Tamsin

I tear down the outer landing, the rain driving against the side of the palace. Fala’s feet slap unevenly on the wet tiles.

“Fa!” I call, though I know it won’t do any good. In the darkness, a rectangle of dim light swings open and she barrels through another service door, casting one look up toward me before hauling it shut. I hit it just a moment too late—the bolt locks.

“Fa!” I shout again, pounding the door in anger. Screaming my frustration, I step back and sweep my gaze down the landing, but it’s no use—even without the rain, it’s too dark to tell if there’s another door farther down. Should I go on, and hope one is close by? Should I go back up through her wrecked office? I don’t know the staff halls at all. By the time I find my way back to this entrance, Fala will be long gone.

I’ve just made up my mind to continue down, when the knob rattles. The bolt slides. Slowly, the door cracks open, and an anxious face appears.

It’s Irena. She steps back and pulls the door wide.

“When I saw you go through the outer door, I figured this was where you’d come in,” she whispers. “It’s the only landing until the boiler rooms.”

I squeeze her arm in thanks as I step inside. She starts to close the door, but I wave at her to leave it open in case Veran and Lark come this way.

“She’s going to the Hall of the Ashoki,” she says, pointing down the hall. “It’s up the left staircase. I think she must be trying to remove the si-oque before anyone sees you.” She looks out the door to where the rain lashes the landing. “Where are the others?”

I point back toward Fala’s office.

“Go he’p?” I ask her, walking backward down the hall.

She dips a short curtsy and disappears into the rain. I turn around and pick up my pace, but not the flat-out run I was using before. When I reach the left-hand staircase, I pause and slip off my wet shoes, leaving them at the base of the stairs. Then I steal upward, throwing long shadows in the light of the hurricane lamps.

There’s a very small landing up top, with an undersize door—one of the hinged wall panels. There’s an ingenious peephole set into it, disguised with a decorative wooden overlay on the far side, allowing servants to peer into the room beyond and avoid entering when there are courtiers about. Through it, the Hall of the Ashoki is dark and silent, with a slice of light spilling from the grand entryway. A shadow flickers—Fala is making her way across the hall.

I lift the latch and push—the hinges move noiselessly. Barely daring to breathe, I slip into the hall, placing my feet carefully on the cool redwood floor.

Fala is being cautious—certain that she succeeded in locking me out, she’s being extra careful not to let the guards in the entrance hall hear her. They’re standing in the open doorway, their backs to the room, murmuring to each other. Fala moves slowly, taking a halting path across the hall to where my pedestal must be. I choose a different route, hugging the very back wall, letting the deep shadows from the towering statues and display cases hide me. Thanks to this, I reach her destination before she does—the only empty pedestal in the whole hall. I place my palms on the cold marble—the place where my statue is meant to go. With a silent heave, I pull myself on top.

She doesn’t notice me at first. So focused on the display case, where the light from the distant doors falls on my dulcimer and the forged si-oque, Fala creeps by the pedestal without looking up. But as she reaches for the lock on the case, she must get some kind of premonition. She freezes, her hand outstretched.

She looks up.

I’m standing with my bare feet spread on the pedestal, a mockery of the other grand statues in the hall. Fala gives a spasm of surprise that ripples through her whole body. I glare at her, my face contorted in anger and grief, my fists shaking at my sides. But I force myself to stay rational, as much as I want to throw myself at her. Slowly, I lift my finger to my lips, glancing meaningfully at the guards just outside the hall.

She licks her lips but doesn’t move. “I can shout for them, and they’ll shoot you as an accomplice of the Sunshield Bandit. They’ve seen your face on the bounty sheets.”

The sheets she surely commissioned, using the painstaking description Poia must have reported to her. Shorn hair. Mute. Trembling with anger, I sweep my hand at the display case, illustrating her conundrum. They could shoot me, yes, but my si-oque is still on my wrist, and the false one in the case.

Her gaze flicks to the case and then back to me.

