“You should not have come here!” shouted a man in Marstoki.
The empress’s nostrils flared with a poorly concealed smile—which meant this must be part of her plan. If Safi only knew what it actually entailed.
The Hell-Bards were clearly as lost as she, for Lev and Zander ogled Caden, waiting for a command that wasn’t coming.
“Do you speak Marstoki?” the empress asked, so prim. Too prim. She pushed to her feet, the collar at her neck seeming light as dandelions for all it slowed her rise. “They said that we should not have come here.”
Caden lifted one hand, a knife flashing. Then he sniffed at the air, his narrowed eyes fixing on the window. “Smoke,” he said.
As one, everyone’s heads yanked toward the shutters, where sure enough, gray was just starting to trickle through.
“Hell pits,” Lev swore at the same moment Zander rumbled, “I warded against Firewitched flames!”
“Yes, but these are not magic flames,” Vaness inserted, beaming now. A hungry smile. “They are alchemical, for that is Baedyed seafire.”
“But we’re not at sea,” Lev muttered. “And why burn the entire inn? I thought they wanted only you.” She threw a look at the empress.
“Do you not want the Empress of Marstok?” Caden shouted, still using Cartorran. “She will die if you do not let us free.”
“She deserves no less!” came the muffled reply. Then an impassioned, “Why should we take only pieces of the Sand Sea when we could have all of Marstok instead?”
A moment of crackling silence while the blood seemed to drained from Vaness’s face.
Then a choked cry split her lips. She lurched from her stool and to the window. Before anyone could stop her, she had the shutters yanked open. “Stand down!” she shrieked as smoke billowed in. “As your empress, I order you to stand down!”
“For the Sand Sea! For the Sand Sea!”
A flash of light tore through the room, rushing over Safi in a burst of magic. Three more flashes, and then Zander was hauling the empress away from the window. Squinting through the bright onslaught, Safi realized crossbow bolts flew against the wards and ricocheted backward.
The protective magic was working—at least against the attack outside. Smoke, though, was coiling in. Hot, choking, and all too familiar. Too recent and too fresh, it set Safi’s throat to tightening. Smoke. Flames. Death.
“Expand the wards against real fire,” Caden barked at Zander. He turned next to Lev. “We need to keep the smoke out as long as possible.” Then together, he and Lev tore the wool coverlet off the bed and with a practiced speed set to billowing it like a topsail.
White light cracked through the room, and smoke burned in Safi’s tear ducts. She dragged herself to the wall where Vaness cowered.
None of the empress’s perfect mask remained now. Through the haze and the blasting lights, Safi found a wide-eyed empress. Her fingers were white-knuckled around the collar as she tugged it, arms shaking. Everything shaking.
“They betrayed me,” she mumbled, her quivering eyes fixing on Safi. “They betrayed me.” It was all she would say, over and over again, “They betrayed me.”
Abruptly, the flashing light stopped. No more bolts cracked against the ward, and Caden and Lev had reached the window with their waving banner. Safi hardly noticed, for now Vaness was wrenching at her collar with such desperation that her nose had begun to bleed. A downward seep from one nostril.
“Stop.” Safi scuttled in close, grabbing the empress’s wrists. “You can’t break through this.”
Vaness’s eyes flicked up, thinning into violent slits. “Do you not see, Safi? The Baedyeds have betrayed me. They were the rot in my court all this time—and they were the ones who destroyed my ship and killed my…” Her voice broke, and she pushed unsteadily to her feet. “Free me,” she flung at the Hell-Bards in Cartorran. Blood trickled from both nostrils now.
“Our wards will hold,” Caden answered. Yet as soon as that statement fell, stony and unyielding, Zander turned away from his spot at the door and said, “I can’t expand the wards, sir. Not while we’re under attack—the flames below are rising too fast.”
Lev swung toward Vaness. “How would you get us out?”
“I can snuff out the flames. I have done it before.”
“She has,” Safi offered, scrabbling upright. “It’s how we survived the attack on our ship.”
Caden anchored his gaze to Vaness, and his two Hell-Bards anchored their gazes to the commander. Waiting.
Until at last Caden asked, “How do we know you will not turn on us, Your Majesty?”
“Because there is no time,” Vaness said. Yet even through the madness hitting the room, even through the heat now rising against the floorboards, Safi felt the lie in her words.
“We can’t be killed by your magic,” Caden continued, sheathing his knife. A cautious movement, as if he still debated what to do. “There is no point trying.”
“Your death,” Vaness flung back, faster now, “will not help me. Seafire burns much faster than natural flame, and we are out of time!” She slung a pointed finger toward the door, where smoke now coiled in through the cracks.
Zander swore; Lev grabbed for the wool blanket; Caden’s hands settled on either side of Vaness’s collar. His mouth moved silently until a click rippled through the room. The wooden collar cut wide.