“What is it?” Zo breathes into my ear. “What is she doing? Can she … can she shape-shift?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.” She made Rhen change shape, but I’ve never seen her do it. That doesn’t mean she can’t.
Zo remembers the monster Rhen became. Is that what’s behind us? Did she do it again?
I steal a glance over my shoulder. All I see is the black sky, flickers of darkness. Another screech pierces the air. Ironwill flies into the woods, jerking at the reins, his hooves pounding into the ground.
We need to get through the woods. I don’t know why, but there’s always been something about the edge of Ironrose’s territory that seems to limit Lilith’s power. We need to get through these woods, and then we can figure out a plan to rescue Rhen.
Without warning, my throat chokes on a sob.
At my back, so does Zo’s. Her arms grip tight.
I don’t have words. I don’t know what to say. My thoughts are in a blind panic. I keep searching for hope, but there’s none. Everything is bad.
That screech rings out again. Something shoves into us, and Zo cries out.
“Zo!” I scream.
“Keep going,” she says, redoubling her grip on my waist, but she’s pulling at me, as if something has a grip on her. “Keep going!”
I dig my heels in to the horse’s sides, but it’s almost like Zo is on the ground, pulling me back. In a moment I’m going to be yanked off this horse.
Then she lets go. She’s gone, her scream echoing in my ears, matched only by the screeching behind us.
I haul back on the reins, but Ironwill bucks and bolts and nearly gets me off his back. “Zo!” I cry. “Zo!”
Claws seize my upper arms, and I shriek in surprise. I’m being pulled, yanked, dragged.
“Let go of me!” I cry, and I wrench my arms free. Those claws hook on the armor that I never fully fastened, and suddenly, I’m being choked.
I have an image of Rhen pulling half-fastened armor over his head, ducking free of it. My chest catches with a sob, but I grab the breastplate and flip it up hard, scraping my face in the process.
But it works. She lets go. A screech of rage echoes behind me.
I cross the tree line out of the woods, duck close to Ironwill’s neck, and we flatten into a gallop. My tears soak into his mane, and the wind catches my sobs, but nothing pursues us beyond the woods. We run and run until the darkness swallows us up.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
RHEN
I lose track of time. There’s a slow, incessant dripping somewhere to my left, but I don’t know if it’s been going on for hours or minutes or seconds—or years. I don’t know if I’ve lost consciousness or if I’ve been awake this whole time.
The pain hasn’t gone anywhere.
My left eye won’t open, and my right eye is crusted with blood that drags at my eyelashes when I blink. Dustan’s dead body is inches away. Blood has formed a puddle on the floor between us, but I can’t tell where mine ends and his begins.
I remember this. From the first time, when she killed my guardsmen. When she turned me into a monster that killed my family. I remember.
I don’t want to remember.
I lift a hand to touch my face, but I find torn skin and shredded flesh, and I suddenly can’t breathe. I jerk my hand down, but the motion is too quick, and I whimper.
“Problems?” says Lilith, and I clench my good eye shut.
She doesn’t wait for an answer. “Look what I’ve found,” she says, and something loud and heavy clatters to the ground in front of me. Bits of blood and worse things splash up to hit me in the face, and I jerk away.
But it forces my eye open. It’s an armored breastplate.
Zo, I think. But it could be anyone’s. Any of my people. It’s just a piece of armor.
Then a pile of red flesh lands on top of it. For the longest moment, my brain can’t make sense of it. It’s just a pile of bleeding muscle.
But then I realize what it is, and my own heart stops.
“Her heart, Your Highness,” Lilith whispers. “As promised.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
HARPER
If I were in the mood to think about mystical connections, I’d find it interesting that the Crooked Boar Inn seems to have become a place of solace and comfort when something goes wrong at Ironrose. But tonight, all I can think about is Rhen being torn apart while all his guards and soldiers are dead.
All I can think about is Zo, ripped right off the back of the horse while I galloped away. Or Dustan, his throat torn out right in front of me.
