Dark Rise: Dark Rise 1

by C. S. Pacat

  ‘No one in this Hall is neutral,’ Cyprian shot back. ‘Every Steward here has lost someone because of him. Have you forgotten Marcus? His life hangs in the balance.’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ said Will.

  He was already stepping forward. He didn’t know if he was doing it to protect James, or to protect the Stewards. Take the Horn of Truth and spear James with it: he couldn’t shake the feeling that if this was going to happen, it must be him.

  James gave a soft, mocking laugh. ‘The boy hero,’ he said. On the dais, Violet was frowning, her eyes very dark and her hands fists. The High Janissary gestured to the horn.

  Will’s heart was pounding. He had never stabbed anyone before. He had never really even hit anyone, unless you counted his failed attempts to escape Simon’s men on the ship. He approached the lacquered box where the horn lay and looked down at it. Longer than a man’s arm, it would be like holding a javelin. Against the black, cushioned velvet inside the box it glowed white, a bright spear to pierce the dark. The Steward who held the box stood impassive.

  Will could feel everyone’s eyes on him as he reached in. Cartazon. The horn all seek and never find. He closed his two hands around it. Like a spark, it made him breathless, the thrum of it, the bright pulse moving through him as he took it up. A hero’s weapon, an instrument of purity like a righteous sword.

  And then he looked at James.

  There was something achingly similar about horn and boy. The impossible beauty, of course; the sense of a lost world to which they both belonged. And the desecration of that beauty: the sawn, stumped end of the horn; and James, with his face like a sigh, chained up and wearing modern clothes.

  Easy to see why the Dark King had wanted him. No one could look at him and not want to possess him. Even in chains, James seemed to command the room.

  Was he really going to do this? Hold James down and spear him with a horn?

  ‘Don’t puncture anything important,’ Will heard James say as he came forward, his voice mocking.

  James knew Simon. James knew Simon’s plans. James was the key to all of this, and this was their chance to learn what he kept secret. Stab him with the horn, and he’ll be forced to tell the truth.

  Subtly goading, James spread his legs and leaned back in his chair, challenging Will with his gaze. Will lifted the horn in the fist of his right hand. He aimed the tip over James’s left shoulder. It pressed slightly into the fabric of his jacket. Under that, he could feel the warmth of James’s waiting body. He put his left hand on James’s shoulder, bracing it.

  Then he lifted the horn up and drove it in hard.

  James made a sound, completely against his will, and their eyes met. The horn was inside his shoulder. It pinned him in place; it had not passed completely through.

  ‘Does it hurt?’ said Will.

  ‘Yes,’ said James through gritted teeth, and the furious look in his eyes was mixed with something else. Panic. Will realised with his heart thundering that James had just been compelled to speak the truth.

  ‘Where’s Marcus?’ said the High Janissary.

  ‘He’s—’ said James, obviously resisting. ‘He’s – He’s in—’

  ‘Push it in another inch,’ said the High Janissary.

  Deeper. Will pushed it in, twisting it like a corkscrew. This time the sound that came out of James was raw. There was a change in James too, a compulsion under his skin that he was fighting, hard. Will could almost feel it, the bright horn that couldn’t abide falsehood, pushing everything else out of the way. It spread from the bloody point outward, utterly relentless as Will held the shaft steady.

  ‘Where’s Marcus?’ said the High Janissary.

  It was forced out. ‘Simon has him. You knew that.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘At Ruthern.’ And then: ‘Simon will move him as soon as he knows I’m captured. It won’t help you.’

  ‘We’ll judge that. How do we get inside?’

  The fight was taking its toll. James’s hair was damp with sweat. Will could feel the struggle up close as James fought with everything he had to keep the words inside. Keeping the horn in him required hard, continuous pressure.

  ‘It would take a full-frontal assault. You’re not strong enough to do it. It’s guarded by all three Remnants and a contingent of Simon’s men. You’ll die on the walls. Although you’ll have a better chance now that—’ James gritted his teeth and tried to say nothing.

  ‘You could try lower,’ said Cyprian. ‘Dig around and see if there’s a heart in there somewhere.’

