in the windows, but there were no carriages about on the street. Sorcha kept her hand in his and would not let him go. Truthfully, it was a comfort to him as well. In this crumbling world, he would hold on to Deacon Sorcha as tight as he dared.
He squeezed her hand, and she looked at him with a smile that made everything seem all right, even if it were for just a second.
It was as if Fraine took this as a cue. She’d been quiet for a long spell, but then, just as the crew that held her was taking in the sights of Vermillion, she moved.
Raed heard Aleck yell, and then shouts from the rest of the crew members. Aachon reacted first, darting— with surprising speed for a man his size—after the fleeing Fraine. Raed spun around to see Aleck clutching his nose, which was spurting blood down his shirt.
“Sorry, Captain,” he choked out, “she’s got a pretty good uppercut.”
They should have bound her hands behind her. “Stay here,” the Young Pretender shouted to Sorcha, before joining Aachon in the pursuit. He told himself they should be able to catch her easily enough; she didn’t know the city that well.
They chased her down an alleyway, and then another with low-strung laundry. “Fraine! Wait!” Raed bellowed uselessly after her, but the only glimpse he got of his sister was her white shirt disappearing around another corner.
Raed eventually passed Aachon, who was puffing and panting, but still gamely kept on. Ahead came a vague rumble of noise, and one that the Young Pretender was very familiar with; it was a mob.
“By the Blood, Fraine!” he shouted, as ahead he could see the entrance to the street. Fraine shot a look over her shoulder, victorious and enraged. The rumble of the crowd was nearby, and now he could identify screams and howls. Something was driving these people, and if Sorcha had lost her power, then he could hazard a guess what was loosed in the city.
Raed caught a glimpse of his sister, outlined against the chaos. She looked into it, the tumble of arms and legs, and the bodies already falling to the hard stone.
Fraine stepped out into the street with a cruel grin in his direction. The mob swept her up, hundreds of terrified people running for their lives in one direction. Aachon held his arm, but Raed did not go into the street. He swallowed hard and stared into the maelstrom of panic. He could see, thanks to the Rossin, the faint wisps of geists darting among them, driving the crowd to greater frenzy and panic.
They came nowhere near him though—the geistlord so near to the surface kept them back like flame in a wild animal’s eyes. The mob passed as quickly as it had come, moving on and leaving a trail of dead and injured in its wake.
Raed had to know. With Aachon silent at his back, he walked out onto the street, his boots occasionally slipping in blood and gore, until he found her. Looking down at his sister, her limbs spread at odd angles, her eyes wide and her lips still stretched in a mad grin, Raed felt his world contract.
“She did this deliberately,” Aachon said, but bending and draping his own cloak over her. “My prince, you should not—”
“Enough,” Raed held up his hand, feeling his insides turn to lead. “You’re right, but she is still my sister.” He picked her up and carried her back to the group.
The crew glanced between the first mate and their captain in utter shock. Sorcha’s jaw clenched. Raed deposited Fraine’s still-warm body into the arms of Arriann. The young man swallowed hard.
“You know your way back to the ossuary?” Raed croaked out, and when Arriann nodded he continued. “Take her back there, then come find us at the Abbey. It is fitting that my sister should lie in the boneyard of our ancestors. Be quick about it.”
The young crew member dropped his gaze away from his captain’s and turned to do as bid.
Sorcha started forward, “Raed, I—”
“Not yet.” He held up one finger sharply before her. “This will be for later.” He’d always known that trying to stop Fraine might mean her death, but he had never imagined she would choose to take her own life. That was a specific kind of pain.
“To the Mother Abbey then,” he said, and turned back to their original course.
They didn’t have to walk far up the hill to see what else was wrong with Vermillion. Sorcha stopped, absolutely still in the middle of the road, and stared.
