by Leigh Kelsey
Air poured through lungs that had been tight a second ago, and a weight dropped off Maia’s shoulders as she rested her head against the bark, wondering just what saint had given her luck.
Or maybe she was being a superstitious fool, and the saints weren’t here watching this place at all. She hoped it was the Star-Heart, the benevolent queen of saints, who became a force to be reckoned with whenever her loved ones were threatened.
Maia picked up the petal anyway, fingers gentle on its fragile velvet skin, and tucked it into the bodice of her dark red dress, rising from the bench and crossing to the wooden racks on the back wall. It was a strange place to keep the most valuable objects the crown owned, but maybe they thought the saints would keep people from stealing.
“I’m just borrowing,” Maia said, sending a glance at the tree over her shoulder just in case any saint thought to strike her down for theft. “I’ll bring it back.”
She scanned the shelves and racks, stopping at an orange velvet cushion that held a dark dagger with deep brown gemstones set in the hilt—the stones formed at the heart of a fallen star. It had always been a strange piece to find in the City of Skies, where the Eversky was most favoured. It had probably once belonged to Saintsgarde, where they worshipped the Star-Heart, but been stolen for its power: the stones glowed luminously whenever someone spoke the truth, and stayed utterly dead when they spoke lies. It was called the Dagger of Truths for a damn good reason.
Maia held her breath as she closed her fingers around the cold silk-wrapped handle and lifted it off its deep orange cushion, letting out an oof of surprise at its heft. But no magic blasted against her, no alarm bells pealed.
“Well, that was easy,” she muttered, hiding the dagger in a fold of her skirts and nodding farewell at the tree as she aimed for the door.
With every step, every heartbeat she waited for shields to grab her by the throat, for a vengeful saint to smite her where she stood.
Step. Inhale. Her ears pricked for every sound, her heart jolting at a sudden rush of wind.
Step. Exhale. She readied her magic in defense, the tip of her tongue tingling.
Step. Inhale. She kept a close eye on the tree of power, waiting for its long limbs to snare around her arms and legs as she opened the door.
It wasn’t until she was past the guard and several corridors away that she realised she’d made it out free and finally released her breath.
She could use this blade to cut her aunt’s throat. It wouldn’t be worth the life of terror that came afterward, but chasm, it would have felt good.
Instead, Maia kept her senses—or at least some of them—and she crossed through the snow-veiled palace gardens, honeysuckle and roses perfuming the air as she drew a steadying breath. The clouds were so close up here on the hill that she could reach out and trail her fingers through their soft substance, her fingers coming away slick.
She rounded a shining corner of the building, the brick lit vibrant pink by the dying light, and she grinned as she spotted a maid who occasionally came to Silvan’s with her and Naemi on the path by the eastern wing.
“There’s a slice of spicebread with your name on it,” Lenka said with a swift grin, her flyaway red hair dragged out of her ponytail by the soft wind.
“Tell me there’s custard to go with it,” Maia begged, her stomach groaning. She didn’t know when she’d last eaten; spicebread and custard sounded fucking divine.
“What do you take me for, woman?”
“I could kiss you,” Maia replied, matching Lenka’s smile despite what she hid in the skirts of her dress, despite what she was about to do. Afterwards, she’d definitely need something sweet to eat.
“Ugh, don’t,” Lenka laughed, turning and walking backwards, no doubt expected somewhere right this minute. “I remember how you kiss, thank you very much: like a fish.”
“Hey! I was rat-arsed,” Maia complained loudly. “And I thought you were a debauched young lord from Upper Aether who’d promised me a very good time.”
Lenka cackled. “How disappointed you were to realise you were slobbering all over my face.”
Maia rolled her eyes. “Princesses do not slobber.”
“Like a very enthusiastic dachshund,” Lenka disagreed with a witch’s laugh.
“Oh, go humiliate someone else,” Maia growled good-naturedly, turning back onto the path. “And save me that spicebread.”
“Maybe I’ll eat it myself,” Lenka joked. “I’d hate you to slobber all over that, too.”
