The Bitter Kingdom

“Does such a creature exist?” I ask, reaching up to reverently trace a spidery black leg.

“Not anymore, though we have found their remnants. When your people came to this world, they destroyed or changed everything they considered a threat. Now only Inviernos remain, along with some lesser cousins of this great bug.” His voice turns wistful. “We are all shadows of what we once were.”

I open my mouth to ask more, but he pushes the tapestry aside to reveal a low, dark tunnel. I give Storm a questioning look.

“I knew there was a secret entrance,” he explains, “though I didn’t know where. The ruling houses are arrayed in a crescent around the Temple of Morning. I’m sure each house has an entrance of its own.” He stoops low to follow the seneschal inside. “I believe it is safe, Majesty,” he says over his shoulder.

Mula steps in after him with no hesitation, but Hector peers inside and says, “There is little quarter for sword work.”

“An enemy would share the disadvantage,” I point out.

He nods and gestures for me to go first. But he adds, “Have your daggers ready.”

19

THE tunnel is so small that we go single file. Mula walks upright; the rest of us duck to avoid the low ceiling. Only the seneschal carries a torch, and once the tapestry swings back into place, I can’t see where I’m placing my feet. It’s the perfect place for an ambush, and we all step quietly, ears pricked.

Since coming to the city of Umbra de Deus, my Godstone has been riotous with activity—cool one moment, hot as a fire the next. All the things my stone responds to are gathered in once place—close friends, enemies, other Godstones. The Deciregi aside, who knows how many animagi inhabit this place, each with a stone of his own? So I have been ignoring it, knowing there is no way to parse its message, to determine which proximate thing it responds to at any given moment.

But as we proceed down the tight, dark corridor, everything changes. The flashes of hot and cold are replaced by a soothing vibration, an almost melodic sensation that, if it were a sound, might be a song. It fills my limbs with buzzing, joyous warmth, as if I’m about to greet the sunrise. “Storm?” I say.

“I feel it too,” he says, but there is no surprise in his voice.

The torch ahead winks and flashes with the seneschal’s steps. The light snags on a gouge in the wall, a curving darkness set off by lighter gray.

“Stop!” I say, and everyone halts. I brush past Mula and put a finger to the gouges. Not gouges—scripted letters. I’ve seen them before.

The gate that leads to life is narrow and small so that few find it.

“Just like in the tunnel beneath . . . leading to the zafira,” Storm says.

“Yes.” What he didn’t say, what he didn’t want the seneschal to hear, is that these same words are also carved into a tunnel beneath the catacombs of my own capital city.

“I’m beginning to wonder if they mark a place of importance,” he says. “Maybe a place of power.”

“It’s worth investigating,” Hector says casually. “When we have the time for such curiosities.”

When we get back home, he means. Assuming there’s a home to go back to.

“His High Honor the Deciregus is waiting,” the seneschal says in a biting tone, and he proceeds down the tunnel without bothering to see that we follow.

The ground slopes upward, so gradually that I don’t realize it until my breath comes harder and the muscles in my legs warm. The hum of my Godstone grows stronger. And even though I have not called it, the zafira slithers from the earth into my limbs, filling me with power. Our path brightens.

The seneschal pushes something aside, and cooler air hits my face. We exit the tunnel into a colossal stone chamber shaped like a perfect half moon. The curved wall stretches the height of several men, and is covered floor to ceiling with lines of black runes in a language I’ve never seen before. Large tapestries are arrayed at regular intervals, though they seem tiny against the massive wall. I presume that each one hides a tunnel leading to one of the ruling houses. Ten tunnels means ten approaches. We could be surrounded in the time it takes to blink.

Opposite our tunnel, the flat part of this huge half moon, is a wall of stained glass panes set in iron cross work like a portcullis. Each pane is a different color, with shades of blue and green dominating. Wavering torches, set in sconces around the wall, give depth and shine so that the glass seems molten.

