Tamriel works quickly across the massive room, rationing the medicine as much as possible. He sidesteps more dead bodies than he cares to count, stopping only to close their eyelids and send a prayer to the Creator for their passage into the Beyond. They’d had to quarantine Beggars’ End much earlier than they’d anticipated because of the mob, and after news of the plague had spread, no healers had been willing to risk their lives for such ‘low-born scum,’ as the nobles had said. The only healthy people who have set foot in this building in the past week are the guards.
By the time he climbs the steps to the second floor, three-quarters of the vials are empty and Tamriel’s heart is heavy with grief. Nestled in among the dying and dead, he’d found an elven woman who had clutched her dead child to her breast, stroking her babe’s round, colorless cheeks as silent sobs racked her body. She hadn’t said a word to Tamriel, only gripping her child closer and shaking her head vehemently every time Tamriel had offered her medicine. She had been the only one he had told of the cure. He’d foolishly thought the news would uplift her. Instead, her eyes had held the same lifelessness as the body cradled in her arms.
The prince is pulling an empty vial from a sick man’s lips when someone shuffles up behind him. “I knew I’d find you here,” he says quietly.
“Where else would I be when so many of my people are in need?” Ketojan asks, his voice a deep rumble. He crosses the room and stops beside Tamriel, cocking his head. “Are you sure it was wise to come here?”
“No,” Tamriel admits. He stands and shifts the bag, the empty vials clinking. Only one remains full. “Is she here?”
“Upstairs.”
Ketojan plucks the lantern out of Tamriel’s hand and leads him up the stairs on the far wall. Like most of the warehouse, the stone is soot-stained and chipped with age, a few of the steps slanted dangerously this way or that. “Your father made a bold show outside the castle, I’m told. Whipping the mob leaders outside the gate where Liselle was killed? One might even think he cares about us poor wretches.”
“Half of Sandori knows he is sympathetic to the elves.” As always, Liselle’s name sets his teeth on edge. While he understands her need to free the slaves, she will forever be the woman who tore his family apart.
“Half of Sandori thinks he is sympathetic to the elves. Whispers without proof are just that, child. Whispers. Nothing more. And what of you? What do the people make of you?”
“I’d like to think I’m better at hiding my allegiances than my father.”
“If you keep sneaking away to the End, someone will put two and two together eventually.”
“I’ll insist I’m merely concerned about my citizens. It’s the truth.”
“It won’t seem that way when they consider your feelings for a certain Feyndaran lady.”
Tamriel is glad Ketojan is in front of him on the stairs; the elf can’t see his face flush. “How do you know so much about the goings-on outside of this place?”
“You aren’t the only one who works in secrecy, Your Highness.”
“Hm.” It doesn’t surprise him. Ketojan and Hero have worked together to free elves from their human masters for decades, long before the name Liselle meant anything to anyone. Tamriel is merely a pawn in their operation—a rather important pawn, but still. There is only so much information they trust to him.
Ketojan leaves the lantern on the floor when they reach the top of the stairs. Half of the roof had collapsed after the fire and had never been repaired, and the stars twinkle brightly in the dark blanket of the nighttime sky. Bathed in their silver light are half a dozen bodies wrapped in stained and patched sheets. A woman kneels over the nearest one, her head bowed and lips moving as she murmurs a prayer for the dead. One of her arms is in a sling, her shoulder swollen and bruised beneath the rags she wears. When she looks up at Tamriel, his stomach clenches.
“Hero,” he croaks. “I’m so—” He can’t force out the word sorry; it feels too small, too feeble, too flimsy after all he’d done to her, after all he has seen tonight.
She rises and walks to him, resting her good hand on his arm. The light touch makes him want to cry. In her eyes is none of the malice or contempt she had shown the king, and somehow, that makes it worse. Ketojan crosses the room and leans against the wall, crossing his arms lightly over his chest and staring out into the night. His white hair practically glows in the starlight.
