“It is the only way,” the king responded. “Think of it, Cedric. Put aside your emotions and just think.”
And despite the condescension behind the king’s words, Cedric did think. He thought of a land with fewer wrath forces. Fewer invasions on outlying villages, fewer cattle robberies, abductions, skirmishes. Deaths. He thought of a relative peace returning to Caelum, stronger than ever before. Of his father ruling over that peace. Of Emme safe.
“The deal is a strong one,” the king continued. “And it only requires that we turn over to Malquin one thing.”
Malquin looked straight at Cedric, his eyes hard. “Another scroll.”
Cedric’s head shook automatically. No, no, no.
“Oh, come on, it’s not like I’d hurt them,” Malquin said, as though it were Cedric who was being unreasonable. “I already have Peter. Daisy and Joe have proven a bit hard to track down, but fortunately I won’t have to bother with them . . . since another scroll is already here, isn’t she?”
Cedric’s head had stopped shaking. He was perfectly still. “What do you want with her?”
“That is my concern,” Malquin said. “Tell me where Liv is, Cedric, and all this can be over.”
Cedric didn’t move.
“This is not a game,” the king’s voice boomed, his voice rising higher. “Tell us where she is, Cedric. I command it.”
But despite his words, the king’s voice grew less and less commanding to Cedric’s ears. The more his father spoke, the less he sounded like a king. Cedric had always counted on his father to do the absolute best, right thing in every situation. That’s why he always claimed to be so hard on Cedric—because he knew what the right course was.
But what if he actually didn’t?
What if he was just scared, and doing the best he could in the moment, just like Cedric always did? What if his father—what if the king—could be wrong?
Cedric felt movement at his back and turned to see another wrath enter the room, his horns nearly clipping the top of the door frame.
“There is . . . a situation . . . ,” the wrath said, his black eyes focused only on Malquin.
Malquin’s jaw twitched in annoyance. He quickly followed the wrath into the hallway. Cedric didn’t really need to wonder what situation the wrath was referring to. By this point, Kat and whatever army she had gathered were attempting to break through the north wall. While the wraths were distracted there, Rafe was letting the entire village of Duoin in at the south gate. Cedric wondered how far they’d come into the city. All he had to do was keep his family safe until they got here. If he could placate Malquin long enough, make sure he didn’t get the chance to harm anyone else before the castle was taken back . . . then his father would see they no longer had to make any sort of deal with this madman . . . he would see . . .
Cedric strained to hear the whispered conversation taking place out in the hall, but only caught snippets here and there. The king was also straining to listen, his head tipped forward. Cedric found his eyes caught on his father’s face. It was the same face he’d looked up to his whole life, but now he felt as though he were seeing it in sharper focus, like a thin veil had fallen from it. In the set of those strong features Cedric now recognized so many of his own familiar, conflicting emotions—worry, fear, anxiety, anger—and to see them so clearly painted across a face that had been only one thing for so long was extremely disconcerting. It felt like the world was slowly tipping under his feet, morphing into something new. And Cedric wasn’t sure he was ready to face it.
He turned toward the hall instead, where Malquin’s voice rose in a sharp whisper. Moments later Cedric heard the wrath’s heavy footsteps clomping away. Malquin came back into the room.
“I have thought about your deal,” Cedric said. He kept his chin up, his face level with Malquin’s own. “And if it means you will leave Caelum and take hundreds of wraths with you, I will concede to your terms.”
The king closed his eyes for a moment, relieved. Malquin smiled.
“Liv is in the castle now,” Cedric continued. “And I can bring her to you.”
Malquin’s smile slipped. “Or you could just tell me where to find her.”
Cedric shook his head. “If she sees you coming, she will run. Possibly back to the portal she came through. But if it’s me . . . she trusts me.”
Malquin stared him down for a moment, and Cedric was careful not to flinch or betray himself with the slightest movement.
