The Hollow Crown: A Novel of Crosspointe

by Diana Pharaoh Francis

  With a decisive movement, she unlatched the satchel and dumped its contents onto the bed. Quickly she sorted and scanned the letters,, flipping through a journal and a ledger. There was so much information that Margaret had not known—secret allies, hidden caches of money, ongoing plots and intrigues in foreign countries, locations and names of spies, and a series of papers detailing specific plans her father had set in motion. It was all as if he expected to be murdered and so had made sure that his heirs could follow in his footsteps. Even if Ryland did complain that she’d disobeyed him, he’d be very glad to have this information.

  The last set of papers were those she’d swept from the regent’s desk. Most were letters confirming shipments of slaves. Her mouth twisted in a snarl. She should have hunted him down and killed him while she was in the castle.

  Her attention snagged on one last parchment. She picked it up and read it through three times, torn between gloating triumph and horrified fury. The letter reported that the regent had kidnapped the son of Nicholas Weverton, a powerful merchant and crony of the regent’s. The fact that Weverton had a son was stunning in and of itself—he had so many spies watching him, it hardly seemed possible he could cut his toenails without generating fifty reports. Yet even she had not discovered the boy’s existence. Margaret had to admire him for keeping something so important a secret for so long. She smiled, sharp as a dagger. In her hand she held the revenge she craved for her father’s murder. For she had no doubts he’d had a hand in her father’s assassination, if he wasn’t solely responsible. It served the mother-cracking bastard right that his puppet, the regent, had turned on him. She folded the missive up and started to tuck it into the satchel with the rest. But something stopped her. She hesitated, chewing her thumbnail as she considered the letter.

  Could she do it? Could she just let the regent kidnap an innocent boy as a pawn in this game of political intrigue? The child was innocent. Her hand clenched on the crisp parchment. Emotion swelled inside her and her teeth ground audibly together. Why should she care? Because of the regent and Weverton hundreds of her family and friends had been rounded up and sold into slavery. A traitorous thought chased hard on the heels of that question: Why should she care about Crosspointe at all? The same people who had bought those slaves were the people she was trying to save from Weverton’s machinations and the regent’s brutal rule. Even Weverton was getting a taste of the monster he’d created. Let the wick-sucking bastard reap what he sowed.

  She started to push the letter into the satchel again, and again she stopped. She felt like she was caught in the battering waves of a Chance storm. Her chest was tight with unfamiliar indecision. Her job was to protect the innocents of Crosspointe and it was in her power to help the boy. All she had to do was give the letter to Weverton. She could help so few. Ryland was afraid of exposing the growing group of resistance fighters by moving too soon. That meant ignoring too many of the people chained up and marched onto ships to be sold in villages along the coast or even in other countries. In fact, Ryland forbade Margaret to do much of anything but run messages and spy from afar. It grated on her.

  He would strangle her for certain if he found out she’d helped Weverton in any way.

  Unless—

  Margaret chewed her thumbnail again, her mind racing. Weverton was the wealthiest man in Crosspointe, with a wide network of allies. If she helped him, he might not only withdraw his support from the regent, but join forces with Ryland and Vaughn in destroying the usurping bastard.

  Weverton prided himself on loyalty. He would most definitely turn against the regent once he learned of his son’s kidnapping. As much as he despised the Crown, he would want to annihilate the regent for daring to touch his son. Margaret nodded. It could work.

  She folded the letter up and tucked it inside a weatherproofed pouch that was strapped around her waist. Ryland would never approve such a risk. But if her plan worked, she would not only help an innocent child; she’d help save Crosspointe. Weverton’s help could be all the difference. She was sick to death of doing nothing while Ryland and Vaughn planned without her. At last she had something to do, and she wasn’t going to let either of them tell her no.

  She rose off the bed and fastened the satchel beneath her skirts before wrapping herself in the warm wool cloak she took from a trunk at the foot of the bed. She hobbled out into the driving wind and pelting rain, resetting the wards as she shut the door. She made her way up into Tideswell just south of the Burn. Rivers of water ran in waterfalls off the roofs and Margaret was soaked before she’d gone a few blocks.