“You can . . . you can scream, but you can’t explain.” She seems to be weighing her choices to herself. “Poia described to me what your speech is limited to.” She straightens up. “I can remove the si-oque, and call for the guards, and they’ll see you as nothing more than a thief. And you can’t explain.”

I continue staring, letting my gaze bore into hers. She stares back, looking unnerved, and then shakes herself and plunges her hand into her pocket, removing her keys wrapped in her fist so they won’t clink. Breathing heavily, she stuffs the master into the lock and opens the case. She snatches up the false si-oque and buries it deep in her pocket. She steps back, leaving the case open and me standing on the pedestal with the remaining si-oque on my wrist. Incriminating evidence, for sure.

She pauses for the barest moment, as if second-guessing her decisions, and then she does it—she opens her mouth and screams.

“Guards!” she calls, not taking her eyes off me. She expects me to run. “Guards! The Sunshield Bandit’s accomplice! Here—she has the si-oque!”

There’s a ring of answering shouts from the open doors. I bend my knees and drop down to my seat on the cold pedestal. As the guards barrel into the hall, Fala draws herself up, fixing me with a triumphant look. Nowhere to run now.

But I don’t run. I lean over and reach into the open display case, closing my fingers on the neck of my dulcimer. I draw it out and settle it in my lap.

Fala’s face flickers with confusion, but she remembers her role.

“Guards!” she shouts again, pitching her voice into a high, helpless shriek. She wrings her hands as they thunder nearer. Behind them is a knot of servants and onlookers. “Oh please—it’s her! The Sunshield Bandit’s accomplice! Quick—before she gets away!”

It’s a laughable thing to say, and I do—I tilt my head back and laugh, an ugly, humorless sound. The guards spread into a half circle around us, raising their crossbows to sight.

“Quick!” Fala says again to the nearest guard, flinging her finger at me. “Shoot her!”

Enna’s voice, when compared to Fala’s, is even and calm. “Hands on your head, Mistress Fala.”

Fala thinks they want her to get out of the way. She starts to move toward the end of their line, but Enna blocks her path, her crossbow still raised. “I said, hands on your head, please.”

I press three fingers to the frets of my dulcimer and give a hearty strum. The sound blooms into the darkened hall, its acoustics designed down to the tiniest detail to amplify music. Fala gives a great start at the sound, whipping her head back to me.

Any traces of my laughter are gone now—I’m back to just staring at her with every ounce of hatred I can muster.

“You don’t understand!” Fala insists, turning back to the guards. “This is the accomplice of the Sunshield Bandit! She helped her escape, she’s a wanted criminal—there’s a bounty!”

“A bounty I did not authorize.”

The voice is cool and instantly recognizable to anyone who has spent any time at all in the halls of Tolukum. The queen, wrapped in a quilted dressing gown, steps forward, surrounded by a knot of guards and tousle-haired attendants. Beside her, looking tired and rough, but full of grim determination, is Iano. Anything Fala might have been preparing to say dies away. She looks past him to the palace guards whose orders have now changed, to Veran and Lark supporting each other, and to Irena clinging to the shadows behind them. Fala’s gaze drops to the floor, her eyes wide and unseeing, perhaps with a dawning comprehension of exactly what she’s put her foot into.

I pluck a clipped, minor-key arpeggio on my strings, letting the eerie sound fill the hall. Fala recognizes it, and her whole body shudders. The opening melody to “Gathering Storm”—I remember her face now, amid the others in this hall, when I first sang the song.

Iano studies her for a moment, and then looks to me. “We arrived at the hall just before Veran and Lark did. The physician is with Soe—she’s lost blood, but she’s holding on.”

Relief flushes through my body—the hope I hadn’t been able to face before comes crashing back. Soe is still alive. She could make it.

There’s a flick and the sizzle of a match. One of the guards lights a lantern and proceeds to the next one. The warm light in our semicircle grows, throwing our faces into mixed shadow, with Fala at the center.

“You fed me a great deal of lies, Mistress Fala,” Iano says, “and committed a growing list of crimes to accomplish your goal, nearly bringing this country to its knees. I will be curious to hear if it was worth it to you, in the end.”

