Footprints. He could follow them and pass judgment here for what she had taken from him. The Council might speculate, but no one would know that he was the one who struck her down. It would all be over then. The Trials. The betrayal. The pain of knowing all these years she’d been biding her time until she could betray him.
“Carys?” he said quietly. “Are you there?”
A screech answered him and it was close. Just over the rocks. Then another.
He didn’t have time to track his sister. He’d let the Xhelozi do it for him.
Andreus brought his sword down on the rope tethering Carys’s horse, grabbed the mare’s reins, and urged Cole forward.
Both horses shot through the night.
There was quiet.
Then the night was split open by a soul-breaking scream.
Carys.
The scream of agony raked through the night again. The wind gusted. Snow swirled. Andreus felt the pull to reverse course. To save his sister.
He turned his back instead.
The screams rang in his ears—louder until they were drowned out by the cheers as he made it through the Garden City gates.
The gongs sounded, welcoming him home.
His head rested against Cole’s neck; he cared little what the people watching him thought. He desperately held on while the horse limped down the icy streets. The shouting and cheers grew louder as more people came out of their houses. He saw a pall come over them as they noticed the second horse walking beside his—and his leg that left a trail of blood as he went.
People called his name as he reached the main square and the base of the castle’s steps. He held tight to the pommel of his horse as he pulled his injured leg over the saddle and slid off. His legs buckled. He clenched his teeth and refused to go down to the ground. Instead, he hung on to the saddle to keep himself upright. He was King. He would not be seen on his knees. Not after all he had done.
Lord Errik shoved his way around the Elders. “Where is Princess Carys?” he demanded.
“I don’t know,” Andreus rasped. “The Xhelozi were chasing me and I found her horse as I was fighting my way back to the castle. I couldn’t see her anywhere.”
Lord Errik grabbed Carys’s horse, leaped onto it, and wheeled to gallop down the street before Andreus had finished speaking.
Andreus scoffed. If the Xhelozi left anything for Lord Errik to find, he would find it too late.
The snow stopped falling as Andreus fumbled with cold, blood-stained fingers to pull the crown from his belt. Finally, he presented it to Elder Cestrum.
“The Prince needs a healer,” the Chief Elder yelled as he took the crown from Andreus’s hands. “Captain Monteros, have your men get a stretcher to bring him to the castle.”
The guards arrived. Carefully, they helped him onto the stretcher. As they ascended the steps to the castle, Andreus kept his eyes on the scoring board and watched as a yellow peg was added to the board.
He had won.
He was the King of Eden.
Madame Jillian was at the top of the steps when he arrived. She ordered him carried to his rooms so she could treat the leg, which had gone numb. Then it burned as she drained the wound. She gave him what she could for the pain and sent someone to the Queen’s rooms for Tears of Midnight to dull the rest.
Andreus laughed. It wasn’t funny, but he couldn’t stop laughing even when the healer wrapped the wound and warned him the leg might never be the same again.
Then the gongs sounded and his laughter stopped.
Carys was back.
That couldn’t be. He had heard her cry out. The Xhelozi. She couldn’t have survived.
The healer tried to push him down, but he forced himself to his feet and ordered his valet to bring him his cloak.
Two members of the guard helped him limp to the courtyard. His heart pounded harder with every painful step and his chest tightened. Still he urged them to go faster until they reached the courtyard. Moments later Lord Errik appeared in the entrance of the gates with what must be Carys in his arms. Even in the bright wind-powered light it was impossible to tell.
Her clothes were in tatters and there was blood. So much blood. But the hair—almost completely white in this light—was unmistakable.
Elder Ulrich followed behind Lord Errik, telling him to slow down.
“No,” Lord Errik yelled, cradling Carys’s disfigured body close to him as he ran. “She was still breathing. There could still be time. Send for a healer.”
The Elders asked everyone to assemble in the Hall of Virtues to wait, but as they all turned toward the castle door, Lord Errik returned. Anger and blood colored his face. Andreus held his breath as he waited to hear the words that would end this.
The wind gusted, making it almost impossible to hear the words that Andreus had been waiting for.
“You are too late! Princess Carys is dead.”
Pain flared again. Andreus’s legs trembled under his weight. He limped back to his rooms before he passed out. All the while, the castle shook as the people rang the air with four words.
Long live the King.
21
“I have to see her,” Andreus said, trying to stand.
Light streamed through the curtains of his bedchamber. The seven members of the Council of Elders stood at the foot of his bed.
“You need to let me put this splint on your leg,” Madame Jillian said, holding out what looked like a small circular cage. “The poison from these cuts is still festering. The numbness and lack of muscle control might never fully fade.”
“When will I be free of this contraption?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? Then who does?” he demanded. “Kings must stand on their own two feet!”
“No one I have treated ever fought the Xhelozi and lived, Your Highness.” Madame Jillian bowed. “But I am working on a solution.”
The only man she knew to fight the beasts outside the walls and survive. Andreus smiled in satisfaction. The Elders had heard. They knew now the kind of king they would be dealing with. Soon, songs would be written about the strength of King Andreus who single-handedly faced down the Xhelozi.
