Troubled Waters (53 page)

“Look at how they paw at poor Corene,” Rhan murmured in her ear. “She’s putting a brave face on it, but I can’t imagine she much likes having them touch her like that.”

Indeed, Corene’s expression seemed fixed in an unnatural smile and her skin was oddly flushed. Zoe didn’t know her well enough to judge if she was excited and trying to hide the emotion, or terrified and trying even harder.

“I keep wondering about that Soechin girl,” Zoe whispered back. “Do you think she’s one of the viceroy’s daughters? Do you suppose they’re going to announce that she’s marrying the king?”

“It crossed my mind,” Rhan admitted. “But I’ve heard no gossip to that effect.”

Have you heard gossip to the effect that the king is dying?
she wanted to ask. “I suppose we’ll find out very soon,” she replied.

Indeed, Vernon was stepping forward, raising his arms to call for quiet. Instantly, the murmur of the crowd died down. Zoe felt the whole assembly press forward, carrying her another five inches closer to the stage.

“My subjects—my friends,” Vernon called out, his voice barely strong enough to carry through the whole
kierten
. He was smiling; he looked pleased with himself, Zoe thought. Her sense of foreboding intensified. “As you know, we have long been interested in creating deeper bonds between our kingdom and our friends to the north in Soeche-Tas.”

“Speak louder!” someone shouted from the back of the hall.

The king took a big breath, obviously hoping to comply. “And what better way to unite our two nations than through a marriage?”

Zoe glanced up at Rhan, who gave her an expressive look and shook his head. “Madness,” he leaned down to say in her ear.

Zoe turned her attention to Darien Serlast, who stood stony-faced beside Elidon, but
his
expression she could read. He was worried and displeased and braced for worse to come. She kept her eyes on Darien as Vernon continued talking.

“That is why today I am pleased to announce that you have all been invited here to witness a wedding that will be held this very evening!”

“Tonight?” Rhan whispered. “That’s eager!”

The king turned slightly to the left, then slightly to the right, as if with his open arms he would embrace everyone on the stage with him. “A wedding between Harmon Koel of Soeche-Tas and my daughter Corene!”

“What?”

Zoe thought she screamed the word, but perhaps she only breathed it. At any rate, her single shocked syllable was wholly devoured by the noisy reaction of the crowd. Some people were applauding; a few were cheering; even more turned to their closest neighbors to express surprise, uncertainty, speculation.

“I don’t think I like that,” Rhan was saying in an undervoice. “She’s what? Eleven? Twelve? Considering what my father was telling us the other night—”

Zoe scarcely heard him. She scarcely heard anyone. She was staring at Darien Serlast, who had staggered as if from a fatal blow. He instantly pushed his way past the queens to the king’s side and began arguing furiously. Vernon tried to turn his head, waving away Darien’s protests, but Darien leaned closer, talked more loudly, gesticulated more wildly. He looked as if he was having to restrain himself from pushing the king off of the dais.

As for herself, Zoe was shaking so badly that for a moment she thought the floor was rocking beneath her feet. Her lips were moving, but even she could not have said what words she was trying to form. Her eyes were still on the stage, where Qeesia had laced her hands with Corene’s and lifted their arms up in a gesture of victory. Corene was still offering that strange smile, waving at the crowd, bowing once toward her affianced husband. Zoe couldn’t tell if the princess was feeling smug or terrified.

Rhan nudged her. “Zoe? Are you all right? Zoe?”

She shook her head. “No,” she said, her lips finally finding the word they had been searching for.
“No.”

Rhan grabbed both of her shoulders and forced her to look at him. “Zoe? Zoe! Is something wrong? Can I do anything for you?”

For a moment she stared up at him, seeing his smiling face creased into concern for her. Oh, but Zoe wasn’t the one he needed to worry about. That the sick, mad king would sacrifice his daughter in such a way. That a child should be bartered to a lecherous old man for the sake of a political advantage. She could feel horror building up in her veins, or perhaps it was rage, or perhaps it was power. “No,” she said.

“No, what? Are you all right?”

