CHAPTER 22

Gavril clawed his way out of the sea and crawled slowly up the sandy beach.

Each waterlogged breath was an effort. Water bubbled in his throat, streamed from his nose and mouth. His lungs were filled with it. He coughed and retched until his rib cage ached.

Some salty seawater came up, frothing onto the sand—and with it a foul black slime that seared his gullet. The taste, bitter as caulking tar, tainted his mouth and breath.

He stared down at what he had vomited up: a black oily puddle polluting the silver sand.

So it begins again.

He tried to raise himself but his head pounded with the sounds of the shore, the rush and fall of the waves against the sand, even the distant mew of gulls wheeling high overhead.

Must find shelter. Can’t stay here . . .

He let himself drop back down onto the sand. The soft silvered grains grated against his cheek. He had no strength left. All that remained within him was this sensation, as if his innards had been scoured with burning coals.

“Water,” he whispered. His lids drooped, seared by the brightness of the sun, and a burnished darkness that stank of flame and smoke enveloped him.

 

RaÏsa Korneli reined her mare Luciole to a halt on the sands and shaded her eyes against the wine-gold dazzle of the setting sun. Lukan had given the order to separate so they could search the little coves and beaches that lay beyond the headland for Tielens, and she would do anything for Lukan.

They had rounded up a few stragglers in Vermeille—terrified survivors who had witnessed the annihilation of their fellow soldiers and had willingly surrendered. But there were more, she knew it—desperate men who must have watched their fleet abandon the attack and sail away, leaving them to fend for themselves.

She jumped down from Luciole’s back and tied the reins to the branches of a stunted sea pine. Taking her pistol, she primed it and set off down the sandy track that wound down toward the beach.

The sky was still a brilliant blue, but the sea beneath was darkening as the sun sank, touching the farthest waters with gold. And the evenstar had already appeared, low in the western sky.

Such a day. At dawn they had woken to the crash of Tielen shells and grenades against the citadel walls. Death had seemed inevitable. She had seized the Smarnan standard from the hands of a dying student and had clambered up on the broken battlements to swing its tattered, bloodstained shreds defiantly at the Tielen soldiers massing the beaches. She had felt shrapnel and shards of splintered stone whistle past her head, powdering her hair with dust. Exhilarated, angry beyond reason, she had screamed her defiance at the Tielens.

And as she stood wielding the great standard, she had witnessed the unimaginable. The destruction of the Tielen armies on the sands far below.

A cool breath of wind, salt-tinged, stirred her hair. It felt good. Good to be alive. Good to smell and taste the freshness of the sea-stung air. The colors of the twilight seemed so much more intense because she had come so close to losing it all.

Bees were still busy in the dunes, droning around the honey-scented spikes of sea holly.

“Take care, RaÏsa,” Lukan had said, letting his hand rest on her shoulder. “These Tielens are dangerous.” His dark eyes gazed into hers. “Call for help if you find any survivors.” She hardly heard what he was saying. “Don’t tackle them on your own.”

Her imagination began to weave scenes of high drama in which she flung herself in front of him to save him from a Tielen bayonet, falling to lie dying in his arms, his warm tears dripping on her face as he whispered, “I always loved you, RaÏsa, and now it is too late. . . .”

She moved swiftly on, scanning the empty sands. Seagulls strutted and preened near the tide’s edge, digging with their sharp beaks in the wet sand for worms. She wanted to capture a Tielen for Lukan. What better proof of her loyalty to the cause—or her loyalty to him?

She knew these little coves and beaches from childhood. She knew every hiding place in the cliffs, every bramble-choked cranny from the games she had played with her brothers. (“Tomboy RaÏsa,” they had teased her, “you should have been born a boy!” And she had tossed her unruly hair and answered: as if she cared!)

And then she saw him. Not hiding behind a rock. Lying sprawled, as if drowned and washed up by the merciless tide like driftwood. It could be a trap. She crept closer, clutching the pistol tight.

No trap. This one looked way beyond help.

Cautiously she prodded him with the muzzle of the pistol.

“Hey! Wake up!”

There was no response, not even an involuntary twitch of muscle. She dropped to her knees beside him in the sand.

His waterlogged clothes were shredded to tatters. She could see terrible scars on his head, but they were not fresh wounds. And even though his clothes were stained by seawater, she could see no signs of Tielen colors. A sailor, maybe, young and good-looking . . . A deep sigh swelled in her breast. He was about the same age as her brother Iovan. Too young to drown.

She reached out her left hand, still holding the pistol in her right, and felt for a pulse at the side of his throat.

