Buried Heart

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by Katrina Elliott

  Map illustrations here, here, here copyright © 2015 by Mike Schley

  Map illustrations pages here copyright © 2016 by Mike Schley

  Map illustrations pages here copyright © 2017 by Jared Blando

  Cover design and illustration copyright © 2017 by Sammy Yuen

  Cover copyright © 2017 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Little, Brown and Company

  Hachette Book Group

  1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104

  Visit us at lb-teens.com

  First Edition: July 2017

  Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Elliott, Kate, 1958– author.

  Title: Buried heart : a Court of Fives novel / Kate Elliott.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2017. | Summary: “Jessamy is at the crux of a revolution forged by the Commoner class hoping to overthrow their longtime Patron overlords, but when enemies from foreign lands attack the kingdom, she must find a way to defend their home and all the people she loves, Efean and Saroese alike”— Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016049233| ISBN 9780316344418 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780316344401 (ebook) | ISBN 9780316344449 (library edition ebook)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Social classes—Fiction. | Sisters—Fiction. | Revolutions—Fiction. | Racially mixed people—Fiction. | Fantasy.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.E45 Bur 2017 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016049233

  ISBNs: 978-0-316-34441-8 (hardcover), 978-0-316-34440-1 (ebook)

  E3-20170609-JV-PC

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Maps

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Acknowledgments

  1

  I stand poised on the shore of Mist Lake like an adversary gathering focus before a Fives trial. South across the waters, too far away to see from here, lies the city of Saryenia, from which we just escaped. A rhythmic sound drifts out of the dawn haze that obscures the horizon: the drums of a fast-moving war galley.

  “Do you hear that?” I say. “The new king is already hunting us.”

  The boat I arrived in rocks wildly as its two occupants—Lord Kalliarkos and the poet Ro-emnu—jump out onto land and scramble up to either side of me. Kal takes my hand, the touch of his skin a promise against mine, and gives me a smile that makes my heart leap. Ro glances over, gaze flicking down to our entwined fingers, and looks away with a frown.

  “We’ve got to get you out of sight,” I say to Kal, reluctantly shaking loose from his grip. “And get my mother to safety where your uncle can never find her.”

  My mother has already disembarked. We are the last people out of the flotilla of now-empty rowboats in which our party fled the murderous new king. Surrounded by local Efean villagers, Mother is speaking to them with such an appearance of calm dignity that no one would ever guess how desperate our circumstances are. As the three of us run over, the villagers leave her and race past us to the shore, carrying baskets and fishing nets. They shove the boats back out onto the water.

  “Are they abandoning us?” I ask as we rush up to Mother.

  “Not at all, Jessamy. They are risking their lives to aid us.”

  “By fishing?”

  Ro breaks in with his usual needling. “The sight of Efeans hard at work to enrich Patron treasuries always lulls our Saroese masters.”

  “By placing their own bodies between us and the soldiers,” Mother goes on. “It isn’t only military men wielding swords who defend the land and act with courage.”

  I look back again, viewing the scene on the lake with new eyes. “That’s very brave, especially since they’re unarmed.”

  “Doma Kiya, we need to get moving to the shelter of the trees,” says Kal to Mother, offering her a polite bow with hand pressed to heart.

  Although his words and tone are courteous, Mother’s usually gentle expression stiffens into a stony-eyed mask. “I can see that for myself, my lord,” she snaps.

  Kal is taken aback by her hostility, and so am I.

  Irritation and impatience clip off my tongue. “He’s helping us!”

  Kal looks from my mother to me and, still with his courteous voice, says, “I’ll scout ahead to make sure my uncle isn’t lying in wait in the trees to capture you.”

  He races away while we follow at a brisk walk. Mother holds my infant brother, Wenru, while, beside her, my friend and former Fives stablemate Mis carries Wenru’s twin sister, Safarenwe. All the other Efeans have either gone out onto the lake or have left to escort the wagons conveying the fugitive Patrons of Garon Palace, who own this estate and its surrounding villages.

  “Maybe the soldiers will pass by,” I say with another anxious look toward the lake. The shape of a mast coalesces in the mist. Oars beat the water in unison as the warship speeds toward us.

  “Seeing only dull Commoner fishermen and farmers, not bold conspirators who just rescued the new king’s rivals from certain death,” murmurs Ro.

  “Don’t speak of such matters in front of Lord Kalliarkos, Ro-emnu,” says Mother, with a warning glance at me.

  “Kal won’t—”

  “Enough, Jessamy. Keep moving.” Her tone scalds.

  Kal waves an all clear from the edge of the orchard and ducks out of sight before the war galley can get close enough to spot his Saroese features and clothing. The fig and pomegranate trees aren’t particularly tall but they are bushy enough to conceal us. As the others push forward on a wagon track through the trees, I pause to look back one last time.