Finally, Malquin nodded to the wrath behind Cedric. “Stay behind the prince. Give him enough space so you don’t spook the girl, but don’t let him out of your sight.”
The wrath grunted and took one step closer to Cedric, the stench of his breath impossible to escape.
“This won’t spook her at all,” Cedric muttered.
But even his sarcastic anger was (mostly) for show. He didn’t have any intention of leading this creature near Liv. He just needed to buy Rafe and Kat more time, even get outside to help them if he could.
They started through the castle halls, the wrath guard close on his heels. Cedric moved quickly. He made it down the main stairs into the giant front entrance hall, his ungainly guard still keeping pace behind him. The last time Cedric had been here was the night wraths had invaded the castle. His stomach clenched as he remembered how the creatures had dragged Emme by the arm across the stone floor.
Up ahead of him, several wraths ran out the giant front doors. Just before the door slammed closed behind them, Cedric heard shouts and the unmistakable sound of metal clanging against metal.
“Where are we going?” the wrath guard growled.
“To retrieve what I promised,” Cedric replied without turning around.
Halfway across the front hall, Cedric planted his feet on the stone floor and braced himself. The wrath following him crashed into his back, nearly toppling him over. But instead, it bounced backward, and Cedric jumped on the creature’s moment of confusion. He whirled around, sword at the ready.
The wrath wasn’t thrown quite enough, however. He just managed to block Cedric’s swing with one thick arm. His mouth curled back in a sneer as he reached for the blade at his side.
The wrath’s sword was shorter than Cedric’s, but it was plenty sharp. It sliced through the air and hit Cedric’s own sword with a clang that reverberated up Cedric’s arm and set his teeth clattering.
This wrath was strong.
When the creature prepared its next swing, Cedric dropped to the ground and quickly rolled beneath the wrath’s sword, then thrust his own blade upward. Its tip pushed into the wrath’s side, right where the two ends of its leather armor met.
The wrath fell to the ground with a final grunt.
Even still, Cedric knew he didn’t have much time before more wraths appeared, on their way out to join the battle. What would he see when he pulled the door open? If there were several wraths out there, he would have an even harder fight in front of him. But many wraths were likely already in LA. He just hoped Kat and Rafe had taken out enough of the remaining wraths to destroy Malquin’s plans.
Cedric took a deep breath, then flung open the doors.
Rafe stood on the threshold of the castle entrance, bloodied and grinning. Behind him, two dozen fighters from the village of Duoin were flanked in battle formation. Several bodies of wraths lay in front of the castle gates, and in the distance, Cedric could see more fleeing.
“Well?” Rafe rasped, leaning heavily against the door frame.
“What are you standing there for?” Cedric responded. “Come in.”
Energy coursed through Cedric’s body. He could only imagine Malquin’s face when he pushed back into the king’s quarters and told him that he’d failed. He’d never get his hands on Liv, and he’d lost Caelum, too.
Cedric burst through the doors to his father’s room, but one glance at Malquin’s face told him the madman already knew his plan was ruined. His eyes were narrowed into slits, his lips pressed tightly together in ange
r. The skin of his face looked even whiter than his hair.
Two wrath guards still stood at the king’s side, but they no longer looked like fearsome, confident soldiers. Their large black eyes bounced warily between Malquin and Cedric, their fingers twitching at the weapons in their hands.
“It’s over, Malquin. We have the castle,” Cedric said.
But it wasn’t Malquin who responded.
“Oh, son,” the king said, his voice breaking. “What have you done?”
Cedric blinked, took half a step back. Maybe his father didn’t realize what was happening?
“It’s all right, Father,” Cedric said. “You do not need to do what Malquin says any longer. We’ve won.”
Cedric’s words seemed to hang in the air, their triumph slowly wilting.
The king shook his head back and forth, slowly.
“They were going to leave us be,” the king said. “Forever.”
