Lapis’s eyes stung from the smoke, and the caustic scent of burning metal and who-knew-what floated with it. She clapped her hand over her mouth and gagged, though the meal she had eaten the previous night had long since disappeared, so she had nothing to puke but acid. She stroked her throat, fighting the temptation. With everything that had happened, why get sick now?
Snow and slush covered the slope, with a few rocks retaining a thick sheet of ice. The sudden slips and slides did nothing to help her nausea, and she hated that she crawled the last of the way to the ridge; she did not think anyone else had her problems.
She glanced back, but only saw hints of the ‘shroud through the smoke. A steady whoosh of sound not caused by the wind created a background for the louder crackles, snaps and pops from the skyshroud and the stone it obliterated.
Patch set his hand on her back, a comforting touch. “I’ll lead,” he said. “I’m betting the nearest nobles have run away, leaving their staff to load up valuables. We should be able to take the back alleys without much trouble from guards; they’re going to be too busy carting shit to wagons or getting their tails out of there before things really hit the Pit.”
“You sound certain of that,” Perben said.
“I grew up around them. Never underestimate the cowardice of those who owe allegiance to Gall. They got their positions through turning in friends for fake insults and pretending his every idea was gold. Their guards have even less reason to remain loyal.”
“Throwing an ornate chair and some nice dishes into a wagon while your employer’s already saved his skin isn’t going to keep them there,” Lapis agreed.
“Not all noble staff are cowards,” Perben growled.
Was that a reference to those slaughtered at Nicodem?
“Let’s go,” Faelan said. His voice held a hint of command, but otherwise, no emotion infused it. The traitor cast him an uneasy look, tugged on a curl dangling from his forehead, and turned to follow Patch; he realized he just pissed her brother off, and when fury raged in his chest, it was best to let him cool off and shed it. Jetta half-lifted her lip in an annoyed snarl and brushed past; Faelan motioned to her to go. Lapis thought she should carry the rear—she did not go to all that effort to have him shot in the back so near to successfully escaping—but arguing with him would do no good. She settled her conscience by walking in front and peering behind so often it irritated him.
The ridge had more rock covered in ice than snow, and she walked around rather than over the potential slipping hazards, sinking deep into the white stuff, but preferring that to falling and tumbling down the hill and perhaps starting an avalanche. As her fear faded into weariness, her shoulders slumped and her steps became less pronounced until she waded through the drifts instead of raising her boots. She fell far enough back she could not see the other three through the thick fog rising from the rivers, and cursed her body because she and Faelan needed to remain with the rest of them.
Her brother caught her, his smile both encouraging and exhausted. “You know you shouldn’t have tried to save me, right?”
“Maybe I should have brought more help,” she conceded.
“Jetta said you took off by yourself.”
She stared at the snow, a stray tear dribbling down her cheek. “And you know, I couldn’t have done anything else.”
“It’s funny, all I could think about was that you and Jetta and Midir were safe. And I was so wrong about that.”
She frowned and nudged his side when he moved around a large protrusion and strayed too near. He laughed, humor threaded through the strain.
“It’s not my time,” he conceded. “I will take this gift and wallow in it until I breathe my last.”
“Hopefully in a bed, when you’re too old to move and have decided it’s time.”
“It will be. So many, but especially you, paved the way for it.” He patted the side of her arm with the back of his hand, the bracelet she gave him so long ago jangling on his wrist.
She smiled and held up her hand, showing that, however tight a fit on the gauntlet, she wore his return present.
The ground shook as a faint explosion reached them. A moment later, small bits fell from the sky. Energized by the fear the ‘shroud might slide over the jutting cliff, they picked up the pace and caught the other three, who crouched behind a cluster of boulders where the slope started to even out, staring further down the fog-concealed mountain.
Just what they needed, more fog. It could fill the entirety of Jiy, with only the tips of the taller mounts peeking through. Hopefully it hid, rather than inhibited, their escape.
Lapis pressed against the rock next to Jetta, and now that she stopped moving, she could hear the shouted orders—and the screamed responses of noble staff who did not want to stay and load a wagon when they might get squished into oblivion by a crashed skyshroud.
She did not blame the staff. Why stick around and die for a noble who obviously did not care about them?
“Sounds like the guards already took someone out, so they’re jumpy,” Patch said, rolling his head around as he rubbed at the back of his neck. “We need to go around the back fence and not be seen.”
Faelan half-laughed. “Has anything been easy this escape?”
The squeal of metal reached them.
“Fuck!” Patch yelled. “RUN!”
They streaked to the left and down the last bit of ridge. Rock crumbled behind them. The shredding of metal overcame the lesser noises as wind tore across their backsides. Chunks of dirt and man-made debris, carried by plumes of dust, fell around them. The earth quaked, too hard to stand.
