* * *
“Where is the emperor’s emissary?” I asked the gathering in the map room as I swept in, my ladies trailing behind me in two rows of three.
“Sleeping off last night,” Dearsley replied congenially, “as is most of the palace, Your Highness. It’s early yet.”
True. I checked the glance of the sun against the tiled floor. Early indeed, for all that I felt already behind the game. Excellent, however, that Delilah had done her job in removing Leuthar from the board. I surveyed mine: the map of Calanthe.
The map room sits high in a tower of the palace, open to the air, enjoying a view in every direction of Calanthe. Arches lead onto a circular balustrade made of the white stone that is Calanthe’s spine and skeleton. Etched into the rail are arrows pointing to landmarks, with descriptions carved beneath. Under the graceful dome, the internal space is empty of furniture or anything else that might interfere with the intricate mosaic map of the island beneath our feet.
Everyone there stood in the sea, according to the map—an unwritten custom that always tickled me, as if treading upon the image of Calanthe might be rude when we walked upon Her in reality every day of our lives.
When the school groups come to tour, the children have no such qualms. They run, crawl, and pounce upon the great map of their home, embracing Her, even laying their cheeks against the jeweled tiles that show where their house or village might be. Very different from today’s grim mood.
“Reports. Please.” I added the pleasantry to the demand as an afterthought. No sense losing all vestige of civilized behavior.
My various advisers shifted, glancing at one another, most moving back a step to indicate they had nothing of interest or usefulness. One fellow I didn’t know ended up stranded alone, left high and dry by a receding tide. Plainly dressed, fingering his broad-brimmed hat, he looked to be a seaman from one of the coastal communities.
“And you are?” I inquired, gently, as I would speak to a Glory.
“Your Highness,” he said, his voice as unsteady as his bow.
I nearly replied that, no, that was me, but restrained myself. Tension brings out the sarcasm in me. I try to keep it inside my skull and off my tongue.
“I’m Nestor, of the reef divers,” he offered, as if he’d only just remembered.
“You have something to report, Nestor?” I encouraged him.
“Yes! Yes, Your Highness. And, well, Your Highness asked that we be on the lookout for anything unusual, so I’m here to tell Your Highness what we saw. That was unusual, that is. I was coming to the palace anyway, Your Highness, and then they said to come straight here, Your Highness, but I’m not sure that I…” He trailed off, looking around the imposing room with wide eyes, then fixing on me.
“The palace belongs to all, Nestor,” I said as gently as I could, “just as Calanthe does. Tell Me what you saw.”
“Not me or my divers, Your Highness, but the porpoises sing of an invisible ship.”
“Only one?” Dearsley demanded.
“There are others, but they stay back, sailing in circles. Only one moves forward, Calanthe in her sights. Not yet in Her waters, but soon.”
My finger warmed and tingled, the orchid for a moment looking to my eye like a leaping porpoise. That meant truth, I decided. Though it could mean it liked porpoises. Who knew? “Did the porpoises sing of what kind of ship it is, and how fast it sails?”
Unexpectedly, Nestor smiled at me, like sunlight filtering through shallow water. “You are a true queen of Calanthe,” he said. “It’s one that’s been here before, but all different-smelling people aboard. It will reach our waters by midday.”
And there it was.
“All right, ladies and gentlemen.” Now that the moment had arrived, a strange calm settled over me. Fear is the worst in anticipation. Once there’s a path to send it down, it transforms into something else and leaves you in peace. “Here is what we’re going to do.”
We were ready for them.
14
“There it is, Calanthe, the Isle of Flowers.” Ambrose waved a hand grandly, declaring it as if he’d created the place himself. For all I knew, the wizard had. Ambrose might look barely older than me, but that meant nothing. The old tales spoke of ancient wizards who aged backward. Perhaps Ambrose was one of those, nearing the end of his days as he looked to be only in his third decade.
With my luck, I’d end up dragging around a mulish child or wailing infant Ambrose and still be circling Yekpehr, looking for a way to kill Anure.
Not pointing out that Ambrose wouldn’t be this close to Calanthe if I hadn’t stolen Anure’s pretty boats to get us there, I squinted at the famed island. It looked real enough. But even from this distance, the long stretch of the island shimmered with more color than land usually did from so far out at sea. Along with the typical smoky blues and deep greens of any landmass, spots of jewel tones and pastels shone clearly. Maybe that happened as a side effect of the unnatural crystal calm of the waters surrounding the island. A memory came back in full force of the paintings in the palace at Oriel. Some of them had been a wash of color up close, but resolved into images from across the long hall. I’d spent hours one afternoon trying to solve that puzzle.
When I stood back, the people and landscapes showed with perfect clarity, even crispness. As I stepped closer, they fuzzed, then became nothing more than bits of paint dabs. I finally scratched a line on the floor with my dagger, to mark where the change occurred, and I’d stepped back and forth across it, looking for the magic.
I’d gotten into trouble for the jagged groove in the parquet floor, and my father had decided my punishment would be that no one should explain the mystery of the painting for me. I’d have to discover it for myself. And then, of course, Anure arrived, torched the parquet along with the paintings, and I never had found out the secret. Funny that I could be annoyed about such a minor thing still, after all that happened after. And yet I found myself looking for a line in the water that would mark where I ceased to see clearly.
I suspected I’d long since passed that point.
“And we’re just going to sail right up to Calanthe and say hello. No scouting. Just trust that they believed we’re Anure’s soldiers coming to party.” Sondra echoed my skepticism. We’d been over Ambrose’s “plan” countless times. That didn’t make either of us more confident in the craziness of it.
“Don’t worry. They won’t see us,” Ambrose replied cheerfully. Perched on the staff the wizard held, Merle cawed an agreement. Or perhaps that was for the seabirds circling above in sunset colors of rose and flame against the midday blue sky. I’d never seen birds of that fantastic coloration.
“A big warship, even an invisible one, takes up a lot of space. They’re bound to notice that,” I felt compelled to point out. This felt so wrong, so backward from everything I knew. A complete departure from the strategy that had gotten us this far. Instead of sending scouts ahead to bribe the temples, to assess the mood of the populace, suss out the discontented and recruit their help, instead of making sure we held all the elements of surprise, we were just sailing straight up pretending to be a royal visitor. Did Ambrose expect a flag-waving welcome? “This is a terrible plan.”