Elder Cestrum cleared his throat. “The Council of Elders has arranged for your coronation to occur tonight. There are decisions about the war that need to be made and can only be made by our King.”
Andreus rose from his bed and Elder Jacobs offered to accompany him on his walk to his sister’s door. “I must warn you,” the Elder said softly. “The Xhelozi were not as kind to your sister as they were to you. The Princess suffered.”
Screams echoed in his memory as he opened the door.
Her body lay on the bed. Andreus took one step into the room and froze.
Her face was gone. Someone had smoothed and brushed his sister’s white blond hair around the series of gashes and scrapes crusted with blood and gore. In one place, the cut went so deep Andreus was certain he could see bone.
His stomach lurched and Andreus grabbed the doorframe for support as his legs threatened to give way.
His sister was dead.
Her screams clawed through his mind.
“Would you like a moment alone?” Elder Jacobs asked.
“No.” He stepped back from the bedroom and shut the door, but the screams continued. “No, that won’t be necessary.”
“Don’t feel bad, Your Highness,” Elder Jacobs said, taking Andreus’s arm. “Your mother had a hard time seeing your sister as well.”
“My mother was here? How is she?”
“She seemed much improved.”
He thought of their mother’s attempt to get to the mountains when she first lost her mind. Perhaps he was not haunted. Perhaps hers were the screams that had met his ears. “Did she cry out when she saw Carys?”
“No,” Elder Jacobs said with a frown. “She laughed.”
Heavy.
Arms. Legs. Everything was heavy. And tired. And so cold. She shiv
ered and cried out in pain.
Then she remembered she wasn’t supposed to cry out.
“You’re going to be okay.”
Errik had said that to her when he found her near the river, wedged deep in between three large boulders buried behind a grove of wintergreen trees. Scared. Cold. Heartbroken. Bleeding from the scrapes on her face and arms, heart racing from the screams of the Xhelozi. The scraping of their claws along the rocks. The snarls when she was certain they smelled her. And the wind that shifted the snow and the trees until she heard Errik’s voice calling to her.
He spoke of the plan for their return as he slashed her clothes and cloak. He ran his hand along the scrape on her jaw. Then across her cheek. Finally rubbing his thumb against her lip before gently gathering her aching, bruised body in his arms. The Xhelozi calls echoed against the snow. Errik held her closer with each cry. Finally, the sounds were gone—the monsters pulled back to the mountains where they belonged—and Errik slowed the horse. He pressed a soft whisper of a kiss on her lips before lifting her off the horse and drawing his knife for the second time.
The duck’s blood was warm and sticky and made her want to scream as he smeared it over her face along with strips of the inside of the bird. The smell made her want to gag, but she told herself not to move—not to make a sound. She drank the thick sleeping draught he offered to her and clung to his soft encouragement as they rode toward the gates.
The wind whispered.
Then she sighed as darkness enveloped her.
And now, Larkin’s voice soothed her as a wet cloth passed over her face.
“Keep your eyes closed just a little while longer.”
Carys wasn’t sure she could open them even if she wanted to. “Lord Errik,” she whispered. How long since he’d brought her here to the nursery where Larkin had been waiting?
“Don’t worry. It’ll grow back, Your Highness.”
“What will?” She trembled as the wet cloth passed over her face.
“Your hair.”
Water trickled nearby.
The cloth ran over her checks and forehead and eyelids again. Carys remembered Larkin helping her undress before wrapping her in a blanket and Errik saying he needed her hair. There was a servant who had died—disfigured. With Carys’s hair Errik was certain he could make the dead girl pass for her.
More tinkling water and finally Larkin said, “You can open your eyes now.”
Even though she was clean, Carys could still feel the blood caked on to her lashes. She slowly opened her eyes and looked up at the shadows on the ceiling of the hidden room. Then she gazed into Larkin’s dirt-smudged face. “Maybe instead of washing me, you should use some of that water on yourself.”
Larkin smiled. “Be glad you didn’t see your reflection, Highness. You were a fright.”
“Good. That was the idea.” She lifted a hand to her head and laughed as she ran her fingers through the hair that barely brushed the top of her ears. “How do I look?” she asked, hating that she even cared. She wouldn’t normally. But when she thought of the way Lord Errik had kissed her . . .
“You don’t look like a lady,” Larkin said, putting a glass of water into Carys’s uncertain hands.
“I’ve been told that not being considered a lady is a compliment.” She smiled and waited for Larkin’s grin in return.
“That it is. But lady or no lady, we are going to have to get you dressed. Since Lord Errik required the use of your other clothes, I instructed him to bring me these.” She motioned to a stack of men’s garments piled nearby. “I figured Prince Micah didn’t need them anymore. They won’t fit as well as the others I made you, but we can work on that.”
Carys struggled to rise. Larkin moved to help.
By the time she was dressed in trousers Larkin had hastily altered and a gray tunic, Errik strode through the door. He stared at her for a heartbeat as she sweated in her ill-fitting clothes and then gave a deep bow. Then, flashing a smile, he said, “I’m happy to report, Your Highness, that you are officially dead.”
