The Soul of Power Read online

  The Soul of Power is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Callie Bates

  Map copyright © 2017 by Laura Hartman Maestro

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  DEL REY and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  The map by Laura Hartman Maestro was originally published in The Waking Land by Callie Bates (New York: Del Rey, 2017).

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Names: Bates, Callie, author.

  Title: The soul of power / Callie Bates.

  Description: New York: Del Rey, [2019] | Series: The waking land; 3

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018059132 | ISBN 9780399177446 (hardback) | ISBN 9780399177453 (ebook)

  Subjects: | BISAC: FICTION / Fantasy / Epic. | FICTION / Coming of Age. | GSAFD: Fantasy fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3602.A8555 S68 2019 | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2018059132

  Ebook ISBN 9780399177453

  randomhousebooks.com

  Book design by Diane Hobbing, adapted for ebook

  Cover design: David G. Stevenson and Susan Schultz

  Cover illustration: © Ben Perini

  v5.4

  ep

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Map

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Epilogue

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  By Callie Bates

  About the Author

  PROLOGUE

  The soldiers came early that morning. I woke in the chill before dawn to my mother’s touch on my arm. “Sophy, get up. Put on your boots.”

  I rubbed my eyes. I wanted to go back to sleep. I was tired of running and being cold and hungry—though at first, when we had slipped out of our rooms in Barrody in the middle of the night, it had seemed like an adventure. The king of Eren’s soldiers had not seemed like a real threat. I thought we’d go home to my grandmother with stories about our escapades, but we only kept running—and somehow more than a year passed. Food grew thin; my clothes did, too. Now I dreamed of real beds and a fire that actually kept me warm. I longed for my friends and the home I once had; those memories haunted me every day.

  Ma stroked the hair back from my forehead. “Sweet girl, get up. I have a job for you.”

  I squinted open one eye. A job for me? I was almost eight and I was dying to prove myself as bold a rebel as my mother. All the same, I pretended nonchalance. “How much do I get paid?”

  She managed the flicker of a smile, ghostly in the half-dark. “I need you to take a message to Duke Ruadan.”

  I bolted upright with a squeal. “Me?”

  “Shh.” Ma reached into the pocket of her waistcoat. She pressed a cool, hard object into my hand. Its metal chain trailed between my fingers; I felt instinctively for the clasp.

  “I’m supposed to take him Pa’s locket?”

  My mother did not speak. She took my head in her hands and kissed me, once—resoundingly—on the forehead. Then she hugged me tight. I felt her heart pounding against my ear. The stifled noise in her throat. I knew then that whatever Ma wanted, it would not be an adventure. I knew it would leave an ache in the space beneath my breastbone—an ache I knew too well, by now.

  “You’re a strong girl, Sophy.” Ma’s voice was rough, huskier than usual. “Promise me you’ll take this to the duke. You’ll go all the way to Cerid Aven and not look back.”

  “How am I going to find you after?” I couldn’t help the thin plea in my voice.

  She paused. “I’ll come after you.”

  “You promise?”

  “Yes, sweetheart. I promise.”

  I hugged her tighter, and for a moment she returned my clasp. Then she pulled out of my arms, clambering down the ladder to the barn below, her boot heels ringing on the wood.

  I swallowed hard and draped the necklace over my head. I had never worn it before, despite numerous pleas, and I marveled at how it settled into the hollow of my chest. A steadying weight, like my mother’s touch—or my father’s. The locket held a piece of his hair, a ruddy gold, tied up with a black ribbon. I knew, because I’d harassed my mother into showing it to me any number of times, since she refused to offer me his name or any further details about him. “I’ll tell you when you’re older,” she’d say, and I’d roll my eyes and groan—not that it ever made any difference.

  But now I was taking his locket to the duke—which must mean there was a secret message inside. Maybe the duke knew my father, and he was going to take me to him.

  I put on my boots. I was already sleeping in my clothes—the same ones I’d been wearing for several months, since that woman in the hill town gave me the hand-me-downs that had once belonged to her son. The trousers were starting to get tight around my hips, but the coat sleeves still dangled, dirty, over my hands. Beneath me, in the lower part of the barn, a cow lowed, and the whispers of our rebel friends filtered through the dark. I clambered down the ladder, warming to the idea of carrying the locket. I was going to prove myself worthy. Then they wouldn’t sing songs only about Mag Dunbarron, but about her daughter, Sophy, too.

  And maybe someone would give me a new change of clothes.

  My mother and the other rebels were gathered in a circle toward the front of the barn. They’d opened the doors and fog seeped in, purling around their shoulders. They’d been talking quietly, but stopped as I approached.

  “Ready to head out, Sophy?” Jock asked. His voice strained over the words.

