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  Hadrian took his blanket, laid it out over the shivering form of Royce, and was about to head back up topside when he remembered something. “Any idea what happened to Edgar Drew?”

  “The guy that fell?”

  “Yeah, some of the crew think he might have been murdered.”

  “I didn’t see anything. Spent most of my time hugging the mast. I was pretty sick—still am. Get out of here and let me sleep.”

  It was late and the port watch was on duty, but most of them slept on deck or in the rigging. Only a handful had to remain alert during the middle watch; three lookouts aloft at the masthead, the quartermaster’s mate who manned the wheel in Wyatt’s absence, and the Officer of the Watch. Hadrian nearly ran into him as he came up.

  ster Wesley, sir,” Hadrian said, shifting the tray so he could properly perform the salute.

  Wesley’s face was blotchy, his nose and eyes black and blue and Hadrian knew he was standing an additional watch. On his way to Royce, Hadrian had overheard Lieutenant Bishop questioning the midshipman about a brawl, but since Wesley had refused to divulge the name of his adversary the young man took his punishment alone.

  “Mister Wesley, I thought you might like a bit of hot coffee and something to eat. I’m guessing you haven’t had much today.”

  The officer glared at him a moment, then looked at the tray. Seeing the steam rising from the coffee cup, his mouth opened and abruptly shut. “Who sent you here? Was it Beryl? Is this supposed to be funny?”

  “No, sir. I just know you didn’t get to eat breakfast, and you’ve been kept on duty through the rest of the meals today. You must be starved.”

  “You were ordered not to feed me.”

  Hadrian shrugged. “I’ve also been ordered by the captain to see that the crew is fed and fit for duty. You’ve been up a long time. A man could fall asleep without something to help keep his eyes open.”

  Wesley looked back down. “That’s coffee, isn’t it?” the young midshipman asked astonished. “There’s not more than a few pounds on the entire ship and most of that is reserved for the captain.”

  “I did a bit of trading this afternoon with the purser and managed to get a couple cups worth.”

  “Why offer it to me?”

  Hadrian looked up at the night sky. “It’s cold tonight, and punishment for falling asleep can be severe.”

  Wesley nodded gravely. “On this ship a midshipman is flogged.”

  “Do you think that’s Beryl’s plan, sir? For standing up to him this morning in front of the other officers, I mean.”

  “Maybe. Beryl is a tyrant of the worst order and a libertine who squandered his family’s fortune. If it wasn’t for my brother, Breckton, I suspect Beryl wouldn’t even notice me. Beating me must seem to Beryl as if he’s better than my brother.”

  “Your brother is Sir Breckton?”

  Wesley nodded. “But the joke is on him. I’m nothing like my brother. If I was I wouldn’t be on this lousy floating piece of wood, or allow myself to be bested by a lout like Beryl.”

  “Take the coffee and bread, sir,” Hadrian said. “I can’t say I care for Beryl and if keeping you awake tonight gets under his skin, it will make tomorrow all the better in my book. The orders of the captain are more important than a senior midshipman.”

  “I’ll still have to put you on report for this morning. This kindness won’t change that.”

  “I didn’t expect it to, sir.”

  The midshipman studied Hadrian, his face betraying a new curiosity. “In that case, thank you,” he said, taking the food.

  ***

  Dovin Thranic walked through the waist hold. Dark and cramped, the ship’s bottom deck reeked of animal dung and salt water. A good four inches of liquid slime pooled along the centerline gutter forcing him to walk up the sides, hurdling the futtock rider beams to keep his shoes dry. Tomorrow he would order Mister Bishop to direct the detail of men to work the bilge pump in the evening to ensure he did not need to go through this every night.

  His unsettled stomach made the ordeal even more miserable. After several days of sleeping on board the Emerald Storm while she was in dock, he thought he had gained his sea legs. The initial wretchedness had subsided, only to return now that the ship was rolling at a different cadence on the open sea. It was not nearly as bad as before, but it was still a nuisance and would not make his work any easier.

