General Brathe called for soldiers to fortify the city. We prepared for attack, for the possibility of a siege. But Quill and I knew without needing to say it that walls and soldiers would not stop first tier warders.
Lutius was our greatest weapon. His warders were called in from the furthest reaches of the country. I only hoped they would make it in time. I didn’t know how many it would take to stop Dren and Galia, but if the couple had managed to break through the magic of the prison, then I feared what they were capable of.
Brathe, Lutius, Quillane and I were seated around a large table in my study. Brathe had been demanding that we be moved for the last hour, but Lutius had informed him that Dren and Galia would be able to feel our energy no matter where we were, so we’d best be kept in the most secure place available – which was the palace.
‘It would actually be the warder training facility,’ Lutius pointed out.
‘Protecting them on the road would be nigh on impossible,’ Brathe snapped.
‘We’re not going anywhere,’ Quillane said. ‘I am more concerned about our people than Falco and I.’
‘I’m not!’ I exclaimed. ‘I want all day and all night protection – as much as we have.’ Gods, what a joke I’d become.
I paused then, considering this. Who was I really helping, being a fool in times like these? In war, people needed an Emperor who could inspire them to have courage. Not some cowardly imbecile who pissed himself at the first sign of trouble.
But the truth remained the same – the Sparrow was a greater threat. He had an army behind him, and he was coming. One day soon he would try to attack me, and I needed him to have no idea of what I was capable. I needed him to sadly underestimate me, or I had no chance at defeating him. I had set up this plan many years ago. It was a long game. I just had to keep reminding myself to see it to the end.
‘I want the boy,’ Lutius said abruptly.
‘What boy?’
‘Jonah of Limontae.’
I frowned, glancing at Quill. She leant forward with a probing gaze. ‘Why would you want him?’
‘Because he has more power than he admits to. That’s either dangerous, or very useful.’
‘He’s on the road. Last we heard, they were reported to be in Pirenti already.’
‘Call him back.’
‘How?’
‘Osric was my emissary for the Midwinter’s festival. I will contact him and have him find the boy.’
She spread her hands. ‘Very well. For all the good it may do us.’
I agreed with her there. For I happened to have a theory about the twins of the cliff. I didn’t know much about magic. But I knew one thing – bonded couples could share their powers, if they both happened to be warders. When Finn fell from the plinth she cried out for her brother’s help, and after she’d been saved Jonah was not the only one drained of energy.
Twins were not bonded, but there was a deep and resonant connection between the brother and sister – no one who met them could deny that.
So whether it was insane or not, I was convinced that in truth it was not Jonah with power that rivalled Osric’s. It was Finn.
Quillane
Radha was pacing the room when I stole a few minutes to check in on her. ‘How goes it?’ she asked quickly.
I’d barely forgiven her for leaving the room and accosting Falco, for Gods’ sakes. Luckily he was a distracted wastrel most of the time, and hadn’t given the exchange another thought.
‘We’re sending for all the warders in the country.’
‘They won’t make it.’
‘Probably not.’
‘I want to fight.’
‘What?’
She paced towards me. ‘I want to fight, Quillane.’
‘Absolutely not.’
‘I’m going to, with or without your permission.’
‘And when you are killed? I die too. There goes the Empress of Kaya when the country is under attack from two different enemies. Do you think Falco would manage on his own?’
‘He might –’
‘He would crumble. This city would crumble, and then the country. All because you wanted to prove to yourself that you could be brave.’
She stared at me, and I began to regret the cruel words.
Radha swallowed. I was reminded in that moment both of her delicacy and her incredible resilience. ‘I was a soldier, before you,’ she said softly. ‘I was a fighter. And a dreamer. I was so many things.’
My eyes prickled. But I was our leader for a reason – I knew which risks to take and which ones to leave.
‘You will remain here, safe, until all threats have passed,’ I said softly, firmly. ‘I’m sorry for it, but that, it seems, is the price you pay for having had the misfortune of bonding with an Empress.’
Finn
The walled city of Vjort was cold and grey. I felt the difference in the air, the static deadliness. As we entered eyes fell to me, and I wasn’t sure if it was because I was a woman or Kayan – probably both. Thorne stayed very close to me, hand on his axe at all times. The men walking along the streets and spilling out of ale houses were grizzly and scarred, warriors all. None seemed to recognise him up here, because he’d lived his whole life in the south.
I gazed up into the sky, struck by the beauty of it and wondering if it would snow. It certainly felt more than cold enough.
‘Keep moving,’ Thorne told me.
He brought us to a small, quiet inn too expensive for anyone but nobility to afford. There was a large room upstairs usually reserved for the King and Queen, which we rented, warming ourselves before the fire.
‘This doesn’t feel right,’ I told him. ‘Leaving without them.’
‘I begged you to stay, Finn. It’s not safe for you here.’
‘How?’ I whirled to him, annoyed. ‘How was I meant to stay and be parted from you?’
His expression softened. ‘When they reach the fortress, Ambrose will tell them where we’ve gone. They’ll be fine.’
‘It shouldn’t have taken them so long,’ I shook my head. ‘Something’s happened.’
‘We don’t know that.’
