A Kingdom Lost

by Barbara Ann Wright

  Now that would be a sight to see.

  “What are you smiling at?” Redtrue asked.

  “Just my dark sense of humor.”

  “Yes, Castelle often finds things amusing that are not funny in the slightest.”

  “We that embrace evil have to take humor where we find it,” Katya said.

  “Tsk. You shouldn’t joke about such things. I shall never truly understand your people.”

  *

  In the distance, light glinted and sparkled, much as it would when striking water. But they’d crossed all the rivers they would need to, and the great Lavine was on the other side of their destination.

  “Marienne,” Katya whispered. Still not close enough to make out individual buildings, the jewel of Farraday was near enough to catch the light and send it winking back. Soon, everyone Katya cared about would be close enough to embrace: Starbride and Maia and Averie. She imagined shaking Pennynail’s hand and clapping Hugo on the back. Spirits, she’d even hug Reinholt. Maybe she’d whisper to him that if he acted like a naughty child, she’d order Vincent to paddle him. That would raise some eyebrows.

  Katya urged her horse forward. This close to the capital, her scouting party wasn’t the only one out and about, but she veered toward the city while the others ranged over the countryside. They couldn’t be too careful.

  It was all Katya could do not to ride as hard as she could for Marienne. Without the army, she could probably be there by nightfall, and then she wouldn’t have to depend on a surrogate to give Starbride her love.

  “You wouldn’t make it over the wall,” Brutal said.

  Katya gave him a look. “You’re a pyradisté, aren’t you? You’ve been reading my mind for years.”

  “Don’t need any special powers besides knowing you for those years.”

  Katya narrowed her eyes. “And you were thinking the same thing.”

  He winked. “Now you’re getting the hang of it.”

  He and Maia might not have become as close as Katya and Starbride, but they’d been heading in that direction. Before she was taken, Maia had been nursing a crush on Brutal, and Katya knew he cared for her, too. He wanted to make sure she was all right. Even if they couldn’t be blessed by Ellias and Elody, they could still be friends.

  “I see you two looking wistfully into the distance,” Castelle said behind them. “Will I have to tie you to a tree?”

  Katya almost remarked on how those were easy words for someone whose current love was within arm’s reach, but she bit them back. Castelle had lost friends on this journey, they all had, and she didn’t deserve to be mocked for attempting to lighten the mood. Katya would save that for when Castelle did something stupid.

  On their right, Count Mathias whistled. Katya craned her neck and spotted a group of riders heading toward them. “Some of ours?”

  He stood in his stirrups and shaded his eyes from the sun. “They don’t have the look of Allusians, so it’s not Hawkblade, and we would have seen any of the others pass us by.”

  “Form up!” Katya called. It was a small group, and the scouting party of fifteen could fight them off if necessary. Still, they regrouped under a copse of trees where the approaching party couldn’t charge. Katya drew her rapier. The newcomers could be coming to join the army or might be coming to stop it. There was no way to know until they got close.

  The pack of riders slowed as they neared the trees. A smattering of men and women, maybe twenty. They wore studded leather or mail. All were armed, but they’d not yet drawn. A band of mercenaries, perhaps, but working for Roland or looking to join her side? As one, they slowed to a halt, their movements in sync.

  “They must’ve been working together a long time,” Castelle said.

  “If you’re friends, come ahead,” Katya called, “and tell us your names.”

  They approached slowly. As she looked from face to face, Katya’s stomach shrank. They were smiling, smirking, a nearly identical look on each face.

  Katya frowned. No, not nearly identical, exactly so.

  Their heads tilted. “Hello, niece.”

  “Archers, fire!” Katya yelled.

  The two archers raised their bows as the mind-warped attackers kicked their horses into motion. As one, they swung shields up from behind them and ducked under. One of the arrows hit a shield dead center while the other took an attacker in the leg.

  That didn’t stop or slow him. The attackers wheeled like a flock of birds, splitting into two groups and charging into the trees on either side of Katya’s party.

