The Perilous Sea

CHAPTER 1

THE GIRL CAME TO WITH a start.

She was being pelted with sand. Sand was everywhere. Beneath, her fingers dug into it, hot and gritty. Above, wind-whipped sand blocked the sky, turning the air as red as the surface of Mars.

A sandstorm.

She sat up. Sand swirled all about her, millions of sepia particles. By reflex she pushed at them, willing them to stay away from her eyes.

The sand stayed away.

She blinked—and made another pushing motion with her hand. The flying particles receded farther from her person. The sandstorm itself showed no signs of abating. In fact, it was worsening, the sky becoming ominously dark.

She had power over sand.

In a sandstorm, it was much better to be an elemental mage than otherwise. Yet there was something disconcerting about the discovery: the fact that it was a discovery; that she’d had no idea of this ability that should have defined her from the moment of her birth.

She also didn’t know where she was. Or why. Or where she had been before she awakened in a desert.

Nothing. No memory of a mother’s embrace, a father’s smile, or a best friend’s secrets. No recollection of the color of her front door, the weight of her favorite drinking glass, or the titles of books that littered her desk.

She was a stranger to herself, a stranger with a past as barren as the desert, every defining feature buried deep, inaccessible.

A hundred thoughts flapped about in her head, like a flock of birds startled into flight. How long had she been in this state? Had she always been like this? Shouldn’t there be someone to look after her if she didn’t know anything about herself? Why was she alone? Why was she alone in the middle of nowhere?

What had happened?

She set two fingers against her breastbone. The pressure inside made it difficult to breathe. She opened her mouth, trying to draw in air faster, trying to fill her lungs so that they wouldn’t feel as empty as the rest of her.

It was a minute before she gathered enough composure to examine her person, praying for clues—or outright answers—that would tell her everything she needed. Her hands were not forthcoming: a few calluses on her right palm and little else of note. Pulling up her sleeves revealed blank forearms. A look at the skin of her abdomen likewise yielded nothing.

"Revela omnia," she said, surprised to hear a deep, almost gravelly voice.

"Revela omnia," she said again, hoping that the sound of her own speech might trigger a sudden cascade of memories.

It didn’t. Nor did the spell bring to light any secret writing on her skin.

Surely her isolation was only an illusion. Nearby there must be someone who could help her—a parent, a sibling, a friend. Perhaps that person was even now stumbling about, calling for her, anxious to locate her and make sure that she was all right.

But she could hear no voices carried upon the howling wind, only the turbulence of sand particles hurtled about by forces beyond their control. And when she expanded the sphere of clear air around her, she uncovered nothing but sand and more sand.

She buried her face in her hands for a moment, then took a deep breath and stood up. She meant to start on her clothes, but as she came to her feet, it became obvious that she had something in her right boot.

Her heart somersaulted when she realized it was a wand. Ever since mages realized that wands were but conduits of a mage’s power, amplifiers that were not strictly necessary to the execution of spells, wands had turned from revered tools to beloved accessories, always personalized, and sometimes to a silly degree. Names were woven into the design, favorite spells, insignia of one’s city or school. Some wands even had their owners’ entire genealogy engraved in microscopic letters.

She would dearly love to see her family history laid out before her, but it would be more than good enough if the wand had an In case of loss, return to ______ inscribed somewhere.

The wand, however, was as plain as a floor plank, without any carvings, inlays, or decorative motifs. And it remained just as bare when examined under a magnifying spell. She had no idea such wands were even made.

An oppressive weight settled over her chest. Loving parents would no more give a child such a wand than they would send her to school in garments made of paper. Was she an orphan then? Someone who had been discarded at birth and brought up in an institution? Elemental magelings did suffer from a higher rate of abandonment, since they were so much trouble in their infancy.

Yet the clothes she wore, a knee-length blue tunic and a white undertunic, were of exceptionally fine fabric: weightless yet strong, with an understated gleam. And though her face and hands felt the heat of the desert, wherever she was covered by the tunics she was perfectly comfortable.

The tunics did not have pockets. The trousers underneath, however, did. And one of those pockets yielded a small, rectangular, and somewhat crumpled card.

A. G. Fairfax

Low Creek Ranch

Wyoming Territory

She had to blink twice to make sure she was reading correctly. Wyoming Territory? As in the American West? The nonmage portion of the American West?

She tried several different unmasking spells, but the card provided no hidden messages. Expelling a slow breath, she put the card back in her trouser pocket.

