Merle moved with mind-battering speed—dragging me with him faster than I could consciously follow—and stopped us with a metaphysical bang! that knocked the breath from my lungs in my faraway body. I caught up mentally and surveyed Sondra and the other captives where they anxiously hid in the stairwell. A guard lay prone and bleeding sluggishly. Two servants had been tied and gagged, propped more gently in a corner. So they’d had company—and had handled it. Merle manifested, appearing before Sondra as the part man, part raven I’d met in the astral realm, wearing the purple wizard’s robes.
Sondra reacted faster than thought, recognizing him immediately as one of Anure’s wizards from the throne room that day, and swung the stick to lash him with it. Merle didn’t move to stop her.
And I understood why Merle had forced me to come along.
“No,” I told her, and in my panic, I stopped her hand. She froze in disbelief—both that I had, and that I could.
“Lia?” Sondra scanned the air in my general vicinity. “Don’t stop me! Look at him! This is one of—”
“I know, but it’s also Merle, our friend. Trust Me. Follow him.”
I felt it, the moment she made the reluctant choice to trust me, and I released her.
“Con?” she asked.
“Alive. I’m going to him now. When you get the captives to the ship, set sail,” I added. “That’s a royal command.”
Merle inclined his head, then pointed me in the direction of the throne room. Casting a purple glow over them all, he opened the door and strode out. After a bare moment of hesitation, Sondra took Rhéiane’s hand. Exchanging a solemn look, they followed Merle, the rest of the captives trotting behind like trusting ducklings.
Hoping against hope that they’d make it, I flew back to Con.
I didn’t bother with subtlety this time, and Ambrose felt me enter the throne room, his blue-robed figure familiar to me from that nightmarish time before. As with Merle, he looked unlike himself as I knew him on Calanthe—but that ancient forest feel to him hummed beneath, like distant music. He gave me a slight nod of acknowledgment. Vesno also lifted his head, giving a yip of welcome, and Con quieted him.
Con, who was chained before Anure. A large and menacing figure, dressed in scarlet leather from head to toe and carrying a large double-bladed axe, loomed over Con and Percy. Anure’s executioner no doubt. I would yell at Con later about his stupid plan.
Ruthlessly shoving down my panic—if ever I needed my icy calm, it was now—I quickly assessed the rest of the scene.
The wizard in purple seemed to be there but stood immobile, a placeholder for Merle who was risking himself to evacuate our captives. Fifteen minutes to get them to the ship. The false orchid ring lay among glass fragments, the square base that held the real vurgsten bomb beside it. I touched it with my mind and found it moments from exploding. Bomb or execution—Con was going to die.
Unless I stopped it.
So stop it I would. I snuffed out the spark, leaving the bomb inert.
Noting my action, Ambrose spoke quietly to Anure. The black and red wizards, standing together, seemed to sniff the air, as if sensing my presence. A lance of glasslike obsidian sliced in my direction. I ducked it, a move I’d practiced during that long night with Ambrose and Merle. As I did, Anure spoke, and the guards seized Percy, the executioner moving into position. Merle remained immobile, not yet returned to this body, which meant the captives were not yet safe.
It was up to me to save Percy and Con—and I couldn’t do it as a ghost with minor magics.
Resolved, I narrowed myself back into my physical body, the map tower coming into focus around me. I could do this. Moving my foot, the jewelry heels tinkling musically, I touched the solidity of the rock hammer. Gathering the power of Calanthe, I stepped through the physical distance, bringing the rock hammer with me, and manifested in Anure’s throne room with a clap of sound and light, the laws of our reality shuddering in protest.
Con gaped at me. Everyone did, except Ambrose, who grinned with youthful exuberance. He lifted hands, miming a silent round of applause. I kept an eye on Merle, who remained motionless. They weren’t clear yet. Come on.
“Lia?” Con asked tentatively, a confusion of reactions on his face. “Are you really … here?” Vesno bounced to me, licking my hand.
“In the flesh,” I replied wryly. I toed the rock hammer, giving Con a slow smile. “I believe this is yours.”
He grinned, his dimple winking into existence like the sun through storm clouds. Popping the manacles apart, he hefted the rock hammer and swung it at a raft of guards that, finally recovered from the shock of my appearance, advanced on me with swords pointed. The guards fell before Con’s mighty swing like wheat before a scythe.
