And they were gone. The dank little alley was suddenly very dark and cold.
‘They’re Valenti,’ Rynn whispered. ‘They were…’
‘They’re killing the mageborn,’ Jehane said, reappearing from his woven shadows, his features tight and bloodless. ‘All over the city. They started rounding them up when the matins bell chimed, using those crap sigils on them… and then… something went wrong. Someone fought back. And the Valenti retaliated. The whole city has gone mad. We have to move.’
‘She wouldn’t,’ Rynn said, as if she couldn’t grasp what was happening. ‘My grandmother wouldn’t…’
But she would. The Dowager Queen? Of course she would. Rynn couldn’t be that naïve. The deaths were probably not the Dowager’s plan, not this many. But she had stoked the fear of the mageborn among her citizenry too expertly.
And fear, Bastien knew, could change the mageborn. Make them nightborn. The waves of terror he was feeling now, sweeping through the traces of the Maegen all around him, infecting it with the Deep Dark… It would take them all.
Grace watched him, her face so cold that it stabbed at something inside him. Why should he care what she thought? Why did it seem to matter so much? Her eyes flickered with darkness and for a moment the gold dimmed to something else, something filled with shadows.
His breath caught in his throat.
‘Make for the ship,’ said Lara. ‘We can’t help here. We need to get out of Iliz before they raise the sea defences and close access to the harbour. Move.’
‘I can’t just leave them,’ Bastien protested, but no one was listening to him any more. Without someone to stop it, the Deep Dark would take every mageborn in Iliz. And then the slaughter would begin in earnest.
‘I didn’t know,’ Rynn shouted. ‘I swear it. I didn’t—’
It was a retreat. More than that, it was a flight. They had to escape. Iliz was drowning in blood, ravaged by fire summoned by nightborn Flints. And the waters rose as Tides turned nightborn as well, and Loams shook the foundations of the city. Lara led the way. Jehane and Daniel brought up the rear, driving back those Valenti who came after them. Like being pursued by ravaging dogs. And behind them all, that red-haired witch slaughtered as she went, anyone who came too close, her sword a silver blur, her body as much a weapon as her steel.
Was she gone? Had the Deep Dark taken her? The thought made his heart stutter inside him, like a fist had clenched around it.
Rynn slipped her cold hand into his and stumbled along, pulling up the wedding dress when it hampered her. There was too much fabric – it wasn’t made for practicalities. She stumbled, almost fell, but valiantly got to her feet and tried to keep going.
‘Here,’ Bastien said and scooped her up in his arms. ‘Just hold on.’
‘Don’t stop,’ she breathed in his ear. Her voice and her trembling form told him she had never experienced terror like this. When would she in her sheltered life? ‘Please.’
The canal led directly to the lagoon. He could see ships out there in the Grand Harbour beyond.
Another memory reared up, gazing at the dark water and the lights last night. Standing by a window, looking at the same view from a higher angle, and wondering which light was the one. The one where Grace was…
The stab of pain came back, this time almost bringing him to his knees. Memory. It was a memory. Grace. Only the fact that he was still carrying Rynn made him keep his footing.
‘What is it?’ she gasped. ‘What’s wrong?’
Bastien’s head was burning up. This wasn’t right. He knew it wasn’t right. ‘Did you… did you poison me?’
Gods and goddesses, it hurt. Like a hundred sigils burning into his skin. Like someone rummaging around inside his brain and draining the magic from his system, ripping off the blindfold and turning his eyes to face the sun itself.
Grace stood alone behind them, facing a mass of rioting figures. Mageborn fire and darkness rose up in her to drive them back, transforming her to the monster he feared. She illuminated the palace square of Sa Almento, the bodies and the gore-streaked cobbles, the canals red with blood.
And then, a heartbeat later, the mob swept over her and she vanished.
‘Grace!’ Bastien howled, the word torn from him, ragged and bleeding.
‘Get in the boat,’ Lara said. ‘She’s fine. She’s coming. Get in the boat with Rynn.’ When he didn’t move she grabbed him, throwing him forward.
