Wrath of Storms Read online

  ‘Thank you,’ Serena said. She’d been so preoccupied with the strange vision that she hadn’t even sensed him.

  ‘Captain Ventris’ crew looted most of the Queen of the North, but they did leave this.’ Garald set Serena’s copy of Captain Crimsonwing and the Sky Pirate’s Daughter down.

  ‘I thought I’d lost that. Thank you.’

  Garald’s face reddened. ‘You’re welcome, Alisabeth. Well, I… I have duties to perform. Father is…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He is with his… personal courtiers.’

  ‘Oh, you mean like hookers?’

  Garald’s face reddened even further. ‘Is… there anything else I can provide for you?’

  Serena raised her hand to say no, but stopped. ‘Actually, yeah—you know that mural in the reception hall—the one with Belios and the fiery sky and all that?’

  ‘My father’s pride and joy—he commissioned it himself.’

  ‘What does it, uh… What does it show?’

  Garald’s face screwed up.

  Serena rolled her eyes. ‘I mean, is it a scene from history, or what?’

  ‘Ah, what does it depict? It depicts the glory of the Gods over the demon-kin who once walked the earth. Inspired by an artistic movement called The Renaissance of the Gods.’

  ‘Demon-kin—you mean the Orinul. Do you have any, like, books or anything on them?’

  Garald stifled a giggle. ‘Ahem. I’m sure we do, but it’s not real, Miss Alisabeth.’ Then, quieter, he added, ‘Please don’t tell my father I said that.’

  ‘Right. Yeah.’

  Garald stood straight. ‘Alas, I must take my leave. Later, perhaps, we can… take an evening stroll after dinner through the royal gardens?’

  In the corner of her eye, Flicker waltzed past. ‘Um, sure.’

  Garald stood even straighter. ‘Splendid. The chefs are serving roast pigeon with pickled blackberries and black lentil fricassee.’

  Sourness crept up into Serena’s throat. ‘Sounds delicious.’

  ‘Very well. Until this evening, Miss Alisabeth.’ Prince Garald bowed and left with a bounce in his step.

  In spite of his exhaustion, Gallows’ wounds didn’t let him sleep. Numerous bandages chafed his skin, and his body insisted on settling the debt it had accumulated in the fight against Thruzgaz.

  And what the hell’s all that noise?

  A constant churn of machinery and shriek of twisting metal threatened to give him tinnitus.

  He replayed the fight over and over, questioning why the Wraith would save him. There was only one answer that made sense. Serena. She was growing stronger every day, and he’d seen her wield her power with reckless abandon. What would happen when it was at full strength?

  Aboard the Queen of the North, Myriel had asked Gallows how he possessed resistance to her siren-song, and why he was accompanying Serena on her mission to Tarevia. He’d given Myriel a half-hearted answer, but only because he couldn’t admit the truth to himself.

  Because I might need to kill her.

  Admitting it caused bile to churn in his stomach. Gallows leaned back against a damp brick wall and dragged breaths into his lungs.

  Then the ground shifted.

  In the farthest corner, a slash of light appeared between the floor and the wall, and a cold breeze snaked through.

  The hell..?

  With a bloodcurdling scrape, the floor moved again, the gap inching wider.

  And the breeze turned into a cutting gale.

  Roast pigeon with pickled blackberry was exactly as appetising as Serena feared it would be. Worse were the looks and mocking grins Prince Garald gave her every time she used the wrong piece of cutlery, or when she placed her elbows onto the table.

  Give me porridge and a half-pint of Raincatcher ale any day.

  Less pleasant than the food was Garald’s stifling conversation about royal bloodlines and, Gods above, botany. They sat at either end of a long, blackwood table, and Serena found her mind wandering every time the prince spoke about lineages and botany.

  When they were done, Garald stood and motioned. ‘Shall we? Captain Thorir awaits in the Royal Gardens.’

  Serena’s chair scraped across the floor with a whine. Hurry up and get us out of here, Myriel. ‘Let’s.’

  The prince led Serena through a vast corridor, then—bursting with pride—opened a door and revealed the Royal Gardens. ‘I’m afraid that our walk will have to be brief, but I think you’ll be impressed.’

