Page 82 of A Sky of Emerald Stars

I looked over at the three remaining Silver Wolves. “Now where’s Ora?”

“Your father’s crown first,” Evres said, looking to the crown still in my clenched hand. He reached for it, and I threw it at his feet.

The sound of the metal clanging against the stone floor filled the room. I wondered if the same sound echoed through the hall of Olmdere when Sawyn killed my father. Which Nero did nothing about. One day I’d hear the sound of Nero’s crown clattering to the floor—preferably with his head still attached. In the meantime, I’d make another crown in honor of my father’s memory. Evres muttered under his breath but stooped to pick up the crown. He dusted it off with his velvet jacket sleeve and nodded to one of the other Silver Wolves.

The burly Wolf trudged down the three steps and banged on the cellar door behind him. A fifth Wolf appeared, and he shoved a person through the doorway.

“Ora!” I shouted, running over and catching Ora as they stumbled up the top step.

Their hands were bound in front of them, their mouth gagged, their eyes bloodshot and clothes crumpled, but they were alive and, from what I could tell, uninjured. I dropped to my knees in front of Ora, hugging them to me as they frantically muttered something through their gag.

“What?” I quickly reached for Ora’s gag.

“It’s a trap, Calla. Run!” they screamed as theshingof swords being unsheathed sounded behind me.

I stood and whirled, finding not only the three Silver Wolves and Evres with their swords drawn and pointed, but Ingrid’sguards, too. We could fight, though. I was ready to fight. But then I stole a glance at the doorway and my heart plummeted.

Three men stalked up the steps, ones I recognized from Damrienn: Sadie and Hector’s father and uncles. I thought Hector would whirl on them, fight them off, but instead his father walked right up to his son and clapped him on the shoulder with a smug smile.

Hector didn’t meet my eyes as he lifted his sword and pointed it directly at us.

Sadie

We rolled over the rest of the rope bridge, up higher where the railings disappeared and the wagon wheels were inches from the edge on either side. Maez and I clutched each other randomly at every rock and shake of the wagon, thinking we strayed a little too close to the edge and were falling. It probably didn’t help that we were both impossibly hungover from the night of gambling that Maez had goaded me into once we left the tavern in the sky.

We were so high now I could barely make out the dots of the lagoons far, far below. Maez and I watched out the window as the sharp obsidian of the mountain’s underbelly came into crystalline view. The jagged rocks looked almost carved like joinery fittings, and I wondered if there was another continent, another world where those puzzle work rocks fit like a lock to a key. The mystical nature of these floating mountains gave credence to the dusty old scrolls in the refuge library. Maybe Wolves truly weren’t the first beings to inhabit this land. More and more, I believed the humans’ histories and further doubted my own.

“One more bridge to go and we’re in Rikesh,” Navin said as he sipped the last of his tea at the kitchen table. Our two mugs sat cold across from him, our stomachs unable to managemore than pieces of the grease-fried bread Navin had whipped up for us.

“Another bridge,” I groaned as Maez gripped my forearm. “Remind me never to return to this Gods-forsaken place.”

“No wonder so few people make the journey to the Onyx Wolf kingdom,” she quipped. She frowned at the last bite of bread pinched between her thumb and forefinger. “Why don’t you have a song for curing hangovers?”

Navin chuckled and reached for my forsaken mug, helping himself. The Onyx guard’s uniform was folded over the back of the chair next to him, looking freshly pressed now, along with a gauzy orange monstrosity that was apparently for me to wear. I didn’t have the energy to complain, though. Maybe after another piece of bread...

As we entered the thick, teeming jungles of Eshik, the temperature morphed from the blistering dry heat of the desert to the far more humid kind. The wagon rocked again, rolling over the road covered in dried leaves and crawling vines. The verdant green surrounded us. Parrots squawked from the skies, black and golden monkeys climbed through the treetops, and striped snakes slithered off the road with the rumble of the wagon. The distinct smell hit me, too: not the spicy arid scent of Sankai-ed but now an earthy smell of leaves composting back into soil, damp foliage, and viscid air.

“It’s beautiful,” Maez said as she hooked her elbow out the window and admired the landscape.

“And shaded,” I sighed as I poked my head out and looked up at the thick, flourishing canopy above us. The top of Galen den’ Mora barely skirted through the arching space created from many traveling wagons, the trees trained up and around to create a tunnel through the forest.

“We’ll need to keep our heads down in these parts,” Navin said, grabbing me by the hips and tugging me back into my chair. “Both of you,” he said, nodding at Maez. “You two will need tostay in the wagon until we reach the other side of the forest. No Wolves should be lurking out there.”

“Makes sense,” Maez says. She looked at me. “Are you going to be able to play along with this?”

“Of course.”

I’d bathed and changed back into my own fighting leathers, my pack still waiting for me right where I’d left it the day of the sandstorm. Her eyes dropped to the butter knife I’d inadvertently picked up off the table and started flicking back and forth. I scowled and put the blunt knife back down.

“Of course? You know that means no violence, right? You need to seem under his control.”

“Why does everybody keep treating me like I’m so prone to violence?” I spat, smacking the table and making the tableware clatter. Maez only raised her amused eyebrows at me. “Point taken. I only have to pretend for long enough for Navin to get the vase,” I said.

Maez looked me up and down. “You should get her a veil in the next town. Present her as a little less feisty, more demure. No one would believe a human captured her looking like that.” Maez held in a laugh. “Maybe that will buy us some time as well. Give Tadei some time to inspect his present—a little more pageantry might help sell it.”

I mimicked gagging but said, “Fine, whatever.” I pointed at Maez. “But you better be ready to make some moves. I’ve got about five smiles and fake laughs in me before I choke the life out of him.” I stabbed my butter knife into the wood table, leaving only an amorphous dent.

Navin groaned. “Could you make your point without damaging the furniture, please?” I gave him a mischievous wink and he rolled his eyes.

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