Rebellion in the Mist, page 26
Was that why I had been able to glean such little information over these months?
Was everything he did tell me completely false? I assumed it was—he was smart and wouldn’t have jeopardized the rebellion.
That presented a new problem. When I returned from this trip and nothing I reported back turned out to be true, my head would be on the line.
I needed to talk to someone about this. This was too big.
Wynn, I needed Wynn.
I clasped my hands behind my neck as I paced to the door I shared with Wynn. I knocked and waited. There was no answer. I pulled on the rope to the bell in her room. I knocked again, practically pounding down the door. I knew it was no good. She would have heard me the first time. But I let my frustration out on the door anyway. I beat my fist against the plane of wood separating our rooms until it was bending under my force. The door began knocking back in protest.
Wait, shit. That was my main door. Someone was knocking on it. I wasn’t exactly being quiet.
I straightened myself up, took a breath, and opened my door to the hall, ready to pretend I hadn’t just been making enough noise to rouse the entire castle from a deep slumber. Jo and Ameal barged into my room.
“We heard hammering. What’s going on in here?” Jo said, looking around as though an aggressive carpenter could be lurking anywhere. “We thought someone was breaking into your room. We could hear it sitting in our room.”
“I–I needed Wynn. She’s not in,” I said lamely. “That was me knocking for her.”
“How badly did you need her?” Ameal asked with a half smile, a rare show of humor from him. Too bad I was too distraught to enjoy it. “Is it…lady issues?”
“No.” I closed my door and locked it. “Ransom knows I’m not Aurora.”
It spilled out of my mouth before I could think better of it. I hadn’t contemplated what I was going to say next. I trusted them enough, but they would surely ask how I found out about this, and I didn’t want to tell them that I had Aurora’s secret diary. My hard-won discovery of the book made me feel protective of it, but also, I hadn’t finished reading all her entries yet, and I wouldn’t let anyone take it from me until I knew all its secrets.
Ameal was shocked into silence. He went very still, staring at me. Jo’s mind went to a different, relevant question that was equally hard to answer. “How long do you think he’s known?”
I lied my ass off. “I’m not sure. Probably since the last dinner. He said something to me that…I don’t know. I’m panicked and I don’t know what to do next. I don’t know if Ransom knows that all of us are impostors or if he thinks I’m tricking everyone, you included.” Of course he would realize the entire delegation from Moriale was a sham if he knew I wasn’t the correct Aurora. In fact, he probably met some of the crew when they stopped, but I needed Jo and Ameal to focus on our immediate survival and not on where I’d gotten this information.
“Well, we can–we can…I don’t know what we can do about this, but it isn’t the end of it,” Jo said, nervously rapping his knuckles against the back of one of the chairs around my breakfast table.
“Do you think we should get Lev?” I asked. I didn’t want Lev to know any part of this, but I knew they would protest that suggestion and keep the momentum going away from the questions I didn’t want to answer.
“No,” Ameal practically cut me off. Jo and I looked at him. “From a security standpoint, no. We could have a leak in the group. The fewer people that know about this, the better. What if Wynn let this slip over pillow talk with someone from Solterra? She’s been very tight-lipped about who she’s seeing.”
I frowned at him. I would reveal the diary if the alternative was letting Wynn be my scapegoat. “The entire delegation from Solterra is men. It’s probably that one lady’s maid that’s always offering to teach her how to cross-stitch,” I said, waving my hand around as though I could physically dispel any accusation against her as I glared at Ameal. “I think we should place more scrutiny on the man who came from Agora and is friends with the guards from Solterra.”
I nearly forgot that I knew I didn’t need to accuse anyone of being a traitor to us, I was too mad that he would doubt Wynn, who was right there with us undermining the Empire.
Ameal crossed his arms, towering over me. “Being from Agora doesn’t make me the enemy.”
Jo held his hands up between us. “I think we all need more information first before we accuse anyone. We’ve all been working very hard to pull this assignment off. We don’t need to turn against each other now. How did Ransom find out? How long has he known? The answer to both of those questions will help us figure out where to start.
“And I agree, maybe leaving Lev out of this is the right move. Involving him essentially involves the Emperor, we all know that. The Emperor is known to take heads first and ask questions later when plans fail.”
I blinked at him. Jo had been the start of our secret meetings, but was always careful to keep his words neutral. I figured he held the meetings to protect me and ensure the mission went well. Whether he intended to or not, he had just admitted that he was aware Wynn had been opening the secret letters. It was the most anti-Empire sentiment I had ever heard from him. Maybe he was doubting our mission here too. Later, Ness.
“Alright, then what do we do? Do we think Ransom will kill us?” I voiced my biggest concern.
Ameal responded to that one, much more level-headed. “He won’t. Like you said, I was stationed in Agora before coming here. I'm familiar with Ransom’s way of doing things. He’s not known for making rash decisions. He is ruthless when he needs to be, but I think we would already be dead if he didn’t have some sort of game he was still playing with you—with us. He has some bigger plan for this.”