Wind whistles against cracks in a few of the glass tiles, and beneath that, barely within my range of hearing, is the sound of rushing water. Or maybe it’s just my Godstone, humming so violently now that surely everyone else must sense it too.

Before us stand two Inviernos in white robes. One is Storm’s father, Pine. The other is a woman with straight crystal-white hair that reaches her knees. Her pale, perfect skin is stretched too tight over tiny features. I could not say how old she is, and I can’t begin to read her oily black eyes, but her carriage speaks of veteran poise.

“Your Majesty,” Storm’s father says. “I present Her Eminence The Low Earth Is Friend to Even the Soaring Hawk. She is the Deciregus of Tinkling Fountain House.”

She inclines her head. “Your Majesty,” she says, drawing out the address so that it sounds like a hiss.

“Your High Eminence. I am pleased to meet you.” And I am. I’ve never seen a female animagus before. But she stares at me with such haughty disdain—eyes narrowed, chin high—and I know there is no possibility of kinship between us.

“Tell us of the zafira,” she commands.

“My agreement was with the Deciregus of Crooked Sequoia House,” I say. “You, I neither know nor trust.”

Her eyebrows raise, and I barely hold my smile in check. I could never get away with being so impolitic in Joya d’Arena, but lofty contempt seems to be the right tack in Invierne.

Storm steps forward. “We count Tinkling Fountain House among our greatest allies,” he says to me. “Like my father, they believe the war between us has gone on too long and at too great a cost. The Low Earth . . . Hawk will be eager to come to an agreement.”

“Tell us the location of the zafira, and then you will have your answers,” Hawk says.

Not a chance. “I want my answers first.”

Hawk exchanges a look with Storm’s father. Then she says, “We believe you should go first, as a demonstration of the righteous honesty that is in accordance with God’s will.”

That is exactly the wrong thing to say to me. I practically spit the words. “Do not dare tell me about God’s will. I have the conduit of his power living inside my body, and even I do not presume to know God’s will. As far as going first . . .” I look around at my companions: a former enemy who risks his status and reputation for my cause, a slave girl who defended me with her own life, and the man who has promised to give up everything for me.

I speak softly but clearly, and my voice echoes through the vast chamber. “We have come a very long way at tremendous cost to be here. I believe that counts as going first.”

Storm’s father regards me steadily, but his unnatural black eyes make it impossible to read his expression. He leans over and whispers something to Hawk, and she nods in response. He straightens and says, “Very well. This way.”

He gestures us all toward the glass wall. Hector’s hand goes to his scabbard, and I check my belt for my daggers.

As we approach, a section of the wall begins to appear a little different from the rest. Were I to look askance, it would seem exactly the same—a patchwork of colorful leaded glass. But straight on, up close, the colors are muted, and the glass ripples like a desert mirage.

“Is that it?” I ask no one in particular. “Is that the gate?”

“Indeed,” Storm’s father says. “Only those who command the magic of the world can sense the Wall of Morning, much less pass through it. It’s the final test required for an initiate to become an animagus.”

I step a little closer. “So I just walk through?”

“If you can,” Hawk says, and I am absolutely certain she is smirking. “Beyond it are the answers you seek.”

“Your Majesty,” Hector says. “As your attendant, I would be remiss if I did not observe that this appears to be a trap.”

He’s right. Something surely waits for me beyond the wall of glass. I know it the way I know the sun rises in the east.

“May I take an attendant with me? Or must I pass through alone?”

“You may try,” Pine says with a shrug.

I step closer to get a better look.

“Elisa, stop!”

I whirl to face Storm.

His eyes are huge, and his breath comes too fast. “The initiates, the ones in my class. Half of them never returned.” He eyes his father, then lowers his head in shame. His betrayal of his family is complete.

Pine growls low in his throat, and he strides toward his son, metal-clawed hand raised as if to strike his face.

“No!” I cry, reaching for the zafira. I surround Storm with a shimmering miasma of power. Pine’s claws collide with the barrier, showering blue sparks, and his hand recoils wildly. He stumbles back, clutching his wrist.