He wheeled on the executioner, who’d paused, double-bladed axe poised. “You’ll want to put that down,” Con growled. “And not on Percy’s neck.” The executioner hastily obeyed, setting down the axe and raising his hands in surrender. The guards holding Percy released him and Percy regained his feet, straightening his clothes, then bowed deeply.
“Your Highness,” he said with reverence that, for once, I felt I deserved.
Look at what I can do.
Anure had slowly risen, staring at me with astonishment—and glittering lust, whether for me or the jewels I wore. Behind me, waves of reaction muttered through his court. Shock, awe, and … hope?
I turned to face them, giving Anure my back in contempt, raising my voice. “I am Her Highness Queen Euthalia of Calanthe. Conrí of Oriel and I have come to release you from your service to the interloper. Today the false empire falls.” They all shifted, murmuring, watching me with wide eyes and tense expressions—and noticing my glittering costume, more wealth than they’d seen on anyone but Anure in ages. “You don’t want to be here,” I added gently. “I advise you to go. Now.”
For a frozen second, no one moved—then they fled, some sending up inarticulate cries, others moving with the sly stealth of professional sycophants. I turned back from the wave of their frantic exit and glided forward, pausing at Con’s side. Percy stepped behind and to the side of us.
“Lia,” Con said out of the side of his mouth. “The bomb is…”
“Handled,” I replied just as quietly. Merle still hadn’t moved. How long had it been?
Anure sat again, attempting to pull his cloak of Emperor of All the World around him, but to my eye his confidence had taken a blow, the holes in his composure growing larger as fear shredded it. “What is the meaning of this uncouth display, Euthalia?” he sneered. “Prancing about in your jewels and frightening My court with petty tricks worthy of a street magician. You will pay for this. Guards—seize her.”
The guards started for me again, and Con swung his rock hammer, taking out three at once. I blew a kiss at the ones approaching my side, sending them tumbling until they lay still. I leveled a cold stare on Anure. “You were saying?”
He opened and closed his mouth like a fish, then pointed at his wizards. “Deal with her!”
The red and black wizards had been conferring. They gestured for Ambrose and Merle to join them. Ambrose gazed back, standing very near Anure, and shook his head slowly. The red wizard hissed a command and the black wizard started up the throne’s steps, stopping at Merle, seizing his arm. Or the spot where Merle’s arm should have been. The purple robe shivered, then fell into an empty puddle of cloth. Confounded, the black wizard stared at it, then turned back to me, expression contorted in a rictus of rage.
The red wizard glided toward me, his smooth face mild, black eyes glittering with venom. “What have You done, Your Highness?” he asked with soft menace.
“What you only dreamed of,” I replied in the same tone. “What I was born to do—and what you will never be able to do, you hack thief and humbug.”
I crouched, laying the hand with the orchid ring against the cool marble. “Observe.”
The tendrils of my consciousness spun down into the earth, the orchid reaching for the spirit of the land sleeping beneath the hulk of the citadel. It rumbled in reply, coming awake with vigor, answering my call in a very different voice than Calanthe’s.
“It seems You’ve learned some things since last we met.” The red wizard smiled thinly, expression calculating, the glint in his eyes acquisitive. “But Your Highness is a rank amateur, and You meddle at Your peril. This is scratching the surface of what You can do. Work with me and I can teach You. I have the knowledge You will need.”
The connection to Yekpehr established, I stood slowly, making sure the thread from the orchid ring to the land stayed strong. I gazed back into the mild and cruel eyes of my chief torturer, his ruthlessly cold savagery veiled with an academic’s manner. Beyond him, Ambrose remained near Anure, a restraining hand on Anure’s shoulder, gaze on me and not on the raging black wizard, who’d climbed the steps to shout at him, gesturing wildly. Anure looked stunned, staring at me as if he’d never seen me before.
“No, thank you,” I replied, pouring the living vitality of Calanthe into Yekpehr, prodding the monster. “I’ve tasted your brand of tutelage and I don’t care to again.” Facing him like this, I found I wasn’t afraid, that I could touch those memories and they didn’t weaken me. I was no longer his prisoner and plaything. I tickled Yekpehr and the ground rumbled beneath us, a stone falling from the ceiling to the floor with a boom! Small stones ricocheted from the impact, and dust filled the air.
