Wind roared. Fire exploded. And water rose in a massive wave.
A gale howled through the statue of the eagle, blasting through its open beak in a shriek, tunneling through the triangular marking. Fire lit up the stallion’s stone figure, its eyes glowing as bright as suns, swirling up the second leg of the triangle.
And, finally, water swept through the maw of the seadragon, its whiskers and gills rippling as though it werealive—
And the three elements met in an inferno in the triangle.
Ramson felt as though he were gazing upon magic, upon a foreign sorcery. When he’d left, there had been few, if any, magen serving in the Navy. Most had been regular civilians, perhaps with slight advantages to their everyday lives.
This, though…was something utterly different. As the roar of the three elements sweeping into the gates compounded to a crescendo, Ramson felt his own emotions awaken, part awe, part fear. This gate was something three magen should not have had the power to move. It was something that had not existed in his time at Bregon.
In seven years, the government had utterly revolutionized Bregon’s relationship with the magen. And his father had undoubtedly had a hand in it all.
There was a rush of air that set their sails billowing—almost like a celestial sigh—before the ironore gates glided open.
Ramson felt as though he had stepped back in time, into an impossible memory, as the Blue Fort revealed itself to him. Before him rose the section of buildings that made up the Naval Academy, its courtyards made of solid stone, a wide set of steps leading to the quays where he’d spent many an afternoon as a child.
Ships dotted the waters beneath the vast sprawl of courtyards and searock buildings that clung to the cliffs as though they had been formed by melding stone and sea. Their barge passed rows upon rows of gleaming Navy warships, anchored beneath the Blue Fort. It would only take a signal to launch them.
At last, they rounded to the main section of the fort. Before them, searock pillars rose ten, twenty times the length of their barge, supporting square domes overhead. Sunlight filtered through the top, and the waters flowed lapis blue, carrying them forward.
Ramson felt his chest tighten and something lodged in his throat, before he unstuck it and said in the coolest tone he could muster, “Welcome to the Blue Fort.”
A memory flashed in his mind. The last time he’d come this way, he’d been barely tall enough to see over the side of the barge, afraid to hold the hand of the man who had become his father and ashamed of his yearning for the mother he’d left behind.
Thirteen years, and he still felt like that boy, lost as a brig in a storm. If Ramson could turn back to tell him the truth of what would become of him—
He wouldn’t even know where to begin.
The waterway ended at a set of wide marble steps the length of four or five of their barges. Royal Guards lined the steps, dressed in the same navy-blue, bronze-buttoned uniforms; upon seeing Sorsha’s flag, they saluted. This, Ramson recognized. It was the waterway for kings and admirals; one that he’d never been allowed to use.
The water magen held out a hand and the barge drew neatly to the steps, rocking gently.
Ramson’s heart thudded heavily against his chest as they disembarked and followed Sorsha and her procession of guards up the high marble steps. He was suddenly aware of how he appeared: dirty and disheveled, his clothes the same tunic and breeches he’d worn since Cyrilia. Of all the times he’d thought of returning to the place that had both made him and broken him, this wasn’t what he’d imagined.
By his side, Ana’s dark eyes were steady, her chin set in that stubborn look he’d grown to know. Her hair was drawn in a tight bun, her tunic muddied and torn in places—but Ramson thought that despite it all, he’d never seen anyone more regal.
Yet the Bregonian Courts, Ramson thought darkly, were a different matter altogether. The age-old Bregonian stories told that women bore ill omens. The highest positions in the kingdom were held by men, and a combination of superstition and tradition kept it so.
Judging by Sorsha’s reactions to his taunts, nothing had changed in the last seven years.
Ahead, the sound of boots stopped. Sorsha stood at the top of the steps, her petite outline framed against a set of searock doors. Her easy demeanor and wicked smile had vanished, leaving cold-cut cruelty on her face.
She smirked at them. “I would welcome you to Godhallem,” she said, “but I don’t wish to give off the wrong impression. Guards!” She gestured with a hand, clipped her heels together, and grew stone-still.
The doors swung open, and Ramson entered the place that had once made up his most desperate of dreams and his worst nightmares. With each step, he felt as though he were traveling back to his past, the blur of cold faces and cruel smiles and whispers behind his back accompanying his every move.
But his gaze roved through the gathered crowd, the knowledge of that person standing in the same room as him pulling at every fiber in his body.
And…there.
Ramson went cold as he found himself looking into the merciless black eyes of Admiral Roran Farrald.
Ana had never seen paintings of the inside of the Blue Fort, but the sight that met her eyes was even more regal than she could have imagined. Whereas the Salskoff Palace was all white marble and curved domes and gilded statues, the governing hall of the Bregonian Naval Headquarters was a collection of sharply cut pillars and polished searock walls, stone furnished with brass and bronze. The hall they stood in was square, with only two walls on either side of them. Directly ahead, the turquoise searock tapered off into sharp cliffs and open air. A breeze blew in, blue gossamer curtains billowing gently and open to the ocean hundreds of feet below.
Godhallem. It meant “hall of gods.”
Overhead hung a line of giant bronze bells. The wind brushed gently against the insides of their domes—large enough to fit an entire person within—and they seemed to tremble with an invisible force, filling the hall with their low, steady hum. Ramson had told her of these famous bells—the War Bells, which the Earth Court presided over. The lever hung below the carving of a stallion on the far left wall, as a tribute to the Bregonian ground soldier who had once single-handedly saved the kingdom and established this tradition.
