“And where will you go then?” The troubled look on his usually calm face pleased her. He did care.
She shot a look at him over her shoulder as she took up her own traveling cloak. “I will return to Vermillion. It is the capital, the place where everything begins and ends. I will find out the true lay of the land and hopefully be able to save my brother and the Empire.”
“I guessed as much, but I’ve discovered people find it a little off-putting if I lay out the facts before they’ve given voice to them. Besides . . . it’s impolite to presume.”
Zofiya felt a sharp clench in her belly, but managed not to rush to his side. “I like that you are not trying to keep me here.”
“I wish I could.” Merrick glanced down at his hands.
“But neither of us are normal people with normal responsibilities.” Zofiya shifted from one foot to another. Now it had come to the moment, she found herself reluctant to leave. The citadel was the most unwelcoming place she’d ever lived in: full of chill drafts, echoing chambers and the remains of furniture. By all rights she should have been racing out of it. Yet, Zofiya knew that once she left, it could be a long time—if ever—before she saw Merrick again.
“I can read you,” he said, clasping her around the waist from behind, and pulling her in tight, “but I cannot see what you will find in Vermillion.”
Zofiya turned in his arms. “Do not—”
He stopped her words with a finger placed over her lips. Once he would have earned a broken arm for such daring. “The city will be full of powerless Deacons, lost, bewildered, but they will still have the potential.” He cupped her face in his hands and rubbed his thumb over the curve of her lips. “Deacon Petav has been recording the works of the Patternmaker, and been learning the art of applying them to the skin. You must take him with you!”
The idea of that particular Deacon journeying with her was not very appealing; as far as she was concerned he was as dry as a stick that had been left out too long on a summer day. However, she understood what her lover was getting at. If she could resurrect at least some of the Deacons at the capital, then they could help bring the citizens of Vermillion some protection from the geists.
Zofiya nodded slowly. “If you think he is up to the task, then yes that would be very useful.”
Merrick chuckled. “Deacon Petav has proven himself very useful to me, but he would also welcome the chance to get out from under Sorcha’s gaze I think.”
“Perfectly understandable,” Zofiya replied with a twitch of her lips. Petav had been Sorcha’s husband once, as well as her partner. They had come to a working understanding, but things were still a little tense when they were both in the room—you didn’t need to be a Sensitive to feel that.
Merrick drew in a long breath. “Then there is another favor I must ask of you, Zofiya.”
She loved how her real name sounded on his lips. She so seldom heard anything but titles and platitudes from people. “Of course,” she whispered, holding herself as steady and far away from him as she could manage.
“When you reach Vermillion, can you please try to find out what has happened to my mother and brother? Aachon tried and failed to find them in the chaos after the destruction of the Mother Abbey.” His brow furrowed, and seeing his pain only made her love him more. “They have been on my mind ever since.”
“I will do all I can,” Zofiya said, pressing her lips together. She knew full well that he had lain awake many nights struggling with guilt over leaving them behind, so she just hoped that she could send good news back to him, rather than the other darker possibility that could be the reality. How much of a chance for survival could a mother and small child in a Vermillion lost to chaos have? Her skin prickled at the thought.
The world outside of the citadel was tearing itself apart. Her brother and the Arch Abbot of the Native Order had condemned it to be so. Once she and Merrick plunged back into all that, death was a real possibility—tonight’s events had reminded them all rather forcefully of that.
Zofiya rushed forward on the wings of that realization. The Deacon and the Grand Duchess clasped each other tight and kissed with the kind of desperation she had never known. It was a terrible thing to care for people, she thought angrily, and now her love for her brother and her love for Merrick were totally at odds. However, it wasn’t love for Kal that was taking her from the Deacon. It was her pledge as Grand Duchess.
As Hatipai had said in her holy books, “Each soul is given a purpose to bear.” Though the goddess Zofiya had hung her being on had been proven a geistlord, the Grand Duchess still remembered her words. Maybe as goddess and geistlord, she had been able to see the future that lay ahead.
Zofiya steeled herself, remembering that humiliation, and determined not to make a fool of herself again. Merrick let her go. “I will see you again.”
He said it with such conviction; Zofiya chose to believe that he had looked into the future with that Sensitive skill of his. It made it easier to step away from him and leave the citadel.
The Grand Duchess’ hand clenched tight on the warm weirstone, until her fingers ached, and she took her leave of Merrick and the citadel.
FIVE
Madness from Above
The world had become unhinged and so had its Emperor. Kaleva could tell that was what those around him were thinking. He stood on the deck of the airship Winter Kite and kept his eyes on the clouds rather than on the officers that stood on each side of him. The thrum of propellers sounded very much like war drums, and the strong wind at his back was pushing him onward.
Yet even in this moment of power, all he could think of was the open mouth of the Rossin, and the gleam in the eye of del Rue. Those were the images that chased him in his dreams, but haunted him just as much in the daylight.
He shook his head, trying to banish them. Kaleva knew he could trust no one—that had been proven in the disaster of the Mother Abbey. His advisors had been corrupted by runes and the undead—even his own sister had been tainted by association. It was as his father had told him. “A ruler stands alone, and no one is above suspicion.”
He’d always thought his father was just being cruel, but now the Emperor fully understood he’d been communicating the truth.
However, Kaleva smiled to himself, for a surplus Prince in a distant land, he had come far. His father, the King of Delmaire, had supplied him like a sacrificial calf to the bickering Princes of Arkaym as a figurehead of an Emperor, and he had shown them all.
He would fight the hallucinations of the geistlord and the unnatural man that commanded them. The Emperor would not give in to fear.
“General Beshan?” The Emperor shot the name over his shoulder, and the old man, with his salt-and-pepper beard and battle scars, snapped to attention.
“Imperial Majesty!”
“How long before we reach Sousah?” Despite the speed of the airships, they did not move as fast as Kaleva wanted. It made him more than a little irritable. He wanted to experiment with the tinker’s contraption immediately, and it would be a nice example for the rest of the rebel Princes; when they saw what he could do, they would scamper back into line.
“Another few hours,” the general muttered through his mustache.
The Prince of Sousah had declared for this Pretender, this sister of Raed Syndar Rossin. Many principalities—most in the west—had declared for her. They claimed the Conclave of Princes that had summoned Kaleva across the ocean to rule was invalid, and that they had been pressured to agree to his appointment. Instead, they wanted a scion of the Rossin house to rule over them. The very thought of that family made Kaleva grind his teeth together. The Rossins had been tainted right from the very beginning thanks to that geistlord. They were abominations and traitors to their race.