  They strolled through a wide avenue skirted with mowed grass and statues of the Indecim, where Captain Thorir met them and fell in step behind.

  Garald bent down and picked a purple blossom from a plain, ceramic flower box.

  ‘A perennial gladiolus. Or “sword-lily”. This is actually a genus native to Dalthea.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ said Serena, glancing at the sky.

  ‘I must say, it’s nice conversing with someone my own age. Being a prince can be… stifling at times.’ Garald picked another flower—a long, pale lilac-coloured thing. It was the length of two fingers and covered in spiny barbs. ‘This is my favourite.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Salix arctica—a willow flower, common in Ryndara and Tarevia. This particular genus thrives in the icefjords of Frosthaven. Its roots run deep into the earth and it can survive in the harshest of conditions. Hidden depths—it reminds me of you, Alisabeth. Here.’

  Hot tingling spread throughout Serena’s neck and face, and she wished more than ever that she was aboard the Liberty Wind, where she was free to sew streams of ignium gas into the tapestry of the sky.

  With her hand weighing as heavy as an anvil, she took the flower from Garald. Without a pocket, Serena had no option but to place the flower in her hair. It itched against her scalp.

  Garald’s dimples deepened. He blushed, then cleared his throat. ‘Shall we?’

  Serena fought the urge to roll her eyes. ‘Yes. Of course.’

  As the minutes wore on, Garald talked at length about Aludanian thistles and Phadrosi bluebells. Carved on the garden’s flagstones and water fountains were salix arctica emblems; seeing them heightened the itching in Serena’s head.

  Plants and flowers of every hue covered the gardens. The magnolias, lilacs and freesias smelled citrusy and sweet; the starfish-like giganteas and dragon arums smelled like foul, rotten meat.

  Together, they traversed the palace’s hanging gardens, climbing steep, spiralling staircases and riding in a brass cable car shaped like a bird cage.

  The cable car glided over Rhis, much smoother than the city’s public monorail system. From above, the entire city resembled a network of plumbing. Easy to forget about the people living there when you’re this high up.

  Garald didn’t shut up the entire time, and just as Serena decided to feign exhaustion and retire, they stepped from the cable car and onto a mechanical platform. Brass and iron cogs sparkled in the starlight. Mechanisms clicked and turned, thrummed and twanged.

  ‘Clockwork,’ Garald explained.

  ‘Music,’ Serena said. All around, pulpits shouldered clock faces, and clock towers rose above tiers of flowerbeds. Her heart beat in time with the rhythm of the machines—a clockwork orchestra.

  ‘The clocks are my father’s, but the plants and flowers are all mine. This machinery runs all the way through the palace, from the dungeons to the roof gardens. Every clock in the palace is completely synchronised.’

  Cool. Really cool.

  Serena followed the curving patterns on the metal platform, tracing routes between the clocks. ‘If they’re synced, why do they all display different times?’

  Garald’s teeth gleamed like pearls. ‘To reflect different time zones. Each clock was designed to reflect that particular region’s customs. Father deals with a lot of dignitaries from around the globe—they appreciate flourishes of home.’

  Sure enough, Serena spotted a sun dial-inspired clock, no doubt modelled after the timepieces used by th
e nomadic Val Candrians. A suspended ignium lamp rotated above it on a fixed axis, in accordance with the earth’s orbit around the sun.

  Some of the clocks were basic faces embedded in ornate casings on the ground; others stood tall like a proud landscaper surveying his handiwork.

  Then she saw a piece that almost made her dance on the spot. Four curling, wrought-iron legs shouldered a cube housing clock faces on each side, set into concave panels. ‘It’s just like the clock tower in Dalthea’s Theatre District.’

  Garald bounced on the balls of his feet. ‘I know. The entirety of the Royal Gardens is a feat of engineering.’ He swept a hand towards a wall of man-made waterfalls. ‘You see the tiered waterfalls? They’re connected to one another, too. It takes too much pressure to deliver water from the ground all the way up here, so we use troughs lifted by chains to collect water from the depths of the city and distribute it across the upper levels. Dalthea’s Raincatchers could learn a thing or two from us, I’d wager.’

