I wake with a jolt, hitting my head against the side of the carriage. Judging by the grey half-light, it’s almost dawn. Flint sleeps soundly on the opposite bench, his gentle snores drowned out by the rhythmic clopping of hooves. The Imperial Guard ride close by, visors gleaming in the light from the flickering torches.
They came for us a few days after the eclipse. I watched from the library window as the small legion of knights arrived at the gates, bearing an official summons from the Golden Palace.
Saying goodbye to Renly was painful. He had sobbed and wailed and clung to me so tightly that an attendant wasforced to pry him off and carry him back inside Harglade Hall. Grandmother had cupped my face, brushing a kiss between my eyes. Then she was gone, disappearing from view as the carriage trundled down the hill.
As we passed through Valburn, people had poured out of inns and workshops and tall, slate-roofed townhouses, lining the streets excitedly to watch us go by.
‘It’s not every day you see an Heir,’ said Flint, smiling genially out of the window while I ducked my head, shielding my face from view.
It was the same in the next province, and the next. Yet gradually, the bustling cities began to peter out, replaced by barren stone wasteland, and I felt as though I could finally breathe again. I leaned right out of the carriage, gazing around at the unfamiliar terrain, watching steam billowing upward in great plumes from the hot springs, which ranged from puddle-sized to craters so large that we were forced to take a detour. It was then that a small thrill went through me, and I realized that while I might still be stuck in Ostacre, I was no longer stuck inside Harglade Hall, and though this was a journey I’d never envisioned myself making, it was the closest to freedom I’d ever got. So I spent the long, hot days hanging out of the window, drinking in the world around me, and I spent my nights clutching a cup of water, trying – and failing – to freeze it.
I glare down at the now-abandoned cup, balanced on a pile of books, its contents still very much liquid, quivering with the motion of the carriage.
Combing my hair with my fingers, I lean over to peer out of the window, expecting to find us in the middle ofyet another endless stone plain. Instead, I find that we are travelling through the deserted remains of a city.
Once a city, now a tomb.
My heart gives a nervous thud.
Six years ago – a few months after my mother died – Ostacre suffered untold devastation. It was a cataclysm unlike any other, one that claimed thousands upon thousands of lives. Only that time, I wasn’t behind it.
This was not the work of the Storm Weaver, but of the Earth Cleaver.
He is considered to be the most dangerous Etheri in the world, which seems fitting, since he’s the one who broke it in two.
I remember it so clearly, the deafening, agonizedrippingas the realm was split apart. Ashesplit the realm apart. I felt it in the innermost parts of myself. The hollows of my bones, the chambers of my heart. It was as if I were being cleaved in half, too.
Though I was lucky. What with its very foundations built into the dormant volcano it sits upon, Harglade Hall was left more or less intact. Yet the rest of Valburn suffered greatly, with much of the surrounding city collapsing and having to be built anew. However, this was nothing compared to the utter devastation that ploughed straight through the centre of Ostacre, from the northernmost tip to the southernmost lip of the empire, creating the gaping chasm known as the Rift. Bordering the Rift is what little remains of demolished towns and villages, all utterly ravaged by the force of the Cleaving, homes reduced to brick and dust, their inhabitants long entombed within them.
A City of Buried Souls – that is what they call places like this.
I gaze out at the sprawling unmarked grave, and shudder.
The slightly hunchbacked Riftkeeper eyes our procession as we approach the toll bridge, leaning heavily on a thick, gnarled staff. When he speaks, his voice is a rough scrape, like fingernails down bark. ‘State your business here.’
A knight nudges his horse forward. ‘Our business is that of the Crowned Council, Riftkeeper. We escort their guests.’
The Riftkeeper peers interestedly at the carriage. ‘And what might be their names?’
‘That is none of your concern,’ growls the knight.
‘Oh, but it is,’ replies the Riftkeeper, reaching out a wrinkled hand to stroke the knight’s horse. ‘For none cross my bridge nameless.’
Flint yawns loudly beside me. ‘Wasappening? Why’ve we stopped?’
The knight tosses a pouch towards the Riftkeeper, who makes no effort to catch it.
‘You may keep your gold, sir, if you give me their names.’
‘And you may keep your life, Riftkeeper, if you give us passage,’ the knight snarls.
The Riftkeeper plants his feet, his mouth curving into a toothless grin. I gasp as the knight unsheathes his sword and swings it towards him in one smooth arc – a killing blow. But it never meets its mark. It’s blocked by the Riftkeeper’s staff.
I stare, incredulous. The knight lunges a second time, and a third. The staff does not bend or break, but blocks each strike as though it were steel rather than wood.
‘Their names, if you would be so kind,’ says the Riftkeeper pleasantly, as though the knight were not trying to decapitate him.
But now the other knights are advancing, swords in hand. The Riftkeeper’s staff may be strong, but there are twenty knights of the Imperial Guard and only one of him. Before I realize what I’m doing I’ve kicked open the carriage door.