“You could have told my father that it was me. By the Creator, Hero, you—you should have told him it was me. They wouldn’t have hurt you . . . I wouldn’t have hurt you. I’m so . . .” This time, he does say it, although he has to look away to summon the courage. “I’m so sorry.”
Hero moves her hand from his arm to his cheek, turning him so he’s facing her. She makes a sound which might have been I forgive you, but Tamriel doesn’t dare to hope.
“Our Hero is tough,” Ketojan says, his voice soft with affection. “That wasn’t the first time she’d been threatened or tortured and it will hardly be the last. Even so, the reward of seeing our people freed far outweighs the risk.”
Hero nods. She takes Tamriel’s hand and leads him to Ketojan, gesturing to the elf. He hesitates, then pulls a sheaf of papers out of his tattered jacket. He hands them to Tamriel. “Davron Eddas. You know him?” When Tamriel nods, he continues, “Apparently he’s a less than desirable owner—if such a one exists. Three elves have contacted us from outside the End wishing to go to Cirisor. They’ve scraped together enough money for food and supplies on the road, but need help sneaking past the guards now that Hero’s tunnel has been filled.”
Tamriel looks to Hero. “You’re sure you want to continue this? The price you’ve already paid—”
Hero’s eyes glimmer with fierce protectiveness when she nods, and Tamriel knows there is no talking her out of it.
He hands the papers back to Ketojan. “Then consider it done. The next guard schedule goes out in three days. I’ll find a way to intercept it.” He glances from Ketojan’s grim face to Hero’s resolute one. “How else can I help?”
46
At the break of dawn, Mercy leans on the wall of the well in the center of the market, turning the Guild coin over between her fingers. The early morning sunlight reflects off the shiny teardrop embossed in the center and into Mercy’s tired eyes, and she grimaces. It would be so easy to let go, to watch it fall through the air and hear the plink of the coin breaking the water’s still surface, swallowed forever in its inky blackness.
She runs a hand over her lips, feeling the ghost of Tamriel’s kiss, and sighs. She’d wandered through the city all night, too restless to return to Blackbriar, too terrified Elvira would read the truth of what she’d done on her face. The muscles in her legs ache and her silk slippers pinch at her toes.
A child’s laugh sounds across the square and Mercy looks up, closing her fist around the Guild coin. A woman steps out from a dark shop and pulls the door shut behind her, a bucket in one hand and her daughter following close at her heels. The girl giggles as she hops from one cobblestone to the next, a ragged doll clamped in one chubby hand.
When her mother nears the well, the girl stops, her smile replaced by a stricken look. “Mama,” she says, “why is the knife-ear staring at us?”
The woman shoots Mercy a dark look. “I don’t know. It should mind its own business if it doesn’t want us to report it for not wearing its sash, don’t you think? It should know better than to slink around like a dog without its tags.”
Anger flares in Mercy and she pulls her cloak tightly around her. She pockets the coin and walks away without a word.
As she turns the corner, she rubs her eyes with the heels of her palms. Where did everything go wrong? she thinks for the millionth time, remembering the feel of the prince’s hands on her waist before banishing the memory from her mind. The daggers tucked in her waistband feel cold, much too cold, the coin heavy in her pocket. They feel like betrayal.
I don’t want to kill him, she reali
zes. She isn’t certain when the change had occurred—when she had stopped seeing him as her mark and started seeing him as a person, a friend or more—but it had. Yet that familiar hunger for approval still gnaws at her stomach, demanding that she prove all her childhood tormentors wrong.
A while later, she finds herself in front of Blackbriar, not entirely sure how she had walked all the way back without thinking. Although the drugs must have worn off hours ago, Ser Morrison still snoozes beside the door. Mercy slips around to the back of the house and taps on the window as loudly as she dares.
“Come on, Elvira,” she murmurs. A few minutes later, the sleepy, frizzy-haired elf appears in the doorway, still in her rumpled nightgown. She hurries to the window and pushes it open, then grabs Mercy’s elbow to help her through.
Elvira closes and latches the window. “Is it done?”
