The Rift War (31 page)

He found he didn't like depending on theory. Not when his friends' and allies' lives were
endangered.

"Is it working?" Kayn demanded, when the roaring of the storm continued.

"Something is..." Nentor growled and turned from the viewport to glare at the rest of
them. "I know not what it is, but I sense something has broken out there. Princess?"

"I'm fine," Emrillian said, her voice strained. The rainbow continued pulsing out from
her as she maintained the shield around the decoy, battling Edrout's magic.

"Wave!" Shalara shrieked, staring out the viewport.

A world-shaking boom rushed over them, draining all the light and sound and air from
his senses for five terrifying heartbeats. Grego gasped as his senses snapped back into place.
Everyone dropped to the floor. Then the roar of an enormous wave overpowered them and he
heard alarms in the shipboard systems shrieking. The world turned sideways. He felt hands grab
him. He took a hard hold of whoever and whatever he could find as he closed his eyes and turned
over, three times, with cold surrounding him and a force that tried to spin him in the opposite
direction and suck the air from his lungs.

Emrillian decided later that it had been like trying to ride a bucking horse with all her
clothes covered in grease, no saddle, spines on the horse instead of fur, inside a rotating drum,
both of them kicking at each other and trying to hold onto each other for safety at the same
time.

The ship hadn't capsized, hadn't sprung leaks, hadn't exploded from the strain, though
she felt as if her head came close. She understood how Grego had felt, scorched and drained,
when he'd tried to grasp the trunk Thread that fed into the Zygradon.

What mattered was that they were alive, the ship had suffered minimal damage, and the
decoy ship was still floating, even though it had been scraped and battered and blackened by the
backlash of power. And while she felt totally powerless, Graddon and Nentor had enough magic
to heal everyone's bruises and a few broken bones and bring both ships to port at Quenlaque.

She was sitting on the pebbly shingle, sipping a restorative potion the Directorate's
medic insisted on for everyone, despite the magic at their disposal, when her parents reached the
docks. Emrillian barely noticed the clamor of voices raised in acclaim. It sounded much like the
screeling of the gulls, the dying slap of the waves as the water settled down, and the grumbling
gusts of the wind.

"Emmi?" Athrar called, cutting through the dazed, drifting feeling that felt incredibly
comfortable to both body and mind.

She turned and looked, and realized all her muscles had stiffened, with hints that all her
joints had tried to fuse together as well. Emrillian struggled to lever herself up to her feet when
she saw her parents ride down to the shore, followed by Mrillis and Baedrix and some of her
Archaics friends. She managed to get one leg straightened and was unbending the other, and
trying to get up from the boulder where she had been sitting, when Athrar and Ynfara raced
across the damp sand littered with pebbles and driftwood to reach her.

"Don't you ever do anything like that again," her father growled, snatching her up in his
arms. "We could feel the battle of power as if we were in the middle of it." He interrupted
himself by kissing her forehead and cheeks, and then clutching her so close her aching muscles
and ribs cried out from the pressure.

"Still not sure what we did. How much we did," she managed to retort, breathless. Then
she gasped, on the verge of tears, when Athrar flipped her around in his arms so he cradled her
against his chest.

"You take after Grandfather and his wife far too much, that's what you do," Ynfara said.
She pressed one hand against Emrillian's chest and the other across her forehead.

Warmth flowed across her skin, down into her muscles, then touched her bones, easing
the aches. She felt sleepy content, all her pains and stiffness soothed away. Duty nagged at her,
to get up and go back to the ships to help in the repairs and getting the sensors online. She
ignored duty and gave in to silly, relieved tears when Athrar sat down, still holding her cradled
against him. For a few moments, she was a little girl again, comforted in her beloved papa's arms
after a nightmare.

"I suppose I should apologize," Mrillis said, joining them. He snorted, muffling laughter,
when Emrillian opened one eye to glare at him and stayed cuddled against Athrar's chest. Why
couldn't he leave them alone for a little while?

"Apologize for what?" Athrar said. His voice buzzed pleasantly in his chest under her
ear.

"For raising your daughter to expect the impossible from herself. And perhaps for
raising her--unintentionally, of course--to want to save the whole world."