  Thranic carried no light but did not need one. The sentry’s lanterns at the far end of the hold gave sufficient illumination for him to see. He passed several sentries, seret who stood rigidly at their stations, ignoring his approach.

  “They seem quiet tonight, have they been behaving?” Thranic asked as he approached the cages.

  “Yes, sir,” the senior guard replied, breaking his statuesque facade only briefly. “Sea sickness. They’re all under the weather.”

  “Yes,” Thranic noted, not without a degree of revulsion. He watched them. “They can see me you know, even in the dark. They have very good eyesight.”

  Since a response was not required, the seret remained silent.

  “I can see recognition on their faces, recognition and fear. This is my first trip to visit them, but already they know me. They can sense the power of Novron within me and the evil in them instinctually cowers. It is like I am a candle and the light I give off pushes back their darkness.”

  Thranic stepped closer to the cages, each so densely packed they were forced to take turns between standing and lying. Those standing pressed their filthy naked bodies against each other for support. Males, females, and children were jammed together tightly creating a repugnant quivering mass of flesh. He watched with amusement as they whimpered and whined, struggling to move away from his approach.

  “See? I am light and the putrid blackness of their souls retreats before me.” Thranic studied their faces, each gaunt and hollow from starvation. “They are disgusting creatures—unnatural abominations that never should have been. Their very existence is an insult. You feel it don’t you? We need to purge the world of the stain they cause. We need to do our best to clear the offense. We need to prove ourselves worthy.”

  Thranic was no longer looking at the elves. He was staring at his own hands. “Purification is never easy, but always necessary,” he muttered, pensively. “Fetch me that tall male with the missing tooth,” Thranic ordered. “I’ll begin with him.”

  Following the sentinel’s direction, the guards ripped the elf from his cage and bound his elbows behind his back. Using a spare rigging pulley, they hoisted the unfortunate prisoner by his arms to the overhead beam. The effort pulled the elf’s limbs from their sockets, causing him to scream in agony. His wails and the wretched look on his face caused even the seret to look away, but Thranic watched stoically, his lips pursed approvingly.

  “Swing him,” he said as the elf howled anew from the motion.

  The sentinel looked at the cages again. Inside others were weeping. At his glance, one female pushed forward. “Why can’t you leave us alone?”

  Thranic searched her face with a look of genuine pity. “Maribor demands that the mistake of his brother be erased. I am merely his tool.”

  “Then why not—why not just kill us and get it over with?” she cried at him, eyes wild. Thranic paused. He stared once more at his hands. He turned them over examining both sides with a distant expression. He seemed lost in thought, and was silent for so long that even the seret turned to face him. Thranic looked back at the female, his eyes blurring and lips trembling. “One must scrub very hard to remove some stains. Take her next.”

  Chapter 7

  Rotten Eggs

  Modina descended the curved stair, feeling the hem of her new gown drag along the stone steps. Since leaving her bedroom, she had passed two young women carrying a pile of linens, and a page with an armful of assorted boots who dropped one the moment he spotted her. They only gave her the briefest of sidelong glances before trotting by. The two girls chatted excitedly to each other,
but no one spoke to her.

  Since her appearance on the balcony over a month ago, Modina enjoyed an unprecedented degree of freedom within the palace. She owed much of this to Amilia’s constant chipping away at the regent’s resolve, and could now wander freely inside the castle keep.

  She walked gracefully in her new dress, silent and pensive, the way an empress should. The dressilia fashioned for her was brilliant white, yet unlike previous imperial attempts to clothe her, this one was simple and unadorned. During the fittings, Amilia repeatedly scolded the seamstress each time she attempted to embellish it. Amilia knew Modina would be more comfortable in a plain gown, but she doubted her secretary realized the unexpected effect this garment would produce.

  When Modina had first come to the castle everyone avoided her the way one evades a dog known to bite, but all that had changed. After her speech, those few members of the castle staff she chanced upon looked at her with affectionate admiration and an unspoken understanding, as if acknowledging that they finally comprehended her behavior. Now seeing her in the new gown, admiration became adoration as the white purity gave her an angelic aura. She went from the mad empress to the saintly—although troubled—high priestess. They clearly believed her to be the Chosen One of Maribor.

