Piper Prince

by Amber Argyle

  What if they went through all of this and never found Eiryss’s journal or her ahlea amulet? Or worse still, what if they found them and they revealed nothing? Larkin couldn’t bear to be wrong—not after everything she’d risked.

  “Don’t get caught,” Larkin said breathlessly as she adjusted the smock, pulled out the stuffing around her belly, and hauled the bag of torches over her shoulder. “And don’t die.”

  Tam saluted and left.

  Iniya handed Larkin her cane. “You go first. Catch me if I fall.”

  More likely they’d both tumble to their deaths. “Are you sure you can manage it?”

  Iniya gave a hard shake of her head. “You’ll never find it without me.” She dropped the torch, the fire nearly going out before it landed about a story down.

  Larkin shot a dubious look at the ladder—how many decades had this sat in the damp dark? At least it appeared sturdily made. Steeling herself, she swung out and started down.

  “Stay in the lavatory,” Iniya said to Raeneth. “Make plenty of unsavory noises if someone comes in.”

  Iniya swung out over Larkin and shut the panel door, plunging them into shadow. Down, down, down Larkin went. She kept her gaze on the smoldering torch until she stepped into the center of a room about the size of her hut in Hamel. Dust-caked shelves filled with rotted food and casks of wine dominated one side. A sunken, moldering bed the other. In the ceiling were a dozen other openings, though the one they’d come down was the only one with a ladder. The air was heavy, sitting deep in Larkin’s lungs. Aside from the greasy scent of the torch, the room smelled of rotting wood and mold.

  “What is this place?” Larkin asked.

  “Father made me practice reaching his bolt hole a dozen times a week,” she panted. “Many rooms in the palace have secret doors that lead here.”

  “And Fenwick doesn’t know?”

  Iniya took her cane from Larkin. “That’s what comes of stealing a palace that isn’t yours—you don’t know where the secret passages are.”

  So why hadn’t Iniya and her family hid themselves here? Larkin wanted to ask, but the worlds felt sticky and impossible in her mouth.

  Iniya gestured to one of the side walls made of gray brick. “Put your shoulder into it.”

  It looked like a solid wall to Larkin. But then, so had the paneling. Bracing her feet, she pushed. Nothing happened.

  “Push harder, girl!”

  Bracing her feet, Larkin pushed with all her strength. The wall gave with an unholy shriek. She admired the central pivot and the masonry on the sides that cleverly disguised the opening. She took the torch and eased into a cavern filled with rows upon rows of sarcophagi, each with the likeness of the inhabitant at the peak of youth carved across the top. Three centuries of Eiryss’s offspring. Larkin’s ancestors.

  Larkin brushed cobwebs out of the way. A thick layer of dust coated the tombs, easily as thick as her finger. Behind her was a solid wooden door, the hinges rusted.

  No one had been down here in a very, very long time.

  “No one to care for our ancestors.” Iniya’s voice trembled. She wiped the dirt off the face of a man and woman. “When my time comes, I should have a place beside my parents, my siblings.” Three child-sized sarcophagi and three adult-sized ones lay beside their parents. Seven children. Only one had survived.

  Iniya sniffed. “Fenwick won’t let me. He won’t risk elevating my family by burying me here.” The old woman shifted among the tombs, dusty cobwebs coating her smock—so that’s why they’d brought them. “At each equinox, our people would bring candles, until the whole cavern shone like stars.”

  Iniya paused before the tomb farthest back. Larkin wiped through decades of dust, exposing white marble. Carved into the lid was the likeness of the woman Larkin had seen in her vision, right down to her flowing hair and weak chin.

  “This is her,” she breathed.

  “Eiryss,” Iniya agreed. “The first queen of the United Cities of the Idelmarch.”

  Larkin scraped away the dust at the woman’s neck. Sure enough, she wore an amulet carved in the shape the ahlea flower. At some point, Pennice had found her way to this chamber, had seen these tombs.

  Larkin flared her sword, which had cut through vines without so much as shifting them. Two-handed, she lifted it over her head.

  “What are you doing?” Iniya cried.

