Tomorrow's Kingdom

by Maureen Fergus

  Tomorrow’s Kingdom

  ALSO BY MAUREEN FERGUS

  A Fool’s Errand

  (Book 2, The Gypsy King Trilogy)

  The Gypsy King

  (Book 1, The Gypsy King Trilogy)

  Ortega

  Recipe for Disaster

  Exploits of a Reluctant (But Extremely Goodlooking) Hero

  For younger readers

  The Day My Mom Came to Kindergarten

  Tomorrow’s Kingdom

  MAUREEN FERGUS

  For my handsome, brilliant son Sam, who makes me laugh (always), who laughs at my jokes (sometimes) and whose drive to pursue his own passion both awes and inspires me

  ONE

  “WHAT IN THE NAME of the gods was Persephone thinking going to face Mordecai alone?” demanded Azriel, his blue eyes blazing in the dimness of the harbour shed.

  Heart heavy with the secret knowledge that Persephone was not truly alone, Rachel leaned her head against Zdeno’s homespun-clad shoulder and said, “You know what she was thinking, Azriel. She was thinking of you—she was afraid of the terrible things Mordecai would do to you.”

  “And what of the terrible things he will do to her?” hissed Azriel, his powerful hands clenching into fists. “Tell me, Rachel—what, exactly, do you imagine Mordecai will do to Persephone when he discovers that she lied about having found the healing Pool of Genezing?”

  “We must stay positive,” faltered Rachel as a thousand images—all of them hideous—flitted through her mind. “We have to believe that until the Gypsy King is come, the Fates will keep—”

  The sudden sound of raised voices and many boots clattering over cobblestone some distance down the harbour front caused Rachel to freeze mid-sentence, but it was the look that passed between Azriel and Zdeno that turned her blood to ice.

  “What is it?” she whispered fearfully. “Do you think the commotion out there has something to do with us?”

  Instead of answering, Zdeno kissed her hard on the mouth. It was the first time he’d ever done such a bold thing, and Rachel refused to think on why he should dare to do so now. Instead, she touched her trembling fingertips to her lips and pressed so close to him that she could feel his compact body coiling with tension. Together, they watched Azriel draw his sword, ease open the door of the shed and peer in the direction of the approaching danger.

  All at once, the handsome Gypsy’s head jerked toward the harbour as though yanked around by an invisible string. Bellowing Persephone’s name, he flung the shed door wide and dashed out into the street like a man possessed.

  “Azriel, what are you doing?” screamed Rachel as she bolted to her feet. “ZDENO, WHAT IS HE DOING?”

  “Stay back,” ordered Zdeno, who was already halfway to the door with his deadly slingshot loaded and whirling above his head.

  But Rachel would not stay back—she could not stay back. Driven forward by her terror, she reached the doorway just in time to see Azriel cut down the first two snarling New Men who rushed him. He ducked and skewered a third; a fourth would have cleaved Azriel’s head in two if Zdeno had not scored a direct hit. As the soldier’s head snapped back from the force of the stone that had slammed into his forehead, his sword flew out of his hand. Snatching it out of mid-air, Azriel speared him with it. Then he bounded forward to attack the rest of the charging soldiers. With a blade in each hand, Azriel cut, thrust and parried with preternatural speed while terrified women and children ran shrieking for cover, and Zdeno did what damage he could without leaving Rachel unprotected.

  In a matter of seconds, the street was strewn with black-clad bodies, and Azriel was running for the docks—a bloody sword in each hand and a look of savage determination on his face. He’d not gone ten steps, however, before a seemingly endless horde of New Men began pouring into the far end of the harbour front.

  One look was evidently enough for Zdeno: resolutely turning his back on the husband of the princess he’d once sworn to protect, he grabbed Rachel’s hand and tried to drag her away. Though half-mad with fear, she resisted. Bracing her heels as best she could against the slippery, red street, she screamed Azriel’s name.

