by Shae Ford
“He called me into the throne room the evening after Kyleigh fled, I’ll never forget it,” Morris said somberly. “Crevan begged me to write those letters. He said he wanted to bring the Kingdom back together. And after everything he’d done, I … well, I believed him.
“Once I’d sealed the last letter, Crevan turned on me. He made sure I couldn’t undo it,” Morris said, holding up his nubs. “He made sure I couldn’t stop him. Then he locked me in one of the tower rooms. He was going to make me watch, see — he was going to stand me up in front of all the whisperers, just before the sword came down, and he was going to make sure they knew it was me who’d sold them.
“By the time Setheran found me, it was too late. The letters had already been sent. I told him what I’d done, and he could’ve killed me then. But instead, he snuck me out. He handed me off to Matteo and told me to keep with the pirates. Then he gave me that wallet,” Morris thrust a nub at the throwing knives strapped around Kael’s arm, “and he said to me: you make sure he gets these. ‘Course, I didn’t know who he was —”
“Wait a moment.” Kael had already marched several paces away when a thought struck him. “Setheran died fighting in the Whispering War. There was no way he could’ve found you after …”
He spun to Morris, who raised his bushy brows. “Died in the war? No. Where’d you hear a thing like that?”
He’d read it in the Atlas.
Something that was a mix between anger and shock burned across his face as the realization sank in. “How, then? How did he die?”
“You really want to know, lad?”
He wasn’t sure. After what he’d learned about Morris, perhaps it would’ve been best not to find out. But his curiosity won out over his worry.
Morris sighed when he nodded. “Setheran died in Midlan. He died right there alongside all the other whisperers —”
“But he knew about the trap!” The words burst from Kael’s lungs, furious and shocked. “Why in Kingdom’s name would he go if he knew? How could he have been so foolish?”
Morris was quiet for a long moment. “I wondered that, too. I couldn’t believe it when I heard. Haunted me for years, it did. And then one day, this little redheaded lad from the mountains showed up aboard our ship … and it all came together.”
Kael’s mouth went dry. He knew what Morris was going to say before he even spoke. The horrible, icy weight crushed across his back. It made his knees bend in shock … sagged his heart with anguish.
“His son was dead — leastways, that’s what Setheran told us. Said he’d died just days after birth. His whole village mourned him for weeks. I thought maybe he’d been so hurt by it that he’d gone to Midlan as a way of … ending things,” Morris croaked, his voice broken by his whisper. “But the moment I saw you, I knew what they’d done.”
“They?” Kael’s stomach was gone. It’d finally slipped out the bottom of his chest — leaving a ragged, gaping hole behind.
“Setheran and Amelia were well-known in the court,” Morris said quietly. “Crevan expected them to come to Midlan. If they hadn’t turned up, he would’ve known something was wrong. Had they run, he would’ve chased them. The only way they could give you a chance, the only hope they had of keeping you a secret … they had to make sure Crevan would never go looking for you. They had to let him think he’d won. Don’t you see, lad?”
Kael did. He saw it through such a fearsome, angry burst of light that he could hardly think to stand.
There was nothing left inside him … for he realized that not one thing he’d done was truly his. Every victory belonged to Setheran — payment for the blood he’d wasted. And if he’d ever done anything worth an ounce of good, deserving of the light, then it belonged to Amelia. It all belonged to her.
Kael was a ghost standing upon borrowed ground — one foot supported by the mounds of each grave. And he realized with an anguish that sank him to his knees that he would never be able to repay them. Nothing he ever said or did could possibly measure up to the gift they’d given him.
He would be forever in their debt.
Morris must not have been able to hear the shocked gasps of Kael’s heart, because he croaked on without pause: “I know what you’re thinking, lad. It’s easy to turn your nose up at a story once you’ve closed the book. You can shake your fists and call us fools — but when you’re stuck between the pages, you can’t see what’s coming. I’d give anything to go back there,” Morris whispered, his eyes imploring. “I’d give anything to change what I’d done. But time don’t turn back. It only goes forward. Now you know the truth … so do what you got to do. It’ll be what’s fair.”
