‘I have Brathe seeing to her. You … called her? To carry me?’
Isadora nodded. She got to her feet and we emerged from the cell. A couple of young warders flanked the entrance. Before us was an expanse of people, above us was open sky. The warders were grouped together, the ordinary humans a distance away, separate but larger in number. They weren’t happy to see us, and I could sense a bristling tension in the air.
‘Where’s Brathe?’ I asked.
The warders led us down several snaking hallways. I got the sense they weren’t only showing us the way, but guarding us against the cold gazes of the other prisoners. I heard fights raging, and shouts of anger. Isadora subtly twisted so she could keep an eye on our rear as we made our way through the prison. A wise idea, it turned out, as our passage was riling everyone up. Several young men were shouting obscenities and throwing things at me. Isadora managed to cut most of the items out of the air, but she missed a heavy metal cup. I fought the urge to duck, and instead let it clip me hard in the ear. She took one look at the trickle of blood on my face and turned back with a frown.
‘Keep moving!’ one of our warders barked.
Isadora visibly hesitated, then acquiesced and followed us swiftly.
We found my general in a large kitchen, sitting at a wooden table opposite a female warder I didn’t know. More warders kept watch at the entrance, but it was quiet within.
Without warning or permission, Emperor Feckless arrived.
My posture and mannerisms shifted slightly, turned more flamboyant, a little more effeminate. My expression took on an arrogant disinterest, a touch of distaste, as though the prison had offended my sensibilities. I offered a flourishing, theatrical bow, because Feckless was always, always mocking. ‘General Brathe,’ I greeted, and even my voice was tweaked, more of a purr. ‘How the tables have turned, what with me dethroned and you king of the criminally insane. Shall I bow and kiss your hand? Perhaps I should avert my eyes! What a kingdom you have built here.’
There was silence in the kitchen.
I could almost hear my heart pounding. What are you doing, you maniac?
But Brathe was unsurprised by my behaviour. I’d never been anything else with him. ‘You will be Emperor until the day you die, Majesty,’ he disagreed, always generous despite his impatience with my antics. He was impeccably loyal, stemming not from belief in me, but from a wayward perception of royal blood and its divinity.
‘Emperors have palaces and servants,’ I said with a sniff. ‘And wine.’
I could feel Isadora’s gaze, but was careful not to look at her.
I seemed to have lost control of my masks. For Brathe, I had always gone to extremes, had pushed Feckless as far as he could be pushed. For Brathe I was careless, disinterested and given to vices. I joked a lot, asked stupid questions, turned up to meetings drunk or hungover. His reach had been wide he’d passed more intelligence through Kaya than any other, which made him the perfect tool. Without meaning to he spread knowledge of my idiocy and incapacity into even the least touched corners, where enemies were more likely to be hiding.
Which was all very well, but did not explain why I was still carrying on with it, while he was captive in a prison and could share information with no one.
‘You’d best explain, then.’ I sighed with an impatient wave. ‘What right mess are we in now? Please tell me it can be solved without too much involvement from me.’
Isadora and I perched ourselves opposite the general. The female warder beside him eyed me with such scorn that I could have burst into flame. I liked her facial piercings though.
‘I was imprisoned here six months ago in the initial attack,’ Brathe answered. ‘The warders and soldiers here are those who would not bow to Dren and Galia.’
‘Why weren’t they killed?’
Brathe shrugged. ‘Don’t know, Majesty. But there are factions here. Warders on one side, soldiers on the other.’
‘Why do you stay?’ Isadora asked.
‘We can’t use our magic within the prison,’ the female warder replied. ‘And –’
‘A lie,’ Isadora said flatly.
The warder studied her a moment, then glanced at me. ‘We can use some, but at great cost. The warders who helped heal His Majesty remain unconscious from the effort. There are incredibly strong wards draped over this place like a veil, weakening us and making it impossible to escape.’
‘It makes the warders targets for the soldiers, who hate their kind,’ Brathe added.
‘My condolences,’ I said, ‘but if the Mad Ones were able to escape then I haven’t much sympathy for warders unable to do the same.’