  Katya guided her horse to the left and gestured to those nearest her. “All of you, with me. The rest with Brutal to the right.” They obeyed, Count Mathias and the Allusians guiding their horses expertly. Katya bit back a curse. She was much better fighting from the ground than from horseback. When the first rider careened into her, she ducked his swing, and then rolled to the ground.

  Among the trees, she felt on equal footing with the mounted fighters; they didn’t have space to run her down, and she could dip away from their swings and cut at their vulnerable legs. Chaos reigned around her as she darted from tree to tree, making more than a nuisance of herself. Across the way, she saw Brutal on foot as well, tall enough to slam his mace into his foes’ backs and knock them from their saddles.

  “Focus, niece,” a voice behind her said.

  Katya ducked and rolled away, coming up facing an older man with a scar across his cheek. He wore the same, familiar smirk. She blocked his thrust and sliced his forearm, making him grimace.

  So, they weren’t immune to pain.

  “Unfortunately for you,” Katya said, “my uncle was better at magic than sword play.”

  His next attack made her rethink that, a series of quick jabs that had her blocking and retreating. So, Roland kept something of the original person after all.

  Katya heard a scream from behind her but couldn’t place which side it came from. When her opponent swung again, she dodged, came up inside his reach, and bashed him in the nose with her rapier guard. When he staggered back, she pulled a knife from her belt and stabbed him in the gut, up into the heart.

  His mouth gaped open, blood pouring from his nose as they stared eye to eye. Katya wondered if this was what Roland would look like when he died for the second time. But then the scarred man blinked, and he was just a tool, not a traitor or an assassin. Katya’s stomach turned over, and she had to spin away, cursing Roland while looking for another opponent.

  *

  The ride back to the camp was solemn. They had defeated their opponents at a heavy cost, cutting their scouting party down to eight. Katya couldn’t get the image of the attackers calling her “niece” out of her mind. She had a sudden picture of an entire army speaking to her so, grinning that obscene smile.

  Katya shuddered. None of the attackers had been a match for her or Brutal, Castelle or Count Mathias, but as their losses proved, not everyone was so skilled or so fortunate. And she couldn’t know whether the skill of Roland’s soldiers was part of them or something he was doing to them. Maybe he was borrowing from different minds and then dropping them into whatever heads he chose. They had to hope that the adsnazi pyramids would help. More than help; they would have to turn the tide.

  Katya guided her horse close to Brutal and Castelle. “We need to make a plan tonight to sneak into the city and do something about Roland’s pyramids.”

  “And see a certain someone?” Castelle asked.

  “That would be beyond wonderful, but we have to focus on stopping Roland first.”

  “Well,” Brutal said, “maybe not first.”

  Katya raised an eyebrow.

  “We’ll have a little time,” he said, “to say hello.”

  “And good-bye?”

  He shook his head. “Hello and see you soon.”

  She couldn’t help but be cheered. The thought of actually taking Starbride into her arms washed the whole world away. Afterward, they would ride to war, possibly to their deaths, bu
t Katya would take Starbride’s memory to the realm of the spirits or into oblivion. If they perished, perhaps their minds would mix together, entwined for all eternity in the very fabric of time.

  It was a lovely idea, and she held it close to her heart.

  When the chill first washed over her, she thought it was only the winter wind. But she’d dressed warmly, and the action—not to mention thoughts of Starbride—had warmed her. Still, there was no piece of clothing or thought so warm it couldn’t be penetrated. A bitter breeze stung her cheeks and nose.

  “Wind’s picked up,” Brutal said.

  Katya breathed out slowly, watching it plume on the air. The back of her neck itched, and knots of worry tightened her shoulders. “We’re being watched.”

  Something familiar pulled at her, and not just the sense of danger. The feeling of eyes on her had a half-remembered quality. Had she been in this exact situation before and just forgotten?

  A thwack sounded off to the left. Maybe a hundred feet away, the limbs of a tree shook as if something large had leapt from them.