I press my fingers into my eyes and try not to sob while Evalyn, the innkeeper’s wife, stitches up the wound on my leg and wraps a poultice around my ankle.
“Here, my lady,” says Coale, the innkeeper, his voice a low rasp as he hands me a mug full of warm mead. My fingers are shaking, but I take it.
“The creature has returned?” says Evalyn, her voice hardly more than a whisper.
“I don’t—I don’t know what it was.” I wish Rhen were here. He’d know a way to spin this, to get his people to rally and fight Lilith.
But of course if Rhen were here, if he were fine and well, there’d be no one to fight.
I was right yesterday. I should have just told her to leave me in Washington, DC. I should have told her to take me there originally.
I can’t fight her. I can’t ask anyone else to fight her either.
And I know if I go back, she’ll just kill me. She’ll probably do it right in front of him.
Rhen has spent his life hating magic, but right this second, I wish I had a shred of it, because I’d—
My thoughts freeze. The world seems to tilt on its axis, just for a second.
I don’t have any supplies. I don’t even have any clothes aside from a cloak and my dressing gown. The only weapon I have is this priceless dagger that was worthless in my hands.
But I suddenly have a plan.
“Evalyn,” I whisper, and I almost shudder when I speak, because I have already asked so much of everyone in this room. “I don’t—I don’t have any silver, but I need your help.”
She exchanges a glance with Coale, and new tears well in my eyes. I don’t know what I can use to bargain. I don’t even know when I’ll get more silver.
But I’ve been poor before. I’ve been desperate before. Rhen teased me about asking for help—but I know what it’s like when no one is around to give it.
“If you can’t,” I say, breathing away the tears, “I understand. I know—I know times are hard for everyone—”
“My lady.” Evalyn puts her hands over mine and squeezes tight. I look up and meet her eyes. “You’ve done so much for us,” she says. “So has the prince. All we have is yours.”
“Tell us what you need,” says Coale, his deep voice rumbling. He strokes at his thick beard. “We are well stocked for winter.”
I swipe at my eyes. “I need clothes. And a map. And enough food for …” I do some quick calculations, trying to remember all the times Rhen talked about distance and travel time. I have no idea whether this will work, but I have no other options. “Four days. I think. Maybe five.”
Evalyn’s eyes widen. “My lady. Are you returning to Disi?”
“No.” My tears dry up as hope flares in my chest for the first time. “I’m going to find Grey.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
GREY
“Again,” says the scraver, and despite the icy chill in the twilight air, I have to swipe sweat from my eyes. I’m breathing harder than I do after a long bout of swordplay or drills.
Honestly, I’d rather be doing swordplay or drills. It’s been weeks of this. “I hate magic,” I mutter under my breath.
“Yet you expect to coax it to your will with such adoring words? Again.”
I give him a narrow glare, but then I crouch and touch a hand to the ground, trying to send my power into an ever-widening circle. Some aspects of magic have come easil
y, like drawing flame from the wick of a lamp, while others have been more difficult, like knitting skin back together to heal. But sending power away from myself is proving the most challenging of all. It feels like running in an infinite number of directions at once—while tied to a boulder. Like I’m trying to tear myself apart and hold myself together simultaneously.
We’re in the woods beyond the training fields, and snow flurries drift through the branches overhead, collecting in the grass between my fingers. My power feels each one strike the ground as I try to let my magic expand. I feel each blade of grass, each fallen branch. The warmth of the lone lamp I set near the base of a tree, which was unnecessary when we began but is now casting thin shadows along the ground. I achieve ten feet. Twelve. A hare leaps into a thicket, and I send my power to follow.
My power snaps back to me. It’s like being shot with an arrow. I rock back and sit down hard.
I sigh.
Iisak drifts down from the high branch where he’d taken roost, landing silently in front of me. He’s barefoot and bare-chested as usual, his dark gray skin like a shadow in the darkness, but knife-lined bracers are buckled to his forearms. Snow is collecting in the black hair that curls to his shoulders, drifting across the stretches of his wings.
“You run yourself too thin, young prince,” he says.