  Larkin swung down at the top of the tomb, just above the carving’s head. Her eyes slipped shut at the last moment. The sword sliced through the marble as though it were a thick loaf of bread. The top of the tomb was cut nearly all the way through.

  Iniya grabbed her arm—she was stronger than she looked. “This place is sacred!”

  Larkin gripped the front of the woman’s smock in her filthy hands. “You want the pipers’ support? This is the price. I didn’t come here to pay respects to the dead. I came to take something.”

  Betrayal shone in the older woman’s eyes. “Don’t ever love anyone, Larkin. Don’t ever trust them. They will only ever hurt you.”

  As Larkin had just hurt her. Larkin released her as if the old woman’s touch had burned her. “Eiryss left it for me to find. I don’t dishonor her by taking it.”

  “Left what?” Iniya asked.

  Instead of answering, Larkin swung again. The top teetered. She shoved it, shattered stone grinding as it fell with a crash and an explosion of dust.

  Larkin knelt and peered inside. It was so dark. She carefully edged in her gleaming sword. No rotted cloth. No grinning skeleton. And certainly no ahlea amulet.

  “Empty,” Larkin gasped. It couldn’t be. She jerked the torch out of Iniya’s grasp and thrust it into the echoing space. “How can it be empty?”

  The only answer was Iniya’s click, click, clicking steps.

  Larkin hurried to catch up to her. “There has to be some mistake. That can’t be Eiryss’s tomb.” But Larkin had seen Eiryss’s carved face with her own eyes. “If Eiryss isn’t here, where is she?”

  Iniya slipped into the chamber. “Close the door.”

  Larkin froze in place. “No. No, I cannot fail. I cannot return empty-handed—not after everything.”

  “Whatever it is you were after, you don’t need it.” Iniya finally deigned to look at her. “All my life, I have lived for only one purpose: to destroy the druids. And I will do it, I swear upon my life and the lives of all my posterity.”

  Larkin huffed. “You don’t have the right to swear anything on my life, old woman.”

  “Larkin, Iniya, hurry,” Raeneth hissed from above.

  Iniya struggled up the rungs. The sound of knocking echoed down the tunnel. “I must insist you let us in,” came a muffled voice.

  “Just a moment, sir,” Raeneth said calmly. “The lady is not quite dressed.”

  “You’ve been saying that for five minutes,” someone grumbled. “I’ve brought the healer. Now let us in.”

  Five rungs down from the top, Larkin shoved her shoulder into Iniya’s rump and pushed. Raeneth reached down and hooked her arms under Iniya’s. Between the two of them, they managed to heave her out of the passageway. Larkin slithered out and pushed the panel door shut with her foot.

  Raeneth hauled off Iniya’s smock and tossed it into the fire. Larkin couldn’t believe they were wasting valuable cloth, but better to waste it than get caught and have to explain what they were doing with it. She tossed hers in on top of Iniya’s, washed her face and hands in a bucket, and ran her damp hands over her dusty hair.

  “How is it?” Larkin asked Raeneth.

  She looked up from where she ran a damp cloth over Iniya’s hair. “You missed some cobwebs in the back.”

  “Open the door,” someone demanded from outside.

  “Leave me in peace,” Iniya panted loudly. Her face was pale and shiny with sweat.

  Raeneth gathered the cobwebs from Larkin’s hair. Together, they dumped the water down the lavatory hole. They hurried back to the room, and Raeneth gasped, “Larkin, your bel
ly!”

  Larkin swore and shoved the pillow up the front of her dress. No sooner was it in place than the key turned in the lock and Fenwick burst in with two druids and a man in healer robes.

  The healer went to Iniya’s side and knelt before her as she moaned. Raeneth immediately picked up her baby and backed into a corner.

  Larkin squared off before Fenwick, her magic an itch she dared not scratch. “Since we are clearly not welcome to rest in the palace, I insist you help us take Iniya home.”

  “She does indeed appear unwell,” the healer said.

  “Pick her up,” Fenwick said. “And see she’s taken home.” One of the druids lifted her.

  “Take your filthy hands off me,” Iniya panted.

  Harben stepped into the room. “I’ll take her.”

  Fenwick’s narrowed gaze shifted to Larkin. “Where’s your other friend?

