Ruler, Rival, Exile (Of Crowns and Glory—Book 7) Read online

  Her dreams were what Stephania was worried about, but by then she was too tired to fight. She was too tired to do anything other than close her eyes and let herself drift away into darkness again.

  This time, she dreamed of Thanos, and even after everything else, that was enough to make her heart swell. She dreamed of him as he’d been the first time she’d seen him: a prince at court, standing on the edge of a crowd while everyone else had admired his brother. Stephania had been planning to get as close as possible to Lucious, but seeing Thanos, she hadn’t been able to do anything other than stare at him.

  Memory flickered through her dream, tying together moment after moment until it seemed that everything had been leading inexorably to the way it had ended. Stephania tried to cling to the good moments as they passed: Thanos the way he’d looked the first time he’d smiled at her. Thanos with her, hunting for a traitor who didn’t exist, so happy to have her there. Thanos, the way he’d looked in bed the morning after they’d first slept with one another. He’d been so achingly handsome there that Stephania had barely been able to believe that he’d been there. He’d been hers. Finally, fully hers.

  It was the first moment that Stephania had been truly happy, and she tried to force her mind to stay with it, to just let her lie there, looking at the broad, muscular expanse of Thanos’s chest.

  Dreams didn’t work like that, though, and far too soon, it shifted. Stephania was tied to a post now. Around her were hordes of people, so many that even Stephania didn’t recognize all of them. Thanos was there beside her, and at first Stephania thought that he was going to help her; that he might cut her free, or that he might fight off those who were coming to attack her.

  Instead, he stepped aside, standing and watching as the first of them approached, holding a whip in his hand…

  Stephania woke to the sound of voices, and this time it wasn’t just the voice of the old woman. Male voices cut through hers, and they had the kind of dangerous edge to them that Stephania knew too well. These were men used to getting what they wanted.

  “Come on,” one of them said. “You know they’d give us good money for something like her.”

  “You think I should start selling my patients, Kel?” the healer countered. “You think I should have sold your girl when I treated her?”

  “That’s not the same,” the man said. “This one… what do you think will happen to her when she recovers? The first slavers passing will take her. We might as well be the ones to make the money. I mean… she’s beautiful. Except for the scars, and we can cover those long enough that they won’t guess.”

  Stephania wanted to sit up and argue, but right then, that would be giving away her one advantage. She opened her eyes a crack instead, looking around for something that she could use as a weapon. There was a mirror nearby. If Stephania broke it, the edge might be sharp enough.

  She barely felt strong enough to move. She didn’t have to, though.

  “She’s weak, Kel. Feverish. I doubt she’ll last the night.”

  Even as the other woman said it, Stephania knew it was true. She could feel the shivering cold that probably meant she was the one who was too hot. She could feel the ache in her limbs, and the deeper pains that seemed to spread out through her.

  “Then why not make some money off her now, while she’s breathing?”

  “That’s enough, Kel. If you want to take her, I’ll have nothing more to do with you. And then who’ll heal you the next time you’re sick with picker’s fever? Who’ll set your leg next time, Evett?”

  They hesitated, and Stephania recognized the quality of that hesitation. She stopped eyeing the mirror, waiting while the men shuffled out the door. When she dared to open her eyes fully, the healer was watching her.

  “They won’t come back,” the old woman said.

  “Others like them will,” Stephania said. She barely felt strong enough to utter the words. “Have you been talking about me?”

  “You think I can keep you a secret?” the healer asked. “You should sleep again. You’re still weak. You’ve been running a fever, and your abdomen feels tight with blood. If you want, I can—”

  Stephania shook her head. “No more sedatives. I’ll sleep, but if men come, I want to be able to wake before they’ve killed you and taken me off to be their slave.”

  The healer didn’t seem to have a counterargument to that. For a moment or two, Stephania thought about asking questions, learning more about her environment. She needed to plan. But for now, she was too tired. Far too tired.

  She slept, and as she slept, she saw a gate ahead of her.

  It was a thing of black basalt, rising up above a dark floor that felt slick with sand. There was a slope there leading down to it on all sides, so that it seemed to sit at the bottom of a great, sandy bowl. Sand trickled down into it, shifting underneath Stephania’s feet.

  She knew without having to be told that if she stepped through that gate, she wouldn’t wake. Almost as soon as the thought came to her, Stephania felt the sands moving faster, pulling her down in the direction of the bottom of the bowl.

  She scrabbled at the sides of it, trying to pull herself out.

  Stephania didn’t have the strength left, though. She’d always prided herself on being determined enough to conquer anything, but now there seemed to be no stopping it. The sand pulled her down, and even though Stephania crawled and scrambled, she couldn’t make progress against it. The gate grew closer, step by inexorable step.

  Somewhere above her, Stephania heard the cry of a child. Her child.

  She knew it the way only a mother could know it, and she found herself thinking of everything Irrien had done; everything Daskalos had done. She thought of her boy out there somewhere, out in the world in the hands of a sorcerer. She thought of him, and that thought gave her the strength to move faster.