“That’s uncalled for!” Maia shouted.
Lenka just laughed, and vanished around the corner. Maia grinned, rolling her eyes at her friend as she skirted the furthest edge of the palace with the towering maze of gardens to her left. She kept a firm grip on the Dagger of Truths, making sure it didn’t show even a glimmer through her skirt. Not all maids were her friends; some would go running straight to her aunt if they realised she’d borrowed an ancient relic. And especially if they knew why.
She hovered on the edge of treason with what she planned to do. But she had to know the truth.
Chapter Fourteen
Maia heaved open a door in the castle’s external wall that few people used, a shudder racing down her spine as the wall of magic passed over her. With a quick glance to make sure she hadn’t been seen, she began to descend the dark, enclosed staircase.
The magic was so strong that this place didn't even have a guard stationed outside. But the power only kept out those planning to kill the people down in these dungeons, or to aid them in escaping. Maia planned to do neither, so the shield allowed her all the way down the dark staircase until the air sat cold and heavy in her lungs and not a speck of daylight lit her way.
Holding her sleeve over her nose until she adjusted to the foul smell—unwashed bodies and other, sharper scents she didn’t want to think about, Maia squinted into the dying torchlight illuminating the dungeon and dreaded what she’d find. Memories rushed up around her like monsters, but she settled her breathing and shoved them behind an impenetrable wall of thorns. She was here, but he wasn’t; she was safe.
She hadn’t known how many traitors were kept down here in the palace dungeons, but her steps faltered in surprise at the sheer number of faces peering through the bars as she moved down the tight aisle. All these people were traitors? Maia tried to keep a count of every grubby face and every hunched body as she passed them, the inmates eerily silent, just watching. Not a single one begged her to help them, but she could have sworn she saw pleas in their eyes, the only brightness in faces caked in dirt. Hate darkened the eyes of a few who recognised her, but they didn’t shout at her, didn’t even sneer, as if their lips had been sewn shut.
Maia’s steps echoed off the crumbling brick walls like an army of ghosts stalking her, the only sound as she searched their faces for fierce brown eyes, searched their bodies for beautiful bronze wings. The count in her head neared fifty. Fifty traitors, in a single city. She frowned, the only explanation that they were part of a rebellion, but Maia hadn’t heard of a plot being uncovered. It was as if these people had been quietly arrested, one by one.
She walked faster, her stomach churning with nausea and not just from the smell and the silence.
None of the faces she scanned were emissaries or diplomats, no lords or ladies, no high-profile rulers or advisers or even merchants from other empires—no one who’d actually benefit from treason. Were these all common people?
Maia halted by a cell occupied by a familiar face, and exhaled a rough breath of relief. Prince Kheir was recognisable even though his gold skin was coated entirely in grime—as if he’d been shoved face-first into the cell’s disgusting floor. Maia paled at the blood streaking his shoulders, his neck, at his bronze hair in disarray and wings tucked as tight as possible to his back, their glimmer all but non-existent. It was a far cry from the elegant, handsome man she’d met in Ismene’s sitting room, but at least he had a bucket to piss in unlike some of those she’d passed.
Chocolate eyes narrowed as she stood there staring at Kheir, at his battered, swollen face, at the way he kept to the corner with his knees pressed to his chest. She couldn’t feel even a wisp of his vicious power that had sent claws hooking into her song, into her soul, What the chasm did that magic barrier at the top of the stairs do? Suppress all power? Maia reached for her own magic in a blind, panicked grab, humming a rushed tune, and stifled a sigh of relief as power tripped off her tongue. That enchantment only held the prisoners in check, then. Thank the saints.
“I’m going to ask you some questions,” she told Kheir, locking her frantic search for her power behind cool competence and a royal mask. She was Maia Delakore, princess of Vassalaer; she knew how to fake strength and brutality, had been doing it all her life. “And you’re going to answer them truthfully.”
