Since we don’t have horses or a carriage, we’ll need to walk to Rian’s palace. I only vaguely know the direction, because on the night we arrived on the barely functional Dawn Chaser, I didn’t care where I was going. I just wanted it to be away from Rian.
Luckily, Erik paid closer attention. He says most of the roads seemed heavily traveled and well-marked, so it shouldn’t be hard for us to find our way. It took about an hour by wagon, so he estimates it’ll take twice that on foot. That almost makes me reconsider going at all, because I remember him wincing when he tossed the nets. I didn’t want him to lose consciousness in the middle of the ocean, and I don’t want him to collapse on the side of the road either.
When I tell him this, Erik sighs and finally allows me to redress his injury. I mix a new poultice in the kitchen while he peels the old one free. The wound doesn’t look worse, but it doesn’t look much better. I still don’t think he should have been rowing or hauling nets, and I tell him so.
“I can walk, Miss Tessa.”
I scowl, and I double wrap the bandage so it’ll sit in place snugly. “For four hours?”
“I said two.”
“Well, we’ll have to walk back. I’m not staying there overnight.”
He regards me evenly. “The longer we wait, the less leverage you’ll have. And you should not go alone.”
“Fine.” I put away my things while he pulls down his shirt. “I’m ready to go whenever you are.”
He frowns, then studies me more critically while he reaches to unlace his boots. “Perhaps you should arrange your hair. Do you have any pins? Maybe a dress, too.”
I look at him like he’s grown another head. “You want me to arrange my hair?”
“Regardless of your feelings, Rian is the king here. We are visiting his court.”
Right.I somehow keep forgetting that.
“Well, I don’t care.” I set my jaw. “If Rian doesn’t like my hair, he can go suck a—”
“There is more than one way to fight.” Erik looks at me levelly, then yanks a boot free, and I try to ignore when he winces again. “I remember the day you came to face King Harristan. The way you challenged him about medicine, how he offered to have you meet with the royal physicians. Do you think he would have listened as clearly if you’d arrived like this?”
That gives me pause. I do remember that. I was terrified of the king, but Erik is right. Harristan barely believed my theories as it was. He probably wouldn’t have listened to a scared girl from the Wilds at all if I’d been dropped in front of him in my patched skirts with uncombed hair.
The clothes and makeup in the palace hadn’t even been my choice. Not really. Quint had been the one to send me an attendant, to order that my closets be stocked with clothes, my dressing table filled with cosmetics. At the time, I found the silk and lace and powders and creams to be frivolous, but it wasn’t. It was just another type of armor. I didn’t realize it at the time, but Quint was sending me into battle, fully prepared.
And Quint would never let me go see Rian like this.
Quint.Telling him about Corrick will be as bad as telling the king. My chest tightens, and I have to force the emotion away again. “You’re right,” I say. My eyes skip over his trousers and tunic. He’s pulling off the second boot, but more gingerly, and he doesn’t wince this time. “Are you changing, too?”
“I am.”
I nod. “All right. Let me go see what I have.”
Despite the condition of Rian’s ship, most of my finer things survived the journey, but I haven’t bothered to unpack these trunks yet. I lay out my dresses across my bed, and all the silk and chiffon and velvet is pressed into creases from being folded in the trunk for so long. Since we’re walking so far, I don’t want to wear anything too elegant, but I locate a light muslin dress that isn’t too wrinkled, with tiny blue flowers embroidered along the bodice and the hem. The short sleeves leave most of my arms bare, but it has a leather belt that works perfectly for holding one of the daggers I found among the weapons in the guards’ chests. I’ve been sleeping with it under my pillow. It’s not as decorative as the dagger Corrick once gave me, but the hilt is leather wrapped and gold-plated, stamped with the crest of Kandala.
It’ll still stab someone, so I don’t care how pretty it is. If I get the chance to stab Rian, I actually wouldn’t mind a little rust.
A collection of hairpins is stashed among my things, and I brush out my hair to twist it into fresh plaits that I twirl artfully on the back of my head. There are cosmetics too, but I leave those in the trunk. Armor or not, I won’t give Rian the satisfaction of thinking I care about his opinion of me.
I find some jewels as well, wrapped up in velvet pouches and nestled among the dresses. Nothing that was mine, as I’ve never owned anything so expensive, but again, Quint must have ensured that I would be prepared for all manner of events in the Ostrian courts.
Thank you, Quint.
