by Morgan Rice
“You’ll never leave here!” Angelica called out, and Sophia heard her footsteps following behind.
Sophia sped up. She didn’t want to be stabbed again, and not just to avoid the pain of it. She didn’t know what would happen if this place shifted again, or how long the opening above would last. She couldn’t afford to take the risk either way, so she ran for the stairs, spinning as she reached them to kick out at Angelica and knock her back mid-thrust.
Sophia didn’t stay to fight her, but instead sprinted up the stairs, taking them two at a time. She could hear Angelica following, but that didn’t matter then. All that mattered was escaping. She continued up the stairs as they climbed, and climbed.
The stairs kept going, seeming to climb forever. Sophia continued to clamber up them, but she could feel herself starting to tire. She was no longer taking the steps two at a time now, and a glance over her shoulder showed her that the version of Angelica in whatever nightmare this was still followed her, stalking forward with a grim sense of inevitability.
Sophia’s instinct was to keep climbing, but a deeper part of her was starting to think that was stupid. This wasn’t the normal world; it didn’t have the same rules, or the same logic. This was a place where thought and magic counted for more than the purely physical ability to keep going.
That thought was enough to make Sophia stop and delve deeper into herself, reaching for the thread of power that had seemed to connect her to an entire country. She turned to face the image of Angelica, understanding now.
“You aren’t real,” she said. “You aren’t here.”
She sent a whisper of power out, and the image of her would-be killer dissolved. She concentrated, and the spiral staircase disappeared, leaving Sophia standing on flat ground. The light wasn’t high above now, but was instead just a step or two away, forming a doorway that seemed to open onto a ship’s cabin. The same ship’s cabin where Sophia had been stabbed.
Taking a deep breath, Sophia stepped through, and woke.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Kate sat on the deck of the ship as it scythed through the water, exhaustion preventing her from doing much more. Even with the time that had passed since she’d healed Sophia’s wound, it felt as though she hadn’t fully recovered from the effort.
From time to time, the sailors checked on her as they passed. The captain, Borkar, was especially attentive, running by with a frequency and deference that would have seemed amusing if he hadn’t been so completely sincere about it.
“Are you all right, my lady?” he asked, for what seemed like the hundredth time. “Do you require anything?”
“I’m fine,” Kate assured him. “And I’m not anyone’s lady. I’m just Kate. Why do you keep calling me that?”
“It’s not my place to say, my… Kate,” the captain insisted.
It wasn’t just him. All the sailors seemed to be walking around Kate with a level of deference that verged on the obsequious. She wasn’t used to it. Her life had consisted of the brutality of the House of the Unclaimed, followed by the camaraderie of Lord Cranston’s men. And there had been Will, of course…
She hoped that Will was safe. When she’d left, she hadn’t been able to say goodbye, because Lord Cranston would never have let her go if she had. She would have given anything to be able to say it properly, or better yet, to bring Will with her. He would probably have laughed at the men who bowed to her, knowing how much that unwarranted politeness would annoy her.
Maybe it was something Sophia had done. After all, she’d played the part of a noble girl before. Maybe she would explain it all once she woke up. If she woke up. No, Kate couldn’t think like that. She had to hope, even if it had been more than two days now since she’d closed the wound in Sophia’s side.
Kate went through to the cabin. Sophia’s forest cat raised its head as Kate entered, looking up protectively from where it lay across Sophia’s feet like some furry blanket. To Kate’s surprise, the cat had barely moved from Sophia’s side in all the time the ship had been traveling. It let Kate ruffle its ears as she moved to her sister’s bedside.
“We’re both just hoping that she’ll wake up, aren’t we?” she said.
She sat beside her sister, watching her sleep. Sophia looked so peaceful now, no longer marred by the stiletto wound in her side, no longer gray with the pallor of death. She could have been asleep, except that she’d been asleep like this for so long that Kate was starting to worry she might die of thirst or hunger before she woke.