“No,” she said, breaking free of his hold and starting to push blindly through the crowd. “No—no—
no!
”

Maybe she clawed at them, drawing blood; maybe the tone of her voice was so odd that she frightened them, but people moved back from her, gave her room. Scarcely even conscious of her motions, she spread her hands as wide as the fingers would go, palms down, as if she was bracing herself against the floor. She felt the thrumming of the pipes in the levels below the
kierten
, carrying water to the palace from the nearby river. She felt the splashing of every fountain set up in the public spaces, the private rooms. She felt the rushing force of the Marisi roaring through those spectacular falls and briefly calming itself to a lake before dropping down the rest of the mountain on its way past the city to the sea.

She collected every drop of that water and began drawing it in her direction.

If anyone spoke to her, she didn’t hear it. If anyone touched her, she didn’t feel it. All she could hear, all she could feel, was water. Crystalline, bountiful, and beyond restraint.

The great bronze fountain on the back wall of the
kierten
began spewing jets of spray into the gathered crowd. A few people swore and moved hastily back; others murmured surprise and dismay. Those murmurs grew louder as the water in the basin began overflowing, pouring steadily onto the marble floor.

“What’s wrong? Can someone turn that off?”

“I’m soaked! Did you see my shoes?”

“Look out! The water’s coming!”

Servants hastened toward the fountain, seeking shutoff valves, showing each other frightened faces when none of their efforts had any effect. A cook came dashing up from the back corridor, crying, “Help us! Somebody! A pipe has broken and there’s water all over the kitchen!”

The crowd’s voice grew louder now, more alarmed. There was a wet and slippery surge toward the doors and the safety of the courtyard—and a series of screams from the first few people to stumble out the exit.

“The lake is rising! The river—unbelievable!
The river is flooding over the falls!
”

Now the revelers were starting to panic; now there were wails of fear and a few angry shoves as people fought to get clear of danger. Someone shrieked and pointed, and dozens of people wheeled around to stare at the corridor to the queens’ wing, where water was gushing into the
kierten
from some unknown source. It was not too hard to imagine water pouring down those varicolored marble stairs like the largest and most beautiful fountain in the world.

Deep beneath the foundations of the palace, an ominous rumbling started.

“What’s that?” someone shouted.

“Get out!
Get out!
”

“But the lake is rising! We’ll all be carried away!”

“We’re all going to drown!”

A sudden sheet of water erupted from the men’s wing, drenching Soechins and subjects alike before subsiding into an unbroken oncoming stream. The king and his guests had been milling about on the dais, as stunned and distracted as the mob below, and this only made them worse. The ambassadors and their wives were shouting; the queens were weeping and clinging to each other. Vernon stood stupidly at the edge of the stage, staring at the mayhem around him. Only Darien Serlast seemed to be moving with any purpose, herding Josetta and Corene and Romelle toward the middle of the stage and what might be a modicum of safety. His eyes darted around the great room, searching for causes or searching for escape routes, and his gaze snagged on Zoe.

“Stop this now!”
he roared at her, his arms around Josetta and Corene.
“Stop the flood!”

In reply, she lifted her arms, fingers still spread, and water began rising up from the foundation of the palace itself, pulled from the aquifer deep inside the base of the mountain.

The viceroy and his daughter held hands and leapt from the stage with a magnificent splash, then plowed through the rising waters for the door. Vernon turned his bemused face toward his most trusted advisor and said, “What are we to do, Darien? There is water through the whole palace!”

“Zoe!”
Darien shouted.
“Stop the flood!”

Oh, but she was not ready to still the waters yet.

Most of the
kierten
had emptied out by now, though fifteen or twenty hardy souls still stomped through the swirling water, churning up great gouts as they attempted to open drains or close off access points. Three men struggled back inside, waving their arms frantically.

“Majesty! Majesty! The Marisi is almost to the palace door! You must evacuate now—everybody—out of the palace!”

For the first time, the king looked frightened. “Darien! What should I do?”