She had thought all she needed was a name, the tiniest of clues. But now she had a name and a clue, and it was worse than if she’d had no insight at all. Instead of staring at a blank wall, she was looking at a single square inch of tantalizing color and texture, with the rest of the mural—the people, places, and choices that had made her who she was—remaining firmly out of view.

Without meaning to, she slashed her wand through the air, all but growling. The swirling sand retreated farther. She sucked in a breath: eight feet from where she stood, a canvas tote lay half-buried in the sand.

She launched herself at the bag, yanking it out of the sand. The strap was broken, but the bag itself was undamaged. It was not terribly big—about twenty inches wide, twelve inches high, and eight inches deep—nor was it terribly heavy—fifteen pounds or thereabouts. But it was quite remarkable in the number of pockets it had: at least twelve on the outside, and scores upon scores inside. She unbuckled a large outside pocket: it held a change of clothes. Another of a similar size stored a rectangle of tightly packed cloth that she guessed would expand into a small tent.

Pockets on the inside were carefully and clearly labeled: Nutrition, each pack one day’s worth. Vaulting aid: five granules at a time, no more than three times a day. Heat sheet—in case you require warmth but need to remain unseen.

In case you require warmth.

Would she have addressed herself in the second person—or was this evidence that someone else had been intimately involved in her life, someone who knew that such an emergency bag might come in handy someday?

Thirty-six pockets of one entire interior compartment were stuffed with remedies. Not remedies for illnesses, but for injuries: everything from broken limbs to the burn of dragon fire. Her pulse quickened. This was not a camping bag, but an emergency tote prepared in expectation of significant, perhaps overwhelming danger.

A map. The person who had meticulously stocked the bag must have included a map.

And there it was, in one of the smaller exterior pockets, woven of silken threads so slender they could barely be discerned with the naked eye, with mage realms in green and nonmage realms in gray. At the top was written, Place the map on the ground—or in the body of water, if need be.

She lay the map flat against the sand, which, with the heat of the sun blocked by the turbulent sky, was rapidly losing its warmth. Almost immediately a red dot appeared on the map, in the Sahara Desert, a hundred miles or so southwest of the border of one of the United Bedouin Realms.

The middle of nowhere.

Her fingers clutched at the map’s edges. Where should she go? Low Creek Ranch, the only place she could name from her former life, was at least eight thousand miles away. Desert realms typically didn’t have borders as tightly secured as those of island realms. But without official papers, she would not be able to use any of the translocators inside the United Bedouin Realms to leapfrog oceans and continents. She might even be detained for being somewhere she shouldn’t be—Atlantis didn’t like mages wandering abroad without properly sanctioned reasons.

And if she were to try nonmage routes, she was about a thousand miles from both Tripoli and Cairo. Once she’d staggered to the coast of the Mediterranean, assuming she could, she would still be at least three weeks from the American West.

More words appeared on the map, this time above the very desert in which she was stranded.

If you are reading this, beloved, then the worst has happened and I can safeguard you no more. Know that you have been the best part of my life and I have no regrets.

Long may Fortune shield you.

Live forever.

She passed her hand over the words, barely noticing that her fingers were trembling. A dull pain burned in the back of her throat, for the loss of the protector she could not recall. For the loss of an entire life now beyond her grasp.

You have been the best part of my life.

The person who had written this could have been a sibling, or a friend. But she was almost entirely certain that he had been her sweetheart. She closed her eyes and reached for something. Anything. A name, a smile, a voice—she remembered nothing.

The wind shrieked.

No, it was her, screaming with all the frustration she could no longer contain.

The sandstorm shrank away, as if afraid of what she might do.

She panted, like a runner after a hard sprint. About her, the radius of clear, undisturbed air had increased tenfold, expanding a hundred feet in each direction.

Numbly she spun around, searching for what she dared not hope to find.

Nothing. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Then, the silhouette of a body in the sand.

CHAPTER 2

The Domain Seven Weeks Earlier

HIS SERENE HIGHNESS PRINCE TITUS the Seventh, announced the stone phoenixes that guarded the four corners of the grand terrace, their voices bell-like and resonant.

Titus stopped at the edge of the terrace, the celebrated garden of the Citadel before him. Elsewhere in the garden, there were informal, even intimate areas, but not here. Here acres of evergreen shrubs had been meticulously trimmed into hundreds of parterres, which when viewed from above formed a stylized phoenix, the symbol of the House of Elberon.

The evergreens, bred by the Citadel’s master botanists, bloomed late in summer. And every year the color of the flowers changed. This year the blossoms were a deep, vibrant orange, the color of sunrise. Dalbert, Titus’s valet and personal spymaster, reported that he had seen the phoenix emblems on Delamer’s public buildings painted a similar hue of fire, often accompanied by a hasty scrawled The phoenix is aflame!