I don’t want to wear any of the jewels, but I consider that we don’t have any money here, and we don’t know who or what we’ll encounter on the road, so we might have the need to trade for something. My life in the Wilds also makes me wary of thieves, so I can’t be too ostentatious. I settle on some demure hairpins that have tiny blue stones at the ends, and a small bracelet made of gold and opals.
When I emerge from my room half an hour later, I’m startled to discover Erik rubbing a shine into his black boots. He hasn’t just changed, but he’s buttoned into his guard uniform, including all his weapons. He even has a crossbow slung over one shoulder, extra bolts in a narrow quiver along the outside of his thigh. After more than a week seeing him in his shirtsleeves, I’d forgotten he could look quite this imposing.
“You’re going as a guard?” I say.
His eyebrows go up, and he straightens, tossing the rag into his trunk. “That’s how I came. Did you expect otherwise?”
I have no idea. Maybe I should have figured. I really need to get it together. “So . . . farewell to Erik, then,” I say. “Welcome back, Rocco.”
He grins. “Either is really fine.” He pauses, considering. “Though . . . perhaps in front of Rian, it might give you an edge of authority if you stuck with ‘Rocco.’ The prince would have.” He looks me over, his gaze approving until he spots the dagger.
The smile vanishes, and he sighs. “Do you know how to use that?”
“I know where the pointy part goes.”
“Fair enough. Draw it then. Show me.”
Oh.I wasn’t prepared for that. But I reach across my body and draw the dagger, jabbing it at him, trying to look fierce.
I wait for him to tease me, but he doesn’t. He steps toward me and holds out a hand, gesturing for the weapon. “Point it down. If you’re not experienced with it, you’ll be stronger with a downward strike.” I let him take the weapon, and he demonstrates. “See?”
I nod, and he points at the belt. “Let it hang from your opposite side so it’s beside your hand. It’ll be easier to draw this way.”
He sounds so official, and I swallow, then twist the sheath until it’s hanging on the opposite side of the buckle.
But once I’m done, he holds my gaze, and he doesn’t return the dagger. “You can’t kill him.”
“I can look like I’m ready to.” I hold out my hand.
“Fair enough.” He hands me the weapon, and I take it, point down this time. I mimic his downward strike, and he’s right. There is a lot more power to it.
He smiles. “See?”
I nod, then slam the dagger into the sheath. I already feel better.
He picks up a pack and tosses it over one shoulder. No wince at all this time. Maybe the new bandage is helping. “I’ve put together some supplies in case we get hungry.” He rolls his eyes. “Or for when trouble finds us.”
I hadn’t considered getting into trouble. “Here.” I hold out my hand, gesturing for the pack. “Let me add another set of bandaging supplies then. Just in case.”
He sets it on the floor so I can add what I need. After I’ve tucked muslin and scissors and poultice supplies in among the other things, I buckle the bag closed and swing it onto my shoulders. The weight slams into my back, a lot heavier than I expected, and I have to sidestep to balance out the weight.
Erik gives me a look, but I stare right back at him. He sighs and reaches for the pack, but I take a step away as if he’s going to yank it off my shoulders.
“I’ve got it,” I say hotly. “You don’t have to carry everything.”
He raises an eyebrow. “May I adjust the straps so you don’t fall over?”
“Hilarious.” But I step forward again, and he tightens the straps, then buckles a length of leather at the base of my rib cage, securing it all in place.
Once he’s done, he gives the strap a steady tug, back and forth. “See?”
The pack barely shifts on my back—but his tugging makes me sway in a silly way, and I realize he’s teasing. He really is very brotherly.
I give him a sheepish smile. “So much better. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Then we’re off.
Much like when we set off in the boat, there’s no one around. The air is warm, the trees humming with insects. Sweat blooms under the pack almost immediately, but I don’t complain. The weight, the effort, it all makes me feel something. Erik was right earlier. I do need to move.
“It wouldn’t be this warm in Kandala,” I say.
“It would be in Sunkeep,” he says. “We’ll have to ask Rian for some maps. I want to know where we are in relation to the other islands.”
Maps, I think, adding that to my list of things to ask for. Check.
“I know you don’t want to betray the king,” I say, “but is there anything you can tell me that might give me a little leverage over Rian? Anything that might help us negotiate a way to get back?”
“I can tell you everything I remember about what Rian told King Harristan and Prince Corrick about Ostriary. Again, I don’t get the sense that he lied about very much at all. He claimed that decades ago, Ostriary and Kandala were engaged in the trade of steel and lumber, but that went sour, causing a rift between the countries.” He frowns a little, thinking. “That would’ve been under the reign of King Harristan’s grandfather, I believe. But six years ago, Kandala must have sent spies here, because Rian did have official documents from King Lucas naming the real Captain Blake-more as acting with the full authority of the king. The original Captain Blakemore was real—he just wasn’t Rian.”