  Everyone attributed her recovery to Amilia’s healing powers. After all, she herself had proclaimed it to the kingdom that day on the balcony. Modina also believed Amilia had saved her, if saved was the right word. She did not feel saved.

  Since Dahlgren, she drowned in overwhelming terrors she could not face. Amilia had pulled her to shore, but no one could call her existence living. There was a time when she would say life carried hope for a better tomorrow, but for her, hope was a dream blown away on a midsummer’s night. The horrors were all that remained, calling to her, threatening to pull her under again. It would be easy to give in, to close her eyes and sink to the bottom once more, but if pretending to live could help Amilia, then she would. Amilia had become a tiny point of light in a sea of darkness, the singular star Modina steered by and it did not matter where that light led.

  Modina took to walking the corridors of the palace each day mostly out of boredom. She never went anywhere in particular and oftentimes after returning could not recall where she had been. She wanted to feel grass beneath her feet, but her newly found freedom did not extend past the palace walls. She was certain no guard would stop her, but Amilia would pay the price. So instead, Modina spent each afternoon wandering the sequestered halls and chambers like a ghost searching for something long forgotten. She heard that people with missing limbs felt an itching in a phantom leg or arm. Perhaps it was the same for her, as she struggled to scratch at her missing life.

  The smell of food indicated she was near the kitchen. Modina did not recall the last time she had eaten, but she was not hungry. Ghosts did not get hungry, at least not for food. She had come to the bottom of the stairs. To the right, cupboards lined a narrow room holding plates, goblets, candles, and utensils. To the left, folded linens were stacked on shelves. Filled with laboring servants and steam, the place was hot and noisy.

  Modina spotted the big elkhound sleeping in the corner of the kitchen and immediately recalled his name was Red. She had not been down this way in a long time, not since Saldur caught her feeding the dog. That was the first day since her father died that she could remember clearly, before that—nothing—nothing but…rotten eggs.

  She smelled the rancid stench as she stood at the bottom of the steps. Modina glanced around with greater interest. That awful smell triggered a memory. There was a place, a small room. It was cold and dark, no windows, and it was damp. The floor was dirt, and she remembered that smell. She could almost taste it.

  Modina approached a small wooden door. With a shaking hand, she pulled it open. Inside, was a small pantry filled with sacks of flour and grain. This was not the room, but the smell was stronger here.

  There was another place—small like this—small, dark, and evil. The thought came at her with the force of a forgotten nightmare. Black, earth and cold, a splashing, and a ratcheting that echoed ominously, the wails of lost souls crying for mercy and finding none. She was one of them. She had cried aloud in the dark until she could cry no more, and always the smell of dirt penetrated her nostrils and the dampness soaked into her skin. A sudden realization jolted her.

  I’m remembering my grave! I am dead. I am a ghost.

  She looked at her hands—this was not life. The darkness, closed in all around her, growing deeper, swallowing her, smothering her.

  ***

  “Are you all right, Your Eminence?”

  “Ya think she’s sick again?”

  “Don’t be daft. She’s just upset. You can see that well enough, can’t ya?”

  “Poor thing, she’s so fragile.”

  “Remember who you’re speaking of. That lass slew Rufus’ Bane!”

  “You remember who you’re speaking of, that lass indeed! By Maribor’s beard, she’s the empress!”

  “Out of my way,” Amilia growled, as she shooed the crowd like a yard full of chickens.

  She was in no mood to be polite. Fear made her voice harsh and it lacked the familiar tone of a fellow kitchen worker—it was the voice of an angry noblewoman. The servants scattered. Modina sat on the floor with her back against the wall. She was weeping softly with her hands covering her face.

  “What did you do to her?” Amilia snapped accusingly, while glaring at the lot of them.

  “Nothing!” Leif defended.

  Leif, the butcher and assistant cook, was a scrawny little man with thick dark hair covering his arms and chest but absent from his balding head. Amilia had never cared for him and the thought that he, or any of them, might have hurt Modina made her blood boil.