She detected a faint throb of life beneath her fingers.

Her drowned sailor gave a groan. She snatched her hand away as if scalded, sitting back on her heels and leveling the pistol at his head.

“I’ve got you covered, Tielen!”

He gave a sputtering cough and convulsed, spewing up a mess of seawater and slime onto the sand. She drew back, disgusted.

“Don’t try any tricks.” She held the pistol in both hands to keep it steady. Why were her hands trembling? She had faced the enemy on the broken battlements of the citadel. She had seen the naked aggression in the Tielens’ eyes as they charged toward the barricades. This was just one man.

“Don’t—shoot.” The words came out on a rasping breath as he slumped back onto the sand, eyes shut. “Not—Tielen. From Smarna.”

“Smarna?” she echoed, voice taut with suspicion. “Prove it.”

His mouth twisted into the semblance of a wry smile. “Proof? My word. That’s all—the sea has left me.”

“So where do you come from? Identify yourself.”

“Vermeille. I came home when I heard of the revolt.” He spoke in fluent Smarnan, without a trace of a Tielen accent. And then the water bubbled in his throat again and he rolled over, retching exhaustedly.

RaÏsa watched, still wary. He seemed in no fit state to attack her, but it could be a ruse to lure her into a sense of false security.

“Water . . .” The word was faint, as dry as if all moisture had been seared out of his body.

She hesitated, then backed away toward Luciole, who was standing patiently by the pine tree. A quick rummage through her saddlebag and she found her leather water bottle, half-full. She went back to the sailor. He lay still now. Kneeling beside him, she tugged the stopper from the water bottle with her teeth.

“No tricks,” she said. “There’s water here. Drink.” She raised his scarred head, propping him against her knee. Awkwardly, she poured some of the tepid water into his mouth. Some slopped out down his chin, dripping onto her riding breeches. The water had been sharpened with a measure of Smarnan eau-de-vie to disguise the taste of old leather, a huntsman’s trick her brothers had taught her.

The sailor’s eyes suddenly opened again and he gazed directly up at her. She blinked, astonished to see how brilliantly, radiantly blue they were.

Trick of the twilight, she told herself, trying to quell the sudden feeling of unease that shivered through her.

“You’re a—woman.”

She clapped a hand to her shirt. Had it gaped open, revealing her secret? She had bound her breasts tight and cut her auburn hair short to fight beside her brothers on the barricades. How had he known?

“You saved me. What is your name?”

“RaÏsa.” What was she doing, telling him her name? Yet there was something about him that compelled her to answer.

“RaÏsa?” His voice was still hardly more than a dry whisper. He raised one hand to touch her cheek and she felt a shiver of heat run through her.

“RaÏsa!” Someone shouted her name, shattering the strange intensity of the moment. She looked up guiltily and saw horsemen with flaming torches riding onto the beach, her brother Iovan at their head.

“Here, Iovan!” she called back, waving.

They urged their horses across the sands until they formed a semicircle around RaÏsa and the sailor.

“What’s this the tide’s washed up?” Iovan dismounted, pistol in hand. “More wreckage from the Tielen fleet?” He slowly lowered the pistol until it was pointing directly between the sailor’s eyes.

“No!” she cried, leaping up. “He’s Smarnan!”

“Is that what he told you?” A grim smile twisted Iovan’s broad mouth. She heard the click as he primed the pistol.

“Iovan!” She grabbed hold of his arm. There was a flash and a deafening crack as the shot went wide, skimming low over the shore toward the sea. The horses started, rearing in panic. One of Iovan’s men swore.

“For God’s sake, RaÏsa.” Iovan shook her off with a violence that threw her tumbling onto the sand. “I could’ve killed you!”

“Since when do we shoot strangers on sight?” She struggled back to her feet. “What’s got into you, Iovan? At least give the man a chance to speak for himself. Look at him. He’s no threat. He’s half-drowned!”

He gripped hold of her by one shoulder, fingers gnawing into her flesh. “We’re at war, little sister, or had you forgotten?” In the torchlight she saw the desperation and exhaustion in his eyes.

“How could I forget?” She forced the anger from her voice. And then she asked the question she had ridden out from Vermeille to escape. “Miran? Is he—”

“Still holding on by a thread. So the doctors say . . .” He let go of her.

It was the shooting of Miran, the youngest of the three Korneli children, that had triggered the revolt in the citadel. Miran, her favorite brother—bookish and gentle, more interested in philosophy and poetry than in warfare—had been the first casualty of the siege.