  They must all be afraid of sending me alone to Cerid Aven, where the duke lived. In truth, I was scared, too, but I wasn’t about to let anyone see it—especially not my mother, who was the bravest person in the world. I widened my stance. “Of course I am!”

  Something flickered in his eyes, but I couldn’t see what it was in the dimness. “Goodbye, then,” he said. He kissed my forehead.

  “Be careful, Sophy.” That was Ethna. She, too, kissed my forehe
ad.

  The other rebels came forward one by one to kiss me and say goodbye—a dozen people with cold hands and sad eyes. My initial flush of pride began to shrink into something cold and scared. Maybe I wasn’t being sent to be brave, but I didn’t know why else I’d be sent away.

  At last the goodbyes were done, and Ma led me out of the barn, into the fog, my hand tight in hers.

  The last of my bravery slipped away. “I wish you could come with me,” I whispered.

  I heard her swallow. “I’ll come after you, sweetheart. I promised, didn’t I?”

  We were silent, then, as we approached the edge of town, where small gaps showed through the wooden walls. The fog hid the soldiers’ lights from us, but I smelled the smoke from their campfires, and heard an eerie jingle, like a horse’s harness.

  Ma paused beside the wall, her fingernails digging into my shoulder. “Once you reach the edge of camp, there’s a path marked by a stone cairn. Follow it to the next cairn, and the next, and the next. You should reach Cerid Aven tomorrow, or the day after. You have hardtack?”

  I nodded, waiting for her to give me a lecture about drinking only clean water. But she only said, “You’ll make it.”

  I don’t know if she really believed it, or only hoped.

  “But how—” I began.

  A creak sounded on the other side of the wall, shivering into the dark air. My heart surged. Ma hugged me tight—so tight I heard the sharp inhale and exhale of her breathing. She whispered, “Are you ready to be brave?”

  The question she always asked me. The answer was always yes.

  Although the truth was usually no.

  “Yes,” I whispered, even though fear tumbled liquid and hot through my limbs.

  Something crunched on the other side of the wall, and I shuddered. There was a soft tap on the wood. My head jerked up, and my mother breathed against my cheek. “Go!”

  I didn’t want to go. I clung to her until she peeled my arms off and nudged me to the ground. My lips were trembling. Tears gathered in my eyes, but I had to be brave. My mother demanded it, and I couldn’t let her down.

  I crawled through the gap in the wall.

  Rough hands grasped my wrists. The gap was low; I tasted dirt in my mouth. A man, little more than a silhouette in the fog, pulled me onto my feet. I caught the motion as he put a finger to his lips. Gestured to something behind him.

  I stepped over to it, still shaking, numb with the shock of actually leaving my mother. My fingers met cold metal. A wheelbarrow. The man’s hands closed on my waist, and I sucked in a panicked breath as he boosted me up. My shoe hit the metal with a resounding ping, bell-like in the fog. I jumped but the man didn’t startle.

  He settled me down in the bottom of the wheelbarrow, and I curled there with my knees tucked up to my chin. The man squeezed my shoulders, as if to reassure me. Then he unfurled a nubby blanket and threw it over me, and I was breathing hard in stuffy darkness, my heartbeat a crimson drum in my ears. I never got a good look at the man’s face.

  Several heavy objects settled on top of me. I smelled the pungent, sweet odor of new-cut wood. So he was pretending to gather fuel for their fires. The wheelbarrow tipped, jamming my feet below the rest of me, and we began to move.

  At first I couldn’t hear anything over the creaking wheels and the fear pulsing in my blood. Then there was a voice—in Ereni!—and white terror erupted through me, so bright I almost wet my too-tight trousers. But the man didn’t stop. More voices passed overhead, a din of Ereni, and I shook in the bottom of the wheelbarrow, wondering if one of them belonged to the Butcher of Novarre.

  The man kept on, and the voices faded. My chin jolted against my knees as we bumped over rough ground. Then suddenly I was lowered. The barrow stopped. The weights came off me, and the man ripped the blanket away.

  He leaned over me. “You have two minutes. There’s a trail at the base of the ridge. Get out and go!”

  Then he was gone. I sat up in time to glimpse his retreating back.

  I hauled myself out of the wheelbarrow, my legs shaking and buckling. I was going to be spotted by the Butcher of Novarre; I could feel it in my bones. I would be shot.

  I forced myself to look around. The man had told me I had minutes, and I needed them. I wanted to live.

  I was in a clearing beneath a forested ridge. A rock cairn marked the path between two trees. I forced my wobbling legs into motion and ran to the rock cairn that marked the narrow track. I charged uphill over roots and stones, my lungs burning. Near the top of the ridge, another cairn marked a turn deep into the woods. I looked back one last time, but I’d gone so far I could barely even see the Ereni camp. Only the faint whiff of smoke reminded me of what I’d left behind—that, and the locket pressing against my chest.

