The Deceiver's Heart

by Jennifer A. Nielsen

  The spy would kill Simon.

  I had to leave immediately.

  With that decision made, I stood and dressed myself in riding breeches and a fresh tunic, then slung a satchel over my shoulder for what few possessions I had here. Wynnow already knew I was leaving so it should be little surprise to find me gone when morning came. She would be angry at my decision, but no angrier than I still was for what she had done to Loelle. Wynnow would call me a fool for entering a battle with such insignificant magic, powers that could never change the battle’s outcome. I was going to Reddengrad anyway.

  I tiptoed from my room, avoiding any servants I could and ignoring those I couldn’t. Once in the stables, the horse I chose was a Brillian breed of far greater strength and power than what we had in Antora. It wouldn’t beat an oropod in a race, but it would get me to the battle sometime tomorrow.

  Once the horse was saddled, I led him by the reins, intending to mount him after passing through the stable doors. But I didn’t get five steps forward before Wynnow entered the stables to stand directly in front of me, deliberately blocking the doors with her body. A disk bow was in her hand and a thin-blade sword hung at her side.

  “You will not leave.” Every muscle in her face was tightened in anger, but no more than mine.

  “I’m no prisoner, nor servant. I do not follow your orders.”

  “You are staying here, Kestra.”

  As proof of her intentions, she reached into the satchel at her side and pulled out a black disk, inserting it into the pocket of the disk bow. My pulse quickened. “Only the Dominion have black disks.”

  Something in her smile turned my stomach. “Then I must have gotten this from the Dominion.”

  “Stolen?”

  “No.”

  As coldly as she had behaved since we arrived here, that single word of hers sent an icy shiver through me. I began backing away. “You’re a Corack. We’re on the same side.”

  “I’m Brillian, doing what is right for my people.”

  “I’m no threat to your people,” I said.

  “But you are part of a bargain I made for my people … now.” She had backed me into a corner of the stables, her bow trained on me. “This wasn’t what I wanted, Kestra. I sent Imri Stout to serve you in Woodcourt, and she would have gotten you safely out, had Simon not interfered. Meanwhile, I joined the Coracks, fully intending to be your friend, and the one you trusted as your memories returned. But Simon interfered with that as well.”

  “Lord Endrick said he had a spy among the Coracks. That was you?”

  She sighed. “I must do what is best for my people, and whatever is necessary to protect my mother and her throne, and I have. Lord Endrick and I have just completed an agreement that assures the Dominion will never attack Brill.”

  I shook my head as the pit in my gut swelled. “He’s here?”

  “He’s on his way to these stables now, to collect the second of his two demands. They were steep sacrifices, but they were necessary.”

  “What demands?”

  “The first was that Lord Endrick wanted the necklace back. It shouldn’t have mattered—I already told him everything he wanted to know about the Coracks, but perhaps he’s sentimental. Imagine how dismayed I was to discover that Loelle had stolen it. She barely escaped Brill earlier tonight, but I retrieved it from her.”

  Hoping against what I already knew, I said, “You fought with the Coracks. How could you betray them like this?”

  “Without you, the Coracks will be extinguished anyway.”

  “Without me.” Now my heart sank. I bit my lip and nodded in understanding. “Because I’m the second demand.”

  “You, with your newfound powers. He can take them from you now.”

  “And once he does, he will become even more powerful.” I was terrified and fighting the instinct to run, but mostly I was angry at the feelings of betrayal, the coldness of her having pushed magic on me and then traded it away with my life. I said, “Whatever he’s promised, he will come for Brill eventually.”

  “But not today,” she said, refocusing the bow at me. “I really do wish we could have been friends. This isn’t personal.”

  My heart thundered against my chest as I spoke. “I disagree. What is about to happen is very personal.” Even at the expense of my life, Lord Endrick could not have my magic. Holding my breath for what was coming, I leapt at Wynnow, arms out.

  Immediately, she fired the disk, which sliced into my shoulder. Pain seared through me, and I looked down to see the black disk embedded deep in my flesh. I had seconds to live.