He fell into the bottom of the low punt, hitting the wood so hard that he was lucky he didn’t go through. The boat rocked as the others clambered in.
‘They’re coming,’ he heard Daniel say. ‘They’ve gone insane – mageborn and Valenti alike. We’d better make this fast.’
‘It’s not exactly a fast boat, is it?’ Jehane argued.
Daniel wasn’t in the mood. ‘Well, do something magical then, you arsehole. Where is she? What’s taking—?’
‘Shut up, the pair of you,’ Lara growled and pushed off from the quay. The boat lurched in the water, rocking sickeningly.
Bastien reached out, dragging himself up, and Rynn took his hand. But he didn’t want Rynn. She wasn’t there. Wasn’t in the boat.
He looked back to the land. To Grace.
For a moment there was nothing, and then a figure burst out of the carnage, running for the edge of the quay.
She ran from the guards and the mob, red hair flying behind her, weapons in her hands, and she jumped at the last minute, even as the others began to row like their lives depended on it. Grace crashed into the water beside them and went down, swallowed up by dark waves.
Gone.
For a moment Bastien’s life was over.
Then she broke the surface, coughing and spluttering, flailing around as she tried to swim with her weapons still clenched in her hands. She hated water. She still had nightmares and woke screaming. When she was a child they’d tried to drown her, to put out the fire inside her. Because—
He knew that. He knew every detail. Because—
He reached for her, almost flinging himself over the side of the boat to do it. At the same time he scraped together the remains of his magic and demanded the water return her to him, to give her back. He felt Asher’s command still lingering. But this time… this time he tore right through it.
This was to save her. This was to save Grace.
The water bucked and kicked like a mule, an unnatural wave, and then something was flung up towards his reaching hands.
Grace was soaked and freezing. Hauling her into the boat with him, he wrapped himself around her, holding her against him, pulling the cloak around her shivering form. She gasped for breath, her chest heaving against him.
Not just from the cold water, he realised. There was fear too, shock.
And he remembered his hands around her throat. He remembered his attempt to squeeze the life out of her, the way she’d struggled and kicked, all in vain.
‘Grace,’ he said, needing to reassure her. ‘Grace, it’s me. It’s really me.’
She twisted beneath him, her body rolling, her legs tangling with his and suddenly she flipped him over, her whole body her weapon as she pinned him down in the bottom of the boat. The punch to his face sent his head slamming against the hull, the pain blinding him.
When he could see again, her face hung over his, wild and furious, her wet red hair clinging to her skin like trails of blood. He was probably lucky she’d dropped the knife first.
‘Stay down,’ she told him. ‘Stay the fuck down there and don’t move.’
Grace kept him pinned in the base of the boat until they got to the side of the ship, so he couldn’t see much as they arrived. His head pounded, and his body ached. Every so often spasms of agony would bring him to the brink of unconsciousness.
‘Should it do that?’ Lara asked Rynn.
‘It’ll pass. It’s… the potion has to be driven from his blood. I didn’t think it would be this painful.’
But it was. Asher had drugged him
and made him Rynn’s willing slave.
Bastien stared up at Grace, horrified, but she wouldn’t meet his gaze. Or couldn’t.
Divinities, what had he done?
It took almost all the strength he had to haul himself up the ladder and stumble onto the deck of the ship that awaited them. Thankfully, Daniel and Jehane slid in on either side to hold him up so he didn’t fall flat on his face in front of the sparse crew.
The cabin was small but neat, a couple of bunks and a porthole window.
‘Put him on the bed,’ Rynn said brusquely. ‘I need to check that nothing’s wrong.’
He slumped back onto the bunk, his head pounding, stomach churning.
‘Where’s Grace?’ he asked.
‘Don’t worry about Grace,’ Daniel told him. ‘She’s fine.’
‘Danny, tell her I didn’t know what I was doing. Tell her—’
Daniel Parry had never taken to him, Bastien knew that. He didn’t like the aristocracy and, given his experiences of the Rathlynnese royal family and their associates, Bastien couldn’t blame him.
