The Captive Twin Read online

  But at that moment there were plenty of gravely wounded allies—Arrans, mostly. Elaina surveyed the broken men before her, and medics indicated with hand signals which she should attend to next. Makias headed outside.

  When Elaina was nearly finished with her row of patients, an Arran soldier, looking haggard and gloomy, carried in another warrior, laden with packs and gear, who looked to be in horrible shape. He lay the patient down carefully. When Elaina set her hands on the patient’s body, no glow arose around them—the man was quite dead.

  The soldier who had brought in the patient turned to leave. “Wait,” Jaimin said to him. The soldier ignored Jaimin and kept walking toward the door. “You there, hold up,” Jaimin called. And then the soldier began to run.

  Jaimin and Elaina shared a look of confusion, and then Jaimin got it. “Oh, no,” he said. And to Elaina he said in his mind: Run!

  She got to her feet and sprinted to the door. Jaimin yelled as he followed her: “Everyone out—now!”

  The royal couple ran out the open doorway of the building, with their guards close behind them.

  Just then, a horrible blast filled the field hospital.

  The shock wave burst from the doorway and launched Jaimin, Elaina, and their guards into the air. They all tucked in their bodies and tumbled across the snowy quarry floor like armored beetles.

  Elaina got her bearings, and was about to stand, when she was yanked sharply up off the snow and lifted to standing. A man clenched one arm around her, and with the other drew a broad knife toward her throat.

  It was the soldier who had brought in the exploding corpse.

  Elaina shoved her fingers up under his knife arm and pushed outward.

  Jaimin raised his hands high. “I’m the prince,” he yelled. “Don’t you want to kill me instead?” But the man truly seemed to have his mind set on slicing Elaina’s neck, and the only thing preventing this was the strength of her forearms, built up over years of farm labor.

  Suddenly, Elaina heard the swish of another blade very close. The foe’s knife arm lost all its strength and fell, with the knife, to the ground. Someone had cut the man’s arm off! The grip of his other arm weakened, and Elaina turned around.

  Makias had saved her.

  The attacker, minus an arm, tried to sprint away. Makias and Jaimin tackled him, sending the man’s face hard into the snow. Makias drove his glowing sword through the man’s back, pinning him to the quarry floor.

  Elaina ran up to them. She felt the attacker’s soul parting from his body as he seized and flailed on the blade. White light started beaming from her hands. “Take your sword out of him,” Elaina told Makias.

  “What?”

  “I need to heal him.”

  Makias withdrew his sword from the man, and Elaina healed his body, but it was too late—the man’s soul had gone.

  “Was he a Destaurian?” Jaimin asked.

  “Does it matter? He was clearly not on our side,” Makias said.

  “Thank you, Makias,” said Elaina.

  “The honor is mine, Panuse.”

  The stone office that had housed the field hospital still looked structurally sound, but the medical equipment was damaged and supplies were still burning. Troops dragged out the survivors, placing them on the snow before Elaina for triage and repair. “After this, I want her isolated,” Jaimin told his guards. “We’ve got imposters in our ranks. I want new security protocols in place at once.”

  “I’m not going to hide in a hole, Jem,” Elaina said to Jaimin. “I’ve got work to do.”

  “I know. But you’re too exposed.”

  Elaina started healing the critically wounded laid out before her, as Jaimin, Makias, guards and soldiers encircled her.

  After a few patients, a voice from afar caught Elaina’s attention. It was a voice she’d been expecting—just not now. As she bent to lay her hands on another nearly-dead Arran soldier, she heard the voice of her sister.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  T he rebel leader called Mascarin paid his youngest scouts in slingshots and cocoa biscuits. The orphans and runaways he secretly sheltered did whatever he asked. They worshipped and loved him.

  Sending children slinking through the city’s shadows after bedtime was always risky, but he needed sets of eyes in five separate places.