“You . . . you don’t understand,” Cedric continued. “Our whole army is here, driving the wraths back. We’ve won.”
Malquin’s eyes hardened, boring into Cedric. “Is that what you think?” His voice was low, dangerous.
For a moment, Cedric’s heart thudded in fear. But then he heard the sound of footsteps racing up the stairs, and he straightened. His army was here, and Malquin’s threats were meaningless.
Malquin shook his head. “You’ve made a mistake, young prince. You didn’t just forfeit our deal, you took something that is rightfully mine.”
“Liv isn’t yours.”
But Malquin continued as if Cedric hadn’t spoken at all. “Just ask the Knights who hurt my brother. Take something from me, and I’ll make you pay tenfold.”
Just as Cedric heard men pour into the room behind him, Malquin nodded once at the wrath guards standing behind the king.
They moved quickly—so impossibly quickly—in the space of a breath. One ran a knife across the king’s throat, while the other plunged its blade into his chest.
Cedric felt a cry tearing from his throat, but he couldn’t really hear it. His body stumbled forward, arms stretched out toward his father, but he was too far away, too late. As the room erupted into chaos, Cedric struggled to make sense of any of the sounds and sights in front of him. His mind kept playing that moment over and over, the slide and the plunge. The way his father’s shoulders slumped. He hardly noticed when Malquin slipped through the curtains and into the secret passageway, or when the two wrath guards moved to block any soldiers from following him.
Cedric barely heard the soldiers cry out, in pain, in rage, in disbelief. Some froze in horror while others ran toward the two wraths, weapons ready.
Cedric stared at his father’s body on his wooden chair, seeing it again and again.
The slide, the plunge.
And then the blood.
He fell to his knees before the king’s chair. His father’s blue-gray eyes stared out at the wall over Cedric’s shoulder, but they didn’t see it. They didn’t see anything.
Could he have stopped it? Could he have moved quicker? Could he close his eyes and turn back time somehow? Only a few seconds had passed since it happened, just a few seconds in all the long history of time. Surely those few seconds could reverse, could turn back around, could make this moment not have happened?
He closed his eyes tight, but around him time continued to move forward, like it always had.
Slide and plunge.
But this wasn’t the fault of time.
Cedric was on his feet in a second. He gripped his sword in his right hand, no longer feeling pain in his shoulder, in his muscles. No longer feeling anything. He turned toward the passageway behind the curtain. The wraths blocking Malquin’s escape were now busy fighting against the king’s own men. Cedric pushed past them all.
And he ran.
The passage was pitch-black, and Cedric had no torch to guide his way. Still, he ran fast and straight, never pausing to get his bearings.
Somehow, he knew where this tunnel would lead him.
He wasn’t surprised to turn a corner and tumble almost directly into a dark wall made of stone. In the middle of it was a small wooden door. He thrust out a hand, pushing against one of the stones in the wall. The door swung open for him, just as it had months before.
Cedric tumbled out into the small courtyard. The last time he was here, it had been covered only by the night sky, but now the setting sun had colored everything in a pinkish glow.
The only thing in the courtyard except for Cedric was the portal that hung a few feet away, a hole made of darkness. It was still and empty and mocking, giving no sign of having swallowed up Malquin only moments before.
For the second time in ten minutes, Cedric fell helplessly to his knees. He didn’t get up again for a long, long time.
GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK.
The world was looking much grayer than usual.
Shannon knew that was partially due to the painkillers the doctors had given her, and partially because the lights in the hospital room she was in were dimmed. She wondered if maybe it was in an effort to conserve electricity, or because the hospital was probably running on generators after all the earthquakes. It didn’t seem worth asking—not that there was anyone around to ask.
The room was filled with four other patients in cots all pushed up next to one another. The doctors and nurses moved from one to the next quickly, their fingers shaking from fatigue, or maybe too much caffeine.
The whole hospital was running on its last legs.