Then Kate saw the faint flicker of Sophia’s eyelids, the barest movement of her hands against the bedclothes. She stared at her sister, daring to hope.
Sophia’s eyes opened, staring straight at her, and Kate couldn’t help herself. She threw herself forward, hugging her sister, holding her close.
“You’re alive. Sophia, you’re alive.”
“I’m alive,” Sophia reassured her, holding on as Kate helped her to sit up. Even the forest cat seemed happy about it, moving forward to lick both of their faces with a tongue like a blacksmith’s rasp.
“Easy, Sienne,” Sophia said. “I’m all right.”
“Sienne?” Kate asked. “That’s her name?”
She saw Sophia nod. “I found her on the road to Monthys. It’s a long story.”
Kate suspected that there were a lot of stories to be told. She moved back from Sophia, wanting to hear all of it, and Sophia all but fell back to the bed.
“Sophia!”
“It’s all right,” Sophia said. “I’m all right. At least, I think I am. I’m just tired. I could do with a drink too.”
Kate passed her a water skin, watching Sophia drink deeply. She called out for the sailors, and to her surprise, Captain Borkar himself came running.
“What do you need, my lady?” he asked, then stared at Sophia. To Kate’s shock, he fell to one knee. “Your highness, you’re awake. We were all so worried about you. You must be starving. I’ll fetch food at once!”
He hurried off, and Kate could feel the joy coming off him like smoke. She had at least one other concern, though.
“Your highness?” she said, staring over at Sophia. “The sailors have been treating me oddly ever since they realized I was your sister, but this? You’re telling them that you’re royalty?”
It sounded like a dangerous game to play, pretending to be royal. Was Sophia playing on her engagement to Sebastian, or pretending to be some foreign royal, or was it something else?
“It’s nothing like that,” Sophia said. “I’m not pretending anything.” She took hold of Kate’s arm. “Kate, I found out who our parents are!”
That was one thing that Sophia wouldn’t joke about. Kate stared at her, barely able to believe the implications of it. She sat down on the edge of the bed, wanting to understand it all.
“Tell me,” she said, unable to contain her shock. “You really think… you think that our parents were some kind of royalty?”
Sophia started to sit up. When she struggled with it, Kate helped her.
“Our parents were named Alfred and Christina Danse,” Sophia said. “They lived, we lived, in an estate in Monthys. Our family used to be the kings and queens before the Dowager’s family pushed them aside. The person who explained this said that they had a kind of… connection to the land. They didn’t just rule it; they were part of it.”
Kate froze as she heard that. She’d felt that connection. She’d felt the country spread out before her. She’d reached for the power in it. It had been how she’d been able to heal Sophia.
“And this is real?” she said. “This isn’t some kind of story? I’m not going mad?”
“I wouldn’t make this up,” Sophia reassured her. “I wouldn’t do that to you, Kate.”
“You said that our parents were these people,” Kate said. “Are they… did they die?”
She did her best to hide the pain that went through her with that thought. She could remember the fire. She could remember running. She couldn’t remember what
had happened to her parents.
“I don’t know,” Sophia said. “No one seems to know what happened to them after that. All of this… the plan was to head to our uncle, Lars Skyddar, and hope that he knows something.”
“Lars Skyddar?” Kate had heard that name. Lord Cranston had talked about the lands of Ishjemme, and how they’d managed to keep out invaders using a combination of cunning tactics and the natural defenses of their icy fjords. “He’s our uncle?”
It was too much to take in. Just like that, Kate had gone from having no family beyond her sister to having a family who had been kings and queens, who did rule in at least one far-off land. It was too much, too quickly.
On instinct, Kate found herself reaching for the locket that she wore around her neck. She took it out, looking down at the image of the woman within. She had a name for that woman now: Christina Danse. Her mother. That made her Kate Danse.