  “Right,” Brutal whispered.

  Katya turned that way and caught a blur of movement disappearing into the coarse bushes that had survived the coming winter. The familiar feeling increased, as if an answer waited on the tip of her tongue, but the answer to what?

  “The symbols,” she muttered, recalling the Fiend speech that had once led her and Starbride into a trap in Marienne. Then she’d felt as if she’d known them because the Fiend inside her had recognized the writing. Now, there was no speech, and the feelings weren’t so strong that she felt compelled. She had no Fiend driving her, so what…

  “Oh spirits,” Katya whispered.

  “What is it?” Brutal asked.

  She’d once had a Fiend, and she could almost remember what it was like, the power, the cold…

  “Katya?” Brutal asked.

  “It’s Fiends,” Katya said.

  “Corpse Fiends?” Castelle asked.

  Katya shook her head. She’d been with her family when the Aspect was upon them, but it had never felt like this. Her pulse roared in her ears, and she couldn’t keep her mouth closed to breathe. “Not corpses, not people with Aspects. Fiends.”

  “But…how?” Count Mathias said.

  “Ride!” Katya kicked her horse into a run, but they’d already ridden far that day. The horses couldn’t take much more. But they couldn’t fight Fiends, they couldn’t. How and why the Fiends were there didn’t matter.

  As the wind rushed past her ears, she heard the forest come alive with purposeful thumps and crashes. Her horse began to tire, and those around her did the same. If she tried to hurry it, it could collapse underneath her.

  “Katya, we have to slow,” Brutal called.

  She slowed her horse, fighting the rising panic, and the familiar feeling that hung like a weight across her shoulders. She’d been afraid many times in her life, but she’d never fled from a fight like this. She clenched her teeth and told herself that if she didn’t stop and find a way to face this, she was a coward.

  A deep chuckle echoed around them, followed by a burst of high-pitched titters.

  Katya swallowed. “Circle up.”

  They walked their huffing, snorting horses into a circle and drew weapons. A long sound, like something dragging through the dirt, came from Katya’s far left, but she fought the urge to look, keeping her eyes on what was in front of her, trusting those behind.

  “Anything?” she asked.

  “No,” someone said.

  “A bush moved, but…there’s nothing.”

  “They’re going to be fast,” Brutal said.

  Probably too fast to see, which meant what she was doing was useless. And what if by not moving, she was letting the Fiends encircle them? “We keep going, slowly.”

  Her party called softly to one another, a tree limb swaying here, a blur there, but always nothing, nothing, nothing. Katya fought the urge to rub her chest, to try to ease the weight. The space inside her where the Fiend used to be ached for what it’d once had. She wondered if the Fiends could sense it, too. Maybe that’s why they weren’t attacking.

  Wonderful. Now all she had to do was find a way to be with the entire army for the whole attack. The heavy feeling spiked, and Katya grasped her chest. The world seemed to slow and fall away, and she felt compelled to twist around and look back.

  There, behind the last rider in their group, something perched.

  One of Count Mathias’s men blinked at her from his saddle. His mouth moved, but Katya couldn’t hear him. Her gaze was fixed on the bright white eyes staring back at her from over the man’s shoulder. With no pupil or iris, they seemed to glow inside half of a face mottled blue and white, with horns that arced back over its hairless scalp. She couldn’t see its teeth, but she knew it was smiling.

  One hand lifted. Claws long as table knives inched toward the man’s throat.

  “N…no,” Katya said, but she couldn’t be sure anyone heard or that she actually spoke. The claws came closer. Katya summoned all her will. “No!”

  She blinked, and it was gone. The man in the rear clapped his neck and pulled away a dot of blood from a small wound.

  “What the…” He stared at Katya. “Highness?”

  The world bled back to normal. The crushing feeling lifted, and the sounds from the forest ceased. Brutal leaned close to Katya’s side. “What was that?”