  He checked briefly at the sound of her voice, then again at the sight of the many soldiers who were rapidly closing in on him. For one heart-stopping moment, Rachel thought he was going to turn and fight even though any fool could see that to do so would mean certain death.

  But Azriel did not turn and fight.

  Instead, he shouted Persephone’s name in a voice so anguished that it made the hairs on the back of Rachel’s neck stand on end.

  Then he turned and ran.

  TWO

  IGNORING THE URGE to drift back down into the seductive depths of sleep, Persephone fought her way to the surface of consciousness. The sound of Azriel shouting her name seemed to echo in the fetid darkness in which she lay with her hands bound behind her back, but whether it was real or only a dream, she could not say. Her normally sharp senses felt as dull as a cheap blade.

  Without moving or opening her eyes, Persephone struggled to remember what had happened to her and to figure out where she was. At first, her efforts produced no clear answers, only called up a series of random images that began to dissolve almost as soon as they appeared. Finn standing on an overturned milk pail delivering a fiery harangue to a deaf horse … Azriel standing at the edge of a hot spring wearing nothing but his boots and his breeches … Fireflies trapped in coloured glass jars … Wet sand beneath her bare back.

  A vision of Mordecai reverently clutching a locket that contained the so-called proof that she’d found the healing pool melted into a vision of him hunched at the threshold of the royal bedchamber, his dark eyes glowing with pleasure as he beckoned her to come forward and see what lay beyond.

  Finn.

  The truth about the moments before everything went black came back to Persephone in a sickening rush. The sight of her beautiful twin gasping out his last laboured breaths; the promise she’d made to fight for the throne that was hers by right of birth. The way she’d eluded Mordecai by escaping through the secret passageway behind the hanging tapestry. Standing in the bustling street of the imperial capital struggling against the almost overwhelming desire to run away before turning toward the harbour shed where Azriel, Rachel and Zdeno were hiding.

  Because I desperately needed the shelter of Azriel’s embrace—and because even if I could have run away from everything else, there was one thing I could not have run away from no matter how hard or how far I ran, she recalled with a flutter of panic.

  Pushing the panic aside, Persephone had just started to replay the memory of being grabbed from behind and having a pungent-smelling cloth pressed over her face when she felt something sink its sharp little teeth into the tender flesh at the back of her ankle. Gasping aloud, she kicked out violently, then tucked her legs up to her chest and rolled to her knees. The instant she did so, the plank floor seemed to tilt beneath her. Thrown off-balance and unable to use her hands to break her fall, she hit the floor like a sack of potatoes and gouged her forehead on the corner of a wooden pallet in the bargain.

  I see you still have the grace and poise of a natural dancer, Persephone, said a gently mocking voice in her head.

  In spite of everything, Persephone found herself smiling at the memory of the pirate grin that had accompanied those words.

  Then she remembered why she’d rolled to her knees in the first place.

  Scrambling up into a sitting position, she tossed her wild, dark hair out of her eyes and strained for a glimpse of the thing that had bitten her. As she did so, she felt something warm dribble down her forehead.

  Blood.

  Drawn by the sight and smell of it, the rat warily crept out of the shadows, drag
ging its long skinny tail behind it. Persephone lashed out with her feet and snarled threats in a bid to scare the creature off, but her efforts only seemed to excite it. Beady eyes gleaming, it boldly continued toward her. As if inspired by its boldness, other rats—a veritable army of other rats—began creeping out of the shadows as well.

  Persephone staggered to her feet. Taking care to stay low and well balanced, she gave the nearest rat a kick that sent it sailing back into the shadows. The meaty thud with which it landed attracted the attention of half a dozen other rats. While they excitedly scuttled after their fallen comrade, Persephone looked around for the highest spot she’d be able to reach with her hands tied behind her back.

  Almost at once, she spied two large wooden crates haphazardly stacked against the nearest wall. Pausing for just long enough to send another rat sailing, she lurched toward them and jumped onto the jutting corner of the bottom crate. Jerking her hands up behind her and bending at the waist so that her heaving chest was pressed against the slatted lid of the top crate, she then wriggled, rolled and flopped her way onto it.