There was darkness building inside me. I wanted to curl into a ball and sleep and sleep and sleep. Or maybe I wanted to climb out that window and stand in the freezing cold until my skin turned blue and died. I could hear people screaming, screaming, screaming –
‘Finn, look at me.’
I didn’t want to see his eyes, didn’t want them to see me.
‘Fight it,’ he urged me.
‘I can’t.’
‘Don’t let it have this much control over you.’
‘I need Jonah. Only he can make it stop.’
‘He’s not here, and he’s not coming, so you have to do it yourself.’
‘I can’t,’ I exclaimed, stalking away from him. ‘You don’t get it. You have no idea.’
‘Of course I do. I’ve spent my whole life fighting my own darkness. I’ve never let him gain control of me. I’ve never let him free.’
I looked at him and wondered what would happen if he ever did let the beast free. I wondered if it would be as catastrophic as he thought it would be.
‘When your eyes shift red, is that not the darkness taking over?’ I asked him.
‘Those are the moments when I lose control of him and he becomes stronger than I,’ Thorne murmured. ‘But I have never intentionally let him loose – I cannot. I will fight him every day of my life, fight to keep him caged. You must do the same with whatever threatens to pull you under.’
‘I’m not as strong as you.’
‘It is only you who decides how strong you are. So decide, and then be it.’
Just then there was a loud shout from beyond the window and several angry voices in the night.
‘Wait here,’ Thorne ordered me.
Right.
I followed him down the stairs curiously, then stepped outside into the icy night air and wished I’d been quick enough to
grab my fur. At the end of the street was a small town square. In its midst was a large group of men clustered around something, and lots of shouting burst into the sky. Thorne shoved through some of the men at the back of the crowd, clearing a path for us to squeeze through.
It was like all the air around us had been injected straight into my heart, so cold did I feel then.
Isadora was standing in the middle of the circle, positioned protectively over my brother, who was unconscious on the ground, and Penn, who was frustrated out of his wits. Circling her dangerously were four large Pirenti soldiers, expressions of rapt lust on their faces.
‘Touch either of them,’ Isadora’s voice snapped into the night, ‘and I’ll kill you. Do you understand?’
The men laughed, as did most of the crowd. Clearly this had to be stopped, but before we got the chance to do anything the man in front of Isadora stepped forward to attack her. His movements were lazy. He reached for her with his big, meaty hands, not having bothered to draw a weapon.
He didn’t even see what killed him. One of Isadora’s secret, hidden knives sliced straight through the enormous man’s throat. He made an awful, gurgling sound, blood spurting, and then he toppled like a tree trunk to the ground, dead.
There was a moment of shocked silence, and then the other three men gave thunderous screams of fury and lunged at her.
Thorne’s voice was quicker than all of them. ‘Halt!’ he boomed over the commotion, something so commanding in him that everyone did actually halt. Clearly no one made an order in Pirenti unless they were entitled to do so.
In my mind was one thing: Jonah Jonah Jonah Jonah. My heart reached for him, terrified of the stillness in his body.
‘Nobody move,’ Thorne commanded.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ one of the men snarled furiously.
Thorne walked into the circle to stand beside Isadora. ‘My name is Thorne,’ he spoke, and slowly the faces of the men changed. They gaped incredulously at him, letting their weapons fall instantly to the ground.
‘Majesty,’ one of them whispered. ‘Forgive us, we had no idea …’
‘You’ve attacked three Kayan youths in one of my cities during peacetime,’ Thorne said very coldly. I could see, as I watched him, that he was struggling to keep his beast caged. I could see how much he wanted to unleash it. And I could see, too, how well he fit his title, here in the cold north. He was younger than the men, but as he eyed them we knew, collectively, that he was infinitely more dangerous. This was a boy who had berserker blood in his veins – they didn’t know it, but their warrior instincts could feel it.
I stared at him, wondering what happened to the men now. Prison? Punishment?
‘You are extremely unlucky,’ he went on, more softly, ‘that these people happen to be very dear to me.’
I looked at the people around me and realised that they were excited. They didn’t often see their prince. Maybe they never had. And that’s when I understood what was going to happen. With poison in my gut, I knew. This was the heir to the throne on his first appearance in Vjort since manhood. And in Pirenti, in the army city of Vjort where the wildest soldiers in this world dwelled and prayed for war, they valued strength and ruthlessness above all else.
These were men who’d broken the law, and they’d done so in front of their prince, to people he loved.
He was going to have to execute them.
Thorne drew his axe. I couldn’t watch. I couldn’t watch this. I couldn’t bear to – I’d truly had enough. I willed myself to turn and leave this violence, but just as I was about to do so, Thorne’s eyes lifted to find me, and I knew I could not leave. This was the price of loving a man whose safety relied upon people witnessing his strength, and if I’d had enough, then he’d had enough a very long time ago.
What a curse it was, to be born a gentle soul in the body of a Prince of Pirenti.
There were tears spilling down my face but I didn’t look away from him. I straightened my shoulders.
Without a word, Thorne swung his axe three times and killed the three soldiers. Not men battling him for his own life. Not men who wanted to kill him. But men who had begged for forgiveness and now kneeled unarmed before him. They fell soundlessly, and I swallowed the bile my mouth.
