Starsinger

Misdirection

"Stop this," Commander Vance cried. "Stop this at once!"

The second wall was bursting with light like a Festival bonfire. Before the gates of Aster, Zareyman ships clashed with Crollish. Just out of cannon range the Drake and the Bloodhound were locked in combat, swirling in a vortex of magic.

But Aaron's eyes were trained up, fixed on the terrace where the gryffin had just disappeared. Ezra was taunting them. But why there? Why now?

"Enough, Brasher," Vance growled again, stepping towards the striker. Even when stripped of his sword, his presence was threatening. "Whatever treason you believe Lord Malcolm guilty of, bring it before the king's court. Call off the serpents."

"The Apprentices are servants of the crown." Jace kept his eyes fixed on the battle below. "Not serpents."

"And you've got them attacking the king's own vassal," Vance snarled. "With no evidence. Give me the horn and let me end this, before you start a civil war."

Jace didn't respond. "Aaron. Come look at this."

Reluctantly, Aaron tore his gaze away from the fortress. He stepped close and followed Jace's gaze. The Crollish armada had long broken its formation, slivered into smaller cohorts by Zareyman warships intent on dividing their forces. They were floundering.

A cluster of four Crollish vessels pressed through the destruction. Between them sat a narrow barge, too small for a landing party. Aaron narrowed his eyes. What were the warships protecting?

Then across the water, more movement. Aaron turned to see three more gryffins taking flight from the deck of the Bloodhound. He flicked his scope into place. Riders, two to a creature, dressed in black with long necklaces of gleaming obsidian.

Fatemongers. Aaron went cold. He turned back to the fortress and a few levels below the gryffin's roost he saw a flash of dark blue hair.

A trap. Ezra planned to lure Sapphire to the terrace alone, and then mob her with the rest of the fatemongers. And she'd taken the bait.

Aaron grit his teeth. She promised. Promised she wouldn't go off alone, sacrificing herself in redemption for some imaginary crime. They were supposed to fight as a team.

Looks like Ezra knows her better than you do.

Aaron shook his head violently. No. Being a team wasn't just about asking for help. It was about being there for each other even when nobody asked you.

"Jace," said Aaron. "Sapphire's moving on Ezra."

"The gryffin?" Jace glanced up at the towering fortress, cursed. "We can't leave the Apprentices. Not until the Bloodhound is captured."

"Then send me."

Jace's eyes narrowed, calculating. Aaron met his gaze. They'd started this journey together. Every step they'd taken, they'd taken together.

"Go," Jace said suddenly. "Stop her before she reaches him. I'll come find you when this is done."

Aaron glanced at Commander Vance, who was listening to their conversation intently. "You're sure?"

"I can handle this," said Jace. "Go now or you'll lose her."

They clasped arms, palms tight and warm, pulses thundering in their wrists. Jace nodded sharply, and Aaron was dismissed.

A narrow pathway along the cliffs connected the third wall to a lower level of the fortress. A shortcut. Aaron raced along it. When he reached the fortress, the door to the keep was locked and barred, but a number of twisting staircases cut into the marble façade, each with a delicate marble handrail, carved with intricate floral designs. Decorative, Aaron thought sourly. Always decorative.

He picked a staircase and hurtled upward. The chorus of battle sang out beneath him, the splintering crash following the boom of cannons as inevitably as thunder follows lightning. Wind plucked at his sweat-stained clothes. Aaron clutched the railing hard. He knew without looking down that this drop would be a thousand times worse than the drop from the Drake's bowsprit into the sea.

The terrace was just above him when he heard another set of footsteps rocketing upwards. Sapphire. She was somewhere off to his right, above him, hidden by the slopes of marble.

She'll reach the terrace first. Aaron didn't have time to wander through the maze of staircases until he found an entrance. He glanced up. A mess of tangled vines hung down from the terrace looming overhead.

Aaron reached up to wrap his fist in a coil of greenery as thick as rope, and pulled. With his other hand he lunged for purchase in the rough stone, pockmarked by the insistent roots of the crawlers. His feet lifted off the ground, his fingers dug deep into dirt and marble. Again, he pulled.

Huge marble columns draped in curtains of ivy lined the edges of the terrace. One of them blocked Aaron from view as he heaved himself up over the ledge. Silently, carefully, he stepped onto the terrace and pressed himself against the pillar, peering around through the gaps in the foliage.

The gryffin. Black and grey and enormous, he swallowed up half the terrace, preening his feathers with a curved beak, glinting and deadly. Lord Malcolm stood beside the creature, adjusting a strange leather harness on the gryffin's back.

Aaron blinked in shock. Where was Ezra? Then the gryffin turned and Aaron's thoughts fled from his mind at the sight of its eyes, solid black and flat as stone.

Before he could draw his bow, Lord Malcolm lounged back atop the low marble railing at the front of the terrace, casually cocking a crossbow at the opposite staircase.

Sapphire hurtled into view. She froze, the crossbow trained at her chest.

"Hello, little Shadow," Lord Malcolm said. "Did you miss me?"

Sapphire held a dagger loosely in each hand, but she kept them still. Her face was stone. "Where's Ezra?"

"Waiting for you, of course."

She clenched her fists. "You're too late. The king has been warned, the Apprentices freed. You've already lost."

Lord Malcolm smirked. "It's remarkable. Even with all that fantastic power, you have no imagination. I could almost pity you."

"I'm not here for your pity."

"No, you're here for my head." He treated her to a cold smile. "Or Ezra's, it would seem. I'm afraid you're not going to get either one. You've miscalculated, my dear. Tell me, what makes you think that we're after the king?"

Sapphire's brows shot together and Aaron's breath caught in his throat

"You want the throne," Sapphire hissed, but there was uncertainty in her voice.

"I want power." Lord Malcolm's eyes glittered malevolently, drifting down to gaze longingly at the bursts of magic lighting up the second wall of Aster. "And Ezra wants the world. A throne is only useful with the power to keep it, and in the end, a king is just a man. Real power is something else entirely."

He grinned. "And you've left it ripe for the taking."