Kate smiled. She liked the sound of that. She liked the idea of having a family name that she knew, rather than just being Unclaimed, marked by the tattoo on her calf.
“What’s that?” Sophia asked, and Kate realized that she wasn’t looking at the locket, but at the ring she’d placed on the same chain for safekeeping. There was no doubt that Sophia recognized it. Of course she would, when it had been her engagement ring. “Where did you get that?”
There was no point in trying to hide it now.
“Sebastian gave it to me to give to you,” she said. “But Sophia, you need to stay away from him.”
“I love him,” Sophia said, “and if he loves me—”
“He stabbed you,” Kate insisted, feeling an echo of the anger that had been there when she’d first seen Sophia lying there near death. “He tried to murder you!”
Even given that, Sophia still shook her head. “That wasn’t him.”
“Because that’s not how he really is?” Kate guessed. It sounded like the kind of excuse some farmer’s wife might make when her husband got drunk and beat her. “Because he loves you really?”
“No,” Sophia said. “I mean that it wasn’t him. A noblewoman called Milady d’Angelica stabbed me, not Sebastian.”
Kate hadn’t met this noblewoman, but she hadn’t been the one kneeling over Sophia’s body.
“He was here,” Kate insisted. “He had the knife in his hand. He was covered in your blood!”
“Maybe he was trying to save me,” Sophia insisted.
“And maybe you’re just reaching for anything you can find to defend him,” Kate shot back. “Maybe you even really believe that this woman was here, rather than Sebastian, but I know what I saw.”
“It was Angelica,” Sophia insisted. “She stabbed me, and Sienne tore a piece out of her back as she ran. Please, Kate, I just want you to believe me. Sebastian wasn’t the one who did this.”
“He’s done plenty of other things,” Kate pointed out. “He was the one who sent you away so that you ended up in this mess in the first place. He said he wanted to find you, but as far as I can see all he did was lead half the royal army to hunt you. Even if he didn’t stab you, he did nothing to try to save you.”
“You can’t blame him for not having the magic to heal me,” Sophia said. She reached up for Kate, pulling her close. “I don’t want to fight, Kate. You saved my life, and we’re traveling together now to find our family. I love Sebastian. Can’t you just accept that?”
Kate wished she could, but as far as she could see, loving Sebastian had brought her sister nothing but pain. She took the ring from the chain around her neck, pressing it into Sophia’s hand with bad grace.
“You should have this,” she said. “If it were me, I’d take it and throw it into the ocean, or sell it for extra coin, but you’ll probably take it as a promise.”
Kate saw Sophia nod, and knew that her sister was thinking in those terms. She really thought that the prince whose hands had been covered in her blood would come to her and be the perfect husband. Kate saw her slip it onto her little finger, holding it there almost reverently.
“Why do you want him so much?” Kate demanded. “Why is it so important that things work out with him? You have a whole life ahead of you. You’ve just told me that we have a chance to find our family. You’ve told me that… goddess, I’m a princess, aren’t I?”
“You’re a princess,” Sophia said with a faint smile, “and you will have to wear pretty ball gowns from now on.”
“Not in a million years,” Kate said. “And you’re avoiding the point. You’re not some Indentured girl anymore. You could have any man you wanted. So why him? And don’t just tell me that you love him.”
“Is love so stupid?” Sophia asked.
Kate found herself thinking about Will, but didn’t say anything. If this was the way love made people think, then it was stupid.
“Kate, I need him,” Sophia said.
“Why?”
“Because I’m pregnant with his child,” Sophia said.
Kate stared at her. “You’re pregnant?”
She hugged her sister again then.
“Of course, you realize what this means?” Sophia asked. “You’re not just going to be a princess, Kate. You’re going to be an aunt.”
Kate hadn’t thought of it like that, and just the thought of it was mildly terrifying. There were other, bigger, fears though. The two of them were heading off to a place Kate had never been to find a man they didn’t know, all while her home was in the middle of an invasion.