“She was a kitchen maid,” Errik explained as he opened the trapdoor and threw the bag of supplies he’d assembled down into the darkness. “Your healer was caring for her until two days ago when she died.”
Carys slid her stilettos into her belt, then wrapped her arms around herself to ward off the chill and sank down on a wooden crate. So much death.
“She had no family here in Garden City.” Errik turned to her. “And she will get a princess’ funeral instead of a pauper’s grave, Your Highness. You can feel good about that.”
There was little she felt good about right now. In an hour her brother would stand on the dais in the Hall of Virtues. The crown would be placed on his head and he would be surrounded by people who would be working to destroy him and Eden. The Council. The Captain of the Guard. Garret. Who knew how many or who would take a knee and swear an oath they intended to break.
And for the first time she wasn’t at her twin’s side to help. She clenched her fist and felt air flutter her hair. A draft. It was just a draft.
Only, she knew deep inside her that it wasn’t.
Her mother had said she was the curse. That she had given her the Tears of Midnight to keep the curse at bay.
But the curse was not evil—not like she had thought.
It was power.
Carys heard the wind, and the wind heard her.
She could call it to her aid.
She had done so on the battlements against Imogen. It had saved her on the wall.
And it had driven back the Xhelozi when they surrounded her on all sides.
Now there was nothing standing in the way of Carys’s power. Nothing except Carys herself.
A few days. A few weeks. The pain of the withdrawal would stop. She would be stronger. She’d learn to focus her power, figure out who was trying to steal the crown and she would return here to the Palace of Winds—where she now knew she belonged.
“Do you still believe you need to speak with Lord Garret? If so, you should let me bring him here to you.” Errik knelt next to her.
“No,” she said, forcing herself to stand. Dust swirled in the small room. “I will handle Garret myself. There is something else that I need you to do.”
Andreus stood in the Hall of Virtues’ antechamber where he and Carys had waited before their entrance to the ball. Now three days later, he was to wear the crown. His first command would be to take the scoring board down from the walls. He didn’t want anyone to remember his sister had even had a claim to the throne. He had won. He was the King.
He paced across the small room to practice walking with the black iron contraption Madame Jillian had affixed to his leg. The rods were heavy and felt awkward, but now when he walked into the throne room, he would be doing so without any assistance.
Alone.
His chest tightened.
“Excuse me, Your Majesty.” Max pushed aside the curtain and took a hesitant step inside. The boy was dressed in a hastily altered velvet tunic of yellow and blue and was to be given new rooms to go along with his new status as king’s squire. He should have been delighted, but Max still showed fear in his eyes around Andreus.
It would fade, he told himself. Just as the ache Andreus felt for Imogen would disappear—just as, weeks from now, he would no longer remember Carys’s screams.
Max shuffled his feet. “I am s’posed to tell you that the coronation is about to begin.” Then with an off-balance bow, he darted back through the curtain to take his place near the front.
The trumpets sounded.
Andreus’s heart thumped.
The curtains parted.
The tightening in his chest grew.
He took a deep breath and walked slowly through the high-arching entrance of the Hall as everyone—the court, the visiting dignitaries, and the Council of Elders—stood. He limped down the center aisle and those who watched dropped into low bows and curtsies. Elder Cestrum stood to the left of the throne.
Andreus tried not to look at the empty space on the right where the Seer of Eden should have stood. Instead, he kept his eyes fixed on the crown. It sat glittering on the throne—waiting for him.
Elder Cestrum placed the polished crown on his head. It was heavy and dug into his scalp. He straightened his shoulders to appear triumphant, but couldn’t help but picture the crown as it looked when he first handed it to the Elder—stained with blood.
One by one the Elders knelt before him to offer him their oaths of fealty, followed by the High Lords, Captain Monteros, and the members of the court. The names and faces ran together, but the lack of one stood out to him.
Elder Cestrum’s choice for King. Lord Garret.
Carys slipped out of the shadows as Lord Garret passed by the alcove in the empty corridor and pressed the point of her stiletto into his back. She dug the tip into his flesh as he reached for his sword—drawing blood to show she was serious.
“I’ll take that.” She slid his sword out of the scabbard as Lord Garret turned his head so out of the corner of his eye he could see her face.
“You—you’re not dead.”
“No. But you might be soon.” She dropped the sword to the ground and kicked it behind her. “Tell me who on the Council is plotting to take the Throne of Light from my brother.”
“Are you looking for allies or enemies?” He shifted so his hazel eyes could meet hers. “Your brother tried to kill you, Highness. We all watched him strike you on the wall.”
“He didn’t succeed.”
“Do you know why?” he asked, his eyes intent on hers. “I do. I know how you stopped your fall because I was there on the battlements when the wind tunnel appeared. I watched your mother’s man strike you on the head at her command and watched as the wind tunnel faded into the sky. And no tunnel has appeared in the sky since your mother gave you the drug that is making it almost impossible for you to stand now.”
She shook her head. That’s not what she had been told. She’d been hit with a piece of the windmill which had been broken and tossed by the wind tunnel. Seer Kheldin had made the wind appear. He had been the one who sent it away.