If I’d had any training at all, if my power were not so blunt and so uncontrollable – if my soul were not too big for my body – I could have gone into his mind and blocked him from seeing whatever atrocities made him scream so. But I had been forbidden to train – to improve – so I could not.
I had never been able to save the people I loved. That was my tragedy.
It occurred to me that ignoring my soul magic all these years was where the true danger lay. And what a blunder that now seemed.
I didn’t know how long Thorne could stand that much blood loss before he died. And I didn’t know how long he could stand seeing such visions before he went mad.
My mind was working, stretching forward, trying to think of a way out of this. I could feel threads entangled on either side of us, but I couldn’t work out how to manipulate them. Just as I had struggled with all the puzzle pieces, I’d known there was a way to put them together, and there had been. I just had to find the answer to this in the same way.
The woman was a first tier warder. She had control of the whole mountain. She wielded the berserkers as weapons, which meant she was very strong. Pieces of her always had to be tending to them, keeping them locked tight. If I could somehow get her to turn all her power to the one thing, then the berserkers would be free to save Thorne. Would they save Thorne? I had no idea how it worked up here, but I had to assume they would.
And the only way I could think of to get her to concentrate every scrap of her power on the one thing was to attack her. Completely. With all of my power. Making myself a target.
Which would mean, unequivocally, my death.
One of you will die.
Good, then. Better that it be me. Perfect, to die instead of him.
Chapter 19
Falco
There was chaos in the palace. I’d been told it was the same in the city. Because with the setting of the sun every single guard on the wall of Sancia dropped dead.
People were ordered to lock themselves in their homes and to not emerge until told otherwise. Soldiers were sent, but every man or woman who took up arms anywhere near the wall died. The other warders had failed to reach us in time, so we had fifty at most. Which we had thought to be more than enough, but was not, apparently. Not even close.
It was catastrophic, a real tragedy, and I had failed to stop it. For all my plans, my strategies, I had never imagined that our trust in the warders would become such a miserable blunder. And it was far from over.
‘Why the fuck aren’t you doing anything to stop this?’ I roared at Lutius.
He ignored me, in constant contact with every warder he had dispersed throughout the city. He was pale and drawn, stretched thin. ‘Another,’ he whispered. ‘We’ve lost another. They’re dropping.’
‘Explain this,’ Quill demanded. We were holed up in the war room, which was fortified on every side.
I was aching to draw my sword and fight. It felt wrong on a deep, instinctive level to be hiding while my city was under attack.
‘There are more than two,’ Lutius said. ‘More than Dren and Galia. They have followers. The warders I stationed around the edges of the city are being overcome and killed one by one. Once they are all dead, there will be nothing to stop the enemy from entering.’
Quill and I had been moved to the floor, where the warders could stand watch over us and protect against the entrances.
‘This feels wrong,’ she said.
‘Just let them do their jobs,’ I cautioned her, even though I agreed utterly.
‘What use is there in us hiding? If they get through the guards, they will find us eventually.’
I didn’t reply, but I took her hand.
The question bubbled up from somewhere completely unexpected. I didn’t have a chance to stop it. ‘Would you have loved me if I’d been different? Better?’
She looked at me with those emerald eyes of hers. ‘I do love you.’
‘Quill.’
A minute shake of her head. A squeeze of my hand. And it was enough, somehow. It was enough for me to finally let go of the idea, the possibility of she and I. She was my Empress, my partner, my best friend, and that was all. No matter what deception I had made of my life, she would not want me as anything more, and the fact, suddenly, was like being set free. However long before death came to find us, I was free of this constant what if.
I leant in and kissed her lips gently. She smiled.
Shouting came from beyond the door. But it was not fighting, not yet. They still had yet to breach the wall.
I began to think that there must be a weak link somewhere. Some reason they had an advantage over us, something we had yet to identify. We had more warders, and many of them were very powerful. So why were they falling with such ease? Unless there was something we’d missed.
‘Lutius,’ I called. ‘Any luck with the boy? Jonah?’ With Jonah would come Finn. And she was the key, I was sure of it.
He shook his head, concentrating his power so that his skin had an unearthly glow.
I stood, considering how to put this. When there were no other warders within earshot, I said, ‘I think they have inside help.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘How could they have broken out of the prison unless they had someone working on the inside?’
He frowned, looking murderous at the very idea. But after a few moments he shook his head. ‘I would have seen it. Someone would have seen it.’
‘Nobody saw anything!’ I snapped. ‘You are not all-powerful! There are obviously ways of manipulating other warders. So I would advise you, as your Emperor, to take this seriously, and work under the possibility that you have been compromised from within.’
‘Yes, Majesty,’ he agreed. But I was no fool – I saw the disregard he had for me, the complete lack of faith. And it was fair enough.
I watched him return to his people and give a few sharp orders. I watched him close his eyes and concentrate once more on the souls of those who were trying to infiltrate my city.
When I turned back to Quill, she was gone.
I was quick enough to catch sight of her rounding a corner of the corridor. The guards were focused on the front entrance, so I snuck after her through the back. She was running at full sprint, and I knew she must be heading back to her secret tunnel. What was in there?