  Serena stared at the rushing cascade of water in awe. ‘Back home I was a Raincatcher… Um, before Mathildé took me on. This is cool.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Prince Garald lowered his gaze and scratched the back of his head. ‘Is… Is Dalthea a good place?’

  Serena frowned. ‘It’s… good and bad. Like anywhere.’

  ‘But are the people good? Are they happy? There are reports of civil unrest, with the people losing their civil rights… Do the people really live in a dictatorship?’

  Serena’s skin prickled. Was that true? Wasn’t General Fallon one of the good guys? He has Catryn with him—she’d keep anyone in line. ‘The people are all right, Garald. I mean, people are good and bad everywhere, right?’

  ‘I see.’ The prince looked crestfallen. ‘It’s just…’

  Captain Thorir cleared his throat. ‘The hour grows late, your highness.’

  Serena had forgotten the bodyguard was with them.

  ‘Yes.’ Garald straightened his back. ‘I’m afraid I must go now, Alisabeth. Father has an important audience, and I must attend. And… And whatever transpires… I hope you do not think any less of me.’

  Tiera tapped the hilt of her inward-curving kukri knife.

  King Arnault sat straight-backed yet relaxed on his throne, the only furniture in his otherwise sparse chamber. He spoke of his plans and ambitions—and of Belios the War God, talk of whom always gave men a rise in their breeks. She tuned the old man out.

  A painting of Belios in his battle armour hung above him, standing tall amidst a blood-red sky, a twin-headed great-axe held aloft. This man’s cock must be so small, it’s a miracle Garald was even born.

  And it was the son who concerned Tiera the most. Arnault didn’t have long left, judging by his laboured breathing and bloodshot eyes. Whatever disease polluted his blood, it was consuming him—and when he went, Tiera couldn’t picture the prince possessing the stones to do what needed to be done.

  The prince sat hunched forward, elbows on his knees, chin cradled on his knuckles. ‘There must be another way,’ the boy said. ‘Our war with them ended five decades ago.’

  ‘The war did not end.’ The strange echo around the king’s voice wormed into Tiera’s head. ‘It rages on.’

  Tell that to the Daltheans. Monuments depicting victory over Ryndara were plastered all over Dalthea.

  The prince’s chaperone—the one called Thorir—stood as straight as the mast on a ship, saying nothing, giving nothing away.

  One to watch.

  ‘Dalthea’s leaders squabble among themselves,’ Arnault continued. ‘Their people riot and thirst—there will be no better opportunity to strike. Captain Ventris, your forces are ready?’

  Solassis answered: ‘Highness, they been ready for years.’

  Of the three pirates in the room, Solassis was the only one who took advantage of the ale, fruits and salted meats on offer.

  Tiera eyed Ventris; she sat as still as a porcelain doll in her chair, her pale, slender fingers resting on her thighs. The skin around her mismatched eyes clung tight to the bone beneath.

  No, not a doll—she sits still the same way a bear trap does, taut and waiting to snap. Tiera wondered what the Scalpel’s contingency was if Arnault died.

  ‘But is it really necessary?’ the prince pleaded. ‘This all seems so… needless.’

  Tiera felt like screaming. If the boy didn’t shut up soon, she’d ensure his finisa ass never left its mark on the throne.

  Arnault let out an exasperated sigh. ‘Boy, debts must be settled.’

  ‘But can’t we broach peace?’ the boy urged, and the kukri near floated into Tiera’s hand. ‘And how do we know these, these… pirates won’t renege on their word?’

  Solassis sniggered, but Helena spoke up: ‘Prince Garald, your youth and idealism should be treasured. In a perfect world, yes—perhaps one day the world will know peace. Perhaps there will come a time when we are not needed. But to purge a forest, first you need a fire.’

  Tiera had heard the speech a hundred times, before Helena had turned into the shambling mockery that sat here now. The Gravehold stole the passion from her. Helena tal Ventris preached peace while the Scalpel practiced for war. Tiera had seen her feed a thousand starving people, before razing their homes and burning them in their beds.

  ‘You.’ Arnault pointed to Tiera. ‘Sit. You make me nervous.’

  ‘I’ll sit when it pleases me. Highness.’

  Arnault dismissed her with his hand. ‘I’ve lived long enough to know not to argue with women.’

