by M. J. Kuhn
Any time now, Ivan. She took one last anxious look around the crowd. Unless they were wrong. Could Asher have outsmarted Clem for once? All of them had been outwitted by Tristan fucking Beckett—anything was possible.
The announcer lifted the whistle to his lips. The Trän vun Yavol seemed to vibrate in her sleeves, screaming, Screw the signal, just go! But if Shadowwood wasn’t here yet, the Quill wasn’t out in the open. If the relic wasn’t here yet, the distraction was worthless.
The Catacombs snapped into horrible focus as the whistle shrieked. She could see every scar, every sun wrinkle, every drop of sweat on her opponent’s face as she sprinted toward her. Ryia ducked sideways, rolling on the ground as the Kinetic dove forward. Her nails passed a hairsbreadth from Ryia’s throat. They were sharpened to jagged points, coated in dark brown blood. Perfect. One touch of those and she would be riddled with disease at best. Come on, Ivan.
She snuck a peek at Evelyn. The captain’s knuckles were white against her cushion, her eyes wide. Was she worried about her? Emotion surged through her at the thought, but she pushed it down as Evelyn shook her head, less than an inch from side to side. The meaning was clear. Still no signal. No sign of the Quill.
Were they wrong?
The thought—and wind—was knocked out of her as the Kinetic charged forward again, slamming her shaved head into Ryia’s sternum. Ryia fell back, not even attempting to keep the pain from her face as she landed heavily on her tailbone.
“There is that infamous head-butt!” the announcer shouted. “The regulars in the crowd know what’s next, don’t you?”
The Kinetic stalked toward her from her left, but the reek of danger seeped into her from the right. Trusting her senses, Ryia rolled left toward her opponent. The Kinetic turned so fast she almost became a blur, then leapt at least ten feet into the air, crashing down in the exact spot Ryia had been a moment ago. Her filthy nails embedded themselves three inches in the hard-packed dirt. That inhumanly strong strike would have flattened her throat like it was made of parchment. Instinct took over, and Ryia leapt across the pit, tackling her.
“There’s a move we haven’t seen before!” yelled the announcer. Ryia wished he would shut the fuck up.
Hollowness stole through her as she looked down at the Kinetic pinned beneath her. She knew the ungifted saw the Adept as inhuman. Monsters. And she could see why. The Kinetic’s face was slack, her too-strong limbs flailing as they struggled to get a grip on her, the scars and brands covering her standing out sharply against sweat-slick skin, but her eyes ruined the illusion. They were as clear as a damned summer’s day. Blank. Innocent.
Ryia hesitated. The Kinetic did not.
The Kinetic lunged up, sending Ryia flying several feet into the air. The breath whooshed from her lungs again as she landed flat on her back in the center of the pit. Before she could react, the Kinetic was on top of her. One knee pressed into her windpipe. The other pinned her chest. Ryia rolled from side to side, trying to shake her attacker, but the Kinetic was just as nimble as she was strong. A single second of hesitation had robbed Ryia of any advantage she might have had. Now she was completely at the mercy of this pit fighter. Time slowed to a crawl.
“No!” yelled a familiar voice she couldn’t quite place.
Other voices cheered, excited. A glass broke somewhere.
There was the sound of a struggle near the back of the Catacombs. Shouting. The sharp scrape of swords leaving sheaths.
Ryia watched dimly as the Kinetic reared back, her knees still driving into Ryia’s chest, pinning her to the floor. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Ivan’s yellow pocket square flutter through the air. She wriggled again, thrashing around on the floor, trying to free herself. The signal. Ivan had eyes on the Quill. But it was too late now. She was unarmed. She was trapped. Ryia sagged back, giving up the fight. She was going to die.
She squeezed her eyes shut as the Kinetic’s sharpened nails screamed toward her unprotected throat.
38
TRISTAN
The door to Tristan’s makeshift prison banged open. He stared at his knuckles as Tana Rafferty swaggered toward him across the back room of the Catacombs.
“Why the long face, princeling?” she cooed as she clinked shackles onto his wrists.