“Where is the si-oque you have spoken about?” Queen Isme asks him.

Check her right pocket, I sign.

Iano instructs a guard forward. Fala doesn’t even twitch when the guard reaches into her pocket and comes up with her key ring and the false si-oque. He moves to her left side and produces a blood-stained handkerchief, and two more items—a small seal ring, and Iano’s heirloom si-oque.

“I’ll take that,” Veran says acidly, swiping the seal ring out of the guard’s palm.

Iano takes the two si-oques, slipping his over his wrist and studying the false one.

“It’s a rushed job,” he says, unimpressed. “The amber could be passable to a casual acquaintance, but nobody can forge personal si beads. You are fortunate I was not in the palace to validate it—but that was the point, wasn’t it?” He looks up at Fala. “When Veran and I left, you must have been worried someone had a lead on Tamsin, and that news might slip that she was alive. You needed proof for the court that she wasn’t.”

And, I say, and Iano’s gaze shifts to me. She needed someone with the right convictions to send it to—someone who might use it as a sign to confirm a new ashoki.

“Who was that?” Iano asks.

“Kobok,” I say.

There’s a snort from behind the queen. Lark, hunching painfully on Veran’s shoulder, says, “If that is true, it failed. It made Kobok afraid someone is threatening him for faking records for Alcoran slaves. Thinking someone is pointing out that they will finish what Tamsin started.”

The queen turns to her, a stiff line in her shoulders the only sign of her discomfort at being so close to the bandit she had been planning to execute, despite the line of guards separating them. “Faking laborer records? Are you quite sure?”

“Ask him yourself,” Lark replies flatly. Perhaps she catches a smothered wince on Veran’s face, because she hastily adds, “Lady Queen.”

“I shall,” Queen Isme answers evenly.

“Not quite to plan, I suppose,” Iano says to Fala. “But up until Veran and I left, things had been going smoothly for you, hadn’t they, Mistress?”

Fala still says nothing, her gaze on the shadows at Iano’s feet. In the actual interrogation, she’s going to be required to give yes or no answers, but for now she remains silent. Veran shifts carefully under Lark’s weight and pulls out a few pieces of singed paper.

“She took great care to try to dissuade me from provoking you and distracting you from the letters she was sending.” He hands the singed papers to Iano. “There are only two left, but the writing is all there. She was trying to burn them when Lark, Tamsin, and Irena showed up.”

I slide the dulcimer from my lap. It settles on the pedestal with an ambient thrum.

When the threats failed, and you disappeared, I say, she tried something else. She stole the queen’s seal to send those two soldiers to hunt us down in Pasul, and to set the bounties for Lark and me.

Lark is watching me and she translates this for the rest. Iano nods, and when he speaks, his voice is the gravest it’s been yet. “That didn’t go well for anyone, and I admit I am particularly grieved by it, because it cost the lives of two more people. A lot of blood was spilled for your cause, Fala. So again, I ask: was it worth it to you?”

Finally she stirs, raising her gaze just a few inches to Iano’s knees.

“I have only ever served the interests of this country,” she says. “I have only ever wished for its stability and prosperity.”

“Ha!” My laughter rings out like my dulcimer chords after all the hushed voices. With a meaningful glance at Lark, I say, You wanted a prosperity that doesn’t exist. You wanted a prosperity that grants you power at the expense of others. And to gain it you almost tore this country apart.

Fala stares at my fingers while Lark gives her my words, perhaps finally realizing the extent of what I can do with them.

You didn’t take my voice, I confirm. You just spread it around.

She shakes herself and looks up at my face, hers creased in anger. “Who are you to speak to me about power? You force these ideas onto the court, you debate them with each other over tea and cake, you weave them into love letters as poetry, while we slip around you, invisible, making your world turn . . . and yet you don’t even bother to understand the hierarchy you’re trying to destroy! Give up your power first, Tamsin, give up your voice, and then tell me to give up mine! And you—” She turns abruptly to Iano, and then looks past him for Veran. “And you! Fighting to undo a system without giving up anything yourself—”

“Bullshit.”