Now Darien’s expression was pleading, his voice was hoarse. “Zoe! Zoe, I beg you—”

In a pool up to her knees, she waded forward, her woven robe so sodden it weighed her down. But she could not discard it, not decorated as it was with the
hunti
pin Darien Serlast was probably very sorry he had given her. “I’ll take the older girls,” she called up to him, as if she was offering him reasonable aid for which he would be immensely grateful. “You watch out for the king and his wives and Natalie.”

“Zoe—”

She held her hands out. “Josetta! Corene! Come to me and I’ll take you to safety.”

“No!” Seterre cried as Josetta, without a moment’s hesitation, ran across the stage and vaulted down into the rising water. “Stay with me—”

Zoe hugged Josetta and beckoned again to Corene. “Come with me! I’ll take care of you.”

Clearly afraid, Corene glanced worriedly at her mother, at her father, at Darien. “Go with her!” Darien shouted, and that decided her. The girl scurried to the edge of the dais.

“Catch me,” she said, and jumped into Zoe’s arms.

For a single heart-stopping moment, Zoe staggered under her weight, under the impact of her body and her blood and its encrypted secrets, and then she set the girl on her feet. Taking hold of Josetta with one hand and Corene with the other, she said, “Ready?”

Then the three of them raced through the frothing water, plunged down the inundated steps, half swam across the courtyard in water up to their hips. Then, still clinging to both girls, Zoe flung all of them headlong into the rising river.

THIRTY-TWO

T
he river lashed around them, but Zoe and her two companions floated in water that was mysteriously smooth, mysteriously calm, though it whisked them along with alarming speed. Josetta was not afraid, Zoe could tell; she used her recently acquired skills to keep her head above the surface, but otherwise let the river carry her where it would. Corene was more frightened, clinging to Zoe, gasping out little cries every time a thrust of the current sent them briefly bobbing below the surface. Zoe held her tightly with one arm and murmured reassurances, all the while keeping part of her attention on Josetta and part of her attention on the landscape so swiftly passing by.

It took only minutes for the Marisi to rush them through the short initial fall and then the few miles south to the broad stone apron of the river flats. “Josetta! To the shore!” Zoe called as she saw the channel open up, and they both started stroking toward land. It was instantly clear this wouldn’t be a haven for long. The hollow bowl of the flats was rapidly filling up as the Marisi collected water from all over the city and sent it galloping through the palace before letting it flow downriver. The whole place would soon be underwater—and then the flood would start spreading west until it covered the city itself—

“Up! Up!” Zoe cried once Josetta dragged herself out of the water, coughing a little. Zoe and Corene were right behind her, and they all scrambled for the comparative safety of the overhang. Corene was still clinging, and now she was openly weeping, but she didn’t hesitate when Zoe pushed her toward higher ground. Josetta clambered up first, then leaned down to haul her sister to the top, and moments later Zoe was beside them on the rocky ledge, only a few feet from the rising river.

Now that they had paused from their intense exertions, the cold air of Quinnelay hit them with miserable force, made worse by their waterlogged clothing and little hope of immediate shelter. Corene started crying even harder. Josetta hugged her sister tightly and turned big eyes toward Zoe.

“What do we do now?” she whispered.

Zoe wrapped her arms around the two girls, drawing them into a brief protective circle. “I need to stay here a few minutes,” she said, explaining as well as she could. “I called the river, and I need to contain it. I know you’re wet and cold and wretched, and I’m sorry, but as soon as I can, I’ll take you someplace warm and safe. Corene, listen to me. I know you’re afraid, but I—”

Corene lifted her face from where it was pressed to Josetta’s shoulder. Tears were still streaming down her face, or maybe it was water dripping from her bedraggled hair. Her ivory gown clung to her in sloppy wet folds; the scattered rosebuds were augmented with bits of river debris. “Thank you!” she sobbed. “Oh, Zoe,
thank you
! I was so terrified of that man—I told my mother I didn’t want to marry him, but she said I had to. She said it would be good for me, and good for the kingdom, but I
hate
him. I hate all of them and I didn’t know what to do—”

Zoe hugged her again, relieved that at least her wild rescue had pleased the person she had tried to save, no matter who else would be devastated by the event. “Good. I’ll get you to safety, I promise you, but first I—”