The Sleeping Prince

by Melinda Salisbury

  “That’s where she got the idea to make me poisonous. From that. From our past. She was laughing at us. At them. Make the descendant of the poisoner the sanctioned killer of traitors.”

  “Helewys was known for her cravings for tales of alchemy and lore. It was a slight, to them, to the people who wouldn’t bow to her. To openly make you a poisoner, given your ancestry. Perhaps she hoped to draw them out through you.”

  Again they fall silent. A faint rumbling in the distance reminds me that somewhere above us a battle still rages.

  “So that’s why he wants Twylla?” I ask. “Because he knows her ancestors tried to kill him? He wants revenge.”

  Amara looks at me and then turns to her daughter. “And because she could do it again,” she says. “Or I could. Our blood is still in him.”

  Twylla stares at her mother. “What are you … ?” But she doesn’t finish her sentence. Instead she begins to laugh. I turn to Amara and she shakes her head slightly, looking back at her daughter. Twylla tilts her chin toward the ceiling and laughs, the sound echoing off the bones. “I can’t escape it, can I? I have renounced two destinies. I tried to hide behind the skirts of a queen, and then I fled across a whole kingdom, and yet it still will not let me go. They’re the same thing. And I can’t run from it.”

  “Twylla …” Amara says.

  “They told me I held poison in my skin.” Twylla looks at me, her tone now dreamy, her gaze unfocused as she remembers. “They gave me a potion each moon and told me it was poison. That it made me poisonous to the touch. It was my job to kill traitors by laying my hands on them. Of course, it wasn’t me. They were poisoned before I got anywhere near them. It was your brother that proved it a lie, when he …” She stops, and her face clears. “Yet it was true all along, in a different way. Not my skin, but my blood is poison. My blood.” Her laughter dies away and silence rings in its place. “So I am to execute him, with poison,” Twylla says. “I almost wish the queen were here to see this. She, I think, would enjoy this.”

  “Not just our blood,” Amara says swiftly. “Our blood is part of it. Not all of it.”

  “What poison could work on him now?”

  I make a sound of surprise, of realization. “I think I know,” I say. “The potion Silas made—the base that all alchemists use—it’s the reversal of the one used to put Aurek to sleep. His children used what was left of the poison and broke it down. They believed if they could reverse it, they could wake him. In apothecary, like cures like, you see. In alchemy, too.” I pause, trying to put my thoughts in order. “So if we reverse the reversed potion, we’ll have the original one used to poison him.”

  “And we’ll have my blood to add,” Twylla says, her voice still distant.

  “We can poison him again,” I say. “Add new strength to the poison already in him.”

  “Can you make it?” Twylla asks, suddenly keen as a hawk.

  I try to remember what I saw. “Yes, I think so.”

  “I believe the Sisters have a plan in place to try and replicate the poison,” Amara says.

  “No.” Twylla shakes her head dismissively. “I want Errin to work with me. Not them.”

  Amara sits back, crossing her arms. I swallow. “Of course,” I say, then turn to Amara. “I might be the best choice anyway. Silas told me the alchemists are lacking in the apothecary arts. They’ve never really needed them; it would mean them learning techniques from scratch. But to me, deconstructing a potion is child’s play. I can deconstruct the Opus Magnum if I know what’s in it. I can remake the poison from it.”

  Amara gives a curt nod, and I look back at her daughter. “I’ll need Silas’s help with some of it, or any alchemists, I suppose; I can’t remember it all. But I could do it. I could deconstruct the potion and we can remake the original poison from that. Give it to him. Flood him with it. Overcome whatever effects of Aurelia’s Elixir are left.”

  Amara cuts across our excitement. “He must not get hold of any more Elixir.” She looks at me pointedly. “You’ll have to keep Silas far from him. He must never know a philtersmith still lives.”

  I wonder how she knows about Silas, and a strange cold fills my insides, making me gasp.

  “What is it?” Amara asks.

  I shake it off. “Just a chill. He’s up there fighting,” I say. “We should get him away. You two and he are too valuable. We have to get out of here. There has to be a way, a secret back door or something. Silas will know. We can head back to Scarron.” I turn to Twylla, who is already standing. “It’s far enough away to buy us some time.”

