Letter from Lord Keegan Wollesley to a young scholar
You asked what happened. It’s an imprecise question, but I shall do my best to answer.
Where does one begin to recount a story like this?
In the beginning there was the Mother. She created all things, and the gods were her children. They each cared for their people, until in time they grew restless, and began to war among themselves.
It was in the clash between Macean the Gambler and Barrica the Warrior that the land of Vostain was destroyed. Deprived of his followers in a single heartbeat, the laughing god Valus was no more.
So the king of Alinor, Anselm, offered such a great sacrifice, such an act of faith, that Barrica was empowered to bind Macean in sleep, and prevent him from making war. After that, the gods stepped back from our world, except for Barrica, who left the door ajar to keep watch over her sleeping brother, changing her name from Barrica the Warrior to Barrica the Sentinel.
And that’s the end of the story—for five hundred years, at least.
We pick up the thread again when Prince Leander of Alinor boarded a ship to make his family’s traditional pilgrimage to the Isles of the Gods, to strengthen Barrica, so she could maintain her bindings on Macean. Aboard that ship was Selly Walker, daughter of the fleet, a girl with the sea in her veins. Also aboard, your humble correspondent. I am sometimes asked if I set out as the prince’s companion—the answer is no. I was en route to the Bibliotek, and unaware of the ship’s change of course.
In Mellacea, faith in their sleeping god had waned over five centuries, but was now rising—the green sisters had maintained a stubborn presence, and their second-in-command, Sister Beris, was ready to awaken her god.
Her interests aligned with those of Laskia, who wished to prove to her older sister, Ruby—the leader of their gang—that she was ready for greater responsibility. Laskia intercepted and destroyed what she believed to be the prince’s ship. In fact, she had found a decoy fleet, sent to distract such as her from the prince’s mission.
She was accompanied by Jude Kien, once a schoolmate of Leander and myself, now a member of a Port Naranda gang. Jude’s role was to identify the prince’s body, but amid the carnage, his task proved impossible.
Laskia’s people killed all those aboard the progress fleet and left evidence to frame the Mellacean government, hoping to prompt a war that would serve both Sister Beris’s and Ruby’s interests. They then came in pursuit of Selly’s ship, which they had seen on the horizon, and knew to be a witness. Despite Prince Leander’s fearsome feats of magic, their pursuit was ultimately successful.
They murdered every soul aboard—or believed they had. Selly, the prince, and I survived, rigged a lifeboat, and set sail for Port Naranda in Mellacea, the only land within reach.
We intended on handing ourselves over to the Alinorish ambassador. Shortly after she met with us, however, she was assassinated—our dinghy had been discovered, and Laskia was now aware of our presence.
The assassination meant that war was inevitable, but we still hoped we could limit the
damage to a conflict between humans, rather than gods. Macean was dangerously close to awakening, and we knew we had to make the sacrifice that would strengthen Barrica, at any cost.
We purchased a fishing boat, and laid in a course for the Isles of the Gods.
Upon reaching the Isle of Barrica, we discovered that Laskia had sent thugs to destroy the temple. The sacrifice was now impossible.
With Laskia close behind us, we pressed on to the Isle of the Mother in the hope of finding her temple intact. Legend has it that all gods are present in the temple of their mother, and we hoped to find Barrica’s presence strong enough to receive a sacrifice.
We arrived with only moments to spare, and discovered there was no way down to the altar. Knowing a great sacrifice was called for, Leander offered his life, leaping from above. In doing so, he unexpectedly empowered Barrica enough that she was able to save him from death, making him a Messenger.
As his new power threatened to overwhelm Leander, Selly bound herself to him as his anchor, sharing the load, and saving his life.
Laskia attempted to emulate him, and also made the leap. With her god bound in sleep, he was slow to respond, and we set sail for Kirkpool and home, believing we had witnessed her death.
We were wrong.
PART ONE
HOMECOMING
SELLY
The Docks
Kirkpool, Alinor
Everything in Kirkpool that can float, from a battleship to a bathtub, is coming to greet us. Steamships and schooners, merchants and fishing boats, they’re all jostling for space in crowded harbor waters made choppy by their maneuvering.
The decks are thick with bodies, and everyone’s cheering, flying sapphire-blue Alinorish flags, waving as the Emma makes her way in toward the golden city on the hill.
Leander stands silently at my side, gazing out across the harbor with a calm I’m desperate to break. There’s no easy laugh, no wink to put me at ease, no joke about how this kind of welcoming committee is just another day in his charmed life, full of all the usual admirers. When I scan his eyes, I can read nothing in them.