  Even before she’d fully recovered from the wave of dizziness caused by her exertions, Persephone set about taking stock of her circumstances. She could not say what had happened or how much time had passed since she’d been rendered unconscious down on the docks. However, the sound of waves splashing, sails snapping and boots stomping overhead told her that she’d somehow ended up in the hold of a ship. That was why the floor had tilted beneath her when she’d first rolled to her knees and why it continued to rise and fall enough to set her already-queasy stomach churning. It was also why it was cold, damp and so dark that she’d have been as good as blind if not for the slivers of light that bled in through those cracks in the hull that sat high enough above the waterline to have gone unnoticed and untarred.

  Manoeuvring around so that she could press her eye against one of these cracks, Persephone’s relief upon seeing that the docks were yet within hailing distance turned to dread when she realized that they were littered with bodies and swarming with New Men.

  Breathing hard, Persephone strained to determine if Azriel, Rachel or Zdeno were among the fallen, but it was no use. The swiftly moving ship had already carried her too far away to make out such details. And though it had not yet carried her too far away to be heard, she knew that screaming Azriel’s name would be both foolish and dangerous. For if he was hiding on the harbour front, the sound of her scream would probably drive him to do something reckless, and if he was dead or gone, he wouldn’t hear it anyway.

  Persephone’s captors, on the other hand, would hear her scream, and upon hearing it, they’d know she was awake. She’d thus lose the element of surprise, and since this was one of the very few advantages she had at the moment, she did not intend to give it away.

  So she knelt, still and silent, watching as she was taken farther and farther away from … everything. When she could no longer hear even the faintest sounds from shore and could no longer see the docks for the ghostly mists that had drifted in from the sea, she turned away from the crack in the hull. After noting that her dagger was gone, she spent a few minutes futilely straining against the ropes that bound her wrists and then a few minutes more searching the wall behind her for a nail or sharp edge she could use to saw through the ropes. When she found none, she sat back on her heels to consider what to do next. As she did so, one of the rats on the floor below ambled over to the wooden pallet upon which she’d earlier gouged her forehead. Laboriously—for he was an extremely fat rat— he hauled himself up onto the corner of the pallet and began delicately licking at the blood she’d left behind. The sight did not make Persephone feel any sicker than she already felt; on the contrary, it made her wonder how long it would be before her captors came down to feed and water her. She hoped it wouldn’t be long. She was beginning to feel thirsty, and though the mere thought of food was enough to turn her stomach, she knew she needed to eat to keep up her strength. She had no idea what lay ahead, but a lifetime of hard experience had taught her that it was always best to assume that the unknown was a place of deprivation and hardship, where an extra mouthful of food today could mean the difference between life and death tomorrow.

  Easing herself onto her backside, Persephone drew her legs up to her chest in an attempt to ward off the chill that seemed to be deepening with each passing moment. A fleeting image of a lovely claw-footed bathtub filled to the brim with hot, perfumed water seemed more like a dream than a memory. Resting her chin on her knees, she shivered in the gathering gloom and tried not to notice the way the small swell of her belly pressed against her thighs. She could not afford to think about that now— just as she could not afford to think about Azriel or about Finn or about the impossible promise she’d made to fight for the throne of Glyndoria.

  All she could afford to think about was surviving to see another day.

  Persephone felt an unexpected pang of regret as she realized how quickly she’d stopped thinking like a princess and started thinking like a slave again. Not that she’d ever really thought like a princess—or like a slave, for that matter—but she’d started to get used to the idea that—

  EEEEEEEEEK.

  The sudden squeal of rusty hinges wiped all thought out of Persephone’s mind and set her heart pounding. Silently scrambling up into a crouch and pressing her back against the hull, she watched the heavy hatch slowly being heaved open.

  A moment later, two pairs of black boots appeared at the top step of the ladder leading down into the hold.

