Master of One

by Jaida Jones

  What of Morien? Cab asked.

  Escaped, unfortunately. Likely displeased. Probably coming for us.

  “Quickly,” Cab said. “We have to remove the mirror shards. If we don’t—”

  In answer, before Cab could finish the thought, Rags cried out, sagging against the wall. “Oh yeah, he’s looking for us.” A stream of curses followed. “But he can’t find us. And hey, we already know we have insurance and he can’t kill us. Make us wish we were dead, though. . . .”

  “Inis, Rags, stay behind. Hope, guard them and Sil. And the rest of the children. Two will stand with you.” A lot to ask of one man, not too much to ask of one fae. Cab stepped forward, pushing through his pain. “Shining Talon, Uaine, Einan, and I will rescue the prisoner with One. Somhairle and Three should lead us.”

  Somhairle nodded, jaw hard and tight.

  “Do me a favor?” Rags looked up as Cab neared him. His skin was gray. “Open as many cell doors as you can on your way. I want to piss these fuckers off, really ruin their day.”

  The boy Cab had been would have balked at the indiscriminate freeing of prisoners. But under the Hill, right was wrong and up was down.

  He could buy a few vital minutes by stirring up chaos. It was his sworn duty to Sil.

  “I think it’s ruined already,” Cab replied, “but I’ll do my best.”

  He expected Shining Talon to protest. To insist on remaining behind with Rags, who was clearly in pain, in trouble. But he followed Cab into the heart of Coward’s Silence as behind them, Sil began to work on Inis first.

  Cab heard Inis shout once.

  Then nothing.

  As Cab and the others, Somhairle at their head, moved along the rows of cells, they heard no banging on the bars or pleas from the prisoners inside—until Somhairle whispered, “Laisrean?”

  “No point,” someone behind a solid metal door moaned. “Never going to get out of here. Never—”

  Cab nodded at One. She understood, sliced through the metal easily with a single swipe. Sparks flew. The door swung open and the moaning stopped.

  That was how they continued, opening every door they passed. Letting murderers and thieves free. One man blew kisses as he fled. The next hollered, “Death to the Queen!”

  The third man passed in silence, as though he didn’t see the people in front of his face. Cab felt a chill. They were allowing criminals back onto the streets.

  But if they could slow Morien down for a single breath, that was the kind of sacrifice he had to be willing to make.

  The fourth door One destroyed fell inward to reveal Malachy, three bloody stumps on his right hand where fingers ought to be. He winced, crawled away from the door, flattened himself against the far wall. He was expecting more Queensguard, not an ill-advised rescue party.

  Einan yelped and ran forward.

  “Don’t fall behind,” Cab warned. Softened. “If you can bring him—”

  Einan was already kneeling at his trembling side. “Hush, Malachy. I won’t hurt you.”

  Uaine dropped to the back of the group. “Give him to me,” she said. “I’ll do what I’m able.”

  Malachy seemed to be in shock, but he smiled thinly at the sight of his comrades.

  “We can’t wait for you,” Cab whispered urgently. Einan would hate him for it, but he’d weathered worse.

  Uaine knelt in the tunnel with Malachy at her side. “We’ll find our way back to the others. Go ahead. You’ll only distract me if you stay.”

  This last was directed at Einan, who seemed poised to grit her teeth and dig in her heels. Cab surprised himself by lagging behind with her. He grabbed Einan around one arm and pulled her onward.

  “Let Uaine work,” he suggested. “Everyone’s doing what they can.”

  “And these hands are built more for clonking someone over the head than they are healing?” Einan scowled, but she let Cab steer her away. “Point taken.”

  They turned a sharp corner. There, Three and One stopped as Somhairle lunged forward, into a room at the end of the corridor that reeked of sweat and blood.

  The big man, Prince Laisrean, was strapped to a table that stood on its end, meaning he hung from it, rather than being supported. His right eye was swollen like an apple, the skin black and purple, with only dark red blood crusting in the slit between his lids. The eye itself was damaged, maybe beyond repair. He’d been left with one good one, like Three. The tips of his fingers oozed blood, which coated his hands, dried black in the lines of his palms. Someone had taken his shirt. Bright pink burn scars marred his brown skin in wormy crescents.