Mercy merely presses her lips into a thin line and shakes her head. She’s too exhausted to bother explaining what had happened in the library and why the prince still lives. She is swimming in a sea of shame and confusion, and her mind is muddled from wandering around Sandori all night. “Tomorrow.”
Mercy wakes late that night, still in the clothes from the night before. As she makes her way downstairs to the kitchen, a sharp rap on the front door startles her. Tamriel? she thinks, trying to ignore the way her heart begins to race at the thought of seeing him. Embarrassment causes her cheeks to flush as she strides down the hall and opens the door.
Elise smiles at her. “Marieve. The prince asked for you.”
“H-He did?” Mercy steps outside and pulls the door closed behind her, noting with some satisfaction that Ser Morrison is standing across the street, glowering. Elise must have asked for privacy. “Why didn’t he come here himself?”
“He’s busy with the nobles, remember? Convincing them to give him the throne? He asked for you, so here I am.” She pivots on her heel and walks a few feet away, then stops when she realizes that Mercy isn’t following. “Marieve?”
“Sorry, it’s just . . . now’s not a good time. We had a bit of an, um, argument last night,” she lies, feeling heat creep up the back of her neck.
Elise’s expression hardens. “He is risking his life to help his citizens, surrounded by men who have pledged their loyalty to the king. He could be jailed or killed for conspiring behind his father’s back. Your disagreement is not of the slightest importance right now.”
“But I . . . Fine. Let’s go.”
Calum crouches in the shadow of the wall which surrounds the castle, his eyes trained on the front door of the Queen’s old house. Given to her by the king, the house had once been one of the largest and most extravagant in the city, with proud, tall columns supporting the second-floor balcony which looks out over the street and castle. Wide bay windows lined with flowerboxes jut out from its façade.
The mansion had once been resplendent. Now, its crumbling form sits like a skeleton in the center of the block, its white limestone grayed and weathered, its pillars cracked and covered in ivy. Broken pieces of glass hang from the windowpanes like jagged teeth.
After a carriage clatters past, Calum darts across the street and slips through the gap between the Queen’s house and the neighboring mansion until he emerges at the back. What had originally been intended as a private garden now overflows with brambles, some of the weeds higher than Calum’s knees. They catch and tug on his clothes as he tramples them down. He frowns at the ground, having no trouble imagining the ticks, lice, rats, and other vermin which undoubtedly live in this mess. Look at all I do for you, Father, he thinks sullenly. Just look at what I’m willing to do.
One of the rear windows is completely shattered. He pulls the hem of his shirt over his hand and sweeps the bits of broken glass off the sill and into the grass. He glances at the door a few paces away and sighs. One of the hinges has rusted away completely, and, even if he could open it without alerting half the block to his presence, the wood has warped and swollen out of its original shape. He hoists himself over the sill and, as he does, a sharp shard of glass he hadn’t noticed slices into his shoulder. He hisses in pain, the sound of his sleeve ripping seeming much louder than it should in the silence of the night. When Calum eases through the window and straightens, a fat, warm drop of blood rolls down his arm.
Outside, the moonlight had helped him to see, but here, heavy velvet curtains reeking of mildew cover each of the intact windows, blocking out nearly every modicum of light. As his eyes adjust, he can vaguely make out the shapes of furniture and the corners of paintings scattered around the room, covered in dusty tarps. Most of Elisora’s art collection had been locked away under the castle after her death, but the less expensive stuff had been brought here—probably a tenth of her original collection.
The sharp sound of metal snapping echoes from the front of the house, and Calum freezes. Tamriel is here. He must have broken the aged lock which had held the front door closed. He’s early, so he won’t think anything of the fact that none of the nobles are here to speak with him; Calum had never bothered to invite them the second time.
Calum slowly makes his way into the hall, pausing frequently to find his bearings or to skirt one of the many piles of animal droppings on the floor. He hears Tamriel pacing in the other room. As he stalks down the corridor, he pulls his dagger from its sheath and creeps forward, peering into the foyer through the open doorway.
