Floodpath Read online

  I gaze vaguely at the laurel flower stamped into the silver, distantly thinking of its partner and how I traded it for Lark’s hat—the hat she didn’t want, to do a job she didn’t want to do. The truth doesn’t so much hit me as bubble up from my subconscious—it’s something I knew all along. Lark didn’t want to carry out the attack. How many times did she tell me it was a bad idea? How many times did she try to talk me around it, talk me out of it? I thought she was trying to coddle me. But now I realize she was trying to protect herself, not me.

  And I didn’t let her.

  They’re going to execute her at Tolukum Palace. Because of my mistake.

  Another ant bites me near my wrist, and as if hitting a magic button, tears spring to my eyes. I lift my palms and crush them against my face, digging them into my eye sockets. My breath catches in my chest, and then bursts out in a choked gasp, then another, and another.

  I’ve killed Lark—brave, good, mighty Lark, and in killing her I’ve killed Moira Alastaire. The impossible happened, the lost Lumeni princess appeared alive out of the desert, and now I’ve destroyed her—and I’ve destroyed her father, and her sister, and her mother, and her uncles, and her folk. Her campmates, waiting for her in Callais. My parents, who loved her, too.

  And I’ve destroyed myself, because I will never, ever forgive myself for what I’ve done.

  Iano and Soe don’t say anything while I sit and shake, sobbing into my palms. I sink farther into the nest of greenbrier, the epithet I chose because it’s tenacious and tearing. I thought it was the opposite of me, but now I think I saw its nature in me all along—that it grips something bigger than it is and won’t let go, tearing it apart in the process.

  Another ant bites me, and another. I gasp and shake my arms, overwhelmed. I beat my legs and slap my boots. This is too much for my weary medallion, and it pops off its threads. It falls into the dense underbrush, and with a flare of panic, I plunge my hand after it. My fingers close around it, and with it I bring up a few strings of bright green moss.

  Moss and silver and laurel. I swear, all I need is a firefly and I could probably summon my mother by magic ritual. The thought guts me—what she would say to me in this moment, what she would say in the face of what I’ve done to Lark. I bend my head toward my knees, still fighting for breath through my tears.

  Her old phrase, the one scouts have adopted as lore, comes back to me.

  One crisis at a time.

  I shake my head. She wouldn’t say that, not now. The crises were of my own making, and they’re gone, passed on by.

  One crisis at a time, Veran.

  I made the crises myself, Mama. They’re my own doing.

  One at a time.

  They’re done now.

  Always remember what’s important, and what’s urgent.

  Lark’s going to be killed. Tamsin’s missing. People are searching for us.

  Start with what you have.

  The horses are gone. We’ve got nothing.

  What do you have?

  I look back down at the medallion in my palm. My seal ring glints on my finger.

  You have more!

  Iano and Soe murmur beside me, their voices low and serious. The smell of damp, rich earth, of water and growing things, of rot and life, rises up around me. The buzz and click of insects, the calls of birds overhead. I pick out a goldfinch, a real one. Per-chick-o-ree! Per-chick-o-ree! A scout calling for location. Where are you? Where are you?

  Another ant bites, adding to the stings and scrapes and bruises webbing my skin. And then, in place of the mantras Mama drills into her scouts, up comes the whisper she repeats only to me, clutching my face.

  Listen to your body, Veran. Listen. Listen.

  My body hurts, lying in this hollow. The greenbrier, the ants, the shame.

  Listen to it.

  I place my hands beneath me, feeling the fuzz of moss and the sting of two more ant bites. And then I push. Briars tear at my clothes and hair, but I rip free of them, heedless. I shoot out of the brambles like a rabbit out of a warren, jumping a foot in the air and landing with a forceful thud on the earth, trying to jar the ants free.

  Soe and Iano abruptly go silent, staring at me. I beat my clothes and hair again.

  Soe lifts an eyebrow. “Bugs?”

  My hands drop to my sides, and I face them. My cheeks are still wet, but my tears have stopped.

  “I’m going to Tolukum,” I say.

  Iano’s forehead creases in anger. “How? We have no horses.”