He spread his arms to either side, leaving his chest exposed. But Kael shook his head. “I’m not going to kill you.”
His mouth fell open beneath his wiry beard. “But, I … it’s my fault, lad. If I hadn’t wrote those letters, they never would’ve had to —”
“It isn’t your fault,” Kael said sharply — sharp, because he knew the fault was his.
As he stared at the ground between them, he began to understand the weight of blood. It couldn’t settle every score. It couldn’t right every wrong. Blood, when spilled for a purpose, could be worth its weight in gold. But he’d never much cared for gold.
No, there were far greater treasures to be had … gifts that only life could give.
“You told me once that I shouldn’t regret things, and now I see why. Mistakes are just part of our stories, aren’t they? We can’t always choose which monsters will rise in our path, but we can choose to face them. Our choices carry us to our ends.” Kael looked up and met the old helmsman in his watery eyes. “Time will run out on both of us eventually, Morris. And when it does … well, I’d rather have you by my side than buried somewhere in the mountains.”
Relief washed out over his eyes. He slammed Kael into the middle of his chest, crushing him in a stocky-armed embrace. “And that’s right where I’ll be, lad. Aye — that’s right where I’ll be!”
The way Morris had him crushed forced Kael’s chin up at the stars. He was staring at the pale flesh of the moon, wondering how he was going to untangle himself, when a shadow crossed through the light.
He recognized the twisted silhouette of one of the Earl’s falcons. Its short wings beat furiously and its body bobbed up and down — dragged by the weight of the dark object hanging from its talons.
Kael quickly pulled away from Morris and pointed upwards. The old helmsman’s eyes widened. He waved a stocky arm, gesturing for Kael to follow. “Come on, lad. If we’re lucky, that little devil’ll lead us straight to where Titus is hiding.”
“Shouldn’t we go back and get the others?”
Morris shook his head. “No time. You said you’ve been wondering why the Earl’s gone quiet — this might be our only chance to find out. Pick up your feet,” he called as he lumbered up the slope. “You can’t let a fellow with no hands and too much belly get out ahead of you!”
*******
The falcon didn’t travel far. Kael had expected to jog half the night. But instead, it flapped hardly a mile up the slope before it came back down to earth.
There was a small stone cottage hidden against a rocky face of the mountain. It was only large enough for a handful of men. Kael figured it must’ve been home to one of the Earl’s scouting troops, or perhaps it was worse — perhaps the cottage was merely the head of a larger force. It was close enough to their camp that Titus’s men could’ve traveled there with ease.
The falcon landed clumsily. It hopped up and rammed its head against the cottage’s small wooden door. “Rest!” it screeched. “Tired — rest!”
Light streamed sleepily onto the frozen ground as the door’s latched window cracked open. Then the whole thing swung on its hinges and one of the Earl’s soldiers leaned out. “Have you got it?”
“Yes!”
“Good. There’ll be another bird coming by to pick it up in the morning.” The soldier bent to work on the obj
ect attached to the falcon’s claws. There was a muffled click and the clink of chains as the object came free.
“Sore!” the falcon screeched as it hopped inside. “Hungry!”
“Yeah, there’s vittles on the fire. Make sure you’re ready to take off at dawn,” the soldier grumbled as he straightened. “Someone’s got to keep an eye on those savages over the hill. They’ve been lurking around here for weeks, now. Makes me nervous. Don’t know why his Earlship doesn’t just sack them and be done with it …”
His grumbling went on as he ducked through the door, and Kael saw there was a small wooden box hanging from a length of chain in his right hand. He only caught a glimpse of it before the soldier disappeared into the cottage — shutting the door tight behind him.
“What do you suppose that is, lad?” Morris whispered.
Kael wasn’t sure. He was thinking about what the soldier had just said — about how he wished Titus would attack them and be done with it. If he’d known where they were camped, why hadn’t he attacked?