‘Give her a break, Bastien,’ he snapped. ‘She’s been through hell with you tonight, all to get you out. Just let her be. She could have died back there.’
Rynn stepped between them. ‘And you let him be. He’s ill and needs to sleep for the antidote to finish its work. Get some wine or whatever they have on board,’ she said.
‘Bit early in the morning for drinking,’ Jehane said, a teasing tone attempting to lighten the mood. He didn’t seem as shaken as the others. A Shade was always closer to the Deep Dark; maybe it didn’t affect him as much. But Bastien had seen something in Grace’s eyes. And the Deep Dark had already marked her…
It wouldn’t be long before it took all the other mageborn as well.
Rynn didn’t feel like joking. ‘It’s my wedding day,’ she all but snarled at him. ‘Get the bloody wine.’
And that was when it finally hit Bastien. What he’d done. What he’d said.
He’d married Rynn.
And then he’d tried to kill Grace.
He’d lost her. This time he had really lost her.
Chapter 16
Grace made for the cabin where she’d left Ellyn, heaving in breath after breath as she went. She didn’t seem able to hold air in her body. Her lungs ached and her head pounded. She was freezing cold, soaking wet and everything was wrong. As she fell into the cabin, she forgot about the raised lip of the doorway, tripping over it. She caught herself with shaky hands and hung there, wet hair dripping over her face, staring at the floor, unable to think, let alone move.
‘Divinities!’ Ellyn grabbed her and hauled her upright. ‘What happened to you?’ Grace clung to her, shivering. Where did she even begin to explain? How could she put it into words? ‘Here, get this off.’
Grace let her friend strip her of the sodden clothes. They came off like ice sheets, but Ellyn wrapped her in the extra blankets from the cubbies under the bunk.
‘I’m okay really,’ Grace tried to say. It came out weak and broken.
Ellyn gave her a look which called her a liar and kept rubbing her limbs through the blankets, trying to warm her up. ‘What happened? Divinities, Grace, your neck! Who did that? They’d better be dead.’
Grace almost laughed. She really did. She’d almost forgotten about that. Fighting for her life against a rampaging mob put some things into perspective. And then the laugh turned into something else. A great, long-suppressed sob of agony.
‘Bastien,’ she managed to say. And with that one word, it all came out, words rushing out of her, a torrent of information all jumbled together like the chaos she had seen unfold since she last saw Ellyn. The horror on her friend’s face as she spoke made the reality of it slam into Grace once more. ‘Daniel can tell you. He’ll explain. He was there.’
For a long, painful moment Ellyn seemed unable to find words. ‘For fuck’s sake, is this what happens when I’m not with you for one mission?’
Was she joking? She was grinning. She was actually grinning.
‘Ellyn, it isn’t funny.’
‘It’s ridiculous, that’s what it is.’
And Grace finally let go. The great racking sobs that she had been holding in finally broke free; sobs that made her ribs ache and her throat raw. Ellyn held her tight, letting her cry. She might call it ridiculous, but she knew it wasn’t. She recognised shock, pain and grief. Finally, when she went quiet, Ellyn spoke again, her voice gentle.
‘Where’s Bastien now?’
‘I don’t know. The antidote made him… I couldn’t… I couldn’t…’
Grace couldn’t help him. The magic in her had blazed and the Deep Dark had been there, within reach, laughing through her mind. All she could think of was him, his hands around her throat, the look he’d worn as he tried to throttle her. The hatred, the rage. It hadn’t been Bastien, not really. She knew that.
But also, it had.
The Deep Dark whispered to her, assuring her it was true.
The fear it thrived upon, the terror, the deepest nightmares, it fed on them all and made her…
‘Just take your time,’ said Ellyn, her voice Grace’s anchor. ‘He assaulted you. You don’t have to do anything, Grace.’
She wanted to say it wasn’t his fault. But she’d heard those words so many times from other women, women who made excuses and shouldered their burdens and made the best of it. So had Ellyn. She couldn’t say them.
Ellyn stroked her wet hair. ‘Try to get some rest. I’ll find something warm for you to drink. Go on, lie down.’
