The city was sealed as once, six years before, it had been sealed against the escape of the emperor's most feared and hated outlaw, who had run away with a beloved royal daughter. No merchants, travelers, or tradesmen were permitted in or out as regiments of Karelinian city guards combed the streets, questioning citizens and searching homes and businesses for any trace of Ealin or Princess Uarria.
Meanwhile, Uachi wasted no time. Were Ealin in the city, he had every confidence that she would be uncovered by the guards, but he had little faith that she was still within the walls of Karelin. No: Mhera's vision had been clear enough, and Uachi knew by now to trust the empress's Sight.
Ealin was going to the archmage, and she was taking the princess with her.
Stationed at the northern gates of the city, at the shoreline, Uachi oversaw the provisioning of the Windborne for a journey south. As he organized his soldiers and coordinated the search of the city, he prayed to a goddess upon whose name he had very seldom called in his life, hoping that Ealin had not traveled by the blood.
There was a puzzle here to be unscrambled. Uachi was not yet in the right state of mind to unravel the threads of it all. He might never be, not until he could speak with the woman who had broken his trust and his heart in the process. The woman who'd betrayed not only Uachi, but the man Uachi loved above all others.
Uachi had first met Matei the day he arrived in the rebel city of Hanpe, carried on the coat tails of revolutionaries who'd taken pity on an urchin in the unforgiving streets of Karelin. The boys were of an age, both just past the threshold of manhood, and they went into their training together.
Ealin was the first person Uachi had ever been with, but Matei was the first person Uachi had ever loved. Even as a boy, the future Rebel King was whip-smart, handsome, and a natural-born leader. He had always believed in something far bigger than himself, and in knowing him, Uachi came to believe in it, too. Matei could inspire in anyone a passion for an unattainable dream. His aspirations made it easy to adore him, and his willingness to work in the trenches alongside his people—people another man might have ordered about like inferiors—made it easy to respect him. Matei could handle a blade as if he'd been trained to it from his infancy, which Uachi would later learn was because he'd been born a prince. He was as neat and graceful as a dancer, and Uachi had loved to watch him in sparring practice.
Next to him, Uachi felt like an oaf, for he had been trained in street brawls and scrapes and was better with his fists and his knees than a blade. With other company, Uachi might have drowned in his bitterness and his hate, becoming a criminal, a street thug instead of a soldier.
Matei took those same raw materials and turned them into hope, rebellion, and steadfast loyalty.
Uachi had always seen beauty in boys as well as in girls, and, though he had been sheltered in his youth from the broader world, he realized that this wasn't common. He could not help the way he felt: the bewildering blend of Matei's handsome face, serious nature, and impossible goals drew him in. Had things worked out differently, Uachi would have helplessly given the future Rebel King his heart.
It became clear early on in their acquaintance that Matei had no time for romance, though. Uachi had little more, and he had not yet moved past the darkness that had shadowed his youth. Besides, it was clear from the way his eyes lingered on the comely maids of Hanpe that Matei's heart was reserved for girls, and Uachi, understanding that his inclinations were different from those of most boys, was not about to confess his affections and risk being seen as an oddity or worse. Besides, Matei was Rhodana's foster son. There were no princes in Hanpe, but Matei was as near to a prince as they would ever have.
Over time, the boys became close, as close as brothers. Uachi cared too much for Matei to let his infatuation interfere with their friendship, the only friendship he had. As time passed, he grew to understand that half of his love for Matei was the same as everyone else's: respect, admiration, trust. Thus did Uachi's feelings toward Matei mellow over the months into a deep respect and a loyalty that, as it was tested over the long years, was tempered and strengthened by each new trial.
While a handsome lad or a comely lady had sometimes turned his head in the many years since, Uachi had never again been taken with affection for another person, and he had kept his distance when anyone showed interest in him. Until Ealin.