In that moment it began to snow. Tiny white flakes floated through the black night, beautiful and pure, to land in the blood of the dead men.
Jonah was well. He’d been knocked unconscious only.
Thorne was not. He looked like a ghost.
He carried my brother to our room and placed him in bed. Isadora sat with Jonah in such a way that I knew something had deepened between them. Penn climbed into bed next to him. I kissed my brother on the forehead, sending him every ounce of strength I had through whatever bond was forged between us.
‘Will you watch him for me? I’ll be back,’ I told Isadora with a cracked voice. She nodded, taking Jonah’s hand.
And then I was drawn after Thorne. Down the creaky wooden steps. Through the noisy dining area. Out into the back courtyard, abruptly quiet.
Everything was made of stone, except the single tree curling up into the sky, a skeleton in winter. A moon shone large and crimson. The night was frigid.
I felt my body turn cold in the space between moments. Snow fell slowly, dreamily.
I felt in a dream myself.
Because I’d seen his face afterwards. And I’d understood that the weight of a heart so frayed had grown too much for him to carry. The violence in his hands was drowning him. He was alone in the courtyard, his back to me.
He looked tall and strong and kingly, but I knew better. As my footsteps took me closer, he fell to the frozen ground.
I sank to try and catch him, frightened.
He looked ravaged as he started to cry. ‘I can’t do this anymore. I don’t want to be this.’
I pressed my forehead to his, holding his face.
‘I can’t, I can’t, I can’t,’ he whispered, locked. ‘I can’t be this thing that they want me to be. I don’t want this pain and death and I don’t want to hurt anyone anymore.’
His tears were all over my face and I held him more tightly.
‘I can’t do it,’ he wept. ‘Please don’t make me do it.’
‘I will never,’ I vowed. ‘No one will. No one will make of you something that you are not. I won’t let them.’
He looked into my face, my eyes. He searched me, panicked, whispering, ‘I can’t live this life a second longer. Not one single second longer.’
I couldn’t help my own tears from slipping free as he cried against my chest, his shoulders heaving.
It was frightening, seeing him like this. Deeply frightening. Only weeks ago, before him, I would have turned and run back inside, and then I would have run into the night and not stopped running until I was so far away that nothing would ever catch me.
But now. Now I demanded more of myself. Because loving someone made you brave, if you were very lucky.
‘Do you know which life I wish to live?’ I asked, meeting his blue eyes.
He looked at me, and he waited.
Chapter 15
Thorne
Tonight I was shown the worst part of myself. And I was shown, too, a happiness so profound it didn’t fit within my chest and I knew I could never deserve it, could never be worthy of it.
When she asked me, what I thought was this.
How can anyone, ever, survive being loved so much?
Finn
I was clothed in a linen dress given me by the innkeeper’s wife. She did my hair with hands so old they trembled, but I loved them, these hands, for in them I could feel a life lived in sweetness and there was not a single regret in any of her wrinkles or her veins. She found heather in the garden to thread through my hair, and though the dress was old and tattered, I felt beautiful.
Through the snow I was guided to the small cobblestoned temple. It was crumbling, stone by stone. I ran my hands along the rough edges of it, n
eeding to feel it, to remember every tiny detail.
We moved inside and I saw him.
At the end of the altar. Waiting for me.
I saw him and I saw nothing else. I had a sense that I would never see another thing in my life. I walked to him slowly, and I could see that in his eyes there were tears. Different tears; he looked happier and stronger than he had ever looked.
He took my hands in his. I was swallowed by his gaze.
When it was time, he said softly, ‘I am yours. The life I want is with you. The world I want to live in is the one in your heart. Always.’
And when it was time I replied, ‘You gave yourself so generously to me, Thorne, and so I’ll try always to be worthy of that generosity. I give you everything that I am. But most of all I give you my strength. Love is dangerous, but I will make us brave – that is my promise to you.’
And we were married.
Thorne
The answer.
You aren’t supposed to.
Chapter 16
Thorne
We hurried from the temple and through the snow, hands linked. We were both jumping out of our skin with excitement and a giddy, overflow of love; we were drenched in it. But there wasn’t time, yet, to enjoy each other.
‘He’s going to kill me when I tell him he missed it,’ Finn muttered.
‘Ma too,’ I agreed. ‘We’ll do it again, when all of this is over.’
‘Deal.’
Isadora and Penn were still sitting with Jonah, who’d not yet regained consciousness.
‘Sorry,’ Finn breathed as we entered. ‘We had to deal with something that couldn’t wait. What happened?’
Penn hugged her for a long time. ‘What are you wearing?’ he asked her. Finn shot me a guilty look.
‘We were captured on the road,’ Isadora explained darkly. ‘Warders. They gave us to half a dozen Pirenti soldiers, who brought us north in a cage.’
‘How did you escape?’
Isadora’s eyes were a deeper red than usual as she said, ‘I killed them.’
There was silence in the room.
‘All of them,’ Penn murmured. ‘All of them.’
‘What did they want with you?’ Finn asked.