by V. E. Schwab
Lila spun toward the voice and found a girl no taller than her waist standing between her and the garden’s edge. A novice dressed in white Sanctuary robes, her dark hair pulled cleanly back into a braid. Her eyes swirled with Osaron’s magic, and Lila’s fingers tightened on her blade. She didn’t want to kill the girl. Not if there was some part of her still inside, trying to get out. She didn’t want to, but she would.
The little novice craned her head, staring up at the pale sky. Bruised skin ringed her fingernails and drew dark lines up her cheeks. “The king is calling.”
“Is that so?” asked Lila, cheating a step toward the garden.
The mist was thickening around them, swallowing the edges of the world. And then, out of nowhere, it began to snow. A flake drifted down, landing on her cheek, and—
Lila winced as a tiny blade of ice nicked her skin.
“What the hell…”
The novice giggled as Lila wiped her cheek with the back of her sleeve as all around her, snowflakes sharpened into knifepoints and came raining down. The fire was in Lila’s hands before she thought to call it, and she ducked her head as the heat swept around her in a shield, ice melting before it met her skin.
“Nice trick,” she muttered, looking up.
But the novice was gone.
An instant later a small, icy hand slid around Lila’s wrist.
“Got you!” said the girl, her voice still filled with laughter as shadow poured from her fingers, only to recoil from Lila’s skin. The girl’s face fell.
“You’re one of them,” she said, disgusted. But instead of letting go, her hand vised tighter. The girl was strong—inhumanly strong—black veins coursing over her skin like ropes, and she dragged Lila away from the garden, toward the place where the Sanctuary ended and the marble fell away. Far below, the river stretched in a still black plane.
“Let go of me,” warned Lila.
The novice did not. “He’s not happy with you, Delilah Bard.”
“Let go.”
Lila’s boots skidded on the slick stone surface. Four strides to the edge of the platform. Three.
“He heard what you said about setting Kell free. And if you don’t let him in”—another giggle—“he’ll drown you in the sea.”
“Well, aren’t you creepy,” snarled Lila, trying one last time to wrench free. When that didn’t work, she drew a knife.
It was barely out of its sheath when another hand, this one massive, caught her wrist and twisted viciously until she dropped the weapon. When Lila turned, trapped now between the two, she found a royal guard, broader than Barron, with a dark beard and the ruined remains of her mark on his forehead.
“Have you met the shadow king?” he boomed.
“Oh hell,” said Lila as a third figure strode out of the garden. An old woman, barefoot and dressed in nothing but a shimmering nightgown.
“Why won’t you let him in?”
Lila had had enough. She threw up her hands and pushed, the way she had in the ring so recently. Bodily. Will against will. But whatever these people were made of now, it didn’t work. They simply bent around the force. It moved right through them like wind through wheat, and then they were dragging her again toward the precipitous drop.
Two strides.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she lied. At that moment, she wanted to hurt them all quite badly, but it wouldn’t stop the monster pulling their strings. She scrambled to think of something.
One stride, and she was out of time. Lila’s boot connected with the little girl’s chest and sent the novice stumbling away. She then flicked her fingers, producing a second knife, and drove it between the joints of the guard’s armor at the knee. Lila expected the man to buckle, to scream, to at least let go. He did none of those things.
“Oh, come on,” she growled as he pushed her half a step toward the edge, the novice and the woman barring her escape.
“The king wants you to pay,” said the guard.
“The king wants you to beg,” said the girl.
“The king wants you to kneel,” said the old woman.
Their voices all had the same horrible singsong quality, and the ledge was coming up against her heels.
“Beg for your city.”
“Beg for your world.”
“Beg for your life.”
“I don’t beg,” growled Lila, slamming her foot into the blade embedded in the guard’s knee. At last his leg buckled, but when he went down, he took her with him. Luckily he fell away from the ledge, and she rolled free and came up again, the woman’s thin arms already winding around her throat. Lila threw her off, into the approaching novice, and danced back several feet from the edge.