  “Then I’ll walk,” I say. “But we’re not out of options yet. I have this.” I hold up my medallion. “It might buy me a ride on someone’s wagon.”

  “They’ll arrest you at the front gates, if you get that far,” he says.

  “Then I’ll go quietly, and I’ll tell them who I am, and who Lark is. The worst has already happened. They’re going to execute her for banditry. If I can get there beforehand, I might be able to delay them long enough for her family to step in. If not . . . then I’ll be in place to contact Rou, and tell him what I’ve done.”

  “They might kill you,” he says. “If they think you’re an accomplice of hers.”

  “I don’t care,” I say firmly. “I really don’t. But I can’t do nothing. I already did nothing, and I’ve sent her to the execution block. I have to try. And I have my parents’ seal—it might give me some leverage.”

  “What about Tamsin?” Iano presses.

  “She might have been brought back to the palace, too. Maybe they locked her in the coach, or took her away before I got back to the road.”

  “Or she might be dead,” Iano says, with the crisp edge of panic.

  “Maybe, but maybe not—and if she’s not, she may need help. You stay. Stay around here and look for her. Even if she’s not hurt, she can’t go far. Then you can find somewhere safe to hide for a while. But I’m going to Tolukum. If she’s at the palace, I’ll find a way to send you word.”

  They both stare at me. I lift my hand, scratched and studded with bites, and open my palm toward them.

  “Thank you, for what you did today,” I say. “I’m sorry I ruined it all. The rest of you were amazing.”

  They still don’t answer, and with nothing left to do, no pack to shoulder or weapon to sheathe, I start to turn toward the track.

  Iano gives a loud sigh. “Hang on.”

  I look back. He’s working at the clasp on his si-oque. It opens, and he slides the heirloom bronze band off, the lapis winking.

  “Don’t pawn this,” he orders. “Use it at the palace. The guards will recognize it, and it’ll let you speak in my name. It may get you out of trouble, or secure you an audience with my mother. It may help Lark. Don’t lose it.”

  “I won’t,” I promise. I slip it on my own wrist, cover it with my sleeve, and lift my palm to him again. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. Good luck.”

  “Good luck,” Soe echoes. “Be careful.”

  I nod and turn away, but it’s a lie. I’m not going to be careful. I’m going to do whatever it takes to get into Tolukum and to Lark, until I can’t do anymore.

  I push through the ferns, hit the track, and turn toward the main road. I walk slowly at first, easing my sore body into movement, but then I pick up the pace, my mother’s words finding their place in my stride.

  Listen. Urgent. Start.

  Tamsin

  I open my eyes to the twilight, the purpling sky slipping through the distant treetops. Not so different from that little bit of sky in my cell window. Only instead of one tiny square, these are shards, fragments, wisps.

  I shift, testing my body. It’s still aching, but nothing screams as if sprained or broken—a miracle, I suppose, or the luck of the piles of duff and redwood needles carpeting the ravine slopes.

  I look down at my side, where Rat lays half on me. I scratch his ears. I’d probably have grown dangerously cold if he hadn’t found me a few hours ago, snuffling me out in this nest of bracke
n. He settled down against me, lending me his warmth.

  “Goo’ boy,” I rasp. He stretches against me, giving a little hum of satisfaction.

  The stream trickles nearby. I’ve already drunk from it once today, when I crawled from my original landing spot. I must have left a trail in the underbrush three feet wide all the way down the hillside, and I didn’t want to make it too easy on anybody who might come looking. But nobody did. I don’t know if they didn’t see me fall, or assumed I’d died instantly.

  I haven’t died, though. I’ve lain, silent, dozing in and out, and thinking. My slate is broken, cracked into pieces by the fall. And the carriage and guards on the road are gone. I’m not sure where anybody is, or whether Lark escaped the coach.

  But I have figured one thing out.

  Kimela was the wrong audience.

  The ashoki has been the most influential position in Moquoian politics for centuries. Tales are told of how they seeded wars, or ended them . . . how good ones made poor monarchs great, and how bad ones brought the greatest monarchs to their knees. This country has been run, tugged, lofted, and buried, not by its monarchy, but by its ashokis.