  “Why did you make me do that?” she screamed. “He’ll be angry!”

  “Good.” I fell to the ground.

  “He’s come all this way. If you die now, he’ll destroy us.”

  “Starting with you, I’m sure.” I was in immense pain and felt my body shutting down. But I’d use my last breath to get at her.

  Wynnow knelt beside me. “Maybe if I take the disk out, you’ll live until he gets here. I can save you until he arrives.” She ripped the disk from my shoulder, which hurt almost worse than it did going in. I cried out and the lights began fading around me.

  I grabbed her arm, holding her near me so that when Endrick walked in, he would know this was her fault, that she had broken her own promise. I wished she could feel my pain.

  In that very moment, Wynnow gasped and started to pull back. I’d have thought little of it, but just as she weakened, I felt a surge of life.

  Her life. I was pulling her life back to myself.

  “What are you doing?” Her voice sounded weaker—it was weaker.

  And I was beginning to understand why. My shoulder was healing, even as Wynnow was crumpling to the floor. I wouldn’t kill her, I never wanted to be that person. But I held my hand where it was until I was restored enough to sit up, then I staggered to my feet, leaving her on the ground in a semiconscious stupor. I didn’t know how long that would last, but since Brillians were superior at nearly everything, she was bound to recover soon. I had to leave now.

  No, I should have already been gone. Behind me, in the palace, footsteps marched down the corridor, heavy enough that their echoes carried all the way out here. Endrick’s footsteps.

  I looked around the open stables. There was nowhere to hide, and I had no weapons of my own. I grabbed Wynnow’s bow and her satchel that had held the black disk, hoping to find another one, but when I checked, it only held the stone tablet she’d shown me earlier. So I grabbed the sword at her side and sheathed it. And finally, I picked up the black disk she’d used on me and returned it to its pocket. Then I stood back, doing my best to aim the weapon at where I thought Lord Endrick would appear when he came through the doors. It wouldn’t kill him, but perhaps I could slow him down long enough to escape.

  The door opened, and as soon as I saw his scarred face, I fired. The disk went higher than I’d hoped but still flew toward his shoulder. He reached up and grabbed the sharp disk out of the air with his hand. On it was the grip glove, and his hand was uncut. He crushed the disk with his fingers, dropping shards of black dust to the ground.

  “I gather that crude attempt on my life means your memories are restored,” he said.

  In my anger, I forgot to be afraid. “My memories are returned, along with my strength and my determination to complete my quest. You are no king, no Lord of anything. The Scarlet Throne does not belong to you, and I will not rest until the rightful king has the throne, and you are in the grave.”

  He smiled, amused by what he surely considered my idle talk. “Then you will never rest, my dear. Certainly, you will not do so today. Go to your knees.”

  My legs began to weaken, folding to his order, but I refused to kneel. I faced him with all the fire and determination inside me. I would not kneel.

  “I gave you an order.” With the grip glove, he grabbed my arm like a vise and I immediately collapsed to my knees. He kept the pressure there, intending to punish me.


  But I was furious. I would not kneel to him any longer, I’d decided that already. Not by choice or by force or by weakness, I would not kneel.

  Or if I had to, then so would he. I put one hand over his as it gripped my arm and sent the full force of my magic into pulling at his life force, just as I had done with Wynnow. He cried out in anger and sent a bolt of pain through me. It weakened me, but I filled my strength again by taking it from him.

  Again, he filled me with daggers of pain that I survived only by sapping his own strength. He believed he was hurting me, and he was, but if he continued this way, he might kill himself.

  Endrick tried to pry my hand off his, but this cycle of taking and giving life seemed to have bound us together. As long as his grip glove was on me, I could no longer release my hold on him. Slowly, I stood again. His hand was still on my arm, flooding my body with pain, but I sent every bit of it back to him, pulling from his strength to make myself stronger.

