Piper Prince

by Amber Argyle

  “I will stand in the way of that,” Magalia said.

  The two glared at each other, the tension so thick Larkin could taste it. She longed to wipe away a drop of sweat running down her temple but dared not move.

  “You think you control the wraiths?” Larkin said. “The wraiths only want one thing—the utter destruction of mankind. They will turn on you and rend you to pieces. And they will not stop. Ever.”

  Garrot studied her a long moment before dismounting. He slowly made his way toward them until he was close enough to hold his hand out to Magalia. “Come with me. Come with me—prove you can—and I will call off my armies.”

  Magalia hesitated, turned back questioningly to Larkin.

  It could be a trick—a way to whisk Magalia away from harm before he ordered his army to attack. Only Larkin didn’t think they would obey him even if he ordered it. “Any woman who wishes may return with you, Garrot, but you will take none by force.”

  “How do we know you are not under enchantment?” someone cried from within the druids’ ranks.

  Larkin signaled for the women to release their sigils. “Ask them for yourselves.”

  The magic slipped back into the copperbills, though it remained ready to be recalled at a moment’s notice.

  Garrot ground his teeth. “It’s a trap,” he murmured. He turned back to his men, his body tensed to shout.

  Magalia grabbed his hand, his shoulders, took his face between her palms. “Look at me. See me. The only trap there has ever been has been from the wraiths.”

  Garrot softened. Larkin saw it then. The love he had for Magalia. The love that had caused him to risk the Forbidden Forest, as Larkin had for her sister. Only unlike Larkin, Garrot had returned empty-handed, save for his brother’s tooth and an unholy bargain with the wraiths.

  “I should have waited,” he choked. “I should have waited for you, Magalia, but I’ve fallen in love with another. She’s having a child and … and it’s too late for us. But it’s not too late to save you.” He wrapped his arms around Magalia.

  Larkin flared her sword, but she couldn’t attack him without risking Magalia. Garrot dragged her back as she struggled and cursed him. Larkin followed half a dozen steps before she paused, not daring to draw any closer to the Idelmarchians.

  “Attack!” Garrot shouted.

  A handful of men charged, but then paused when they realized the other men weren’t following.

  “You want us to kill our own daughters?” A man hauled himself up a tree. Kenjin, Alorica’s father. He’d dragged her from her home to face the crucible in Hamel. “We came here to free them.”

  Garrot’s head whipped from side to side in disbelief. “They made themselves our enemies when they turned against us!”

  Kenjin’s gaze narrowed. “It sounds like you’re the one who turned against us.”

  “The girl,” a thousand mulgar voices thundered in unison—perhaps the first time Larkin had heard them make a sound.

  Every mulgar turned, their gazes locking on Larkin. Idelmarchians warily backed a pace or two away from the mulgar units they’d been fighting beside moments before.

  “Bring me the girl. Kill the rest,” the mulgars said.

  As one, the mulgar turned on the Idelmarchians. Shocked, the Idelmarchians fell back, rallied, and braced against the attack. Their organized rows and ranks turned into a melee.

  Of all those mulgars, the dozen nearest arrowed for Larkin. And at their head … At their head was what was left of Talox.

  Magalia screamed. Garrot thrust her behind him. But Talox paid them no mind as he shot past them, aiming for Larkin.

  Oh, Talox. Oh, my dear friend. She’d promised him if she ever faced him, she’d end his existence. But Denan’s words echoed in her head, “You’re not ready to face an ardent yet. Run.”

  Heart twisting in her throat, Larkin sprinted for the safety of her line as Talox bore down on her. It’s not Talox. It’s the monster that killed him.

  Two steps before she reached safety, Talox tackled her from behind. She hit hard. Her lungs froze with the shock of it.

  “Larkin!” Alorica took a step toward her, only to be driven back by one of the mulgars with Talox. The line buckled under the furious assault. Pipers rushed up from behind to assist. Talox cinched a rope around Larkin’s hands and hauled her toward a knot of mulgars.

  “I have her, Master,” he said, his voice hollow.

  Larkin threw her head into his chin so hard she saw stars. She kicked her heel down his shin and stomped on his foot. Pipers and Idelmarchians fought the mulgars, slaughtering them. Larkin thought she heard Denan’s voice.