  Solassis tossed a golden-green apple into the air and impaled it with her dagger. ‘Time’s a factor. The Daltheans get stronger every day. We need to move.’

  Arnault leaned forward. ‘The Queen of the North has been repaired, and her cargo bays filled with my weapons. What equipment left from the Stormriders is yours to commandeer—’

  ‘But shouldn’t we wait, Father? Shouldn’t we wait until the air force has shored up enough defences in case the Daltheans possess another aerial warship?’

  ‘Dalthea does not possess the materials nor resources to produce another Schiehallion—and we can ill afford to give them time to do so. Dalthea is vulnerable—never will we get another opportunity like this.’

  ‘The war with Dalthea ended fifty years ago, Father—this… This is wrong.’

  ‘When you’re on this throne, boy, can you speak of matters of war. You are here to learn. Or perhaps I should withdraw your whore mother’s allowance?’

  Garald’s eyes glistened and—Gods above—his lip trembled. Whoever his mother was, Tiera reckoned she must’ve been a very good whore.

  ‘Lad’s just hoping to ride the green-haired freak before we burn her home to the ground.’ Solassis’ teeth crunched into her apple. ‘Maybe I should pay a visit to your chambers tonight, boy, let you get the tension out your system?’

  Garald’s face burned scarlet.

  In a voice as calm as the sea before a storm, Arnault said, ‘Stow your lapdog’s tongue, Ventris.’

  ‘Yes, your highness.’

  Helena tal Ventris—the Scalpel herself—cowed. And by a man, no less.

  To Tiera, Helena was an apex predator, a legend—but like the fabled great white shark of the Phadril Sea, the Scalpel was a victim of her own notoriety—when there was no more conquest inside you, you spent your days waiting for something bigger and stronger to kill you.

  When Tiera was lost, it was Helena who had found her. When Tiera was weak, it was Helena who had lent her strength. She should have repaid the favour by cutting her throat in the Gravehold, because the old Helena would be ashamed to see what she’d become.

  Something Solassis agrees with, if the quarrelling from their bedchamber is anything to go by.

  ‘If there are no questions—’ A hacking cough mangled the remainder of Arnault’s statement. Garald rushed to his father’s side, but the king pushed him away.

  ‘No questions,’ Ventris said. ‘Just demands: I will install
my own guard at the skyport, to ensure you don’t commandeer the Queen of the North—not after what we lost to take it. You’ve yet to explain why the ambush in the skyport was abandoned for a risky aerial combat manoeuvre against it, and I lost good soldiers. And you risk overplaying your hand by dangling the Dalthean merc in the Challenge, again putting our next steps in jeopardy. Your highness.’

  ‘I need to “explain” my actions now, pirate?’

  Tiera hadn’t noticed it before, but the conduits on the king’s breathing mask resembled the gleaming fangs of Ungrir, the wolf-form of Belios.

  Helena’s old fury crossed her eyes, before cold detachment set in like frostbite in a corpse. ‘No.’

  Arnault rose and walked away. For a man riddled with sickness, he still cut an imposing figure. ‘Brunswick will be executed tomorrow and the incident aboard the Queen of the North shall be laid at his feet. He was a Dalthean spy, sent to assassinate Genevieve Couressa—only by the heroics of the Air Force of Ryndara was she saved. The public will be behind us.’

  ‘Even more so if you gave the singer a scar,’ said Solassis. ‘For authenticity.’

  Arnault waved a hand. ‘She’s too valuable. But know that she suffers in the dungeons without her precious entourage and the absence of her laudanol. Enough questions. We’re done.’

  Captain Thorir held the door open.

  ‘What of the green-haired girl?’ Tiera asked at Arnault’s back. ‘And her friends?’

  ‘The Dalthean Hunter is dead, or will be soon, and the stone man is in our care.’ Before Arnault disappeared, he added, ‘The women are of no consequence now that the Dalthean mercenary has served his purpose—but I find it best to rid oneself of dead weight.’

  Even Arnault’s Crimsoncloaks straightened their backs when Ventris strode past them.

  She didn’t say a word until they’d reached their private quarters, which Tiera had heard a gossiping guard say was Queen Runa’s suite—and the room she’d died in.