Tamriel has taken off his cloak and tossed it aside, and his breastplate gleams in the light from one of the bay windows. He wears light leather armor over his clothes, but it’s nothing a well-crafted blade couldn’t slice through. The prince is nervous; when the wind blows and whistles trough the broken windowpanes upstairs, he jumps. His hand moves to the sword sheathed at his hip to remind himself it’s there.
Calum moves out of the doorway and into the room, flipping the dagger’s grip in his hand. He takes a deep breath. I will not be weak. I will not give in to affection like I did in the library. Tamriel, not hearing Calum’s approach, takes a step toward the window, his hand reaching for the curtain to pull it aside. Calum lifts the dagger and swings at his head, and the pommel connects with Tamriel’s skull, right behind his temple. His cousin crumples to the ground at his feet, groaning once before falling unconscious.
47
“This is the house. You remember when I showed you?” Elise asks.
“I remember.” Mercy frowns at the derelict manor, crinkling her nose in disgust. “I understand it’s his mother’s house, but why would His Highness want to hold a meeting in there? I can practically smell the shit from here.”
“Exactly.” Elise nods. “Everyone knows the prince cherishes everything of his mother’s, but something as . . . decrepit as this? Well, only the lowliest of beggars deign to sleep here. He’s hiding in plain sight.”
They walk in silence until Elise leads them to the front of the house. With each step, a strange sense of unease washes over Mercy, almost like she is going to be sick. The feeling only intensifies when Elise raps on the door three times in quick succession—to no response. She frowns, and they exchange a concerned glance before Elise tries again.
Three knocks . . .
Nothing.
Elise grabs the doorknob and the door swings open without her having to turn it; someone had snapped the latch when he broke the lock. She pushes the door fully open and shrieks, picking up her skirt and running inside. Mercy darts in behind her, then stops in her tracks.
Tamriel lies in the center of the room, dead.
Mercy runs to him and falls to her knees, laying her hands upon his chest. His breastplate and a dagger lie a few feet away, as if someone had tossed them there. She lets out a choked gasp of relief when she feels his ribs expand and contract under her palms. He’s breathing, but it’s slow and shallow.
“Creator preserve us,” Elise whispers. When Mercy glances back Elise is trembling from head to toe, her face stark white.
“He’s alive,” Mercy says, “
but he may not be for long. Go find help. Go!”
Elise lets out a sob, then nods and stumbles outside, shouting words Mercy can’t make out over the pounding in her ears.
The prince’s hair is sticky with blood. It pools in the curve of his ear, pouring from a wide gash behind his temple, and Mercy rips a long strip of fabric from the hem of her shirt and presses it to the cut. The opposite side of his head has begun to swell where it had hit the ground when he fell.
That’s when she sees the pool of blood.
It seeps out from under him, a puddle on the stone below his shoulder. Her hands shaking, she grabs his shirt in one hand and his belt in the other, and uses them to pull him onto his side. Her breath catches in her throat. A large gash carves a crescent moon across his back. His shirt is soaked with blood, the slash in the silk gaping to show the wound as more blood pours out. It’s deep enough that he’d have bled out if Mercy and Elise had arrived ten minutes later, but as long as Elise returns with help soon, he may survive.
Something crashes in the back of the house. Mercy jumps to her feet, her heart beating in a constant hum. She glances back at Tamriel, who moans, his eyes still shut. Please don’t die. She swipes the dagger off the floor and grips it until her knuckles turn white, her hands slick with Tamriel’s blood.
She runs through the hallway and into the back room, letting out a string of expletives when she realizes it’s empty. A breeze sweeps in from the broken window, which offers a glimpse into an overgrown garden, brambles climbing up the legs of the statue standing atop the dry fountain. The gaping hole is large enough for someone to climb through, and as Mercy nears, she spots blood on the point of a piece of glass which hangs from the window frame.
Run, says a foreign voice.
Footsteps and voices sound outside, and she returns to the foyer as the door opens and Elise, several guards, and a healer walk in.
Merciless Page 34