  Other thoughts gave Stephania strength. Irrien had cast her aside. He’d tried to kill her. He’d taken her son. The anger flooded through her, and Stephania practically ran forward. She hauled herself up the hill, step by agonizing step, ignoring the pain that tried to pull her back.

  There was light ahead. Stephania hauled herself toward it, driving upward, because somewhere in that light was her son. She wasn’t going to let this beat her. She was going to take back what was hers.

  She ran forward into the light, and thought she heard the laughter of a child.

  “I’m coming for you,” Stephania promised. “Right after I kill the man who took you.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Ceres followed Zaxos as he led the way higher into the hills of Haylon, wondering all the time where he was taking her. She followed because of the chance he was offering to get her powers back. Because she needed some element of hope.

  And because, if she didn’t follow him, it would mean having to go after Thanos. It was strange that it was so easy to take on armies and fight invasions, but it still didn’t make talking to the man she loved any easier. This was the second time Thanos had proposed to her, and like the first, it simply didn’t feel right. It felt as though he was doing it just to prove something to her, rather than because they were ready for it.

  Ceres forced herself to concentrate on the ground beneath her feet. It was rocky up here, although it seemed that Zaxos was as nimble as a mountain goat. He picked his way up along a path Ceres could barely see, toward a spot where dark stone ruins stood out. Ceres recognized the flowing lines of Ancient One ruins instantly. She’d seen them before, on the Isle of Mists.

  They walked up to stand among them, and Ceres found herself feeling awed by the beauty of the construction, even though there was little left beyond a few columns rising like living things from the top of the mountain. She could see something like burn marks running through the stone in waves, which should have been impossible.

  “Why here?” Ceres asked.

  Zaxos spread his hands. “There are some things where you need to see the reality of them. You need to understand why n
o Ancient One could undo what has been done to you.”

  “Why my mother couldn’t, you mean?” Ceres said.

  She saw Zaxos nod. It felt strange knowing that there was something her mother couldn’t undo. Ceres had felt how powerful she was. She’d felt safe somehow knowing that her mother was strong enough to help no matter what happened.

  “The Ancient Ones were powerful,” Zaxos said, “but there were limits to their power. I brought you here because it is a good place to talk about the war.”

  Ceres had heard about the war from plenty of different people. Everyone heard versions of it growing up. She’d heard more from her mother, and from almost everyone who’d learned about Ceres’s Ancient One blood.

  “I’m not sure we have the time for a history lesson,” Ceres said.

  “There is always time,” Zaxos replied. “And this is important. You will have heard the stories, of course. The founders of the Empire rose up against their Ancient One masters, overthrowing them. Whether they say it was slaves rising up against their oppressors or petulant children lashing out at beneficent parents, that is what practically all the stories say.”

  “That’s not the truth?” Ceres asked, cocking her head to one side.

  Zaxos shrugged. “The truth is more complex. The truth is always more complex. That’s what stories are, after all: a way of simplifying things. There were cruel ones among the Ancient Ones and good ones. Both had enemies. Humans they’d taught secrets to, sorcerers. And other, more dangerous things who wanted a world they could influence. They fueled the war. They gave the Ancient Ones’ enemies weapons.”

  Ceres could guess where he was going with this now. The poison that Stephania had used on her was one of those weapons, designed to allow people to kill the Ancient Ones while they were powerless.

  “You said that it might be possible to undo the damage,” Ceres said.

  “Possibly,” Zaxos said. He pointed out into the distance, along the chain of islands around Haylon. “Do you see it?”

  Ceres didn’t at first. It seemed like just an endless string of islands reaching out into the ocean like a spray of blossoms floating on a pond. Then she saw the one that didn’t fit. A single dark island stood off to one side, its rocks blackened in a way that didn’t fit with the others.

  “A group of the sorcerers who stood against the Ancient Ones gathered on that island, building weapons to destroy them. They gave those weapons to anyone who would fight. Eventually, the Ancient Ones struck back, hitting the island with all their power. The result was an island caught between the living and the dead.”

  “And you think that there will be a cure for me there?” Ceres asked.

  Zaxos nodded. “If there is one anywhere. The sorcerers knew the dangers of what they were using. They would have kept ways to counter the things they built, in case they were turned against them by their rivals.”

  It sounded like a guess to Ceres, yet it was a guess that made sense.

  “You don’t know for sure?” Ceres asked.

  Zaxos shook his head. “It’s impossible to know. The island is dangerous. People have gone there looking for secrets, but they don’t come back. No one has, since the war.”

  “And you think I should?” Ceres asked.

  It seemed like too much to ask. She couldn’t go to this island simply working with the hope that everything would be all right. She couldn’t go, not even knowing if what she was looking for was there to be found.

  Did she need her powers back that badly? Losing them had felt like losing a limb, but she’d survived all that Stephania could throw at her even without them. She’d lived for years without the abilities that came from her heritage, and Ceres still had the skills that she’d earned through her training. She could still fight, and think, and more.

  She could still be happy, maybe, with Thanos.

  “The truth is that I think there isn’t much of a choice,” Zaxos said. “We’re talking on Haylon about how our defenses will stop anything Felldust can throw at us. It’s true, for a time, but do you think they will stop?”

