Hearts & Minds: Book Six in the Crown of Blood series

by White, Gwynn

  “Forever the rubies at enmity will be. To win, into an eye the claw must reach—Pluck! So swift is defeat.”

  “There’s no doubting who that’s about.” Mom winked at Axel. “My dashing warlord. And his snake-like father.”

  Axel lay back in his swivel chair, smirking. “Nice write-up, Dmitri. I’ll take it.” He rubbed the ruby next to his with the ragged end of his pencil. “And we’ve certainly plucked out Felix’s eyes. Without an informa, he’s blind.”

  “If you two have quite finished with your self-congratulations, I’ll continue.” Clay took a deep breath. “Banner, torch, and son arrayed. At the ruby’s feet, the host of dark and light assemble. A mighty wave, unstoppable and bold, it crashes on the shore—and terror finds.” Clay looked at Nicholas expectantly. “Thoughts?”

  It certainly sounded depressing. Especially if it was the alliance army that ended up terrified. A likely outcome, given the mind-controlled.

  Nicholas chewed the pencil tip.

  Should he withdraw his demand that none of the mind-controlled were to be harmed?

  The joy of being part of this meeting dimmed. Even his body felt heavier on his stool. That negativity pooled in his chest, slowing his heart.

  That was a good enough answer for him.

  He plucked the pencil out of his mouth. “It’s not our army that will face terror.” He pointed the pencil at Clay. “Read on.”

  Clay turned the page but didn’t start reading.

  A silence even heavier than the negative feeling in Nicholas’s chest settled over everyone. From their stony expressions, not a single person in this cave supported his decision. He braced himself for an argument. Who would be their spokesperson? Axel, surely. He locked eyes with his stepfather.

  Axel’s eyes didn’t waver.

  “You could ask Dmitri,” Mom said.

  Caught off guard, he broke contact with Axel. He swiveled so he faced Mom. Out of everyone here, he really wanted—needed—her support for his crazy decision. Even if he didn’t really understand it himself. “I could. But he’ll just talk in riddles.”

  “Yes!” Both of Axel’s arms shot into the air like a victory salute. He swept one hand out toward Nicholas for a high five. “Put it there, son.”

  Stunned by Axel’s reaction—that was not what he’d expected—but at the same time thrilled, Nicholas slapped Axel’s palm. This new closeness almost allowed him to forgive Axel for broadcasting his misery.

  Chad leaned over and touched Nicholas’s knee. “So many lives are at stake. Your mother’s. Axel’s. Clay’s. Farith’s—”

  Nicholas just resisted rolling his eyes. Was Chad going to mention everyone he knew? He readied himself for the inevitable.

  “Anna’s,” Chad said. “Isn’t it at least worth trying to ask Dmitri? He will surely help you understand this.”

  He hated denying Anna’s father as much as he disliked the emotional blackmail, but he couldn’t lie. “I know what’s at stake. I know what we all stand to lose. It doesn’t seem to make much sense to destroy Lukan if no one’s left to enjoy the peace. But—and this is a big but—Dmitri kind of expects me to figure stuff out for myself.” He hesitated, then added, “He and I’ve already had this discussion.” And the seer hadn’t even bothered to comment on his decision. He took that as approval. Now he had to convince everyone in this room that it was the right course. “He would have said something then if I was on the wrong track.”

  More silence.

  Jerawin flamboyant robes rustled. “My friends, I refer you all to the words of our missing king. Goodness. Integrity. Bravery.” He bowed his head at Nicholas. “How much courage does it take to stand firm against so much resistance? Worse when that pressure comes from those who have already sacrificed so much to bring Nicholas here.” He pointed to two empty chairs. “Light-Bearer, mark those empty stools. Heron and Magridal would have sat in them if they had not died in our efforts to bring you home.”

  Talk about emotional blackmail. Nicholas’s eyes chilled.

  Jerawin held up a hand. “Stars above! Nicholas, I am not your enemy.” He stood and walked across the cave to stand at Nicholas’s shoulder. “I throw my vote in with the Light-Bearer.” Jerawin looked squarely at Axel. “Your call.”

