by Sara Holland
“At least then it would be on our terms.”
“We could do it somewhere outside of Havenfall,” Taya suggests. “Past the inn’s protection. That way he’ll have to put the armor on right away, or he’ll get sick.”
I turn to her. “That’s perfect.”
She flashes a tired grin. “Any ideas?”
I think. We’ll want it to be someplace we’re familiar with—or can get familiar with before tomorrow. It needs to have hiding spots, but also be wide open, so that we can run if need be. And far away from people, so that the Silver Prince can’t do any collateral damage.
“How about up in the mountains?” I turn to Nahteran. “Tell the Silver Prince with your mirror that you’ll open a doorway at a certain time and place. We’ll each wear a piece of the real armor so that we can make a doorway, but keep it hidden once the Silver Prince arrives. We’ll wait until he gives us Mom, and then we’ll give him the counterfeit armor. We’ll activate the magic … and …”
And what? And then this nightmare will be over.
The Silver Prince has already tried to kill me and take Havenfall. He would conquer the whole damn planet if he could. And he has Mom. We have to end his threat however we can. No matter what it takes.
“Okay.” Nahteran smiles, and for a second the shadows play oddly with his face, making him a stranger.
A vicious stranger, just like me.
He reaches into his backpack. “I’ll send the message.”
21
That afternoon, Nahteran, Taya, and I climb up the mountain to familiarize ourselves with the spot where we plan to make the trade with the Silver Prince. We haven’t heard back from him since Nahteran sent a message with the scrying mirror, but there’s little else we can do to pass the time. Already the day is going unbearably slowly.
I thought I was in decent enough shape, but Nahteran and Taya outpace me as we climb. As we near the top, they’re twenty yards ahead of me on the path, talking and laughing like we’re not about to face off with a supernaturally powerful murderer. As if it’s just another day.
I can feel myself getting more scared and irritable with every step. I can almost imagine the Silver Prince standing at the top of the mountain, his pale silhouette scarcely visible against the cloudy sky, flames dancing at his fingertips. He’s right there, waiting, but Taya and Nahteran don’t see him. I blink until the image disappears, wipe the sweat roughly from my brow. But I can’t shake the feeling that we’re walking straight into his trap, and I can’t do anything about it. I can’t stop us.
When we get back to the inn, I excuse myself to go help Willow with dinner, wanting to be by myself for a little while. She puts me to work stuffing and shaping tortellini alongside her, which is more responsibility than I usually get—my cooking skills are minimal enough that Willow usually relegates me to chopping or stirring duty. Which makes me think she wants an excuse to talk to me. It’s still a couple of hours before the meal, and the other staff—the Fiorden and Byrnisian pages—are all off doing other chores, so it’s just Willow and me in the cavernous kitchen.
“You’re distracted today,” she remarks, casually glancing at me out of the corner of her eye. Her hands move in a graceful almost-blur, creating a half dozen perfectly formed pasta shapes in the time it takes me to do one, all somehow without getting flour on her blue silk day-dress.
I’ve wondered, often enough, if she is happy here, happy to spend all her days at the inn. She seems to be, but I’m not sure I would be if I were in her shoes. She’s smarter than all the delegates, and everything about her speaks to having had a glamorous past life. Is she like Graylin, content at the crossroads, or like Brekken, who deep down I know never would be?
The question is out before I can think about it. “Willow, if not for Havenfall, where would you be?”
Her hands keep moving, but she turns her head and looks at me in surprise. We’ve never talked much about her life in Byrn—she doesn’t seem to like it, usually changes the subject. But now she just looks at me steadily.
“I would be a nomad,” she says. “Out in the wild beyond the walls of Oasis.”
“A nomad,” I echo. Like Nahteran was telling me about.
She nods. “My standing in the court was already shaky”—she winks, maybe in reference to the affair I’ve heard rumors about—“but the last straw came when I wouldn’t renounce my magic. The Silver Prince requires all his subjects to make that choice. Magic or safety.”