In the irritated silence that followed, Isadora leant close to my ear and muttered, ‘It’s not necessary here, Falco.’
I didn’t respond, keeping my eyes trained on Brathe and the warder. She was wrong. With people of my court it would always be necessary. I couldn’t loosen my grip on the way things had been. Not when everything had gone to shit and Feckless was the last vestige of normalcy. I had to protect even the possibility that things could go back to the way they were, that I would return to the throne of Sancia and Brathe would be my general, and he’d spread knowledge of the nation’s foolish Emperor, an easy target.
An underestimated man was a dangerous man.
And I was surrounded by enemies, I would always be surrounded.
I saw them then. Five bleeding hearts, removed from their bodies and placed tenderly on the edge of a fountain for a little boy to find –
I swallowed the wave of panic and pulled my mask more firmly into place, armour against the memory.
‘What’s there to do in here?’ I asked. ‘I imagine you must get up to all kinds of mischief.’
‘Mostly we try not to die,’ the pierced woman said bluntly.
I let my lips twitch a little. ‘Forgive me – greeting beautiful ladies is usually my first priority. Emperor Falco of Sancia at your service.’
She looked unimpressed. ‘I am Inga.’
I leveled Inga with a look, one I happened to be very good at. She could have been almost anyone in the world – married, in love, interested in women, another man – it didn’t matter. This look caused people to blush, drop their eyes and imagine very dirty things.
Inga blushed, dropped her eyes and was no doubt imagining very dirty things.
I allowed Brathe to spot my smile before donning an innocent expression. He ignored my behaviour as he always did, explaining that Inga was a second-tier warder who’d lived in Limontae. He touched her hand, an idle finger to the beat of her pulse, and I recognised in it the familiarity of lovers. He went on to say that the leaders of the human soldiers in the prison were none other than the royal assistants Sharn and Valerie, who had been the stewards of Limontae. They now opposed all warders, even the ones in the very same captivity.
‘It’s bloody,’ Brathe told me grimly. ‘We fight constantly for territory and power. We hold the kitchens, which is no small thing. They hold the library and weaponry. We’ll need to keep you sequestered safely out of the way, Falco. It’s … starting to get out of control.’
‘Do you have any weapons at all?’ Isadora asked.
‘Very few,’ Brathe answered.
I turned to Izzy. She was expressionless, her huge red eyes searching. ‘What do you think?’ I asked her.
‘Secure you. Fortify the space. Keep it well guarded until I can find a way out.’
I frowned. ‘You want me to hide?’
Isadora turned back to Brathe and I saw it so clearly: her dismissal. ‘Where is secure?’ she asked, and they started discussing spaces in which I could be hidden and protected, but I heard none of it. There was a ringing sound in my ears.
That dismissal, so blatant. I’d seen it in so many, but never in her. It made something shift. A complete, enormous refusal reared up inside me, absolute and undeniable. Nothing had ever been so acute, so propelling.
I’d thought, somehow, that she knew. That she s
aw me. But even Isadora was convinced by Emperor Feckless.
And I was abruptly unable to abide that.
My heart, I realised, may as well have been removed and placed alongside the hearts of my dead family; I too may as well have died that day twenty-five years ago. But I’d made a plan, I’d been strategic and clever.
I was tired of being clever. The world Emperor Feckless had ruled over was destroyed.
So let me be brave instead, just once.
‘A meeting,’ I demanded clumsily, interrupting them and swivelling their gazes to me. ‘Set up a meeting with Sharn and Valerie.’
‘Majesty, I must tell you …’ Brathe hedged. ‘They hate you. They all hate you. They blame you for their imprisonment.’
‘Because I was weak enough to let Kaya be overruled?’
Brathe opened his mouth, closed it again and simply nodded.
Fluttering wings brushed against my face as I stood. ‘I need cloth.’
