Splendor and Spark

by Mary Taranta

  One step, then another, I tell myself. I’ve survived the Burn before, I can do it again.

  Easier said than done.

  Twenty-Five

  THE HORSES DON’T LAST LONG. neither does our lead.

  We’re barely half a day into the Burn before Tobek and I put the poor beasts out of their misery. North refused horses because of the costly protection spells they would require, but Perrote faces no such obstacle, and it’s only a matter of time before he overtakes us. Still, it’s the growing shadows that unsettle me more. I don’t know if we can risk walking at night, even with the candles Tobek thankfully grabbed as he fled the palace, far more prepared than me. But if we don’t keep moving, someone—or something—will get us. Birds have been circling overhead for hours, and I’ve caught glimpses of wolves or worse in the distance.

  Cadence watches everything I do with haunted eyes, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. Every shadow that crosses her face is a needle of panic in my spine. Already I feel my own blood thickening in my veins as it absorbs Bryn’s reaction to the Burn as well my own.

  Five days, I told them. I’ll be lucky to have two. Judging from the map North showed me on the Mainstay, I’ll need every minute of those two days to reach Kerch. I won’t even consider what happens if he’s not there.

  “You all right?” I smooth Cadence’s hair back, and she shoves my hand away with a scowl.

  “I’m fine,” she says, and I take the defiance with some relief. I’ll worry when she stops fighting me.

  We each shoulder a share of supplies, even Bryn. With the snow melting as it lands in the ash, it thickens everything to the consistency of mud, making it even harder to slog through. By the time we gain a simple rise, I’m winded from Bryn’s exhaustion, and I pause, breathless and sweating, looking for cover. We can’t outrun Perrote, but maybe we can hide—possibly rest—until he passes. I haven’t slept in over a day, and it’s wearing on me.

  Instead I see Baedan less than a quarter of a mile in the distance. Waiting for us.

  Her numbers have diminished since that day in the castle. Only six figures flank her, mounted on hellborne horses with a stillness that frightens me. There’s a nothing-left-ness, as though the battle in the ballroom scarred them into shadows themselves.

  The binding spell, I realize with a sinking stomach. Amplified out here, it’d be a tempting enough beacon to draw out all the addicts from their hiding places. That we haven’t been found yet is a miracle.

  Bryn finally reaches the top of the dune behind me and wets her lips. This far into the Burn, her dress does not sparkle so much as smolder; the hem is ragged and gray. But she still bears herself with grace and dignity as she glances back toward her father’s men, now visible behind us. “Which one is worse?”

  “Seven versus an army,” I say. “The odds are in your father’s favor.”

  “Give me that dagger,” she orders Cadence, hand out.

  Cadence hesitates. As ugly as the dagger may be, it’s still the first weapon I’ve ever willfully handed to her. “I want it back,” she finally says, giving it to Bryn.

  Tobek frowns, pulling a bolt from his quiver and loading his crossbow. “Are we going to fight?”

  “We’re not fighting,” says Bryn. “But they will.”

  The monstrous horses strain at their muzzles, but Baedan raises a fist, cocking her head with suspicion as Bryn grabs my arm and pulls me forward, away from the others. Stray hairs cling to her face, and she looks fierce and half-wild. “You have to trust me,” she says, voice low.

  “No,” I say. And then, suspiciously, “Why should I?”

  “I know perfectly well you don’t have that spell anymore.”

  My blood chills, and I look at Cadence to ensure she didn’t hear. “What are you—”

  “Rialdo described it in detail,” she says, “and you are not wearing any iron to keep yourself grounded, and you’ve been following the sun west, not some magic thread.” She gives me a pointed look. “You brought your sister into the Burn; obviously you know where North is. But I also know that without your mother’s spell to protect you, and with this spell between us, you have a day, maybe two, before the infection destroys you. And that’s if my father doesn’t catch us first.” Her voice softens, dark eyes locked on mine. “He will kill you if he has no use of you. And I need you just a little longer.”

  “What are we doing?” Tobek calls, panicked despite all his former bravado.