  The weight of the sodden cloak only increased the pain in her injured ankle. It felt like her entire leg was on fire. She made herself keep moving through the gloom, careful to watch for anyone following her. At last she came to an alley behind a row of tall buildings. On the first floors of each were businesses, and above were the living quarters of the proprietors’ families.

  The water here was ankle deep. The darkness was like walking into a coal mine. Margaret stepped on something and her ankle twisted to the side. She splashed to her knees, biting back hard on the string of epithets that rose to her lips. Instead she pushed herself erect and kept slogging to the end of the alley. It dead-ended at the back of a tavern. She could hear music and laughter within. She ignored the pair of doors leading inside and turned to the left, her nose wrinkling at the stench of wet, rotting garbage. Things floated and bobbed around her legs and she made a sound of disgust deep in her throat.

  A rusty iron stairway led upward. Margaret mounted two stone steps inside a shadowy doorway opposite to wait. Grains dribbled past. and she felt the shivers starting deep inside her as cold eeled through her body. She bit her lips to quiet the chattering of her teeth and forced herself to remain still. Up the iron stairs was one of the meeting houses for Ryland and the resistance. The meetings moved constantly and randomly from place to place, with Ryland posting times and locations in coded handbills. No guards loitered outside where they might be noticed. They weren’t really needed. Each alleyway door was protected by strong turn-away wards that had been activated before sunset. Any soul considering passing through would soon think again. But just in case the meeting house was discovered, a small army of armed men and women as well as majicars waited within. Anyone attacking would need a substantial force.

  Grains turned to minutes and then a glass. Nearly another slipped by before the first visitor arrived. Margaret watched him, unmoving. He wasn’t the one she’d come for. More guests arrived one at a time, twelve in all. Keros was the last to arrive, as usual.

  The majicar slouched through the rain, pausing at the base of the rusty steps as if he wasn’t particularly eager to go up, which he wasn’t. He hated these gatherings. In all truth, Keros was a renegade and a loner with a strong sense of disrespect for all things regal. Yet somehow her father and Ryland had roped him into serving the Crown anyhow.

  Margaret emerged from her hiding place just as a loud clatter arose behind the double doors of the tavern. Both she and Keros started and then he twisted to face her, his hands tense, ready to hit her with a killing spell.

  Margaret pushed her hood back. “It’s me,” she said in a low voice.

  He relaxed and stepped forward, pushing his own hood back. In the gloom, all she could make out was the shape of his long shaggy hair and the soft edge of his bearded jaws. “I thought you’d be upstairs by now, not skulking out here in the rain.”

  “I was waiting for you. I need you to take something to Ryland for me.”

  She bent, pulled up her sodden skirts, and unfastened the satchel from her waist. She handed it to him.

  “What’s this?”

  “I went into the castle,” she said obliquely.

  Keros gave a low whistle. “Ryland will be irritated. He did tell you specifically not to go.”

  She snorted. “He’ll have a litter of kittens. But I raided father’s secret vault as well as the regent’s desk. He’ll want the information, e
ven if he doesn’t like how he gets it.”

  “You want me to deliver it for you?” He shook his head. “That’s not your style. You like poking pins in him.”

  She grinned. “I do, but I’ve got something to take care of. It shouldn’t take long, but it’s best if Ryland doesn’t slap any decrees on me before then. I wouldn’t want to disappoint him twice and so close together.”

  Keros chuckled quietly. “One day when he figures out just how formidable you are, he’s going to be kicking himself for not making better use of you sooner.”

  “If he doesn’t send me to the Bramble for treason first,” she said as she turned away. Her ankle gave way again and she fell against Keros, who caught her in a firm grip.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I hurt my ankle a little. I plan to see a healer tonight.”

  She could hear the frown in Keros’s voice. “Be careful. Majick hasn’t been acting right and most majicars have been on edge since the Kalpestrine fell. I think some might have become unbalanced. Maybe you should wait for me at my place. I’ll heal you when this is over.”