“Iovan!” shouted one of the men. “Do we continue the search?”

Iovan passed one hand over his dirt-smeared face as if trying to collect his thoughts.

“No. It’s too dark now. Let’s take the prisoner back to the citadel. We’ll interrogate him there.”

 

“Water . . .” Gavril heard a voice pleading from the sulphurous clouds of his fevered dreams. After a while he came to realize that the croaking words were issuing from his own throat. He opened eyelids as stiff as old parchment and gazed blearily about him.

It must be near dawn, he reckoned, as a pale shaft of jagged light fell on him through a broken-paned window.

“Water . . .” His lips could barely frame the word. His tongue, leather-dry, clacked against his palate. His mouth seemed filled with cinders. It was as if all the moisture in his body had been seared away, leaving him a desiccated shell.

He had forgotten the terrible toll the attack would take on his body. Now he knew again the reality of the thirst that could never be quenched by water alone.

All around him lay sprawled figures. Sleeping, he hoped, not dead. One man near him gave a grunting snore and turned over on his side. Weapons lay piled in corners. The smell of sweaty feet and unwashed bodies hung stale in the air. This chamber was being used as an improvised barracks. And then he saw it. An earthernware water pitcher. So close, all he had to do was reach out—

Metal bracelets bit into his wrists, arresting his efforts with a jerk. He was shackled, hand and foot. He could not even crawl toward the prize he craved.

“Water . . .” He tried again. Even to enunciate that single word cost him enormous effort. If he didn’t get water soon, he would die.

A door clanged open.

“Dawn muster! Wake up!” a voice bellowed. “On your feet!”

The sprawled figures slowly began to move. Groaning and yawning, men stretched stiff limbs, scratched themselves, sat up.

“Out in the courtyard! Quick!”

They shuffled around Gavril, clumsy with sleep. No one seemed to care he was there.

“Another suspect! Chain him up!”

Gavril recognized the snarling voice of Iovan, the rebel who had tried to shoot him the night before.

A man was flung onto the floor close by; two of the militia grabbed him by his arms and clamped shackles onto his wrists and ankles.

“Claims he’s from Muscobar. Claims he’s come to join the rebellion.” Iovan aimed a vicious kick at the man’s back; the prisoner jerked but did not cry out.

These are my countrymen . . . and they are behaving no better than the Tielen invaders. What’s happened to us? Gavril closed his eyes, sickened at what he had seen, sickened by his own weakness.

“Stop, Iovan! That’s enough.”

It was the girl, RaÏsa, who had found him last night on the beach. She would help him. If only he could muster the strength to call to her.

“RaÏsa. Water . . .”

The next moment, someone thrust a tin cup of water into his hands.

“Here.”

He drank, water streaming down his chin, soaking into his tattered shirt. He didn’t care. Yet the more water he gulped down, the more his body craved. “More.” This burning thirst seemed unquenchable. She refilled his cup.

“The citadel is crawling with Eugene’s spies,” Iovan was saying loudly. “Put them all up against the wall and shoot them. That’s the only form of negotiation Eugene understands.”

“Minister Vashteli is ready to interrogate the prisoners,” announced one of the militia.

“The one who says he’s Smarnan first.” Iovan came and stood over Gavril. “Unshackle him.”

The militiaman knelt to unlock the shackles around Gavril’s wrists, leaving his ankles chained together.

“You. On your feet.”

Still dripping, Gavril got unsteadily to his feet.

“Look at him! He’s too weak to plead his case,” RaÏsa hissed to Iovan.

Iovan shrugged.

“At least give him something to restore his strength.”

“And then you’ll stop nagging me?” Iovan pulled a metal flask from inside his jacket. “Here. Smarnan brandy.”

Gavril took a quick swig from the flask and winced as the brandy scorched his parched throat. His senses sharpened a little. “My name,” he said slowly, “is Gavril Andar. Rafael Lukan will vouch for me.” There was no point complicating matters further by giving his Azhkendi name and title.

“Andar?” RaÏsa echoed. “But Gavril Andar disappeared last year.”

“I told you not to trust him,” Iovan muttered.

“Lukan’s with the Minister now.” RaÏsa turned to her brother. “Let Lukan decide the matter, Iovan.”

“Bring him to the council chamber, then.” Iovan kicked out at the water pitcher, sending it rolling into a corner.

 

The council chamber, high in the Old Citadel, had been hit in the bombardment. Tarpaulins had been draped to cover a gaping hole in the roof, and piles of debris, tile shards, shattered beams, and plaster had been swept to the side of the chamber.