  Bryn’s fingers dig into my arm. “I trust that you know where North is,” she says, “and now I’m asking you to trust me when I say I can get you there even faster. I know strategy, Faris. You want to save Cadence? You want to walk out of the Burn alive? Trust me.” And then, a single word I’ve never heard from her before: “Please.”

  Bryn uses people as ammunition; she uses pain as a motivating force. I can never forgive her for the choices she’s made—I can never trust her after what she’s done.

  But.

  It’s an insidious whisper, subtle as smoke. It is impossible to reconcile the Bryn who manipulated Tobek, used my life as collateral, and forced a marriage to win her crown, with this girl who now waits for me to say yes.

  I finally realize how desperate she must be.

  There were never any friends at the palace, no confidants. Her own father would kill her without remorse because she was only born as a redundancy to his legacy. Bryn has nothing without her crown. No one. And she never will if we’re caught.

  “What’s your plan?” I ask.

  She smiles, and it almost looks sincere. “We get captured,” she says, raising her voice so Tobek and Cadence can hear.

  Tobek stares at her, incredulous. “What?”

  “Never fight your own wars if you can find volunteers instead,” Bryn says, with a pointed look toward her father. “We’ll never make it through the Burn on foot; we need to reach North as fast as possible. As it happens, Baedan will want to go in the same direction. If we do this right, she’ll play defense to my father’s offense and we won’t have to get involved.”

  “It’s a feint,” I say, heart racing, as Baedan and her men ride toward us.

  Cadence stands still, frozen with terror. Without looking at her, Tobek slides his fingers through hers. “Are we even going to try to fight?” he asks in disgust. “Baedan will never believe we were accidentally captured.”

  I swallow hard and look back as Perrote and his men draw close enough that I can see the color of their uniforms. There are fewer than I expected, two dozen at most, his men and several of Chadwick’s defectors. Even now, with victory within reach, Perrote is loath to spare his own people—the font of his power.

  Good.

  Back in Brindaigel, shadow crows and loyalty spells were the extent of our exposure to Perrote’s magic. Most of these men are too young to have seen real, powerful magic in action, only the consequences of such magic dying. When night falls and the hellborne roam and the shadowbred begin to hunt, they’ll depend on Perrote for salvation, and his own inexperience will cost him more men than any paltry attack we might try to stage.

  “No,” I say, “save the ammunition.”

  Baedan and her men circle us. I edge closer to Cadence and meet Baedan’s gaze in silent challenge. There’s a new edge to her features, a roughness bred of hunger and manic obsession. The others—four men and two women—stare at us with dull eyes and listless expressions. Interested, but not fully invested. If Baedan has had them searching for Merlock without rest, they’ve had no time to capture any slaves beyond the Burn. There has been no clean blood to dilute their own infections, to offer them a reprieve from the mud in their veins. They’re not at full strength.

  “That was too easy,” Baedan says.

  A warning shot cracks through the air, and the hellborne flinch at the unfamiliar sound, ducking closer to their frothing mounts. A second shot echoes after, and Baedan’s expression tightens. “What is that?”

  Bryn exhales and adjusts her grip on
the dagger. “Let the negotiations begin,” she mutters. She hooks me around the throat and levels the blade to my skin.

  Cadence startles forward. “What are you doing?”

  Baedan scoffs and sits back in her saddle. “What makes you think I care if you carve her open?”

  “Because I don’t see a crown on your head,” says Bryn. “Which means you need her and her spell to find Merlock before they”—she nods over her shoulder—“kill all of us.” A trickle of blood drips down my throat; Bryn is trembling, and the dagger is sharp. I reach a hand up to steady her grip, already doubting my decision to trust her.

  “Yet we don’t need you,” Baedan says, folding her arms across her chest. “We’ll take the body bags, though.” Her silver eye flicks toward Cadence and Tobek, still holding hands.

  Bryn throws out her arm and cuts her palm. The reaction is immediate as I bite back my hiss of pain and clench my hand into a fist. Blood drips between my fingers, and several of the hellborne wet their lips, eyes darkening with unmistakable lust.

  “She’s been absorbing the poison for both of us since we entered the Burn,” says Bryn. “You leave me out here to die, she’ll die first. And as we’ve established, you need her, which means you also need me.”

