Aachon grabbed hold of her arm as it seemed she might topple. She shook him off. “I can’t see past the stone walls. It must have its own cantrip defenses. We’re going to have to get in somehow.”
She let go of the weirstone power and sagged back against the gunwales with a shudder. The rest of the crew shuffled their feet.
“What now Aachon?” one of them asked, but she could not focus on who it was who spoke. She was struggling to reel in her Center. Still, she did not like that they were asking the first mate and not her. Sadly Raed’s crew had completely forgotten anything like real discipline.
“Now”—Sorcha heard the dark tone in Aachon’s voice—“we go and get our captain back.”
Recovering herself a little, the Deacon smiled. It would be good to do that. Just as long as she could keep her feet, everything would be fine.
In the dark and silence Merrick woke. He had ceased to be able to tell what time of day it was. He couldn’t even be sure whether it was day or night beyond the stone walls. He thought of Zofiya and wondered if she was dead or alive.
He knew he should have been thinking about Sorcha and where she might be, or del Rue and what he was up to, but the Grand Duchess’ wide eyes and smile kept coming to him. It seemed impossible that she had been taken. Merrick had only ever known one person that was as ruthlessly efficient and competent as the Grand Duchess in his time, and that was his partner. Yet in one season he had seen his partner laid low with a mysterious illness and now Zofiya taken.
He sighed and rolled awkwardly onto his back. He was not a broad man, but even to him the bunk was incredibly narrow. They had not built the Silence Room for comfort.
The strangeness of the place was starting to get to him. For the longest time he thought he heard a voice repeating the word “Ratimana” over and over. What it meant was impossible to say. It was strange what the mind could conjure up when left to its own devices.
So he stared up into the blackness and thought dreary thoughts. It felt like from the first moment he’d stepped out of the initiate and become a fully functioning Sensitive, the Order had been under attack. The Murashev had tried to destroy Vermillion, and now he was certain that Arch Abbot Hastler had been working with the Circle of Stars. Hatipai had tried to return to the world, and he had hard evidence that they’d aided the false goddess there too. Now one of their number was in the Imperial Palace, spreading poison and arranging for the Grand Duchess to disappear.
“I have to get out of here,” Merrick said aloud. It was mostly to hear the sound of his own voice before he went mad—however once he had let the words out, he wished he had not. The room ate his words. No echo, no sound reached his ears. It was a horrible effect that gave him chills.
He decided immediately that he would keep his thoughts to himself.
However, they kept rolling around to Zofiya. It was maddening not knowing if she was dead or alive. Surely they would have come down and fetched him if she had been found murdered. That sort of deed would demand immediate retribution from the Emperor, and even the Presbyterial Council would not be able to stop him.
Merrick struck that eventuality off his list. They had not come for him, therefore Zofiya must still be missing. And if she was missing, then she was of some use to the Circle of Stars. The Sensitive ground his teeth together. One fact kept rising to the surface. She was the second in line to the throne.
When the King of Delmaire had sent one of his spare sons to rule over Arkaym, the deal had been that his unwanted sister went with him, and should Kaleva produce no heirs…
The young Deacon swallowed hard as he considered the implications of that. Implications that also included him. By the Bones! What if he’d gotten the Grand Duchess pregnant?
That thought made Merrick sit bolt upright in his narrow, mean-spirited bed. All the other quandaries paled in comparison to that one. No, no, Zofiya had been no maid. She would have taken the powders to keep that eventuality from occurring. Still…he had slept with the Emperor’s sister.
He would see her again. If the Circle of Stars had her, and thought she was useful enough to keep, then there would be a way to get her back.
Only the darkling in his head whispered to him.
You could not save Nynnia. You could not protect her.
The idea that the same thing could happen to Zofiya was too horrible to contemplate—and not just for the Empire. Despite all his control and all his training, the thought chased around in the back of his brain, and would not let him sleep for the longest time.
FOURTEEN
Entering the Nest
“There is always a way in to a fortress,” Aachon muttered to Sorcha as they tramped through the thick, humid nighttime jungle, with only the light of his weirstone held aloft to guide them. “You only have to think about the needs of the place. Food, water, effluent…”
Sorcha was listening to him, but mostly concentrating on keeping upright. She supposed that she should be glad that her legs were still working. The Autumn Eagle had circled into the wild a bit, and let them down via rope ladder. It had been a relief that Captain Lepzig did not argue with the instructions to avoid the Imperial Airship port. Seemingly something about that strange fortress stilled any concerns about protocol he might have had. Sorcha shared his unease about the fortress.
“It just depends how desperate you are to get in,” Aachon went on talking, pointing to the towering destination beneath the full-bellied moon that they could glimpse through the rare breaks in the trees. “Have you noticed something about this palace?”
Sorcha wiped sweat out of her eyes and glared at it, while the half dozen crew members walked around her not wanting to engage in any extraneous conversations. “It looks bloody impregnable.”
“You think that’s what the lack of windows says?” Aachon laughed. “It doesn’t make for a welcoming appearance, but I don’t think it is for the benefit of outsiders. I think it is to make the inhabitants happy.” He swung a machete, knocking down a section of bamboo.
“They must be very strange inhabitants,” Sorcha grumbled as they moved on again.
“The west is very strange,” Aachon agreed, battering at the swarming mosquitoes with little effect.
They went on a little farther before she could take no more. The first mate obviously knew something, and their link through the weirstone was giving her no clue what that might be. It was frustrating, because with Merrick she wouldn’t have had to ask. “Aachon, if you have information about what we’re going into then I would appreciate you sharing it with me.”
The big man shrugged. “I don’t know much about this kingdom except a few things: it is far from the center of the Empire, it has fewer Deacons than anywhere else, and the land is wild. The stories of this land are full of danger.”
Sorcha pressed her lips together. The man was infuriating, and it was no wonder he had not been able to continue in the Order if this was how he was prepared to share. “Such as?” she urged.
“Blood. The west is soaked in blood they say. And there are rumors of rituals and creatures that dine upon it.”
Sorcha shook her head. Residing in Vermillion there was a tendency to think the whole of the Empire was like the city, but the truth was the capital was the most civilized place on the continent. It had the most Deacons and was therefore the most free of geists. It was important—but hard—to remember that vast tracts of Kaleva’s dominion were wild and untamed.
“Who do you know that would build a fortress without windows?” Aachon tilted his head and regarded her from under his shaggy eyebrows.
She pondered that question, while staggering after the crew members ahead. Her training was extensive, and she ran through the different geists it could possibly be, but none were quite right. There were plenty of undead that preferred the dark, but most were simple, hungry beings that would not have the control needed to build a whole fortress.