Finally, he pushed the door and it opened without any resistance. Once through, instead of heading to the next door for the bridge on the other side of the building as he originally planned, he stumbled up the nearby stairs.
At the top, there was a trapdoor that opened onto the roof. He went through without hesitation. The wind had picked up even more, and the rain now came down stronger. And at the edge of the roof, looking down at the crowd below, was a tall woman.
Sensing his presence, she quickly turned to face him. Her hairwas long and tied in the back, and she wore a leather coat over simple, undyed clothing. She had a hawk-like stare, as serious as an artist gazing at her painting. She carried a long box and had a shortsword on her belt. When her hand touched a lever attached to the box, he realized what the object was and leaped to the side.
A slew of bolts shot out of the box and clanged against the iron railing behind him, the sound ringing in the air. A Cassian repeating crossbow. He had only ever seen one on his travels, displayed like a priceless treasure in the home of an eastern prefect.
His injury and loss of blood slowed him down, and his only weapon was the mop handle in his hands. The garments of a politician were not made for quick movement, and rainwater soaked heavily into the thick and luxurious cotton. And this woman had all the hallmarks of a Cassian killing artist. He bit his lip and tightened his grip on the mop handle.
The woman pulled the lever again, and more bolts shot out. One of the bolts sliced through his clothes, just missing his body. Wrapping the wet fabric of his robe around his still-weak left hand, he couched his makeshift staff under his right armpit and charged at her, ready to be hit by another bolt. Instead, the assassin lowered her crossbow and unsheathed the sword at her side—Emere noted it was a regulation sword of the Imperial legions.
His left hand protected by the wound-up fabric, Emere grabbed her blade. The pain from the wound on the left side of his chest was close to making him faint, but he held on to his consciousness and the blade both, and swung his upper body around to strike his opponent’s wrist, disarming her of the shortsword. She grunted, then hit his head with the crossbow that she held in her other hand, and everything went black as he fell.
He couldn’t have been out for longer than a fraction of a second—the assassin’s sword still lay on the roof where it was dropped. But it was no use. Despite the brevity of his dizziness, it was enough time for the assassin to aim her crossbow right in front of his eyes.
Emere winced. In this last moment before death, all he could think of was what Loran had meant in his dream vision.You must become king.With the sound of the lever being pulled back, he said a final silent goodbye to Loran, apologizing for letting her down. He regretted leaving poor Gildas to lie in the rain on the bloody platform. It was raining when he had left Rakel. He was never going to see her again.
But instead of the whoosh of bolts, there was the sound of wound-up springs jamming. He looked up and saw the alarm in the assassin’s face. The intricate Cassian weapon must’ve broken when she had hit him on the head with it. She leaped back and pulled the lever again, but the crossbow did not fire. All it did was creak, and creak again.
Emere scrambled to grab the sword lying nearby. The assassin bit her lip before jumping onto the parapet at the edge of the roof, her calm and serious face now filled with rage. As Emere rose up and approached with the sword, she jumped. He ran to the parapet and looked over the edge, but there was only the slow-moving crowd below.
He collapsed on the rooftop, no longer able to fight through the pain, and sighed. Today wasn’t his day to die after all.
2
ARIENNE
When the direction of the winds changed, dust blew into Arienne’s face. She raised her hood and lowered her gaze. The ground at her feet was a burnt red, with only a few hints of long-dried grass. There wasn’t much vegetation at all in this wasteland—she could walk for miles without looking up from her feet and never bump into a tree or bush.
It was hard to imagine such a place could exist. The abandoned paths of the Rook Mountains had been harsh, with only a few lumbering bears about, but compared to the devastation of Mersia, the bare rocks and shrubs of the Rook Mountains were practically verdant. Here, there was only dust.
Her lone companion in these barren lands was an old donkey, and he looked pitiful in the dusty winds with his burdens of dried goods and water on his back. He had no name when she bought him, so she called him Aron—it was the name of an explorer in a book she loved, a story about searching for treasure in a vast desert.
“Aron, let’s rest a bit.”
The winds were exhausting. She kept her back to the gusts as she sat down—not a rock or fallen tree in sight for her to rest upon. She pulled the donkey to her side and brought out some dried mutton from a saddlebag. It had been three days since she entered these wastelands, and the meat and hard bread tasted of dust. Large grains of sand knocked against her hood, the sound echoing in her ears.
Arienne read that grass had once grown up to the waist in these parts, and large oroxen, twice the height of men, had roamed these fields, shepherded by herders on horseback. The herders spent their winters and springs at home in a large, rich city, and in the summer herded the oroxen before returning to their homes in the fall. The city had been called Danras, and the country had been called Mersia.
Danras, with its sister city-states of Iorca and Lansis, had labored under the tyranny of Eldred the Grim King, until the Empire came 170 years ago. Danras had sided with the Empire against the Grim King, and once he was overthrown, Mersia became the eastern edge of the Empire. It was a pivotal moment in the Empire’s expansion to the east, where the strategic location of the new province proved to be invaluable in the Cassian Wars.
But of course, Mersia’s life as an Imperial province hadn’t lasted long. One hundred years ago, seventy years after the annexation, the vast steppe teeming with life and riches became these deathly wastes in a single morning, struck by a weapon that would come to be known as the Star of Mersia. It was punishment for declaring independence, or so the common knowledge went.
Arienne slipped the rest of her dried meat into her sleeve andclosed her eyes. She imagined a ship sailing on the water. The white sails billowed upon tall masts, and the ship raced across the waves as the spray crashed around it. The sky was clear, and the sun had begun its descent from its high point into the west. The ocean reflected the sunset colors, the water as yellow-red as the earth of Mersia. Arienne pictured herself dressed like a pirate from an illustration in one of her adventure books, holding up a retractable telescope.
A crewman comes up to her.
“Captain Arienne, have you set a course for Danras?”
What shall she name the crewman? Cly, maybe. No, Bly. That sounds better for a pirate. Arienne scans her map, but not too closely—detailed images will only make her vision more inaccurate.
“Bly, tell the crew to turn thirty degrees to starboard. And maintain this speed.”
“Aye, Captain.” Bly turns his head and shouts, “Oy, you sea dogs! Thirty degrees starboard, she says!”
A chorus of “Aye!” is heard.
Through her telescope, an island slowly comes into view. But this is no island—it is the ruins of a city. It is Danras, or at least the Danras Arienne imagines in her mind.