It had been less than a week since the sky turned orange, and already LA had reached its breaking point. Shannon saw it in the faces around her—the other patients, the doctors, the newscasters on TV, her own parents—the heavy grayness of the room wasn’t just an issue of lighting, it was a feeling. The time for panic was passing.
Now was the time to cut losses and get the hell out.
A thin figure slipped through the doorway and made its way over to Shannon’s bed.
“Merek?”
He smiled, pulling up a chair near Shannon’s side.
“How did you get here? My parents . . .”
Her parents hadn’t left her side since Merek and Joe had brought her home, slightly bruised and just a bit broken. They’d yelled at Joe until he left, stammering apologies and dragging Merek behind him, and then they’d immediately rushed her to the hospital.
“Joe dropped me here,” Merek said. “Don’t worry—I did not let your parents see me. They finally left your room to talk with the healers, so I took the opportunity to sneak inside.”
“If they find you here, heads will roll. I’m serious.”
“I will take my chances.” Merek was still smiling, still making jokes. But his eyes were heavy—they had been ever since the Ralphs’s parking lot. Shannon gestured around the room again.
“Feels like we were just here, doesn’t it?” Next to her, a patient coughed in his sleep. Another moaned across the room. “Guess it’s a bit different this time.”
Merek’s eyes were still focused only on her. “Yes. It is.”
“Did you get your stitches fixed?” Shannon reached one hand up to the bandage on Merek’s collarbone, pulling it gently to see. He didn’t flinch as the light fabric pulled away, revealing the cut underneath. He still stared at her in that strange, intense way.
“I will be fine,” he said. “And you?”
His eyes fell down to Shannon’s right wrist, which was wrapped up in a cast.
“Broken. But I’ll only need the cast for a month. Then the doctors will be able to take it off.” She sighed, knowing it would be easier to pull the Band-Aid off fast. “In Utah. Which is . . . far from here.”
But Merek didn’t look even a little surprised.
“You were eavesdropping, weren’t you?”
“Your parents were not exactly being quiet about their decision.”
Shannon gave a small laugh. “And they say I’m the loud one.” She was trying to make
light of it, but the truth was that her parents’ terror had terrified her. They’d been acting strange ever since the sky turned orange, sure, but when they saw Shannon come home with a broken wrist and a bruise on the side of her face, the fear in her mom’s eyes had stopped Shannon cold. She couldn’t even argue with them when they told her they’d decided to leave Los Angeles immediately. At that point, to ask them to stay seemed cruel.
“It’s not that I want to go,” Shannon said, looking down at her busted wrist. She couldn’t even feel it through all the wrappings—or, no, it was probably the drugs blunting the pain. She wondered if they were affecting her decision making, too. At that moment, she didn’t care. All she wanted now was to make sure she never saw that look on her mom’s face ever again—that she never caused her mom to look that way ever again.
“But they’re my parents,” she whispered.
Merek was silent for a moment. “I understand.”
Shannon couldn’t guess what he might be thinking. He’d called her brave at the grocery store. Did he think she was a coward now? Or maybe he was thinking of his own parents, in another world and surely worrying about him also?
“Are you going to go home, too?” she asked. “Joe could open you a portal.”
But Merek shook his head. “No. There is nothing I could do at home that Cedric and Kat are not already doing. But this world . . .” Merek sighed, lifting his head toward the room’s single window. “In this world, I might do some good. I might be of real use for once, more than just some second son or sidekick.”
“Merek . . . you’re not a sidekick.”
Merek gave a small smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “We shall see.”
He looked down, his eyes hardening when they met Shannon’s cast. “Besides, Joe will still need help. And someone needs to find the Knight who did this to you—”
“And get some answers?” Shannon raised an eyebrow. “There’s no need to get all revenge-y when there’s so much left to do.”
Merek shrugged, and Shannon felt nervous for a moment. But then he smiled. “You are probably right.”
The Broken World Page 14
