“Stone and scree,” Lorelei said, feeling a panic coming on, “the praetorian guard?”
Creed nodded and wiped sweat from his brow. “I came right here after I got your note and saw eight of them on horseback, headed this way.”
“You’re sure they’re headed here?”
“Want to take the chance they’re not? They’ll be here any moment.”
Rylan stood up and headed out the door. Lorelei followed but paused in the doorway and spun to face Kellen. “Thank you.”
“Lorelei, wait,” he said, reaching a hand out toward her.
“I can’t, Kellen—”
“Remember our talk about using all your resources?”
“Yes. So?”
“You seem to be ignoring one the few people who can help you with the Domina. She’s Tyrinia’s daugh—”
“Skylar?” Lorelei shook her head. “No. I’m not dragging her into this.”
“You have to. It’s too important, Lorelei.”
Creed tugged on her wrist. “Let’s go!”
The front door of the abbey groaned open; the rapid clack of boots and the clatter of armor echoed down the hallway.
Kellen nodded, and Lorelei bolted after Creed. They caught up with Rylan at the iron-bound door at the end of the hall, slipped through the door and into a portico that overlooked the abbey’s rose garden. They hurried between the rows of flowers and into an alley. They were nearing the end of the alley, when two praetorian guardsmen in red feathered crests and gleaming lorica segmentata rounded the corner of the abbey’s brick wall. The taller of the two had a spread-winged eagle centurion design on his breastplate.
Rylan extended a hand behind him. “Back up!” Then he whipped something at the ground—one of the plum-shaped packets.
The packet burst at the guards’ feet with a sound like breaking glass. White powder hissed and billowed into an impenetrable cloud. The soldiers disappeared inside, coughing, hacking, and cursing. A crossbow twanged; the bolt struck the building with a sharp crack next to Lorelei’s head.
The cloud wafted and caught Lorelei in it. Her nose burned. Her eyes watered. She staggered into clear air, coughing uncontrollably and followed Creed and Rylan down the alley. “I thought you said those packets were harmless.”
“They are. Just breathe and exhale. It’ll wear off soon.”
They followed the alley to the bank of the Wend. The burn in her throat became an annoying tingle, and the sting in her eyes was nearly gone. They ducked under a bridge, heard the clop of hooves on Old Town’s cobbled streets. Someone was bellowing orders. They stood silently, the water rushing below them, and the sounds of the guards slowly faded.
Creed wiped his eyes and stared at Lorelei. “Mind telling me what you had to talk to Kellen about with the praetorian guard after us?”
“I have to talk to Skylar, but I can’t go to the palace.”
Creed blinked his red eyes and grinned. “You don’t need to get into the palace.”
“I don’t?”
He pointed across the river, toward the temples and arches of Ancris’s regio annalis. “The Syrdian Arch . . . The dedication ceremony is today. Skylar’s going to be there.”
Lorelei was just working through how they might do it when Rylan said, “Won’t she be surrounded?”
“Yes,” Creed said, “but I know a fellow.”
• • •
An hour later, Lorelei was standing on a wide thoroughfare in Golden Meadows, waiting for the dedication ceremony, where she would hopefully be able to arrange a private meeting with Skylar. Creed and Rylan were with her, hovering around a manure cart, an integral part of their disguises. The cart had a rack of shovels and horsehair brooms and a massive wooden barrel filled halfway with horse shit. They wore drab clothes of the sort worn by Ancris’s sanitation workers: sandals and brown robes with the hoods pulled up for the two men; Lorelei in similar sandals, a brown dress, and a beige palla around her head to hide her red hair.
Along the center of the street, a line of chariots, cavalry, and foot soldiers moved steadily forward and under the new Syrdian arch. Both sides of the street were packed, maddeningly so. As far as the eye could see, men, women, and children cheered as the parade passed them by. Many revelers, especially the children, wore willow wreaths entwined with white jasmine, which signified peace and had been used in Ancris for centuries.
Lorelei took a deep breath, huddled with Creed and Rylan, and told herself over and over again that no one could possibly recognize her. She stared at the Syrdian arch, which they would go to when the parade was over. It was a magnificent piece of architecture with a dedication along the top and statues of the men who’d played a part in Syrdia’s conquest, including Quintarch Lucran himself. Lorelei spotted a dracora riding a dragon with a lance held high overhead, the design Skylar had included to honor Ransom, and her heartbeat finally slowed. The memory of Skylar sharing that personal touch with her, and the love she had for Ransom, was soothing, but then a man bumped into Lorelei from behind, and the crowd around her came rushing back into her consciousness.
“Make way!” Creed pushed the man aside. “Make way for the procession!”
Lorelei appreciated what Creed was trying to do, but she didn’t know how much more she could take. Every moment that passed felt as if the crowd were pressing tighter, but the smell of manure from their barrel in the wagon actually calmed her, took her to quiet pastures, far from Ancris. “Nothing like a bit of shit to remind you how deep in it you are.”