  While most of the rowboats have dispersed out onto the water, six have made a rough circle with a large net between them, blocking the approach to the shoreline where we landed. But the galley cuts stra
ight through the little flotilla. Two of the boats flip, and the others rock wildly as their occupants struggle to keep them from overturning. Oars slap the heads of people in the water to jeers from the oarsmen. Arrows streak out from the deck. Most splash harmlessly into the water but one strikes a hapless swimmer in the back. The armed men crowded on the deck shout excitedly and laugh as the victim’s head sinks beneath the surface. It’s a game to them.

  The drumbeat ceases. The galley plows through a stand of reeds with a rattle of noise before dragging to a stop in the shallows exactly where we just disembarked.

  A man steps up to the rail of the ship.

  It is the new king himself, once Prince General Nikonos and now the man who murdered his older brother and innocent young nephew so he could seize the throne of Efea. From this distance I can’t fully distinguish his face although I know he resembles Kal in having regal features and a golden-brown complexion; they’re cousins, after all.

  Nikonos calls out in the voice of a man used to shouting over the din of battle. “The Garon estate lies beyond the trees! The man who brings the corpse of Lord Kalliarkos or Lord Gargaron to me I will raise to become a lord! As for the rest of the Garon household and any who shelter them, show no mercy to traitors!”

  I sprint after the others. Thorns from the pomegranate branches scrape my arms. Mother has been jogging along at the rear but she slows to a halt, puffing as she struggles to catch her breath. The others stop too, Mis supporting Mother with a hand under her elbow.

  I charge up. “It’s Nikonos himself. Right on our heels.”

  “Honored Lady, I’ll take the baby to lighten your burden,” says Ro.

  To my consternation—because I should have asked first—Mother hands Wenru over to the poet. After a moment of disgruntled squirming, my infant brother settles into Ro’s arms with an expression of unbabyish disgust.

  The sounds of snapping branches and men cursing at thorns chase us onward as the soldiers push through the trees. We emerge at a run from the orchard and hurry through grain fields toward the stately roofs and walls of the main compound, built for the Saroese stewards who supervise the estate with its rich fields, groves, and fishing. A path lined by trees leads to the northeast, toward an Efean village.

  “Shouldn’t we head toward the village?” I whisper urgently.

  “My grandmother always keeps an escape plan in reserve,” says Kal. “There’s a merchant galley hidden in a backwater river channel beyond the northern fields for just such an emergency as this. She and the rest of the household should already be boarding it.”

  “In other words,” remarks Ro, because he just can’t stop himself, “you Saroese nobles expect at any moment to be murdered by your own relatives.”

  Kal touches my arm as a warning not to bother answering. “This way,” he says in a tone like an echo of my military father, a reminder that Kal fought a campaign in the desert and commanded a squad of spider scouts.

  We splash through a shallow irrigation canal and race across another stretch of fields.

  “Do you visit here often?” I ask in a low voice, sticking beside him.

  “Twice a year with my grandmother. When I was a boy I would play on the hidden ship and pretend I was a sailor on the high seas.”

  I grin at this innocent memory. Without breaking stride, he bumps a shoulder against mine, just a tap. Despite the danger we’re in, it’s exhilarating to keep pace together, feet hitting the ground in perfect time.

  Mudbrick reservoirs rise at the end of cultivated land and the beginning of marshier ground where bushy-headed papyrus sways over our heads. Fresh wagon tracks in the earth mark where the Garon fugitives passed only moments ago, so it’s with shock that we emerge onto the bank of a backwater river channel to find the dock empty.

  The merchant galley is gone.

  Except for an embroidered blue silk shawl fluttering in the branches of a sycamore, there’s no trace of the Garon household; of Kal’s grandmother, Princess Berenise; his sister, Lady Menoë; his uncle Lord Gargaron; nor any of the fifty relatives and retainers who escaped with us out of Saryenia. Nothing except three village rowboats bumping against the pilings with neatly folded fishing nets inside, and the two abandoned wagons.

  “How could they have left without me?” says Kal, a hand on his neck like he’s trying to stem the bleeding from having his throat cut.

  We stare, all too stunned to ask the same question. Safarenwe gives a fussing cry, and Mother takes her from Mis, soothing her with kisses. Wenru remains uncannily silent in Ro’s arms.

  Mis points back the way we came. “Look!”

  We turn. Shock tightens to a new stab of fear. Threads of smoke rise in the distance. They thicken to columns and then boil up into fierce black clouds.

  Nikonos’s soldiers are burning the estate.

  2

  The tops of papyrus start thrashing: soldiers following our trail.

  “I found fresh wagon tracks!” a man shouts in Saroese.

