The Cruelest Mercy

by Natalie Mae

  The lion growls. Let them try.

  “I don’t think this is working,” Kasta murmurs.

  “I know I ask a lot,” I say, ignoring Kasta. “But you’d already be dead if it wasn’t for me. Let me save you.”

  Save, the lion muses, his great claws flexing. I am not one who needs saving.

  My blood chills. “Oh gods.”

  Foolish human, Odelig sneers. I make no deal with prey.

  “Wait!” I cry as Kasta snaps the rope out to the side. “Please—”

  Odelig springs—but not for me. I dive at the same time Kasta dodges the other way, the prince barely rolling free of Odelig’s teeth. Kasta’s on his feet in an instant. He whips the rope out, but Odelig shies, jumping out of reach before leaping on Kasta and slamming him to the ground. His mouth opens wide, but Kasta catches him by his massive mane and heaves him sideways—

  I jump to my feet and run, away from the clearing, toward the trees.

  “Zahru!” Kasta yells. “You can’t run!”

  But I’m not staying to be lion bait. The trees aren’t far. I’m only twenty paces away, then ten, before heavy steps bound behind me. My blood jerks. I turn to see Odelig springing through the air, and I shriek and dive away, my shoulder jamming against rocks as I narrowly avoid his claws. My hidden dagger rips loose. I don’t see where it goes. Odelig turns just as I yank the hunting knife free, the momentary spark of its Lightning enchantment making him recoil. But he knows, as well as I, that if he can endure the initial jolt of the weapon, he’ll be able to get to me. The blade will bend against him.

  A flare of his impatience cuts through me and he circles, calculating when he’ll jump. I don’t dare look, but I imagine Kasta standing nearby, amused and waiting. He may not be out to kill me himself, but I definitely don’t trust him to save me. His focus right now is Odelig. I can’t imagine he’ll care if I go down in the process.

  Anger ignites in my ribs, and Odelig roars in response.

  The lion leaps. I hardly think. I bring the knife up, and it bends against his jaw, a bolt of electricity surging from the metal through his face. He growls and leaps away, shaking his head before jogging around me again. One of these times I will miss, and there will be nothing between his teeth and my neck.

  “Keep him distracted,” Kasta says. “Let him jump. I’ll snare him mid-leap.”

  “Right,” I say. “And as soon as he’s chewed my head off, you’ll pull it tight.”

  “Believe it or not, I’m more interested right now in saving my soldiers than letting you die. And I meant what I said before.”

  Odelig snarls, darting low for my feet. I strike again with the knife. It jolts off his nose, and when a new rush of his frustration spills over me, I get an idea.

  “I’m going to use Influence,” I say as Odelig crouches. “Don’t rope him, or he’ll look away from me. I think I can knock him out if we maintain eye contact.”

  “You don’t even know if it works on animals,” Kasta says. “Your other plan already failed. Let me handle this.”

  “Don’t throw it! I’m serious—”

  Odelig leaps. His eagerness flashes over my skin, and I try to let it in as I did with the bandit—but before I can, a rope snaps into my vision. Odelig ducks and slams into my legs. The rope slicks over his back, and air bursts from my lungs as the lion’s shoulder drives me into the ground. The knife flies from my fingers. Teeth snap for my neck, a flash of white daggers, but I’m touching him now and his surety presses into my palms—

  I shove back in a panic, and Odelig yelps, but the connection between us snaps. He jumps off of me, yellow eyes widening—and bolts for the mountains.

  “Sabil,” Kasta growls. “I told you that wouldn’t work!”

  “And I told you not to rope him!”

  He takes off after Odelig, and I cough and roll to my side, trying to catch my breath. Leaves crunch around my face. Soon Kasta and the lion disappear through the grass, no more than distant footfalls and quivering foliage.

  I don’t think the Mestrah is going to be pleased with how we handled this.

  I groan and lie back in the grass, rubbing my aching ribs. I can’t decide whether I hate it more that Kasta was right and I should have let him handle Odelig from the start, or that I never wanted to be out here in the first place. I might have ruined our chance at countering forsvine. For wanting to show mercy, I might have cost Orkena everything.