The last time the phoenix was aflame, the January Uprising had soon followed.

In the space between the landscape phoenix’s two upraised wings, a large white canopy had been erected, brilliant in the light of the afternoon sun. Under the canopy, a diplomatic reception was in full swing. Attendants in the Citadel’s gray livery wove between guests in jewel-toned overrobes, offering hors d’oeuvres and glasses of chilled summer wine. A fine, ethereal music drifted on the breeze from the sea, and with it, the sounds of soft laughter and involved chitchat.

Titus inhaled. He was jittery. It was possible he was responding to the strain beneath the party’s apparent gaiety, but in truth it was, as always, all about Fairfax, his powerful and incandescent elemental mage.

He descended a flight of wide, shallow steps, and walked the length of a statue-lined avenue, a retinue of twelve in tow. As he approached the canopy, the entire gathering bowed and curtsied. He might be without any real powers, but he was still, ceremonially speaking, lord and master of the Domain.¹

An exceptionally beautiful woman came forward, a smile on her face: Lady Callista, the palace’s official hostess, the most renowned beauty witch of her generation, and one of Titus’s least favorite persons on the face of the earth.

For he aimed to destroy the Bane, Lord High Commander of the Great Realm of New Atlantis and the greatest tyrant the world had ever known, and Lady Callista was very much a servant of the Bane. Not to mention, though he had no concrete evidence to support his suspicion, he had always believed deep down that Lady Callista had been the one responsible for the death of his mother.

My lady, he acknowledged her.

Your Highness, Lady Callista cooed, we are delighted you could join us. Please, allow me to present the new ambassador from the Kalahari Realm.

Titus was quite happy to see visible bags beneath her eyes. Life had not been easy for her since the evening of the Fourth of June, when Atlantis’s most prized prisoner had disappeared from the Citadel’s library. In the same library, on the same night, the Inquisitor, one of the Bane’s most loyal and capable lieutenants, had met a sudden and unexpected end.

Lady Callista had the bad luck to be the last person to walk into the library before Haywood’s disappearance. She had also been the one to order a pool of blood in the library cleaned up, when Atlantis would have very much liked to have a few drops of that blood, in order to find out who had been responsible for the death of the Inquisitor.

As a result, despite her years of service as an agent of Atlantis, she was watched as heavily as Titus, her movements confined to within the boundaries of the Citadel. Moreover, every week she had to meet with Atlantean investigators, each interview lasting hours, sometimes an entire day.

A distracted and distressed Lady Callista was one less threat to Titus.

Introductions done, Lady Callista left Titus to chat with the new Kalahari ambassador and those family members who had accompanied him to the Domain. Titus was never completely comfortable in such social situations—he suspected he appeared both stiff and ungracious. If only he could have Fairfax by his side. . . . She knew instinctively how to put people at ease and he was always much more relaxed in her company.

It should have been an idyllic summer in the Labyrinthine Mountains for them—watching the shifting of the peaks, exploring hidden waterfalls, perhaps even sneaking up to the phoenix aeries in the highest ridges, in the hope of seeing a fiery rebirth. Not that they were not going to work hard: their plans had included hundreds of hours of grueling training, just as many devoted to the mastery of new spells, not to mention a covert undertaking to find out where her guardian had ended up after disappearing from the Citadel’s library. But the most important thing was that they were going to be together, as much as possible, every step of the way.

From the moment he stepped out of the rail coach that served as his private translocator, however, it became apparent that he would be watched every second of his holidays. A terrifying thing to realize, when he had her concealed on his person, in the shape of a tiny turtle, under the effect of a potion that lasted no more than twelve hours.

He managed to smuggle her out of the castle in a nerve-racking dash, leaving her, still in turtle form, inside an abandoned shepherd’s hut. He meant to go back later to escort her to the safe house he had prepared, but ten minutes after he returned to the castle he found himself whisked off to the Citadel, the Master of the Domain’s official residence in the capital city, from which he could not escape to the mountains with either ease or secrecy.

He and Fairfax had discussed dozens of contingency plans, but nothing close to this scenario, in which she would be stranded in the Labyrinthine Mountains by herself. For days he could scarcely eat or sleep, until he saw a three-line advertisement at the back of The Delamer Observer, announcing the availability of various bulbs for autumn planting: It was her, informing him that she would meet him back at Eton, at the start of Michaelmas Half.

He had nearly burst with relief—and pride: trust Fairfax to always find a way, no matter how dire the situation. From then it was one long, excruciating wait for the end of summer, for the moment when they would meet again.