I nod. “I’ve heard.”
She pauses her work and turns her right hand up toward the ceiling. A tiny cyclone forms there, a perfectly self-contained dervish. I stare. The breeze coming off it gently carresses my face for a moment before Willow closes her fingers and it winks out.
“I was never very powerful, but all the same, my magic is a part of me,” she says, her eyes distant. “So I talked to Marcus about staying here permanently, and here we are.”
She elbows me to keep working, the moment of seriousness gone. “So whatever you’re plotting, spare a thought for us strays for whom this is our only home.”
That last sentence is delivered lightly, a joke, but it lands like an anvil in my chest.
A few minutes later, Willow bustles off to do something else. I continue my slow progress with the tortellini. When I finally have a dozen lined up before me, my phone buzzes in my pocket.
Glancing around to make sure Willow isn’t watching, I wipe my floury hands off on my jeans and check my phone. On the lock screen is a text from Taya.
Hey, Nahteran got a message back from SP. We’re good to go.
I stare at the glowing words. My heart starts hammering, the bitter taste of fear seeping into my mouth. In my mind’s eye, I see the Silver Prince up on the mountain, just like in my paranoid imaginings earlier. Hands raised, flaming and deadly.
Now, with a few hours’ reflection, our carefully wrought plan seems reckless to the point of idiocy. I can’t fight for shit. Taya can’t control her transformations. I don’t know about Nahteran’s skill set, but something tells me even if I did, I doubt I’d like our odds. We need more help.
I open the message and type a reply. A thumbs-up symbol. Then,
I was actually just thinking we could use more backup. OK if I ask Brekken?
For a moment after I send the text, there’s nothing. Then the three dots that mean Taya’s typing. Then nothing again. Finally, the text pops up, shorter than I’d expected from all that typing.
Sure, I guess so.
I don’t see Brekken at dinner, so afterward, I head up to his room, a Tupperware full of pasta in hand as a peace offering. It’s late—I didn’t really realize how late until now. I hear him get up, shuffle around, and turn on the lamp. When he opens the door, he’s still in the loose short pants and spun linen shirt he sleeps in, like he was about to go to bed. It makes my mouth dry up. He smiles at me—not quite as warm as usual, but I’m just glad I’m getting a smile—and steps back to let me in.
Despite yesterday’s horrible news about the trial, our talk seems to have eased the stiffness between us, making things feel almost normal again. Brekken’s room, though, is as clean and tidy as if it came out of a home-goods catalog, except where his blankets are rumpled and thrown back, the moonlight slanting over them. I feel my face blush and am immediately annoyed with myself.
Get it together. I came here because I had something important to ask him. Something maybe life-and-death.
“Can I sit down?” I ask, tugging at my sleeves, nervous suddenly.
“Of course. Always.”
Brekken pulls out his desk chair for me and sinks down at the edge of his bed. As he does so, his smile slides away, leaving him looking serious. He knows me too well. He knows this isn’t just a social call, as much as I’d like it to be.
When I start talking, the story spills out of me in a rush.
I tell him about Marcus’s executive decision not to negotiate with the Silver Prince and my unexpected realization t
hat I didn’t want to give up on Mom, no matter the risk—and neither did Nahteran. I tell him about Taya’s idea of creating counterfeit armor, and yesterday’s project, all the molten metal and stolen souls.
But Brekken’s reaction isn’t what I expected. I thought he’d disapprove. Instead, his face grows more and more expressionless, and his eyes glare harder and harder. By the time I wrap up and ask him to join us for strength in numbers, I’m thoroughly unnerved. It’s as if I’m looking at a beautifully carved and painted statue.
And I never expected the words that come out of his mouth next. “Maddie, I can’t.”
“Um—” I close my mouth and ball my fists on my thighs, blindsided. I look away so that my lip doesn’t start trembling. “Okay.”
Of course, it’s not fair of me to expect him to be my knight in shining armor. Especially not before he leaves Havenfall to stand trial for a crime that was my idea. But it had never occurred to me that he would say no. Shining armor is kind of his thing. Or so I thought.
