To distract herself, to keep her from another fight with her own Soulbound Vessel, she turned her attention to the one object in the room she didn’t understand. Behind a shattered section of wall, inside what must once have been a hidden closet, there was a knot of gray-green flesh the size of her entire body. More than anything, it reminded her of the Heart of Nakothi, as though the Heart itself had grown a hundredfold and swallowed something inside.
Between the folds of its flesh, she caught a glimpse of silvery bars and wires. Like an intricate cage of polished steel, packed into Elder flesh.
She’d examined it for two whole days with no result, and had only barely resisted the temptation to burn it away with her Soulbound power. But she’d forgotten to ask her new, unhelpful guide about it. Until now.
Jerri pointed to the mass of metal and meat. “Is this what they’re after?”
Her companion turned to her, studying her through sightless eyes. “So even blind humans can find the truth if they root around long enough.”
She gripped fistfuls of her red pants to keep her irritation in check. No one had ever nettled her quite so thoroughly as her blindfolded guide; even with a Vessel that provoked her to rage, she had maintained an agreeable disposition for years. She thought of herself as quite a gentle person, though she longed to blast this man to smoking pieces. “You would be the expert on blindness, I suppose.”
“Indeed, thank you for noticing,” he said gravely. “I can tell Readers apart from the blind, though most cannot. It’s a skill I spent much of my life perfecting.”
As with most everything he’d said, that statement tied her brain in knots. He could tell the difference between Readers and ordinary people? How? Calder was one of the more skilled Readers she’d ever known, and even he couldn’t do that. Perhaps only the Emperor could.
She examined him more closely. His skin was dark enough, he was the right build, and he spoke in oblique riddles. Perhaps he was a royal; one of the direct descendants of the Emperor. That would certainly explain his attitude.
The room shook again, and this time the air between Jerri and the hidden silver cage rippled. It was almost invisible, as though someone had thrown a rock and managed to disturb space, and for a moment an image of another place flickered in front of her eyes. It was so vivid that it swallowed all of her senses—she smelled burnt wood, tasted the salt of the ocean, saw sunlight on waves—and so quick that she couldn’t make out details.
It was the vision of a Reader, shared with her for a split second. She’d seen such things before.
“Did you see that?” she demanded.
“I’m not permitted to, I’m afraid. Safeguards.”
She pointed to the flesh-covered steel again. The gesture didn’t help anything, since he couldn’t see it, but she felt like pointing. “What is that? Why do they want it?”
“It’s the key that controls the world,” he said softly. “Almost obsolete now, but it has its uses.”
Jerri was going to wring answers out of this man if she had to sift them from his ashes. “What uses?”
“At this moment? In this place?” He smiled again, his gold teeth gleaming. “It’s bait.”
The room continued to shake as the enemies outside—the Imperial Guard, she supposed—kept launching their attacks. No matter how she pleaded, or demanded, or threatened, her guide gave her no more answers.
Which was fine, she eventually decided. If no one would tell her what she was supposed to do in this overgrown room, she would decide for herself. And she’d already decided where she would start: by burning her way out.
CHAPTER FIVE
Two Imperial Guards dragged Calder Marten out of the Emperor’s palace. He had been kept in a room, not a prison cell, but he was still a prisoner. His eyes burned from a night spent weeping over his father instead of sleeping.
His father, who had been killed on the Emperor’s orders. Right in front of his eyes.
One of the Guards was a slender woman with vertically slitted eyes, whose head jerked at the slightest sign of movement. A pair of feline tails twitched behind her, and the hand that wasn’t holding onto Calder’s shoulder sprouted short claws. Her partner loomed over her, a muscular giant with bony spikes growing out of his skin like ominous armor. He supported most of Calder’s weight, propping Calder up with a forearm when the young man looked likely to fall. His spines jabbed into Calder’s chest every time.
They both wore the red-and-black uniforms of the Imperial Guard, marked with the Aurelian Shield crest: a shield emblazoned with the moon-in-sun emblem of the Aurelian Empire. Like everyone else in their Guild, they had been alchemically imbued with the power of Kameira, forever changing their appearance and giving them a host of strange powers. None of them more frightening than their Guild Head, who could kill with little more than a touch.
Calder tried to drum up some anger at the Head of the Imperial Guard, but the image of the woman killing his father brought him nothing but grief. Jarelys Teach wasn’t responsible for Rojric Marten’s death.
The Emperor was.
And so was Calder.
May his soul fly free, Calder thought, and almost wept.
The pair of Guards dumped him out on the street as soon as they passed through the gate of the Imperial Palace, and he didn’t bother to stand up.
The woman pointed with one claw. “An Imperial officer has been assigned to supervise you for the foreseeable future. He awaits aboard your ship, in the harbor. Do not attempt to leave the city by land, or you will be hunted down. At dawn tomorrow, if you have not departed on your ship, you will be hunted down. If for any reason your officer fails to make his regular report, you will be hunted down.” She spoke as though she read from an especially boring shopping list.
Calder just nodded, still collapsed on the paving stones. He hadn’t expected to be assigned an officer, but it made sense. He owed the crown for a ten-thousand-goldmark ship. They weren’t simply going to turn him over to the Navigators without any supervision.
“Report to your ship by sundown at the latest,” she continued. “If you do not, you will be hunted down. Do you know your way to Candle Bay?”
“I wish I didn’t,” he said.
Calder waited until the Guards were gone before pushing himself to his feet. There was no point in going anywhere except straight to the ship. His mother lived in the city, but she couldn’t help him, and he dreaded telling her what he had done. His best chance at freedom lay in The Testament, his new ship, and in his job for the Navigator’s Guild.
Maybe, once he cleared his debt, he could make the Emperor regret ever letting him live.
Jerri appeared at his shoulder, placing a feather-light hand on his arm. “Calder?” Her eyes were dark, warm, concerned. “Can you walk on your own?”
He demonstrated by marching a few steps down the road, scarcely paying attention to where he was going. “We have to get to the harbor.”
“I heard,” she said, hovering like she expected him to collapse.
He remembered the Emperor’s face, cold and focused, with the crown gleaming gold on his dark, hairless head. It focused his willpower and his anger, propelling him through the crowd and down the crowded streets. “No one ever stops him,” Calder said. “No one can.” Jerri nodded as thought she understood perfectly.
“Someone should,” she responded.
He had expected more of an argument. She drifted along beside him, apparently unconcerned, her eyes forward and her braid hanging down her back. Her eyes were red and half-lidded, as though she too had gone without sleep.