Furyborn (22 page)

Eliana

“It is widely believed that the creation of the Gate, which ended the Angelic Wars, began the end of magic as it once was. If the Gate was the beginning of the end, then the Fall of the Blood Queen was the true ending. With her death, the Blood Queen stamped out every remaining spark of ancient power, leaving the world ravaged and dim.”

—Foreword to a collection of Venteran
children’s tales entitled
Stories of a Forgotten Age

“Can you walk?”

Gingerly, Eliana stood and gave Simon a tight nod.

She hoped she was pretending the right amount of pain. Remy squeezed her hand, and she glanced down at him with a smile she tried to make reassuring.

He, of course, would know the truth by the look on her face. If they hadn’t healed completely, her wounds from
the bombardier blast were now well enough that Eliana could feel no pain, save a dull soreness in her muscles. Over the last few hours of sleep, it seemed, her wounds had closed. Her flesh had repaired itself.

And, Eliana knew, the next time Navi or Simon insisted on changing her bandages, she would have to lie. Or flee. Or be found out.

But found out for what? Was she one of
them
? Whatever
Lord Morbrae was—whatever strangeness gave him his liquid black eyes, the gaunt hunger of his cheeks, the ability to repair a slit throat and walk away whole—was Eliana also such a creature?

A wave of disgust swelled in her throat.

I don’t have black eyes.

I have eaten, and I have had lovers. My hunger was sated, and the loving felt good and always has.

But…

But my body was
covered with burns. And now, it is not.

She had always known that her body’s ability to heal itself faster and more thoroughly than anyone else’s was…unusual, to say the least. Impossible and unthinkable. She had, however, always explained it away when she lay awake at night, endlessly worrying. Or when she had first confessed to Remy by cutting open her arm in front of him, only for it to
sew itself healed a moment later.

His horrified eyes had lit up with wonder.

“El,” he had whispered, “that’s some kind of magic.”

“Ridiculous,” she’d replied, her heart pounding but her voice cool. “Magic does not exist.”

“But it did, once. Maybe some of it survived Queen Rielle’s Fall.”

Eliana had snorted. “Doubtful. That bitch was a lot of things, but she wasn’t sloppy. She
wouldn’t have left us any magic, not even a scrap.”

“So how do you explain it, then?”

She had shrugged, grinning. “I won’t argue with my body being a wonder. Harkan could tell you that much—”

Remy had clapped his hands over his ears. “Please, spare me.”

“I suppose I’m just more resilient than most.” She hadn’t really believed that inane explanation, even then. But what choice did
she have? Any other possibility would be…too much to consider. Preposterous at best and dangerous at worst. And she had given up her hope for miracles years ago.

“Anyway,” she had continued, “I hope you won’t tell anyone. Not even Mother. Because—”

“Because if anyone found out, they’d use you as a weapon. Even more than the Empire already does.”

“Right,” she said stiffly after a pause.
“Exactly.”

He had nodded. “I’m still going to believe it’s magic though. I have to.”

“Whatever lies you have to tell yourself, Remy, are no business of mine.”

But now that Eliana had seen Lord Morbrae, the knowledge of what her body could do—the question of what that meant—sat noxiously inside her.

Am I one of them?
she thought, reaching back to scratch her shoulder.
Or will I
become
one of them?

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Hob staring at her and remembered to wince as she moved.

“Quickly and quietly,” Simon muttered, “slip into the crowd along with everyone else. Stay close.”

Together, their ragged group of five slowly moved onto the broad, crowded road that led to the city of Rinthos.

It was a path congested with travelers: Refugees seeking
shelter from the wild lands beyond. Small clusters of musicians fiddling baudy traveling songs and singing laments for the dead. A few merchants shilling wares—clothes, medicines, drugs, idols of the Emperor carved out of wood and small enough to wear around one’s neck.

Eliana kept her gait stiff, uneven, and her eyes focused straight ahead on the city gates. Adatrox drifted throughout the
crowd and patrolled the perimeter wall, but they did not stop anyone from passing through the city gates. Not even the Empire, it seemed, wanted to do the work of clearing out the massive, clogged sprawl that was Rinthos.

It was the perfect place to hide.

