Espel noticed the change in her. “What do you think about that?”
“What I think is that the sea makes us delirious,” Wil said. “We look to it to find the things we’ve lost.”
Espel tilted her head, but said nothing. Wil supposed the origin of names was important to a girl who had been named for something so deadly. Did the name define her, or merely suit the fire with which she was born?
They moved down a labyrinthine set of hallways where flimsy candles danced halfway up to menacing ceilings. The faint etchings in the mountain walls told stories of love and violence and corpses, of fiery ships succumbing to watery graves.
“I suspect your mind is as powerful as your hands,” Espel said at last. “It would be a shame for a girl with your ability to have a dull brain. So many girls allow themselves to be bleeding idiots because that’s what’s expected of them. Dress like a girl. Walk like one. Eat like one. Desire the things a girl should desire, and nothing more—but how can that be called desire, if it’s dictated?”
Wil was frightened by how much she agreed. She had not expected to have so much in common with a princess who boasted of killing her mother.
They reached a pair of massive doors made of pale wood. Its carvings were of plants that resembled the tattoos snaking up Espel’s wrist as she reached for the handle. In the flickering firelight, the fanged creature appeared to be biting into her wrist. The lines were slender and gleamed with bits of silver.
The door opened with a frightful groan, and the warm night air rolled into the palace.
Wil marveled at what she saw.
There was a garden that sat atop a mountain plane, overlooking the city and sea. There appeared to be nothing separating the garden’s edge from the sky, but Wil could make out a silver gleam in the air, just faintly. She had never seen an electrical dome up close before, but she had read that they were invisible and only air could pass through them. They repelled weapons and generated backup energy from the sun so that cutting their electricity wouldn’t disable them.
Espel led them out onto a pathway of raw mountain stone. “Stay put,” she ordered Masalee.
The starlight was a bright beacon out here. The world was still and calm.
Chemical smoke still lingered on the air, a bitter reminder that peace was an illusion. Still, the flowers were unaware of any bloodshed. The blossoms were varying shades of silver and white, like the stars themselves.
Espel spun on her heel and faced Wil, stopping her short. “So then. Tell me about your power.”
“It began earlier this year,” Wil said, the truth spilling from her like blood from a wound. “It happens when there’s adrenaline, but not when I’m calm.”
“Are you calm now?” Espel said.
“No.” Despite her outward composure, Wil could feel her heart beating staccato in her chest.
“What can you transform?”
“Anything living.”
Wil waited for Espel to demand another display of her powers. But after staring ponderingly at the blossoms around them, Espel said, “How long were you in the company of the Traitor?”
Wil hesitated.
“No harm is going to come to him at my hand, believe me,” Espel said, reading her expression easily. “He wouldn’t be stupid enough to come back here, and I have no interest in chasing him through the slums besides.”
“It’s been weeks now,” Wil said. “We met at a camp.”
“And he brought you to the South with a plan of some sort,” Espel said, falling gracefully onto an iron bench. She crossed one leg atop the other and canted her head just slightly in invitation. Wil sat beside her.
Espel wasn’t afraid to get close. There were mere inches separating her from certain death against Wil’s skin. The princess glanced to her guard, who was rigid in the doorway, a hand at the hilt of her sword.
The sword wouldn’t do anything, Wil thought. The crystal would overtake the princess’s body in the time it would take her guard to cross the space between them. Though Wil would still be left an easy target.
The princess didn’t ask very many questions about Wil’s past. She didn’t care about her brothers or her upbringing, or even her Northern Arrod accent. She was interested only in Wil’s power—when it started and how it worked. Everything.
When Espel was content with her answers, she turned her head and stared out at her kingdom that was devastated but unbroken by the zealous king’s attack. “You should sleep,” she told Wil. “Tomorrow you’ll meet the king.”
Tomorrow, she thought, she would find out what had happened to her family and discover some way out of the palace. She would find Zay, and they would return to the broken castle that lay hidden across the sea, where even the starlight couldn’t find it.
The palace itself smelled faintly of incense and mists. But the night breeze through the open window carried the charred, chemical smell of the darklead.
THIRTY-THREE
THE COLD STEEL OF A blade against her throat was what made Wil open her eyes.
She didn’t dare move.
The only light came from the sconces flickering in the hallway.
This was it, she thought. Espel had discovered she was King Hein’s daughter. She was going to try to murder her in exchange for the lives lost in the darklead explosion and be done with it. Or worse, spirit her off by knifepoint to a dungeon in the bowels of this mountain palace and bleed her powers dry.
A face moved close to hers, the breathing hot in her ear. But it wasn’t Espel’s voice that whispered to her. “I’m not afraid of you.” Masalee. “I’ve killed seventeen men to keep my place as the princess’s guard, and I won’t think twice about killing you, too.”
Wil’s heart was pounding in her chest, but the princess’s guard had managed to immobilize her without their skin touching.
“I don’t know where you’ve come from, or what you have planned, but if you mean any harm to Her Highness, I will be the first to find out. I’ll hang you from the market square by your intestines for all of Cannolay to see. So we’re clear.”