  Axel’s swivel chair squealed and his boots hit the floor. He shoved his pencil into his mouth and walked stiffly to the door. His shoulder thumped against the doorframe with his back to them all.

  Nicholas froze, desperate to know what he was thinking.

  “Peace, my Light-Bearer,” Dmitri said. “You are witnessing the making or the breaking of our Lord of the Conquest. What he decides now will change the outcome of the war.”

  Unbidden, Nicholas turned to look at the book. It lay open on Clay’s lap. The unread pages were sealed with a golden clip. It hadn’t been there before. He looked around the room. Every eye was fixed on Axel, so it was unlikely that anyone else had spotted it.

  “For your eyes only, Light-Bearer. It’s why you needed to be this meeting. Now we await the Lord of the Conquest’s decision to know what will be revealed.”

  There are two separate outcomes?

  “Aye. Victory. Or defeat.”

  Nicholas gripped the sides of his stool. What else can I say to convince him?

  “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

  There must be something. Please, Dmitri.

  Dmitri’s unseen hand pressed into his shoulder. “If eighteen years in my service are not enough to convince him, then there are no words left to speak.”

  Nausea bubbled. Nicholas covered his mouth with his hand, praying to the Winds that he didn’t vomit.

  Twenty-Nine

  The Dragon’s Lair

  Dull light streamed through the grate above Grigor’s head.

  “Get into the shadows,” Dip commanded.

  Grigor and String shuffled away from the light. Dip picked up a battered wooden crate. Moving carefully, he placed it gently on the ground beneath the grate.

  A shadow passed above him, blocking out the light. A slosh, then a deluge of greasy water rained down on him. He didn’t even murmur as he darted back into the shadows.

  The lad had nerves of steel.

  They waited until the bucket-bearer moved on.

  Dip hissed, “Now.” He loped to the crate, hopped up on it, and pushed on the grate. It creaked open.

  Sure it would fall with a clatter, Grigor swooped in to help him.

  “Easy,” Dip mouthed. Slowly, he inched the grate away from the drain. The metal didn’t make a sound as it slid infinitesimally across the stone floor.

  Finally, the drain stood open. Light streamed through it.

  “I’ll go up first,” Dip whispered. He latched his hands on the sides of the drain and pulled himself up into the kitchen. He jumped aside to make room for Grigor and String. “Be quick. The crazy with the bucket will be back soon.”

  Grigor didn’t have to be asked twice. He hopped onto the crate and practically stepped out of the drain into a sluice jutting off from a scullery. Not quite trusting Dip, he shuffled along the wall and peered into the scullery. Piles of food-soiled, golden dinner plates balanced on a long steel table. For the last year since his sixteenth birthday, he’d eaten off plates identical to those.

  He shook his head in disbelief. He was in the palace. A feat he hadn’t imagined possible just an hour before.

  A scullery girl with painfully familiar dead eyes lumbered into the room. She picked up an armful of plates and dropped them into a sink of soapy water.

  “We gotta move,” Dip whispered urgently.

  Grigor looked around for String. He trailed Dip. “Did you close the grate?” he asked, keeping a sharp watch on the girl. She seemed absorbed in her work.

  String nodded.

  “Where do you want to go?” Dip whispered. “Pantry is that way.” He jabbed his thumb around the corner.

  Grigor thought quickly. “The great hall.” It was the center of the palace. If he cou
ld get Axel and Nicholas there, they’d have the run of the place.

  “You mean that big room with all them tables?”

  He nodded. “You know it?”

  Dip grinned. “Sometimes for laughs, I sit at the door and watch them crazy high-born eat.” He acted out someone slopping food down their front.

  “Then take me there.”

  Dip skittered past the scullery girl. Grigor and String followed. She looked over her shoulder at them. “Shoo!” She picked up a dish towel and flicked it at Dip.

  Grigor kept his head down.

  She bobbed a curtsey. “I—I’m sorry, my lord. I didn’t see you.” She blushed and cast her eyes down.

  She must have thought him an ordinary high-born. Grigor grabbed the opportunity to act like a typical Chenayan high councilman. “Tell anyone you saw us, and I will have you whipped.” He hated threatening her, but too much was at stake here.

