I t was a long time before either of us said anything—so long that the sound of Brayan’s voice jolted me more than the spray of seawater.
How long had I just been staring out at the horizon? There was nothing but the sea around us, Ilyzath’s shape long ago consumed by the misty sky. Blue-grey stretched out in all directions.
“What?”
“How did you get out?” Brayan repeated.
I honestly did not know how to answer that question.
I will let you go if you take a piece of me with you.
The memory was like a fever dream. I still struggled to wrap my mind around what had just occurred. None of the pieces fit together right.
I told him the truth, the story in its bizarre entirety, partly out of curiosity to see if it would seem as fucking outlandish out loud as it did in my head. The answer, it turned out, was very much yes.
When I finished, Brayan looked like he was more certain than ever that I’d completely lost my mind, and I didn’t blame him for it one bit.
“I know it sounds…” I settled on, “Strange.” “It does,” he agreed.
But Ilyzath itself was strange. No one knew exactly how it worked. It was widely regarded to be one of the oldest magical locations in the world
—older than Ara itself by millennia.
I looked down at the mark Ilyzath had given me. It was a circle of symbols, unintelligible, spiraling in tighter towards my palm. The flesh was slightly raised and red, as if angry.
Then I looked up at Brayan.
“Why were you there?” I asked. “Just… waiting at Ilyzath?”
He gave me a long, cold stare, not answering. It was the same sort of look he used to give me when I was a child. He had the same dark eyes as our mother, nearly black, and every time he’d looked at me, I’d felt like there were limitless judgements and demands hiding in that darkness.
“Why wouldn’t I be there?” he said. “I’ve been there every day.” I blinked. “You— what?”
He looked to the horizon and avoided eye contact. “We need to think about where—”
“Brayan, answer the Ascended-damned question.”
“You haven’t changed,” he remarked, and just as I was about to spit a curse and give up, he added, “I answered your question. I was at Ilyzath because I have been there every day. I was trying to see you. Not that the Syrizen would allow it.”
Many, many unbelievable things had happened over these last few months. And yet, it was this that seemed so ridiculous that I let out a snort of laughter before I could stop myself.
His stare darkened. “What about that is funny?”
“I just…” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Brayan Farlione, renowned general, loyal Aran, golden child of the Ryvenai upper class, just broke me out of prison.”
“I didn’t break you out. You were already out. I just had the boat.”
He said this very, very seriously, and in that moment, it was the most hilarious thing I’d ever heard in my sorry life.
Maybe I was just going insane.
Going? No, actually, that ship had likely long ago sailed.
Brayan watched me, unamused. Long seconds passed. The sound of the sea lapping against the boat became deafening long after my laughter subsided, fading into awkward silence.
There were too many words to say. Too many questions to ask. Any normal person would have asked them. We were stranded on a boat with nothing else to talk about.
But no. That was a renowned Farlione trait, after all: ignoring the things that dangled right in front of our faces. And honestly? I was grateful for it, right now.
“So.” I cleared my throat. “Now what?” “We go to Besrith.”
“Is that home? For you?”
“Home?” He gave me an odd look. “It’s… where I’ve been living for the last few years. It’s quiet there, and remote. They don’t have diplomatic relationships with Ara. It will be hard for Nura to get to you there.”
It still was fucking incredible that I was listening to Brayan outline the best way to evade the Aran government.
I glanced down at the boat carrying us—barely more than a rowboat. “I hate to shatter your hopes and dreams, Brayan, but there’s no way this boat is making it to—”
“Not in this,” he grumbled—in a tone that added an unspoken obviously. “We’re going to Sarilla first. Then catch a charter ship to Threll and travel north from there. You can help us move faster then, can’t you? With… magic and such.”
His voice always took on an odd tone when referencing my magic. Like the entire concept made him slightly uncomfortable.
I shook my head.
“I can’t. She… they took away as much of it as they could.” The sleeves of my dirty white shirt were bunched up around my elbows, and my gaze trailed up my forearms—at all the Stratagrams now tattooed all over my skin. I was struck all over again by exactly how many of them there were, and a surge of anger overwhelmed me.
Up until this moment, I’d had to pour so much of my energy into keeping my life and my sanity. There had been nothing left for anger, so I’d locked it away. Now it hit me all at once, one pent-up wave powerful enough to break my ramshackle barriers.