Now, at least, she had the garden behind her and not the stone cliff.
But all three attackers were upright again, their eyes full of shadows and their mouths full of Osaron’s words. And if Lila ran, they would simply follow.
Her blood sang with the thrill of the fight and her fingers itched to summon fire, but fire only worked if you cared about getting burned. A body without fear would never slow in the face of flame. No, what Lila needed was something of substance. Of weight.
She looked down at the broad stone platform.
It could work.
“He wants me to kneel?” she said, letting her legs fold beneath her, the cold stone hitting her knees. The fallen watched darkly as she pressed both palms to the marble floor and scoured her memory for a piece of Blake—something, anything to center her mind—but then, suddenly Lila realized she didn’t need the words. She felt for the pulse in the rock and found a steady thrum, like a plucked string.
The fallen were starting toward her again, but it was too late.
Lila caught hold of the threads and pulled.
The ground shook beneath her. The girl and the guard and the old woman looked down as fissures formed like deep roots in the stone floor. A vicious crack ran edge to edge, severing the ledge from the garden, the fallen souls from Delilah Bard. And then it broke, and the three went tumbling down into the river below with a crash and a wave and then nothing.
Lila straightened, breathless, a defiant smile cracking across her lips as a few last bits of rock tumbled free and fell clattering out of sight. Not the most elegant solution, she knew, but effective.
Within the garden, someone was calling her name.
Lenos.
She turned toward him just as a tendril of darkness wrapped around her leg, and pulled.
Lila hit the ground hard.
And kept falling.
Sliding.
Shadow was coiled around her ankle like a stubborn vine—no, like a hand, dragging her toward the edge. She skidded over the broken ground, scrambling for something, anything to hold on to as the edge came nearer and nearer, and then she was over, and falling, nothing but black river below.
Lila’s fingers caught the edge. She held on with all her strength.
The darkness held on too, pulling her down as the broken edge of the stone platform cut into her palms, and blood welled, and only then, when the first drops fell, did the darkness recoil, and let go.
Lila hung there, gasping, forcing her gashed hands to take her weight as she hauled herself up, hooked one boot on the jagged lip and dragged her body up and over.
She rolled onto her back, hands throbbing, gasping for breath.
She was still lying there when Lenos finally arrived.
He looked around at the broken platform, the streaks of blood. His eyes went saucer wide. “What happened?”
Lila dragged herself to a sitting position. “Nothing,” she muttered, getting to her feet. Blood was still sliding in fat drops down her fingers.
“This is nothing?”
Lila rolled her neck. “Nothing I couldn’t handle,” she amended.
That’s when she noticed the fluffy white mass in his arms. Esa.
“She came when I called,” he said shyly. “And I think we found a way out.”
FIVE
ASH AND ATONEMENT
I
“Fascinating,” said Tieren, turning Alucard’s hands over, tracing a bony finger through the air above his silver-scarred wrists. “Does it hurt?”
“No,” said Alucard slowly. “Not anymore.”
Rhy watched from his perch on the back of the couch, fingers laced to keep them from shaking.
The king and Kell studied Tieren as Tieren studied the captain, spotting the heavy silence with questions that Alucard tried to answer, even though he was clearly still suffering.
He wouldn’t say what it was like, only that he’d been delirious, and in that fevered state, the shadow king had tried to get inside his mind. And Rhy did not betray him by saying more. His hands still ached from clenching Alucard’s, his body stiff from his time on the Spire floor, but if Kell felt that pain, he said nothing of it, and for that, amid so many things, Rhy was grateful.
“So Osaron does need permission,” said Tieren.
Alucard swallowed. “Most people, I imagine, give it without knowing. The sickness came on fast. By the time I realized what was happening, he was already inside my head. And the moment I tried to resist…” Alucard trailed off. Met Rhy’s gaze. “He twists your mind, your memories.”