I put a finger to my lips. “I remember on the night he arrived, Arella and Roydan came to talk to Corrick about discovering the names of unfamiliar cities among the shipping logs from Trader’s Landing. Those cities turned out to be the islands here. They said it wasn’t just steel and lumber, but explosives, too.”
“Yes. Between that and records from the docks in Artis, the king was able to confirm much of his story. It’s the only reason we came at all. During his first meeting with the king and the prince, Rian said that Kandala attacked and destroyed Ostrian ships after a deal went sour. He said that views of Kandalan royalty were not favorable here in Ostriary—to the point that some people were wary of a new agreement. They’d seen the damage Kandala had caused, and they didn’t trust our king. I believe Lieutenant Tagas was the one who spoke about it most earnestly. She said she was a girl at the time, and she watched the ships burn.”
Unlike my feelings for Rian, I don’t have much animosity toward his lieutenant. I remember Gwyn Tagas telling me about the way Rian sailed along the shores of the Ostrian islands, looking for survivors during their war. I imagine her telling Harristan about attacks on Ostrian ships, and I suspect she probably was very earnest.
I can also imagine it having a massive impact on the king. Many people in Kandala think Harristan is cold and distant, but he’s not at all. He always seems to feel the plight of his people so acutely.
I look at Erik, and the striking blue and purple of his guard uniform helps to remind me that I need to start thinking of him as Rocco again. “I bet King Harristan didn’t like the idea that Kandala might have been the aggressor,” I say.
He glances back at me. “No. He didn’t.”
I chew on that for a while. My thoughts keep burning with rage against Rian, but I try to push some of that away, because it’s not allowing me to think clearly.
And as soon as I tamp down some of that fire, I realize something else. “If everyone here thought Kandala was ruled by a vicious king who burned their ships and attacked their people over a bad trade agreement, Rian must have seen Harristan and Corrick as the enemy. No wonder he didn’t want to risk leading warships back.”
Rocco nods. “No wonder.”
But now I’ve found a thread to chase—and I kind of hate where it leads me. “No wonder he lied about his identity at all.” I make an aggravated sound. “No wonder he hated Corrick.”
Rocco says nothing to that.
I heave a sigh. “But you’re right. He must need steel very badly if he was willing to risk so much.”
“I agree, so that might be all the leverage you need.” Rocco looks up and around. “They have plenty of trees for lumber, but it’s possible they have few mines for iron ore here. Nothing like Trader’s Landing and Mosswell. They might need Kandalan steamships to transport it, too. Steel is heavy. I don’t know what kind of naval fleet they have left after their war, but Rian wouldn’t have sailed the Dawn Chaser if he had access to more impressive vessels—and his ship wouldn’t have been able to manage much.”
“Well, those brigantines that were chasing us sank.”
“Yes, because they didn’t know the waters through Chaos Isle. Rian did. Another reason I need his maps in case we can find a way home.”
I peer up at him in the sunlight. “Why did you become a guardsman if your family was all sailors?”
He shrugs. “Same story you’ll hear from a hundred other men, probably. I didn’t want to do what my father kept telling me to do.” He glances over, smiling a little fondly. “Josef—my brother—says that I’m a fool for defying our father just to follow someone else’s orders. I tell him I’m actually brilliant because now I get paid for it.”
That makes me smile. “How long have you been doing it?”
“Six years now? Almost seven. I didn’t set out to join the palace guard in the beginning. I don’t think it would have even occurred to me. Far too grand for a sailor out of Sunkeep. I wanted to become a patrolman, so I did that for a year or so.”
Those words give me a jolt, and I nearly whip my head around. “You were a patrolman? In the night patrol?”
Rocco nods. “The guard captain doesn’t take raw recruits right into the palace, so he scouts the night patrol when he needs new guards. Sometimes the army, too. My name was offered, so I applied, and here I am.”
I’m staring at him.
“What?” he says.
“I just . . . I never thought about you being in the night patrol.”
My voice sounds hollow, and I have to fix my eyes back on the path, listening to my booted feet crunch with every step. My heart keeps thrumming in my chest. The night patrol killed my parents. I’ve hated them ever since I watched it happen. I know Rocco couldn’t have been involved, not if he was a patrolman that long ago. But still. This feels like discovering he used to kick puppies or steal from children.