  I don’t know what’s right anymore.

  Wincing, I sit up, shaking leaves from my hair. I need to go after them. I need to call the Wraithguard. My hand hesitates over the listening scroll—if Odelig turns to fight Kasta, I could let fate play out. Maybe Odelig would win. But if he doesn’t, or if Kasta never catches up to him . . . the Mestrah will not be impressed by my lack of action.

  I grit my teeth and pull the scroll from my belt.

  * * *

  With the Wraithguard’s help, Kasta catches up to Odelig not far past the boneyard.

  I never do find my dagger.

  I let go of the Airweaver’s pristine tunic after he brings me to a small clearing, my stomach turning at the sight of the lion’s body. Yashi and the Stormshrike stand nearby, speaking to Kasta in low tones. The rope gleams white around Odelig’s neck. His long back is to me, dusted in twigs and grass. One of Orkena’s most legendary beasts, gone like a storm.

  A strange mix of relief and sadness opens in my chest. I won’t be the reason we failed anymore, but Odelig was still just an animal, a predator acting on instinct. We hardly left him a choice, telling him we needed either his cooperation or his life.

  At least I did not have to kill him.

  I move forward, rubbing my hands up my torn cloak, chilled despite the gathering heat. It’s nearing midday, and with Odelig in hand, we should be back on a boat by dusk. I start for Kasta, not wanting to be left out of whatever decisions are being made . . . when the great lion’s side rises, and falls.

  I jerk to a stop.

  “What?” I whisper. I rush to his side, not believing my eyes. But Odelig breathes again. The golden pelt shimmers over rising ribs, and falls once more. The rope hangs loose around his mane. His eyes are closed, almost peaceful.

  “He’s unconscious,” Kasta says.

  A hundred replies catch in my throat. I run my hand over Odelig’s warm shoulder and down his side, and his skin twitches in reflex. There are no wounds on his body, no blood.

  “I don’t understand,” I finally manage. “He attacked us. You said you’d kill him if he attacked us.”

  “I used the rope to catch him. The Wraiths tied him down, and the Healer was able to put him under.”

  My fingers shake in Odelig’s fur. This is a dream. This isn’t real.

  “The Healer can extract a tooth,” Kasta says. “We can test it against a sample of forsvine from the cannonballs. If his magic doesn’t work, the Healer will return the tooth, and Odelig will go on as if nothing happened.”

  Tears blur my eyes. I run my fingers over the soft fur of Odelig’s face and finally look at Kasta.

  “Why?” is all I can say.

  Kasta’s blue gaze flickers to the ground.

  “I made you a promise,” he mutters before moving away.

  * * *

  So he did.

  That he would remember, that he would claim to be making good on it, draws all the feeling from my fingers. The altar flashes before me; the knife. Kasta swearing on my life. That he would do better, that he’d be a good king. That he’d show others the mercy he couldn’t show me.

  The Healer kneels beside Odelig, his sure hands reinforcing a peaceful sleep over the lion as he extracts a tooth as long as my thumb. But it’s Kasta I watch. Kasta who takes the tooth and pulls a palm-sized triangle of liquidy silver from his pocket. The top of the forsvine sample is punched through and corded with leat
her, and he offers me both of his hands, the tooth held in one and the forsvine in the other.

  I made you a promise.

  “Zahru,” he prompts when I don’t say anything.

  I blink, watching him like he’s a stranger. “How are we going to do this?”

  “We know a piece of forsvine this size neutralizes human magic at a radius of three meters. If Odelig’s power is immune, that means a person wearing his tooth should be able to stand within that radius and still be immortal against conventional weapons. We’ll make sure his magic works on its own first, then test it against the forsvine.” He lifts the hand with the metal. “Do you want to be the one with the crossbow”—he lifts the tooth—“or the magic?”

  My stomach pulls. Maybe he isn’t as changed as I thought. “You’re going to shoot someone with a crossbow?”