  We’ve taken no more than three steps when there is rumbling directly above us. Stones and dust trickle down from the ceiling and we stop, turning uncertainly toward Amara. On the left wall, a lone pelvis falls to the floor and shatters.

  For a long moment the three of us look at one another. Then it comes again, louder now, more dust falling, the chunks of rock larger. The chandelier shakes and we all look up at it; the rattling of the bones is deafening and there’s something hypnotic in watching them tremble.

  Then it stops, a split second of peace.

  “Run,” Amara says and we need no further instruction. We fly down the aisle toward the door as the chandelier falls from the ceiling with an earth-shattering crash.

  Shards of bone fly at us, stinging my back as I yank the door open. Without the muffling of the thick door, we can hear screams echoing, booming, rolling like wheels through every corridor in the Conclave, finally reaching us down here.

  Two alchemists round the corner, each gripping one end of a large wooden box, forcing us to flatten ourselves against the wall as they make for the ossuary. Their faces are blank with terror. I grab Twylla’s arm and we race blindly back along the warren-like passages, retracing our steps, my right hand on the right wall this time. Behind us the Sin Eater’s breath is labored, her footsteps slow and thudding, and I feel a stab of concern.

  When we reach a wide, brightly lit passage that I hope is the same one we walked down earlier, I start to throw curtains aside, hoping to find people, or weapons, or a way out. The grating echo continues, like underground thunder. It seems to follow us, and I’m flooded with the conviction that the ceiling really is going to come down and kill us.

  A figure appears ahead of us. “This way!” it beckons and we run toward it, to find ourselves back in the Great Hall. Nia and Sister Hope stand beside the table, both armed with short swords. Another woman, white-haired and fierce, is swinging a mace.

  “You have to go,” Sister Hope says, herding us toward the curtain at the other end. “Silas is on his way back; he’ll go with you.”

  When the curtain is thrown back, both Sister Hope and I move toward it, but it’s Amara who stumbles in. Her face is bright red with exertion, her hand pressing into her side.

  Twylla turns her back on her. “What’s happening?” she asks Nia.

  “They’re inside. We’ve sent all the children and the elderly out through a secret passage; everyone else has gone to fight.”

  “Is he here?” She doesn’t need to name him.

  Nia nods and my blood runs cold. “With his golems. And his son. He’s here to conquer, like in Lortune.”

  “Gods …” Twylla says and my stomach clenches. “We need weapons.”

  “You need to leave!” Sister Hope commands. “Nia, take the girls and get them out.”

  “I want to fight,” Nia protests. “This is my home!”

  “It might end up being your grave,” Amara pants, her hand now clutching Nia’s arm. “Get my daughter and Errin out. And the boy if he arrives in time.”

  “But—”

  “There’s no time to argue—” She’s cut off by a huge chunk of stone crashing to the ground three feet from where we stand.

  A piercing scream, loud enough to penetrate the curtain, rings out from beyond the hall, and we spin to face it. A second later Silas runs in, his face pale, a dark stain on his tunic.

  “Silas,” I cry, runni
ng to him, relieved when I see it’s not his blood.

  “They’re almost here,” he tells his mother, then looks down at me, one arm reaching around my waist even as he says, “You have to go.”

  “You need to come, too,” I say. “If he captures you, if he sees your hand …”

  “She’s right,” Sister Hope orders, clasping him on his sword arm. “And you, Amara, go. Out of the snake passage.”

  “I won’t make it,” Amara says. “Leave me.”

  “Amara, you can’t—”

  “I said leave me,” she demands. Her face is crumpling, her breath sharp. Silas and his mother exchange a loaded look. “Twylla, you know everything now. I’ve told you all of it. What you do next is up to you. It always has been.” Amara’s eyes bore into her daughter’s.

  There are more screams and shouts from outside, the sound of footsteps, of metal ringing, but none of us move, all of us locked in this moment.

  “I did love you,” Amara says. “I tried.”

  Twylla’s face is blank as she looks at her mother.

  Then the curtain is pulled down, and two men dressed in black tabards and clutching bloodstained swords lurch into the room.