She took the Dagger of Truths from her skirts and held it tightly at her side, one eye on the prince and the other on the smoky brown stones in the blade’s handle. It had warmed under her grip, but Maia could have sworn icy magic pulsed from those gems.
Kheir’s eyes widened in recognition, but he remained defiantly silent, sitting in the corner.
“Why did you come here to Vassalaer?” she asked in a voice like iron, the mask of cold superiority making her skin itch.
Kheir’s eyes flashed with frustration and true anger as he got slowly to his feet, wings ruffling in a sure sign of irritation. He stood two feet opposite her, only the bars between them, and Maia inhaled sharply at what had been done to him, at the wounds and slices all over his body. She knew those injuries, knew exactly how each one felt when carved into skin and muscle, and she tried to harden her heart against sympathy but didn’t quite manage it. Tried to cripple the panic that threatened to devour her—he was here, he’d done this. She needed to run, to runrunrun. Her hands started to shake but she willed them still.
Kheir’s eyes flared with a message she couldn’t interpret, but he gestured at his throat and then his mouth with angry flicks of his scraped, bloody fingers.
Maia swore viciously, understanding.
The magic around this place was a powerful silencer, keeping the inmates muzzled. But could it withstand a snaresinger?
“I’m going to compel you to speak,” she told him, and ignored the flash of anger darkening his eyes, clenching his square jaw. “If you want your voice back, it’s your only option,” she told him, burying her sympathy. There was only room here for ruthlessness if she wanted to know the truth. She couldn’t even let her guilt show.
Kheir curled his long fingers around the bars, gripping them in fists, and stared at her. Just stared. Maia wasn’t sure why that look felt like an accusation, but her stomach turned over.
Sweat pricked her forehead as she started to sing, weaving a complex melody that was both beautiful and eerie. The magic coating this place like a hard barrier pushed against her own power, resisting—refusing. She sang a long, haunting note and her power turned to mist, insubstantial and free. She slipped beneath, around, and through the silencing magic, half surprised it even worked as she sang Prince Kheir’s voice back to him.
After a minute, she let her song draw to a silent close, watching the prince as he clenched his jaw and rubbed his lips with a thumb. He’d been stripped of all his jewellery, she noticed. His fine jacket had been taken, too, leaving him in a tunic and blood-stained trousers. He was still striking even covered in muck and blood, his lip split and brow bleeding, and nothing could dim the hard light in his fierce eyes.
“Who taught you to sing?” he asked finally, his voice rough after being kept brutally silent for the better part of a day.
Maia blinked, her interrogation slipping a rung. She had hazy memories of a mother singing lullabies, but that was so long ago, and they were faint. Sometimes she thought she’d invented them herself, given herself false memories so she had something warm and hopeful to look back on. “I taught myself,” she replied in a voice that was pure royal—pure Delakore. She held his gaze and refused to back down, as if his question had been a challenge. “And then I had instructors. Who taught you to trap people inside your mind like you did to me?”
“My mother,” he replied, leaning against the bars and forcing her to endure his heavy stare. She had the unsettling sensation that those sharp chocolate eyes could see all the way into her soul. “Why are you here?”
“I have questions,” Maia reminded him. Her fingers clenched harder around the Dagger of Truths, it’s weight a solid reminder of her purpose—and what she really wanted to do with its sharp edge, whose heart she wanted to bury it in. “Why did you come to—”
“No,” he interrupted, slowly shaking his head, the movement sluggish. “Why are you here? Why do you have questions at all? I’ve already been thoroughly interrogated as you can see, and your cousin got nothing from me, nor did any of your aunt’s guards. It’s useless for you to be here.”
The word useless struck deep, a word she’d used as a weapon against herself in the solitude of her own mind. As diplomats and courtiers begged her for mercy, as her snaresong revealed truths that sent people to the chopping block, as she condemned and implicated and destroyed people. She was useless. Useless to stop any of it. And worse: selfish, to choose to protect herself over those who couldn’t protect themselves.