  She shook her head. Even if she could speak about it, she didn’t know what to say.

  Chapter Thirty

  Starbride

  Starbride rubbed her temples. A headache had been building behind her eyes for hours, but she supposed that was only natural. All her sore muscles and bruises, not to mention her cut palm, throbbed and twanged and reminded her that being alive came with its share of pain.

  Alphonse’s screams didn’t help. They’d secured him in a cellar near the edge of Marienne, another of Pennynail’s bolt-holes. He’d been unconscious when Ursula and Hugo had tied him up and bound his wounds, but he’d slurred awake when Pennynail joined them. At the sight of the laughing Jack mask, he’d screamed and screamed.

  They’d had to gag him, but he still moaned through the rag. Starbride didn’t want to pity him after the terrible things he’d helped do to Averie, but she didn’t enjoy seeing anyone suffer.

  Even Roland? No, she told herself. Would she be sad when Katya finally killed him? No, but she didn’t want to watch him writhe.

  “If you can’t use a pyramid on him, how do we find out the truth?” Hugo asked.

  Ursula nodded toward Pennynail. “Seems like your masked man found something out before. Don’t know if it was truth, exactly.”

  Starbride crossed to where Alphonse was tied to a wooden pillar. Pennynail leaned on another pillar, arms crossed. Alphonse didn’t take his eyes from the white mask.

  “If I take your gag off,” Starbride said, “are you going to start screaming again?”

  He shook his head, but his gaze never left Pennynail. Starbride slipped the gag off, ready to put it back in an instant.

  “Please,” Alphonse whispered. He licked his lips. “Please make him stop staring at me.”

  Starbride glanced over her shoulder. Pennynail slipped around the pillar, mostly out of sight.

  Alphonse sagged against his bonds. “Thank you.”

  Later, she’d have to ask Freddie what he’d done, but she was almost afraid to. The confident man she’d fought in the street seemed far away from this pathetic creature. She wondered what he’d had to do to forget his time in Pennynail’s company. “You must be honest with me.”

  “Or he comes back, I know.”

  She was just glad she didn’t have to say it. “Where are the other mind pyramids in the city?”

  “Everywhere.”

  Starbride heard a foot tapping behind her.

  Alphonse shut his eyes so tightly the skin turned white around the creases. “I can’t tell you each location because
I don’t know them all. He does some of them himself, but they are in every district by now.”

  “Tell me about the ones you placed.”

  He gave her ten locations, scattered throughout the city, but he added that sometimes Roland moved them without reason, at least as far as Alphonse could tell. Of course, with those words, they could chase their tails all day, and Alphonse would claim that Roland had moved their quarry.

  Or he could lead them straight into Roland’s arms.

  Starbride sent for Master Bernard and the academy heads. They had plenty of questions about how mass-hypnosis pyramids were made and about what Roland had taught Alphonse, including what interested Starbride the most: how to stop the pyramids. Breaking them required getting close. They needed something that worked from a distance.

  After hours of questioning, Starbride conferred with the others. After they’d discussed theories, she asked, “Does anyone else have a headache as big as mine?”

  “Not me,” Ansic said. The others shook their heads. “Perhaps it’s stress.”

  “It hasn’t exactly been peaceful,” Master Bernard said.

  Starbride supposed so. She’d been taxing her brain, thinking of ways to beat Roland, but the pain hammered at her like a pulse.

  “I’ll meet you back at the warehouse,” Starbride said. “Get some rest.” She met Captain Ursula waiting near the door.

  Ursula nodded at Alphonse. “This is all above my head.”

  “Trying to knock a Fiend king off the throne should be above everyone’s head”

  “If there’s a job where it’s normal, I don’t want it. But I suppose none of us really wants it.”

  “True,” Starbride said.

  Ursula glanced at her. “Ever wonder just what your masked man did to our prisoner?”

  “I’m trying not to.”

  “I should have taken Alphonse into custody when we nabbed him. I won’t condone torture in my city, Princess Consort.”