Something flickered in the red wizard’s gaze, and he signaled to the black wizard. Nerves? “You’re a reckless fool. You have no idea how difficult it is to hold a land one has acquired.”
“Don’t I?” I asked softly, noting how the black wizard picked his way down the steps toward us. “I think I know far more than you ever will, you with your stolen blood and pretensions to power.” Yekpehr rumbled in agreement, several windows shattering.
The red wizard winced. “You can’t hold two lands at once. You need someone of the blood or You’ll doom us all.”
I didn’t show my dismay, but he was right on that. Already I could feel Yekpehr shaking off my leash. It knew I had no right to it—and it roared for one who did. I should’ve thought to ask if any of Yekpehr’s royal line remained among the captives. Surely there must be someone, since Anure had tamed it.
A raven flew into the room. Shedding purple sparks and black feathers, he zoomed to land on the black wizard’s shoulder, beads of blood welling up from where Merle’s suddenly wicked talons pierced the wizard’s flesh. The red wizard made no move to help his colleague; he watched the orchid ring with rapt fascination.
Agatha and Sondra ran into the throne room, following after Merle, and skidded to a halt at the sight of the enormous room empty but for unconscious guards, shards of glass and stone, and the few of us. Though I was happy to see Sondra, I shot her a glare. “I thought I told you to set sail with the captives.”
“What?” Sondra yelled, as if hard of hearing. She banged the heel of her hand against her ear. “Did You say something?”
I did my best not to laugh. The yearning of Yekpehr stretched that direction, reaching—not for the ship in the harbor with the captives—but for Agatha.
Ah. Several pieces settled into place.
“Bring Agatha to Me, Con.”
He did, without question, offering Agatha his arm as if at a formal event and escorting her to me. Crouching again to place my ring hand on the marble floor, I held out the other for Agatha. Anure screeched and was silenced. The red wizard watched with narrowed eyes, unmoving otherwise, pinned in Merle’s grip.
“Behold the power of the Abiding Ring,” I told him as Agatha slipped her cold, spindly fingers through mine. The world seemed to spin as I connected Agatha to her land again, handing over those pulsing reins with relief.
Yekpehr groaned mightily, like a lover reunited with the beloved thought dead, and Agatha seemed to swell with that vigor, her papery skin taking on a glow as the sharp bones of her face softened, gaining fullness of life like a wilted plant finally watered.
“Nooo!” Anure howled, and I released Agatha, standing again. I swayed, dizzy as Calanthe rushed in to fill the hole Yekpehr left in me, and Con caught me with a strong arm around my waist. I looked up at him and he grinned down at me, fierce and proud.
The red wizard backed away, staring at Agatha as if she were something monstrous. Then at me, with wonder. “It’s true,” he whispered. “You are the promised queen.”
“I’ve had enough of prophecies, quite frankly. Regardless, I can do what you never will. Choke on that.”
Face contorting with rage, he grew in size, his presence reaching into multiple dimensions, the dense bloodred sphere of his being truly frightening to behold—and anchored to our reality by only a flimsy strand of a flesh-and-blood body. With a sharp thought, I seized that slim physical connection, holding him fast so he could not escape. “Hit him,” I told Con.
Without hesitation Con swung the rock hammer, crushing the wizard with a single blow. He crumpled, leaving barely a red smear on the dusty marble. The black wizard shrieked, lunging for Sondra, Merle clinging to his shoulder—grabbing for the walking stick she yanked out of reach. “That is mine,” he snarled.
“All right,” Sondra replied with her flesh-eating grin. “Catch!”
“No!” he screamed as she threw it at him. He dove to catch it. Merle vanished in a cloud of purple shards. The stick hit the floor just as the black wizard did, a bilious cloud rising up. When it cleared, he’d vanished, leaving only a bit of ragged black cloth behind.
“Save Me,” Anure shrieked to Ambrose and Merle. “Do something, you idiots.”
Merle in raven form circled, then came to land on Con’s shoulder. Anure gaped, then turned his pleading to his one remaining wizard. Ambrose, hand still on Anure’s shoulder, gazed down at him with something akin to compassion. “You are destroyed,” he said softly.