  “Here, Master,” Talox said. “I am here.”

  With a roar, Garrot barreled into Talox, knocking them both to the ground. Larkin rolled free and ended up in a bush, jammed against a tree. She coughed, her ribs singing with pain. She crawled out and came face-to-face with Garrot.

  She yelped and jerked back.

  He grabbed her hands, knife sawing through her bonds. “I still think you’re a traitor, but I promised Magalia I’d save you.”

  “Nesha?” Larkin asked.

  “Fine, no thanks to you.”

  So he’d bought their lie, then. Good. No time to feel relief. Garrot grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet. All around them, mulgars fought Idelmarchians. A thick knot of mulgars shot down the hill toward them.

  “Larkin! Larkin, this way.” Maisy motioned to them from the heart of a thicket.

  “Maisy?” Where had she come from?

  Larkin looked behind her, at the mulgars bearing down on them.

  “Hurry!” Maisy disappeared in the thicket.

  Larkin started after her.

  “You want to follow a madwoman?” Garrot cried.

  That made her decision. “Stay behind, then.” Larkin pushed through brambles.

  Grumbling, Garrot followed her.

  Two dozen steps and innumerable scratches later, Larkin stumbled from the thicket into a clutch of dozens and dozens of mulgars. She flared her weapons, but none moved to attack.

  Maisy stood among them, her expression lost. “I tried to warn you. So many times, I tried to warn you, but you never listened.”

  A pit yawned open inside Larkin. She turned to run back into the brambles, but Talox hacked into view. She and Garrot were surrounded. But still the mulgars made no move to attack.

  She glanced up the hill to her left, where the pipers and copperbills fought side by side with the Idelmarchians—too far away to hear her scream for help over the din. Maisy had lured them here, far from where Denan could help.

  “Oh, Maisy, what have you done?” Larkin said.

  Maisy sang.

  The beast comes. The beast takes.

  That which he takes, he breaks.

  That which he breaks, he remakes,

  And then a beast like him awakes.

  The song. Maisy had been trying to warn her all along. But Maisy wasn’t a mulgar. Nor was she a wraith. “What are you?”

  “One of their daughters,” Maisy said.

  Like Larkin was.

  And then Larkin smelled it. The mineral rot of the grave.

  Garrot’s head came up. “Wraiths.”

  Before them, the Wraith King appeared.

  Larkin swallowed hard against the sickness rising in her gut. The mulgars took a single step forward. And then another. She and Garrot were forced back to back. Ramass held out his hand for them to halt. All that stood between her and three-hundred-year-old evil was her sword and shield.

  Talox’s words echoed through her. “You don’t defeat a wraith—not alone.”

  Three hundred years to her scattered few lessons. It was not enough. It would have to be.

  “Is it me you want?” she mocked. “You sack of bones bound by shadow?” Fighting wasn’t the only thing Tam had taught her. He’d also taught her how to defeat her fear.

  Ramass finished forming, his gaze shifting to Garrot, who went suddenly still.
“I gave you everything, Master Druid. Power. Knowledge. Magic. And still you broke our bargain.” He closed his fist.

  Garrot choked and clawed at his chest, at the poison spreading toward his mind. “No! No!” He collapsed, writhing.

  Larkin hated Garrot. Loathed him. And yet her sister loved him. Larkin hated her sister, but she loved her too.

  Gah!

  Larkin charged, if for no other reason than to silence her tangled thoughts. The wraith swung at her. She blocked with her shield, the impact sung all the way down her bones. She gritted her teeth and held steady.

  “Don’t let his blade touch you,” Tam had said.

  Both hands braced behind her shield, she danced back. Ramass swung his sword, the shadow-wreathed blade aiming for her exposed legs. She shoved her shield down and deflected the blow. But not before a second blade appeared in the wraith’s other hand and thrust toward her face.

  She jerked back, the blade slicing through her thick hair, a hank slithering down her shoulder.