  “Shit.” Einan stopped dead, her nails digging into Cab’s arm.

  Prince Laisrean breathed in raggedly as his rescue party filed into the torture room. When he lifted his head, he didn’t seem to see them.

  Somhairle made a choked noise of rage and sorrow, then set to cutting the leather straps that held his brother in place. What Cab had taken for a knife in his hands was, on closer inspection, a single silver feather.

  “You shouldn’t have come.” Laisrean found his voice, enough to disapprove. “The Last will be back. If he doesn’t know you’re here already, it’s only a matter of—”

  Somhairle hushed him and kept at his work, beckoned for Cab to come forward so he could catch Prince Laisrean when his bonds were cut. At last, with a snap of taut leather, the big man fell forward, and Cab caught him on one side, Einan on the other.

  “Scars are sexy,” Einan told him, “but you’re pushing it, big boy.”

  Laisrean choked out a laugh. The warmth and humor that should have been in the chuckle still lingered beneath its surface, no more than an echo. “You lot are another sorcerer’s illusion,” he mumbled.

  “We are real, Prince Laisrean.” Shining Talon had been so quiet that Cab was almost startled by the sound of his voice. But now he spoke with conviction, firmly enough that Laisrean blinked his remaining eye, nodded, and hissed in pain.

  “We’ve got to move,” Cab said, couldn’t let the giant prince dwell on his pain and fear. From somewhere down the hall came a whoop and a howl. The other criminals causing chaos, no doubt.

  If the night went in their favor, that chaos would help disguise their escape. If it didn’t, it would slow them down long enough for Morien to catch them.

  One more gamble in a venture too full of the same.

  “I’ll try not to slow you down.” Laisrean swallowed, snorted, and spat out something bloody. A tooth. “Least he didn’t get around to putting glass in my heart—don’t think he intended for me to live past tonight—”

  “Hush,” Einan soothed.

  They made it through the door and into the hall. Back the way they’d come, Laisrean staggering with them, determined not to lean too much of his weight on his supporters. Cab wasn’t sure how he managed to stay on his feet.

  Malachy and Uaine weren’t where they’d been. A nasty-looking bloodstain in their stead. Also, someone had set fire to the cots in the now-open cells, and smoke thickened the already wretched air. Another reason not to delay.

  “Shit rescue,” Einan muttered.

  She wasn’t wrong.

  They hurried to retrace their steps. One swept any lingering ex-prisoners out of their path without care for broken bones or knocked heads. Cab didn’t spare his thoughts for their well-being.

  Look after your own men first and anyone else only after the fighting was done and the field secure. One of the first rules of combat.

  But he did come up short when they arrived again at the sharp fork in the hallway, the spot where they’d left Sil tending to Inis and Rags, to discover it empty. Only more blood, and a series of footprints stamped in red on the stone leading away and down.

  “Least we know which way to go,” Einan said.

  Yes, One agreed. And if we don’t hurry, we’re going to miss the best part.

  Even with their injured, with a young prince and his lame leg, they knew what they had to do.

  They ran.

>   85

  Inis

  “You will have to remove the cloth from your heart,” Sil explained, rolling up her sleeves to reveal her delicate hands. They were graceful and lithe, without a hint of callus. “And I will have to do this quickly.”

  “So Morien doesn’t kill me the moment the cloth’s off,” Inis said.

  Sil nodded sadly. Inis took a deep breath and shut her eyes, mouthing the words: Do it.

  What she hadn’t expected was to be knocked unconscious first.

  She came to, not sure how much later, to chaos, an aching lump on the back of her head, pain blooming in thorned vines throughout her chest, and Two breathing steadily beneath her. Carrying her. Herding the fae children ahead of them, while they carried Rags.

  Fresh air. They weren’t underground anymore. The sky overhead. Looking up at it, rocked by the barest jostling of Two’s silver muscles as his chest swelled and narrowed, made Inis’s vision go black with agony.