  Kal and I instantly scan our surroundings. The channel has been dredged along the steeper bank to give enough draft for a galley to dock, while the other bank is a shallow marshland choked with reeds. We glance at each other with a flash of shared understanding.

  “I can swim underwater to hide in the reeds,” he says.

  I nod. “We’ll pretend to fish in the boats.”

  He doesn’t protest that we’ll become targets while he hides. We both know this is the only way. I grab his wrist and, even with my mother right there, give him a quick kiss as a promise.

  If his gaze slides to meet Ro’s in challenge, it happens so fast I am sure I have mistaken it. But then Ro says, as if in retort, “Don’t you fear crocodiles, Kal?”

  “The ones on two feet are sure to kill me, so I’ll take my chances.”

  He slips into the water, vanishing without sound or splash. I run to the end of the dock and yank the shawl out of the branches so our pursuers won’t guess that Patron women have passed by here. By the time I race back, Mis and Ro, with Safarenwe, are already rowing away as Mother, holding Wenru, waits for me.

  We push off. Mother gives Wenru to me and takes the oars. She handles them with an adeptness that surprises me until I remember she grew up in a rustic village far from sophisticated Saryenia. Wenru clutches at my vest like he’s afraid I’m going to toss him overboard. A pair of ducks flutters up noisily from deep within the reeds. I can’t see Kal from here but he must have surfaced and startled them. The thrashing in the papyrus comes closer as men shout, having heard the quacking. Ahead of us, Ro and Mis glide behind a thick stand of reeds. We’re too far behind to have a hope of concealing ourselves.

  Mother stops rowing and takes up a net as five soldiers burst into view and stamp out onto the dock. She flips out the net, which flares like a flower blooming, strikes the water, and sinks. The movement draws their attention.

  “Hey, Sergeant! Let’s catch some Efean delicacies for our supper,” calls one, his accent that of a man from overseas, not a locally born Patron.

  I hate the way they stare at us as if they are hungry and we are food. If only I could slam my oar into their ugly faces.

  Mother whispers, “By no sign show you can understand them.”

  Wenru stirs, stout infant legs shoving against my chest as he twists around to look their way. He sucks in a breath, prelude to a scream.

  In Saroese I snap, “You should be ashamed of yourself, you little rat.”

  Our gazes lock. His face is as brown as my own, and his eyes so black they are shadows dropped into his heart. A flicker of irritation passes across his face, and I’m once again sure that an unknown self resides in my dead brother’s body.

  I lower my voice to a whisper that brushes his perfect little ear. “I know you aren’t what you seem, but to Saroese soldiers you look like an ordinary Efean baby. They will throw you into the river to drown. If you betray my mother, I will pin you to the dirt and let the vultures eat you alive.”

&nbs
p; Mother is staring at me, eyes wide. But the net twitches, distracting her, and she briskly hauls in two fish.

  From out of sight a man calls, “Here’s mule tracks, Sergeant! Someone went this way with animals, maybe the ones used to haul the wagons.”

  “You two!” The sergeant points to the man who was just insulting us and his nearest companion. “Bring in those women for questioning.”

  “But Sergeant, they say the rivers here are infested with monsters that eat people.”

  “Use the boat. You others, follow me.”

  He and two other soldiers hurry off on a track that leads behind the crowds of willow and sycamore shading the opposite bank. The two remaining soldiers, arguing with each other in the tone of very nervous men, climb into the boat.

  “Switch with me.” I thrust Wenru into Mother’s arms, the boat rocking as we change places. “I need my hands free.”

  “What do you intend?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  I row as Mother uses the shawl to sling Wenru to her hip. I’m not as skilled, so the oars skip over the water a couple of times. The soldiers gain on us. We skim past a clump of reeds into a backwater overhung by trees, where Mis and Ro have paused to wait for us.

  I gesture at them to keep rowing upriver. Something large in the water passes beneath us and rocks the hull of our boat. I’m so startled I yelp out loud. Beyond the reeds, the soldiers shout in excitement; they think I’m scared of them, and that’s true too.

  A hand emerges from the water to tap the side of our boat, then Kal’s head emerges. He gulps air.

  I murmur, “Two soldiers in a boat behind us. No one else in sight. They’re scared of crocodiles.”

  “Distract them.” He dives.

  I turn the boat and start back the way we came.

  “Jessamy, we should follow Ro-emnu and Missenshe, not expose ourselves like this for some reckless plan.”

  “Father trained him. Kal knows what he’s doing.”

  The soldiers have come up so fast it takes only three strokes for us to skim past their bow.

  “Good Goat!” One laughs. “The luscious fruit drops into our laps.”

  Reaching for our boat, they don’t notice Kal launch out of the water on their boat’s other side. He grabs the gunwale with both hands and uses his weight to tip them.