  Ramass could have taken off her head. He’d pulled back. He wasn’t trying to kill her. He was trying to wound or capture her. A little less afraid, she swung from the left. He deflected. Her sword skittered off his darkened blade and glanced off his arm, shadows pouring forth. She kicked his chest. He fell back, one hand over his injured arm.

  She rolled to the side and killed three mulgars at once with her magic sword. Her blade stopped just short of Talox, who looked at her with hollow emptiness.

  She pulsed. The wave knocked him down, along with mulgars a dozen deep, and stunned a dozen more. She sprinted past Talox’s prone body, rushing up the hill where a pocket of Idelmarchians slaughtered the sluggish mulgars left and right.

  She concentrated on her sigils. Her magic had grown much stronger, but that had been her third pulse of the battle. The buzzing in her sigils had lessened. If she pulsed again, she would lose her ability to form her sword and shield.

  “Larkin!” Her head came up at the sound of Denan’s voice. He’d caught sight of her at some point and fought his way toward her.

  Half a step behind him, Tam stopped and sighted down his bow. “Down!”

  She dropped flat. He loosed. But then the shadows surrounded her, like the wraith had stopped suddenly but his robes had not.

  Ramass flipped her onto her back and straddled her, pinning her arms at her sides. Ancient hate and malice and barbed thorns coiled around her, hauling her back into nothingness.

  It was different this time. For the hatred and malice was not all Ramass’s. Some of it was hers—malice born of pain and betrayal and loss.

  Larkin’s malice mixed with the wraith’s. Dark, twisted joy writhed within her.

  No. She would not be taken by the shadows without or the malice within.

  She pulsed her magic. All of it. A shield of light thrummed out of her. The shadows screamed and writhed. She fell upward and out, landing in a jumble of bones and senses seared raw. She choked in a breath and reached for her magic but only found a thread that dissipated in her fingers.

  She darted to her feet but froze at the sight of Ramass’s sword wavering before her face. He lunged. She crossed her arms before her defensively. Instead of taking off her head, the sword sliced her forearm. She froze in shock, waiting for the pain and the poisonous shadows to infect her.

  They didn’t come.

  She risked taking her eyes off the wraith to glance at the wound. Clean, red blood sheeted from her bent elbow, but there were no black lines.

  “Blood of my heart, marrow my bones,” the wraith whispered. “You are the one we’ve been searching for all these years.”

  “She’s too strong now to force her through the shadow.” Hagath appeared behind Larkin, her shadowed sword trailing along the ground, killing everything it touched. “She must accept it willingly.”

  They flanked her. Larkin wasn’t sure which wraith to keep her eyes on. “I will never come with you!”

  “All mortals have a price, my king.” Hagath’s gaze shifted to something behind Larkin.

  Hagath moved toward her. Larkin tensed—she couldn’t outrun her, and her magic was too weak to fight—but Hagath slipped past her. So, too, did Ramass and every last mulgar.

  Only Maisy remained behind, her arms wrapped around her as she rocked back and forth. “Can you hear him? The beast is coming for you.”

  Gasping, Larkin whirled as they charged up the hill toward Denan and Tam.

  Denan.

  No.

  Not him.

  Never him.

  She opened her sigils wide, but her magic was a ribbon of useless light—not enough to forge her sword. She searched the dead and found an ax and shield, which she hauled from the hands of an Alamantian. She charged uphill toward where the wraiths fought against Tam and Denan.

  Shadows pulsed, knocking them both down.

  The wraiths had pulsed. Ancestors, none of them had even known that was possible.

  The wraiths paused over Denan and Tam, their swords poised.

  “No,” she screamed. “No!”

  Behind the men, Alorica took Tam’s discarded bow and drew back. The sacred arrow flew through Hagath’s center and out her back, shadows trailing like a dark comet. Even as Hagath dissipated, she thrust.

  Ramass thrust.

  Half a dozen steps back, Larkin could see the blood bloom across Denan’s side—blood that was already turning black. A mulgar grabbed Alorica. Another held a sword to Tam’s throat.

  Larkin dropped to Denan’s side, half sobbing, her stolen weapons slipping from her hands as Ramass looked on. She managed just enough magic for a needle-thin dagger that she sliced through the straps of Denan’s armor. She ripped his shirt, revealing a cut along his left ribs the length of her hand. A cut edged in black, lines branching out like thorns beneath his skin.