“But now,” cut in Maxim, “his magic cannot touch you?”
“So it seems.”
“Who found you?” he demanded.
Kell shot a look at Hastra, who stepped forward. “I did, Your Majesty,” lied the former guard. “I saw him go, and—”
Rhy cut him off. “Hastra didn’t find Captain Emery. I did.”
His brother sighed, exasperated.
His mother went still.
“Where?” demanded Maxim in a voice that had always made Rhy shrink. Now, he held his ground.
“On his ship. By the time I arrived, he was already ill. I stayed with him to see if he’d survive, and he did—”
His father had flushed red, his mother pale. “You went out there, alone,” she said. “Into the fog?”
“The shadows did not touch me.”
“You put yourself at risk,” chided his father.
“I am in no danger.”
“You could have been taken.”
“You don’t get it!” snapped Rhy. “Whatever part of me Osaron could take, it’s already gone.”
The room went still. He couldn’t bring himself to look at Kell. He could feel the quickening of his brother’s pulse, the weight of his stare.
And then the door burst open, and Lila Bard stormed in, trailed by a thin, nervous-looking man holding, of all things, a cat. She saw—or felt—the tension humming through the room and stopped. “What did I miss?”
Her hands were bandaged, a deep scratch ran along her jaw, and Rhy watched his brother move toward her as naturally as if the world had simply tipped. For Kell, apparently, it had.
“Casero,” said the man trailing behind her, his gaunt eyes lighting up at the sight of Alucard. He’d clearly come from beyond the palace, but he showed no signs of harm.
“Lenos,” said the captain as the cat leaped down and went to curl around his boot. “Where…?”
“Long story,” cut in Lila, tossing the satchel to Tieren, and then, registering the silver scars on Alucard’s face: “What happened to you?”
“Long story,” he echoed.
Lila went to the sideboard to pour herself a drink. “Aren’t they all at this point?”
She said it lightly, but Rhy noticed her fingers shaking as she brought the amber liquid to her lips.
The king was staring at the thin and rather scraggly looking sailor. “How did you get into the palace?” he demanded.
The man looked nervously from king to queen to Kell.
“He’s my second mate, Your Majesty,” answered Alucard.
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“We found each other—” started Lila.
“He can speak for himself,” snapped the king.
“Maybe if you bothered questioning your people in their own language,” she shot back. The room quieted. Kell raised a brow. Rhy, despite himself, almost laughed.
A guard appeared in the doorway and cleared his throat. “Your Majesty,” he said, “the prisoner wishes to speak.”
Lila stiffened at the mention of Holland. Alucard sank heavily into a chair.
“Finally,” said Maxim, starting toward the door, but the guard ducked his head, embarrassed.
“Not with you, Your Majesty.” He nodded at Kell. “With him.”
Kell looked to Maxim, who nodded brusquely. “Bring me answers,” he warned, “or I will find another way to get them.”
A shadow crossed Kell’s face, but he only bowed and left.
Rhy watched his brother go, then turned to his father. “If Alucard survived, there must be others. Let me—”
“Did you know?” demanded Maxim.
“What?”
“When you left the safety of this palace, did you know you were immune to Osaron’s magic?”
“I suspected,” said Rhy, “but I would have gone either way.”
The queen took hold of his arm. “After everything—”
“Yes, after everything,” said Rhy, pulling free. “Because of everything.” He turned to his parents. “You taught me that a ruler suffers with his people. You taught me that he is their strength, their stone. Don’t you see? I will never have magic, but finally I have a purpose.”
“Rhy—” started his father.
“No,” he cut in. “I will not let them think the Maresh have abandoned them. I will not hide within a warded palace when I can walk without fear through those streets. When I can remind our people that they are not alone, that I am fighting with them, for them. When I may be struck down but rise again and in so doing show them the immortality of hope. That is what I can do for my city, and I will gladly do it. You need not shield me from the darkness. It cannot hurt me anymore. Nothing can.”