It was also, quite possibly, a disastrous place to hide. Surely the Empire knew of what had happened at the outpost, had heard of the
girl blowing apart an entire regiment of adatrox and, perhaps, surviving. An adatrox could have seen Simon retrieve her body from the wreckage, flee on horseback with her. Maybe this adatrox had sent a message to Lord Morbrae.

Maybe the general’s ashes, blown apart when the outpost detonated, had coalesced back into a solid frame. Maybe he was, at this very moment, stalking their trail.

Eliana counted her breaths until her thoughts stopped spinning.

They had no choice; they had to stop in Rinthos. Hob needed to meet his contact, who would help resupply Patrik, his soldiers, and the now-homeless refugees.

And Eliana, as far as they knew, desperately needed medicine.

As they passed through the outer wall of Rinthos, Eliana glanced up at the overcrowded city towering
above her and licked her cracked lips out of sheer uneasiness. An interweaving network of stone paths, wooden bridges, and twisting staircases stretched high above them, connecting apartment to apartment and high road to low road. Not far from the city was the Sea of Bones, which churned between Ventera and the occupied kingdom of Meridian. A thin film of sand coated the crumbling roads, and whenever
they passed one of the canals that snaked through the city, the pungent smell of fish and waste was enough to turn Eliana’s already restless stomach.

They had been navigating the choked streets of Rinthos for an hour when they finally found Sanctuary’s entrance—an unremarkable door at first glance, coated in peeling gray paint and bolted with a broken lock.

But past the door, down a narrow
staircase, they emerged into a small, damp room manned by three masked guards. Each towered two heads above even Simon.

The lead guard stopped Simon with a curved blade at his throat.

Simon lowered his hood, then uttered something in a lyrical language Eliana didn’t recognize. Not traditional Venteran and not the plain common tongue.

Beside her, Remy sucked in a breath.

Whatever
Simon had said must have been the right thing to say. The guards moved aside; one of them unlatched the heavy metal door on the far wall.

Simon inclined his head, then led the way into the dark, low-ceilinged rooms beyond.

Sanctuary.

The smell of the city’s infamous gambling pits slapped Eliana like a fetid hand—cooking meat, pipe smoke, scented oils, ale and wine, sweat-stained bodies,
the tang of blood.

“What language was that?” Eliana whispered to Remy as they followed Simon inside.

“Old Celdarian,” Remy whispered back, his fingers tight around her own.

A chill went down Eliana’s back. “The language of the Blood Queen.”

“And of the Lightbringer,” Navi added.

Eliana glanced at her, resisting the urge to touch the necklace beneath her shirt.

Sanctuary
was a cramped and raucous city-within-a-city. Five circular levels, lit by gas lamps at every column support, looked down upon a floor packed with people. They gathered at tables, hands full of cards, or around pits where vicious dogs tore at each other. Men in ragged trousers beat their opponents to a pulp in square wire cages, while onlookers shouted out their wagers and thrust fistfuls of money
into the air.

And above, on each of the mezzanines looking down over the fighting pits, the shadows teemed with shapes—couples whispering over their drinks, scantily clad dancers writhing on tabletops. Card players masked in clouds of smoke gathered on cushions surrounding low tables. One man, so corpulent Eliana could not see his eyes within the folds of his skin, shouted out with wet, choking
laughter as two men wrestled at his feet. On the third level, a woman so pale that both her skin and hair glowed white in the candlelit gloom held court in a private curtained parlor. A beautiful young man wearing hardly enough to cover himself lounged beside her, muscles shimmering with powder.

They passed the couple and disappeared into a dark, narrow corridor flanked by two hooded figures,
their faces hidden. Eliana’s fingers itched to grab Arabeth.

A curtain dropped closed behind them, plunging them into silence. Their footsteps disappeared in the corridor’s plush carpet. Tiny gas lamps softly lit the way.

“A charming place,” Navi observed mildly.

A smirk twitched at Eliana’s mouth. “Perhaps we should enter Simon into one of those fights downstairs, win ourselves some
coin for your refugees, Hob.”

Simon stopped at a door in the wall. “Only if you are my opponent, Dread. We could re-create our first meeting for everyone.”

“The one when I would’ve beaten you, had you not pulled a gun on me?”