  Sorry to wake you. Two’s voice cooled some of the bright explosions of pain, but not enough. Not nearly enough. Had to. We’ve got a bit of a situation. Ideally, you’d get days to recover, but this isn’t ideal.

  Inis squinted to see what had happened, what was still happening, through Two’s eyes.

  Our Shining One, the Enchantrisk, removed the mirror from Rags’s heart, Two explained for her benefit. We were nearly interrupted, so she had to rush the slivers in his hand.

  Through Two’s eyes, Inis saw the Queensguard flooding the tunnel and forcing the hapless band of runaways lower, into the sewers.

  Hope, the big fae who wasn’t Prince Shining Talon, paused only once—to gather Sil into his arms.

  It was too much too fast. For the first time, Inis heard sorrow tinge Two’s voice. She is young, one small Enchantrisk against many sorcerers. That put us down another fighter. We ran, in order to add to our numbers.

  Inis felt Two’s hope then, as surely as if it were her own. If they could regroup with the others, they’d have a chance.

  A shitty chance, but better than none.

  Halfway toward the sewer exit they’d been joined by Uaine and a boy Inis didn’t recognize, barely older than fourteen and newly missing three fingers. From there, they had chased the smell of fresh air.

  Emerging from underground, Queensguard close on their heels, they found themselves in the middle of the castle courtyard where the Queensguard trained.

  Where countless fresh Queensguard stood now, awaiting them.

  This was when Inis had awoken and rejoined the picture. She slid out of Two’s mind and back into her own.

  Rags was unconscious, his right hand looking like it’d been attacked by carrion birds. Inis was barely awake. The fae children were unable to fight, in need of protection, and now holding a too-pale Sil in their arms so Hope could stand alone between them and hundreds of armored Queensguard. The fae warrior bled from countless slashes, some mere grazes, some deeper. Not nearly enough to prevent him from fighting for his life, for all their lives, but eventually he’d be taken down, no matter how fast he was, no matter how strong and determined.

  Inis stumbled to her feet.

  Join me, she told Two. Do the—whatever it was you did. Make me stronger.

  We probably shouldn’t, Two replied. Grinned. Doesn’t mean we won’t.

  Silver flooded her, filled her, surrounded her. It made her so much more powerful, not erasing the pain but allowing her to ignore it. Her fingers shone as she leaped forward, joined Hope in the fray, tore Queensguard apart with nothing more than her hands.

  Their hands.

  Every blow glanced off their skin. Queensguard toppled, screamed—kept coming, but they were beginning to falter. Inis lost count of how many they’d felled, went through each motion before agony had a chance to catch up with them. Two laughed, howled through Inis’s throat, as they battled.

  They might have made it, might have killed every last Queensguard, if it hadn’t been for the reinforcements.

  With Morien, robes torn and redder with his blood, at their head.

  He shouted, held up his arms. The skies opened. Rain and lightning licked across a sudden roiling of black clouds. A bolt lanced through the air and caught Inis at the back of her neck, shocking Two into separating from her. Silver melted, sizzled. Inis screamed and hit the ground. The fresh surge of Queensguard swarmed Hope, and he disappeared amid their armor and weapons.

  Sil. Where was Sil? And what about the children? Not older than Ivy. They needed protection.

  Inis tried to rise but couldn’t. The fight, Hope refusing to surrender, raged on, blows connecting, the shrieks of rending armor. Cool rain pattered down onto her face and body. She dug her fingers into the hard-packed training-ground soil and gripped tight, but she couldn’t make herself move.

  The whole world swam when she tried.

  Two’s pain was her own. More than the pain was the terrible silence, blank quiet between her ears. Was this what Tomman had felt the instant before he’d died? The vital need to rise, only to find himself unable to? Had he thought about them, wondered if Inis and Ivy yet survived, or had he thought only about himself?

  Inis would ask him when she saw him. Her head felt like it had been replaced by one sculpted from solid iron.

  She screamed, unable to move or think or do anything to help her friends. She let her rage loose, howling like a wolf at the moon. Let Morien see that she wasn’t afraid of him anymore.