"Nobody else could do it," Emrillian said. She sighed and didn't care if she sounded like
a whiny brat when Athrar slid her out of his arms, to sit up on the boulder. He kept his arm
around her, bracing her. "Everyone had a task. Mine was holding the shield against Edrout, to
make him open himself up and throw everything he had into the fight." She looked around and
realized quite a few people had gathered around her boulder seat. Members of the Council of
Lords, several Archaics friends, Baedrix, and handfuls of the dock workers and sailors and
townspeople who had stayed away and left her alone in her misery up until then. She pushed
down the grumbling complaint that she would be living in front of an audience for the rest of her
life.

"True," Athrar said on a sigh. "I still find it hard to exchange my little bird for the grown
woman. An enchantress with the power to reshape the world is even harder to comprehend."

"Just don't ask us to sacrifice you entirely," Ynfara said, leaning forward to rest both
hands on Emrillian's shoulders. "We couldn't watch you grow up. Don't make us bury you."

"Believe me, Mama, I have no intention of sacrificing my life." She welcomed the
crunch of footsteps on the gravel and sand, because it was an interruption.

"We are victorious," Graddon announced simply, when the crowd parted to let him
through. He walked with Kayn on one side and Delori on the other, with Shalara and Nentor
coming up close behind them. "We have no indication if Edrout survived the battle or if he was
destroyed, but the results are beyond our wildest dreams in terms of the Encindi territory."

"Essentially, there is no Encindi territory left," Nentor said. He shook a finger in
Emrillian's direction. "You, girl, are lucky you didn't totally burn away all your
imbrose
." Then his bluster abruptly cut off. "Let us pray the Estall that Edrout was
burned beyond recognition, in all the ways that matter."

"It all fell into the sea?" Athrar asked.

"Volcanoes, shifting of tectonic plates..." Mrillis frowned into an unseen distance,
nodding slowly. "Meghianna says she senses very little life in that part of the land, even in the
sea. Sulfur and other poisons filling the water. Large portions of the mountains have sheered off.
We will likely feel the aftershocks for moons to come."

"What about the battleship?" Emrillian asked.

"Sunk," Shalara said. "With all hands."

"If there was anyone alive on board," Kayn said. "We've finally been able to get into all
the sensor recordings made during the fight. Our equipment wasn't picking up much more life
than if we had been scanning the decoy." His scowl deepened. "I hate Fedarstan, but from what
you've told us about blood magic...filthy, useless way to die."

"That is what we battle, what we have battled from time immemorial," Athrar said. He
held out his hand to the Moertan scientist. "We would much rather have your people as allies
than opponents."

"Allies usually have something each other needs," he responded, slowly holding out his
hand.

"Let's let the politicians and ambassadors worry about that, shall we?" Nudging
Emrillian to sit up on her own, he stood and shook Kayn's hand. "Now, let us show you how we
in Quenlaque celebrate a victory...and fulfill our promises. My daughter tells me she promised
you some star-metal to... To play with?"

"Experiment." Kayn's teeth glimmered for a moment as the two men shook hands.

Ynfara wrapped an arm around Emrillian's shoulders, pulling her to her feet. Her mother
held her close, revealing the faint shaking through her body that gave a lie to the serene
expression on her face.

"I'm sorry, Mama," Emrillian whispered. "It was necessary."

"I know, but as far as I'm concerned, it's still my duty to protect you, not for you to
protect me and the entire world." Ynfara pressed a kiss into her tangled hair. They leaned against
each other as they followed Athrar and Kayn up to the docks, then along the winding streets to
the open square at the base of the wide slope leading up to the gates of Quenlaque Castle.

* * * *

Lycen had cast a smaller, simpler version of the time-halting spell on the royal family's
quarters in Quenlaque Castle. Emrillian felt dizzy, walking into the front room, where she
remembered her father having meetings with his most loyal nobles and battle commanders.
Nothing was different. There was even that stain on the rug from a pot of popperberry jam she
had dropped the day before she and her mother fled Quenlaque to hide in the tunnel. Would the
mark still be sticky and damp if she touched it?