  “No one was even near her. I swear!”

  “That’s right,” Cora confirmed. The dairymaid was a sweet simple girl who churned the butter each morning and always added too much salt. “She just sat and started crying.”

  Amilia knew better than to listen to Leif, but Cora was trustworthy. “All right,” she told them. “Leave her be. Back to work all of you.”

  They were slow to respond until Amilia gave them a threatening glare.

  “Are you all right? What’s wrong?” she asked kneeling beside Modina.

  The empress looked up and threw her arms around Amilia’s neck as she continued to sob uncontrollably. Amilia held her, stroking her hair. She had no idea what was wrong, but needed to get the empress to her room. If word reached Saldur, or worse, if he wandered in—she tried not to think of it.

  “It’s okay, it’s all right. I’ve got you. Try to calm down.”

  “Am I alive?” Modina asked with pleading eyes.

  For the briefest of moments, Amilia thought she might be joking, but there were two things wrong with that. First, there was the look in Modina’s eyes, and second the empress never joked.

  “Of course, you are,” she reassured. “Now come. Let’s get you to bed.”

  Amilia helped her up. Modina stood like a newborn fawn, weak and unsure. As they left, excited whispering rose. I’ll have to deal with that right away, she thought.

  She guided Modina upstairs to where Gerald, the empress’s personal guard, gave them a concerned look as he opened the chamber door.

  “Is she all right?” Gerald asked.

  “She’s tired,” Amilia said, closing the door on him.

  The empress sat on the edge of her bed staring at nothing, but this was not her familiar blank stare. Amilia could see her thinking hard about something.

  “Were you sleepwalking? Did you have a nightmare?”

  Modina thought a moment then shook her head. “I remembered something,” her voice was faint and airy. “It was something bad.”

  “Was it about the battle?” This was the first time Amilia brought up the subject. Details of Modina’s legendary combat with the beast that destroyed Dahlgren were always vague, or clouded by so much
dogma and propaganda it was impossible to tell truth from fiction. Like any imperial citizen, Amilia was curious. The stories claimed Modina slew a powerful dragon with a broken sword. Just looking at the empress, she knew that was not true, but Amilia was certain something terrible had happened.

  “No,” Modina said softly. “It was afterward. I woke up in a hole, a terrible place. I think it was my grave. I don’t like remembering. It’s better for both of us if I don’t try.”

  Amilia nodded. Since Modina had begun speaking, most of their conversations had centered on Amilia’s life in Tarin Vale. On the few occasions when she asked Modina about her own past, the empress’s expression darkened and the light in her eyes would fade. She would not speak anymore after that, sometimes for days. The skeletons in Modina’s closet were legion.

  “Well, don’t think about it then,” Amilia told her in a soothing voice. She sat next to Modina on the edge of the bed and ran her fingers through the empress’s hair. “Whatever it was, it’s over. Shh, you’re here with me now. It’s getting late. Do you think you can sleep?”

  The empress nodded, but her eyes remained troubled.

  Once she was certain the empress was resting peacefully, Amilia crept out of her room. Ignoring Gerald’s questioning looks, she trotted downstairs to the kitchen. If left to themselves, the scullions would start a wave of rumors certain to engulf the entire palace and she could not afford to have this getting back to Saldur.

  Amilia had not visited the kitchens for quite some time. The moist steamy cloud that smelled of onions and grease, once so familiar, was now oppressive. Eight people worked the evening shift. There were several new faces, mostly young boys fresh off the street, or girls still smelling of farm manure. All of them worked perfunctorily, as they were engrossed in the conversation that rose above the sound of the boiling kettles and the clatter of pans. That all stopped when she entered.

  “Amilia!” Ibis Thinly boomed, the moment he saw her. The old sea cook was a huge barrel-chested man with bright blue eyes and a beard that wreathed his chin. Blood and grease stained his apron. He held a towel in one hand and a spoon in the other. Leaving a large pot on the stove he strode over to her grinning. “Yer a fine sight for weathering eyes, lass! How’s life treating you and why don’t you visit more often?”