She fell into Faelan, who helped her to Patch, and Jetta and Perben joined them. They clustered together at the base of a giant boulder and pressed together under the umbrellas.
Snow rolled downhill, some forming larger balls, some tiny, bouncing spheres. None of it stayed on the ridge, but careened over the sides and into the gullies, dislodging drifts that slid into the mansion. The ‘shroud streaked past where they had hid, sending the fog swirling away in spinning patterns. It bumped up, crashed down, then slid towards them.
SHIT!
Lapis sprinted away, her thoughts narrowing to jumping over rocks and stumbling through snow. Her eyes remained plastered to Jetta’s back as they leapt across a depression and plowed into crispy crust hiding a softer white blanket. They floundered, sinking up to their hips before their feet touched ground.
A crash. Her heart leapt, and she looked up, expecting the worst. The section hit the hill above them, shuddered, and stopped. Fog drifted across the black metal, hiding it from view.
Chiddle. Dov. Tuft. Had they gotten out of its way?
They hit flatter ground, veered around a stone fence, raced over a wooden bridge that crossed a snow-filled gully, and onto a shoveled lane lined by half-timber houses that looked poor enough, they probably housed staff for whichever mansion they belonged to. The buildings had acted as a barrier for the slides that the explosions dislodged. They needed to get past, before snow and earth completely encased them.
She peered back, a useless gesture because the fog hid signs of approaching khentauree. Hopefully the three had traversed the ledge before it came down. She turned around, worry twisting her gut; they might have caught back up to them while on the ridge, but now?
A handful of people ran down the trampled road, terrified, holding bags with a few belongings, mostly women with children.
“Keep running to the Kells!” Patch shouted at them as they passed.
They reached a larger road with more people and wagons, random bits of furniture and rich décor poking out of the beds. Her partner did not follow it for long, and took an alleyway between a row of estate buildings and the retaining wall behind them, heading southeast.
Shouts and yells, some senseless, some commanding, echoed through the streets, combining with frightened horses and crashes of whatevers. Every mansion they passed had activity, with servants racing through yards, exiting doors with armfuls of stuff and carting it to wagons before glancing at the smoke-concealed mountaintop. They did not bother with the ragged group sneaking past the back fences between properties, too engrossed in evacuating their employers’ belongings.
Those employers, as far as Lapis could tell, had long vanished down the hill. How kind of them.
They reached a busier mansion, and city guards rushed back and forth inside the iron fence, carrying items to overstuffed wagons. Two glanced through the bars as they hustled past, then dropped the box they carried between them. The wood cracked and reddish yellow rocks spilled onto the trampled snow.
“What are you doing?” A frantic woman in a torn blue uniform and a fuzzy brown hat with stray black strands dancing around her head stalked to the clumsy guards. Her light brown eyes were so red, Lapis wondered when the last time she slept might have been, and no makeup adorned her face—even at the early hour, most noble women refused to be seen without it.
She opened her mouth to yell, and noticed them.
“You! You!” she yelled, jabbing her index finger at them. Her voice was rough, as if she had spent the entire night breathing the cold air. Patch pivoted, readjusted the tech weapon on his shoulder so it tipped up, and strode to the fence; she stormed to him, huffing.
Lapis slowed, annoyed. “Patch!” she hissed. They did not have time for him to piss and whine at the knight!
“Oh look, it’s Seeza,” he said. “Don’t you have more to worry about than us?” He flung his umbrella towards the palace.
“What do you know about those explosions?” she asked, pointing an imperious finger through the bars.
“The big bangs?” Patch shrugged. “Not much, as I was on a stake. Did see the ‘shroud go down, though.”
The guards near enough stopped loading the wagons and stared in their direction, aghast. Lapis stalked to her partner, ready to grab his arm and drag him away from the confrontation. She slipped her hands over the one holding the umbrella and glared at Seeza for provoking him. How—
A guard bent to scoop the rocks back into the box—a box with a stylized blue buck standing next to unfamiliar words on it. That logo meant Mesaalle Kez. What in the name of the non-existent gods was Seeza doing with a box from Kez?
“Don’t be ridiculous, of course . . .” Seeza dropped her hand. “You mean that. You think the skyshroud crashed.”
“I don’t think it, I saw it. And those ‘shrouds are heavy. If you’re still here when an explosion rocks another bit loose and it plows through this neighborhood, your day’s going to get a whole lot worse.”
Her ugly grimace cracked her dry lips. “When this is done, I’ll arrest you,” she promised, pressing her face against the cold bars.