“You’re not supposed to be able to do that,” he hisses. “You’re supposed to be untrained.”

I give him an edged smile. It was an accident, mostly. I haven’t been able to create a barrier since I was on the island, in direct contact with the zafira. But what I say is, “You have no idea what I’m capable of.”

He straightens, tucks his hair behind one ear with the metal claw of his forefinger, and regards me steadily as if nothing has happened. “In that case, show us you are capable of passing through the gate.”

“You agreed to go first,” Hector says.

“Very well.” And he turns and walks straight into the shimmering wall that is not a wall. It parts like water and swallows him whole.

“My turn,” Hawk says with a coy smile, and she follows Pine through the gate.

I stare at the exact spot where they disappeared. Except for a slight shimmer and blurring of color, it seems solid.

“What are you going to do?” Hector asks. “I fear an ambush awaits you on the other side.” His voice echoes in the vast chamber, and it should make me feel like we’re alone, that our hosts have deserted us. But my neck prickles.

Storm adds, “And there is the small matter of whether or not that gate will kill us, your recent demonstration notwithstanding.”

Mula says nothing, but she hitches closer to Storm and grabs a fistful of his cloak.

“Their power source is on the other side. I can feel it,” I murmur. How else could I create that barrier so easily? Why else would my Godstone persist in this manic humming? It’s the very thing I’ve been looking for. So close at hand.

I approach the wall as close as I dare. My nose almost touches it. Then I shift to the side until the shimmer fades and the colors brighten. I reach up and rest my forefinger against a vivid blue pane. It’s cool to the touch. Ordinary. Laughter bubbles in my throat, and I cover my mouth to control it.

“Elisa?” Hector says.

“Get back, all of you. Against the wall. No, better yet, get into the tunnel behind the tapestry.”

Hector’s eyes dance in the torchlight. “I don’t believe our hosts will be pleased with this turn of events.”

I grin. “Indeed, they will not.”

Once everyone is safely behind the tapestry, I back as far away from the glass as I can—until my rear hits the stone wall. It’s a pity, really. The wall is so ancient and beautiful. Probably a national treasure. I pull a dagger from my belt.

The zafira rushes into me the moment I call it. I hold it inside myself for a bit, savoring this feeling of vitality, of power. After too long a pause, I allow some of it to trickle into my dagger.

The blade is a part of me, an extension of my hand, as I point it toward the wall. Control, Elisa. Use just enough.

I release the zafira, and a bolt of blue fire streaks toward the wall. The glass shatters, and a sudden wind blows my hair back. Broken panes crash to the ground, followed by a wash of tiny shards that float glitteringly like falling snow.

My companions peek from behind the tapestry and gradually creep out. Hector’s gaze roves my body, searching for injury, as Mula and Storm survey the destruction.

Glass covers the floor. Beyond the shattered wall is a huge stone balcony, open to the night sky. Pine and Hawk stare at me, mouths agape. A shining stream of blood, black in the meager light, pours from a cut on Hawk’s cheek.

Behind the Inviernos is a massive stone slab—no, an altar—shadowed against the night sky and the glowing mountains beyond. The sound of rushing is too loud now, a cacophony of wind and water and something else, something just beneath my range of hearing. The zafira, maybe. The air is crisp with predawn chill, and I wrap my arms around myself, against whatever comes next.

Pine shakes with rage, and his metal-clad fingers twitch as licks of blue flame dance between them. He is barely holding the zafira in check. “Do you realize what you’ve done?” he says.

“I believe I just succeeded in using magic to pass your gate,” I say. “Doesn’t that make me an animagus?”

He continues to gape as Hawk absently wipes at her cheek with the sleeve of her cloak, smearing blood. Hector shifts beside me, and I hear the light whisk of drawn daggers.

Pine breathes deep through his nose. The fire licking his metal fingers winks out. “Very well, then,” he says. “Come and find the answers you seek.” He whirls and steps toward the black altar.