  Not only stronger physically, but my mind was stronger, my will, my very spirit. I was feeling power such as I never had before. His power. I was borrowing a little of what he’d gained from the hundreds of Endreans he’d killed.

  Under my hold, the grip glove became brittle, and then crumbled beneath my fingers. Endrick cried out with fury, “Curse you, girl!” and this time, he grabbed me with both hands, sending something like fire through my body.

  I fell backward onto the ground, struggling for air, my thoughts flying apart; I was close to blacking out.

  “Do you know what it feels like when I take someone’s magic?” he asked, striding toward me. My vision was fading to nothing. I only saw the hem of his cloak, coming ever closer.

  Balancing on my forearms, I scrambled away from him, but he hovered over me, eager to strike, to punish me to the point of death. My heart was nearly pounding its way free of my chest, but I was determined to keep fighting. This was not over yet.

  “It will feel like you’re separating from within, as I take one layer of your magic at a time. Once I start, no one will be able to stop me. You will beg for mercy, but the time for mercy has passed. I will hear your pleas as laughter, and when I have wrung you out and you are nothing but a hollow shell that used to be a person, then I will do the laughing for us both.”

  “Is that what it felt like for you just now?” I asked. “When my hand was on yours, did you feel me taking life from you, one layer at a time?”

  “What little bit you borrowed from me is inconsequential,” he said.

  My smile back at him was full of fury. “I took more than your life. I borrowed your magic too.” And I shoved my hands forward through the air. It threw him backward through the doors where he had entered, so forcefully that they shattered apart and crumbled the walls around him. I wouldn’t be able to do that again, it was all I’d been able to take in those few moments, but it did buy me some time.

  I flew to my feet and scrambled toward the horse I’d saddled. The second I was on its back, I kicked him away and raced down the hill. Violent fires sprang up beside me—Endrick’s attempt to slow me down—but this was a Brillian horse and it nimbly dodged the hazards. A roar sounded up the hill ending in the collapse of the entire Brillian palace, and the earth shuddered around me. I didn’t dare stop or even look back, but I felt as if all the air had been sucked from my body. How many people would have been inside that palace? Dozens? Hundreds?

  Wynnow.

  Wynnow, who had thought it was merciful to kill me. And when mercy didn’t work, she turned to total betrayal.

  And received the worst of all possible fates in return.

  Not only her. The entire government of Brill had probably just perished. No doubt that would come to haunt me, but for now, I had to get to Reddengrad.

  The fighting resumed with greater ferocity than before. The Dominion had regrouped and may have oriented their soldiers to expect more tricks from us. Except that this time, we were out of surprises. Moreover, it was a dark night beneath this forest canopy, and we often didn’t know whether the person approaching us was friend or enemy until it was too late to avoid a clash.

  I found myself fighting from positions deeper and deeper within the forest, at times pursued when the numbers were greater than me, and then the pursuer when those groups inevitably became separated by the tangle of the undergrowth and narrow paths. More often, I didn’t know which of them I was, or why I was even fighting.

  Eventually, the morning sun broke through the canopy, offering a small bit of hope that at least some fighters on my side yet remained. I was cutting my way toward a clearing when I heard the shouts of men ahead followed by a screeching sound that turned my stomach. Hadn’t there been enough death, enough pain? It sounded like the soldiers were torturing a creature weaker and smaller than they. I wouldn’t tolerate this. Readying my sword, I crept in their direction, unsure of what to expect.

  I reached the crest of a small hill and looked down to see four soldiers in Dominion colors firing disk blades at something ahead of them I could not see. Most of their disks made a clanging sound when they hit their target, but then whatever they were firing at would screech again and they’d cheer.

  “Simon!”

  I nearly jumped from my flesh at hearing the hiss of my name, but Trina put a hand on my shoulder, then crouched beside me. “You followed the sounds here too?”

  “I think it’s a Rawkyren,” I whispered. “That dragon Basil told us about, and probably a young one. I’m going to rescue it.”

  I began to stand but Trina grabbed my arm and pulled me down again. “If they’re as dangerous as Basil said, maybe what they’re doing is for the best.”