“I agree,” Jo said. “I think our best course of action is to keep going as we have been until we find out more. If he doesn’t know that you know, let him think he’s playing you. Maybe you can find out why he hasn’t acted on this information yet.”
While I didn’t love this plan, it was the best we had at the moment, and they didn’t ask for any of the details I wasn’t willing to provide yet.
Both Jo and Ameal offered to start sleeping on the sofa in my sitting room, in case I was afraid of an attempt on my life. I declined their offers, but did stow a handful of knives around my room and under my pillow, just in case.
I lay in bed awake most of the night, wondering why Ransom could possibly want me to keep up the facade of being Aurora. It clicked around one in the morning that I was beneficial to him.
Every time I spoke to him, I would freely share the details I got from the others at the Gathering. He always appeared to be on the same page as me with those pieces of information, but him knowing I wasn’t Aurora all along was a testament to how good of an actor Ransom really was. He could easily have been gleaning new knowledge from me and confirming his own findings this whole time. He was probably keeping me alive to be an extra set of ears for him. That would fit with why no one else knew the truth and why he never let on that he knew.
He had given me the hairpin. Did he know about the secret compartment? About the diary? Was he trying to get me to figure out that he knew I wasn’t her?
I decided that I wouldn’t tell Wynn after all. Ameal did have a fair point that she was pretty secretive about whoever she was sleeping with. That made me think there was something more to it than sex, and whether that was love or treachery, I couldn’t be sure.
I had another odd realization in the middle of the night that was strangely comforting. Ransom had kissed me knowing I wasn’t Aurora. And it had been quite the kiss.
Chapter thirty-seven
When I went to training the next morning, Ameal looked like he hadn’t slept last night, but still pushed me as hard as ever. It was unfair that the man could go without rest and still run further and faster than me. Wynn and Jo had gone to take the final set of dispatches to Port Mora well before I was up that morning.
“Are you going to make me train all day since we have nothing else to do?” I asked through gasps of air after we finished a round of sparring.
“I have things to do,” Ameal replied coolly, his breathing completely even. “And maybe you should use your remaining unsupervised days to do the things you want to.” He eyed me for a moment. “We’ll just work until lunch.”
I was anxious to finish Aurora’s diary. I had been so shocked by the revelation that she met with Ransom, I hadn’t even finished the entry I was reading the previous night.
I wouldn’t have time to take Sugardrop out for a ride, but I couldn’t pass on a visit to my sweet horse with so few days left.
“You again,” the stable hand grunted.
I pretended I didn’t hear his rudeness. He started over to where Sugardrop’s saddle was stored. “You don’t need to bother with that today, I’m only stopping by to say hello.”
“Thank the Mother,” he said, his relief visible. “I’ll be glad to see the backside of that terror in a few days.”
“What? She’s so sweet.” I was in complete disbelief that his bad attitude would extend to my gentle friend.
“She’s only sweet to you. No one else can stand her. She bites everyone else in here any time they get near her gate,” he said with a side eyed glance her way.
I petted Sugardrop’s nose. She may be spirited, but I knew he was wrong as I fed her the apple and sugar cubes from my bag. I was having a hard time imagining giving her up in a few days. She was going to go back to her original owner, and I would go back to being horseless.
I wondered how much it cost to buy a horse and have it shipped to the mainland. Probably double what Imperial Protectors made in their entire service. I decided I would have to have one more ride with her tomorrow, just the two of us. I kissed her nose and told her as much.
“Well, I’ll take her out tomorrow. Then you’ll only have to worry about getting her ready to leave, and she’ll be out of your hair forever,” I told the stable hand on my way out.
“Two more times too many,” he mumbled.
Back in my room, I settled into a chair by my fireplace, committed to finishing Aurora’s diary, and picked up where I left off the night before.
3.) Meet with Ransom Dimitris to feel out his stance going into the Gathering.
I am certain that none of the Protectors saw me leaving for the meeting, although I did recognize one of the Protectors from the dock milling about Ransom’s palace. He said he pays them for extra security when they don’t have duty, and as long as they stick to guarding the outside, the commander of Agora has no issue with this.
Alright, this was getting me somewhere. Some of the Imperial Protectors moonlight as guards for Ransom. Ameal was certainly not someone I could trust, despite how much I had grown to like him. If there was any chance that he’d already been working for Ransom before coming here, then he would already know that Ransom was aware of my identity. It added another layer of mystery as to why no one had exposed me yet. It also made me wonder why Ameal had been training me in combat and defense for the last seven weeks.
Maybe Ameal didn’t work for him.
My initial perception of Ransom was that he was surprisingly handsome and professional. I would have thought someone with his reputation would have been a bit more lascivious, but he was a proper gentleman.
Ransom made no promises about the future and simply said that he would give me more information as I gained his trust at the Gathering. I can’t blame his overcareful attitude, since I feel similarly. What we are doing will most likely result in our deaths unless we are able to execute this to perfection. Although, this is hardly a worry to me, since the Empire has been after my head since the day I was born.
I tried to probe into the rumors that Agora has a secret grimoire from the witches of old. Ransom was even less forthcoming about that topic.