“The one when I knocked you soundly on your ass.” Then he rapped once on the door. A metal slat in the wood snapped open, and Simon uttered another sentence in
Old Celdarian.

At once, the door opened to a quiet chamber lined with silent robed figures. A muscled, middle-aged woman with amber-brown skin rushed out from a side door, straight for Hob. “Thank God you’re alive!” She hugged him fiercely, clapped a hand on his back. “We heard about the attack on—”

The woman had seen Navi, and after a moment of frozen shock, she sank to her knees.

“Your Highness,” she whispered. “Forgive me. I knew you would be here, and yet seeing you in the flesh—” She looked up at Navi, eyes glittering with tears. “Since hearing of your flight from Astavar, and then seeing the intelligence you sent through Red Crown from Orline… My lady, I prayed every day that the Queen’s light would guide you home to us.”

Navi helped the woman rise, her own eyes
bright. “You are from Astavar?”

“I am, my lady. But Red Crown is my allegiance. I have not seen home since the Empire took Ventera.”

“Please, tell me if I can bring back with me any messages for your loved ones.”

“I have no loved ones, my lady.” The woman set her jaw. “They all came with me to fight for Ventera. I am the only one left.”

Navi closed her eyes. “My sister, your courage
leaves me without words.”

“Well!” The woman sniffed loudly and wiped her eyes. “Lucky for you, my lady, I’ve enough words for us all. Hob?” She slapped a hand onto his shoulder. Hob grimaced. “I know you need my help, for your Patrik and your wandering rebel babes. And my help you shall have. But first, baths. You all smell like shit.”

“Who is this?” Eliana jerked her head at the woman.
“Will anyone introduce us, or will we all just stand here and let her ramble on?”

“I know who you are.” The woman stepped back from Hob and considered Eliana with narrowed eyes. “You’re the Dread of Orline. You ruined the raid. You almost got everyone at Crown’s Hollow killed.” She looked Eliana up and down, then spat in her face. “My name’s Camille. I’ve got enough paid swords in this place
to fill a temple. So don’t fuck with me, girl. Or it’ll be your end.”

Then she stepped back, smiled brightly at everyone, and clapped her hands. Four of the robed figures glided forward.

“We’ve prepared bathing rooms for you. Please don’t talk to me again until you smell better. Oh! Little one.” Camille smiled at Remy. “You’re a sweet fellow. To whom do you belong?”

Remy lifted his
chin and took Eliana’s hand. “To my sister.”

Camille’s face hardened. “Well, that’s a shame, isn’t it?”

He glared back at her. “Not to me.”

Even to Eliana, the smug smile she shot at Camille felt insufferable.

• • •

But upon entering the bathing chamber, Eliana’s mind caught up with itself, and her happiness died.

Shit.

It was a gorgeously appointed room—walls of white
polished stone, dressing screens covered with brocaded fabric in plum and turquoise, cushioned settees piled high with bath linens, baskets of soap, bottles of oils and lotions.

In the center of the space bubbled an enormous circular pool. A fountain stood at its center, featuring a slender statue of Saint Tameryn combing shadows from her hair.

They were to bathe here. Eliana
wanted
, desperately,
to bathe. But first Navi would want to change her bandages. She would see Eliana’s smooth, unblemished back. Simon and Hob had taken another chamber—
thank God
—but Navi was bad enough.

Eliana released Remy’s hand and began backing away from the pool.

“El?” He glanced at her, yawning, then froze. “
Oh.
”

Navi gazed happily at the pool and let out a contented sigh. “God, it’ll feel good
to remember what it’s like to be a proper human again. Eliana, let’s change your bandages.”

“Here you are, my lady,” murmured one of the bustling attendants. She handed Navi a basket of clean white cloths. “The Wolf told us you would need these. We are trained as healers, my lady. Shall we help you?”

“Oh, that would be lovely. Eliana?” Navi frowned when she saw Eliana inching toward the
door. “What are you doing?”

“I don’t want to change my bandages.” Eliana’s panic was so complete that she could think of nothing else to say. “They’re fine.”

Navi’s smile was bewildered. “They’ll get infected if we don’t. It’s been hours. Come here.”

One of the attendants moved toward Eliana, bowed, then reached out to guide her down the steps toward the pool.

Eliana slapped her
away. “Get away from me!”