  Ceres knew the answer to that.

  “Not while the First Stone lives,” she said. “Not while they’re all working together, and they think there is more to take.”

  Zaxos nodded. “You’re a symbol, and you have power like that. People will flock to your banner, but not enough to end this. With your powers back, you have a chance to strike at the heart of the invaders. Without them, eventually, they will crush us.”

  He made it sound like such a simple choice, yet it was anything but that. If she went, Ceres would be going to a place no one had come back from. Could she really do that, just to regain her powers?

  Ceres looked down from her perch atop the mountain, thinking about all the people on Haylon.

  Could she really afford to do anything else?

  ***

  It took time for Ceres to make her way down to the docks, and to gather supplies. The people on Haylon were as helpful as she could have hoped for: Iakos provided her with a small boat that she would be able to handle alone, and gave orders for rations to be brought to fill it. Even so, it was a long way down to the spot where it waited, and it took more time for her to gather clothes and armor, weapons and equipment.

  She was still loading the boat when she saw her brother and father approaching, Akila limping along on crutches beside them. Jeva was there, still looking around watchfully for threats.

  And then there was Thanos. Ceres had hoped to avoid this, but she should have known better. Of course she wouldn’t be able to leave without him finding out.

  “Ceres?” he said, hurrying forward. “What are you doing? Where are you going?”

  Ceres did her best to explain.

  “There’s a place nearby where I might be able to regain my powers,” she said. She didn’t say how dangerous it was. She didn’t want to worry them. “We’ll need them if we’re going to fight off Felldust.”

  Thanos frowned at that. “And so you were just going to leave? Without saying goodbye?”

  Ceres could hear the hurt there. The same hurt that had been there earlier, when she had said no to his proposal.

  “I didn’t… this is complicated,” Ceres said. “It’s dangerous. I thought you might try to stop me from doing this, and we need this.”

  That wasn’t all of it, not by a long shot, but it was the part that she suspected they might understand. Even putting it like that, Ceres could see the hesitation on their faces.

  “We don’t need you to go without telling us,” her father said. “You don’t have to do everything alone, Ceres.”

  “Yes,” Thanos agreed, and Ceres could see the determination there. “Let us help. I could come with you and make sure that you come out of this safely.”

  Ceres quieted him the only way she could think of: by getting out of the boat and kissing him until the sheer surprise of it seemed to slow him a little.

  “You can’t come,” she said. “You know you can’t. You’re needed here.”

  “We could still come,” her brother said from the side. “We want to help you, Ceres.”

  Ceres shook her head. This wasn’t what she had wanted. Already, she could feel tears welling up in her eyes, because this was getting more difficult by the moment. She’d hoped to be away before anyone realized, simply to avoid how hard this goodbye could become.

  “You can’t, Sartes. None of you can. Felldust will be coming, and you need to make sure that Haylon will be ready. Father, Sartes, you need to help give it the weapons it needs. The combatlords are needed to train the fighters. Thanos, they need you to help talk the Empire’s forces into helping. This is what I have to do.”

  Some of them looked doubtful. Thanos looked as though he wanted to continue to argue, but Jeva stepped forward. Ceres hadn’t spent much time talking to the Bone Folk woman, but the times she had spoken, she seemed direct and prepared to say what she meant.

  “The daughter of the Ancient Ones must go,�
�� Jeva said. “If there is a chance for her to be all that her blood allows, then we must take that chance. And she is right: the rest of you are needed here. We must trust that she is strong enough.”

  It sounded so clear put like that, and Ceres was grateful that the Bone Folk woman made it sound so simple, because it felt anything but that in Ceres’s heart. She was worried about what was happening between her and Thanos right then. He seemed to be so deeply in love with her, so willing to throw himself into a life with her, but at the same time, he’d made so many mistakes around her in the past.

  It wasn’t about what Ceres felt. She knew that she loved him. It was about how they made all this work, and if they ever could. It seemed to her sometimes as if Thanos was only too ready to be with her so long as circumstances were ready to intervene. Now, she was the one who needed space to work out what was happening.

  Maybe, if it didn’t kill her, this journey would help her do that, as well as helping her get her powers back.

  “All right,” Thanos said at last. He moved forward to take Ceres in his arms again. “But you’d better make sure that you come back, Ceres. We aren’t done.”

  Ceres shook her head, and now the tears were falling freely. “We aren’t. Not by a long way.”

  She felt as though Thanos would have held onto her forever then, but the others wanted to say goodbye too. Her father came forward first, holding out a pair of short swords for her.

  “They’ll be better for you than that great sword,” he said, pulling Ceres into a hug as she took them. “And I’ll not have my daughter going into battle with the wrong weapons.”

  “Thank you,” Ceres said. “Just make sure that you and Sartes stay safe.”

  Over her father’s shoulder, she saw her brother smile at that.

  “We’re probably on the best defended island out there right now,” Sartes said. He came forward to hug Ceres in his turn. “You’re the one who needs to stay safe. Come back to us.”

  Ceres went over to Akila next, passing him the sword she’d taken from Irrien.