  “Go!” Amara bellows, and the spell breaks. Silas dives in front of us with his sword extended, and I scrabble for my knife, realizing too late I don’t have it, that I lost it in Tremayne.

  I start to back away, pushing Twylla behind me. Silas is in front of us, sword ready. The alchemist swings her mace, whirling it into the skull of one of the men, killing him instantly. Sister Hope lunges at his comrade and the two begin to fight. I stand mesmerized, watching Silas’s mother wielding a sword better than any man, the steel a blur, her robes flaring out behind her as she turns and parries and lunges. When she cuts the man down with a single sweep, Silas turns to me and smiles proudly.

  “Go!” Sister Hope roars, as more men pour into the room. She raises her sword again and charges toward them.

  We turn from the fight; my hands reach for both Silas’s and Twylla’s. Then the curtain promising our escape route opens and a man enters, dressed head to toe in gleaming armor. We stop and Silas pulls both Twylla and me behind him, shielding us from the Silver Knight. He draws his sword and swings it in an arrogant, easy loop, and I hear Twylla breathe, “No.”

  Silas tenses. “When I start to fight, run,” he murmurs.

  “No—”

  “I’ll be right behind you.”

  “Si—” But I don’t get to finish, because the Silver Knight lunges and Silas has to raise his sword to keep from being cut down. The sound of steel against steel is deafening as it echoes off the rocks, and to the left a cluster of stalactites falls, barely missing the alchemist as she swings her mace.

  I grab Twylla’s hand, but before we can get to the door, the Silver Knight realizes what I’m doing and moves to block us. Behind us Sister Hope, Nia, and her wife are holding their own against the other men, forcing them to bottleneck in the doorway while they lash out.

  I drop Twylla’s hand and run to the table, grabbing at one of the benches. Twylla looks at me as though I’m mad, and screams something, but I can’t hear her over the noise. I push the bench across the floor with all my might. It plows into the Silver Knight’s legs, sending him stumbling away from the door. At the same time, Silas crows in triumph as his sword makes contact with an open joint on the knight’s sword arm. “Now!” I hear him shout and I seize Twylla’s hand again, jerking to a halt when a golem reels into the room, clay hands reaching out blindly. It’s smaller than the one that broke me, but still as bone chilling with its blank face. My back gives a twinge and I’m frozen to the spot.

  Then, from behind it, another figure enters.

  Dressed in gold armor, pulling a golden helmet shaped like a dragon from his head, white hair spilling down his back, a grin carved across his bloodless face.

  The Sleeping Prince.

  He tilts his head, in that uncanny way the alchemists seem to all have. “We’ve met,” he says, his eyes fixed on me, in the voice I recognize from my dreams. He moves his gaze to Twylla. “The Sin Eater’s daughter?” He nods to himself before he continues his survey of us, eyebrows rising when they reach Amara. “And the Sin Eater? How neat.” He smiles, a long, lazy smile that spreads across his whole face. Then he lunges forward, only to be driven back by Silas.

  “Run!” Silas bellows.

  I push Twylla past him and the golem swings a massive arm at Silas. We immediately run into one of the black-clad men, leaning over a body. I can’t tell if it is male or female; all I can see is dark blood soaking into once-white hair. The man looks up and smiles horribly, raising his sword, and I pull Twylla away from the scene.

  The man runs at us and my arm snaps out, yanking a torch from its bracket on the wall and smashing it into his face. His scream is awful as he collapses to the ground, clutching his head. The stink of charred flesh fills the cavern. Still clutching the torch, I reach for Twylla’s hand and begin to run, away from the Great Hall, and the burned man, and the Sleeping Prince.

  I don’t look back. As our feet pound the stone floor, I try to keep track of left and right, throwing open curtains to see if I recognize anything. The air starts to feel cooler, telling me we’re deeper now, but that’s no good; we need to get close to the surface to have any chance of escape.

  “Stop,” Twylla says, her breath coming in pants, too loud in the ringing silence of the tunnels. “We’re not going to find the way out without help; there are miles of tunnels down here. We’ll end up hopelessly lost.”

  “Better that than caught,” I say.