The end of summer had come at last. He had permission to leave for England immediately following the reception. He did not know how he held himself together, speaking to group after group of guests. One minute he would be short of breath at the thought of holding her tight, the next minute dizzy with dread—what if she did not walk into Mrs. Dawlish’s house?

. . . before you will rule in your own right. I must admit I had hoped to see you at some of my briefings this summer.

Two seconds passed before Titus realized he was expected to respond to Commander Rainstone, the regent’s chief security adviser.

According to court tradition, I should be seventeen before I take part in council meetings and security briefings, he said.

And he was not due to turn seventeen for several weeks.

What difference does a few days make? asked Commander Rainstone, sounding vexed. Your Highness will come to age at a most unstable time and will need all the experience you can muster. Were I His Excellency, I would have insisted that Your Highness be made familiar with the running of the state much sooner.

His Excellency was Prince Alectus, the regent who ruled in Titus’s stead. Alectus also happened to be Lady Callista’s protector.

What would you have me know? Titus asked Commander Rainstone.

She had been a member of his mother’s personal staff, long ago, before he was old enough to remember anything. He knew Commander Rainstone primarily from her occasional trips to the castle in the Labyrinthine Mountains, to brief him on matters having to do with the realm’s security, or at least those matters she thought he was old enough to understand.

Commander Rainstone glanced at the crowd and lowered her voice. We have intelligence, sire, that the Lord High Commander of New Atlantis has left his fortress in the uplands.

This was news to Titus—news that sent a frisson of chill down his spine. I understand he dined here at the Citadel not long ago. So it cannot be all that unusual for him to leave the Commander’s Palace.

But that event in and of itself was extraordinary: it was the first time he had stepped out of the Commander’s Palace since the end of the January Uprising.

Does this mean Lady Callista should expect him for dinner again?

Commander Rainstone frowned. Your Highness, this is no joking matter. The Lord High Commander does not lightly depart his lair and—

She stopped. Aramia, Lady Callista’s daughter, was approaching.

Your Highness, Commander, said Aramia amiably, I apologize for the intrusion, but I do believe the prime minister would like a word with you, Commander.

Of course. Commander Rainstone bowed. If you will excuse me, Your Highness.

Aramia turned to Titus. And you probably have not seen the new addition to the Defeat of the Usurper fountain, Your Highness, have you?

Nearly five months ago, at a party not unlike this one, Lady Callista had administered truth serum to Titus on behalf of Atlantis—and she had done so via Aramia, whom Titus had considered a friend. If Aramia had any regrets concerning her action, Titus had not been able to sense it.

I have seen the new addition, he said coolly. It was completed two years ago.

Aramia reddened, but her smile was persistent. Allow me to point out some features you may not have noticed. Won’t you come with me, sire?

He considered refusing outright. But a stroll away from the canopy did have some merits—at least he would not have to speak to anyone. Lead the way.

Defeat of the Usurper, the largest and most elaborate of the ninety-nine fountains of the Citadel, was the size of a small hill, featuring scores of wyverns being felled by Hesperia the Great’s elemental powers. The long reflecting pool before it extended almost to the edge of the manmade headland on which the Citadel sat. Cliffs dropped three hundred feet straight down to the pounding surf of the Atlantic. In the distance, a pleasure craft, all its sails furled, bobbed upon the sunlit sea.

Aramia glanced back. Titus’s retinue, eight guards and four attendants, had followed them. But now, with a wave of his hand, they slowed and stayed out of earshot.

Mother will be angry with me if she knew what I am about to do. Aramia reached inside the fountain and flicked the rippling surface. And she won’t admit it but she is quite frightened by all the meetings with investigators from Atlantis. They make her take truth serum and they are . . . they are not nice at all.

That is what it is like to run afoul of Atlantis.

But isn’t there something you can do for her, after what she has done for you?

Titus raised a brow. After what Lady Callista had done for him? You overestimate my influence.

But all the same—

There you are! came a clear, musical voice. I have been looking for you all over.

The young woman who approached from the far side of the fountain was eye-wateringly beautiful—skin the color of brown sugar, a face of almost exaggerated perfection, and a cascade of black hair that reached to the backs of her knees.

Aramia stared, agape, as if unable to believe that there existed one who rivaled her mother in sheer loveliness.

Titus, who had always been wary of beauty of such magnitude, thanks to his proximity to Lady Callista growing up, had moved past the woman’s features to examine her overrobe. One sometimes heard overrobes ridiculed as resembling upholstery, but this one looked to be actually made from upholstery—from an elaborate lampshade, he corrected himself, with all the tassels and fringes still attached.