He turned his face to the light. His lip was split in two places, one from the time he’d tried to steal the keys to his cuffs, and the other from when he’d decided it was a good idea to ask Wyatt Asher where his other two fingers were.
Then there was the gash across his cheek. He’d earned that trying to run for it on the docks. Blindfolded, bound, in a part of the city where his captor was king. Not his brightest idea to date. But still, he’d had to try.
He went limp as Rafferty tried to lug him to his feet. “Stop being so difficult—you’re going home. You should be happy.”
He directed a pulsing glare at her. She knew just as well as he did that the odds were approximately a million to one that his head would still be on his shoulders by the time they reached Duskhaven. There were gold mines to seize, borders to expand, kings to overthrow, and empires to build.
He will be so much more than just another prince this way. He will be the spark that lights the fires of the new world.
He had overheard his father’s words and made a run for the harbor that very night. After all, he was smart enough to put the pieces together. The world had been dividing itself for decades now, the two powers of Thamorr, Edale and Gildemar, inches from tearing each other apart. Boreas never concerned itself with the kingdoms to the south, and Dresdell was too small to be of much use to anyone. The key was Briel: a foot in each kingdom, with Queen Calandra Althea’s king-consort hailing from Gildemar, and her youngest daughter sitting in the Edalish throne room.
It wasn’t like his father could just march off to war—the Guildmaster hadn’t allowed something like that to occur in three hundred years. But if Gildemar assassinated the Edalish crown prince? Well, then the rest of Thamorr could hardly fault his father for retaliating.
The reality of royalty was much more sinister than balls and crowns and tournaments. It was a game where every single player was working to stack the deck in his own favor. As long as he had been alive, Tristan had just been another card for his father to play.
“I should have stayed with the Saints,” he said.
“The Saints? You really are lucky you have that handsome face of yours, princeling,” Rafferty laughed. “Pity there’s nothing behind it.”
“What?”
Rafferty’s cherubic face leered at him in the darkness. “You honestly think Callum Clem didn’t know who you are? If he planned on you making it off that island, then I’m the king of Boreas.”
The blood drained from Tristan’s cheeks. He knew immediately that she was right. Why else would he have been dragged along on that job? Just a little insurance for the Snake of the Southern Dock. He supposed he should be used to it by now—he wasn’t the biggest, strongest, or smartest, but he seemed to make one hell of a bargaining chip.
The inside of the Catacombs passed in a blur of foul smells and filthy faces as Rafferty carted him toward a decrepit table beside the moldy curtain shrouding the back door. The pits were behind him, the bar rail on the far side of the room. Half-hidden in shadows, it was a perfect place to see and remain unseen. She looped his chains around the arm of a chair so stained he wasn’t sure what color it might have been to begin with.
“Stay here,” she said, smirking.
As though he had a choice.
She tossed her long hair over one shoulder, turning away as the announcer’s jolly voice echoed through the chamber, followed by the telltale jingle of coins. Tristan craned his neck to look back over his shoulder, peering toward the fighting pit. His stomach fell into his knees as he caught sight of a familiar figure perched on a cushioned seat across the room.
She was dressed in a garish sailor’s outfit, but her hair was unmistakable. Evelyn.
If Evelyn had made it back in one piece… His heart hiccupped. Did they all make it back? He remembered Ryia’s parting glance—the coldness in her eyes. Well, that settled it: he was going to die tonight. If his father didn’t kill him, he could be damn near certain she would.
The fights wore on as he sat in his corner, anxiously scanning the crowd. No sign of Ivan, not that he would look anything like himself. Or Clem. Or Ryia, as far as he could tell. He turned toward the back door again just in time to see Wyatt Asher sweep into the Catacombs. And just behind him… Tristan went deaf, slumping in his chair to hide himself from view. It was Tolliver Shadowwood.
It was obvious his father had tried to blend in with the crowd, dressed in a plain, dove-gray coat, but the glint in his eyes gave him away. Well, that and his entourage. He was flanked by four Shadow Wardens and two of his most terrifying Kinetics. Tristan held his breath, ducking his head as his father swept past. The king seated himself opposite Wyatt Asher, distaste for the venue written clearly on his pale face.