“Patch,” Faelan warned as he laughed at the vow. Lapis tugged on his arm, ready to snap at him if he did not heed her brother. They needed to go, and menacing Seeza would not get them to the bottom of the hill any quicker.
“Arrest me? You won’t have a king to arrest me for.” He leaned forward. “Where is he, Seeza? Buried under the palace, with the rest of the high court nobles?”
Trembling, she gave him one last glare before turning and striding away. The city guards eyed them, but instead of confronting them, they turned and ran. She demanded they return, but her words only motivated them to run faster.
They risked their lives for a knight who was no longer a knight, and now that they understood that, they left her to her own devices. Good for them. If she did try to hunt Patch down, she would not have the backup she needed to nab him.
Smoke mingled with the fog above them, and wet ash floated down and coated the streets in a dull grey. She could hear random crashes and shouts, more menacing squeals of metal, could feel vibrations beneath her feet. She looked behind; where were the khentauree? Had the ‘shroud intercepted them?
Wagons crowded the roads and alleys, with frantic drivers whipping terrified horses, who bucked but could not bolt. Servants ran down the streets, ignoring the demands of butlers and stewards and governors of the estate. Guard captains yelled louder than most, but whoever they commanded did not seem ready to follow their orders to pack valuables. Huntsmen trotted with unleashed dogs, some of which took after the fluttery skirts of maids and the flippy coattails of more accomplished men and women.
No one she considered noble fled with them. Maybe they had all been at the palace to witness her brother’s execution, and the Fifth God dealt them a death hand for their lack of empathy.
“I don’t think we’re getting through all that,” Perben commented as their back alley reached a congested thoroughfare, where drivers abandoned their wagons, sometimes their horses and oxen with them. Lapis hated that absence of compassion; no matter her fear, she would have saved the animals first.
“Not without a jumpy guard taking a shot,” Patch agreed. “But that’s not the way I planned to go.” He motioned to a wrought-iron gate twice Lapis’s height that sat between two stately wooden buildings with windowless round towers tall enough, the fog hid their height. The exterior maroon paint with sky-blue trim identified them as accommodations for the puppet kings’ favored rural nobles, who would return to their respective Jilvaynan homes after completing their yearly court attendance. Considering the dark windows, drawn curtains, and lack of shoveled walk, she guessed their owners had long ago returned to their primary estates.
Lucky them.
She looked the way they had come; still no khentauree. “Where are they?”
Patch shook his head. “Lanth—”
“I’m going back for them.”
“Lanth,” Faelan said, setting a hand on her shoulder. “They have a better chance of getting down and to Sanna than we do.”
“I’m going back for them! I—”
“And how do you plan to find them?” Patch asked. “The ‘shroud came down the ridge. We don’t know which way they went to avoid it.” He kissed her forehead. “Both Chiddle and Dov are military-style khentauree. You know that. Faelan’s right. They have a better chance of getting off this rock than we do, even carrying Tuft.” He trotted to the gate. “We need to get through here.”
Somewhere deep, Lapis knew he spoke true, but she could not push herself to believe it. Daring to hope only brought pain, because in the end, despair flattened it into a barely recognizable emotion that reality sank teeth into, tore apart, and buried.
Jetta pointed her weapon at the lock, and a burst of cyan sent it flying. Patch handed Lapis his weapon and umbrella, then pushed the gate open through the snow blockage. They slipped through the narrow gap, cautious not to catch anything on the bars, and he pushed it closed as Faelan broke a thick branch from a nearby bush. Her brother wove it through the bars and wedged it against the side of the stone wall, forming a crude obstacle for any pursuers to get through.
Or maybe it was a sign for Chiddle and Dov?
Lapis stared at the alley, her emotions swirling into an eddy she could not yank them out of. She knew the khentauree chose to help the rescue effort, but that did not soothe her guilt over them becoming involved. Chiddle and Dov should have remained safe in Ambercaast, far away from this mess. And Tuft . . .
Patch reclaimed his burdens, knocking her from her thoughts.
The unshoveled path had leafless bushes lining the way, only broken by closed, green-painted doors with an evergreen carved into the middle panel. Most contained a horizontal split, an ancient style where the top opened so air could circulate in the building without letting wandering eyes see what they shouldn’t. Coriy and its surrounding estates had so many similar doors, Lapis had considered them normal until arriving in Jiy.
They entered a garden concealed in deep snow, the generic fountain filled with the white stuff rather than water. Benches curved around it, and three other drift-laden pathways led to it. Muffled noise reached them, but nothing else indicated something terrible was happening beyond the quiet space.
Patch glanced into the windows, which showed nothing but closed drapes. “My patch hasn’t detected anyone in the buildings. It should be clear to the overlook. That’s good, since we want to be as far away as we can be, if the rest of the ship goes up.”