He only told me he was sure golden eyes would be beneficial to this rebellion. He also stated that his spies have reported there is another golden-eyed woman within the Empire. In fact, she is in the employ of the Imperial Protectorate in Capital City.
What? Ransom knew about me? It didn’t sound like he knew who I was, only that I existed. And that information was worth sharing with Aurora?
It perhaps explained why Ransom hadn’t blown my cover yet—he had some need for whatever latent trait hid behind my eyes. Maybe they held some ancient fae power that would help them work around the treaty. Maybe when Cavilth glowed so brightly for me, it was connected to my eyes.
I would have thought any who held the same power as me found in the Empire’s midst would have been killed immediately. After all, I’ve had to spend most of my life hidden away so that the Empire’s spies would not see my telltale eyes and order my execution. I wonder if they have some plan for her. They must.
It would be nice to meet at least one other person akin to myself. After the Gathering, I will work to see if I can arrange a meeting, if it’s possible. We could learn so much from each other.
I rubbed at the pang in my chest for this meeting that would never happen. I wished I could have met her too. It was strange to think she knew of me.
But the same power as her? Aurora never went to Cavilth, and even if she had, making that rock glow brightly had not changed my power in any way. I reread the passage several times before I truly absorbed all the information it contained.
The Empire might have some plan for me. Some plan involving a power that I shared with Aurora because of our golden eyes. This was giving me more questions than answers.
There was only one more entry in the diary, and it was a fairly short one.
Nineteenth day of the Seventh Month
We are being pursued by another ship. I do not believe that they are Ransom’s men, even though they are not flying any Imperial insignia. If I had to guess, I think we were spotted by a naval patrol off the Twelfth. We are nearing the Strait of Gallia near Kind. There will be little room to evade them there, if it comes to that.
We are prepared to do what we need to for the benefit of our people.
I have hope that if I should not survive this, there is another out there who may return balance to our kingdoms if I cannot, and give us another chance at justice.
I already knew how her story ended. Imperial records picked it up from here. I was glad Aurora’s final day was still filled with hope that others would continue the rebellion without her.
While I lay in bed that night, I considered all I learned that day. Aurora had some unique power. Was it because of the golden eyes? If she had gotten the chance to touch Cavilth, would she have been the most powerful wielder? Powerful enough to overthrow the Empire?
She had said we were akin. Did that mean that I was more powerful than most? But I already knew I wasn’t.
Except since I’d been in Nixia, my power had felt closer to the surface. I figured that was just because I wasn’t using it and it was building up inside of me. Maybe that wasn’t true, though.
The longer I thought about it, the more I knew what I needed to do the following day.
I slipped into my usual dreams of the Old Square. Getting crushed by a crowd, knocked down, looking up to see Wynn, Ameal, and Jo hanging in front of me. Instead of Lev, a beautiful, willowy woman came to offer me a hand. Her golden eyes were framed by long, wavy brown hair. I told Aurora to run and save herself, that we could meet another day. She tried to tell me something I couldn’t hear over the crowd, and before she could flee, the Emperor appeared and slit both our throats. I woke up gasping, my face wet with tears.
Chapter thirty-eight
When pale early light finally filled my bedroom, I looked out my window on a beautiful autumn morning. I dressed and headed down to the kitchens for supplies. A twinge of guilt resonated in my chest for standing Ameal up for training that morning, but then again, he was probably working with Ransom. Maybe.
The cooks were no longer surprised by my random appearances in their midst.
“What do you need, Miss Fey?” a portly man with short dark hair asked.
“Apples and sugar cubes, if you have them,” I said.
“Ah, I think at this point, you can just call that the usual.” He laughed. “That horse of yours must be a really kind beast to deserve to be spoiled this much.”
“I think she is, but the stable hands might disagree,” I said as I leaned my hip on a counter, waiting for the apples. I took in the scent of fresh-baked bread and the simmering sauce in the pot over the fire.
The cook chuckled. “Well, we all have the one that soothes us, right?”
He handed me the bag with the treats for Sugardrop, and I had another thought. “Do you have anything for me with vanilla bean in it?” I asked.
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. One second.” He returned from the pantry holding a cloth filled with pastries. “Vanilla bean, pecan, and cardamom swirls. I made them up last night. You asked at the perfect time.”
“Cardamom too? I’ve been wanting to try that, but I figured it would be too rare to ask about.” I accepted the bundle in disbelief.
“Looks like the Mother wanted you to have pastries today, Miss Fey,” he said, wiping his hands on his apron.
I ate one of the delicious pastries as I walked to the stables, wishing Aurora would have gotten her chance to taste them.
When I arrived, I saddled Sugardrop myself, since it was too early for the stable hands to be around, and they would be pleased I took over this particular task. She was sweet to me as I tacked her up. They were liars about her temperament.
We rode to the trail toward the mountain meadow. As we climbed further and further up the path, my stomach began to tighten over what we would find ahead of us.
The place where I’d encountered the bears was impossible to miss. We rounded the corner to find dead trees, and I took in the damage. I hadn’t looked closely the day it happened, I was too focused on getting back to safety and I didn’t want to acknowledge what I’d done.