  No, it wasn’t. I shook my head. “I don’t expect you to understand this, Trina, but I can’t sit here and listen to what they’re doing. After hearing my mother … I just can’t.”

  Trina pressed her lips together and nodded in sympathy, then reached for the disk bow at her side. She checked her pouch and pulled out five disks, one for each of the men below and an extra. “I’ll give you cover, but we both know this is a terrible idea.”

  “When has a terrible idea ever stopped us?” I winked at her, then redoubled my grip on the sword and started down the hill as quietly as I could. The men were so engrossed in the cruelty of their actions that they failed to notice me until I was more than halfway down.

  With a shout of alarm, they turned, and one moved to fire his disk bow at me, but Trina caught him first, knocking him backward into the pond. I locked swords with the first man to reach me, then heard a whoosh directly in front of me where Trina must have fired another disk, hitting a man who was still targeting the Rawkyren.

  When he fell, I got my first look at the creature, very briefly as it balanced on a rock in the center of a pond. It was no larger than a bird of prey, so it must have been a very young dragon, its silvery wings outstretched and flapping vigorously, but unable to fly due to a disk stuck into its front leg.

  With increased anger, I attacked both of the two remaining men simultaneously, stabbing the first in the shoulder, then kicking at the man coming up behind me until I could face him directly.

  “Do you know what those are, what they become?” that man said as I wheeled around with my sword ready again.

  “I might ask the same question of you,” I answered. “Can’t you see what you have become?”

  He scowled and charged at me. I dodged it, but he continued running past me into the pond for another attack on the young dragon. It screeched again, though this time it sounded like fear more than pain. Its cry stung my ears and burned holes through my heart. How could this man be so unfeeling?

  I attacked him from behind, but he grabbed me and threw me sideways into the pond, then stabbed downward, slicing my arm. I felt the sting of the injury, but something worse came with it, like vinegar was seeping into the wound.

  “Simon!” Trina darted from the trees and shot the man who had stabbed me, but my attention was on the Rawkyren perched within
easy reach of me now. It had enormous eyes, filled with as much pain as I felt. It widened its mouth, revealing developing rows of teeth, and let out a cry that could have easily come from me too.

  I reached up with my injured arm to remove the disk stuck in its leg. The instant I pulled it out, the Rawkyren recoiled, then opened its mouth again and shot fire onto my arm.

  I screamed as it seared my flesh, but the instant it was over, Trina grabbed my other hand, pulling me from the mud pit. With her arm around my shoulders to brace me, I took another glance back at the dragon, hoping for a better look at it, but it had somehow disappeared. The voices of more soldiers weren’t far off. We needed to go.

  Trina nodded at my arm as she helped me hurry away. “We need to get some water on it. Different water … than what was in that pond.”

  We had passed a stream a short distance back, and I followed Trina there now. I knelt beside it and dipped my right arm in the water. The dragon breath had burned much of the sleeve of my longcoat, exposing the flesh, which was bright red from the burn except for the line created by the stab wound. It wasn’t bleeding anymore, but instead was a solid black line. Whether intended or not, the dragon’s breath had cauterized the wound. My arm stung beyond anything I could describe, not only the skin, but inside my arm, as if sealing the wound had kept something inside me that shouldn’t be there.

  Trina gasped when I pulled my burned arm from the water. “Does it hurt?”

  I tilted my head at her, unwilling to explain the obvious. When she nodded in understanding, I shrugged and said the only thing I could: “Let’s rejoin the others.”

  By the time we returned to the main part of the forest, the morning sun was higher in the sky, and I recoiled in horror. The forest was littered with the dead and wounded from both sides. And still the Dominion kept coming. Their condors had broken holes through the forest canopy and rained fire pellets down whenever they spotted a valuable enough target. Carnoxen and oropods ran wild without riders, attacking fighters from both sides who happened to be in their way, and I saw no discernable leadership in place, meaning the fighting had become exactly what Mindall had predicted: chaotic and brutal.