Rylan looked down at the muck and laughed deep from the belly. He had a good laugh, she decided.
At last, the procession finally ended, and a talon of dragons flew in formation overhead. Another five dragons swept past, then another—five talons in all. A bright, glittering indurium in the final group trumpeted so loud, it tickled Lorelei’s ears. The crowed gasped and cheered.
The crowd followed the parade and began pressing in and around the new arch. Creed heaved the manure cart into motion. Rylan and Lorelei grabbed brushes and shovels and began picking up horse dung from the street. Hardly anyone even looked at them.
A stage had been built under the arch. Quintarch Lucran stood there, staring out over the crowd. In a nod to the empire’s elder days, he wore sandals laced to the knee, a toga, and a golden willow crown. Three people stood behind him: a legate in shining armor, a volarch in black dragonscale, and Skylar in a stunning, sleeveless stola made of shimmering white silk. Even with all the madness at the abbey and the rush to reach the parade in time, Lorelei couldn’t help but notice how radiant Skylar looked. The golden brooches at her shoulders complemented the dress and her braided blond hair. Her rings and bracelets sparkled in the sun.
When he had everyone’s attention, Quintarch Lucran told of the conquest in Syrdia, but Lorelei paid him little mind. She was watching Skylar, willing her to look in their direction. When she finally did, Lorelei pulled her palla down off her bright red hair. Skylar did a double take. Lorelei pulled her palla back up and pointed to the Sanctum of the Eternal Flame at the end of a long promenade. It was a monument to Alra’s sacrifice at the close of the Ruining. Skylar and Lorelei had visited the sanctum and the hedge maze behind it many times.
Skylar nodded subtly, and Lorelei turned toward Creed and Rylan. “Let’s go.”
They pulled the cart away, pushed it through the temple’s iron gates, and left it between a pair of quince bushes. Then they walked along the promenade with some of the crowd already making their way home. Inside the temple, beyond the fluted columns, a massive brazier burned. An honor guard of two soldiers holding pila stood to either side of it.
Lorelei led Creed and Rylan beyond the temple into the shadow of the Curia Ancrata, a massive building with an impressive rotunda and a hedge maze. Lorelei motioned to a patch of blossoming cherry trees not far from it. “Wait over there.”
As Creed and Rylan headed toward the cherry trees, Lorelei entered the maze, navigated its simple design to an open space with a marble pool, and sat on a bench near the tall hedges. She waited as dozens of people wandered through the maze. Nearby, two girls with flowers in their hair giggled as they tossed bread to the ruby-colored fish in the pool. In the relative calm, Lorelei finally managed to unclench her hands, and her breath slowly returned to something like normal.
She was starting to wonder how long it would take Skylar to break away when she heard footsteps on the gravel behind her. “Don’t turn around,” called Skylar’s voice from beyond the hedge. “Act natural.”
Lorelei spoke just loudly enough to be heard over the din of conversation and the girls’ laughter. “Thank you for coming.”
“Where’s Bothymus?” Skylar asked curtly.
“I sent him back to the eyrie. He’s probably napping there now.”
“You could have bloody told me where you were going.”
“There wasn’t time.”
“Well, you could have—”
“Skylar, please, I can’t explain everything now. I need your help.”
Skylar paused. “You have no idea how much you need my help right now.”
“Why? What’s happened?”
“It’s your mother,” Skylar said. “She’s been taken for questioning at my mother’s insistence.”
Lorelei’s mouth went dry. “Who took her?” she asked, praying it wasn’t the Church.
“Vashtok and Nanda,” Skylar said. “I tried to convince Mother not to, but she was adamant. She wants you to turn yourself in before she’ll even consider freeing her.”
“Goddess of light . . .”
“Look, I’ll do what I can on that front,” Skylar went on, “but there’s more. Ash—”
Footsteps crunched on the gravel path from the far side of the hedge. “Good day,” someone said, and continued on.
Lorelei waited for the footsteps to fade and then asked, “What about Ash?”
“He’s hurt. As far as I know, he’s still unconscious. He’s at The Bent Tulip now.”
“The Bent Tulip? Why, by the great white mountains, would he be there?”
“Since Master Renato’s death, he’s been determined to find out about the peat you showed him. He couldn’t do that in the alchemystry or the shrine. He needed someplace quiet, someplace discreet. But something went wrong. Eladora sent word a few hours ago. She heard an explosion of some sort and went to the room he’d rented. She found him unconscious and his equipment shattered.”
“Did you go see him?”
“I couldn’t leave the ceremony. It would’ve drawn attention to him. Eladora’s note said his breathing had stabilized and that she has someone tending to him. Just go, okay? I’ll be there as soon as I can, and then we can decide what to do about your mother.”
“All right,” Lorelei said. She felt numb, like she couldn’t even think.
Skylar’s footsteps faded, and Lorelei left the maze and walked to Rylan and Creed beneath the cherry trees.
“What’s wrong?” they asked in unison.
“My mother’s been taken, and Ash is hurt. I’ll explain on the way.”