Ana nodded, and their fingers clasped tightly together. “Try to keep up, con man,” she said, and, turning, pulled him into a full sprint toward Godhallem.
The main waterway to Godhallem was rushing and roiling like the ruthless currents of a river in flux. Some of it had flooded onto the marble walkway leading to the entrance. Ramson gripped Ana’s hand more tightly in his as they began to wade through the torrents of water. Once or twice, she slipped, and even Ramson stumbled in the tides several times, correcting his balance with the trained instincts of a Bregonian sailor that he’d honed long ago.
The first warning sign Ramson came across were two ships smashed against the huge pillars that held up the structure of Godhallem. They were eerily empty, hulls bared and broken, strewn across the marble pavement like bones. Gone were the magen who had controlled the flow of water. Gone were the guards who had lined the steps leading to the Godhallem.
Ramson found them piled at the door, bodies slashed, their blood streaked violently across the floor and the walls. He could guess at the culprit.
Sorsha.
The ancient ironore doors to Godhallem stood half-open, unmoving even in the winds that howled through the walkway. A sliver of yellow light fell across the pavement. Ramson and Ana inched up to the doors, flattening themselves against the wall.
Ramson drew a deep breath and peered in.
The scene was more dire than he’d imagined.
The courtiers of the Bregonian Three Courts were scattered in a loose ring around the edges of the hall. They were all on their knees, their heads bowed, their bodies rigid.
At the center of the hall, Nita stood before the searock dais, her fists clenched, her eyes narrowed in concentration. She was holding the Three Courts hostage.
By her side was Sorsha. A cord tightened within Ramson at the sight of his sister. She wore her weapons like ornaments: daggers studding the belt at her hips, boots that curved and ended in the tip of a blade, knives dripping blood in both hands. Her auburn hair had come loose and framed her sharp face—where, like a foggy reflection in glass, he saw traces of his own.
Sorsha grinned as she looked around the hall at the men bent at her feet. Her black eyes glinted dangerously as ever, yet there was something different about them, something unchained. If Sorsha had danced around the edges of madness before, she was now locked inseparably with it.
And, sitting on the throne, rings of precious stones glinting on his fingers, was Alaric Kerlan. Ramson had seen many different expressions on his old master’s face, but now, there was only unbridled triumph in Kerlan’s eyes.
Ramson’s gaze roved behind the dais. “Kerlan’s men,” he murmured in Ana’s ear, nodding to the figures who stood in the shadows. Some of them were from the group he’d encountered earlier tonight at Sapphire Port. Others were unfamiliar—meaning Kerlan had had to have planted them in the Blue Fort in the days before. Unease stirred in his stomach as Ramson realized there were more of Kerlan’s men roaming around the Blue Fort. There were definitely some ex–Order members whom he thought he’d glimpsed earlier tonight who weren’t here among these men.
“I see twenty,” Ana whispered.
Ramson did a quick count and nodded. “Some were my fellow Order members,” he said with a grimace. “Some, I don’t recognize—they could be Affinites.”
Ana’s eyes narrowed, and he thought he saw the faintest stirrings of red in her eyes. “Shouldn’t be a problem,” she muttered back.
She was tense, pressed against the wall in front of him, and Ramson felt a sudden sense of panic at the thought of something, anything, happening to her. “I think you should stay back,” he began, but Ana turned and pinned him with a glare.
“Not a chance, con man,” she hissed, swiping rain from her face. “What are you going to do? Shovel water at them?”
He frowned at her. “Is that all you think I’m good for?” he whispered back, but Ana prodded him into silence. She jerked her chin back at Godhallem, her face suddenly paling.
Sorsha was pacing the dais, a maniacal smile curling her lips. Metal spikes hovered behind her, crowning her head like a twisted black halo. “Who’s next?” she shouted, and only then did Ramson see the bodies at her feet. Rivulets of red ran across the smooth floor. The gossamer curtains lining the open wall behind them, leading to the cliff and the precarious plunge to the oceans far, far below, twisted like phantoms as the storm outside continued to slash at them. “Oh, this feelsso good!”
Kerlan wasn’t going to attempt to convince the Three Courts to support him. He was simply going to eliminate those who didn’t.
Ramson glanced up. The War Bells hung above the hall, wind swirling through their great metal rims and filling the hall with a low, melodic humming tone. Almost like a warning.
He wasn’t here to take down all of Kerlan’s forces, Ramson reminded himself. He was just here to ring some bells.
He shifted his angle so that he was looking at the wall to his right, where the stallion symbol of the Earth Court gleamed from the wall. Beneath that was a giant brass lever.
All he needed to do was to get to that lever.
He narrowed his eyes, took measure. Twenty, maybe thirty steps—and he’d have to get there without anyone spotting him. Otherwise, Nita would seize him like a rag doll, Sorsha would riddle him with iron-spiked holes, and his plan would be over before it even began.
“Ana,” he said, his tone urgent. “I’m going to ring the War Bells. Once I do that, I’ll be discovered, and all hell’s going to break loose. I’ll need your help to fight Kerlan and his Affinites. And if something happens to me…” He drew a breath and looked straight into her eyes. “I need you to ensure that those bells ring at all costs.”
There was rain running down her cheeks, but her gaze was like fire. She remained stubbornly silent, staring at him, ensnaring him with those eyes.
Ramson reached out and brushed back a strand of her hair. “Promise me,” he said.