‘Quill,’ I said, just as she was unlocking it.
She whirled to me as if she’d had a shock to the heart. ‘Falco. Gods. You scared me.’
‘I’m coming with you.’
‘What are you talking about? I’m just –’
‘I’m coming with you.’
She stopped, unsure what to say. Eventually she gave a deep sigh and led the way.
The tunnel was small and dark and quite long. It wound deeper into the ground, twisted a few times and then stopped. Through another door, into a small, beautifully furnished room.
Within which stood a young woman. The very same woman who had discovered my secret. The woman I’d come close to having killed.
‘Radha,’ I said.
She stared at me, astonished. Looked to Quill, unsure.
‘You’d better tell me what’s going on, Quillane,’ I said softly.
She opened her mouth but before she had a chance to speak something shook the foundations of the palace and I felt my consciousness pulled into black.
I woke in pain, a heavy pressure on my body. Something had fallen on me, and I struggled to push it off. A piece of sandstone from the roof. Quillane and Radha were clearing a path to me.
‘Falco!’
‘I’m all right.’
As I looked around at the wreckage I realised we were very lucky to be alive. My shoulder had been dislocated, but it was prone to that, and the amount of times I’d had to push it back in prepared me for the pain.
‘You two stay here,’ I told them once I’d crunched the bone back into its socket. ‘Lock the door behind me and don’t open it for anyone else.’
‘Darling,’ I said firmly. ‘You stay. One of us must always be safe. That’s how it works.’ I gave her a quick kiss and grinned. ‘Nobody cares if we lose Emperor Feckless, but you, my love, are the last remaining hope of Kaya.’
‘Falco,’ she said, and I could hear the tears in her throat, but I was already sprinting to the tunnel.
Back in the palace it was nightmarish. Difficult to see anything. People running around the place, shouting. Bits of the roof had fallen in, but thankfully it didn’t seem as though the whole palace was about to come down. Guards spotted me, moved to surround me. Petir looked relieved to see me alive.
‘Where’s Lutius?’ I shouted.
‘Don’t know, Majesty. The walls have been breached. But the evacuation has been put into action – many have already made it out of the city. We need to get you and the Empress out immediately.’
Protected by my host of guards I ran back to the war room to find it empty but for two figures. Petir had his sword at their throats in an instant.
‘Hold! Lower your weapons!’
I shook my head in astonishment to see that it was the prince’s friends – Jonah and the little one, Penn. Jonah was leaning heavily on the smaller boy, and he looked like he’d been vomiting. ‘Majesty,’ he breathed.
‘How did you get here?’
‘I … jumped us.’
I blinked. ‘What?’
‘He used power,’ Penn explained impatiently. ‘Listen.’
‘Dren and Galia come –’
‘I know, mate. You’re a bit late on that one.’
‘Not just them – the Sparrow comes too.’
I felt cold through my limbs, but shook my head. ‘That’s not my priority right now.’
‘He comes for you,’ Jonah rasped. He seemed to be moving in and out of delirium. Jumping two people across countries would suck a lot of energy, I could imagine. It was astonishing that he was still alive, from what I gathered. Maybe Lutius was right about his power after all.
‘Your sister?’ I asked.
‘In the ice,’ Penn said, and my hope died. Why had I been so sure that she was the key to this? I had not a shred of proof to that effect.
Penn took Jonah’s face in his hands and looked into his friend’s eyes. ‘The treachery,’ he prompted. ‘Remember the treachery.’
I lurched forward, studying Jonah’s sickly darting eyes. ‘He spoke of treachery?’ I urged.
Jonah gave a loud moan. ‘He’s circling. There’s so much blood.’
‘Jonah. Breathe,’ Penn told him gently. ‘One breath, two breaths, three, four, five, six, seven …’
The young warder seemed to hear him counting and did so, drawing a deep lungful of air. Then his eyes opened and snapped straight to me. In them I could see a dark horror.
‘Lutius,’ he whispered. ‘Lutius is with them.’
I straightened, heart hammering. Fury sliced through me. Our head warder, working against us from the inside. Our only chance at survival turned against us. We were ruined.
Penn took my wrist, and I looked down at him as if in a daze. ‘Run,’ the boy whispered. ‘Run and hide. Or they will kill us all.’
His parents, I remembered with a sick taste in my mouth.
I looked at the two boys. Two young boys, courageous enough to come so far on the hope that they could help an impossible fight in the moments before certain death.
‘Thank you,’ I told them softly. ‘But there will be no more running and hiding. Not for me.’ And saying so, I drew my sword.
Quillane
‘Stay here,’ I ordered Radha when I could sit still no longer. I didn’t care about the rules. I could not let poor, useless Falco dash out there on his own to get killed. I needed to know what was going on.
‘Not without you,’ she said bluntly.
‘I can’t do this right now. I need to know you’re safe or I’ll be unfocused. I will have a guard – you will not.’ I took her face in my hands and felt our eyes turn gold. ‘Radha. I love you. Completely.’
She was strong. She’d always had hidden depths of courage. It was why I loved her so. She did not cry; instead, she nodded, lending me her strength.