‘A meeting is far too dangerous,’ Brathe tried, but Inga found me some cloth. I wrapped it around each of my fists. ‘Falco,’ Brathe was saying again, ‘Wait −’
But I’d had enough waiting. I strode through the hallways to the arena. The dark heart of me circled. Thirty-five years of fury took root in my chest, the course of adrenalin whispered to me. It said fight fuck kill, use fists guts balls spine, use it all, use everything, all of it, and finally, finally let it out, let it be seen, let the truth unveil you.
Brathe and Inga were trying to reason with me, question me. I shut them out, allowed the fluttering wings to take control instead.
The prisoners were all in the arena. They’d been waiting for me, and the shouting began. Gods, how they hated me. I could taste it in the air as I pressed through them to face Sharn and Valerie. He had always been serious, she had always been flippant. Now they were both furious. I needed the library and the armoury. I needed the fighting here to end. I needed every person in this prison aligned at my back, so that when we broke free I could lead them to face the Mad Ones. And I could think of only one way to make that happen. I had to give them someone to align behind.
Isadora had followed me, and was hovering at my side. ‘No matter what happens,’ I said, ‘don’t let anyone step in for me.’
She looked confused, even concerned. ‘An inability to do something does not make someone weak,’ she said. ‘You have nothing to prove by putting yourself in danger. You may make things worse.’
I smiled a little. ‘Maybe,’ I agreed. Then I turned, even as she reached to stay me, and walked into the middle of the circle. It was strange, where fate led you. Excitement uncurled at the base of my gut. How thrilling the notion of showing her something other than inability or laziness. To show her, after all this time, that I didn’t need protecting. To be seen as someone who could not only survive without her help, but could also help protect her. Not that she would ever need it.
I didn’t want to feel useless anymore, I didn’t want to be pitied. I didn’t want to be fucking Emperor Feckless.
‘Stand forward,’ I ordered crisply amid the chatter of curiosity and scorn.
Sharn and Valerie glanced at each other and stepped forward. ‘You look ready for a fight. But we would bid you not to embarrass yourself further. You no longer hold power over us.’
‘Because you are traitors to your country.’
‘Because you are!’ Sharn exclaimed.
‘How am I a traitor?’
‘You let them win. You let them take. And you’re too weak to take back.’
‘So you mean to kill me?’
They nodded in sync. ‘Kaya needs strength, not the cowardice you have shown.’
I straightened my shoulders and looked around at what had to be hundreds of people. They filled the arena and lined the balconies of the cells. ‘I am Emperor Falco of Sancia, son of Emperor Falonius. I have ruled Kaya for twenty-five years, since the day I turned ten.’
An unimpressed silence filled the prison: my name held no respect.
‘Twenty of those years were peaceful. Now there are corrupt warders in my city, in my country, and I will do whatever it takes to scour them from this earth. I want every one of you to join me in facing them.’
‘We’re imprisoned, fool!’ someone shouted angrily.
‘Why would we follow Emperor Feckless?’ Sharn asked. ‘How could you ever stop anyone?’
‘I have the support of both the Sparrow and the King and Queen of Pirenti.’
‘The Sparrow is your enemy!’ someone shouted.
‘You’re a coward!’ another yelled.
‘He’s a fucking joke.’
‘Miserable whelp.’
‘Fool.’
‘Incompetent.’
‘Pathetic.’
‘Useless.’
‘Good-for-nothing.’
I heard it all, all the insults they’d been longing to throw at me for months, maybe years.
I stretched my neck, my shoulders, felt the pull and release of my muscles, my healthy, strong body. Let their hate wash over me. None of it touched me. Not now, not in this place. Because not a single person in this hall knew what I was. Not a single person in this world.
Valerie shouted and six men ran forward.
My eyes shifted scarlet.
Chapter Nineteen
Isadora
I was confused, at first. I thought he intended to get himself killed. Then when he told me not to send anyone in to help him I thought he must have some kind of plan. I kept expecting it to show itself; for some elaborate, genius scheme to unfold. Because he was smart. That was what I knew of him. He’d spent his life covering it up but he was cunning this I had learned. Indeed, he had just morphed as I watched into a creature of such simpering, vain idiocy that I had barely been able to believe my eyes. The way he’d shifted himself, his mannerisms, his expressions, his words, and all so effortlessly until he seemed like an entirely different person … the way he had looked at Inga, with a deep, barely controlled heat. Once upon a time he’d had reasons for it, I knew, but now I wasn’t so sure. Now I thought maybe it was pattern, habit, familiarity. Either way, it was amazing, this chameleon-talent of his.