  Baedan grins. “Spells can be skinned.”

  “They can also be destroyed,” Bryn says, dipping the dagger to my chest.

  Baedan tenses, and Bryn grins. “I’ll make you an offer,” says Bryn. “I give you Faris; you kill Merlock and inherit Avinea.”

  “And how does this benefit you?”

  Bryn tosses her hair back. “I want Brindaigel.”

  My breath catches as Bryn tightens her hold around my shoulders. But Baedan looks bemused. “What is Brindaigel?”

  “It’s a kingdom of no concern to you,” says Bryn. “Leave me and my people in peace, and in return I pledge an annual tithe. You’ll need fresh blood after Avinea falls. Slaves. I’ll provide them in exchange for the safety of my borders.”

  I run cold at the thought. It doesn’t take imagination to guess who would be the first to go in her new kingdom. Scrape out the Brim and free the air for those who live higher.

  Just like her father.

  But she’s only pretending, I tell myself. Right? There’s no way Brindaigel could produce enough slaves to keep an addict like Baedan satiated. This is just part of Bryn’s plan—her strategy. But the offer sounds too pitched, too planned, too much like everything Bryn really wants. It’s exactly as North said. Bryn will always keep a fail-safe. If we fail, Baedan may not, and Bryn could still win.

  Baedan frowns as she studies the two of us before her gaze turns toward Perrote. He’s not wasting additional ammunition at this distance, but the gunshots have clearly unsettled her. If she lingers, she’ll have to fight; she needs to make her decision now. “Where is North?”

  “He’s dead,” Bryn lies smoothly. “The throne has been taken by my father, who needs my blood if he wants to inherit Avinea’s magic. He’s the one hunting us now.”

  Baedan laughs, rocking back in her saddle. “Dead,” she repeats, relishing the word. “How tragic. He was so very young. Full of potential.”

  “Do we have a deal or not?” Bryn raises the dagger again.

  “Use the spell and tell me where Merlock is,” Baedan says at last, leaning forward in her saddle. “And then we’ll see if you’re as useful as you say.”

  Bryn releases me, and I stumble in the ash. Baedan has seen the spell; she knows how it works. How am I supposed to fake that?

  Adjusting my coat, I cast a sour look at Bryn, drawing a deep breath. As I release it slowly, from somewhere deep down I feel a faint flicker of interest above my heart, some lost fragment of my mother’s broken spell fighting to resurface. Pressure begins to build in my head, a warning pain in my chest not to call upon the frayed edges that Merlock didn’t remove.

  “He’s cutting southwest, toward the fields of Arak,” I say, tamping down the magic, leaving only a bittersweet feeling of absence.

  The hellborne exchange looks of confusion, but Baedan considers my reply with half-lidded eyes. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” I say, frustrated. Perrote is getting closer, and the odds of Bryn’s gamble paying off are getting slimmer. “I don’t have to use the spell to confirm what I knew an hour ago. If you want me to announce his location to every other hellborne in the Burn, I’d be more than happy to do so. Or you can believe that I’m dying twice as fast as the rest of them because of her, and I have no interest in being left out here for the shadows to eat. Lying to you would be worthless.”

  A third warning shot, close enough to be concerning.

  A small smile flickers across Baedan’s face. “Let’s go,” she barks.

  We’re each pulled onto a mount and Baedan leads the retreat, leaving Perrote at our backs.

  Twenty-Six

  WE STOP BRIEFLY TO WAIT out the darkest hours of the night—confirming Gideon’s assertion that the hellborne are afraid of the dark. It’s a delay I can’t afford, and yet Baedan isn’t taking orders from me. Perrote does the same in the distance, our two fires a temporary truce against the shadows that slither through the dark and hide beneath the ash. The only positive is that the horses cover far more ground than we could have on foot; already the Kettich Mountains have fallen behind us, replaced with the craggy peaks of the Heralds. If Perrote had given North just a little more magic, we could have brought horses and halved our time in the Burn. It might have made the difference between success or failure.