Grace did as she said, but when the door opened, she shuddered again. It felt like a threat.
‘Ellyn,’ she whispered and Ellyn stopped, looking at her. ‘Lock the door behind you.’
It was only when she heard the little catch turn that she was able to close her eyes.
From the other side of the cabin wall, she heard muffled voices and groans. Bastien in pain, suffering as Rynn’s antidote purged him of the lyriana root. It sounded like he was in agony.
And part of her wasn’t sorry at all.
The ship rocked Grace like a cradle, her body finally relaxed enough to sleep. She’d heard nothing else. Ellyn had returned with a soup which she’d drunk and then she’d slept while the ship carried them away from the Valenti Islands. Grace had never felt so fragile or so pathetic.
She’d lost everything back there. Everything.
Who had they rescued? Who was Bastien Larelwynn now? Did they still head for Thorndale? Perhaps he would want to return to Rathlynn with his new wife rather than help find a cure for the nightborn. Grace shivered, pulling the blankets around her. He might be happy to let the Deep Dark have her now. Part of her ached to give in and let the darkness take her.
She knew she would have to get up again eventually but, right now, she didn’t have the strength. No one needed her. She lay still, under a mound of blankets, while Ellyn came and went, locking the door behind her when she did. When the sun finally did rise again, it did so over the open sea.
Grace pulled on some dry clothes and wrapped herself up again. The blankets smelled of sea water and some were still a bit damp but she didn’t care.
When Ellyn came back she wasn’t alone. Rynn followed her, her anxious face peering over Ellyn’s shoulder.
‘I can tell her to go away,’ Ellyn assured Grace. ‘But she wanted to speak to you.’
Grace nodded carefully. The bruises on her neck had really come up now, black and ugly, tender to touch. She didn’t bother trying to hide them.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘Princess.’
‘Rynn,’ the young woman said. ‘I don’t think titles are going to help now.’
‘Fine.’ Grace didn’t offer her own name. Her title – her rank – was the only shield she had, even if it wasn’t really hers any more. Not since the Academy had been sacked. ‘How – how is he?’
‘Better. Much better. Almost back to himself, I think.’
‘Himself. Good.’ Whatever that meant.
Rynn leaned forward, desperate to explain. To justify what had happened. ‘He couldn’t help it. That drug is—’
‘I know what it is.’
‘He wants to talk to you.’
‘I don’t—’ Grace wanted to say she didn’t want to talk to him. Because she didn’t. And yet she knew she’d have to. They were on a small ship heading to his home, facing the divinities knew what. She didn’t have a choice. But what on earth was there left to say? ‘It’s complicated.’
‘I know it is. But Grace…’ When Grace glared at her, the princess’s eyes widened in fear. ‘Captain Marchant…’ she tried again. ‘This terrible situation…’
Unexpected anger flared in Grace’s voice, in her eyes.
‘You married him.’
The royal façade rushed back into the girl’s whole demeanour. Grace loathed it in anyone, but in Rynn it was particularly galling. ‘I had no choice. Nor did he.’ The princess leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. ‘It’s a political marriage, Grace. And it wasn’t consummated.’
Grace groaned. ‘Too much information.’
It was Rynn’s turn to smile, a sudden and more comfortable expression on her perfect face. ‘But true nonetheless. You’re not what I expected.’
‘Thank you. I think.’
‘Will you see him? He asked me to see if you would. He begged me. I think it will help. He’s devastated.’
So was she. Couldn’t anyone else see that? True, she made a point of hiding her emotions. She had to.
She’d seen it on his face, in the little boat, seen the horror of realisation at what he’d done written all over his features.
‘Rynn… I don’t—’
‘He needs you, Grace. Needs you more than anyone else in this world. When he remembered, the first thing he remembered… that was you. Please…’
‘I’m sure you think that. And thank you. Thank you for making the antidote, for bringing him back. But I can’t just forget what he did.’
Nightborn: Totally addictive fantasy fiction (The Hollow King Book 2) Page 13