Before he became a vessel for the power of his goddess, his gaze was the warm brown mahogany of a ship’s timbers. Now it’s the same emerald green as our magician’s marks.
I know he’s in there, though. I know.
I grip the wheel tighter and exchange a glance with Keegan as we enter the thickest part of the cheering fleet, the boats around us sitting low in the water, every one of them loaded to the point of instability. Our scholar is taking it all in solemnly.
The crowd is shouting and singing, greeting us as joyfully as if we’ve won a war for them. And I suppose we have.
For all of them, this moment is more than victory. And then I hear the word in their cries.
Messenger!
Somehow they know what Leander is—just as they knew he was coming. “Seven hells, Keegan, do you…?”
“I hear it,” he murmurs. “But how word has traveled ahead of us, I don’t know.”
The cries around us are of pure joy. Alinor has a Messenger, and Mellacea will be forced to cower before us. This is absolute triumph.
They don’t understand that we paid for this power with their prince.
Leander shifts his weight toward me, and lifts one hand to lay it over mine where I grip the wheel. A shiver of magic goes through me, like the static before a storm, my body prickling.
It happens every time he touches me, this current of raw power. He’s barely left my side since we left the Isle of the Mother—and Laskia’s broken body, and Jude’s broken spirit—behind.
When I sleep, Leander sits quietly with me, and when I come up on deck, he follows, never out of reach. I can tell where he is at any given moment without turning my head, feel the press of his mind against mine as clearly as if it were his fingers weaving through mine to squeeze.
“We shouldn’t talk to anybody until we’ve seen Queen Augusta,” Keegan says, walking back along the deck toward us.
“I’m not planning on giving interviews,” I reply. Somehow we’d both thought we would just quietly sail back into Kirkpool, find a place to tie up, and then figure out a way into the palace. This is…the opposite of that.
He speaks gently. “We need to tell her everything, Selly. These people must not know the decoy fleet is gone, or they wouldn’t be celebrating like this.”
“Oh, goddess,” I breathe, and for a moment, as if in response to the word, the air around me shifts the way it does before a storm, close and heavy. Barrica’s nearer to us than she was before Leander became her Messenger. The words that were once a simple epithet are
now…something else, when whispered so close to her vessel.
“Leander,” I say softly. “It’s getting harder to sail, the wind in here is a mess with so many boats. Can you please guide us in?”
He doesn’t reply—he hasn’t since it happened—but I know he can hear me.
At night, I dream of him—I see him through frosted glass, or on the other side of a jostling crowd, never quite able to reach him. And it is him, I know it is. I know he’s not gone, even if I don’t know how to reach him yet.
I wake up each morning knowing I was just talking to him. I remember the feel of it—the warmth of his smile, like sunlight—and seeing the whole of him, not just the ghost of him, in his gaze.
Last night, I dreamed he was at the bottom of the sea, standing on white sand, reaching up to me. I was on the surface, trying desperately to dive down to him, tremors running through my limbs, nausea pushing its way up my throat.
Time and again I’d duck underwater, trying to claw my way through the currents, my lungs burning and bursting—and every time I’d fall short, shooting back up to gasp for air, my eyes stinging with salt, my heart pounding so hard I could feel it in my temples.
He stretched his hand out to me, fingers grasping, his wide eyes pleading with me to come for him. I woke, gasping for breath and blinking back tears.
He’s reaching out, trying to talk to me through my dreams from where he’s hunkered down behind his barricades.
The first night of our voyage home, Keegan and I talked about the strangeness of my connection with Leander. We sat on deck, beneath an extraordinary blanket of twinkling stars, barely able to believe we’d survived the chase to the temple that day, let alone everything that came after.
“The concept of a Messenger sharing a bond with someone like this was never in the stories,” Keegan said.
Leander was at my side, and though his breathing had evened out from the pained rasp it had been as we left the Temple of the Mother, he was still pressed close against me. There was nothing of my laughing, charming prince in him now. He felt more like a scared animal, sensitive to every noise, flinching at every movement.
“The stories are centuries old,” I pointed out. “Who knows what details were lost?”
“Almost all of them, I’d say. Messengers always vanished from the historical record so quickly. Like fireflies, a flash before they were gone again. Something about you, about the connection between you…you keep
him here, like an anchor.”
Sensing Leander’s struggle to hold himself together over the past few days, I can see why the Messengers from history disappeared so soon after they showed up. The sheer amount of power in him threatens to split him at the seams. It’s all too easy to guess at the fate of the Messengers from the old stories.
The vast energy he’s trying to contain fizzes between us, jumping in tiny zaps of static. Somehow I’m helping him, but apart from being close to him, I don’t know what it is I’m doing.
I have to figure it out, before the magic builds inside him to unbearable levels.