Maybe the lack of change comforted her parents, because to them it had only been a few
days since they left their home. She hoped so.

She wandered the rooms while her parents settled in, letting the echoes of voices and
sounds and smells and movements from people long-dead wash over her. The family's common
room was familiar to her, where Athrar had held her on his lap and told her stories. She
remembered the model of Quenlaque Castle that sat in the corner. It had been taller than her, the
last time she had been in this room, but now it barely reached her waist. Meghianna had made it
for her, filled with dolls she and her mother would play with, making up stories of the people
who lived in the castle. There was the firepit, with the ashes from the last fire they had shared.
She choked when a flicker of memory had her bend over the pit and she found the pit of a peach
she had tossed there. Was it only a few days, sixteen years, two hundred years, or two thousand
years ago?

She heard Ynfara weeping. Emrillian hesitated a moment, expecting to hear Athrar go to
her mother, but she listened and realized he was in his study, banging and digging through chests
of books and scrolls, making enough noise to drown out the sound. Ynfara was in another room
four doors around the curve of the common room. Shivering, Emrillian went to her mother, and
found Ynfara on her knees in front of an open chest of children's clothes. The cold deepened
when she remembered this had been her bedroom, and those were her clothes her mother buried
her face in, muffling her tears.

"Mama?" She went to her knees and wrapped her arms around Ynfara's shoulders.
"What's wrong?"

"I keep forgetting--and then something reminds me--and I just want to rip someone to
shreds for taking so much from us." She held out a little white dress with green ribbons sewn
down the arms and along the hem. "You never got to wear this. Glyssani made it for you, and she
never got to see you wear it."

"Fara." Athrar leaned into the frame of the door, the aching of his spirit clear in his eyes,
his breaking voice. "I'm sorry. If I could change something, if I could change history, I
would."

"You!" She leaped to her feet, flinging the dress back into the chest, and pointed a
shaking finger at her husband. "Why--do--you--always think--you--have to fix--everything?" she
ended on a shriek that abruptly turned into a wail. "And you!" She turned on Emrillian so quickly
her daughter back-stepped, tripped, and fell into her child-size bed. "You're just like him! Both
of you have to save the world!"

"I'm sorry." Emrillian winced and rubbed the elbow she had slammed against the wall
when she fell.

"Oh, Emmi, I'm not blaming you." Ynfara's voice cracked and she sniffled as she leaned
into Athrar, who had crossed the room and wrapped his arms around her. "I just need to hurt
someone, and the ones I want to slash and punch and turn on a spit over a roaring fire--they've
been dust for centuries." She punched Athrar in the shoulder when he muffled a snort of
laughter, then seemed to go limp and dropped her head onto his shoulder.

"I wish they had cleared these rooms out, emptied them of all these lovely, precious ties
to our old life. Everything even smells the same. Your room was an utter mess from how quickly
we packed to leave. I picked up your little shoes and opened your trunk and there was your dress,
and I opened my mouth to call you to come get dressed for the feast. Then I realized how
ridiculous you would look in that little dress."

"Not to mention indecent," Athrar said, tipping his head back to look at the ceiling,
addressing his remark to no one in particular. "Though I'm sure you would gain several score
suitors in no time at all."

"Papa!" Emrillian didn't know whether to be scandalized, horrified, or amused. She took
her cue from Ynfara, who punched him in the shoulder again. The three smiled wearily at each
other, as he settled down on her bed, cradling Ynfara in his lap.

"You're all grown up, and that fact keeps hitting me at the worst time." Ynfara sighed
and reached out to stroke Emrillian's hair back from her face. "You don't need us anymore."

"I will always need you." She scooted over to lean against her father's arm. "I was a
terror to Grandfather for moons. He had to put guards on the doors to keep me from sneaking
away at night to go back down the tunnel, on foot, to get back to you and home. I did all my
crying and raging years ago. That doesn't mean this doesn't hurt, I just... I just don't have any
tears left for that. What is, is." She took a deep breath, fighting the aching sense she would burst
into tears in a moment, despite what she had just said. "It wasn't until I was nine or ten that I
realized you had gone through the same thing, Papa."