“He’s planning another trap,” Kael said as he studied the cottage. “And I’ll bet it has something to do with whatever’s inside that box.”
The soldier had said that another bird was coming to retrieve the box in the morning, and dawn was quickly approaching. They didn’t have time to return to camp. If he wanted to find out what Titus had planned, he knew he’d have to act quickly.
Morris kept an eye on the door while Kael circled around. The cottage backed up so close the rock wall behind it that Kael had to turn sideways just to edge through. There were no windows and no other doors. There was only one way in or out of the cottage — and Kael sealed it up.
He molded the door to the frame, molded the frame to the stone. He pressed on the hinges until they were little more than flattened strips of metal. He sealed the door’s window to its latching — just enough let it shift, but not enough to open. Then he crept back to Morris.
“I have a plan, but I’m going to need your help.”
He was met with a wide, gap-toothed grin. “You know I’ll do my bit, lad. Just point me to it.”
Once Morris was ready, Kael crept to the back of the cottage. The stone and mortar bent like clay beneath his hands. He dug until there was hardly a fingernail’s breadth of wall between himself and the inside of the cottage. Then he waited.
It wasn’t long before he heard the hollow thud of someone pounding on the door.
“All right, all right!” one of the guards shouted over the din. There was the stomping of steps and then some frantic rattling. “One of you maggots get up and help me — the blasted latch is stuck again!”
Another set of steps marched towards the first. They struggled for a moment before two more joined them. The latch rattled furiously under their efforts, and the thudding never stopped.
“Clamp it, will you? We’re working as fast as we can!”
“Bloody latch …”
“Well, you can’t just rip on it!”
“What does it matter? The blasted thing’s probably frozen to the do — ah!”
Kael’s arrow struck the nearest man in the back of the neck. He fired through the hole he’d made in the wall, bringing the other three down in a quick series of shots. A fifth man charged wildly into the middle of the room, sword drawn. He wiped at his eyes as if he’d just been sleeping.
An arrow pinned his hand to his face.
“Attack! Fight!”
Kael lurched back and narrowly missed having his face split open by the falcon’s twisted beak. It snapped at him, trying to cram its way through. But the hole was too small. It’d leaned back to charge its head against the wall when Kael’s arrow struck its middle.
He waited, breathless, in the moments that followed. But he couldn’t hear anything over Morris’s pounding. When another moment passed and not a shadow moved inside the cottage, he widened the hole and slid through.
The falcon was still alive. Terror ringed its large black pupils and its wings flopped helplessly beside it. Kael didn’t want to look — he didn’t want to have to watch the light leave its eyes …
Wait a moment — that wasn’t light, at all. Kael crept closer, leaning in until he stared straight into the falcon’s eyes.
A man’s face stared back. His head was suspended in the black depths of the falcon’s gaze, floating there without a body. The image wavered like flame battered by the wind. Kael could barely make out the tangled mane of hair, the ragged beard — the cruel mouth that twisted into a grin.
The man’s face dissolved into the blackness as the falcon’s last breath hissed out of its lungs. Kael was staring so intently at the fading image that he didn’t notice the shadow creeping up at his back. He heard the floor planks groan and spun, slinging an arm out behind him.
A sharp, pinching sting bit the flesh below his left shoulder. Kael ripped the hunting dagger from his belt and plunged it blindly through the mass in front of him. There was a moan, a gasp, and then an armor-clad body fell across his chest.
There’d been one more soldier in the room. He stared over the man’s shoulder and saw he’d been hiding in a corner behind the jutting edge of the hearth. Kael had just managed to fight his way out from under the soldier’s body when the pain struck him.
It was sharp, burning with such a rage that it nearly blinded him. No, it wasn’t the pain that made his vision dim: a strange numbness filled his head. It traveled down his limbs, made his hands droop at his sides. His body felt as if he’d just woken from a heavy sleep — as if he had no real control over it, as if his head merely sat atop a tangle of limbs.