  * * *

  —

  MY MOTHER HAD trained me well. I could walk all day, with only short stops for water and a bite of hardtack. I’d learned to manage without much food. Even through a haze of exhaustion and fear, I knew how to keep going. At night, I knew not to light a fire but to make myself a bed out of dry pine needles.

  I lay awake all night, all the same, touching my chest where the locket covered the empty hollow in my heart. Wondering why Ma had sent me away. Feeling small in the hugeness of the dark woods. I whispered words to comfort myself. The old poem about Wildegarde, the first steward of the land, and Aline, the queen of Caeris.

  From the mountains beyond the moon, nursed by dragons, Wildegarde came—down to the court of Queen Aline. The queen did not know what to make of such a woman, her hands and legs covered in leaves as a tree is. She said, “Who are you? Why have you come?” and Wildegarde answered, “I am the breath of the mountains, the whisper of the waters, the swift passing of a bird, the hollows within the hills. I have come for you. I have come so we can make a song together.”

  I must be brave, I told myself. Brave, like Aline. Like the queens of old.

  By dawn, I was ready to go again. The path clung to shadowy forests, only occasionally crossing farm fields and nearing towns, and I took care that no one noticed me. A second night passed much the same as the first, though exhaustion forced me to sleep. I began to wonder if I’d missed a turn; if I wasn’t really headed for Cerid Aven but to Eren and all the dangers that lurked in the south.

  When I ran out of hardtack around noon, I started to cry. Why had Ma sent me out like this? I wasn’t brave. I was just a scared little girl, with aching feet and an empty stomach.

  But scared as I was, I was still Mag Dunbarron’s daughter. I made myself stop crying and walked on, passing the rocky shoulder of a high limestone hill that jutted far overhead. The forest had turned to a woods full of enormous old oaks, their trunks five times my size. I’d lost track of the rock cairns, and the path I was on seemed well trampled. I should get off it, find somewhere more secure. Except where was I supposed to go? I was so lost, and so frightened.

  The edge of a pale-gray building came into sight ahead.

  I slowed, my heart thudding in my hollow chest. The path had brought me here, but was this Cerid Aven, as my mother had promised? And how would I know? It wasn’t as if there were a big sign out front, proclaiming my destination. Yet I had clearly arrived at a wealthy person’s mansion. The building stretched into a series of fine, many-paned windows, and sculpted gardens cupped it, studied and elegant. If Duke Ruadan lived anywhere, it must be here.

  I edged closer. There was a woman out in the gardens. She wore a blue coat over a pale-yellow gown, and her hair was piled up in a dark, lustrous mound atop her head, the way I remembered ladies in the city doing theirs. She was humming, patting her hand against her thigh in rhythm. Even though she was making music, something about her seemed unaccountably sad.

  I tried not to make a sound, but she must have felt my gaze on her back. She turned and saw me.

  Fo
r a moment, we both stared at each other, frozen.

  “Who are you?” she demanded. The edge of an accent warmed her voice, and though it wasn’t Ereni, I didn’t know what it was. Maybe I had wandered off the very edge of the map.

  “Is this Cerid Aven?” I asked, my voice high-pitched. If it wasn’t, I’d run. I could run faster than this woman in her fine gown, I knew it.

  “You’re a girl,” she said, and the sadness in her intensified. She held out her hand. “What are you doing out here, child?”

  I asked my question again. “Is this Cerid Aven?”

  She nodded.

  Relief burst through me in huge, cartwheeling warmth. I actually swayed and almost fell onto my knees. The woman started toward me, her face worried. But I had a job to do. “I have a message for Duke Ruadan.”

  “A message? But you’re barely…” She shook her head. “Caerisians.” She took my arm, and I let her, because her touch was gentle and she looked so worried, the way my mother had looked when I’d fallen on that rock and sprained my ankle once. “I can take you to Ruadan. I’m his wife, Teofila.”

  “Oh,” I said. That explained the accent—she came from Baedon, across the narrow strait. It also explained why she was sad. The king had taken away her daughter Elanna, who was only a little younger than me. “My name is Sophy Dunbarron.”

  As we went inside, I glimpsed my face in the windowpane. It was thin, with huge, staring eyes. My hair hung in dirty ropes beneath my hat. I looked like a beggar. A vagrant.

  Teofila led me over fine carpets, past statues and paintings, calling out to well-dressed servants to bring tea and food and the duke. She took me to a big room full of cozy furniture the same yellow as her skirt and stood me in front of the fire. I had never felt anything so glorious. I thought I was going to melt into a puddle there on Duke Ruadan’s soft wool rug.