Rhy felt suddenly wrung out, empty, but in that emptiness lay a kind of peace. No, not peace exactly. Clarity. Resolve.
He looked to his mother, who was clutching her hands together. “Would you have me be your son, or the prince of Arnes?”
Her knuckles went white. “You will always be both.”
“Then I will succeed at neither.”
He met the king’s gaze, but it was the head priest who spoke.
“The prince is right,” said Tieren in his soft, steady way. “The royal and city guard are cut in half, and the priests are at their limits trying to keep the palace wards up. Every man and woman immune to Osaron’s magic is an ally we cannot forfeit. We need every life we can save.”
“Then it’s settled,” said Rhy. “I will ride out—”
“Not alone,” cut in his father, and again, before Rhy could protest, “No one goes alone.”
Alucard looked up from his seat, pale, exhausted. His hands tightened on the chair, and he started to rise when Lila stepped forward, finishing her drink. “Lenos, put the captain to bed,” she said, and then, turning to the king, “I’ll go with His Highness.”
Maxim frowned. “Why should I trust you with my son’s safety?”
She tilted her head when she spoke, shifting her dark hair so it framed her shattered eye. In that single defiant gesture, Rhy could see why Kell liked her so.
“Why?” she echoed. “Because the shadows can’t touch me, and the fallen won’t. Because I’m good with magic, and better with a blade, and I’ve got more power in my blood than you’ve got in this whole damned palace. Because I’ve no qualms about killing, and on top of it all, I’ve got a knack for keeping your sons—both of them—alive.”
If Kell had been there, he would have turned white.
As it was, the king went nearly purple.
Alucard let out a small, exhausted sound that might have been a laugh.
The queen stared blankly at the strange girl.
And Rhy, despite everything, smiled.
* * *
The prince had only a single suit of armor.
It had never seen battle, never seen anything but a sculptor’s eye, cast for the small stone portrait in his parents’ chamber, a gift from Maxim to Emira on their tenth anniversary. Rhy had worn the armor just the once—he’d planned to wear it again on the night of his twentieth birthday, but nothing about that night had gone as planned.
The armor was light, too light for a real fight, but perfect for posing, a soft hammered gold with pearl-white trim and a cream-colored cape, and it made the faintest chime whenever he moved, a pleasant sound like a far-off bell.
“Not very subtle, are you?” said Lila when she saw him striding through the palace foyer.
She’d been standing in the doorway, her eyes on the city and the fog still shifting in the late morning light, but at the gentle sound of Rhy’s approach, she’d turned, and nearly laughed out loud. And he supposed she had reason to. After all, Lila was dressed in her worn boots and her black high-collared coat, looking with her bandaged hands like a pirate after a hard night, and there he was, practically glowing in polished gold, a full complement of silvered guards behind him.
“I’ve never been fond of subtle,” he said.
Rhy imagined Kell shaking his head, exasperation warring with amusement. Perhaps he looked foolish, but Rhy wanted to be seen, wanted his people—if they were out there, if they were in there—to know their prince was not hiding. That he was not afraid of the dark.
As they descended the palace stairs, Lila’s expression hardened, her wounded hands curled into loose fists at her sides. He didn’t know what she’d seen at the Sanctuary, but he could tell it hadn’t been pleasant, and for all her jaunty posturing, the look on her face now threw him.
“You think this is a bad idea,” he said. It wasn’t a question. But it sparked something in Lila, rekindled the fire in her eyes and ignited a grin.
“Without a doubt.”
“Then why are you smiling?”
“Because,” she said, “bad ideas are my favorite kind.”
They reached the plaza at the base of the stairs, the flowers that usually lined the steps now sculptures of black glass. Smoke rose from a dozen spots on the horizon, not the simple trails from hearth fires, but the too-dark plumes of burning buildings. Rhy straightened. Lila pulled her jacket close. “Ready?”