Cold whipped through the crack behind him. He could feel the wind’s every pointed tooth as it raked down his skin. His teeth chattered uncontrollably. His body shook even though he told it to stop.
There was a dagger stuck below his left shoulder, its blade half-buried in his flesh. Blood wept from the ragged hole at its base — he knew from how steadily the drops came that there was more blood waiting behind it. If he tried to pull the dagger free, he might very well bleed out. Perhaps if he sealed an edge of the wound closed …
Kael gasped and slumped back. His fingers had done nothing more than pinch fire from his skin. No matter how fiercely he concentrated, he couldn’t turn his wound to clay. He couldn’t remember how it felt to mold flesh back together. He couldn’t remember how he’d done it.
“Is that all of them, lad?” Morris hissed from around the hole in the wall.
Kael’s teeth chattered too badly to answer. What in Kingdom’s name was wrong with him? Why had everything gone so cold?
“Are you all right in there? Have you got the —? Kael!”
Morris ducked through the hole and stumbled to his side. His nubs circled helplessly over the half-buried dagger. His eyes went from Kael’s chattering teeth to where the soldier had been hiding. He stared inside the small wooden box that lay opened in a shadowed corner of the hearth, and he swore.
“What …? What’s …?”
“Easy now, lad. Try not to fuss.” Morris scooped up armfuls of the soldiers’ bedding and began stuffing it inside the hole, silencing the howl of the wind. “You’ve been poisoned lad — it won’t kill you,” he said quickly, when he saw the panic on Kael’s face. “It’s a poison called mindrot. Puts us whisperers in a bad way, it does. Mindrot muddles your head. It’ll make you human for a bit. You won’t be able to use your powers until it wears off.”
Once Morris had the hole blocked, he pinched the box between his arms and toted it over to Kael. There was a large vial inside of it, filled nearly to its top with a dangerous-looking purple liquid. The wax seal had been broken over its cork. Kael realized that must’ve been where the soldier had gotten the mindrot for his dagger.
“One drop is enough to muddle a whisperer …” Morris swore loudly, gaping down at the box. “There’s quite a few drops in here. I don’t know what Titus traded for it, but it must’ve been something grand, indeed. D’Mere’s the only
one who knows the formula for mindrot,” he explained. “And she doesn’t hand her vials out lightly.”
Kael sank to his knees. So that was how the Sovereign Five had managed to keep the rebel whisperers at bay all those years. If mindrot had been able to defeat the whisperers once before, it could do it again.
Titus knew this. He was planning to use it on the wildmen. He hadn’t attacked them because he’d been waiting for this vial of mindrot. Now that he had it, he planned to crush the wildmen exactly as he’d crushed the rebels …
“That isn’t blood, is it?”
Kael looked to where Morris pointed and mumbled a curse when he saw the purplish stain spreading over his trousers. “Night-fingers. I promised Griff that I’d …”
He stopped.
A mad thought came to him suddenly. He fought against the searing pain in his arm and reached inside his trousers. One of the curled roots had burst. It leaked a large amount of purplish juice down his fingers and stained the beds of his nails. But the rest of the roots were intact, still bulging with their liquid innards.
Between his poison and his beasts, Titus had the wildmen trapped. If Kael moved one way, Titus would leap to block him. There would be endless layers to his plan: he would adapt to every shift in their strategy, mold his army to fit against their charge. If the wildmen met Titus in the field, they could end up fighting a battle every bit as eternal as their war with the wynns.
Kael knew he couldn’t possibly hope to outwit the man who’d brought the Kingdom to its knees, and so he wouldn’t try. He wouldn’t fight back.
Instead, he would take a leaf from Setheran’s book: he would do exactly what Titus expected him to.
Kael would walk straight into his trap.
Chapter 40
Here at the End
“Ho, that was a wicked thing you done, lad!” Morris panted, half-laughing as they stumbled down the frozen slopes. “Are you sure he’ll find it?”