  “Thanks, but Ryland’s bound to tell you to order me back here if you run into me. Plus, I don’t have time to wait.”

  Something in her voice must have alerted him. His voice sharpened. “What are you up to?” Before she could answer, he said, “Whatever it is, you know I’ll help you. All you have to do is ask.”

  She smiled. She’d not known Keros more than a few months, but in that time, she’d discovered in him a true friend. He understood who she was—her rebellious spirit, her violence, and her desire for revenge and justice. Her brothers, on the other hand, couldn’t see her at all. She’d lived her life performing tasks that would have horrified them—not just that she had done them, but that her father had forged her to be such a weapon. Assassination was her art; spying was her trade; stealing was her entertainment; seduction was her sport. Keros understood all of that, and did not flinch from the knowledge.

  “I know,” she told him, squeezing his arm. “Thanks. Tell Ryland I’ll be back in a few days to let him castigate me in person.”

  With that, she went back up the alley to find a healer and to prepare to break into Nicholas Weverton’s well-protected manor. She’d go in tomorrow night. That didn’t leave her a lot time.

  Chapter 2

  The wind howled, tearing at Keros’s sodden cloak as he picked his way along the headland. His boots squelched in the mud and his clothes clung to his skin. Rain pelted him with hard, wet drops. It was a wild storm, the sort that happened only in the month of Chance. But it was midsummer and Chance was far off yet. It worried him. Every day the papers stirred up fear with headlines claiming bad omens—that the gods were angry, that the Jutras had somehow stirred the weather against Crosspointe, that the Black Sea was about to swallow the island nation whole. And for once, Keros wasn’t sure the papers were wrong. Worse, he wondered if the storms were this bad now, what would happen in four months when the Chance storms rose again? Would the Pale hold?

  He glanced out across the black waves of the Inland Sea to the shimmering green and yellow wards that looped around Crosspointe like a double string of pearls. Above were the storm wards, below were the tide wards. Between them, they kept out sylveth—a majickal substance that ran through the Inland Sea in silvery streams. A single drop would transform whatever it touched. Usually sylveth created horrific spawn, mindless creatures from the nightmares of the insane. Those spawn would eat and destroy everything in their paths unless stopped by knacker gangs dressed in majicked clothing. But unbeknownst to most of Crosspointe’s population, sylveth created other spawn, too—Pilots, who alone could navigate a ship through the chaotic and dangerous Inland Sea, and majicars, like Keros. He shook his head. He’d recently been shocked to discover that some of the horrific and frightening spawn had turned out not to be mindless at all. As terrifying as their outward appearance was, they were sentient and desired much the same things that ordinary people did. When it was revealed to the population that majicars and Pilots were spawn—there would be panic. People would not only fear them, but it would destroy what little faith they had left in Rampling rule. They would wonder what other secrets the Crown was keeping from them. And the time was coming when the secret would be exposed. Keros could feel it like a looming storm. Combined with the worries of famine and the fall of the Kalpestrine—

  Crosspointe would tear itself apart.

  His stomach twisted and his gaze shifted farther out, beyond the Pale. A shudder rippled down his spine, and it was all he could do not to close his eyes and look away. With firm resolve, he scanned the too-empty water. Four months ago the Kalpestrine had fallen. It had been the island stronghold of the Majicar Guild. Then one day, the entire mountain fortress had collapsed into itself. All that was left was a small tree-covered hump called the Thumb that had sat on the western edge of Merstone Island.

  It’s not that Keros regretted the destruction of the Kalpestrine. He’d never even set foot on Merstone Island. As an unregistered majicar, the Guild was his enemy. If they’d discovered him, they’d have forced him to serve inside the rigid bounds of their rule, or else they’d have imprisoned him. But it had taken an enormous force of majick to destroy the Kalpestrine, and that was a reason to fear. Because he was one of just a handful of people who knew that the destruction had been caused not by the gods or invading Jutras, or the story that the Crown and the surviving majicars were spreading—that a bore had opened in the bottom of the sea and had weakened the mountain so much that it collapsed. Most believed this. After all, the Inland Sea was a place of chaos and change—what was shallow a moment ago was now deep. Bores were enormous holes that opened up randomly, sucking in vast amounts of water before shutting again. Where they might open was unpredictable, and the phenomenon made for a reasonable explanation. But it was a lie. The truth was that the Kalpestrine had been destroyed by two renegade majicars that the Guild had been holding captive. And if that wasn’t frightening enough, just at the moment, those two enormously powerful majicars were not friends to Crosspointe.

