Instead, her thoughts buzzed with worry for Ludivine, and she couldn’t stop wondering where Corien had gone. Here she was, far from home, separated from Audric, and Corien was nowhere to be found.

Obviously he would have reasons for staying away—but she couldn’t imagine what those would be. She despised the fact of his absence even as she was grateful for it.

She turned onto her side, frowning at the moonlit window. Long ivy plants framed it, their branches swaying gently in the breeze. She opened a feeling of love to the next room—Lu, are you awake?—but heard and felt nothing in return.

She swung her legs out of bed, slipped on her nightgown, turned—and was met by a swift, darting shadow. It grabbed her and turned her, wrenching her arm behind her back, and placed a thin, cold blade against her throat.

“Don’t move and don’t scream,” whispered a voice, “or I’ll cut your throat in two.”

Rielle recognized the voice at once.

It belonged to Princess Kamayin.

34

   Eliana

“My grandmother told me, and her grandmother told her, that Festival was once the merriest city in the world—a place of light and music, art and beauty. At the turn of each new season, the whole city stopped everything to celebrate, for days and days. Heart-of-the-sea trees once blanketed every hill and field and canyon. They were bred by Saint Tokazi and planted by Saint Nerida herself—one for each human killed during the Angelic Wars. They bloomed in April and shed their petals in September. Even after the Blood Queen’s death, the trees regrew. But then the Empire came and cut down every tree that bloomed. My grandmother’s grandmother said that for long weeks the air smelled like fire and that the sky went dim and cold.”

—Collection of stories written by refugees in occupied Meridian, curated by Remy Ferracora

After two long weeks spent creeping slowly across the grasslands of Meridian, the endless meadows and thin, spotty woodlands became a landscape of streams and lakes and larger forests in which the sprawling black trees were draped with white-and-silver moss.

The moss reminded Eliana of home, of Orline, and she was quiet that last day, as everyone was, but she felt, in her exhaustion, that her particular quiet was more miserable than the others. It was a thought she was not proud to think, and yet think it she did, over and over, until her mind turned black and brooding.

They waited in a ravine, beneath a roof of moss-strewn tree roots, while Simon went ahead to let the Keshavarzian family know they had arrived. They were a mother and father and three boys, and they lived on an estate called Willow. It was vast, according to Simon—a grand manor house with dozens of rooms, elaborate gardens, rice fields in the sprawling wetlands nearby, a private wood of several acres. They had long been friendly with Red Crown and had fed and housed many a rebel on their estate. But they kept their property and their coin through a careful, meticulously engineered deception.

To the outside world, they were Empire loyalists. As Eliana had served Lord Arkelion in Orline, so did the Keshavarzian family serve Lord Tabris in Festival.

Simon therefore had to approach the estate carefully, for they had not been able to send word of their arrival, and the family’s private soldiers were stationed around the perimeter.

Crouched beside Eliana, Harkan shifted his weight from left to right. “I can’t imagine they’ll be overjoyed to suddenly have seventeen more mouths to feed.”

“If they’re not prepared to help,” Eliana said, “they shouldn’t be a part of this. They should truly serve the Empire and leave acts of rebellion to Red Crown.”

Harkan glanced at her. She felt his gaze inspecting her face, her body.

But Remy, on her other side, was the one to speak. “You don’t look good, El.”

“Neither do you, darling,” she replied with a gentle squeeze of his hand. “In fact, we all look like shit.”

“It exhausted you, what you did for me,” he said quietly.

She heard the note of guilt in his voice and turned to him at once, cupping his face. “And yet I would do it again, ten times over, if it meant keeping you with me.”

“A hundred times over?” he whispered, grinning a little, his eyes shining up at her.

She kissed his filthy forehead. “A thousand times over.”

It began to rain, a light shower that pattered like quiet finger taps on the leaves above. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the tree roots. She opened her mouth and let the fresh water trickle into her mouth, down her neck, into her hair.

Then Harkan tensed beside her. From a few paces away, Patrik whistled softly, alerting the others to attention.

Eliana straightened, tightening her arms around Remy—but it was only Simon, approaching through the trees. Four soldiers flanked him, their weapons drawn.

“Rise slowly,” came Simon’s voice. “It’s all right. They just want to see that everyone is as I described.”

Eliana obeyed, though she hated having to leave the safety of the trees and expose herself and Remy to the hooded gazes of these people she could not clearly see through the rain-soaked shadows.

There was a pause as the soldiers inspected them. The rain began to fall harder; Remy shivered against Eliana’s side, and she nearly swore at them, pushed to the edge of her patience.

Then one of the soldiers came forward, lowering their weapon—a woman, of average weight and height, with pale skin and a head of thick black hair streaked with silver. There was a pleasing symmetry to her features and a sharp light of authority in her dark eyes that made Eliana feel instantly more at ease.

“Come on, then,” the woman said briskly, gesturing at them to move. “You’re fine, you’re all fine. Poor things, you’re filthy. We’ll go in through the back terrace, otherwise my husband, Arzen, will have a fit. I’m Danizet Keshavarzian. I realize that’s rather a mouthful. You can call me Dani.”

They followed her wordlessly through the woods, Eliana watching with half-awake interest as Dani flitted about the group, taking note of their wounds, their supplies, the state of their clothes and boots.

When Dani reached Eliana and Remy, she clucked her tongue at the sight of them.

“Poor darlings. I didn’t realize you would be quite so young.” She stripped off her coat, which was sopping wet, and settled it around Remy’s shoulders. “I know, it’s soaked through, but I can’t sit here and look at you shivering and do nothing. Don’t worry, there’s a fire inside, and Evon’s made a stew. We’ll warm you up right quick.”

Then Dani looked at Eliana, her eyes bright and shrewd. “You’re the special one, aren’t you? The girl who’s destined to save us all.”