  Whoever her captors were, they were coming.

  THREE

  WHEN AZRIEL RAN from the horde of New Men at the harbour front, Rachel and Zdeno ran too.

  Indeed, Zdeno ran so swiftly that Rachel was nearly yanked off her feet trying to keep up with him. The head start they had on the soldiers was desperately small, but Zdeno made remarkable use of it. As she flew along, clutching his calloused hand for dear life, Rachel did not have to wonder why this was so. Two nights past, Zdeno had spoken to her most heart-rendingly of a childhood spent being chased through the streets of Parthania by those who despised him for his unfortunate birthmark.

  Clearly, he’d learned a few tricks along the way.

  He’d learned which alleys to duck down and which slag heaps to climb over; he’d learned which alehouses had windows big enough to dive through and which whorehouses had back entrances discreet enough to slip through. He led Rachel and Azriel into and out of cellars and through nondescript doors that opened directly onto other streets; he led them up hidden staircases and over shingled rooftops. And though he did it all at such a pace and for so long that even his breathing eventually grew laboured, he never wavered, never slowed, never let them get cornered.

  For her part, Rachel was so focused on trying to keep up that it wasn’t until they staggered into the farthest corner of a neglected graveyard that she realized that the sounds and sights of pursuit had faded to nothingness.

  Zdeno had done it.

  He’d saved them from death—or worse.

  Reckless with relief, Rachel backed him up against the wall of the crumbling crypt behind which they were hiding and kissed him soundly to express her profound gratitude. Then she turned to Azriel and said, “What happened back there, Azriel? Why did you run out of the shed like that? What did you see?”

  “I saw Persephone grabbed and taken aboard a ship,” he replied savagely. “I saw the crew of the ship throw off the ropes, kick aside the gangplank and hoist the mainsail.”

  “What?” cried Rachel in horror.

  “I saw it all and I—did—nothing.”

  “That’s not true,” murmured Zdeno, who was still looking rather dazed from Rachel’s kiss. “You singlehandedly cut down at least a dozen soldiers.”

  “And then I abandoned her.”

  “You didn’t abandon her,” protested Rachel, sick at the thought of how much more harshly he’d be judging himself if he knew what she knew. “You … yo
u only ran when you saw that there was no—”

  Before she could finish, the great brass bells of the imperial palace began to toll. The last time they’d done so was seventeen years past, and Rachel felt a chill at the tidings they dolefully proclaimed. Namely, that poor King Finnius was dead and that, as his only living blood relative, Persephone had just become a player—or pawn—in the dangerous battle for the throne that was sure to follow.

  After the bells stopped tolling, there was a moment of stunned silence.

  Then Zdeno put his right hand over his heart and went down on one knee. “The king is dead,” he said in a voice strained with grief. “Long live the queen—and long live her husband, the prince consort.”

  Azriel looked almost angry at these words, but all he said was, “I was a fool to run—a fool and a coward.” Pulling the knife from his belt—his swords having been tossed aside during their flight from the soldiers—he announced, “I’m going back for her. Now, before it’s too late.”

  “It’s already too late,” said Zdeno gently. “Forgive me, my prince, but you said yourself that whoever took the queen set sail.”

  “I’m no prince and I never said the ship set sail,” snapped Azriel. “All I said was that the ship’s crew had raised the mainsail. For all we know, the ship may yet be in the harbour.”

  “And if it is?” said Rachel desperately. “What then? The harbour is teeming with soldiers, Azriel. You just slaughtered their comrades in broad daylight! Do you honestly imagine that, armed with that tiny knife and injured as you are, you’ll be able to slip past every last one of them, commandeer a ship and give chase without attracting attention?”

  Azriel glared at the dark-haired girl who so resembled his kidnapped wife.

  Rachel ignored his glare in much the same way as Persephone might have done. “I’m not saying that we should give her up for lost, Azriel,” she said. “I’m only saying that we need to think before we act.”