She didn’t know what their trip to Ishjemme would involve, but she suspected that it wouldn’t be easy.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Sebastian shambled into the palace like a dead thing when he arrived, and not just because Rupert had made them ride hard on the way back south, apparently enjoying his discomfort.
The fact was that the world seemed too empty for anything else now that Sophia was gone.
“You should go get cleaned up,” Rupert said with obvious amusement. “I’m sure Mother will want to speak to you as soon as she hears you’re back.”
He was clearly looking forward to the thought of what their mother would have to say, but he was still quick to leave Sebastian to it. Maybe he was that eager to get back to his carousing and his cronies. Maybe he was just certain that Sebastian didn’t have any reason to go anywhere else now.
Every step back toward his rooms felt like Sebastian was dragging a lead weight attached around his heart. He’d barely slept since leaving the north, and not just because Rupert had taken a kind of cruel delight in pushing them to get back sooner. Every time he closed his eyes, Sebastian had seen Sophia lying there cold and dead on the floor.
He couldn’t believe that she was gone. Sophia had only been in his life for the briefest of times, but it seemed impossible now that she had ever not been there. A world without her in it simply seemed wrong.
He went to his rooms, changing and cleaning himself up almost automatically. A servant brought food, but it might as well have been ashes for all that Sebastian tasted it.
“I heard that you were back.”
He turned to see Angelica standing in the doorway. She was dressed in a gown of shimmering gray silk, stitched with silver.
“I’m sorry, Milady,” Sebastian said, “but I’m really not in the mood for—”
She stepped forward, putting her arms around him without being asked.
“I’m glad you’re safe,” she said, holding him. “I know you won’t believe it, but I am.”
Sebastian could feel the presence of her there, warm and comforting and alive. He wanted to push away from her then, but couldn’t bring himself to do it, not when she was the only person who seemed to be willing to offer the least crumb of kindness.
“I don’t feel very safe,” Sebastian said. “I feel…”
He couldn’t keep the tears out of his eyes. He expected Angelica to run from that, to pull back for fear of staining the silk of her dress. Instead, she continued to hold onto him, forming the pillar that
seemed to be holding up his world.
“What happened?” Angelica said.
Sebastian swallowed, not sure that he could bring himself to say it. “It’s Sophia. She’s… someone killed her.”
“She’s dead?” Angelica said, and Sebastian could see the shock of it on her face. “Oh, Sebastian, I’m so sorry.”
“You didn’t even like her,” Sebastian pointed out.
He saw Angelica hesitate before she answered. “No, you’re right. I was going to lie and say something kind, but I didn’t like her. I thought that she was pretending to be someone she wasn’t, and I didn’t like that she was going to hurt you with it. But this… I know this must be hurting you even more. I don’t want that, Sebastian.”
Sebastian was surprised by how much even that helped. Just knowing that there was someone out there who cared about his grief was something.
“Do you know what happened?” Angelica asked. “Rupert went out after you, did he…?”
Sebastian shook his head. Just thinking about what had happened on the boat hurt. “I don’t think so. Rupert was still searching when I found her. There was… there was blood everywhere.”
The worst part of it was not knowing. Whoever had done this deserved to die, but instead, it felt as though they’d gotten away with their crime.
“I don’t even know who did it,” Sebastian said. “There has to be some reason for it, some point to it. I need to find out, Angelica. I need to find them.”
She reached out, putting a hand on his arm. Her touch was as gentle as the silk of her dress. “Are you sure that’s such a good idea, Sebastian? You’re grieving, and maybe—”
“I have to do this,” Sebastian insisted. Right then, it felt as though it gave him purpose in a way that nothing else could.
“It might be dangerous,” Angelica pointed out. “I know you don’t want to hear this, Sebastian, but we don’t know what kinds of things Sophia was mixed up in. She was prepared to lie to make her way into the palace, so maybe she’d done other things.”