Wil didn’t speak. Her head moved in the barest nod. She understood.
The blade pressed against her skin. A single motion and it would slice her open. Masalee moved over her, and Wil could just make out the gleam in her eyes. Then she withdrew her sword and melted back into the darkness.
THIRTY-FOUR
WHEN WIL CLOSED HER EYES again, she didn’t sleep for a long time. Though her body lay between foreign satins, her mind braved the night-dark waters back to Northern Arrod.
She saw a memory of Gerdie, nine years old, his face serious as he knelt over her. She lay in the grass, gasping. Tears blurred her vision and pain muddled her head.
“Look at me,” he ordered her.
Behind him was the stone wall, slick with a recent rain, and the smear her jeweled shoe had made in a patch of moss as she fell from several feet up. Those stupid, glittering shoes her mother insisted she wear instead of her brother’s boots.
Gerdie ran his fingertips along her shoulder, and her body quaked from the pain of it. Her brother bit his lip, as though her pain had shot up his arm and stabbed at him too.
He stood, and for a panicked moment she thought he was going to leave her to go look for help, but he only broke a branch off a tree and knelt beside her again. “Bite down on this,” he said. “We’ll go on three.”
He only counted to one. With a hard push, he forced her shoulder back into its socket.
The branch did nothing to muffle her scream. She kicked and writhed.
“Shh, shh,” he said in a rush, and pressed his palm to her forehead. Only then did she realize that he was shaking too. “It’s all over now. It’s all right.”
It was the first time he would repair her. It wouldn’t be the last. There were plenty of breaks and bruises and bleeding gashes awaiting her in the years to come. So many that they no longer frightened her. In addition to his alchemy, he would go on to develop a prowess for m
edicine, his sister another complex thing for him to solve.
He stayed beside her for more than an hour, long after the ringing in her ears had faded, and the sweat dried from her brow, and the violent pain became a dull throb.
“I’ve been reading about alchemized glass,” he told her. “There’s this kind called phoenix glass. You could shatter it to dust, but with a little water and heat, it’ll come back together again, stronger than it was before.”
She rolled her head to the side and looked at him. His eyes were bright, wise beyond what the rest of his child face could convey.
“We’re just royal spares, Wil. We won’t inherit the kingdom or serve on Papa’s guard. It’s like we’re made of leftover pieces.” He bent his knee, and the braces on his leg creaked loudly, as they always did when the weather was damp. “I’m all copper and hinges, and you’re that indestructible glass. When we fall apart we know how to put ourselves back together. No one else will do it.”
As the sun rose, a servant entered Wil’s temporary quarters and laid an outfit for her on the divan beside the changing screen. Wil pretended to be asleep. When the door groaned shut, she opened her eyes.
The day’s first light stretched across the marble floor, and Wil gave up on the idea of getting any more sleep. She drew a bath, and as she sank into the tepid water, she worked to remain composed.
No one knew her identity, she told herself. She had wanted to be a spy all her life, and now here was her chance. She had the elusive Southern princess at arm’s length.
Most importantly, the king and the princess would be receiving word from the North following this attack. Some sort of demand, or threat. Something that would indicate just what was happening in the castle.
She needed to know that her brother was safe. If he was in danger, then Pahn would wait. Loom would wait. She would find a way home, though it would break her mother’s heart, though her father would kill her for it. She would find him and get him somewhere safe, where his mind and his skills couldn’t be tortured out of him for the king’s gain.
After the water had gone cold, she tied her damp hair into a figure eight and dressed in the linens laid out for her. It was surprisingly light for such a long gown, off white, sleeveless, and entirely unassuming.
It would be easy to flee in this, Wil thought. No one would suspect that she’d come out of the palace. She could blend right in with the crowd and disappear.
She forced herself to put on her gloves, despite the stifling heat. The silk and steel were malleable, but they didn’t allow for much air.
After she’d gotten dressed, she moved to the balcony, hoping the fresh air might rejuvenate her and give her strength for whatever awaited. But if the night had been humid, the morning was worse.
She worried about Zay. Wherever she was, she surely didn’t have the luxury of a balcony. Was she locked in a sweltering basement? Hanging upside down in a wardrobe? She needed to get to her before something awful happened—if nothing had already.
As though someone were reading her thoughts, one of the heavy doors was pushed open.
There stood Espel in a ray of light, eyes blazing. Her long hair was drawn over one shoulder, tied tightly with a length of satin that blossomed out into the shape of a lily. She wore purple satin trousers and a tunic, and across her chest and around her waist were her vials and blades, poisons shimmering in rich hues.
Masalee was a step behind her, her eyes focused ahead, her hand on her hilt.
“I’m glad you’re awake,” Espel said to Wil. “You have to be up with the sun if you want to see my father. He’s quite busy.” She nodded to the orange goggles fixed atop Wil’s head. “You should remove those. They clash.”
Wil hesitated. They were the only piece of Owen she had left. But offending the princess would ruin her chances of learning anything about Northern Arrod’s attack. Mournfully, she removed them from her crown, setting aside the dead for the sake of the living.