A tall man and a woman were talking together in low voices; they turned as, ankle-chains chinking, Gavril shuffled into the chamber.

“Lukan!” whispered Gavril, unable to restrain his emotion at the sight of a familiar face after so long in prison. “Lukan, it’s me.”

Lukan stared at him, a frown of puzzlement creasing his face. “Gavril?” he said. He came closer. “Gavril?” Then he gave a shout that echoed around the broken rafters and hurried up to Gavril, flinging his arms about him and hugging him. “Welcome home!” He held him at arm’s length. “But—dear God, what have they done to you?” Gavril saw concern in Lukan’s dark eyes. “I hardly recognized you at first, with your head shaved—”

This was in no way the happy homecoming he had dreamed of so often in the bitter cold of Azhkendir. He was too aware of Iovan standing close by, stroking the barrel of his pistol.

“How shall we tell your mother?” Lukan was saying. “We don’t want it to come as too much of a shock—”

“My mother?”

“Yes, she’s up at the villa right now.”

Elysia was here, in Smarna? A red haze swirled before Gavril’s eyes. He swayed on his feet. Pride alone had kept him standing to face his captors, and he was not sure how long he could sustain the effort.

Lukan caught hold of him and steadied him, both hands resting on his shoulders.

“So who is this young man, Lukan?” asked the woman, coming forward.

“You know his mother well, Minister. This is Elysia Andar’s son, Gavril.”

“Then why is he chained like a prisoner?”

“Iovan?” Lukan turned to Iovan Korneli, smiling. “Would you like to explain to Minister Vashteli why Gavril is in chains?”

“Because,” Iovan said, scowling, “we were ordered to round up anyone found on the beaches. And we found him—his clothes wringing wet—as if he’d just swam ashore from one of the sinking ships.”

“I see.” Minister Vashteli gazed searchingly at Gavril. “Gavril Andar, can you explain why you were found in such suspicious circumstances?”

It was time for the truth. “I came to help you.”

One of the minister’s elegantly plucked brows quirked in a look of surprise. “To help us?”

“You?” burst out Iovan, his voice hot with scorn.

“I have a . . . weapon,” Gavril said, choosing his words with care. “A lethal weapon. Yesterday I unleashed it on the Tielens in the bay. But in using it, I almost drowned. If RaÏsa had not found me . . .”

“Tell us about this weapon,” said Minister Vashteli, her eyes fixed on his. “Is it some kind of explosive device? Those who watched from the citadel were half-blinded by the brightness.”

“And what of this dark-winged creature?” said Iovan. “Many witnesses insist they saw a winged creature sweep across the bay just before the attack on the Tielen fleet. How do you explain that?”

Gavril closed his eyes a moment. He was still so depleted by the effects of Baltzar’s clumsy surgery that he feared he might blab too much and give himself away. Even the use of the word “weapon” now seemed ill-judged; Iovan, for one, would not let the matter rest.

“Why did you not confer with us first?” said Minister Vashteli. “We could have stood together as allies against the Tielens.”

“And from where exactly did you launch this weapon?” broke in Iovan. “From the sea or the land? Is it some kind of fire-rocket?”

Gavril was losing patience with Iovan’s constant goading. “Isn’t it enough that I came to your aid? Does it matter where I launched the attack? The Tielens are gone!”

Minister Vashteli exchanged a long look with Lukan. Then she nodded. “You are free to go home, Gavril Andar. Please send my regards to your mother; she has supported us wholeheartedly throughout this ordeal.”

“You’d better call in at my house first,” Lukan said, flashing Gavril a conspiratorial smile. “For a bath and a change of clothes.”

Free to go home. Those four simple words meant so much. Not home to an empty villa, but home to his mother, his paints, and his own bed. And was it too much to hope that Kiukiu might have accompanied Elysia to Smarna and was waiting for him even now?

As he turned to follow Lukan from the council chamber, the minister came up to him, touching him lightly on the shoulder. “And thank you. On behalf of us all. You saved us.”

“This time, maybe,” Gavril said, managing a wry smile.

 

Elysia looked down in puzzlement at the note that had just been delivered into her hands. It read:

I’ve found him and he will be with you very soon. But this is to warn you, dear Elysia, to be prepared for what you will see. He has suffered much at the hands of his captors. Try not to be too upset, for his sake.

Your loving friend, R.L.

Elysia clutched the letter tightly.

“Thank you, dear friend, for the warning,” she whispered. Then she hurried back inside the house, calling out, “Palmyre! Gavril’s coming!”