“Think it through, Maddie.” Brekken’s voice is oddly flat and cold. He’s very still. Even the moonlight seems to have retreated from the room, maybe gone behind clouds. “Training for the army in Myr, they taught us that the top officers never congregate all together in one room. Because it makes them more vulnerable to—”
“To attack, yeah, I get it,” I snap. Like the president and the VP and the Speaker of the House or whatever. I read somewhere they never travel on the same plane so that if the plane goes down, the line of succession stands. “You’re allowed to just say no, you know.”
Because I’m not the freaking president. I’m just a girl without her mom.
“I want you to understand,” Brekken says. “If I came with you and the Silver Prince killed me, Graylin would have to go to Fiordenkill to stand trial. If he killed both of us, Marcus would be without his husband and his heir. I know better than to tell you what to do, but …”
He trails off, and the silence that leaches in is heavy and suffocating.
“But what?” I prompt. My stomach is all knotted. I feel like this conversation is already fractured and headed in a bad direction. But a perverse part of me wants to see it through.
He tilts his head forward, like I really ought to understand without him having to say so. “You’re heir to the Innkeeper,” he says. “For the sake of Havenfall, for the summit, for everyone, do you ever think of developing just a bit of a self-preservation instinct?”
I dig my nails into my palms. “Is this still about Nahteran? Or do you really think I have some kind of duty to stay indoors where I’m untouchable?” My temper rises. “Maybe I should just lock myself in the closet along with the armor. Too bad I can’t fit inside a safe.”
“You know that’s not what I’m saying,” Brekken shoots back. “But also, what if the Silver Prince finds the real armor? You’ll have handed your world to him on a platter, and he’ll probably kill your mother anyway.”
“So what do you think I should do?” I growl. “Just let him have her?”
Brekken doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to. His flat-line mouth and hard eyes say enough.
“She’s my family,” I say. A bubbling feeling in my chest warns me that the tears are about to make their appearance.
“You have to consider the greater good. What’s right. Everyone is family to someone,” Brekken says. “You can’t make distinctions just because of that.”
My heart drops, plummets. “Actually—” I stand up. “I really think I can.”
Brekken stares up at me, and I feel a coldness hovering between us. And while I’ve cried in front of Brekken God knows how many times before, I really, really don’t want to now.
“Good luck at the trial,” I say, and make for the door.
Something stops me, though—seizes me, when my hand touches the doorknob. I can’t leave like this.
The trial could go sideways.
This could be the last time I ever see him.
I turn around. “What if … what if we said screw the trial?” I ask, tears thickening my voice and blurring my vision.
Brekken tilts his head, his eyes widening and softening a little, but he says nothing.
“The people who died at Winterkill are gone,” I say. Each word is painful coming up, like they have thorns, slicing at my lungs and throat. “You standing trial won’t bring them back. Myr executing you won’t bring them back, if that’s what they decide. So why not just not go?” I grip the doorknob tight, willing my words to get through to him. “Our worlds have been allied for centuries. Surely one guy can’t just upend that history. We’ll talk to Princess Enetta. We’ll figure something out …”
But my next words die on my tongue, because Brekken is shaking his head.
“It doesn’t work that way,” he says. “The way Fiordens view honor, Maddie … it’s hard to understand if you didn’t grow up with it, live and breathe it.” He draws in a ragged inhalation, and for the first time I see the glimmer of fear in his eyes. “Do you think I want to go, Maddie? I don’t. But the peace between our realms is at stake here.”
“Stay for me, then,” I whisper. “Do this for me.”
Pain crosses Brekken’s face. “Don’t make me choose, Maddie. Please.”
I keep my mouth shut. After a tense, painful moment, Brekken rises and takes one step toward me.
“I’ll stay,” he says, “if you call off your deal with the Silver Prince.”
My heart thuds, dull and heavy. Like a stone dropping to the earth. I squeeze my eyes shut. Take a deep, shuddery breath.