I grunt. Maybe I do. But right now, I’d rather rely on skills I know will protect me in a battle than skills I haven’t yet mastered.
“This should be effortless,” he presses. “You should spend fewer hours on the field with your soldiers and more—”
“More here in the woods with magic?” I give a humorless laugh and spring to my feet. “Reports say that Rhen has sent soldiers to the border, and my magic can’t stop them all. Spending less time on the fields isn’t the answer.”
“If you reached for your magic before reaching for a blade, perhaps you would not need to worry.”
“Everyone here in Syhl Shallow thinks magic is a threat,” I snap. “There are secret factions in the city that plot the queen’s death.”
“I believe they plot your death.”
“Ah. That’s better.” I scowl. Iisak would have me practice magic until dawn if he had his way. I sometimes wonder if he is so focused on our success here because he regrets his failures with his son, the long-lost aelix of Iishellasa. I wonder if he dotes on Tycho and lectures me in an attempt to fill a chasm of loss. Right now, I don’t care. This lesson in magic reminds me of the way I drove Solt through his drill, and it’s not a fond memory. We’ve been at this for hours, and I was exhausted before we even started.
I nod at the knives Iisak wears. “I’m done with this. It’s your turn.”
“I hate weapons,” he growls, and I can’t tell if he’s mocking me or if he’s serious.
“Come on,” I say. “I’ve already missed dinner.” He’s pretty lethal on his own, and I’ve seen him tear soldiers apart with his bare hands. But that all requires close proximity, and he was captured once before. A bow and arrows proved too cumbersome in flight, but the knives and bracers don’t slow him down.
Like me with the magic, he’s reluctant to practice with something that doesn’t feel natural.
He slips a blade free. “One would think your mood would improve from all the time you spend with the young queen, but—”
“Knives, Iisak.”
“Perhaps you should spend more time sleeping, instead of—”
Silver hell. I draw one of my own blades and throw it at him.
He leaps into the air, quicker than thought, and my knife drives into the ground a few feet beyond where he stood. He laughs, and a bitter wind tears through the small clearing. His wings flare, sending snow flurries spinning, but I catch a flash of light on steel an instant before he throws. I snatch my dagger and knock the knife away before it can embed itself in my shoulder, and I almost miss the second one that aims for my leg. It nicks my thigh and skitters into the underbrush.
I gather the knives from the ground. “You’ve been practicing.”
“Quite a bit,” he says. “Tycho is eager to have a student.”
Tycho. My irritation is happy to have a new target. Tycho missed drills again this afternoon. It’s the fifth time. His unit leader should be dealing with it, but she hasn’t, and I’m not sure if that’s out of some kind of deference to me or if they’re happy to let him fail. Either way, it’s one more fracture in the unity of the army here, and it’s not as if we need more. I’m glad the boy is spending time with Iisak, because he is quite noticeably dodging me.
“I didn’t know you were practicing with Tycho,” I say. I wonder if Iisak is doing it for Tycho’s benefit—or for his own.
“I am certainly not busy helping you with magic.” Iisak throws again.
I scowl and knock the blades out of the air. “Put them in a tree,” I say. “Not me.”
“You look as though you long for distraction, Your Highness.”
Maybe. Probably. The shadows are growing longer, the flakes of snow shifting to sleet that stings my cheeks. At breakfast, Lia Mara was rapt as Noah explained the reasons for the changes in the weather, how the precipitation would fall as snow thousands of feet up in the sky, and then melt and refreeze to form sleet. One of her advisors leaned toward another and whispered, “How can he know such things? I do not trust these outsiders and their magic.”
Lia Mara overheard and cut them off with a terse, “Knowledge should not be greeted with scorn. You would do well to listen to Noah.”
They silenced immediately, but I saw their exchanged glances.
Iisak’s knives drive into the tree at my back with an audible thock each time. They were good throws, the blades driven deeply into the wood. When I reach to pull them free, Iisak slams into me from the side, his claws hooking into my armor, sending me to the ground. It knocks the wind out of me, but I roll and catch his ankle so he can’t fly. He tries to claw at me, but I’m used to his antics now, and I don’t let him get in a hit.