If the Messengers of the past never had anchors, then maybe his fate can be different. Maybe he won’t simply flicker out like a firefly’s glow in the darkness.
This boy fought for me, and I fought for him, and I will not let him go.
The water currents shift around us to carry the Emma along, and I can see the glinting pinpricks of the air spirits as they press against the sails to keep them from flapping. Leander doesn’t even seem to charm the spirits anymore—they just rush to do as he wishes.
Effortlessly they carry us through the fleet, the water choppy as the steamships churn it up with their propellers, the wind gusting and then lulling as we travel in and out of the shadows of sails.
As we draw closer to the dock, I can make out the individual faces of the blue-clad Queensguard, linking arms to hold back the onlookers from the place that’s been cleared for us to dock. There are sailors crowded onto the decks of all the ships in prime positions nearby, craning their necks for a look at Leander.
My chest aches, and my throat tightens at the sight of them. I should be standing on the deck of the Lizabetta. It should be Rensa guiding us in.
Leander’s grip on my hand tightens, his skin cool against mine. He senses my sadness, I know it. I lean in to press my shoulder to his, to feel the warmth of him.
Keegan starts to lower the sail as we close the distance between us and the dock, and the air spirits dance in the puffs of current left behind as the canvas folds in on itself. When the Emma bumps in gently against the worn timbers of the dock, there are many hands waiting to make us fast.
“Who’s in charge?” I ask as a couple of Queensguard jump down to locate our mooring lines. I can hear how brittle my voice sounds.
The guards look up to the dock, where a man with a shock of blond hair stands, his
handsome face slack with awe. “I, uh—” he begins, then pulls himself together and snaps a salute. “I am.”
“We need to head up to the palace right now,” I say. “In a closed carriage.”
“Right away,” he agrees, somehow standing even more upright.
“Leander.” I turn my attention back to my prince and squeeze his hand. “Let’s go. Come with me.” In the same way that Leander taught me to cast my mind out for spirits, now I reach for his—there’s the crackling sensation of power passing between us for a moment, a hint of him, and then it’s over. He’s understood, and together we cross the deck.
The Queensguard who wait for us shift their weight as they watch, uncertain. I can imagine how we must look to them, now we’re up close. Hardly heroes, with our old, ragged clothes, our sunburned skin, chapped lips, shadowed eyes.
The captain offers his hand, and Keegan takes it first, climbing up to join him on the dock. I go next, gripping tightly as I scramble after him—it’s a long step up from a boat as small as the Emma.
I see the moment the Queensguard captain notices the magician’s marks on my forearm—geometric, different from any I’ve ever seen before, or any he’s seen, I’m sure. His grip slackens for an instant, before he recovers.
They formed when I used my magic for the first time, to calm a storm near the Isles, to save Leander’s life. We had no time to learn what they meant before I became my prince’s anchor, holding him in place in the world.
I say nothing, but turn to offer my hand to Leander. He grips it and climbs up, agile despite his seeming obliviousness to the world around him.
The moment he sets foot on the dock, a shock wave of pure magic ripples out from us. The timbers groan a protest, and cries go up as the circle of
onlookers stagger for balance.
It’s like being hit by lightning. My mouth tastes of copper, my limbs are numb for an instant, then tingle unbearably, and then comes a wash of pure, righteous wrath.
Divine power bubbles up, threatening to overwhelm me and making me itch to find a weapon, any weapon.
The roar of the crowd has become a battle cry, and the Queensguard are reaching for their weapons without knowing where the enemy is.
This is the power of Barrica, the warrior goddess, with a Messenger standing on Alinorish soil once more.
I swing around toward Leander, but a shock runs through me as our gazes meet—his emerald eyes have changed again.
Now, I see the storm we battle every night raging in his irises. In a moment, he’ll be completely consumed by the bloodlust raging around us, by the magic flowing through him.
And it will burn him up.
Without thinking I throw my arms around him, press my temple to his, and launch my mind into the space where our dreams live.
The next instant I’ve been transported somewhere else, and I’m lost in a sea of people. My body is buffeted this way and that, like a paper boat in a storm. Someone slams into my shoulder and spins me around, but before I can focus my gaze, the ground tilts, and I’m stumbling again.
A chorus of voices rises all around me, echoing harshly, too garbled to understand. I squint, but there’s bright light coming from somewhere, and my eyes tear up, stinging.
A door slams nearby, and it’s like an earthquake, the force of it rippling through the ground beneath my feet. I press my hands over my ears, and the air seems to thicken around me until it’s like breathing water, though I can’t find the familiar tang of sea salt on my tongue. Instead, it tastes like blood.