  As night had settled on the Destaurian capital, one of those sets of eyes caught a glimpse of the white hat.

  Little Oran slid down the steel pole into the tavern’s basement, where Mascarin and some of his older disciples were having a bite to eat. “It’s him,” Oran said, out of breath and wheezing.

  Mascarin set down his chicken leg. “You’re sure?”

  “He had a white hat, with a blue broken stripe across the top—just like you said—and he was off toward the southeast. Terry is on him.”

  “You were right!” the girl in the white cloak said to Mascarin.

  “Stay here, boy,” Mascarin told Oran. To the others dining with him, he said, “Let’s go.”

  Mascarin was twenty years old and as sharp as one of Jaimin’s swords, with a muscular build and curly hair four different shades of blonde.

  To make a living, he ran the tavern he had inherited from his father, but by his true calling he was a patriot. For years, he and his team had watched and listened, and now they often knew more than the king himself about what was really going on in Destauria.

  Mascarin and his young crew snuck free of the tavern via its back exit onto the quiet streets. Their quest: to stop the man in the white hat from delivering Radovan’s message.

  “Elaina!”

  Elaina struggled with whether to respond. She noticed that her hands were starting to acquire the white glow that would signal salvation for the soldier before her.

  “Elaina!”

  Not now, she thought, trying not to project her frustration to her sister.

  Far off in a cell in the desert floor, Princess Eleonora had made up her mind. She had, several times, overheard her captors speaking in her own dialect. And throughout the day she had begun to see her memories in a different light: little things Denda had said that had never made sense, gaps in the public recollection of his engagement and marriage to Queen Milena, elusive answers Denda had given to innocent questions…

  Eleonora had resisted the idea that her father was not only a liar, but that he was somehow responsible for her incarceration and the vicious murder of her true love. At the closing of the second day, though, as sleep overtook her, Eleonora’s soul warmed to the likelihood that Elaina was right.

  All the work I have to do! Elaina thought. How can I explain to her I can’t talk now because I’m tending to an Arran soldier?

  Eleonora, wait for me, Elaina said in her mind. Wait just a little longer. I’ll come to you. She put aside all thoughts of her sister, and the divine healing flowed through her hands. The soldier before her had been ripped open and was clinging to life by the finest of threads. Elaina healed his body just in time to encourage his soul to stay in the world of the living. The intertwining of his soul with Elaina’s would endear this young man, Jillan, to Elaina for the rest of her life, just as all the others she had healed had become part of her, and she a part of them.

  She moved on to the next patient, and again Eleonora’s plea distracted her: “Elaina!” She set her hands on the soldier’s fractured head, and although the white restorative energy started to well up, the man’s soul slipped away and was off to the world of the spirit. This man’s name was Nacio. His death would devastate a great many people.

  Elaina couldn’t go on like this. She had to respond to Eleonora.

  Jaimin knew what the issue was. “Can you ask her to wait?” he asked.

  “No. I have to go. It may be that no time passes. Let’s hope.” Elaina knelt and bent her head down onto the snow. Jaimin covered her with his body, like a bird guarding a chick. He felt her body vibrate unnaturally as her spirit entered the other realm. And he waited for her to return.
r />   Elaina appeared in a luminous spirit form to her sister.

  “There you are! Please stay!”

  “What have you discovered?” Elaina asked.

  “I accept that things are not as I thought they were. I’m ready to hear what you have to say.”

  “You’re not going to send me away?”

  “I promise not to,” said Eleonora. “I can’t promise I’ll believe you, but I need to hear your explanation. I’ve had a dream concerning Queen Milena. I feel strongly she was not my mother.”

  “She wasn’t.”

  “Do you know who my mother is?” Eleonora asked.

  “Yes. She was my mother too. Our mother was a Celmarean princess named Andienna.”

  “Celmarean? Denda hates those islanders! How could one of them be my mother?”