  “Yes, my lord,” she whispered.

  Dip and String’s eyes widened so much, their irises floated in a sea of white.

  He shoved Dip. “Stop gawping, low-born. Get inside the kitchen. There’s work for you to do.”

  As Dip scampered out of the scullery, he whispered, “Them crazies usually don’t notice us.” His jaw hardened. “They hardly know they’re alive.”

  Grigor understood too well and too painfully what Dip meant.

  String looked up at him with enormous eyes. “You—you didn’t mean that about the whip, did you?”

  Grigor snorted softly. “You saw my back. Do you think I’d ever do that to another living creature?”

  String squeezed his hand and then slunk after Dip.

  Keeping his face hidden, Grigor followed the boys into the kitchen. It rivaled the size of the great hall. The walls, floor, and ceiling were dark with a patina of grime from the countless meals cooked here over the centuries. The sweltering heat coming from a black range, which stretched the length of one wall, beaded sweat on Grigor’s face. The range was dotted with boiling pots. Chefs with dead eyes plodded between young girls stirring those pots, and even younger boys turning whole pigs on spits. Every movement was stilted and labored.

  A long wooden table dominated the center of the vast room. Here, ice-crystal-controlled low-born struggled to coordinate their knives for long enough to chop up stacks of vegetables. Many a finger was swathed in dirty bandages. Others struggled to roll the familiar black dough into bread.

  Amid all this food preparation, Grigor didn’t see a single tin can of food.

  “Now who’s gawping?” Dip demanded in a low whisper.

  He had a point.

  They hugged the wall farthest from the workers. It took them passed open doorways leading into pantries groaning with fresh food; sacks of rice, flour, and sugar; and barrels of honey and cooking oil. Next came cool rooms through which water dripped to keep sides of beef, great pans of butter, wheels of cheese, and piles of truffles cool. Finally, a cellar stacked high with barrels of chenna.

  Still none of the square-ish tins.

  Grigor was about to question Dip about it, but they had reached a short flight of stairs.

  The door at the top of it swung open. Two waiters, men Grigor recognized, drifted onto the stairs. He was about to duck into hiding but stopped. The waiters’ faces were drawn in deep concentration as they tottered from step to step. Once at the bottom, one said dully to the other, “The stench. And the flies. How long will they stay there?”

  His companion didn’t respond. He lumbered off to the center table.

  The speaker watched him go with—

  Grigor almost jumped out of his skin.

  This man’s eyes flickered and danced.

  And then they alighted on him. The waiter’s jaw gaped and his hands clutched his heart. “Prince Grigor!” he hissed. “What in the Dragon’s name are you doing here? He will have you killed as sure as breathing.” A low-born immune to his ice crystal.

  Grigor clenched his fists. “Are you going to announce my presence?” Much to his surprise, both Dip and String closed ranks with him. He had to admit that standing on the stairs for the world to see left him feeling like a target on a dragon’s butt.

  “Of course not.” The waiter shot a frenzied glance at the kitchen staff. “But they may. You have no idea how things are here.” He wrung his hands. “Please, go before you are found.”

  “I appreciate your concern, but I have to get to the great hall first.” He pointed to the stairs. “That way, I assume?”

  The blood rushed from the waiter’s face. “Please, no. I beg of you. Don’t go in there.”

  “Why?” Dip snarled. “What are you hiding?” He snuck past the waiter and pushed open the doors. His body sagged. Face the color of rice, he let the doors swing closed—and then vomited over the banister.

  Leaving String and the waiter to attend to him, Grigor darted up the stairs and cracked open the doors.

  The first thing he saw was Natalia’s severed head on a spike.

  Rigid with horror and fury, he froze in the doorway.

  The waiter grabbed his arm. “I tried to warn you, my prince. Now please, come, before you join her.”

  Grigor’s feet were rooted to the spot. And his eyes welded to Natalia’s eyes. Opaque in their lifelessness, they stared unblinkingly at the floor.

  Someone in the great hall shouted, “Hey! Isn’t that Prince Grigor?”

  Feet clattered toward him.

  Not this again. Please, not this again.