“Selly!” Someone’s calling my name, but there are bodies coming and going, and another roar shakes us like dice in a cup. There’s a sensation like water sweeping around my legs, trying to
knock me off balance, but when I look down there’s nothing there.
“Selly!”
I know that voice.
“Leander!” My voice cracks, and tears stream down my cheeks. “Leander, where are you?”
Then he’s there. He grabs my hand and pulls me through the crowd. “This way!” he shouts over the roar, and I can only read the shape of the words on his lips.
Suddenly there’s a door, and he yanks it open, bundling me through it. Together we put our shoulders against it, shoving it closed against the press of the crowd, and with a click, it locks. The sound on the other side dims to a dull buzz, and I can hear the harsh rasp of our breath.
We stand pinned in place, staring at each other. Then something between us breaks, and I throw myself into his arms. He wraps me up, his breath still ragged in my ear, and holds me tight. I can’t stop myself from touching him, from making sure over and over again that he’s real. I run my hand along his arm. I cup his cheek and drink in his face. I revel in the press of his fingertips against my skin. It’s him. And he’s been hiding here, a prisoner inside his own mind.
For that, I realize with sudden clarity, is where we are.
Though I’ve never been there, I recognize the marble floors and painted walls of the palace, his home, his retreat. We’re standing on a balcony, like the sort that overlooks a theater—I’ve never been on one, but I’ve looked up to see them from the cheap seats.
Sapphire-blue curtains frame the view out into nothingness. There are cushions piled up on the floor to make a giant nest, each embroidered with an emerald-green design that’s all straight lines. Now that I’m looking around, I see the design is on everything: the wallpaper, the thick carpet beneath our feet, even carved into the wood of the balcony’s railing.
Leander clutches at my arms, and when I look down, a jolt of recognition runs through me. Every embroidered line of the cushions, every pattern engraved in the wood around us, all of it…is me. It’s the strange geometric lines of my magician’s marks. The marks that appeared as I protected him in the storm.
“I can hear her voice, Selly.” He’s hoarse with exhaustion, swaying on his feet.
“Whose voice?” I ask, but I know the answer. It sits like a lead weight inside me.
“Barrica. The goddess. She’s out there.” With a nod of his head, he indicates a door on the other side of the balcony, opposite the one we came through.
“She wants you to let her in?”
“Yes. But the world is so loud, so bright—how can I face a goddess?” His eyes—still surging with Barrica’s power—meet mine, full of fear. His terror staggers me, as though someone has sunk a hook between my ribs and is tugging at my heart. His fear is an ache I can hardly bear, and I lean in to rest my forehead against his.
Before either of us can say anything else, the ruckus rises to a fever pitch, the world he’s kept at bay howling to be let in to swallow him whole.
“Leander, we have to go!” I shout over the din.
But he just shakes his head, his arms tightening around me. “I can’t—it’s all too much, too loud. The pain…”
The door gives a terrible, squealing groan, like a ship coming apart at the seams.
“We can’t stay here,” I say in his ear, trying not to jump at each splintering crack behind us. “You have to come back with me. There has to be a way out of here, Leander. Barrica bound us together—she can’t have
meant it just to be this.”
He draws back, his green eyes meeting mine. “Selly—I don’t know how.”
The palace of his mind trembles, as if under attack from some terrible siege engine beyond the walls. A war machine, ready to crush the very stones of this place to dust in order to reach Leander.
Barrica.
She’s fighting to be let into his mind—to be let into the world.
Deep in my gut lies the certainty that we must not open the door that keeps our goddess from our world. The last time the gods walked among us, they turned an entire country to dust.
I shift my arms around Leander to take hold of his shoulders, giving him the tiniest shake to get him to focus on my face. “It’s either the storm or the goddess. Leander, you have to trust me.”
Leander shudders and says nothing, too consumed by the effort of holding the attacking forces on either side of him at bay.
The door gives another agonized scream under the pressure of the crowds outside it, conjuring up a sudden memory of riding the Lizabetta through a howling gale, listening to her wail as she was battered by wind and waves—but she held.
Storms at sea are so loud, someone can shout in your ear and you won’t hear them. But a ship knows how to give. Even if her timbers are groaning, and her sails are cracking, and it feels like she’s going to break apart on the next wave. She’s built to let the force of the storm run through her. Her captain, her crew…they know what to do.
I lift my head, staring at Leander, feeling a sudden, wild grin flash across my face. I know what to do.
In one movement I turn the handle and the door flies open. The roar of the crowd—the screams, the dissonant shouts—washes over us like waves. The blinding lights dazzle my vision. My skin stings as though grains of sand are whipping through the air like a million tiny arrows, ...
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