“They’ll be perfectly safe, I assure you,” Espel said. “The servants know better than to disturb anything when they turn down the beds. Come, my father will be waiting.”
It seemed as though they walked for hours, and when Espel pulled back a heavy door at the end of a dark corridor, she expected a throne room like her father’s in her own castle. Instead she got sunlight, hitting the white sand and temporarily blinding her. They stepped outside and onto a beach along the ocean’s edge.
A small crowd was gathered, all of them dressed uniformly in blue and white or red and gold linen—servants and guards.
At the water’s edge stood a man with skin darkened and weathered by sun. And at his side stood a taller and leaner man, a sword at his hip and light-brown eyes. Wil stifled a gasp. He was Zay’s father; he had to be—she looked just like him. And that meant the man he was guarding so closely was King Zinil.
He did not seem so frightening, she thought, as she imagined the guard’s sword slicing through his chest.
“I haven’t told him about you yet.” Espel’s whisper pulled Wil from her thoughts. “I wanted him to see for himself, after the morning trials.”
Morning trials? Wil didn’t dare to ask. But she didn’t have to. The doors were pushed open again, and one of the servants raised a large brass funnel and blew into it, creating a fearsome sound that surely carried throughout the entire kingdom.
“Bring out the offender!” The king’s voice was deep and frightening. Wil was studying his face, trying to find any resemblance to Loom. But there was nothing. He was hardly a man at all. He was more of a statue, with soulless eyes and a beard that clung to the square angles of his jaw. Tattoos wove down his arms and around his throat in patterns similar to those of each of his children. Loom hid his tattoos when he was in public, because King Zinil had turned them into a mark of exile. He would immediately be identified, maybe even killed as a traitor. But Wil had noticed that Loom wore those tattoos proudly when they were alone. She supposed they still meant something to him.
From down the hallway, there was the creaking of wheels.
Servants were dragging out a guillotine; they struggled to carry it across the sand once they’d left the marble floor of the palace.
Wil’s palms were sweating in her gloves. She was about to witness an execution. She was not unaware that these took place, but when her own father conducted them, it was privately and without fanfare. He took no pleasure in it. She and her brothers had never seen one up close, all except for Owen, who had the burden of learning everything a king had to know.
“Let go of me! I can walk without being dragged.”
Wil nearly toppled back against Masalee’s menacing form. She knew that voice. Zay.
No.
Their eyes met, and for an instant Zay stopped struggling against the two guards who had her arms and were holding her an inch above the ground. Her face was stoic and unafraid. There was no pleading glance and certainly no tears. There was nothing but a girl who knew she was about to die.
“Zaylin Lassiv,” the king pressed in his commanding voice. “You were offered salvation when your husband was banished, but you chose to remain married to a traitor, thereby becoming a traitor yourself.” Some of the servants averted their eyes. Wil could see which ones knew her, cared for her. “The terms of your banishment state that due to your association with a traitor, you are to be executed should you ever return to this palace.”
“I didn’t return to your palace,” Zay fired off. “I returned to a bleeding river three miles away. I was dragged here drugged and unconscious by your heir.”
“Don’t make it worse, you stupid girl,” one of the servants standing beside Wil whispered. She sounded like she was holding back tears.
Espel cocked an eyebrow and watched her father the way children in the market would watch a marionette show.
“My daughter was guarding her kingdom,” the king said, unfazed by Zay’s insubordination. “She perceived a threat and determined a course of action.”
“What threat?” Zay snarled. “I was unarmed! I couldn’t have been a threat even if I’d wanted to.”
“My daughter informed me that you did in fact have a most unconventional weapon.”
The king had no interest in further arguing with a dead girl. He looked to his guard, the man with the light-brown eyes. Like Masalee, he also wore a silver robe. Wil supposed this was an honor reserved for high guards. “Set her down and carry through when I give the command,” the king said.
The king’s guard stepped forward. He held Zay’s wrists for a second. Only a second, and then he pulled her forward. She stumbled, and she didn’t fight as he led her to the guillotine.
When they stopped walking, she stood in his shadow and looked at him. Her lip trembled, and the fire left her eyes. “Father.”
He put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her onto the plank.
She was shaking, or maybe it was just the wind fluttering her clothes as he laid her on her stomach and fitted her neck into the divot.
Frantically, Wil looked through the crowd for something she could do. Turning the king to stone wasn’t an option. Masalee or Espel would hurl a dagger at her before she’d made it to him, and even if she did manage to take him out, there were dozens of guards who still had her surrounded. It would be her neck under the blade next.
She turned to Espel, who was toying with the collar of her tunic, her eyes wild with intrigue. At last Wil saw what Loom had described.
I have met monsters.
“We’ll put her head in a box and send it to the Traitor,” Espel said, coming to the idea the way a poet comes to a verse. She was staring at the blade as it caught the glare from the rising sun. “A shame to let all that lovely hair of hers go to waste. Masalee, talk to a servant about fashioning it into a wig.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
There was the sound of metal slicing through the air, and Wil felt the breath leave her body. The king hadn’t given the order, but Zay’s father was so eager to be done with it that he had dropped the blade already.