‘Bring the idiot back,’ she told me. ‘And be careful. We’ve got a long way to go with this country yet.’
‘See you soon.’ With a kiss, I started running.
It was, in the end, the worst mistake of my life.
Falco
‘Lutius!’ I screamed as I prowled through the corridors of my palace. My palace. I was born here. Watched my family slaughtered here. Was sworn to the throne here when I was but ten years old. No filthy treacherous scum was going to take it from me.
Petir was watching me as though I’d lost my mind, when in truth I had found it at long last. I felt all the hidden pieces of me take their rightful places in my body and soul.
I wanted to kill Lutius, and I was going to.
‘Where are you hiding?’ I shouted.
I could hear his soft laughter in the back of my head, there to taunt me.
‘Come out and fight,’ I ordered him.
‘Majesty, we must leave,’ Petir told me. ‘You cannot fight a warder. No one can.’
‘The slaughterman did,’ I breathed, more to myself. ‘In the north they learnt how to kill warders. Perhaps they had it right the whole time.’
Something was leading me to my chambers. It felt like fate. It felt like all the pathways of my life had led to here, to this room, though I knew not why. Would he be waiting for me? Ready to kill me?
In my mind I didn’t even know if I was thinking of Lutius or the Sparrow. I would not have been surprised by either. But my rooms were empty.
I stood still, assailed by a sense that this wasn’t right. That something was supposed to –
‘Falco!’
I spun around to see Quillane burst into the room. ‘What are you doing here?’ I snapped.
My guards were gone. It occurred to me like a finger tracing eerily down my spine. We were utterly alone.
And as I looked at Quill I saw her eyes turn gold.
I froze, thinking for a second that –
But no. It was not me. It was –
She sank to the floor.
‘Quill?’ I exclaimed, dropping to her side. ‘Help!’ I screamed, but still – everyone was gone. What the fuck was going on?
My Empress stared up at me, all the strength gone from her body. Silent tears were pouring down her face, so many tears I felt terror strike. She seemed completely and utterly broken.
‘Radha,’ she sobbed. ‘She’s dead.’
‘What? Why –’ And it hit me. They were bonded. And I was the greatest imbecile in the world to have missed it.
Quillane wept, her whole body trembling. ‘It hurts it hurts it hurts –’ It was a wail, a scream, the baying of a dying thing.
‘Fight it,’ I urged. ‘Darling, you can fight it. Half-walkers can survive. You’re strong enough. Fight.’
She blinked her golden eyes. An incredible colour. Why hadn’t I ever been aware of how beautiful that colour was? ‘Why would I want to?’ Quillane whispered.
And then died.
I didn’t know how long I sat there, draped over her. I bore grief like a hard stone in my chest. It was making it impossible to breathe, to move.
Why didn’t she fight? I couldn’t stop thinking it. Over and over. Why didn’t she fight?
‘Quill,’ I whispered. ‘I’m so sorry, my love.’ For it all. For spending a lifetime making her bear everything alone in the hopes of saving her, and failing. Failing at the sole purpose of my life. For being Emperor Feckless after all.
Something sounded behind me. Footsteps, coming down the corridor. That’s when I noticed how quiet it had gone in the palace. I couldn’t hear screaming anymore. Which meant that either the people in the palace had escaped or they were all dead.
The footsteps kept coming. Lig
ht and soft. The tread of a woman, or even a child.
I couldn’t move.
Because some deep, ancient part of me – the part of the soul that always understood no matter how impossible, how absurd – knew who had come for me. I’d dreamt of him every night.
He was always going to come.
Chapter 20
Isadora
For the first eight years of my life I was kept in a cage that hung over a bottomless chasm. Here, it was said, the soulless lay in wait. And by placing a demon baby just out of their reach, they would be kept at bay, and the town of Velencia would be safe a little longer.
My eyes did not shift. They remained blood red, for the thoughts I’d been born with were ones made of fury. At six, I taught myself how to fashion weapons out of the bones of the sparrow carcasses I was given to eat. I practised using them on the creatures in the pit below, which was not, after all, bottomless, but full of monsters.
When I turned eight, they brought me in from the precipice because I’d fallen ill with fever, and they did not want their bait to die.
I slaughtered the three physicians and escaped.
My parents had been killed for having born such an abomination. So I survived in the forest, and the strange deformed folk I met there took me in, taught me how to pretend and gave me two names. The first was Isadora, because it meant gift of the gods. No, they said, I was not demon spawn. I was just the opposite.
When I was fourteen, old enough and strong enough, I returned to Velencia to seek my revenge. Here the Pirenti beasts had conquered the Kayans, and they ruled us with fear and hatred. A river of blood ran, red for my eyes, for the life that had been stolen from me and the life that had been spilt from the veins of my parents. I did not reserve my hatred only for Pirenti, but gave it to Kayans, too. The ones who had cooperated with the unforgivable subjugation, who had allowed and encouraged a child to be hung over a pit of death. I gave it, especially, to the one warder in Velencia, who had used his power to make it so that my cage was inescapable.
I ended his life the most slowly of all, for I knew the secret of how to kill a warder.
Thorne (Random Romance) Page 31