  “I’m taking whatever you’re not.”

  I straighten. “I get to shoot you with a crossbow?”

  Concern deepens his brow. “How else would we test it?”

  I can think of many other ways, namely using one of the servants as a target, which I assumed would be his style. But as much as I want to delight in the prospect of repaying even a fraction of the pain he imparted to me, here’s yet more disturbing evidence that something is different about him. Which I quickly remind myself doesn’t matter, since he still killed Maia.

  I reach for the metal, waiting for him to pull away, to give me the tooth instead. “Obviously that’s the only way we can test it,” I say.

  He doesn’t move. The forsvine slips between my fingers, as oily and cold as a fish—and my magic recoils. Emptiness drains through me, settling like grease in my heart, and it takes everything I have to push the cord over my neck and not throw it away. Yashi brings me a crossbow, and still Kasta holds the tooth, stepping beside a tree trunk just beyond three meters from me. Turning. Waiting.

  I swing the crossbow up with all the experience of someone who has watched people use one without ever having used one myself.

  “Yashi,” Kasta says.

  My smile is small. Here it is. He’ll switch with the Wraith, he’ll make an excuse. But Kasta just nods at me and my questionable form.

  “To your shoulder, dōmmel,” Yashi says, his wrapped fingers guiding the weapon into the right place. “Line up the sights where you want to shoot and pull the trigger. I would suggest aiming for a shoulder or an arm, just in case.”

  I breathe out, a shiver running through me as the sights flash over Kasta’s neck, his heart. Still he doesn’t call for someone to replace him. I don’t understand. Even if his focus is on testing the tooth, he knows how much I loathe him now. How easy it would be for me to “miss” and strike something vital. How can he trust me like this?

  I fit an arrow into the groove, agitation twitching through my fingers. Yashi shows me how to notch it into place.

  I fire without warning. The shot runs truer than I thought it would, reckless, and Kasta staggers as the arrow splinters apart over his stomach, scattering bloodless to the ground. He lets go of his unharmed torso with a gasp. With the Healer close, that shot wouldn’t have killed him if the tooth hadn’t worked, but it would have hurt far, far more than if I’d struck an arm. The company goes quiet, and Kasta exhales, his kohl-lined eyes narrowing when he looks up.

  But he doesn’t scold me. Doesn’t call for a replacement. Just steps closer, inside three meters now, where the tooth might be rendered useless by the forsvine, and moves against a tree trunk. Knowing where I might aim again. Daring me to do it.

  I notch the next arrow, my fingers shaking. Jet’s warning about revenge slithers through my ears, and I make myself focus. Maybe that’s why I ask this time.

  “Ready?” I say.

  Kasta squares himself and nods.

  A chill prickles my arms. But I tighten my grip on the weapon, force my aim up, and fire.

  “Apos Rachella,” Kasta curses, twisting as the arrow sinks into his shoulder. The Healer is there in an instant, apologizing as he works his hand over the wound. Kasta sinks to the ground, and I’m torn between the conflicted satisfaction of seeing him in pain and the deeper realization of what just happened.

  Odelig’s magic did not work against the forsvine.

  We still have nothing to protect us.

  XVI

  LATER that night, on a new boat sent by the Mestrah and surrounded by a fleet of guard ships, I stand on the deck, looking out at the starlit dunes. We moved quickly away from the Pe border after replacing Odelig’s tooth and releasing him, and now we’re at full speed to return to the capital. The Mestrah even closed this section of the river to the public so we wouldn’t be hindered. For kilometers it has been little more than tufts of dark palm trees and stretches of silver sand.

  I should be thinking of my next move to expose Kasta. I should be practicing my Influence, circling the deck and reading the guards’ emotions. I should be tracing letters in my cabin, practicing my signature, doing what little I can to keep learning without my tutors. I should be worrying what it means that we still don’t have an answer for forsvine.

  Instead I’m thinking of Kasta before that tree, his gaze steady as I raised a weapon to his heart.