  Another inch. James said, ‘—now that I’m not guarding him.’

  ‘What is Simon planning?’

  ‘To kill you,’ said James, the words seeming to bring him vicious pleasure. ‘To kill all of you, and to stand over a pile of your ashes as the Dark King returns and takes his throne.’

  It was chilling; it felt real when James said it. Will thought of the Shadow Stone in the vault and the words on the wall, carved in the last moments of terror and confusion. He is coming.

  ‘Tell us how to stop him,’ said the High Janissary.

  ‘You can’t.’ After he said it, James closed his eyes and laughed breathlessly, as if the truth of these words had surprised even him. ‘Simon’s going to raise the Dark King, and there’s no one alive who can stop him.’

  The High Janissary took a step back; a murmur broke out in the Stewards behind him, tense looks, fear, a roil of unease, because James couldn’t lie – could he? James looked on with victorious satisfaction.

  You did this, Will almost said, looking out at the faces of the Stewards, then back at James’s pleased expression. Talking around his subject, revealing almost nothing … James was playing with these Stewards, and they were letting him.

  He put his free hand on James’s throat and forced his head back. He ignored the shocked sounds from the Stewards, the way Violet made to move towards him. He looked down into James’s eyes.

  ‘You went to Robert Drake to get something. What was it?’ His right hand was still hard on the horn.

  ‘Nothing.’ This close, Will could see the sweat tendrils in James’s hair, feel the tremor in his body, even as James stared back at him defiantly. Will pushed the horn in harder. ‘I— Some information.’ Gritted out.

  ‘Information about what?’

  James was panting. Hand around his throat, Will felt him swallow, felt the throb of the arterial vein in his neck, like the blood pulsing up around the horn. ‘An object. An artefact. I—’ He was fighting harder than he ever had. ‘No.’

  ‘What artefact? Something Simon needs?’

  ‘Needs it. Wants it.’ The horn was slippery with blood. ‘Stop it, I won’t—’

  ‘Why does he want it?’

  ‘It will make him powerful – make him the most powerful man alive – the moment he has it he – he’ll—’

  He was evading still, trying to talk around the truth. Will ground down with the horn and focused in on the only question that meant anything. ‘What did Robert Drake tell you?’

  ‘He told me – Gauthier had come back to England – that he was at Buckhurst Hill – that he had it with him, the c-c – no, I’d rather die than tell you—’

  ‘You won’t die.’ High Janissary Jannick’s voice cut into the exchange. ‘You’ll simply tell us. That’s how the horn works.’

  High Janissary Jannick had stepped forward to reassert control. His words seemed to remind James that he was there.

  ‘You,’ said James, looking up at his father venomously through his sweat-tendrilled hair. ‘You want me to tell the truth?’ said James. ‘I will. I’ll tell it to all the Stewards in the Hall.’

  ‘Then do so,’ said Jannick sternly.

  James looked back at him with too-bright eyes, and Will felt the tipping spill of danger, too late to stop it.

  ‘I’ll tell you why my father’s so desperate to get Marcus back,’ said James.

  Jannick’s entire expression changed. ‘Pull it out
.’

  The order was sharp and sudden, but Will’s hand hesitated on the horn.

  ‘I’ll tell you why there are no old Stewards,’ said James, ‘why their lives are short, where they get their strength—’

  ‘I said pull it out!’ Jannick took a stride towards James as though to yank the horn out himself.

  ‘No.’ Cyprian stopped him. ‘Will, don’t.’ He was holding his father back by the arm. ‘It’s about Marcus.’

  ‘Will Kempen,’ said High Janissary Jannick, ‘you will pull out that horn.’

  Will’s hand, slippery with blood, slid on the shaft, but he didn’t pull it out. His heart was pounding. James’s goading eyes fixed on his father.

  ‘The Cup of the Stewards.’ James spoke in a clear voice, letting the whole Hall hear. ‘Simon first found mention of it in a dig in the forests of Calabria. Calice del Re, the locals called it. The Stewards drink from it when they take their oath, but it never belonged to them … It was a gift that was given to their king.’

