“It wasn’t her,” I say, unable to bear it. “It wasn’t any of these people.”
“But it was someone?” Aurek glares at me, pointing the knife. “Someone here is the Rising Dawn?”
“Yes,” I lie. “Yes. I am the Rising Dawn; it’s me. It’s all me. And I did have help, but not from them. From no one here tonight.”
“Tell me who. Name names.”
“I—I never learned their names,” I plead. “It was too dangerous.”
Aurek shrugs. “I don’t believe you.” He plunges the knife into the chest of the woman, who immediately crumples to the ground. “I’m going to kill them all anyway.”
“No!” I scream, my throat raw as he pulls the knife from the body of the woman and advances on Merek.
There is movement behind me.
“Lief,” Aurek says, his voice pleasant. “How good of you to join us. And just where have you been?”
“I went to retrieve … something,” he says, frowning. “But it was gone.” He looks at me, and for a moment I think I see relief in his gaze. But then it disappears, as his attention snaps back to Aurek.
“Really?” Aurek says. “See, I find it odd that a fire started in that particular tower—my tower—mere hours after a rat was found in Errin’s rooms.”
Lief’s gaze moves from Aurek to me, then back to his master. “I don’t follow, Your Grace.”
“I sincerely hope that’s not true.” Aurek twists the words.
Lief swallows visibly. “I only meant I don’t understand the connection, Your Grace.”
Aurek blinks. “You know that the Rising Dawn had rats released into the home of the Sheriff of Lortune, do you not? I’ve been puzzling over just how the Rising are managing to strike in such varied locations. I put it to you, did I not, that I believed it might be an inside job? That some of my people were, in fact, behind it all?”
Lief is deadly still, watching Aurek as one would watch a viper.
“I think your beloved sister here might be the Rising Dawn,” Aurek says, his voice soft now. “Or at least the local faction. And I think someone in my castle is helping her. I fear you might be that person.”
Lief’s eyebrows rise and the night seems to pause.
“I am sorry to hear that, Your Grace” is all he says.
It’s Aurek’s turn to frown. “Is that it? I say I suspect you of treason and you say you’re sorry to hear it?”
Lief bows. “You are the king. I cannot argue with Your Grace. It is not my place.”
Aurek’s eyes narrow, and he tilts his head. “That’s your defense?”
Lief looks up at him, and when he speaks his voice is soft. “You know I’ve betrayed people I’ve claimed to care about in the past. It wouldn’t be unreasonable for you to assume it was in my nature. That it is my nature.”
I risk a glance at Merek, who has his head lowered to keep his face in shadow. When I look back at Aurek, he’s staring at Lief with obvious bewilderment.
“Do you love your sister more than your king?” he asks.
“I love my sister. And my mother. But you have my loyalty.”
Aurek watches him a moment longer and then takes a step back and waves his hand in my direction, gesturing at the crowd.
He’s letting Lief continue the interrogation. A new well of loathing for my brother bubbles up inside me as he turns to me, his expression smooth and calm.
“Did you start the fire, Errin?”
“No. I was in my rooms. They”—I jerk my head toward the corpses of Thurn and Crayne—“were guarding the door. Not that you can ask them to corroborate it.”
“Did you ask someone to start the fire?”
“No. The first I knew of it was when they dragged me out in my nightgown.”
Lief peers at me. “The rat in your room. Did you plant it?”
“No.”
His eye narrows. “You’re lying.” Aurek looks from him to me, head cocked as he watches us. “She knows something about the rat. Who was in the room when you saw this rat? Your guards? The dead ones? And who was the other man, the servant who was with you when I came to you?”
“I don’t know—he wasn’t there when I saw the rat,” I say quickly, my heart pounding so hard that I fear my ribs will crack.
The look on Lief’s face is the one I’ve seen my whole life. When I ate the last of the honey cakes and said I didn’t. When I broke one of the wooden cows he so cherished. When I borrowed his bow and left it in the woods. The flat, angry stare of an older brother.