  I had great visions for my career. I envisioned myself lauded and praised, my statue raised alongside the others in the Hall of the Ashoki, my words carved into marble and set down in Moquoian lore. I envisioned my name in history books, my achievements written out by scribes as they told the story of our country.

  And I used Iano to get there. I can’t deny it. If he was blinded by his adoration for me, then I was all too ready to accept it as a stepping stone to greatness. A monarch and an ashoki at odds has never gone well. A monarch and an ashoki smitten with each other, as evidenced by the last six weeks, is a recipe for disaster.

  What a dangerous amount of power for one person.

  Which made me realize who I should have been talking to all along.

  I pat Rat again and push myself up, my battered muscles protesting. I take things slowly, crawling again to the stream for another drink. I’d slipped a few of Soe’s huckleberry cakes in my pouch this morning. They’re crumbs now, ones I’ve been snacking on throughout the day, and now I allow myself a meal of the biggest piece. I swallow, wash it down with another drink, and then get slowly to my feet.

  “Okay, Rat,” I say. “Come.”

  We follow the stream, moving slowly through the darkening woods, until the valley sides grow less steep. I turn upslope, breathing heavily, but it’s not far until we reach the place Lark and I left Rat this morning. Her horse is still there. Kobok’s horse, rather. I grin painfully.

  The horse has been grazing all day, so I bring it down to the stream to drink, and then I clamber onto its back. I nudge it uphill. Rat follows.

  There’s evidence of a lot of activity on the road, churned earth and trails of hoofprints all crisscrossing each other, but we meet nobody. By the time we reach Soe’s house, it’s fully dark. I turn the horse into the paddock, and then I realize that the two mules are gone, along with their tack. The cart is still there, though. I’m not sure what to make of this until I get to the cabin door and go inside.

  The place has been—not exactly ransacked, but at least searched thoroughly. Cupboards are open, furniture is moved, and rugs are peeled back and piled in corners. Soe’s bed is pushed along one wall, and her wardrobe and cedar chest thrown open, the contents strewn over the covers. The dulcimer lies under a pile of shawls. I clear them away and pull it out, setting it on the bedspread.

  In the workroom, my scattered papers have been moved into piles so that the presses could be shifted around. But nothing seems to be broken or taken. If anything, whoever was here seemed to be looking for places in the floor that might hide a door. They were looking, not for goods, but for people. Me, probably.

  Well, they missed me, and now I have Rat to sound an alarm. Still, it adds to my sense of urgency. Hastily, I turn up the lanterns and shove the big press back into the middle of the room. I warm the jars of tacky ink in my hands and neaten the stacks of blank paper. I unearth the three big blocks Lark carved, set with their lines of stamps, painstakingly cast and crafted, from the tidy rows of text to the bold title font. THE PATH OF THE FLOOD. So much work for one meager little pamphlet. So much effort, to be read by only one person.

  But not for much longer.

  Rain cannot soak dry ground. When met with arid soil, it runs off and races onward, becoming destruction.

  My metaphors had been good, but slightly off. Tolukum Palace has always been the dry ground, but the destruction doesn’t have to be just its making. It’s the rain, after all, that strikes the unyielding surface and then goes tearing off, joining forces, becoming rivulets, then streams, then floods. And it’s the flood that destroys—reshapes the arid land to something of its own making.

  The enormity of what I’m about to do—what I’m about to undo—strikes me, and I stare at the hulking wine press. If my idea works, am I turning it into a machine of creation, or a machine of destruction?

  It’s both, I decide. Such is the nature of justice. Iano and I had been focused so much on the creation that we ignored the fact that something had to be destroyed first.

  The achievement of justice relies first on the destruction of injustice.

  I push up the sleeves of my dress, eat another of Soe’s cakes, and get to work.

  Lark

  Footsteps sound on the stone, and keys ring against the metal door. Hinges groan. My closed eyelids redden with new light, so I keep them shut. I’m lying on my side, my arms stretched out to accommodate the manacles on my wrists. I breathe only deeply enough to keep air flowing in my lungs. Anything deeper and my cracked rib slices with pain.

