10

“Do not,” Vaniri caught Ryska by the waist and pulled her back before she could advance.

“I told you she is a war criminal and a danger," said the human girl.

“Can you two shut up?” Vaniri snapped, holding Ryska firmly against her and keeping her from reaching them.

“Why are you defending her? Because your nation was never at war with them, so you can simply overlook what her kind did?”

“I have a brain," said Vaniri. "Aethoria is by invitation only, and she is here, which means she must have spent her entire life earning that invitation. Do you truly think I am foolish enough to believe she would throw everything away merely to make four people disappear?”

“Can you not see the flames blooming through her palm? She is a witch,” Satyr said.

“That is actually an innate skill of the Draconians,” the other elven girl replied. “It is taught to us...”

“Oh, shut up,” Satyr cut her off. “Who wants to know what you learned? All we know is that she is a war criminal.”

“I will kill you," Ryska swept her arm forward, reaching for Satyr’s throat, her burning hand had nearly reached the girl before Vaniri seized her arm and wrenched it aside and a sharp hiss escaped Vaniri's lips as the flames scorched her hand.

“War criminal,” the Satyr muttered.

Vaniri opened her mouth, but Ryska had already turned away, the corridor received her in silence, and then it shattered into whispers behind her back. Pairs of eyes, then heads bent together at the sight of her, side glances, and people stepping aside as she crossed, she saw it all, and Ryska could no longer tell what belonged to her and what belonged to the world around her. She could not decide whether it was some private jest that had nothing to do with her at all, or whether every silence, every whisper, every sideways glance was meant for her alone.

“Papa, they are calling me names,” she whispered, lifting her tearful gaze toward the sky, toward the distant realm where her father now was. “Why did you break your promise and leave me alone? You promised you would find me, no matter where I called for you.”

The words escaped her with a sob, and in that same breath, two months fell away, carrying her back to the war that had already ended. She was there again, in the streets of Solari, where her handmaidens dragged her through rivers of blood and past the lifeless bodies of her own people, carrying her onward because saving her had become the final command left for them to obey. Behind them remained Vyere, her younger brother, scarcely more than a boy as she had been only a girl, standing alone between her and the army that had been sent for her and her alone, refusing to yield a single step, buying her escape with every moment he held their advance at bay.

“I will burn all of you,” she said to the army standing before her eyes, and flames rose around her like living serpents, circling her as though drawing her into their embrace before unfurling outward, their blazing heads turned toward the army that existed only in her sight. Every tongue of fire recognized the same enemy she did, and then she heard her name and saw a figure rushing toward her through the smoke.

“Vahh... Valere,” she breathed, the flames rushed back into her palm and blood dripped from her nose as her knees gave way beneath her.

“Ryska,” Valere's feet scraped against the stone as he stopped beside her and caught her before she could fall.

His guards and Vaniri reached them a heartbeat later and their eyes fell at once upon Ryska’s hand; the flames that had leapt there only a heartbeat before had vanished, leaving only a few ashes scattered around her.

“You know her?” Vaniri stepped half a pace closer to Ryska.

“I am her friend,” Valere did not miss the protective step she had taken.

“I...” Ryska struggled for breath. “I am not..."

“You have not done it," he drew her against his chest and the crowd that had found courage enough to wound her no longer possessed the courage to meet her eyes now that a man, surrounded by a dozen guards clad in the armor of the Paendrage Empire, stood beside her.

The words reached the door she had kept shut for months. She threw both arms around his neck, and he pulled her closer, lifting her from the ground. She locked her legs around his waist with desperate strength, as though she feared the world itself would tear him away.

“You have done nothing,” Valere adjusted her in his arms and patted her head with quiet tenderness. “None of it," he understood what she had heard. One of his guards had just informed him about the missing students and the rumors already spreading through the city.

“I am not a war criminal,” Ryska switched to Myris tongue while she sobbed into his shoulder.

“Who said that to you?” Valere's jaw hardened.

“The idiot girl sharing our room,” Vaniri answered for her.

“My room is not shared,” he lowered his gaze to her. “You can have it with your new friend,” he gestured for a guard to give Vaniri the keys.

The guard handed Vaniri a key and Ryska lifted her head, only to find people watching her even when no one was looking at her now.

“I will not go back,” Ryska pressed her face into the crook of his neck and shut her eyes. “They are too many here."

“Shall I take you somewhere quiet?” Valere asked in a voice scarcely above a whisper.

“Away,” Ryska said.

“May I keep your room?” Vaniri asked quickly. “I do not want to go back to those girls.”

“Have it,” Valere turned away from the inn and walked back into the street, while his guards hurried ahead and threw open the door of his carriage. Valere climbed inside with Ryska still held in his arms, then looked toward the charioteer. “Take us to Azurae Palace.”

The carriage lurched forward, its wheels stroked the stone roads of Aldaene before settling into a steady roll through the night and Ryska buried her face deeper into Valere's chest, searching for a feeling of safety she had forgotten could exist. Her fingers tightened in the folds of his tunic as she pressed herself closer and closer, with certainty that the moment she let go, the hands reaching for her would return.

Valere pulled her into his lap, his fingers disappeared into her hair, tracing absent circles while he held her against him through whatever storm had finally broken. Her tears soaked through the front of his shirt until the fabric clung cold and heavy against his chest, and with every sob that escaped her his heart ached, it ached for the first tear he had not caught, for every hardship she had endured in his absence.

Words spilled from her between broken breaths in the Vianian tongue, fractured, hurried, drowning beneath her sobs. He understood none of them, and found he did not need to. He simply held her for as long as she needed, offering only the silence she sought, until her sobs slowly surrendered into uneven breaths, and the tears, having spent all the sorrow they could carry for one night, finally ran their course.

Ryska then folded herself deeper into him, curling against his chest while the carriage wheels murmured over the ancient stones of Aldaene and the horses carried them away from the city, through sleeping streets until the road surrendered itself to the shores of the Azurae Sea.

Azurae Palace then came into view, and the carriage stopped beneath the porch. The outriders halted, and a guard moved to open the carriage door, but Valere lifted hand, gesturing for the guards to keep their distance before stepping down with Ryska still in his arms and the moment his boots touched the stone, she tightened her arms around his neck and wrapped her legs around his waist.

The ruins of her world, her fallen empire, her lost family, the faces she would never behold again, and two months of being a girl alone in the world. She had survived it all believing herself strong, yet for all the strength she possessed, she was still scarcely a girl of ten at seven.