“Anure Robho,” I said in a clear voice, the one I used for delivering a sentence of execution, though I would not be the one to decide his fate, a burden I was happy to hand over, “you are nothing but a sad, pitiful excuse for a human being. Look around you. You are alone. The lands you stole are slipping from your grasp. They will be returned to their rightful bloodlines, just as I have returned Yekpehr to Queen Agatha’s care.” I bowed to her and she inclined her head regally, then turned her gaze on Anure.
“Get off My throne,” she said.
Merle flew up into a cawing spiral. Ambrose gave Anure a shove. He tumbled down the long steps, falling in an ignominious heap at the bottom, weeping and protesting. Cutting his hands on the shattered glass, he held them up to first Con, then me—showing us the blood as if we might take pity.
“Please,” Anure sobbed, “have mercy. I never meant for it to get so … large. It was the wizards! They put a spell on Me to want more and more. I only wanted Valencia. For My mother who loved Me and was cruelly used. I only sought justice, and what was supposed to be Mine. Percy! You remember, how it was in the beginning.”
“I do.” Percy gazed on the sobbing mess with true pity, perhaps seeing him from long ago. Con met my gaze, a promise there of a story to be told.
“Help Me, cousin,” Anure pleaded. “I’ll give you Valencia to rule, as we both know it should’ve been yours all along. I’ll give you Aekis! Or more. Whatever you want. You helped Me, so I’ll help you. We were always as brothers.”
“We were,” Percy agreed sorrowfully. “But I disavow all relation, all affection. You are nothing to me.” Percy looked to me. “Can You restore Valencia to me, as you did with Agatha—if that is the boon I ask of You?”
“I can, and I will,” I promised. “But I will because it belongs to you by right of blood. You may ask another boon of Me.”
Percy shook his head. “I only want Valencia, so I can take responsibility for my land, as I should have done to begin with. Perhaps by reversing that first, terrible mistake, I can take one step in a long journey to make amends.” He turned and walked away from Anure.
Con stood over the crumbled and sniveling heap that had been the false emperor, fingers flexing on the rock hammer. He glanced at me, eyes gold flames in his dark face, black hair hanging wild, and he shook his head a little, as if clearing it. “Rhéiane?”
“Safe,” Sondra told him, then clapped him on the shoulder. “And reasonably sane. Anxious to see you, so I’m glad you’re not dead, Conrí.”
“Thanks.” He snorted. They both turned their gazes on Anure, bonelessly sniveling at their feet. Indeed, the man had been reduced to less than nothing. “Here we stand,” Con said, “after all this time.”
Sondra nodded. “Not quite how I pictured this moment.”
“No torch,” Con commented, and she grinned at him. They both glanced at me as if asking permission.
“Go ahead,” I told them. “Kill him if you need to.”
They exchanged a long look, and Sondra held up her hands with a sigh. “I think this is enough.”
Con let out a breath, too, and set down the rock hammer. “Yeah. You’re right, Lia. This is enough. And this decision belongs to the ruler here.” He glanced to Agatha. “That is You in the portrait hall at Calanthe, isn’t it? Your Highness,” he added.
Agatha smiled wryly. “Long ago—and now again, it seems. Thank You, Your Highness,” she said to me.
“See if You still thank Me after a few days of all the work You have to do, Your Highness,” I replied drily, and she laughed. I ended up smiling back—and I realized that I’d never had this. Agatha would be a peer, a colleague of sorts. I was no longer alone.
“I’ll leave Anure to You, Your Highness,” Con said with a slight bow, and Agatha nodded.
“This is going to get confusing fast,” Sondra complained, “with so many queens about.”
Con turned to me. “Thank you for coming to my rescue.”
“Well,” I offered with a regal nod, “I owed you one.”
“The ‘promised queen,’ huh?” He raised a brow, uncertainty in it, so I cupped his face in my hand and gave him a long kiss.
“Who knows? I’m still me.”
Emotions crossed his face like rapidly moving clouds, but he firmed his jaw, then kissed me back. “Yes,” he replied, as if I’d asked him something else entirely. “You always are. Let’s get out of here.”
“First we must free Ambrose,” I told him.