  “Denda fell in love with Andienna,” Elaina explained, “but after she refused to leave her island with him, he returned home, where someone corrupted his mind and filled it with hate for her. Later, he returned to Celmarea and killed her, and slaughtered her people—our people. After the war, he brought you to Destauria, and I bet he only presented Milena to the people in order to legitimize your sudden appearance in the palace.”

  “So I’m an islander too?”

  “Do you drink wine?” Elaina asked.

  “What?”

  “Do you drink wine? Islanders can’t drink it.”

  “No, I…honestly can’t stand it,” Eleonora said.

  “Do you take medicine?”

  “I’ve…never needed to.”

  “Celmareans can’t take medicine either.”

  Eleonora pondered what she was hearing. “But…then was my mother—I mean Milena—really killed in an Arran raid?”

  “No.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “I don’t know. But Arrans have never raided your kingdom.”

  “Bah! The Arrans have been on us since I was small! Stealing our young people! Silencing those who see them come or go! The viciousness of their purple army is the terror of our people.”

  “Purple army?” Elaina had sensed the fear of a purple army while healing Destaurian troops.

  “You must know. Their black uniforms are trimmed with a deep purple.”

  “Why do you think this army is from Arra?”

  “Everyone knows they are! We’ve been at war with Arra all my life,” Eleonora said.

  “That’s just what you’ve been told,” Elaina said. “Another lie.”

  “What about you, Elaina?” Eleonora asked. “If Denda took me from the island, how did you end up where you are?”

  “I was rescued by the Arrans and brought to Arra after the war. Here I was raised as a commoner, thinking I was an Arran. I only recently learned the truth about my past too, and it was quite a surprise. I mean—I always knew I was different, that’s for sure, but I never imagined…well, I certainly never imagined I was a princess.”

  “You are that, aren’t you? If you’re my twin, you’re a princess.”

  “Eleonora, a battle is taking place this evening. The Celmareans, Audicians, and the Arrans are all battling to reclaim Arra from Denda’s army.”

  “I know. That’s where you are right now?”

  “Yes.”

  “I wish what you’re telling me didn’t make sense. Why would Denda have me thrown in here?” Eleonora asked.

  “He’s thrown you in a cell in hopes that I and the other Celmareans will try to rescue you. Then he can kill us all at the same time.”

  “He can’t want me dead!”

  “I won’t try to make you accept the truth, Eleonora. You’ll believe me only after searching your own spirit.”

  “You think he’s kept me alive all these years so he could use me as bait?”

  Elaina sighed. “I have to believe our father loves us. There’s an evil scourge at work in his life, but I believe he can be healed. Denda is a good man, but he has been—and will continue to be—a very dangerous man. I think there’s a way out of this messy war, and I hope you can help me find out what that way is.”

  “What can I possibly do? I’m trapped here.”

  “Start by asking yourself whether what I’ve told you tonight is true. I’ll visit you again tomorrow.”

  Smoke hung in the air over Arra. Just before midnight, the combined allied armies pushed the Destaurians south over Arra’s largest river, the Kaela. The river’s icy crust wasn’t thick enough to support a man’s weight, which more than one Destaurian found out the hard way.

  The Destaurians retreated southward with their horses and equipment over the river’s three bridges—one of wood and two of stone—and then they decimated the bridges behind them.

  For some time, the river would separate the foes.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I n the middle of the night, the Destaurians ran out of artillery to lob over the Kaela, and they needed to wait for a resupply. Few of their rockets and cannonballs were having much effect anyway, as the allies had backed out of the range of the explosives, leaving a muddy, blasted-out buffer zone on the north bank of the river. Warriors on both sides were completely exhausted, and many just took the opportunity to sleep.

  While the allied armies had a bridgeless river in their way, the navies had no such obstacle. Arran and Audician captains maneuvered their vessels south of the Kaela River’s mouth and began to bombard the enemy camps within their reach, trying—not always successfully—to stay out of the range of Destaurian land-based rockets.