“Roads are still going to be clogged,” Perben reminded him, tugging at the curls on his forehead.
“We just need to find one where most of the people trying to escape left the wagons,” he said. “A few looters won’t bother us, and we can cross the road without attracting guard attention.”
“I doubt we’ll see many city patrollers,” Faelan murmured. “If Seeza’s group is any hint, they’re fleeing like any sensible person.”
“I can’t believe she missed such an opportunity to stand at the king’s side during a political execution,” Patch admitted.
“Maybe she wasn’t invited. I bet she’s relieved,” Jetta said.
“That might explain why there were only palace guards around, and some of the gossip we overheard.” Faelan ran his hands through his hair and Jetta fished a tie from her pocket and handed it to him. He half-smiled as he wrapped it around his tail. “No one thought the executions were a good idea. Even Kale advised Gall to have a mock trial, just for appearances. He refused.”
Lapis hated Kale as much as she hated Perben. Both did their best to destroy her family, and only luck kept Faelan alive. “Gall always ignored trials for rebels, so I knew I had until dawn,” she said. Her voice trembled, and she tugged at her scarf, annoyed at her reaction in front of the traitor.
Faelan snaked his arm around her neck, pulled her close, and set his cheek against her hood. “And you beat the sun.”
Not quite. She slipped her arm across his waist and hugged him back. “Did you notice the box?”
“Yeah,” Patch growled.
“Box?” Faelan asked. “The one that cracked open?”
“It had a blue buck logo,” Lapis said. “I don’t know what Seeza and her family have to do with Kez, but it’s something.”
“Those rocks were some kind of theerdaala,” Patch said. “Sils modified my sensors to detect a wide range of that mineral family, but those specific ones aren’t in the reference data I have.”
No wonder she was frantic to get it on wagons. Kez might get pretty pissed, if Seeza left the entire load of potential energy sources behind. Too bad they could not find out more. Lapis doubted the minerals would still be there if they sent rebels to nose about after this was all over.
They continued on their current route, the eeriness of it pricking at Lapis. The way was silent but for the crunch of boots, and fog concealed everything within a few lengths of them. Despite the number of mansions they passed, no one seemed inside them, so no man-made lights, just grey ambient illumination.
They passed yet another fountain, and she stared at it, wishing for a drink. Too bad frozen days ensured no water ran in them. Now that fear had released its grip on her, Lapis recognized how hungry and thirsty she was—and she had no idea when she would next indulge.
They reached the overlook. Benches and tables sat under drifts of snow deep enough, she could not distinguish the tops of the white marble from the softer blanket. In front, an overhang with a white wooden railing would have given a sensational view of Jiy, but for the mix of inky brown haze and fog. She anticipated that on clear, warm nights, with the lights sparkling and the scent of damp foliage in the air, it was a gorgeous, romantic spot.
Patch set his elbow on the top rail and leaned over. Lapis joined him and winced; another drop into oblivion from that height, and the fog was so thick she could not see the bottom. Why did the Dentherions have to build their stately puppet-king castle on top of such a mount? Was it just to emphasize how superior they were to the commoner?
Her thoughts drifted to the residents of Jiy. How many people readied themselves for a grueling day of work in freezing weather, stepped out their door, and continued on their way, oblivious to the destruction of Green Castle? What might they do, when the fog cleared and a friend or co-worker rushed to them, yelling and pointing, and they saw the flames rising from the remains of the skyshroud?
“How far down is it, Patch?” Faelan asked softly as he put his hand on the top bar and leaned on it.
“Far enough.” He straightened and pointed his umbrella to the left; stairs began a few steps away, with snow piled against the retaining wall. No footsteps, only the impressions of animal tracks. “That will get us past the upper tier of noble homes. The next one has mansions for nobles with year-round court duties. Expect to see confused, afraid people who might not know what’s going on but have heard the explosions and felt the ground quake. Their employers were probably at the event, and were either burnt to cinders or blown into tiny chunks.”
Faelan pushed from the railing. “Unless one can see the skyshroud, I doubt they will realize what terrible things have happened. We may have clearer roads because they don’t understand the severity of the situation yet, so aren’t considering evacuation.”
Perben walked down a few steps, sinking to his knees in the drifts. “This will be fun,” he muttered, tugging at his bangs.
“Better than getting squished by a ‘shroud,” Lapis told him. He glared at her, lips pursed, but did not reply. Patch grinned and tossed him his umbrella, which he caught with a startled squawk.
She glanced back at the barren walkway, hope against hope to see the khentauree trot into view. Sucking in a quivery breath, she waited with Patch while the others crunched their way to the first landing, then proceeded down, her hand clasped tightly in his palm.