  Red flooded her vision. She tried to blink it clear, then realized it was Morien the Last, soaked to the bone, draped red fabric near black and clinging to his hard angles, his looming body. Inis’s heart pounded, drowning out the noise in her ears. She fought to sit, though it made the ground beneath her tilt.

  “You Ever-Loyals,” Morien said, “always trying to get back on your feet when you’ve been beaten.”

  “You . . .” Inis’s mouth was dry. Her lips stuck to her teeth when she spoke. It was hardly a glorious moment, but she was upright. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  She didn’t have the moisture to spit at him, but she made the gesture with her lips anyway. Felt Two’s glowing approval somewhere behind her, wherever he’d landed. Injured, but alive. Alive. She grinned like he would have, showing teeth.

  And a curious calm overtook her, with Morien staring her down and Hope battling the Queensguard alone. They were finished, but there was no despair. It was as if the lightning strike had burned any last traces of fear from her body. She swayed onto her feet. Morien might cut her down before she rose, but she’d die with her heart belonging to herself and no one else.

  “It’s over,” she said. “You can’t hide what’s happened here. There’ll be questions. Investigations. Some might stand for it, turn a blind eye, but you’ll never silence everyone.”

  “You don’t understand,” Morien replied. “I already have.”

  He snapped his fingers, and the courtyard fell silent. The Queensguard stopped fighting at once, obeying his command. Inis couldn’t make out Hope’s golden aura, hidden behind too much steel. The ground slick with rain and blood.

  So those darker rumors and fears were true. There were shards in the heart of every Queensguard, maybe every servant. Maybe every courtier. Maybe every Ever-Noble. Maybe every prince would be sharded too, now that the Queen’s children had proven they weren’t inherently loyal.

  The knowledge hit Inis like a new blow.

  Morien saw its impact and laughed. “Little girl, what you’ve accomplished here is nothing. No, I speak too soon. You’ve helped me, brought me someone who escaped my grasp. She’ll die here with you.”

  If there was no other way for Inis to fight, she could still strike back.

  Two, you have to tell Sil and the others to run. They can still escape—

  I can tell the others, Two said. But not Sil.

  Don’t be stubborn— Inis began.

  Didn’t get to finish. Morien’s hand rose, tracing murderous glyphs in the air, and the world
whitened. This time, the pain came from without instead of within. The air around Inis scorched her skin while her heart beat its shuddering pulse in her chest.

  It was battered, wounded, but her heart still worked. Though Inis’s eyes burned, she kept them fixed on Morien, refusing to look away. She stared him down, would keep staring him down as he killed her. She’d make him see her.

  Then, a snap of power, like more lightning. It didn’t strike Inis this time. A chaos of clattering metal shattered Morien’s silence. Two’s voice in Inis’s head, panting wearily, carried a delighted cackle.

  Finally, he said. Our reinforcements are here.

  86

  Einan

  For a time, Cathair Remington thought he had a son who’d inherit his name—and the centuries-old family trade of barrel making. Until, shortly after her tenth birthday, Einan told him different. She was no son but his daughter. This he could understand and accept. What he couldn’t bear was that she loved the theater and not barrels.

  Cathair had predicted ruin and disaster for Einan should she run off like a fool to chase glory on the stage, but even his direst warnings had never placed her in a situation quite this grim.

  Soaked with royal blood, she stumbled out of the tunnels of Coward’s Silence, into the open air and pouring rain.

  The scene below was worse than the bloodiest histories she’d enacted onstage.

  So many Queensguard, she couldn’t see past them at first to what they’d surrounded. A handful of kids, all of them glowing faintly. Fae.

  Einan strained but didn’t see Sil. Didn’t see Hope, either, though now and then a yowl rose from a tighter knot of Queensguard, which might’ve been where the enemy swarmed him. And there was the girl they’d met, pretty in an angry way, on the ground: her silver beast half melted next to her, the sorcerer standing over her, all of them royally fucked.

  If ever there was a time for a grand entrance, this was it.

  But someone needed to stay behind and help Prince Laisrean, who was on his last legs. Their group was too badly injured already. And sure, they had two silver beasties of their own, but would that be enough?