In seconds, he’s pinned, one wing trapped under my knee, his throwing knives in my hand, one pointed at his throat. We’re both breathing hard.
I usually don’t mind sparring with him. Often I enjoy the challenge, because Iisak has no hesitation in breaking my bones and drawing my blood—along with the actual talent and skill to accomplish it.
Tonight is different. The sleet is falling harder now, stinging my eyes and creeping under my armor. Iisak probably loves it.
“If you don’t need the practice,” I say, “I’m hungry.” I all but drop the throwing knives on the center of his chest and uncurl from the ground.
He slides them into their sheaths. “As you say, Your Highness.” With a parting nod, he launches himself into the air, and in seconds, he’s lost in the swirling darkness and branches overhead, probably off to find dinner for himself. I fetch the flickering lantern and walk.
The sleet grows heavier, slicking my hair and soaking under my armor, making a racket on the tin roofs of the soldier barracks just beyond the trees. I ease out of the woods onto the path, startling the soldiers on duty, but they quickly stand at attention and salute me. It’s later than I thought if they’ve changed shifts. These two are adorned in hooded oilcloth cloaks over their armor, but it’s still a miserable assignment in this weather.
“Who is your commanding officer?” I say to them. “I’ll see that you aren’t stationed here overly long.”
They exchange a glance, trying not to shiver. “Captain Solt.”
I inwardly sigh. Of course.
The paths between the barracks are deserted because of the weather and the late hour, and I wish I had thought to bring an oilcloth cloak of my own. Lights twinkle along the wall of the palace, and I look for Lia Mara’s chambers, because I’m sure she’s waiting for me. Sure enough, a shadow darkens half her window, and lightness fills my heart for the first time today. I suddenly wish I could send magic tearing across the grounds, because I’d lace it with fierce lo
nging and gentle wistfulness and unfettered hope, emotions I only dare to share with her.
Unbidden, my magic seeps into the ground, spreading farther with each step, almost like a light in the darkness that only I can see. I should have invited her to join me and Iisak, because her presence is always a reminder that my power never responds well to force, and instead needs to be invited to play. I feel each path, each drop of ice that strikes the ground, each stone along the base of each barrack. This has to be more than fifteen feet, but I try to relax into the feel of my magic as I walk, giving it little attention, as if it’s a skittish horse that can be spooked by nothing more than eye contact.
Then my magic flickers against … something. A person? An emotion? Whatever it is, the sensation isn’t positive like my thoughts of Lia Mara. But it’s too quick, and I can’t grab hold of it, and my sudden focus sends my magic spiraling back to me like the crack of a whip. I stay on my feet this time, but I drop the lantern and stop short. The lantern cracks with a little tinkle of glass and goes dark. I can’t hear anything over the sleet.
Immediately, I think of the threats against Lia Mara, and I change course, striding between the darkened buildings, wondering if I should call for the guards by the woods or if that would be overkill for a feeling. Still, there have been attacks on the queen. A faction against magic has formed in the city. As Iisak said, they likely plot my death as well. Just as I’m about to turn back for the guards, I hear a raised voice near the recruit barracks. A man is speaking in Syssalah, his tone thick with anger. I sigh and wonder if I’m going to have to break up a fight.
But I turn the corner and discover it’s Solt. He’s pinning a cringing recruit to the wall of the barracks with a hand against his shoulder.
Tycho.
I should demand an explanation. I should stride right up and call them to attention.
Before I’ve thought through everything I should be doing, I’ve shoved Solt away from Tycho with enough force that I nearly get him off his feet. He recovers faster than I’m ready for—I guess he can be quick when he wants to be—and he takes a swing at me. I dodge the first punch but not the second. He catches me right in the jaw, and it sends me to the ground, but I use momentum to roll. I have blades in my hands before I’m fully upright. Solt is a second slower, his hand on his hilt, his sword half-drawn before recognition dawns in his eyes.
A Vow So Bold and Deadly Page 20
