In the Ruins (Crown of Stars #6)

In the Ruins (Crown of Stars #6) Page 68

This time the general almost did break down, but with an iron will he controlled his body, his expression, his voice, and his entire being. “That is not a city. That is a ruin. Ai, God. My dear wife.”

The words sparked connections in her mind. What had bewildered her came clear. The peninsula was covered not by rocky terrain and fallen stones but by a vast city so huge that she had not recognized it for what it was. Its walls ringed the shoreline. Double walls made a skirt across the headland. What splendor these ruins might once have possessed she could only guess at. They were too big to comprehend, and the extent of the destruction staggered her because it made no sense. She traced the distant lines that marked the ground but could not measure palaces, churches, houses, or stables in the jumble. From this distance she saw nothing she could recognize as rooftops, no spectacular domes, only stair steps of tumbled stone in heaps and mounds that she had at first mistaken for natural formations.

Surely this was an ancient ruin. Not even the gale wind could have destroyed so much and on such a scale. It was difficult to grasp, much less hold onto, their grief. It all seemed so remote, no more than an idea they had all long clung to.

“A wave drowned all, so we have been told,” said Lady Eudokia. “How can any wave be large enough to overwhelm the city? It must have been some other thing, a spell perhaps, rising out of Jinna lands. Rising off the sea.”

“Look there!” said Bysantius, pointing.

A gauzy mist was rising off the strait. Wisps of fog wafted up out of the ruins as the breeze blew in off the sea. Fog rose every place there was water. It seemed the ruins were awash, because the mist thickened, poured upward, and advanced inland toward their position as a wall of white like a towering wave off the sea. It swallowed the ground, the view, the sky.

“God save us,” muttered Bysantius, but he held his position.

General Lord Alexandros drew his sword.

“Leave off,” snapped Lady Eudokia. “Put me down, you fools. Bring me my chest. Let me see what I can do to dispel this unnatural mist.”

No natural mist moved in such a manner. Hanna twisted to look behind her. Men backed away, making signs against evil. Her ears popped, and the few dogs remaining among the army began barking. As the fog advanced on a strong wind off the sea, the beasts tucked tails between legs and ran. Their fear, like a shower of arrows, struck throughout the ranks.

“Hold fast!” cried the general.

“Shit!” swore Bysantius.

“You clumsy fools!” swore Lady Eudokia, her voice cracking with anger as one of her eunuchs lost his grip on the chest and it spilled to the ground.

The fog swept in. Between one breath and the next they drowned. Not in water, but in a veil of concealment so thick that she could no longer see the general or the exalted lady. Even the head of Bysantius’ horse swam in and out of view. A tinkling of bells teased her ears, then faded.

Once, years ago, in the custody of Bulkezu, she had seen an opening and bolted, but he had caught her, of course. Of course. Yet why be ruled by fear, as were those bawling and shouting around her?

She saw her chance.

She pushed back over the mare’s rump, slid down, and landed as Bysantius called out sharply.

“The prisoner! The Eagle!”

She dared not run for the sea, not knowing what had destroyed the city and what might still lurk under the waves or on the far shore. She ran south instead, knocked into soldiers before she saw them, shook loose and kept going before they realized what hit them. She tripped once, three times, ten, but her bruised shins and aching elbows goaded her on. This time she would escape. This time it would be different even if she died in the wilderness or was hacked to death by angry Arethousan farmers.

That thought gave her pause enough to come panting to a halt, adrift in the fog with a sparse grove of trees around her, gnarled and low like the ubiquitous olives. She heard the clamor of the army behind her, surging as would the ocean in a storm as waves strike higher rocks and disintegrate into spray.

“Form ranks! Form ranks!” cried Sergeant Bysantius, his voice ringing out of the fog. Yet she sensed no body near to hers. That he sounded close was a trick of the weather.

Maybe it wasn’t so wise to wander alone, chained, and foreign in a land so notoriously unforgiving to strangers. Beware Arethousans, so went the saying. They were treacherous and deceiving, liars and heretics. But they had fed her, and the sergeant and her guards had kept her safe from those who would have been happy to assault her. She stumbled forward until she lurched into a tree, and sagged there with leaves and twigs tracing the contours of her back as she tried to catch her breath. The damp air chilled her lungs. She heard a nagging chimelike sound, as though her ears were ringing. As though her mind and heart were overwhelmed and dazzled. The choice seemed impossible: give up her freedom and live, or run and die.