All heads swivel to Lark, who pushes herself off Veran’s shoulder. With one arm wrapped around her ribs, she unconsciously throws her shoulders back, her eyes boring down on Fala.

“That is Hire bullshit.” Lark waves stiffly to Veran and Iano. “You are not wrong about noble folk being blind—sometimes on purpose—to the people below them. Noble folk can be very, very stupid, and greedy and selfish.”

Next to her, Veran shifts, his gaze darting to the queen, but Lark continues. “But that is not really what you are so mad about. Tamsin was at one time a slave, so you think she is supposed to be below you—but instead she comes here and rises over you, and then tries to make the other slaves equal to you. Not take away your job, Fala! Just make them equal to you. But to you that feels like an end of power.

“You want to talk about giving up power? You want to talk about giving up a voice?” She waves to Irena behind her. “Talk to your workers who are taken away from their families, whose homes are erased and turned into nowhere, who are put into the bottom of your system. Talk to the kids in my camp who come from locked wagons—the tiny kids with the brand, the big kids with made-up names because they do not know who they are. Talk to me sometime. I will fill you in.”

There’s a ringing silence, much more profound than my strums on the dulcimer. I grin at Lark. Veran’s gazing at her like he might get down on one knee right now. Queen Isme is regarding her coolly, as if considering her for the first time, and then she turns and addresses the gathered company.

“I think we’ll leave it there for tonight. We shall delve into plenty of other details later. Guards—please escort Mistress Fala to a secure cell and order a watch, then you may take your leave. I will send someone else to place a watch on Minister Kobok’s door—we can conduct that interrogation in the morning.”

Enna’s cadre busies themselves with the orders. Fala’s gaze is back on the ground, no longer demure, but angry. She lets the guards secure her hands behind her back without a struggle, and doesn’t look at any of us again as she’s led from the hall. Their footsteps fade away.

Queen Isme rests her hand on Iano’s shoulder. “I must draft notices to the ministers for emergency sessions tomorrow. I recommend you all take some rest while you can.” She pats him tiredly. “Perhaps request a bath.”

He grimaces as her swarm of guards and attendants turns with her for the door, but the queen pauses, her gaze falling on Irena.

“What is your name?” she asks.

Irena’s gaze widens and rivets on the floor. “Irena, Lady Queen.”

“You are the one who found the injured woman in records?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

Lark stirs, as if preparing once again to jump to Irena’s defense, but the queen only nods.

“You did a great service tonight. This monarchy has not served you well in the past—with guidance I hope to do better for you in the future. Please consider yourself and anyone else under bond on temporary relief until more permanent arrangements are made. I will put the order in to . . .” She pauses, remembering her head of staff is heading to prison. “. . . someone in Services. Thank you.”

Irena curtsies low as the queen and her entourage pass by. She straightens but keeps her eyes on the floor, moving only when Lark claps her shoulder.

Once the queen is gone, Iano lets out a long, weary sigh and drags a hand over his face. “Kuas, what a night. Is everyone all right? Lark?”

She grunts, both arms hugging herself. “I am not too bad, if I am not having to do any more running and climbing. Bandages might be good.”

“We’ll wake one of the healers. Anyone else?”

“Just scrapes,” Veran says, flexing his palm. “Maybe something worse in my hand.”

“Tamsin?”

If Soe is okay, I sign, then good. Very good.

He looks past Veran and Lark. “Irena? Are you all right?”

She seems rooted to the spot, her fingers clasped at her waist. “Yes, sir.”

“Good. I echo my mother’s thanks to you.”

Irena makes a sound like a cheep, wavering in the clutch of Lark’s arm.

There’s a silence while we all trade tired glances, our faces ragged in the lamplight.

We did it, I finally say.

Iano nods. “I admit, I doubted whether coming back to the palace was a good idea. But you figured it out just in time. If you’d told me yesterday, I wouldn’t have believed you.”