  Oddly, no more Destaurian ships had been seen since the two were sunk by Queen Alethea, leaving Arran and Audician admirals to wonder and worry about what Radovan planned to do with the rest of his navy.

  The field hospital was operating again, in the same stone building in the quarry, but Elaina was moved to an empty storeroom further back in the quarry complex. Only a few trusted officers were permitted to bring her the wounded. It was even safe enough for Jaimin and Elaina to remove their heavy armor, as long as they stayed in their secured area.

  With the pause in the fighting, Elaina ran out of soldiers to treat, and she and Jaimin seized the opportunity to have a nap. They lay on a mat on the hard floor and covered themselves with several layers of grey blankets. Both young people smelled heavily of blast powder and sweat. Holding hands, they fell asleep.

  Talidale’s door—not his shop door, but the one leading from the private courtyard beside his house—was one of the finest doors in all of Arra. About ten years back, Talidale, Arra’s most renowned jeweler, had tried his hand at carving doors from massive greywood slabs. Had he not been so busy with his jewelry trade, he would have expanded his business to include woodworking.

  Although it was still dark, Talidale was already awake when the soldier banged his fist on his intricately carved door. Talidale opened the door a crack. The young man in the Destaurian uniform looked impatient—that is, until Talidale welcomed him in. The men embraced.

  “You’re no Destaurian soldier,” said Talidale.

  “I’m not even a soldier,” said Arin, the youngest of the Arran royal guards. “But I made it this far.”

  “So good to see you, boy. Tea?”

  “Please. Black with honey.”

  “I’ve got it, dear,” called out Talidale’s wife, coming in from the bedroom wearing a blue silk robe. Beaming, she approached with her sleepy eyes and pillow hair, and kissed Arin on both cheeks. “Bless you, child. Both of you, sit, sit…” She took Arin’s outer coat and hung it on a peg. And then she set off to prepare tea and snacks.

  “What news?” Talidale inquired as the two men sat at the dining table.

  “We’re no more than a day away,” Arin said. “Arra, Audicia, and the islanders are choking these dogs from the north and west. You’ll soon be free. How are you being treated?”

  “Treated well—if we don’t speak out or leave our homes,” Talidale said. “Some are running short on supplies. The occupiers have finally allowed a market day—it’s
today.”

  “How merciful of them,” Arin remarked. “Well, then this would be a good day to spread the word that the liberation is near. And please share the queen’s wish that civilians not raise arms unless it’s in their own defense.”

  “Aye, I shall, though some may not heed. How did the castle fall so quickly?”

  “Poison,” Arin said. “An insider, the royal nurse, poisoned the daily elixir. Before we could get around to warn everyone, Destaurians were storming the castle. They overwhelmed us.”

  “Awful! Your ranks were poisoned as well?”

  “We could have been, but no. The guard fared better than those we were meant to protect,” Arin said. He sighed. “I was lucky to escape. Each man who survived has a story, but we’re all ashamed for not doing more.”

  “This invasion force is massive, lad,” Talidale said. “Nothing a boy like yourself could be expected to stand up to, you hear me? Tell your friends that too.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Arin said.

  Talidale and his wife convinced Arin to stay for breakfast.

  At the Kaela River, when the stale, cold dawn arrived, everyone’s nerves were on a knife edge, with each side assuming the other would use the first hint of daylight as a cue for a major push. It did not happen.

  Further north, Nastasha entered a secured room in the quarry complex. When she stepped into the lamplight, Jaimin awoke. “Is it morning?” he whispered. Elaina was asleep against his side, with her hair loosely tied in a poorly done braid—probably Jaimin’s handiwork, Nastasha figured.

  “It is,” said Nastasha.

  “What’s the plan?” he asked.

  “The Destaurians have solidified their positions on the southern bank of the Kaela. I think they expect that the Celmareans will use their abilities to make the water solid enough for us to cross.”