Page 29 of Destroyer

She placed her hand on his thigh in what she meant to be a friendly gesture, to make a show of their platonic intimacy. But his muscled thigh flexed as she did so, and he exhaled sharply, hot breath puffing against the back of her neck.

She removed her hand from his leg as if burnt by hot coal. “He’s a historian.”

Sybeth frowned. “I see. Were either of you involved in, or witness to, a strange occurrence at the dig site where we left you, Miss Delara?”

Ru opened her mouth to speak, but Fen’s voice carried over hers. “Unfortunately, yes,” he said. “We’re the sole survivors of a tragedy. We were on our way to Mirith to inform the regent.”

Lyr tossed Sybeth a look. “Should we continue to the dig site, per our orders?”

Sybeth shook her head, her dark eyes sharp in the twilight. “I want a first-hand account. Sole survivors, you say? So therewasan event of some kind. The letter said there was an explosion.”

Ru, practically vibrating with a heightened agitation, refused to let Fen guide the conversation. These riders were her friends. She knew best which version of the story to tell them. “Sybeth,” she said, “he’s telling the truth. There was a… an explosion. We still don’t understand what happened. When I arrived at the dig site, I was asked to examine something they found in the crater. An artifact. And when I began to inspect it, the thing… well, it…” her voice stuck in her throat. Her eyes stung. She clutched at Fen’s leg. Breathed in, breathed out.

The artifact, always present, called to Ru gently then. A warmth spread from her chest outward, as if the stone were sending comfort through the tether between them, as if it understood she was upset.

“It vaporized the dig site,” Fen finished roughly. “I saw the whole thing.”

“Oh Ru,” Rosylla said, her expression crumpling as tears shone in her eyes. “What a terrible thing. How did you survive?”

“Never mind that,” said Sybeth, always the professional. Though Ru noticed the line between her brows deepening, her shoulders tensing. “So, they found a weapon in the ground? We need to inform the regent immediately.”

“Wait,” said Ru, as Sybeth made to turn around and lead them all back the way the riders had come. “Wouldn’t it make sense, academically, to bring the artifact to the Cornelian Tower for study? I feel it’s imperative that we understand it. How it functions, what it’s made of, how to… destroy it, if need be.”

“You still have the blasted thing?” asked Lyr, his expression changing from vague annoyance to a mix of horror and disgust.

Sybeth and Rosylla shared a look of shock and dismay, and Ru realized she’d made a thoughtless blunder.

“You’d better come with us,” said Sybeth.

Ru half-turned in the saddle, enough to meet Fen’s gaze. He held it for a second, then frowned almost imperceptibly. He disagreed with Sybeth.

Ru shouldn’t be surprised; he was a loner, a traveler. And he had agreed expressly to take Ru to the Tower, not Mirith. But surely, she thought, after Mirith, they could still go to the Tower with the stone. They would need to take safety precautions, but… Was there any real reason to hide the artifact? As a scientist, Ru felt, rationally, that it should be studied, understood, and categorized. The only thing she wanted to conceal was its unseen connection to her.

That was her secret to keep, and hers alone.

“We’ll go to Mirith, then,” she said at last, nodding at Sybeth. There was no reason to argue, and without the regent’s blessing, there was only so much she could accomplish in studying the artifact. “It’s the only sensible destination.”

Fen sighed, only loud enough for her to hear.

The small company rode out together, then, following the main road until it forked to the southeast, toward Mirith.

Fen remained silent but threatening, like a roiling storm cloud at Ru’s back. The King’s Riders were unusually taciturn. Ru tried to think of pleasant things, like prime numbers and intact pottery and the ivy that grew on the Tower like a green blanket. But her mind was always pulled back to the artifact, its voice without words, and the inevitable feeling that it would not leave her in peace for long.

CHAPTER10

Mirith was as loud as it was colorful, as filthy as it was beautiful. It had not always been the capital of Navenie. Centuries ago, it was only a mid-sized port town, known for its sea trade routes to the neighboring kingdom of Mekya to the east, and the city of Solmaria on the far western edge of Navenie. But after the Destruction of Ordellun-by-the-Sea, Navenie’s then capitol, the title was bestowed upon Mirith.

When Mirith was given what should have been a great honor, it floundered. Many of those who had been displaced by the Destruction — rural farmers who relied on trade within Ordellun-by-the-Sea, travelers whose permanent homes were now gone, and anyone who survived the horrible event by simply being away from the city at the time — came flooding to Mirith, until its gates had to be closed to visitors. There simply wasn’t enough room, enough resources to go around.

The gate remained closed for centuries, and only those with permits were allowed to enter the city walls. Gradually, outside Mirith’s walls grew another city made of the hovels and dwellings of Ordellun-by-the-Sea’s refugees who had nowhere else to go, or who had remained out of sheer stubbornness.

Now, the original walls of the old Mirith were gone, the two cities had merged into one. But the city never stopped being dirty, overcrowded, and filled with the ever-present sense that it was on the verge of some kind of collapse.

Even so, warm breezes and sea rains kept its gardens lush, and the sun shone year-round. It was also the only place, other than the Tower, that Ru considered to be home.

She was used to the city’s brightly painted buildings and plazas, its sparkling fountains, its hanging gardens and uneven cobbles, and green, well-tended parks. She was used to the press of bodies on the road, which began well before one reached the city. And she was familiar with the shouts, the smell of sewage, the random snippets of cries, or laughter, or singing that emanated from every window or door or shop front.

And while Mirith was familiar as an old friend, Ru never became bored of the city. She gazed about in the early dawn light as they rode through the city’s main gates, the guards standing aside and saluting as the riders escorted them through. The market crowds made way — albeit slowly and with complaint — for the small procession, but nobody bothered to look up for more than a moment’s glance. King’s Riders were coming and going from the city constantly and were no more interesting than a farmer’s pig cart on its way to the market.

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