“I can’t believe it was Fala,” Veran says quietly.

“I can,” Lark says with a grimace. “She is like so many others—thinking people being treated equal is an attack on them.”

“I have a question,” Irena whispers from behind Lark. “It’s just . . . it was no secret what your message was as ashoki, Lady Tamsin. But—how did Fala know she could use you to blackmail the prince? This is the first I’ve heard of you being in love. How did she know?”

I think she told us just now, by accident, I say. Poetry in love letters. I look at Iano. We may have been discreet in public, but we exchanged plenty of letters that would have made things obvious. Mine were hidden in one of my jewelry boxes. Where were yours?

“On top of my wardrobe,” he admits.

Both places easily found by someone cleaning. I shrug resignedly. A mistake.

“One of many.” Iano rubs his eyes. “It’s going to be a nightmare to sort out. We’ll have to be sure she has no more allies in the palace. Someone new will have to be appointed head of staff. And then we’re going to have to figure out how to dissolve the labor bonds and get people either employed or back to where they want to go.”

It would be best, I say, to pass something quickly. Something decisive. Something that dissolves the bond system immediately.

“It’s going to be difficult to get past the ministers,” he says wearily. “I guarantee you the first thing they’ll pounce on is where the money will come from.”

“The Ferinno Road,” Veran says. He stares around at us as we all look at him. “Well—that’s where the money was slated to come from before. We had it all laid out. If Fala hadn’t disrupted everything, we’d probably be heading home with an official agreement in place. Though . . .” His eyes widen. “If Fala hadn’t disrupted everything . . .”

We wouldn’t have Lark, I finish with a smile.

Lark snorts. “Lucky for all of you.”

“Blazes,” Veran says shakily. He turns to her, obviously rattled. “By the Light . . .”

“Cut it out,” she says, her palms pressing her sides.

“I’m serious. Lark—if it weren’t for Fala, I never would have had to come find you.”

“Tamsin also would not have gotten hurt,” she says sharply. “Or Soe. Or any of us. Do not make Fala into an accidental hero. Things happened the way they did, and we can’t change them. So what happens now?”

“You are welcome to stay as guests, of course,” Iano says. “Once we all recover a bit, we could make good progress on the road.”

“I don’t have the authority to make decisions for the East—not on my own,” Veran says. “But more important, it’s September. Dequasi. The reason this was our end date was to beat the autumn floods that wash out the trails in the Ferinno. That means if Lark and I don’t leave for Callais soon, we could be stuck here until the spring.”

“Of course,” Iano says. “It’s just—the road, the funding . . . even after I’m crowned, we can’t make decisions without the collaboration of the East . . .”

“You could come with us,” Veran suggests. “Come to Alcoro. All the right people will be in Callais. From there, we can go forward with everything we planned before.”

I rap the pedestal for their attention. I think going to Alcoro is a good idea. But not yet. Like you, if we travel now, we will be stuck there for the winter, and Moquoia needs to regain its balance after the last few months. What if we plan to meet in Callais once the desert is passable again in the spring? That way you can go home to your families, and we can steady things here. Iano can be crowned. Then we can meet again—and start over.

There’s something like a collective sigh of relief.

“Uah,” Iano agrees.

Veran nods. “That’s a good idea.”

Lark has a pained look on her face—I’m not sure if it’s from her ribs or the thought of what awaits on the far side of the Ferinno.

Are you okay? I ask.

“Uah, yeah, um—the talk of leaving just reminded me.” She rubs the back of her neck. “Someone . . . should maybe go up to Minister Kobok’s rooms and see if he is okay.”

“Why wouldn’t he be okay?” Veran asks.

“I—tied him up.”

“You what?” Iano barks.

“And I punched him in the face,” she says.

I break out into a peal of laughter. Iano claps both his hands to his face in agony.

“What am I going to do with you all?” he groans.

But Veran’s lost the last of his restraint. After a heartbeat of just goggling, he takes two steps toward Lark, clasps her face, and crushes his lips against hers.