To my surprise, the silence that blossoms between us is broken by Aurek drawling, “In the interest of honesty, which possibly only I am actually capable of, this guard here”—he nudges Thurn with his toe—“said that he was the one who saw it, and that he was the one who bludgeoned it with the heating pan.”
I can’t breathe, can’t believe that Thurn’s arrogance might save Merek.
“Also, in the pursuit of the truth, I have to confess I don’t follow your chain of thought,” Aurek says to Lief, with more than a hint of mockery.
“I believe you’re right, in that the Rising is an organization, for want of a better word, which has some presence here,” Lief says, bowing slightly. “I just want to know if my sister is really part of it before you punish her.”
Lief looks from me to the line of servants remaining. All of them are round-shouldered, their eyes on the ground, trying to make themselves as small as possible, as though that might save them from Aurek’s wrath. His eyes roam over all of them, resting very briefly on the women, and the child. But when he comes to Merek, he pauses, and another frown crosses his face.
I watch his expression slacken, his eye glancing to the side as though remembering something. Then he smiles, a slow, humorless smile, and the bottom falls out of my world.
“You were the servant, weren’t you?” he says to Merek. “You brought the drink?”
Merek looks up, eyes full of defiance.
He knows, and I know, that Lief has recognized him.
“Or were you? Perhaps I’m mistaken. Perhaps you missed the theatrics,” Lief says softly, and Merek’s eyes widen.
Lief turns to Aurek. “I don’t know about the rat, Your Grace. I can swear to you, though, on the lives of my mother and myself—and for what it’s worth at this point, my sister—that I am not part of the Rising. Though I can’t vouch for Errin’s innocence.”
Now it’s Aurek’s turn to look surprised. “And if I killed her?”
“My mother might miss her,” Lief says simply. Then he looks around, and his expression moves from carefully blank to confused. He spins in a circle, apparently forgetting Aurek, Merek, me, and the Rising.
“What is it?” Aurek stares out into the darkness.
“Forgive me, I … Where’s my mother?”
“What?”
“I went to the Tower of Valor, but she was already gone, yet I don’t see her …”
Aurek scowls. “So that’s why you weren’t where I’d ordered you to be.”
Lief and I stare at him. “Please, Your Grace?” he asks.
“I had her moved to the Tower of Victory after the incident with the rat. I thought she’d be better protected there, should the Rising come.”
Lief looks down at me as though I might have the answer. I can’t tell if he’s acting or not. I can’t read him at all. He turns to look at the Tower of Victory, fire licking out of every window, the rooms between them red and bright. “No,” he says in a small voice that I’ve never heard before, and then he runs, pelting toward the castle.
And as I realize why, I follow him.
The golems swing out at him as he breaks past them; one begins to lumber after him, but then it freezes in place, turning slowly back to the crowd as I pass it, and in the back of my mind I know Aurek must have commanded it not to hurt us.
I race after my brother and watch him disappear into a doorway thick with smoke. As I approach it to go after him, he stumbles out, his arm over his fac
e, coughing violently. “Too hot,” he chokes, grabbing my arm, forgetting everything that happened just moments before. We cling to each other as we run around the tower, looking for another way in.
The door is on fire, smoke billowing out into the sky, and Lief turns, pulling me back toward the door we first ran to. But now flames are licking at that, too, and I have to grip Lief with both hands and dig my heels into the ground to stop him from going in again.
“You’ll die,” I cry as he peels my fingers from him.
“Mother is in there,” he spits, pushing me away.
Then a figure passes us, tall, gray, and lumbering, heading straight into the flames. I watch, openmouthed, as it walks through them, seemingly impervious to the heat. I turn to Lief, to see Aurek has also joined us. He doesn’t look at either of us, gazing into the flames; the light reflecting in his eyes makes them look alight, too.
And despite everything, the three of us stand together and watch, eyes trained on the doorway for any sign of movement. When I glance at my brother, I see he’s crying from his single eye, an endless tear running down his face, and my stomach twists.
The golem emerges with something black and red and smoking in its arms, and Lief lets out a howl and sinks to his knees.