Would you mind giving me a moment with His Highness? She spoke to Aramia, her tone courteous but unmistakably firm.

Aramia hesitated, glancing at Titus.

You may leave us, said Titus. He had nothing more to say to her.

Aramia walked away, looking back all the while.

Your Highness, said the young woman.

She had addressed him without first being addressed by him. Titus did not hold to such nonsense when he was at school, but here he was in his own palace, at a diplomatic reception, no less, where the guests loved such etiquette almost as much as they loved their own mothers, possibly more.

It occurred to him that while she could pass for a member of the Kalahari ambassador’s entourage, he had not seen her earlier, among the crowd under the canopy—and a woman who looked as she did would not have gone unnoticed.

Not that it had never happened before, a mage crashing a palace party without proper credentials. But the Citadel was on high alert, was it not, after the events of early June?

How did you get in?

The woman smiled. She was not much older than Titus, twenty or twenty-one. A man immune to my charms—I like that, Your Highness. Let me get to the point then. I am interested in the whereabouts of your elemental mage.

He had to fight against his shock, to not point his wand at her and do something rash. So he rolled his eyes instead. Your masters have already asked me all the questions. They have even put me under Inquisition. Must we go through more of the same?

Her hair streamed in the breeze coming off the sea, like a pirate banner. She extended an arm and rolled up her sleeve. On her forearm was a mark in stark white lines, a four-tusked elephant crushing a whirlpool underfoot—a symbol of resistance in many realms near the equator. I am not an agent of Atlantis.

And why should that change my answer? I have no knowledge of the whereabouts of that girl.

We know she is the prophesied one—an elemental mage more powerful than has been seen in centuries. We also know it would be disastrous for those of us who yearn for freedom if she fell into the Bane’s hands. Let us help her. We can make sure the Bane never comes near her.

What would you do if the Bane did come near her? Would you kill her so that he never gains her? And what would stop you from killing her from the very beginning, if your sole aim is to keep her away from him?

Good luck finding her, then.

She leaned closer to him, obviously not about to give up. Your Highness—

Shouts erupted. Titus turned around. Guards were running down the steps. His own retinue came sprinting toward him.

Oh dear, said the young woman. It appears I must take leave of Your Highness.

With one pull, her ridiculous overrobe came off entirely. A swift shake and it smoothed and flattened into—of course—a flying carpet, much bigger and finer than the one Titus possessed.²

The young woman, now clad in a close-fitting tunic and trousers the color of storm clouds, leaped onto the flying carpet, and with a mock salute at Titus, sped off toward the waiting boat in the distance.

CHAPTER 3

The Sahara Desert

THE GIRL SHOVED THE MAP into her pocket, grabbed the bag, and sprinted toward the body. But instincts she didn’t even know she possessed halted her halfway. Her loss of memory, the trauma remedies in the emergency bag, the note on the map—the worst has happened and I can safeguard you no more—everything about her situation shouted serious and, perhaps, relentless danger. The person in the sand was just as likely to be an enemy as an ally.

She pulled out her wand, applied a protective shield to herself, and advanced more cautiously. The prone body wore a black jacket and black trousers, a band of white shirt cuff peeking out from underneath a jacket sleeve—nonmage clothes for a man. Nonmage clothes for a man from a different part of the world.

He was lanky in build, his hair dark despite a coating of dust, his head turned away from her. Her stomach tightened. Was he the one? If she saw his face, if he called her name and clasped her hand in his, would everything come rushing back, like the happiness and good fortune that one always regained at the end of a heroic tale?

Despite his nonmage attire, he had a wand in hand. The back of his jacket had been ripped, exposing a somber-colored waistcoat underneath—had he tried to protect her? As she drew nearer, his fingers flexed and then tightened on the wand. A wave of relief washed over her: he was still alive and she was not entirely alone in the vastness of the Sahara.

It was with a good deal of difficulty that she restrained herself from going right up to him. Instead she stopped ten feet away. Hullo?

He didn’t even look in her direction.

Hullo?

Again, no response.

Had he lost consciousness? Was the movement of his fingers she’d spied earlier but the involuntary motions of someone suffering from a concussion? She picked up a few grains of sand and tossed them gently in his direction—a tentative knock, so to speak. Five feet from him, the sand hit an invisible barrier in the air.

He turned his head toward her and raised his wand. Come no closer.

He was young and good-looking. But his face failed to trigger a flood of memories. It did not even bring about any vague twinge of recollection, except to make her wonder whether she