Chapter 1
Damia
The carriage ahead of me judders as one of the spokes splinters, sending a wheel tilting off to the side.
“Hold!” I shout to the driver, digging my heels into my horse to try to reach him before the whole vehicle turns over. The first drops of rain hit the crown of my head as I come level with the carriage door, the wheels grinding to a halt. Steam rises off the horses’ flanks, and their breath clouds in the air. We swapped out the first set of exhausted animals after we crossed the border into Filusia and traded the rickety wagon for a proper carriage. Still, the carriage hasn’t proven sturdy enough to survive our breakneck pace toward the capital.
But we’re so close now.
I glance up the road, the back gates of Lavail Palace visible through the increasing haze of gray rainfall. At least the weather is driving people indoors, keeping prying eyes away.
“We’ll have to carry him!” I bark, banging on the carriage in a command for it to open up. I’ve not come this far for us to waste precious time now. Hyllus and Stratton are at my sidein moments, dismounting and exchanging quick words with the passengers as they reach inside to convey a limp figure between them.
That body cradled in their arms is my captain, Leonidas Claerwyn. And he’s dying.
It doesn’t look like it from the outside. There’s still some color in his cheeks; his chest still rises and falls with an even rhythm. Yet it’s easy to see something is wrong. The body that should host his indomitable spirit is just…empty. The foul hands of the Temple have ripped his soul away, and what’s left is a shell that won’t last for long without a person to inhabit it.
A summer shower is rare in Lavail, but it turns brutal as we race across the last few yards to the gates. The rest of our party follows behind, their clothes growing heavy, weighed down by the lashing rain.
I don’t allow myself much relief when the tall metal gates creak open. Hyllus and Stratton don’t even break their stride, passing right by the welcoming party. The Crown Prince Fairon nods to them as they go. Morgana’s friend, Tira, is by the prince’s side, and her eyes widen at the strange blankness on the captain’s face. There’s a small crowd of healers with them, and many of them peel off, following the pair across the gardens.
“I’m so glad you all made it,” Fairon says to me as I dismount beside him.
Didwe all make it?
That’s the question none of us are willing to ask. We have names for the place a soul goes when a body shuts down—the Gloamlands, the Eternal Realm—but if the captain’s heart is stillbeating while his soul is gone, no one can say for certain where Leonidas Claerwyn exists at this moment.
I turn to look at our party. Morgana is standing by the gates soaked, her eyes fixed on the spot where the captain is held between Hyllus and Stratton. But it seems as if she’s looking at something far away, something none of us can see. She’s barely spoken since we left Qimorna, and I wonder, too, if she is really here with us.
Tira pushes her way past Fairon to reach for her friend. I’ve always thought of her as absurdly small, but she looks strong and determined as she reaches out her hand.
“Ana,” she says, “come with us.”
The princess turns, a flicker of recognition in her eyes. She lets Tira lead her through the gates, joining the procession hurrying to the sanctuary.
I glance at the walls of the palace in the distance. We’ve been here before, slipping through the city streets like ghosts, sneaking into the royal gardens to reach the sanctuary as discreetly as possible. Fairon insisted we come the back way, but whether he’s more afraid of Filusia’s citizens learning about the captain’s fate or his own grandfather, I can’t tell.
When I saw the captain fall in Qimorna, saw Morgana crouching over his body, I thought the worst. I felt the approach of that heavy, ugly darkness that descended on me when Eryx never came back from Bastion. But this time, it was stopped in its tracks by two words.
He’s alive.
I’d heard Morgana’s call across the aftermath of the battle and known it was not too late. Of course it wasn’t. The captain wouldn’t slip so quietly and easily from this world, away from Morgana’s side—no, he’d have to be dragged from it, shattering earth as he went. He may be elsewhere right now, but I refuse to mourn a man who still breathes.
And if he stops breathing?
I’m not a fool. The half-dryad, Mal, and the young cleric, Lafia, have some idea what the Temple’s done to him, but no one’s optimistic it can be fixed. Even a whole host of healers might not be able to undo it. If we can’t get his soul back into his body, it’s clear it’ll wither and die. What’s worse—yes, worse even than losing the captain—is that he’ll take whatever fighting spirit Morgana has with him.
There’ll be no battle for Trova after this. No solari queen to finally cut away the rot of the Temple, the disease slowly poisoning the whole continent. She’ll fade just as he has. I can see it all over her face.
And it’ll all have been for nothing.
I wonder if they know how much hangs in the balance as they carry him into the sanctuary. One of the healers who attended Fairon, Yanda, takes charge, escorting him through the spacious entrance hall. Everything about this place is designed to soothe—the cream-colored stone, the cool air scented with the fresh mint from the burning incense bowls lining the walls. But none of it is working for me right now.
Ana goes with Yanda and the others, trailing after the captain’s body like she’s in a trance.
I shake my head, unable to curb the spike of anger at the sight. I’ve tried to be happy for the captain and Morgana as I watched them becoming more and more entwined, but all the while I’ve been afraid of something like this. We have a mission bigger than all of us, but I seem to be the only one who can see that. Morgana would rather follow her lover into the grave than fight for the world they tried to build together. I find it hard to stomach.
“She’s a wreck,” I murmur, watching Morgana disappear into one of the sanctuary chambers.