  “So,” says a voice. “The Sunshield Bandit.”

  I don’t say anything. From the shuffling of feet, I gather there are several people in front of me—probably not friends.

  “Open your eyes,” the voice demands.

  I slit them open and immediately blink them shut again—the light is offensively bright, brighter than just a standard lantern. Someone snickers.

  “Can’t take your own medicine, I see. I said open your eyes. And sit up.”

  I don’t move. Lying on my side helps contain the pain from my rib.

  A toe nudges my stomach. I hiss through my teeth.

  “I was told you speak Moquoian, though poorly. I said, sit up and look at me, or the guards will make you sit up.”

  They’re probably expecting defiance, which means they’ve already considered how they’ll deal with such a response. I suspect I’ll need to preserve as much pain tolerance as I have left. Reluctantly, I brace my arms against the stone. The links connecting the manacles to the ring in the floor clink as I slowly push myself upright. I hold my breath until I can lean against the wall, and then I let it out slowly, opening my eyes.

  Before me is the man from the headquarters building at Tellman’s Ditch—Minister Kobok. He’s flanked by four guards, one of whom has a lantern half-cased by angled mirrors, intensifying the beam while shielding the rest of them from its glare. A power tactic. There’s one more figure—a servant, I guess, her head bent over a scribing board, a charcoal stick in her fingers. She doesn’t look at me, but she doesn’t seem to be looking directly at the paper, either—her eyes instead seem far away.

  Kobok’s boot moves forward again, so shiny the light reflects off it, but he doesn’t go for my ribs. His toe drags at a few of the chain links on the floor, pulling my right arm sideways. The hems of my sleeves had been chafing under the metal cuffs, and I’d tugged them partway up my forearms with my teeth. Far enough for my brand to show.

  He gives a humorless snort. “You seem to be missing something, I see. The rumors did say you were an escapee. Redalo or Tellman’s Ditch? Or were you perhaps in one of the factories?”

  I don’t answer, don’t shift. He releases the pressure on the chain, and my arm rolls back over in my lap. He regards me with disgust.

  “You burned do
wn my quarry compound,” he says with venom. “You injured my guard and stole my coach and team. You attacked the royal ashoki and murdered her maid. And I have my suspicions that you know where our crown prince is. And that’s just your list of crimes from the past week, without even touching on your reign of terror in the Ferinno. You are in a very, very bad position. Would you agree?”

  I shrug as much as I can given the pain in my side. I have very little energy to spend worrying over the dwindling time left to me. The hours-long journey from Giantess to what I assume is Tolukum prison was excruciating, first draped over a horse, where I didn’t get a good breath for about three hours, and then locked in a cramped prison coach with my wrists chained to a bolt in the ceiling. By the time they took the bag off my head and my handkerchief out of my mouth and closed me in this cell, my main life goal had simply become drawing one breath after another.

  “The queen would like to give you a public execution,” he says to my persisting silence. “She thinks it necessary to show the people of Moquoia that you are no longer a threat to them, and I am inclined to agree. However.” He bends forward. “She could perhaps be persuaded to afford you a more private and, shall we say, less gruesome end to your life—if you cooperate.”

  I lean my head against the stone wall, marveling vaguely at the fact that he really seems to think I care.

  Kobok sweeps the scribe forward. She curls over her board, her head down, but her eyes flick up to meet mine before settling back on her parchment.

  The minister waves a hand without looking at the girl, as if turning on a machine. “You might start by confirming my suspicions that it was Prince Veran Greenbrier of the Silverwood Mountains, second son of King Valien and Queen Ellamae Heartwood and erstwhile translator to Eastern Ambassador Rou Alastaire, who was your accomplice in the attack on Tellman’s Ditch?”

  That was a damn lot of titles—Veran would be pleased.

  “Well?” He twitches my chain with his toe again, jerking my wrists. “Confident in our pain threshold, are we? Shall we test it? Was Veran Greenbrier your accomplice or not?”