  Still, he could not move. Could not tear his petrified eyes away from Natalia’s bloody head.

  “This isn’t how you want to remember her,” the waiter pleaded.

  He heard the words but couldn’t process their meaning.

  String jumped onto his back and scrambled to his shoulder like a monkey. “The gate,” he said urgently. “If they kill you, who’ll open the gate?”

  He shrugged, but String hung on like a tick. Why couldn’t anyone understand that it was Natalia’s head on that spike?

  The footsteps drew ever closer.

  Something hard and heavy struck the small of his back. His knees buckled. “Next time, I shoot you with it,” Dip snarled. “Now get moving.”

  Grigor staggered down the steps. The waiter shoved him into the cellar. “Into the barrels. All of you.” He slapped three barrels. They echoed emptily.

  In a daze, Grigor lumbered into the closest one. Cramped and uncomfortable, he felt nothing as the lid was rammed into place and he was plunged into darkness. He breathed in the sour reek of chenna, wishing it would make him so drunk that he never had to see Natalia’s head again.

  He had survived at the cost of her life. How did he ever move on from that?

  Time passed in a haze of pain, anger, and guilt. How much time, he didn’t know. Or care.

  Finally, the lid cracked open. The waiter peered at him. He held a black cloak. “Here, my prince. Take my hand and let me help you.”

  Grigor’s tried to move, but his body had locked in the fetal position. “Tip the barrel,” he croaked.

  The waiter shot a quick look over his shoulder, then gave the barrel a sharp push. It teetered but didn’t tip. He shoved it a second time. It lumbered over and thunked onto the flagstones. The sound was deafening in the silence.

  Grigor lay still, waiting for an ax to fall.

  No one challenged them.

  He forced his muscles and limbs to move, even though pins and needles shot painfully through all of his extremities. Slowly, he crawled out. It took a moment to stretch enough to stand. Around him, Dip and String were clambering out of their barrels. Younger and smaller than he was, they bounced back far quicker. Dip hoicked his rifle out of his barrel.

  The waiter threw the cloak over Grigor’s head. “Cover your face, my prince.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Three in the morning. No one but guardsmen stir at this time of the day. So please, go quickly.”

  Grigor grabbed his hand. �
��Your name?”

  “Ruben. And yes, I long for the day Nicholas comes.”

  Grigor clutched the front of Ruben’s uniform. “Thank you. For everything. I will not forget your kindness.” He pulled the cloak over his face, making sure to cover his diamond, and slunk back to the sluice room with Dip and String on his heels.

  The grate was already open. Ruben must have prepared it for them.

  He dropped into the darkness and stepped aside to make space for Dip and String. As soon as they landed, he pulled the grate closed. He took a deep breath, then felt in his pocket for his informa and the bullet. He turned on a low light and held the bullet out to Dip. “You earned it.”

  Hand unmoving, Dip stared at him. “Them tins. Do you want to know where I got them?

  “Do you want to show me?” he asked cautiously. Right now, all he wanted was to bury himself in sleep.

  That won’t avenge Natalia.

  “Meka said he and those men were working on something to fix them crazies. Is that true?”

  Grigor nodded. “Yes. Fixing the crazies is a huge part of what we’re fighting for.” His voice dropped, “That, and to make sure that Lukan doesn’t kill any more of the people we love.”

  Dip’s chest puffed out. “Gang leaders with the most boys get to hold the best turf. I lost too many of my boys to the—” His finger twirled around his ear. “I need them back.” He glared up the grate. “Also, he needs to pay. In blood for what he did to that girl and the other folk.”

  Grigor’s head canted. “What other folk?”

  “The man and them women and the two boys. You must have seen them.” Dip retched. “Chests open. Hearts. Gone.”

  Grigor turned away and vomited.

  Dip and String waited in silence until he’d finished. With no food in his stomach, it didn’t take long. Still, he couldn’t stop dry heaving.

  String rubbed small circles on his back.

  He reached his arm out and pulled the lad to his side. “We’ll survive. All of us. We’ll see a better day,” he whispered, as much for his benefit as theirs.

  Dip watched his and String’s huddle with something akin to envy.

  Grigor dragged him closer.