“Nasty-looking one, eh? I wouldn’t bet against it if I were you…,” the announcer shouted across the room. Every pair of eyes was locked on the pit, where the champion’s fight was about to begin. The perfect time for the exchange, when every soul inside the Catacombs was looking the other way.
“I trust you did not drag me into this filthy ditch of a town for nothing?”
Tristan’s spine crawled as his father’s voice wound a serpentine path through the bodies separating them. Wyatt Asher smiled a madman’s smile. His bird blinked as he pulled a sack from his shoulder and placed the Quill on the table between them. His father’s eyes flooded with white-hot greed and triumph.
It was an expression Tristan had seen only a few times before. His stomach curled. It didn’t tend to be followed by peaceful, sensible actions. Tristan knew in an instant that his father had no intention of paying Asher for the Quill. But how could he ever hope to escape this city alive if he stole it? Asher had twenty times the men his father did. His father had his Kinetics, but against all the pit fighters in the room? They wouldn’t have a prayer.
And he still didn’t know why his father would want this relic in the first place. From the looks of the map he’d seen, it would tell him the location of all the newborn Adept. His father could collect them, train them, keep them for himself, build himself an army. Tristan shivered at the thought of a massive army of those mindless beasts… but that would take decades. Tolliver Shadowwood had been called many things in his time, but patient was not one of them. His father wanted control of Thamorr, and he wanted it now. What game was he playing?
“There’s a move we haven’t seen before!” the announcer boomed.
Tristan peered over his shoulder at the champion’s match as the crowd roared. His heart froze into a solid block of ice as his eyes found a familiar figure pinned to the dirt. She was in heavy disguise—or at least he hoped the scars were only a disguise—but he would know that midnight black eye anywhere. Ryia.
“No!” The word was out of his mouth before he could stop it.
He surged forward, tugging against his chains.
“No you don’t, you royal prick,” Rafferty growled, turning back toward him and aiming a backhanded slap at him.
Tristan ducked, then tugged again. The chains held fast. Swallowing his fear, he bucked backward, kicking his legs up. He slammed his heel into Rafferty’s right kneecap, lip curling in disgust as the bone gave way. His practiced fingers flicked into the pocket of her coat as she slumped forward in pain, lifting the key to his manacles.
“Don’t mind if I do,” he muttered. He worked the key toward the shackles, twisting until the lock popped free. Go, go, go. His pulse pounded the word throughout his entire being. If he was going to save Ryia it had to be now.
But how could he save her? It wasn’t as though he could just march up to the Kinetic and nicely ask the beast not to kill her. And fighting the Kinetic himself? That was a joke. If Ryia couldn’t best an enemy, there was no way he could, even if he could summon the courage to try.
Back at Asher’s corner table, his father pried at the edge of the Quill. The same panel Tristan had accidentally discovered aboard the ship back to Carrowwick popped open, revealing the collection of smudged, reddish-brown fingerprints. Seven fingerprints, he recalled. His father pulled a dagger from his pocket, pressing its tip to his thumb.
Tristan frowned, mind racing as he watched the blood well around the blade. In his mind’s eye he could see the blank faces of the Adept servants. The near-identical scars on every single Adept in his father’s castle. The Quill was filled with blood. Adept blood.
And there were seven fingerprints.
Seven.
Like the seven Guildmasters of Thamorr.
A dozen puzzle pieces thunked into place at once. The Quill didn’t just find the Adept. It did so much more than that.
In the name of Adalina and Felice and all that was holy. That was why his father wanted it so badly.
Blood roared past his eardrums as he tore across the Catacombs. Fully aware that it was most likely suicide, he charged toward the back table.
The sound of metal on metal was deafening as the Shadow Wardens wrenched their swords from their sheaths. His father paused, thumb an inch away from the plate.
“My son, is that you?” he asked.
A month ago—maybe even a minute ago—the sound of his father’s voice would have stopped Tristan in his tracks. But now he didn’t hesitate.
Tristan leapt forward. He reached out in midair, snagging his thumb on one of the Shadow Warden’s blades. Blood gushed from the cut, dripping over the back of his hand and down his forearm as he landed with a crash on the table.
“I am not your son,” he said, staring his father in the eye. “Not anymore.”