  Keros rubbed a hand over his jaw and shook his head, turning to hurry along the headland path. The Jutras were vicious and greedy and they coveted Crosspointe like starving wolves after a meaty carcass. He’d witnessed firsthand their horrifying blood majick. They’d carved the flesh off two living people right in front of him and he’d been helpless to stop them. He shied away from the horror of the memory. Even now he could not sleep through the night without waking in a cold sweat.

  The worst part was that even without Pilots and majickal compasses to guide them, the Jutras had managed to cross the Inland Sea once, and it was only a matter of time until they did it again. Without an army and without a king, Crosspointe was nearly defenseless. Even with so many surviving majicars, it wouldn’t be enough. The Jutras had majicars of their own, and they had an army, and both were well practiced in war. Crosspointe was going to need Fairlie and Shaye Weverton—the two majicars who’d destroyed the Kalpestrine. But Fairlie was one of the terrible spawn, and neither she nor Shaye had any love for the Ramplings, especially Prince Ryland, who’d been the one to transform Fairlie against her will.

  Keros sighed heavily. It was a mother-cracking mess and he was right in the middle of it. How had he let that happen?

  He reached a stair cut into the side of the vertical cliff. It zigzagged recklessly down to the boulder-strewn strand. The steps were slick, and the wind and rain smashed into him. He skidded and held tight to the rocky wall. From time to time he glanced at the frothing surf far below. He saw no sign of anyone, but didn’t really expect to.

  Taking three-quarters of a glass to get to the bottom, by that time he was limping. His soaked boots had rubbed his heels and toes raw. He grimaced. As an unregistered majicar, he made it a point to not use his power ostentatiously, which meant not majicking his clothing against the weather. He sobered and a shaft of cold that had nothing to do with the st
orm ran through his lungs. Majick wasn’t working the way it should anymore. It was increasingly volatile and unpredictable, and, as often as not, a well-cast spell went badly awry. Even old spells that had been reliable for years went suddenly haywire. Having majick around was not safe for anyone.

  The problem was so pervasive that Keros had taken to using his majick as little as possible and praying that the problem soon settled. He hoped that it was nothing more than the aftermath of the Kalpestrine’s fall. But the failing majick wasn’t the worst of it. Keros had begun to notice odd behavior among his fellow majicars, and nothing good. They were becoming strange—paranoid, fearful, full of rage . . . The list went on. He didn’t know if it was because they used majick or because they had been in some way tied to the Kalpestrine, so that when it fell, it damaged their minds. But more and more of them were acting peculiar. Keros pulled his sodden cloak around himself, the cold inside him growing sharper. If it could happen to them, it could happen to him.

  He pushed the thought away violently, but it clung to him like pine pitch.

  He walked along the shingle above the outgoing tide, heading for the small wooded cove just west of the steps. He slipped and stumbled over the wet, rounded rocks that made up his path, groaning a little with relief when he reached the shelter of the tall firs. They smelled pungent and green.

  The footing was better here with a thick bed of brown needles, and he broke into a limping jog. He slowed when he reached the tree line curving around the small inlet.

  She was waiting.

  Lucy sat on a rock wearing hardly anything. Just a chemise and a pair of thin trousers. Her bright red hair was caught up in a thick braid down her back, wet tendrils clinging to her cheeks and neck. Her eyes were telltale majicar silver, ringed with crimson—the same color as his own, when he wasn’t disguising them with illusion. She sat with her arms around her knees. As he stepped out onto the rocky beach, she leaped to the ground and ran to him, flinging her arms around him.