I fold my arms against my abdomen and take a shallow breath. I hate that this is so jarring—and the worst part is that it shouldn’t be. It shouldn’t be jarring at all. Rocco was one of the king’s personal guards, and I used to hate them just as much. He was probably on the dais during the failed execution that led to revolution.
Rocco has probably been there for a lot of executions.
Well, these thoughts are going nowhere good.
I have to unwind my emotion. He’s also saved my life. Corrick’s life. Harristan’s life. Quint’s life. He might be risking his own life to walk at my side on the way to Rian’s palace. I doubt he strapped on all those weapons for show.
Rocco glances at me, and I can tell he’s watching me work out thoughts in my head. He must know the night patrol killed my parents if he was there for my first conversation with King Harristan. An odd tension hums in the air between us. We walk for the longest time in silence.
Eventually, he speaks. “It couldn’t have been me. I’ve been in the palace guard since—”
“No—I know that.”
“It was just a job, Miss Tessa.”
“The night patrol hurt people.” I keep my eyes on the path. “It shouldn’t be just a job.”
“Smugglers hurt people, too.”
“My parents never hurt anyone. I didn’t hurt anyone.” As I say the words, I remember the king’s even tone when I challenged him this way.
It’s the same to the night patrol.
Rocco screws up his face a little, considering what I’ve said, and I expect a similar response, but that’s not what he says. “I know from your conversation with the king that you were an outlaw, but you weren’t a smuggler. You were stealing medicine for the good of the people, right?”
“Yes.” I clench my hands on the straps of my pack.
“Well, most smugglers weren’t doing that. They were stealing it for money. Money and power and control. It’s rare that anyone was in the Hold for trying to steal medicine just to stay alive. Maybe some were, but most of them were criminals. Not kindhearted, not giving, not trying to save a life. Smugglers and thieves who’d cheat and steal, then extort desperate people. Criminals, Miss Tessa. Just because you had good intentions doesn’t mean everyone does. You’ve met the king yourself, so you must know there would be a reason he set the penalties so high.”
My jaw is tight, my eyes fixed ahead. I want to reject this out of turn, but I can’t. I’m trying not to think of the multitude of scars on Corrick’s body, the way he once said, Sometimes I try to ask questions and they have other ideas. I’m trying not to think of the rapists and murderers I’ve heard about in passing, the ones committed to the Hold for stealing medicine in the middle of heinous crimes.
And I remember the atrocities committed by the rebels themselves. I saw the bodies left strewn along the cobblestone streets of the Royal Sector, leaking blood and viscera on the night of the revolt. I watched Lochlan himself stand among the flames, ordering his rebels to shoot a consul while the king and I begged them to stop.
Rocco keeps going. “And not every patrolman is a brutal lout just waiting for the chance to take someone down either. I certainly wasn’t. They’re just people doing a job. Just men and women trying to put a roof over their heads like everyone else. If you’re going to judge them, why not judge the guards who protect the shipments instead of handing Moonflower out to everyone they pass? They’re just doing what they’re paid for. Or what about the harvesters working the fields? They could be stuffing their pockets with Moonflower, handing out petals when they get home. But no, they’re also doing their job, putting the petals where they belong, then going home to a hot meal. Is everyone supposed to risk their livelihoods? Their families?”
“Yes!” I snap. “That’s exactly what my parents did!”
He stares right back at me and says nothing.
He doesn’t have to. The message is clear.
My parents risked themselves—and they died.
I risked myself—and I was caught.
I take a deep breath and let it out. All these years and I still—still!—don’t know if what they were doing was worth it. I don’t even know if my years with Corrick as Wes and Tessa were worth it.
I’m trapped here. Corrick is dead. How many people did we really save? Did it matter, or did we just delay the inevitable?
“I just feel like people should do the right thing when they have the chance,” I say quietly. Then I scowl and kick at the rocks. “Ugh. Corrick always used to tell me that’s naive.”
Rocco glances over again. “Expecting people to do the right thing is probably naive. Wanting them to isn’t.” He hesitates. “And what we think is the right thing can obviously change.”
I look at him sharply. “No it can’t.”
“It can’t?” he says. “You snuck into the palace to kill the king—and then you found yourself helping him.” He gestures at the path ahead of us. “You’re quite literally on a journey to negotiate on his behalf.”
Well, that smacks me in the face.
“And I’d venture to guess,” he continues, “that before the journey here, your ideas about the right thing might be a bit different from now, after learning the truth about Rian and everything he revealed.”
That smacks me in the face twice as hard. I flush a little. “Ouch, Erik.”
He glances over, then gives my pack straps a little back-and-forth tug again. “Besides, if you hated the night patrol so much, I can’t wait to hear your opinion on palace guards.”