  “No,” she gasped. “No, no, no, no, no.”

  Denan stared at the wound, and then his eyes slipped closed. “No one lives forever.”

  “No.” She glanced into his eyes—the eyes of her heartsong. “It can’t end like this.”

  Denan’s hand slid up her cheek. “Larkin …”

  “I will give them all back.” Ramass’s whisper slithered up her spine.

  Jaw gritted so hard one of her teeth chipped, she lifted her face to the Wraith King.

  Ramass stood before her like a boy offering his sweetheart a rotten apple. “Come.” His voice echoed oddly, as if a hundred voices whispered instead of one. “And I will give back all I have taken.”

  Around them, the black lines drained from the mulgar faces. And not just the ones around them. All of them. Mulgars staggered. Gasped. Collapsed. Wept and screamed. Laughed maniacally. The ones holding Tam and Alorica dropped to their knees.

  “Give them back,” she said. “Like you gave Maisy back?” All madness and grief.

  Maisy wiped a black tear from her cheek. “Look at his wound, Larkin.”

  Poison faded from Denan’s skin. The mulgars might be beyond saving. But Denan … Denan wasn’t.

  Tam pushed to his feet, but he made no move to end Ramass. “Larkin …” His voice sounded like a broken little boy’s.

  Larkin’s and Denan’s gazes locked. Untold emotions channeled between them—foremost among them, love.

  “Their words are poison,” he said firmly. He reached up and laid her hand overtop of his, then pulled back, leaving his sword hilt in her grip.

  Heart pounding in the cage of her ribs, she closed her eyes and forced down the terror and the dread. The wraith had the power to save Denan—how could she refuse him now? But if she took his foul bargain, if she went with him, all their hopes would die in Denan’s stead. And Denan would never forgive her. Ancestors, was she strong enough to let him die?

  No.

  She was the heir of the Curse Queen. She remembered what the woman had taught her. Fighting the wraiths didn’t mean accepting their shadows. It meant driving them back with light.

  She would
defeat the wraiths. She would save Denan. And if not … Ancestors, if not, she would rather have him die proud of her than live ashamed of her.

  She opened her eyes, tightened her grip on Denan’s sword, and thrust. Ramass reeled back, his hands flaring. As his shadows writhed, he looked at her.

  “Never,” she ground out. And then the Wraith King was gone, his ashes holding his shape for a moment before blowing away.

  Dread filled Larkin to overflowing, making her so heavy that her legs cut out from beneath her. Ancestors, had she just condemned Denan to the worst kind of death?

  Denan glanced at the dead and dying around him. Without the wraiths to drive them, the remaining mulgars tried to flee and were slaughtered by Idelmarchians fighting alongside pipers and copperbills. Talox was nowhere to be seen.

  The battle was over. They’d won. Idelmarchians and Alamantians had fought side by side. And yet Larkin had lost everything.

  Maisy stood over Larkin, more black tears streaking down her cheeks.

  “Can I save him?” Larkin begged. “Is there a way?”

  Maisy backed up a step and then another. “Magic black. Magic white. Magic binding up the night.” She turned and ran.

  “What does that mean?” Larkin screamed after her. “Tell me what it means!”

  Denan’s gaze slipped to something behind her. Tam and Alorica standing over them, their expressions grave.

  “Did Hagath cut you?” Denan asked his friend.

  Tam shook his head.

  Denan nodded in relief. “Bind it. I still have a few hours—enough to arrange terms of cessation with Garrot.”

  He had maybe an hour until the pain overcame him. “Magalia!” Larkin tried to push to her feet, her head whipping frantically. “Magalia.”

  Denan gripped her arms, holding her in place. “There isn’t anything for her to cut off. There’s nothing she can do.”

  “Magalia,” Larkin wailed.

  Wincing, Denan wrapped his arms around her and tucked her head into the crook of his neck. “Shh, Larkin. Quiet, my little bird.”

  She couldn’t have come this far, accomplished this much, and lose Denan. None of it was worth it if he wasn’t here to share it with her. She gripped his armor. “No! It will not end like this. There has to be a way.”