  She opens her mouth to argue but then we hear it. Footsteps, heavy ones, the clinking of metal. Of armor plates. Coming toward us. I feel the blood drain from my face. But this time she’s taking my wrist and pulling me. When I see the door I understand the mistake we’ve made, trapping ourselves in the heart of the Conclave, but the footsteps still echo toward us.

  “We have to hide,” she whispers urgently. “We have to.”

  Realizing she is right, I follow her into the temple.

  The grandeur from before has been replaced with a scene from a nightmare. With the chandelier fallen, the room is dim, lit by the torches on the wall. The floor is littered with a hundred shattered skulls; eye sockets stare emptily up at us, and broken jaws and teeth cover the battered pews. I look up at the ceiling, where bones now hang freely, and I wonder what the Sleeping Prince was doing above us to bring the ceiling down.

  We clamber over the dead to get to the altar, slipping on treacherously sharp shards of bone and slivers of wood, dust clouds swirling under our boots as they crush the bones beneath them. My heart beats frantically; I feel sick with anticipation and dread.

  “Where will we hide?”

  “I don’t know.” She looks around wildly. “There must be something. Some cave or shelf in the rock.” She begins to peer behind the screens and I do the same, shifting ribs aside with my feet as quietly as I’m able.

  When I hear her gasp I think we’re saved, that she’s found a way out for us. But she’s not looking behind the screens; she’s staring down the aisle.

  My brother stands inside the doorway, clad head to toe in silver armor, staring back at her. A helmet is tucked under one arm; the other, his right, hangs limply, the armor splattered with blood.

  The Bringer isn’t the Silver Knight. Lief is.

  His eyes are fixed on her as he walks down the aisle, seeming not to notice the bones beneath his feet. There’s something eerily matrimonial about it: her standing in a torn and dusty dress before the altar as he makes his way toward her through a river of bones.

  He’s alive.

  I was right, I think wildly, he’s alive. I knew he wouldn’t lie down and die. But my joy fades as soon as it rises. Because he’s here with the Sleeping Prince. Working for him—with him. My own brother. This is why he didn’t come home.

  I watch him, half hoping he’s not real, that I’m hall
ucinating. His lips have widened into a smile that is nothing like the one I remember. Though his mouth stretches and curves, it’s closer to grimace than grin. “Hello, Twylla,” he says, stopping a few feet from her and putting his helmet down on a pew.

  “Hello, Lief,” she replies, returning his smile.

  His entire face lights up, and it’s painful to look at him. His feelings shine as brightly as his armor, and I know in that moment that he did love her, he still does, no matter what she believes. I turn to her and see an identical expression of yearning on her face. I might as well not exist. There is only those two.

  I think he must be under a spell, that’s what this is, why he didn’t come back or write. He couldn’t. The Sleeping Prince put him under a spell, and now Twylla will break it. Like in the stories, one kiss and he’ll be freed, and the three of us can go, get Silas, and find a way to defeat the Sleeping Prince.

  Then I realize Lief is here, and Silas is not. Lief was fighting Silas. He must have beaten Silas to be here …

  I reach for a pew, my mouth falling open in a silent scream.

  I look at Twylla. All the love and longing on her face is gone. “You’ve done it again, haven’t you?” she says.

  “I can explain.”

  “Are we really going to have this conversation again?” she snarls, and both Lief and I flinch away from her. “You can’t help being a traitor, can you? How can you be related to Errin? She risks her life for the people she loves. You’ve betrayed everyone who’s ever shown you kindness, time and again, for your own gain.”

  “I don’t expect you to understand.”

  She shakes her head and looks down at his sword. “Is that Merek’s?” When he doesn’t reply, she laughs bitterly. “Of course it is. If it’s Merek’s, you have to have it, don’t you. His home, his sword, his bride …”

  “I don’t remember you being unwilling,” Lief says coldly and Twylla sucks in a long breath. “I didn’t know he was going to kill Merek,” he continues, obviously at pains to keep his voice even, and my heart twists sharply. My brother was there when the king was killed. He’s been there since the beginning. “I thought he was going to take him prisoner. I never meant him any real harm.”