Maia gripped the dagger in a fist and raised it between them, her breath coming harder. “Why did you come to Vassalaer?”
“You know why,” Kheir snapped, losing patience or interest or both. “I thought the queen might join a new alliance.” He laughed, a coiling, bitter thing. “I was mistaken.” He caught her gaze, and stared deep. Missing nothing. Seeing everything. Maia could have sworn she felt his disgust and fear, that the tiniest bit of sympathy and admiration swirled through it like ink through water. The prison was getting to her, fucking with her. “You must be very good at what you do,” he went on. “There isn’t a single rumour of Queen Ismene twisting the minds of her enemies. Not even whispers. Your work is so thorough, I assume, that even when people return to their homelands, they don’t even realise what you’ve done.”
He wasn’t wrong. She shut it out. It wasn’t relevant.
“Did you come here to turn Vassalaer against our queen?” she went on, reciting the questions she’d memorised. She needed to know why—why he’d say things like he had, why he’d lie about something so important. Kheir didn’t seem like the kind of person to lie just for kicks or to cause chaos, so … why?
Kheir gave her a pitying look that made Maia’s hackles rise. “No. I came for the treaty.”
Truth, all truth: the stones glowing faintly in the sword confirmed what Maia already sensed. There was no malice in his grimy face, no duplicity in his striking eyes.
“Why would you lie like that?” she breathed, and lost her grip on the Delakore mask, the frantic, terrified truth of herself slipping free. “What do you have to gain from spreading lies? Why would you say that shit?”
She’d thought she understood him, knew what sort of person Kheir was, and the lies both damaged her ego to be wrong but … hurt for a reason she couldn’t place.
“I have nothing to gain,” he replied, still giving her that look, like he was weighing her soul. The stones glowed true, and Maia’s stomach plummeted. “And I didn’t lie.”
True. Every word was true.
Maia stared at the glowing stones in the dagger, betrayed, wondering if the damn thing even worked. But she said, gripping the edge of her composure by her fingernails, “If you don’t tell me the truth, I’ll kill you here and now.”
The stones went dark. Dull.
Fuck.
Kheir’s eyes marked the change in her, watching her unravel before his eyes, and he sighed sadly, leaning even heavily on the bars. “You want to know if what I said about your aunt trying to assassinate your parents is t
rue.”
Maia gave a clipped nod, clenching her jaw. She was falling to pieces and unsure how to stop it, how to put them back together when she was unmade.
This was the Sapphire Knight’s fault—she blamed it all on Azrail. If it had only been Kheir’s words, Maia could have shaken them off and moved on with her life, even if she’d never quite obey her aunt as faithfully. But with Azrail adding strength to Kheir’s version of events … she couldn’t ignore that they both said the Sapphire Knight hadn’t set those bombs to explode on Old Year’s Night.
And if that was true … all of it, every vicious thing he’d said could be the truth, too.
“Do you know of Wylnarren, and what happened to it?” Kheir asked, his eyes dull, as if he dove into his memories. As if he’d been there and seen it—or at least he’d beheld what remained of it. “You know that the traps around the city led to its demise?”
“Because its lord and lady failed to defend the city correctly,” Maia agreed, her hands trembling and icy cold spreading through her hands. Her boots scraped the damp stone as she shuffled her weight, but she made herself still, forcing composure.
“Because there were too many Wylnarans, and their enemies were losing,” Kheir corrected viciously. “Because they weren’t under attack by a rebel militia like they believed, or even a militia funded by the Felis Empire like their generals suspected.” True—all true, every word setting the Dagger of Truths glowing. “Their enemies played dirty. Your aunt backed the attackers in secret, sent soldiers to their frontlines disguised as civilians, and gave them a warehouse full of explosives and magic. Wylnarren didn’t stand a chance.”
True, all fucking true. This, at least, Maia could accept. “And why do you believe my aunt did it?” she asked carefully, her voice neutral through sheer will. A drop of freezing water slid through a crack in the ceiling and dropped down her spine, but she didn’t even flinch, unnaturally still.