He looked confused, and I indicated Ambrose still up on the steps, Merle in raven form perched on the arm of the throne. Con’s expression darkened. “Ambrose?” he said, finally putting it together in the aftermath of all the furor. His fingers flexed. “He’s one of Anure’s wizards?”
“And Merle,” I confirmed.
“I’m going to strangle them both, those fucking traitors.”
“No,” I said, stopping him with a hand on his arm. “It’s a long story, but it’s not what you think. Trust me.”
Con gave me a long look, hearing that I’d asked him as the woman, not the queen. Slowly, he nodded. “As you wish, Lia.”
Love burst through me. “Bring your rock hammer.” Taking his hand, I led him to the steps of the throne. “Suffice to say,” I added as we climbed, picking our way through the scattered treasure from so many forgotten kingdoms, “that Ambrose and Merle have been prisoners of Anure and his wizards as much as anyone. And we would not have succeeded without them.”
“That’s not precisely true,” Ambrose called cheerfully. “There’s not a direct, linear relationship between my intervention and the ensuing events. You could argue that—”
“Ambrose,” I interrupted, “better to stop while you’re ahead.”
“Excellent point, Your Highness.” He cocked his head at Merle. “I told you.”
Merle cawed in reply.
Laying my hands on Ambrose, using the same technique that I’d used to tether the red wizard long enough to sever his physical attachment to this world, I made the manacle tethering Ambrose’s leg show itself. Con frowned at it, perplexed. “How did Ambrose—”
“Please don’t get him started,” I cautioned, and Ambrose beamed angelically. “Just break it?”
Con swung his hammer on the chain, and it dissolved as if it had never been. Ambrose sighed like a person relieved of a tremendous weight. “It really is a long story,” he assured Con.
“I don’t care,” Con snarled. “You come near me or mine again and I’ll kill you.”
“As for that,” Ambrose replied cheerfully, “I think I’ll call in that favor you promised when I saved Her Highness’s life.”
Con stared at him in fulminous realization. He glanced at me and I shrugged. I’d warned him not to make cavalier promises to a wizard. “You can’t make me forgive you,” he shouted, swinging back on Ambrose.
The wizard held up his palms, sorrow in his face. “We don’t ask forgiveness. Only your forbearance.” He looked to me, nodding in confirmation that they’d asked the same of me.
“What will you do now?” I asked.
Ambrose and Merle exchanged a long look, the raven cawing softly. Ambrose nodded. “Our erstwhile colleagues are fled, but not destroyed. We have much to do.” The air folded around him, and he manifested in a green robe, looking young, his staff topped by the emerald. Merle flew to it. “We’ll see you again someday, Euthalia, Conrí.”
“Don’t count on it,” Con grumbled. I lifted a hand, able to see the threads of their transmutation to another reality … until they were cut off, and Merle and Ambrose were gone.
Con turned down the steps, kicking and picking through the treasure, looking for something. I knew what it was—perhaps they all guessed, for everyone waited patiently. At last he bent down and retrieved a crown, glittering with fat rubies.
“The crown of Oriel,” I said on a sigh.
He nodded, grief and satisfaction giving him an almost relaxed mien. “Let’s find yours.”
I shook my head, indicating the crown I wore. “I have one. I don’t need more than this.”
“We’ll catalog everything,” Agatha said, surveying the immensity of the job with some dismay. “As Your Highness restores the other bloodlines to their lands, they’ll be wanting their crowns—and no doubt funding to rebuild.”
“Good thinking,” I told her. “We’ll stay in communication?”
“Of course.” Agatha studied the pile. “I suppose mine is there too, somewhere.”
“Do you want help looking?” Sondra offered.
“No.” Agatha gave us a sad smile. “I think I need some time alone, to … equilibrate.”
Nodding in understanding, I inclined my head. “Best of luck. Call on Me for anything at all. I still owe You a boon.”
She spread her hands at the ruined throne room. “This is more than enough, Your Highness. You’ve given Me something I never thought to have again.” Emotion threaded through her voice.
Having known the agony of separation from Calanthe, I understood. “This was Your due. And You won’t have an easy road ahead. You’ll think of something You need. When You do, ask.”
“Thank You, Euthalia.”
I smiled at the sound of my name from her. My peer and companion. Con cocked his head at the exit. “Ready to leave this place?”
Yes. Yes, I was.