Suddenly she was all in a tizzy, ideas skittering through her head like windblown petals. What should she do first? Check that there was clean, lavender-scented linen on his bed and that the room was well-aired, with garden flowers spilling from a bowl on the windowsill? Or should she lay out some clothes for him—for all his clothes were still here, freshly laundered and pressed, waiting, against all hope, for his return.

“Is the kettle on? He may want tea.” She almost collided with Palmyre in the hall; she seemed to be on a similar route. “Or maybe he may just want to be alone for a while, to rest—”

“Elysia,” Palmyre said, patting her hand reassuringly, “it will be all right.”

“And I won’t weep when I see him; I mustn’t weep. It won’t do any good to either of us if I do—” Elysia broke off, hearing the sound of hooves and carriage wheels on the gravel drive. She clutched at Palmyre’s hand. “Is that—?”

Palmyre seemed speechless with excitement.

“Look at us,” Elysia said, breaking into laughter. “A couple of silly women, too flustered to go to the door to greet him! What will he think?” And she ran to fling open the front door, hurrying out into the drive, just as the door of the barouche opened and Gavril stepped down.

She stared a moment, shocked to see his shaven head, his gaunt face, and sunken eyes. Then, joy and relief overwhelmed all other feelings and she rushed to embrace him. But although he hugged her back, she could sense a change in him, a wariness, and something else that she could not yet define—something darker, more ominous.

What have they done to you in that terrible prison, child? her heart cried out. But all she did was wind her arm around him and lead him toward the open door where Palmyre stood, so overcome with emotion that she could only nod speechlessly and smile.

As they reached the doorway, Elysia glanced back over her shoulder to see Lukan waiting, watching from inside the barouche.

Thank you. Her lips framed the words as she inclined her head gratefully to him. Thank you, dear friend.

 

Footsteps on the landing. Keys jangling in the lock of his cell. Skar’s lean face in the lanternlight, eyes chill in their lack of expression, as he bent over him—

Gavril woke with a start. He was breathing fast, pulse racing, terrified that Skar had come to take him back to Director Baltzar and his razor-sharp scalpels. And then he heard it. The sound of the sea, but not the crash of the storm tides raging against the rocks below Arnskammar. This was the gentle, reassuring wash of summer tides lapping against the pale sands of Vermeille Bay. The sound that had lulled him to sleep in childhood and whispered through his dreams.

He lay back, staring at the half-open window, the gauze curtains drifting a little with the night breeze off the bay. The faint scent of jasmine wafted in from the terrace below.

No, he was not dreaming. He was here in his own bed, in the Villa Andara. After months of enduring the deprivations of Baltzar’s asylum, he was no longer a number to be maltreated and experimented upon. He was Gavril again.

He let his fingers run over the clean linen of the sheets. Crisp, clean sheets, scented with lavender from the villa gardens. He had forgotten how good it was to enjoy this simple comfort.

At peace, he drifted off to sleep, and did not wake again until morning.

 

Elysia tapped on Gavril’s bedroom door and went in, carrying a cup of chamomile tea, a plate with fresh-baked rolls, and Palmyre’s apricot and almond conserve. The windows were wide-open and the curtains billowed and flapped in the morning breeze. Her son stood on the balcony, gazing out across the blue bay.

“Breakfast, Gavril,” she called.

He looked back over his shoulder. “Thank you.”

She set down the cup and plate and went out to join him. For a while they stood side by side in silence. Then he said, still gazing out to sea, “Don’t be surprised if there are strands of blue in my hair when it regrows.”

She nodded. So it was true.

“I guessed as much.” She wanted to ask him so many questions: What really happened to you? Who inflicted these terrible injuries? Yet she knew she must let him tell her in his own time, in his own way.

“If it hadn’t come back to me when it did, I would have died.” His voice was distant, his eyes still rested on the misty horizon. “Its first act of compassion. Who would have thought it possible?”

“It rescued you?”

He turned to face her. The sight of his scarred head still made her stomach lurch, but she must not let him see her distress, for fear it might break his courage.

“I still don’t know how it knew. But it came back and healed me. Now I begin to wonder. Are we destined to be one until I die?”

She saw the shadow-glitter in his eyes, as she had seen it in Volkh’s eyes too. And she felt bleak despair chill her heart. He had come back to her. But he was no longer her son; he was Drakhaoul. And she, better than anyone, knew that doomed his chances for any hope of true happiness.

Then, smitten with guilt at such thoughts, she reached out and folded her arms around her daemon-possessed son, hugging him tight.

“Drink your tea before it goes cold,” she whispered.