  Baedan reclines on a carpet of animal furs, watching Bryn, who hovers near the fire, warming her hands. I managed a few stolen moments of sleep while riding and now, energized, I sit apart with Tobek and Cadence, watching everything, tallying the weakest among the hellborne, strategizing the best offense. When the time comes, we need to be ready.

  “Are you any good with a dagger?” I ask Tobek from the corner of my mouth. We, too, have a temporary truce.

  He digs furrows in the ash with the heel of his boot. “Better on a crossbow. How many can you take?”

  “Two at best.”

  “Same,” he says with a sigh. “Which leaves three too many, including Baedan. We’d need magic to cut through her spells.”

  His tone is as defeated as I feel.

  Cadence listens, features strained. She’s been carrying the fire poker since we left the horses behind, and now clutches it in her lap like a talisman. Baedan hasn’t taken any of our weapons, under the illusion of truce, but I imagine she actually sees us as the walking dead, too weak to do much damage.

  I resist the urge to smooth back Cadence’s hair and ask if she’s all right.

  “My heart feels funny,” she says, as if sensing my question. “Like it’s turning into stone.”

  A quick glance over her hands and face reveals a few warning shadows but nothing like the discoloration of my hand, where the poison has seeped through Bryn’s cut. “Your heart will be fine,” I say, in that familiar forced voice, all sunshine and hopefulness to hide the dark truth underneath. “You still have four days.”

  Cadence holds her hands in front of her and examines them, before burying them in her armpits, features screwed up, on the brink of tears. “Can you see it yet?”

  “See what?”

  She bows her head, curls hiding her face. “My darkest secret.”

  I exchange looks with Tobek, but he’s as bemused as I am. Then confusion gives way to fear. What did Bryn do to her while I was gone? “Cadence,” I say, “were you infected before we left New Prevast?”

  She shakes her head miserably, but I don’t get the chance to press her for more information. One of the hellborne women produces a cloudy syringe, its needle bent from use, and Baedan sits up as the others roar with approval.

  “Our first transaction, your majesty,” she calls.

  Bryn startles, turning to look at her. “What?”

  “My men are hungry. We may need you and her, but not the
babies,” Baedan says, as her smile turns toothy and sharp. She points a finger at Cadence. “We’ll start with that one.”

  “You do not touch her,” I say, standing.

  “Volunteering to take her place? No, thanks.” Baedan’s lips curl in a sneer. “I already know what’s inside you. Spoiled meat.”

  “Isn’t that what dogs like you eat?” I ask. “Always sniffing the ground for North’s leftovers; you can’t possibly know the difference between spoiled meat and your own rancid stink.”

  Bryn stiffens and pinches her thigh in warning: Control your temper, Faris, or you’ll ruin everything.

  But Baedan snorts, flicking a hand dismissively. “Don’t start a fight you can’t finish,” she says, as two of her men advance toward me. “You don’t need that tongue of yours for your precious spell to work.”

  “No prince to save you this time,” one of them says, grabbing for my hair.

  I block his arm and twist it back, forcing him to his knees. He tries to lash out with his other hand, but I slam my palm into his nose, tearing loose the thin scab of ash and dirt that formed on my palm after Bryn sliced it open several hours ago. The man recoils with a curse, and I turn for the other man in time to see Cadence strike him in the back with the poker. He pitches forward with a howl, and she straightens, breathless, eyes bright and hair wild.

  Tobek stares at her like he might be in love.

  “She doesn’t need a prince,” Cadence says. “She has a sister.”

  Laughter roars through the hellborne, but my heart wants to burst. Has she finally forgiven me?

  My swelling pride costs my attention, and the first man knocks me back, his blade clutched in one hand. I roll out of the way and scramble to my feet, grabbing a broken piece of stone from the ground. When he lunges, I shove him back and pin him down, pinching a hand around his throat. Blistered skin easily parts beneath the slight pressure of my hand, and poison oozes over my fingers, across my bloody palm. My pulse begins to sing, to hunger—blood calling for blood, urging me to plunge the stone through the scarred flesh and rotting blood and brittle bones underneath until I hit ground on the other side. I could carve out his heart, and the temptation is intoxicating.