  So they hadn’t found Tam. “He went to fetch our carriage.”

  Fenwick watched her, clearly not believing a word she said. “Have you ever seen the druids dispense justice?”

  Was he inviting her to the executions or threatening her? Probably both.

  Iniya gripped Larkin’s arm, her nails digging in. “I need my granddaughter with me.”

  Fenwick followed them into the corridor and watched as they left, a heavy foreboding in his dark gaze.

  Larkin couldn’t shake the feeling something was wrong. That feeling was reinforced when she stepped out of the palace a step behind Harben holding Iniya and Raeneth holding Kyden.

  The square was packed to overflowing. Older children packed the trees; younger ones sat atop someone’s shoulders. The air smelled of roasted nuts—druids handed it out in greasy bags. Crushed white shells littered the ground beneath their feet. The crowd jeered and elbowed and jostled. And along the wall to Larkin’s right stood a long line of men and even a pair of women in chains—all waiting to die before a crowd that chanted for their blood.

  Larkin had experienced this frenzied excitement before—the day her own town had turned against her and called for her death by hanging or drowning or fire. Cold sweat broke out on her brow, and she found she could not move, could barely breath.

  The world swayed, details lost to the nothingness rushing at her from below. A hand closed on her arm. Tam’s face appeared before her. The others waited at the bottom of the steps. Raeneth held her baby tight—maybe she wasn’t such a bad mother after all. Iniya lay in Harben’s arms, glaring at Larkin.

  Tam shook her. “The carriage can’t get through. Stay right behind me.”

  Gone was the trickster, the jolliness. His elfin face had shifted to all hard angles and a severe expression. He felt it too.

  Something was wrong.

  “Do you hear me, Larkin? Stay right behind me.”

  She nodded faintly. He placed her hand on his back. “Hold on to my shirt. Don’t let go.”

  Fisting the fabric in her hand, she followed as he hustled down the steps, the others falling into step behind them. They plunged into the crowd, which had managed to break the invisible barrier between druid and Idelmarchian, spilling onto the white gravel. Tam elbowed and shoved and glared. Out of nowhere, a fist connected with his face. Tam’s head popped back.

  The Idelmarchians did not love the druids. They feared them. But right now, they feared nothing. This was why the druids handed out roasted nuts to appease the crowd and stood atop the battlements for safety. They knew this crowd was one step away from becoming a mob.

  “Keep moving.” Tam’s teeth were bloody, a stream dribbled from his chin. He barely seemed to notice.

  Larkin glanced back to make sure Raeneth and Harben were behind her. They weren’t. She was suddenly shoved hard from the side, losing her grip on Tam. She staggered and would have fallen had the press of bodies not kept her upright. That same press formed a current that left her unable to get her feet under her.

  She fought to keep upright, to regain her balance, to find Tam, when she fetched up against a hard chest. The handsome guard from the front door—Blue Eyes—wrapped her up in a tight embrace.

  He smiled, showing too many teeth. “The Hero of Hamel and the whore of Garrot.”

  She shoved, but he only tightened his grip. One hand reached around, cupping her bottom and pulling her up and into him so the fake belly pressed hard against him.

  “Not even his child, as he’s been gone less than a couple of months.” He backed up, dragging her with him toward the stables. “Come on now, what’s one more tumble in the hay when you’ve already—”

  Larkin’s magic flared. But she could not use it—not here. She gripped his shoulders to steady herself and thrust her knee into his crotch. He grunted and hunched forward. She grabbed his ears, jerked down, and drove her knee into his nose.

  She felt a wet crunch, blood sliding down her shin. But she was already gone, instinctively shifting to a less crowded area. The crowd spat her out. She landed in rotten potatoes, the smell and slime making her gag. For a moment, she lay, breathing in the rot and the horror because she could not make herself move.

  “Larkin?” said a male voice.

  Not Nesha. Someone had called her by her real name. Her head jerked up. Before her was the long wall where the prisoners were chained. They were covered in rot, the filth and bleakness they wore making them nearly indistinguishable from one another. People clustered around the condemned, weeping and pleading.