Then he smashed his bleeding thumb down on the exposed plate on the side of Declan Day’s Quill.
For a second, nothing happened. Then his head exploded. Metaphorically speaking only, fortunately. But he imagined the pain had to be about the same as if his skull had truly burst. His vision blurred white, then red, then black as tremors snaked through his body. He could see nothing. Then, suddenly, he could see everything.
A thousand viewpoints flooded through him. He saw the throne room in Gildemar, a merchant’s dining room in what looked like a city in Briel, the deck of a ship… Ryia’s face, bloodied and torn.
The eyes of the Adept servants of Thamorr. They had to be. Tristan let out a scream. It was too much for him to bear. The power rushing through him felt like a river, swollen after a hundred nights of rain, but he needed to hold on, just for one more second. His face contorted with effort as he tried to bring the entire world to a grinding halt. The Adept Senser in Gildemar stopped its throne-room rounds. He grunted, and the one on the ship froze mid-step. He could feel the Quill sapping his energy, but he couldn’t let go. Not yet.
A scream erupted from him as he focused on the Kinetic crouched over Ryia in the fighting pit. The Kinetic halted, its filthy nails freezing in midair, a hairsbreadth from the Butcher’s throat. Tristan thrust one arm out in front of him, then pulled it back. Amazingly, the Kinetic mirrored his motion, slowly withdrawing its own daggerlike fingers, its fist coming to rest at its side.
This was the power of the Quill—the secret to the Guildmaster’s reign. Declan Day had figured out a way to sap the independence and personality of any Adept, erasing their entire being and placing control of their physical form and their magic inside this device. This was why the Adept servants of the mainland were so obedient—it had to be. The magic of this ancient relic had been used to break them.
Over the centuries, the Guildmasters had allowed the lords and kings of the mainland to purchase these mind-wiped Adept. They had found a way to give control to the merchants and nobles who purchased the brainwashed wards… by branding them with blood and flame. It all came back to blood, didn’t it? But clearly the Quill could override the power of the brand.
Whoever possessed the Quill could seize control of any Adept whose blood lurked inside—any Adept in all of Thamorr except for the Guildmaster and his Disciples. Tristan was more sure of that than he had been sure of anything else in his life. It was an insane amount of power—a power that now belonged to him.
Or perhaps not.
The weight of his new power had not even settled on his narrow shoulders before his vision flashed again. Black, then red, then white. When he opened his eyes again, the only view he had was his own. What had happened? Had he lost the Quill’s power somehow? He sagged forward, exhausted from the effort as the power and his own energy seeped from him in equal measure. His eyes fell on the Quill, still half-clasped in his bleeding fist. Even as he watched, his own bloody thumbprint faded from sight, leaving only seven staining the panel. The Quill had rejected him as its master.
Head lolling to the side, he let the Quill fall from his grasp. It rolled off the table, landing with a too-deep thud on the floorboards below. He turned his gaze to the pit, and Ryia’s uncovered eye found his. Confusion flashed in the starry black depths. Relief flooded through him. She was alive. Though maybe not for long. His throat clenched as the Kinetic she had been fighting rounded on the Butcher once again. Now that Tristan’s fingerprint no longer marked the Quill, control of the beast seemed to have returned to its master. It had returned to its original task. He opened his mouth to shout a warning, but already the edges of his vision were blurring, unconsciousness threatening to take over.
Thankfully, Ryia didn’t need to be warned. She rolled away from the Kinetic, then thrust both arms down in a single, jarring motion. Tiny black spheres tumbled from her sleeves. Trän vun Yavol.
Thin tendrils of smoke the color of a nightmare uncoiled into the air as, one by one, the capsules burst. Shouts of “Fire!” rang out in every direction, and everyone in the Catacombs scrambled for the exits. Asher’s guards immediately fell into a panic, climbing over the booths, over the table, over one another, desperate to escape. Tristan’s vision blurred again, barely registering a Crown with a massive throat tattoo bent double beside the table. Wyatt Asher dove toward the table, but one of the Shadow Wardens drew his sword, pushing him away from the place where the Quill lay, just out of sight, on the floor.