  The door that leads belowdecks rolls open. I turn, and Kasta and I freeze—him with his hand still on the latch, me halfway to moving away. But a moment passes. Two. He doesn’t go back in, and I don’t leave.

  “It’s late,” he says, staying where he is.

  Not that he’s dressed for it. He shed his forest garb as soon as we returned to the boat, and the gold symbols trimming his white tunic glitter in the boat’s torches—attire fit for being seen in public, not for sleeping. I pull the plush edges of my robe tighter around me.

  “Yes,” I agree. “Are you going somewhere?”

  I keep my voice light, though the question is loaded. Now is the perfect time for a Shifter to sneak off and find a meal before morning.

  “Just for some air,” he hedges. His gaze flickers to the dunes and back to me. “I’ve been studying the cannonballs.”

  A likely excuse for why he hasn’t dressed for bed. I cross my arms, unconvinced. “And?”

  “I don’t have the right tools here to test them.” Slowly, he moves for the rail, and though I consider for a moment that I no longer have my dagger . . . I don’t move.

  He stops beside me, an arm’s length away, his gaze on the desert.

  “Do you think you can counter forsvine?” I ask, realizing this is something I actually hope for.

  He’s quiet for a long while. “I don’t know.”

  We stand in silence. Crickets chirp from the shore; water trickles against the boat.

  “What happened with Odelig . . .” he says. “We can’t do that again.”

  I pick at my nails. “You not listening, you mean?”

  “You didn’t listen, either.” But there’s no edge to the words, and he leans his arms on the rail. “I think we can agree this isn’t an ideal situation for either of us. But for the sake of Orkena, I am willing to compromise.” I feel him look over, though I keep my focus solidly on the shore. “You saved me from making a mistake today. I would have killed Odelig for nothing, and even though that was the Mestrah’s order, I know he and the court would have found a way to berate me for it.”

  I snicker. “Are you saying . . . I was right?”

  Kasta is quiet a moment longer. “I’m saying I think we could work well together, if we try.”

  I bristle against the admission, this continued agreeability that feels like a mask, a lie. It has to be. Because otherwise it means that despite what he believed of me before—that Jet and I tricked him on purpose, that I left him to die—he’s willing to press past it. To move on. To forgive what he believes I did, even while I vengefully refuse to do the same.

  Which is so backward and such a com
plete reversal of what he and I were during the Crossing, I almost laugh.

  It has to be part of some grander plan. One to get in my head, to be kind so I’ll suspect nothing, so I’ll think that my sacrifice changed him and that he would never go on to kill Maia. He still searched through my bag, emptied out the potions.

  So you couldn’t use them against him, says a devilish little voice in my head. Maybe he just didn’t want to be poisoned again.

  It has to be an act.

  “We’ll see,” I say.

  The boat creaks. Stars wink between the shadowy branches of olive trees, and the torches of a small town slip closer, the sounds of muffled conversation speckling the night. Music drifts from a riverbank tavern, a lively horn and a drum, and people dance beneath strings of blue-white orbs, bronze goblets glinting in their hands. A young woman splashes in the water, soaking a couple who were, until that point, very wrapped up in each other. The pair splashes her back, starting a game of it, and the scene is so relaxed and comfortable and absolutely ordinary that I’m allowing myself a smile—when I feel it.

  A tug in my gut, like the one I felt near Odelig.

  I bolt upright.

  “What?” Kasta says, his fingers touching the hilt of his sword.

  “Odelig couldn’t have followed us here,” I say. “Could he?”

  Kasta raises a brow. “No . . .”

  “Then there’s another legendary animal close by.” I search the shoreline, not sure what I’m looking for. “Don’t you feel it?”

  Kasta stills, listening. But after a moment he shakes his head. “Whatever it is, we should keep going. We already know its magic can’t help us against Wyrim.”

  “But doesn’t it seem weird there’s one here at all? The Mestrah said we only know of three of them right now.” The whale, Odelig . . . Ashra. My heart trills. We’re very far north of the Crossing, but it’s been long enough. A Firespinning horse could have made her way here, whether on her own or with a new master.