a slight jingle. This sets the dogs off. I’m not sure where they are, on the other side of one of the walls, but they’re not happy and their barks echo over the grounds like we’re back in one of the caves in the Lower.
“Shit,” she swears, forcing the key into the lock and opening the gate. I hesitate, but she pulls me along. “Just come on.”
I don’t expect anything that comes next.
Not the view.
Or the soldiers that stand before us.
Certainly not the smoke that’s settling low like thick fog over much of the island.
Mostly, I don’t expect to see Nico.
CHAPTER 9
NICO
Like the leader of a great procession, I march straight to Imperi Hill, a crowd of Bellonians steadily growing along the way. Despite the tightness in my chest, the crippling doubt weighing down my mind, and despite the large, boisterous group on my heels, I stay quiet. Fervent.
When we reach the High Regent’s palace, I stop a decent ten paces before the gate. The crowd behind me has calmed. Hushed to quiet mumblings and whispers. Taking in the heavy silence building behind me, I half expect to find the majority has fallen away, abandoning the effort the closer we’ve come to the palace. And I wouldn’t blame them.
But when I turn to face the crowd, I am shocked to see they number a good two hundred thick.
Bellonians—Dogio, Imperi, and Basso alike; young and old and in-between—erupt in celebration, the sound gloriously deafening.
There is no way Raevald can ignore it, not even from the darkest depths of that stone-and-iron lair of his. With a final push and calls of “The heir returns!” and “Huzzah!” and “Blessed be the light!” they urge me on.
The wall surrounding Imperi Palace is something to behold. All thick iron slats, at least twelve feet tall, there’s no climbing it. Even if people did manage to claw their way up to the top, they’d be greeted with sharp iron thorny vines upon attempting to hoist themselves over the top. They’re said to be decorative, but I’m not sure anyone’s ever dared find out.
There are a couple of arched doorways for guards and staff to go through along the perimeter, but they’re heavily reinforced. Always bolted shut.
The gate, though?
As foreboding a presence as the wall is, the gate is ten times more forbidding.
Made of the same black iron as the wall, the gate towers a good five feet over it. There is always a pair of soldiers standing guard, one on each side. Along the top of the gate, mimicking those along the wall, are iron spikes. But unlike the more decorative wall versions, these are clearly meant to intimidate. To impale if necessary.
The ten steps to walk from where I stand to the front of the iron gate, while a short distance, takes a lifetime. The crowd, still boisterous, still chanting, stays behind.
I approach the gate, make eye contact with the soldier on the other side. There is a moment, a brief lapse, not more than a breath when I feel fear. The soldiers who guard the gate are well trained. It’s a prestigious post and one not given to new recruits. In this case, it’s a woman in her mid-twenties, a respectably decorated crimson sash pressed and fastened over her shoulder.
It is during the blink of an eye that we inspect one another that I worry she will see right through me. Somehow she will know I am not truly the loyal heir of Bellona she sees before her, but the enemy. A wolf in sheep’s clothing.
She nods.
Salutes.
And without pause, cranks the gears on the lock of the gate. Turns a key. A series of complicated bolts unhinge and, from the middle, the gate opens up like a sideways fanged jaw. As I am ushered over the threshold and inside the palace grounds, one loud thought crosses my mind: I am here for Veda.
The crowd isn’t nearly as discouraged by the gate as I am. Some climb and perch themselves near the top, just shy of the spikes. More Imperi soldiers rush the gate, line the wall, many threatening the people to climb down. Or else.
I don’t get a moment to check because two soldiers instantly flank my sides. I have no idea where they have come from, but they usher me straight for the grand front entrance of the palace as more guards storm the gates, surround the wall.
The closer I get to the palace, the fainter the noise back at the gate grows,