  One prisoner staggered toward her and collapsed. She recoiled. Until his eyes locked with hers—a dark brown ring surrounding amber. His face was even paler than normal, his black hair greasy and lank. He was thinner too, the hollows of his cheeks carved against his proud face.

  “Bane?” she gasped.

  His hands came down on her shoulder. “I knew you would come for me. I knew it.”

  Come for him? All at once she understood. The chains at his wrists and feet—Bane would hang … today. Hang for killing druids to save her life. He thought she was here to save him.

  Guilt was a burning ember in her chest. A thousand memories roared through her, but two floated to the surface and mingled into one. She was in the river again. Cold water slid through her clothes and hair, down past her throat and into her lungs. A druid stood over her. His ax swung toward her head.

  Bane was suddenly there, killing the druid and pulling her from the river and shoving her toward Denan. “I’ll hold them off as long as I can.” Alone, he’d faced the druids bearing down on them as Denan had hauled her into his arms and run.

  Bane’s hands tightened on her shoulders. The hope in his eyes nearly killed her. He expected an army—or at least a plan. She hadn’t even known he was here.

  She hadn’t known.

  “You can’t, Larkin.” Bane shuttered his hope away, killed it with one hard blink. “It’s a trap. You have to run.”

  Her mind clawed its way out of despair long enough to register his words. “A trap?”

  “They’re waiting for you to try to free me. You have to go.”

  She reached for his cuffs, her sigils buzzing beneath her gloves. She could easily cut him free. Just a tiny bit of magic. A sliver instead of a sword. No one would see. She could melt into the crowd one way, he another.

  Bane gripped her hand above her sigil, which prevented it from forming. “Don’t.”

  “Bane—”

  “The druids are watching, waiting for someone to try to rescue me. We’re surrounded. There’s nowhere for me to go.”

  “But—”

  “Garrot will find you.”

  She froze. Garrot was here? Then the trap wasn’t meant for just anyone. It was meant for her. And Garrot wouldn’t be fooled by dyed hair and a fancy dress.

  Denan had told her she would have to learn a balance between loyalty and self-preservation. Even with an army, she couldn’t save Bane—not in time. She could only die with him, and she could not do that to Denan.

  Bane must have seen this in her eyes, for what little remnants
of his hope snuffed out like a light guttered. He closed his eyes, jaw clenched as if he couldn’t bear it. “Don’t watch me die.”

  She pressed a kiss salted with her tears to his cheek. “I love you.” Not in the way she loved Denan. But she loved him still.

  She backed away from him. His hands held the shape of hers before slowly falling away. Ancestors, she was leaving him to die. Choking on a sob, she turned back to the crowd, pushing and shoving her way toward the gate.

  She hadn’t gone half a dozen steps before two men blocked her path, their gazes fixed on her like a hunter sighting its prey. She turned to the right. Two more blocked her. She turned to the left. Two more—Blue Eyes and Sour Face.

  The push in the crowd, Blue Eyes grabbing her—none of it had been an accident. They had been separating her from the others, herding her. They had wanted her to find Bane.

  Not they. He. Garrot.

  Her magic burned hot, but she did not draw it. Not until she had to. “What do you want?”

  Six of them converged on her. From behind her, Bane swore. The crowd scattered from the druids as if repelled. A few at a safe distance called for her death.

  She tensed, waiting. And then Garrot pushed between a pair of druids. “Hello, Larkin.”

  He didn’t look surprised. Almost like he’d known she was here all along. Of course he had. The druids had known her identity from the start. Bane was right; it was a trap. And she’d walked right into it, just not for the reason the druids had suspected.

  Fear burst inside her, coating her tongue so thick she couldn’t swallow. She flared her sigils and dropped into a fighting stance behind her shield. The crowd gasped at the sight of her magical weapons. People murmured—some in confusion, some in fear, some in awe. This was not the spectacle they’d come for, and they clearly hadn’t decided which side to land on—hers or the druids.

  Garrot and his men advanced on her. Wanting the wall at her back, she retreated, past the line of rotten potatoes, until she stood shoulder to shoulder with Bane. She spread her shield in front of him as well. Desperate for escape, she risked a glance up, up, up the high curtain wall. Druids silhouetted black against the bright blue of the sky, all of them watching her.