Danika’s first sight of Karis was as a blaze of light though the small window in the mail coach door as they rounded a curve approaching the Vone River Valley. At first she thought it was a fire on the horizon and then, as the angle changed, she realized the lights were too regular to be anything but gaslights along the major avenues and shining out the windows of the homes of the wealthy. As they drew closer and the angle changed again, she saw there was so much light it couldn’t just be from the homes of the wealthy unless Karis forced its shopkeepers and skilled workers to live elsewhere. Ryder had planned for gaslights on the streets of Bercarit—and later Trouge once the more conservative population saw how useful they were—but she’d never heard him speak of running the lines into private homes.
It was beautiful, in an extravagant way, and she found herself sharing it with Tagget who shifted forward nearly onto her lap to see what she was looking at, and grinned. “I gotta say, I’m glad to be home.”
Carlsan, propped in the far corner, didn’t bother opening his eyes. “Shut the fuck up.”
Kirstin’s eyes were closed as well although Danika knew she wasn’t asleep.
“You’re from Karis?”
He scratched at his stubble and grinned. “Born and bred. We were all stationed there though. Shields never leave the…”
“Shut the fuck up,” Carlsan repeated, this time with an emphasis Tagget couldn’t ignore.
He settled back in his seat, glared across at her as if his indiscretion had been her fault, and closed his eyes looking more petulant than repentant.
Danika sighed. I want to go home. She saw Tagget shift uncomfortably, reached over to touch Kirstin’s knee although she knew the other woman wouldn’t acknowledge the contact, and watched the lights of the city grow closer.
The drivers, or the soldiers up with them, Danika didn’t know who, sounded the horns as they approached and clattered through the outskirts of the capital without slowing significantly. Finally, as buildings closed in on every side, the horses slowed to a trot. And then a walk.
The lieutenant banged on the roof. “Shades down!”
Although it might have been because she could no longer see, the city seemed larger than Danika imagined possible. She heard people cursing the coaches. Once she heard people laughing. She heard music four or five times. The lights grew brighter again, turning the paper shade from brown to amber. Then darker. Then so dark she wondered how the horses, let alone the driver, could see.
The coach stopped.
She heard the lieutenant climb down. Knew it was him because he was the only one who kicked the wagon edge as he searched for the last step. She heard him challenged, but couldn’t hear his answer although she strained hard enough the net sent a pulse of pain for the first time in hours.
Metal creaked and dragged across stone as gates opened. The coach moved forward, slowly.
Stopped again.
More voices.
Carlsan, his eyes open now, straightened but stayed where he was. Tagget lifted the edge of the shade and peered out.
Someone shouted orders. She didn’t catch what was said because the door was thrown open and they were ordered out.
Kirstin opened her eyes as Tagget reached for her arm. Just for a moment, she looked to be in such pain that he froze and Danika reached for her instead. Then she blinked, and the blank expression she’d worn since leaving Aydori returned.
“Come on, move.” Down on the pavement, Carlsan stretched an arm into the coach and grabbed Danika’s sleeve. Once he had her attention, he let go and stepped back. When she stumbled a little on the small step, Tagget caught her elbow from behind until she steadied.
“Thank you.”
He mumbled something that might have been no problem.
When only Kirstin remained, Danika leaned back inside and took her hands, tugging her gently to her feet and out the door.
They looked to be in a courtyard behind the palace. Dark and small, it had room for only one coach at a time and, unlike at the posting houses when they were allowed to mingle, Lieutenant Geurin gave orders to keep them separate. Tagget and Carlsan moved them over by the wall. Danika watched from between their shoulders as a few minutes later Jesine and Annalyse emerged from their coach. Annalyse looked as though she were barely holding it together, but Jesine, although she wasn’t much older, held her back straight and her head high, sweeping the assembled company with aristocratic disdain, the net glinting within auburn curls like a crown. Before her marriage, her family had been as high in Aydori society as it was possible to get and not be Pack, and she intended everyone in this courtyard to know it. When she glanced her way, Danika smiled.
To her surprise, Murphy helped Stina down from the third coach, the two of them laughing like they shared a joke. Which would be impressive as Stina spoke next to no Imperial.
Now they were all on the ground, Danika ducked her head, found a breeze, and murmured, “Calm. Stay calm.”
Lieutenant Geurin pinched her chin and lifted her head. “What are you doing?”
“Praying.”
He smiled. “Good.”
There were suddenly a great many more men in the courtyard. Orders were shouted and the soldiers who’d taken them from Aydori were replaced by clean-shaven, unsmiling men in spotless charcoal-gray uniforms, with low brimmed caps instead of the familiar bicorns. Lieutenant Geurin was assured General Loreau would see him in the morning, and then their soldiers—the soldiers who’d been with them since Aydori—were gone.
Eleven strangers watched them with cold eyes as though they were lesser beings. No curiosity. No sympathy. Two soldiers—no, two guards for each of them.
Although they wore no visible rank insignia, she assumed the man standing apart had to be their officer.
He gestured and the heavier of her two guards shoved Danika toward the open door.
She stumbled, caught herself, and turned to glare. “There is no need to be…”
“Silence.” The officer held up what looked like balls on leather cord. “Or be silenced.”
Another time she might have argued, accepted the consequences, but she was tired and sore and hungry and her bladder was full and there were a hundred excuses available if she needed them.
The building looked new. Something about the hard edges made her think it had been built purposefully for them.
When she saw the six doors opening into the windowless hall, she knew it had been.
But the guards kept them moving past those doors too fast for their exhaustion to be able to command their legs, stumbling, half-dragged at times, the lamps set high along the long wall flickering with their passing. At the end of the hall, a seventh door opened into a vestibule. Danika had almost no time to see it as one of the soldiers tightened his grip on her arm and dragged her through another door and down a flight of stairs. Heart pounding so loudly it was all she could hear, she started to struggle.
It wasn’t the stairs that terrified, they were as new and sterile as the hall they’d just left, but the smells that coiled up them spoke of an older, darker part of the palace. Ryder used to tease her because her nose was so limited, but she’d have given anything right now to be able to smell even less.
Blood. Offal. Rot. A dark patina layered onto the stone by centuries of pain and fear.
Stone all around them now, huge ancient blocks. Almost no light. The shadows told stories of desperation and the death of hope.
Danika’s shoes barely touched the ground as her guards half carried, half dragged her forward. She begged, pleaded, fought…