His voice is gently teasing, trying to pull some of the sting out of the air.
It works. “Maybe a few of you are all right,” I say.
“That’s fair. Some of us are real bastards.”
I giggle and cast a glance up at him in the sunlight. “And you’re right. I didn’t understand before. But I didn’t have all the information.”
“No one ever does. How could we? We all come from a different place. Sometimes I listen to the consuls blustering about something stupid, and it’s hard to remember that they’ve never spent a single moment of their lives outside a palace or an estate. But it’s not just them. When I started as a patrolman, I was in Sunkeep first, and there’s so little crime. It was easy, so I thought that’s what it was like everywhere. But then I was assigned to a new unit, farther north, through Trader’s Landing. And you might not know this, but back then, before anyone was smuggling Moonflower, they were smuggling explosives.”
I turn wide eyes his way. “Really?”
He nods. “For raiding the mines in Mosswell. I had been chasing down cutpurses and the occasional night burglar in Sunkeep, and suddenly I was grouped with patrols that were facing armed smugglers sitting on piles of bombs. The main roads were safe, but as soon as you took a wrong turn, you could be dead. I was young—it was intense.” He shakes his head and whistles through his teeth. “I had no idea anything like that was even happening in Kandala. I’ve heard it’s worse now since there hasn’t been a consul there in years. I’m sure that’s how rebels were able to smuggle explosives all the way to the Royal Sector.”
I think of my parents slipping down darkened paths of Artis and through the Wilds to pass out medicine. Our biggest threat was always the night patrol. I’ve never been as far south as Sunkeep, but that’s where Karri was from originally. I’ve been to Trader’s Landing, but not since I was younger, fetching medicinal supplies with my parents. It seemed to be a bustling, lively sector, and even though my parents always warned me to stay close, I always assumed it was because of how crowded the roads were. I never considered being afraid of people smuggling something like explosives.
“Does the king know this?” I ask.
Rocco looks at me like I’ve asked how to breathe. “Of course.”
So Corrick must have known it, too. I pair this with everything Rocco just said, and it all really does make me feel naive. Corrick must have tried to tell me in a million different ways, but somehow the lesson lands this time.
“How long were you there?” I say.
“Less than a year. That’s where I was chosen to apply for the palace guard, so I went from Trader’s Landing to the Royal Sector. I remember when I wrote to my parents to say I was taking a position as a guardsman, my mother wrote back and demanded that I ask the king why he kept changing the shipping levies at the ports. Of course I couldn’t do that—but it wasn’t until I stood beside the door through a thousand boring consul meetings that I learned how much negotiation went into those stupid shipping levies, because it wasn’t like King Harristan was doing it on a whim.” He glances down. “But that’s what I mean about how we all come from a different place. We don’t really know until we . . . know.”
“Did you ever tell your poor mother you just couldn’t ask about shipping levies?” I tease.
“I told her I’d have to wait until I was in the king’s personal guard to get that close, because I never thought I would. Now I never hear the end of it.” He rolls his eyes. “One day she’ll stop asking.”
“Wait—you weren’t in the king’s guard the whole time?”
“Oh no. I was just a rank and file palace guard in the beginning. I wasn’t chosen for King Harristan’s personal guard until after his coronation.” He pauses, and his tone turns grave. “None of us were. He had all of his father’s personal guards dismissed, then selected his own from among those remaining.”
The words fall into the air and land more heavily than I’m ready for. Dismissed.
Because Harristan and Corrick’s parents were assassinated.
Rocco was right. Their lives are so touched by tragedy. All of Kandala seems shadowed by it.
He glances over again, and he seems to sense the need to change the subject. “What about you?” he says. “I know you were raised to be an apothecary. Did you grow up in the Wilds?”
“No,” I say. “In Artis, really. Though we used to travel into—”
Rocco shoves me to the side of the path so forcefully that the weight of the pack nearly takes me down. I have to grab hold of a tree. Wood cracks somewhere nearby, but I barely hear it over the sound of my breathing. My nails dig into the tree trunk, and I realize Rocco is blocking me now, his crossbow drawn and aimed.
I duck a little to peer under his arm, but I don’t see anything or anyone.
“What’s happening?” I whisper.
“Don’t move,” he says. “She’s behind that tree there.” He gestures with the weapon a little.
I look, and then I spot the woman, most of her body hidden behind a wide tree. I don’t have time to recognize much more than curly black hair, skirts that brush the ground, and a crossbow in her own hands.
She points it right at us and fires.