Brayan made a noncommittal noise and turned away, as if he couldn’t bear to look at me for too long. Fair. I hadn’t had access to a mirror in months. I probably wouldn’t want to look at me for too long, either.
“No matter,” he said. “We’ll still make it to Besrith.”
I took him in, warily. He looked so different than the version of him that I remembered. I suppose that made sense. He had been—I racked my half- broken brain—what, in his mid-twenties, in those final fragmented shards of my memory? I remembered thinking of him as so powerful that he was ageless, the gulf separating us so much wider than a mere seven years. Now, he seemed… older.
I took in his clothing. A dark jacket with gold buttons across a double breast. An Aran military uniform. New.
“What about the uniform?” I asked. “What about it?”
“Ara is at war.”
He looked at me like I was an idiot. “So I’ve seen. And?” “So why are you here with me instead of fighting it?” “What kind of a question is that?”
“Isn’t that your great love? Winning wars?”
Ascended above, did Brayan actually look offended by that? The last I remembered, he would have agreed with the assessment wholeheartedly. He had shaped his entire life around warfare, crafted himself into a tool to be wielded for a single purpose. He was, of course, exquisite at it. That’s why military leaders spoke of Brayan with the same breathless admiration that one spoke of a rare, expensive sword. A kind of admiration laced with greed.
“I don’t know what happened to Nura in the last ten years,” he said, “but I know one thing beyond a doubt—what you did in Sarlazai made you a hero. The Ryvenai War ended because of you. You never should have been imprisoned for that.”
A sour taste filled my mouth. I didn’t know why.
But Brayan no longer seemed interested in talking. He turned, looking out at the horizon. “We should reach Sarilla in a few hours,” he said, in the sort of tone that conveyed that he didn’t expect to say another word until then. I didn’t especially feel like arguing.
 |
THERE WERE FAR TOO many eyes in Sarilla for my liking.
Sarilla was several hundred miles off the coast of Ara. It was largely used as farmland for large, luxurious operations owned by members of the upper-class. As a result, the island had only one major city, and even there, everyone would pay attention to a few strangers.
It was hot, but I still pulled the length of my sleeves down awkwardly as we stepped onto the docks. Right away, we were getting strange looks. We were unfamiliar here. We looked distinctly Ryvenai. Brayan was wearing a brand-new military uniform. And, of course, there were my tattoos.
“I’m not sure coming here was a good idea,” I muttered to Brayan as we abandoned our boat and made our way onto the cobblestone streets. I took a fraction of a second to appreciate the way solid land felt beneath my feet— wonderful—and then a second more to appreciate that it wasn’t Ilyzath stone—even more wonderful.
In any other context, it would have been borderline criminal not to spend at least a few minutes admiring how nauseatingly beautiful the island was. Lush foliage crawled over hills and valleys, all culminating in a single emerald mountain. Unlike Ara’s mountains, which were rocky and jagged, this one was covered in greenery all the way up to its mist-cradled peak. Rocky shores stretched in one direction; in the other, a creamy sand beach. From our spot on the docks, we could see down to the west, where patches of farmland for massive plantation stretched out along the coast.
It was in this direction that Brayan walked, wordlessly, and I followed. “We can’t stay here long,” I said. “Nura has probably sent out word
already that I’m gone. It’s just a matter of time before that call reaches here.”
“The ship to Threll leaves at dawn.” Brayan, too, was tracking all the people who tracked us—marking those who stopped to stare, and even more carefully observing those who didn’t.
Dawn? Fifteen hours seemed like a hell of a long time to not be noticed here.
“We can’t stay in town.”
“No,” Brayan agreed. “But I know somewhere we can go.”
He said this so casually that I thought little more of it as he led us away from town, up the road, and through the rolling fields of a large farm. The main house was at the top of a hill, surrounded by fields of grazing cattle. The entrance was marked by a large, wrought-iron gate—majestic, for a farmhouse, and clearly belonging to someone with significant wealth.
Brayan strolled through the gates and up the path, then knocked on the door.
An attractive, fair-haired woman in a floral dress opened it. Her greeting stopped short halfway through. She stared at us with her brow knotted up, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing.
I didn’t quite believe what I was seeing, either. I had to bite back an,
Ascended above, Brayan, really?
“Well,” she said. “I can’t say I predicted this turn to my day.”
“It is lovely to see you again, Sella,” Brayan said. So smoothly, as if there was nothing at all remarkable about showing up on the doorstep of your ex-fiancée, fugitive brother in tow.