  The Cup of the Stewards, Justice had told them. We drink from it when we take our whites. Will’s skin crawled as James spoke the words of a familiar story:

  ‘Four kings of the old world, offered great power in exchange for a price. And to seal the bargain? Drink. Drink from the Cup. Three drank and one refused. Those who drank gained extraordinary physical abilities, for a time. But when their time was done—’

  ‘They transformed,’ whispered Will. And went cold.

  In his mind he saw four kings darkly transparent, and a stone so black all light seemed to disappear into it.

  The Shadow Kings.

  ‘No one asked what happened to the Cup,’ said James. ‘Just like no one asks where the Stewards get their strength. Why they watch in pairs, for any sign. Why they train to always keep control. Why their lives are short. It’s because of their oath. The oath they swear when they drink from the Cup.’ James’s eyes were fever bright as he delivered the words. ‘To kill themselves before they start to turn.’

  Will looked out in horror at all the familiar faces – Leda – Farah – Carver – and even – his skin crawled – Justice.

  Every Steward. Every single Steward had drunk from the Cup.

  ‘Tell us you’re not,’ he heard a novitiate demand. ‘Tell us you’re not shadows.’ Janissaries and novitiates were staring at Stewards as if all they could see now were potential shadows, surrounding them, outnumbering them. Too late, Will yanked the horn out, and James collapsed forward, laughing breathlessly.

  ‘Is it true?’ said Cyprian, and James’s laugh turned strange.

  ‘Is it true?’ said James, his shirt and jacket soaked with blood, still panting in pain from the horn. Truth was the point, even if its splinter had been wrenched from him now. He looked back at his father. ‘You don’t tell the novitiates before they drink? Not even your precious little adopted son?’

  Holding the white shaft that looked like it had been dipped in red paint, Will’s mind was already travelling from one truth to another, far darker. Simon seeks to conjure a shadow of his own, the Elder Steward had said. He saw the yawning pit of his own realisation begin to open in Cyprian’s eyes.

  ‘You said Simon had learned how to conjure a shadow. What did you mean?’ Cyprian pushed his father out of the way to stand in front of James. ‘What did you mean?’

  James didn’t answer; he just gazed back at Cyprian and slowly smiled.

  ‘He meant Marcus,’ said Will, knowing it in his bones. ‘It’s why they’re so desperate to get him back. Simon doesn’t need the Cup to make shadows. All he needs—’ Simon’s plan was terrible in its simplicity. ‘All he needs is a Steward.’

  He looked up at Violet, their eyes meeting. Because there was another truth too. Simon wouldn’t take a prisoner that he’d need to keep alive for years. No. Simon would have chosen someone who was half shadow already. Wherever Marcus was, he would not have long before the shadow inside him took over.

  Will said, ‘Capture a Steward without much time, keep him alive, and wait for him to turn.’

  And watched the Hall around him erupt into chaos.

  Torch aloft, Will descended the stairs to the underground cells, the flame he held sending shadows flickering out ahead of him.

  He wasn’t two steps down before the thick, oppressive feel of the cells stifled him, and he had to force himself not to shake his head to clear it, or rub at his temple. He already knew that didn’t work.

  Upstairs, a tumult of arguments and shouting. The novitiates and the janissaries were turning on the Stewards, with the High Janissary desperately trying to keep order. Here in the shiny obsidian depths of the cells, those seemed like the concerns of a different world.

  He guessed at which cell they had tossed James into after that little performance: the same cell where they’d held Will, the most powerful cell in the Hall.

  And he was right. But where Will had been left free to move around, James was chained to the wall.

  Will opened the cell with the key that he had taken from Cyprian and stepped inside.

  They had stripped James of his jacket – they must have cut it off – the manacles were still on his wrists. His torn white shirt had a bloom of blood that streaked down from his left shoulder. And he was stretched, his arms restrained above his head. Despite these deprivations, James was waiting for him in the kind of indolent pose that was utterly provocative.

  ‘I wondered when my father was going to send you down here,’ James said.

  ‘Everyone’s talking about you upstairs.’ Will closed the bars behind him, letting the lock click. ‘You’re the centre of attention. But I suppose you’re used to that.’