What Uachi had with Ealin was different entirely from his first love. Where Matei had been strong, Ealin was vulnerable. Where Matei had taken his pain and shaped it into a sharpened blade, Ealin had buried hers in her heart, nursing it, a secret wound. Where Matei led, Ealin followed; where Matei inspired loyalty in others through his bravery and vision, Ealin inspired it with her tenderness and trust. So it had seemed.
Ealin's apparent trust in him had led Uachi to trust her in turn. To love her. And trusting her—loving her—had led him to betray Matei, the first person he had ever cared for aside from his own family.
In the dark hours of that early morning, as his men completed the initial search of the palace grounds and Uachi consulted with his highest officers and an anxious Eovin on a broader plan, he tried not to dwell, favoring action—but he was distracted, and he knew they could all see it. They could see his guilt.
The words he had spoken to Matei the night he had confessed that he'd taken Ealin as his lover reverberated in his mind, permitting him to focus on nothing else.
I swear it to you on my honor, if I have any left in me. This woman means us no harm.
It was clear, then, that Uachi had no honor left in him.
His weakness had been his undoing, as he had known it would be.
He could not forgive himself for falling in love.
Why had Ealin taken Uarria? She was Arcborn. How could she have gone away with the part-Arcborn heir to the Empire of Penrua, the promise of a people who had lived so long in shadow?
Uachi recalled the night when Ealin had first unveiled her power. He had searched her, had threatened her with a dagger, and had uncovered no bloodstone. It had proven to him that her power was in the blood, and if that were the case, did she possess the knowledge to travel across any distance in the space of a breath, as Matei and so many other Arcborn did?
"Captain!" came a breathless cry.
Uachi looked up from the ship's manifest to see a woman in the livery of the city guard dashing toward him across the sand. He laid a hand on his dagger and thrust the manifest at the stripling who had brought it to him.
"See to it that not a barrel is missed. And bring a score of pigeons," he said. "I should not have had to tell you that."
The boy darted away, leaving Uachi's attention on the woman who had drawn to an unsteady stop an armspan from him, gasping for breath. "Captain," she panted. "Unhappy news."
Uachi's heart leapt up and lodged in his throat. He curled his fingers into a fist. "Well?"
"We cannot locate Telai or Neshar. They were imperial guardsmen on duty in the palace, reported missing this morning when their superior noticed their absence."
"When were they last seen?"
"Yesterday. Telai was on duty guarding the kitchen courtyard last evening. He's the one who was missing from the scene—his partner-on-duty was slain. Neshar had gone to his rest, but his companions at the barracks confirmed that he left on some errand in the middle of the night and did not return."
"When did you think it would be a convenient time to tell me?" Uachi snapped.
The woman flinched, but then she clenched her jaw and drew herself up. "I came as soon as I heard, Captain, sir. I think, in the chaos—"
Uachi let out his breath, trying to get a hold on his anger. "Starborn or Arcborn?"
"Both of them Starborn, sir."
He nodded. He might have suspected as much. Now that the princess had been taken, it was difficult not to suspect every Starborn man and woman he saw—even those under his command. "Send their descriptions out to the patrols."
The guardswoman nodded. "Sir. We have also passed a description of Her Highness and Ealin along to the guards on the Tradeway. Anyone will be alert to a traveler with a child meeting their descriptions."
"Very well." Ealin had seemed innocent, but Uachi now knew that to assume she was stupid was folly. She was far craftier than he could ever have given her credit for. "Go at once to the palace. Make the same report to Danya, that it might be conveyed to Their Graces. Take your rest, and then return to patrol."
With a nod of respect, the woman said, "Sir."
Uachi strode over the sand to where a number of crates had been stacked. He hefted one of them into his strong arms. He would help his men and women load the ship, and they would strike out as soon as possible. If Ealin was traveling over the mainland, even mounted, he could hope to make twice the time she did in going by sea around the eastern coast of Penrua toward the neck of land that connected Penrua proper to the southern continent of Narr.
For it was in Narr, rumor had it, that the archmage Jaeron had made his home.
It was in Narr that Uachi could hope to come upon Ealin...
...and bring her to justice.