As the six soldiers ran at him, I realised his intelligence was not the only thing he had been hiding.
They attacked and my thoughts shifted to how I would step in, how I would kill them. If he planned to martyr himself I would not allow it. I took several steps forward, then stopped.
In the warder prison of Kaya I saw a thing unlike any I had witnessed. I saw an impossibility. Something not a soul in the world would believe were they not to see it with their own eyes. He had done such a thorough job of convincing the world of his uselessness, the very idea of anything else was laughable. The Emperor – a man so feckless he had been gifted a new title, a man renowned for his clumsiness, his inability to fight, his complete lack of courage – ducked gracefully beneath the first soldier’s fist, swinging an incredible right cross straight into the man’s jaw. It was flawless, and it dropped the soldier instantly.
My first thought was that I had slipped into the dream realm, where things were beautiful.
But I was very much awake, and the attacks were continuing. Falco dodged a blow, twisting to use the man’s momentum to hammer him in the back of the skull. Without pausing Falco continued his turn, lifting to smash his boot into the ribs of the third man. He kicked again, smashing the ribs to pieces. Two men came at him from behind, but he spun low beneath their blows and smashed them both in the solar plexus, one and then the other. The first fell to his knees, unable to breathe, but the other came at him again. Falco advanced, swiftly ducking the blows flying at his head and then throwing his own. His fist landed hard on the man’s face: one, two to the cheek, breaking the bone, one to break the nose, a third to the jaw to knock him out.
The final soldier was big – Pirenti-big. He took Falco by the shoulders and sent him flying through the air. Falco twisted into a roll and was on his feet
again, running at the Pirenti attacker. He slid low, bending backwards beneath the man’s arms and taking out his legs. Falco rose fluidly alongside the stumbling brute and reached – almost casually – for the man’s thick neck, slamming it to the ground. The soldier was out like a light, his skull hitting the floor with a boom.
Falco rose to his feet and looked around at the six injured men. He turned his eyes – red as blood – to Sharn and Valerie. And he waited.
I realised my mouth was open and closed it with a snap. My skin prickled and my pulse was quick, wonderfully quick. The prisoners were just as overawed. How did we not know? they were thinking. The sheer magnitude of his deceit hit me, and the loneliness of that life. It wasn’t just that he could fight. It was how he was fighting – the discipline of it, the infinite hours he must have trained in secret and all the hours he must have spent training to hide that ability. He’d made every gesture blunt and clumsy, had dropped things, stumbled over nothing and made it look perfectly real. The mask was so heavy and so tightly attached that it was a cage in itself.
Now he was free of it.
And, oh, how I had fallen for it, sneaking into his palace and believing he would be the easiest man in the world to kill. How arrogantly I’d crept through those hallways, towards the waiting blade fish with his shimmering scales and unseen deadliness.
How he would have destroyed me, if he had not bonded with me instead.
Sharn looked deflated, but Valerie was angrier than ever. It wasn’t over, I realised. Valerie now yelled at the armed men at his back and four of them rushed forward, swords at the ready. Which changed things. Fists could break bones and debilitate easily. Blades meant blood, and real danger.
‘Don’t do this,’ Falco warned. They ignored him – one or two sniggered, too stupid to have properly understood what they’d witnessed.
I still had my heavy butcher’s knife, whatever good it would do him. ‘Falco!’
He spun as I lobbed it through the air; his hand plucked the hilt and spun the blade into the hand of a sword-wielder, and that was all Falco needed it for – the knife was promptly discarded and in the same moment he caught his attacker’s dropped sword. The unarmed man bolted away, but there were still three swordsmen coming at him, another two circling behind.