The golem’s hide looks paler, cracks spread across it, and as it reaches us, it crumbles into dust, fired like a pot in the heat of the blaze. The thing in its arms falls to the ground.
I turn to Aurek, without knowing why, to find him looking back at me with pitiless gold eyes.
“I never knew my mother,” he says.
He doesn’t say anything else, but walks away, leaving my brother rocking on his knees, and me staring after him, completely numb. I look back at the thing on the ground—my mother, I tell myself—and I can’t feel anything. It doesn’t look like a person. It doesn’t look like anything.
“I’m so sorry,” Lief sobs, clawing at the ground. “Mama, I’m sorry.” He hasn’t called her Mama since he was eight. I remember when he first called her Mother at dinner. “Pass the butter, Mother,” he said, and she was so surprised she dropped her spoon and splashed the table with her soup.
My mother is dead. She’s dead. She will never splash soup again. I will never see her smiling again. She will never braid my hair in a crown over my head for me again. I will never taste her bread, nor her butter. She will never place a cool hand to my forehead when I’m ill.
“This is your fault,” someone says, and Lief looks up at me. “This is your fault,” the voice repeats, and I’m dimly aware I know that voice, that it’s my voice. My words. “You brought her here.”
“No. I just wanted her to be safe,” Lief chokes out.
“With him? You thought she’d be safe with him?”
“Someone out there might have used her to get at me.” Lief claws at the ground. “I didn’t know. I didn’t think—”
“You never do!” I scream at him. “It’s always what you need, what you want, what you think is best. And now she’s dead. You’ve been killing her for months and you’ve finally managed it.”
I hear footsteps behind us and, expecting to see Aurek or some guards to haul me off somewhere, I spin around with my fists raised. Merek has come to a stop, his hands over his mouth, as he looks down at Mama. “I’m sorry,” he says. “Oh Gods, I’m so sorry. I never meant—”
“Was it you, then?” I ask, the words coming from my mouth as though divorced from me. “You started it?”
He nods, his face a mask of misery.
“I thought it must have been.”
“I didn’t know …” But when he says it, and falls immediately silent, it doesn’t burn me up as it did when Lief said it. “I thought she was in the south tower. I didn’t know he’d moved her to the north. He was in the Great Hall, with him—” He jerks his head toward Lief. “I thought it was empty. It was just supposed to be a distraction,” he says softly. Then he takes my hands. “I’m sorry. Errin, I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t know. You have to believe me.”
“I don’t blame you,” I hear myself say. “I blame him.” I turn to my brother.
“Errin, please,” Lief says.
“You brought her here.” Though I speak quietly, the words echo off the stone, surrounding us. “You drove her mad. You murdered her.”
Lief covers his face with his hands and bends double, pressing into the grass.
“As far as I’m concerned, my whole family is dead,” I say to his bent form. “Papa died in Tremayne, and you and Mama died the day you left for this place. You’re dead to me, Lief. Do you hear me? I have no family now.”
The thing moans.
“She’s alive,” Merek shouts, instantly bent by her side. Lief moves to her, too, reaching for her hand. Another gurgling moan escapes her, and I stare at her, unable to understand how she can be alive. The little of her that isn’t blackened and charred is red and shiny, and along one arm it’s bubbled and weeping. Her hair has been burned away completely, eyelashes, eyebrows, all gone. Her gown has melted into her skin.
Dead, she was terrible, but alive … she’s a nightmare.
“The Elixir.” Merek looks up at me. “She might recover with the Elixir.”
Lief shakes his head, his other hand over his mouth.
“It cured your sister’s broken spine,” Merek snaps. “Surely it’s worth a try?”
He doesn’t look up, doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t move.
“I’ll go and ask,” I hear myself say, my voice sounding very far away. “I’ll beg.”
Lief’s head snaps up. “He won’t do it for you. He’s more likely to let her die to hurt you,” he says. Then he swallows. “He might do it for me. Go. I’ll ask him. You escape while I’m gone.”
Merek stares over my mother at him, and Lief stares right back.
“Why would he do it for you?”