  ‘I’m not Simon’s lover,’ said James.

  ‘I didn’t ask.’ Will flushed. ‘And there’s no way to know if you’re telling the truth now anyway.’

  ‘You could stick it in again.’

  Will stopped. He recalled, rather forcefully, that James had thrown the Stewards into chaos, just by talking. James might look like an angel fallen to earth, but he was Simon’s creature, and he had chosen this approach because he thought it would work on Will, specifically.

  ‘You don’t carry Simon’s brand.’ He could see the unbranded skin now that James was stripped of his jacket. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Maybe it’s just not on my wrist.’ James leaned the back of his head against the wall and gazed at Will lazily.

  ‘Why not?’ Will repeated calmly.

  James gave him a long look, amusement at the edges of his lips.

  ‘Unlace my shirt.’

  It was, undoubtedly, a challenge. Will dropped his torch into the wall sconce and came forward, slowly, James’s eyes on his. He’d been this close to James upstairs; he’d stabbed him. That curled between them. James’s breath shallowed slightly, though the languid pose didn’t change, nor did the way James regarded him. Unlace my shirt.

  It might be a ploy. Will knew that. He lifted his hands to James’s neck and began to untie the shirt, an oddly intimate thing to do, like untying another boy’s cravat.

  The fine white shirt opened, and Will pushed it back further, exposing James’s shoulders and chest. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but he couldn’t hold back the sound of shock at what he saw.

  ‘He tried. It wouldn’t take,’ said James. Will stared, unable to stop. ‘It’s one of the benefits of being the Betrayer. I heal quickly.’

  For where there should have been an open, bloody stab wound, there was only the smooth, unmarred skin of James’s chest.

  Will couldn’t help touching it, spreading his palm over the place where the stab wound had been only an hour before. The wound had healed – had vanished – it was utterly gone. There was no mark, no scar – James had nothing to show for the violence that had been done to him. Anger stirred, moving under the surface.

  ‘How many times,’ he heard himself say.

  ‘What?’

  ‘How many times did he try to brand you?’
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  He thought he saw a flicker of surprise at the question. James’s voice dripped with amusement at Will’s presumed naiveté. ‘I didn’t count.’

  ‘You said it hurt.’

  Another flicker. ‘Good memory.’

  ‘You’re more powerful than Simon. Why let him?’

  ‘Are you jealous?’ said James. ‘He liked the idea of his name on me.’

  ‘It’s not his name,’ said Will.

  He felt the exact moment when he got James’s full attention. It was like a snap, James suddenly present. Will thought, There you are. Will hadn’t lifted his hand, and James’s pulse was a slow throb under his warm skin.

  ‘Do the Stewards realise you’re clever?’ James’s voice was intimate, new and subtly approving, like he’d learned a secret. Will stayed where he was for a long moment, before stepping back to simply regard James from the opposite wall of the cell.

  ‘Does Simon realise that you are?’ said Will steadily.

  Half-stripped, James was splayed out, open shirt revealing his unmarked chest and abdomen. The lack of any stab wound was still unsettling. Will wondered how much James’s body could heal and how many times James had put it to the test. He wondered, with a curl of unease, whether the ability to heal was innate to James, or whether it was a gift bestowed on him by the Dark King, to keep his prize intact.

  ‘He knows what I can do,’ said James. ‘Or did you think he only wanted me for my pretty face?’

  ‘I think he wants you because you were the jewel in another man’s crown.’ The answer wound out of Will in the flickering light from the torch. ‘I think he has no idea of what you really are, or who he’s trying to summon. If he did, he’d never dare plunder the grave of a king.’

  He had taken James aback. Like the torchlight, the surprise darkened James’s eyes, turning them from translucent blue to black.

  ‘What are you really doing down here?’ James said.

  Simon’s Prize. James was the Betrayer, the closest thing in this world to the Dark King. He was valuable to Simon: part of his collection of old-world treasure, like the armour pieces he’d unearthed, or the deadly Corrupted Blade. Like each of those things, James was a tool, a weapon, and a danger in his own right. And he was here, alone and accessible. Will had only one question that burned inside him.