“I’m sorry, Brekken,” I say once I’ve gathered myself.
I hope he knows what I mean. That I’m sorry for everything. Sorry I can’t agree to that trade. Sorry he has to be the one to stand trial. Sorry for the things I’ve said tonight, especially—especially if this is the last time.
“Me too,” he says softly, and stands still and watches as I go.
22
That day passes in a blur, and nearly twenty-four hours after my fight with Brekken, the bitter taste of tears is still on my tongue when my alarm goes off in the wee hours of the morning. It’s still dark out, the moon shining through my window.
I turn over, my blankets soft and heavy around me, and think groggily of him. Something bad happened with Brekken. I wish it was just a dream.
But when I grab for my phone to silence the alarm, I know it’s not. Everything comes crashing back quickly. Brekken telling me no. Him letting me turn around and walk away.
Knowing I might never see him again.
But I can’t cry. I can’t wallow. Nahteran, Taya, and I are planning to open a doorway into Oasis out in the mountains at sunrise. We are going to confront the Silver Prince, get Mom back, and then get him to put on the counterfeit armor so that he’ll never be a threat to Havenfall again.
Aided by the adrenaline that surges through my veins at the thought, I roll out of bed, splash some water on my face to wake myself up the rest of the way, and get dressed quickly. Jeans. Tank top. Boots. Dagger. A sweater baggy enough that it’ll be able to hide a piece of the phoenix flame armor. I’d prefer not to bring the real armor at all—not let it come anywhere near the Prince—but we’ll need it to open the portal to Byrn that will allow the Prince and Mom to come through to us.
I walk quietly down the stairs, not wanting to wake any of the delegates. I meet Taya and Nahteran in the ballroom, where there’s a back door where we can exit without being seen by Sal’s guards, one of whom is always stationed out front at night.
They’re already there when I arrive. They haven’t turned on any lights; Nahteran paces, while Taya stands looking out the window in a pool of moonlight. She wears her bomber jacket, and I’m hit with a quick burst of gratefulness that I saved it for her. Nahteran has a canvas jacket on, something else borrowed from Marcus. I can’t see in the dimness, but I know they probably have weapons belted to their waists, just like me.
We’re all ne
rvous. Tightly wound. I wonder if they, too, thought about saying goodbyes just in case.
Taya hoists a lantern high, the same one she used when we created the counterfeit armor. Now we’ll use it to hike the dark and steep trails up to the meeting place in the mountains.
She smiles at me, but it’s thin, strained. “You ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.” I look over my shoulder. “Nate, the armor—”
I don’t realize the slip—calling him Nate out loud—until after I’ve said it, but Nahteran doesn’t seem to notice. He has his back to us and is kneeling in the center of the ballroom floor, right in front of where the Elemental Orchestra usually plays.
“What are you doing?” I hear Taya ask as I stare in confusion. “Nahteran?”
He takes a vial of something dark and viscous from his pocket—and smashes it against the floor. Liquid pools around him.
I’m still groggy, too much so to understand what he’s doing, but my body reacts right away, spilling a wave of adrenaline and dread through me.
Nahteran yanks up both sleeves and presses his hands to his chest, and a howl of wind sounds around me. The world rocks beneath my feet. Beyond him, the doors to the hallway—to the rest of Havenfall—are closed. Barred shut.
“Nahteran, stop!” Taya cries out.
She’s already running to him, almost losing her balance with every step as the floor rolls beneath her feet. The polished oak floorboards snap and bulge upward like we’re on the deck of the Titanic.
I shrink back against the window, the cold glass trembling against my shoulder blades. The truth slowly sinks in. What has he done?
The ballroom floor starts to go transparent, like wood and stone are melting into glass. A hairline crack of light appears and grows.
A hot orange light.
The same light as the one that shines through the Byrnisian doorway.
No. No! Then I realize I’m saying it out loud. Yelling, “Nahteran, stop! Stop this!”
The wind swallows my voice, whisks it away.