“I’m all he has,” Lief says in a small voice, and it’s as though someone has pushed ice into my stomach.
“You were all we had, too,” I say, and he closes his eye, another tear falling from it.
“Go,” he repeats.
“Errin?” Merek says tentatively.
I open my mouth to say I can’t, now more than ever. I can’t leave her and not know whether Aurek gave her the Elixir or not. Before I can speak, there is a strange creaking, then a crack. All three of us look toward it, in time to see the Tower of Victory crumble, dust and debris flooding out. Merek throws me to the ground and covers me with his body as it rolls over us. I hold my breath and press my face into the ground.
When the rumbling stops, Merek pulls me up. He’s covered in soot and dust, utterly unrecognizable.
“Go,” Lief says in a broken-glass voice as he struggles to his feet. “Both of you. I’ll deal with the simulacrum. I’ll do what it takes to heal Ma— Mother, and you know Silas will be safe, so long as he can make the Elixir. But you’ll be dead before dawn if you stay.”
So he knew all along what Aurek was doing to me, and he did nothing. I can’t move.
“Errin.” Merek speaks softly. “Please.”
I look up at him and blink.
“Let me do this,” Lief says.
I nod at Merek and, from the corner of my eye, see Lief sag with relief.
“You fix this,” I say to him, feeling no pleasure when he flinches. “You owe me. You owe her. You were raised better than this.”
He hangs his head and I turn away, unable to stand the sight of him anymore.
“Where can we get out?” Merek asks him.
“The North Gate. And take this.” I look back as Lief pulls a piece of paper out from inside his tunic. When I just stare at it, unmoving, he holds it out to Merek, who takes it. “Take care of my sister, Your Highness,” he says with a small bow.
“What is it?” Merek holds the paper up.
“Read it,” Lief says, sounding more like his old self. “Go, if you’re going. I have work to do.”
“Wait. One last thing. Why didn�
�t you tell him who I was?” Merek asks.
Lief takes a deep breath and dusts down his uniform. “I owed you.” He wipes his face on his sleeve and lifts the patch momentarily, giving me a glimpse of pink emptiness behind it. He doesn’t look at either of us again, but vanishes into the night after Aurek.
“Come on,” Merek says, holding out his hand for mine.
I look down at Mama. She hasn’t made a noise for a while, but I can’t think of that. Not now.
I take Merek’s hand.
* * *
Merek seems to know where to go, and I run beside him, arms propelling me forward, surging into the darkness, bare feet slapping the ground so fast it sends shock waves along my legs. It feels good to move, and I power forward, as if I can outrun what just happened. I have to trust Lief. I have to trust that he’ll do what he can to save Mama.
We reach the North Gate in a matter of moments, and Lief told the truth; it’s barred and bolted, but there are no men guarding it. We skid to a halt in the frozen mud, and I help Merek lift the thick piece of wood from its braces across the gate, fear and urgency lending us strength, and tug back the iron bolts that were buried deep in the stone. Without speaking, we both turn and take one final look back at the castle, burning wildly, before Merek takes my hand again and pulls me out of the castle grounds.
We race along the side of the wall, the shouts from the castle getting quieter, until we reach a narrow lane that seems to lead down into the town. From there I hear the distant rumble of voices, and I drag Merek back from it, but he shakes his head. “We need to go through the town to an ally of mine. We need cloaks, food, and water. You need clothes. And boots. We won’t survive if we don’t get supplies.”
“We’ll be caught if we go into the town.” My voice sounds hoarse, the smoke and the screaming shredding my throat. “There’s a curfew.”
Merek shakes his head. “Aurek gave orders for everyone in Lortune to be roused to help put the fire out. Look.” Merek points down the lane, and after only a moment I see a man and a woman, wrapped up warm, racing past, heading in the direction of the castle. Then another man runs past, followed by a second, and a third. I can see the muted colors of their cloaks; dawn is coming. “It’ll be chaos. As long as we don’t linger, and we stay out of the soldiers’ way, this is perfect.”
The Scarecrow Queen Page 14
