Atop the crypt, Grease stayed low, scanning the holy burial grounds. Various stone structures—the crypts—dotted the landscape, each protected by a large gray tree, planted to mark where the dead lay. The furia claimed the bigger and stronger the trees grew, the more secure the position of the deceased in the afterlife. After all, it was most everyone’s goal to one day reach the seventh heaven and look upon Wrath’s face.
But not Grease. He knew that trees were just trees.
His heart did a little jig when he spotted the princess in her usual location, within the walls of her family’s crypt. She came once a week to “mourn the dead,” which meant, of course, to meet Grease. This was their sixth such meeting, not that Grease was counting. Her father, King Gill Loren probably thought she was the perfect daughter, as holy and pure as the furia themselves. If he only knew her secrets he’d lock her away and melt the key into a puddle of liquid ore…
And then he’d rip Grease’s head from his neck with his bare hands and mount it on the wall. He swallowed and turned his mind to more pleasant thoughts.
Grease remembered the first time he’d laid eyes on the princess, her sun-dusted hair plaited into a crown on her head, her lips naturally curled into a mischievous smile. She’d been slumming with her guards in the commoner marketplace. Later she confided in Grease that her father only went for it because she’d sold it as an act of charity to the commoners, spending her gold on their fruit and wares. Rhea bought a chaste green dress from a spritely woman with tiny fingers. The woman looked shocked at the weight of the bag of gold the princess had placed in her hands as payment.
Grease had been enchanted by the princess’s grace, by her smile, by the way she’d conversed with the commoners so easily, as if she was one of them. He’d followed her through the marketplace as she moved from stall to stall. He swore she looked at him several times, always wearing her sly smile. He tried winking at her, and to his surprise, she winked back. Something about her was different than the other royals he’d seen, who always came across as pompous, looking down on the common sinners like Wrath from above. Rhea, however, had seemed…human.
That’s when something had happened that almost made Grease a believer in fate. Despite the gang of castle thugs protecting Rhea, a real thug managed to slip between them and grab the princess. His eyes were fully dilated and he had a desperate look about him, a wildness that reeked of a life of bad luck and poor decisions. Before Grease could blink, the man had a knife to the princess’s throat, and he was demanding gold in exchange for her life. An impossible trade, considering the man wouldn’t get more than a few steps away with his gold before being cut down, but he wasn’t thinking clearly. In any event, the castle guards had been wary of getting too close to him for fear the man would do something drastic.
But Grease was a shadow when he wanted to be. He’d slipped amongst the merchant tents, creeping closer, until he was behind the man. The man had already been given three sacks of gold, tossed at his feet by the guards, but he was demanding more. They didn’t have any more on hand.
Grease could see the man’s white-knuckled hand clutching the handle of the knife. He could sense time running out, like sand slipping through an hourglass. And he moved with the speed of a well-practiced thief, except this time it wouldn’t be food he was stealing—but the princess’s life from her abductor.
He’d yanked the man’s arm back, twisting it so hard he’d dropped the knife. Then Grease had slammed his fist into the man’s face. He’d dropped like a sack of rice, his body all floppy. The guards had hauled him away and stepped between Grease and Rhea.
But he had still been able to see her eyes, her slightly parted lips, so full and pink, like blooming flower petals, the way she looked at him—with surprise and a sliver of excitement. And maybe a touch of fear, too. “Thank you,” she’d said. “You very well may have saved my life. Your valor has earned you a just reward.”
She’d quickly scrawled a note and handed it to one of her guards, who handed it to Grease. She said, “Present this at the castle gates to claim your reward. You will not be disappointed. May Wrath bless you and your family.” There was something sly about the smile she gave him before mounting her horse and riding away, back toward the castle.
Grease had waited until she was out of sight before opening the folded note and reading it:
Crypts, sunrise, it read. Don’t let anyone see you arrive.
He’d smiled from ear to ear. Just reward indeed, he’d thought. The princess is full of surprises.
They’d been meeting in the Cryptlands once a week ever since.
Now, on the whisper-quiet feet of a natural-born thief, Grease tiptoed along the wall, circling behind her. The tree she stood under was a behemoth, its gray branches as thick around as stone columns, clear evidence that the dead had already ascended to the seventh heaven. Buried beneath the tree were generations of Lorens and their allied counterparts, House Thorne. Here lay Rhea’s grandfathers, King Ennis Loren and Lord Grant Thorne, her grandmother, Gertrude Thorne, her uncle, Ty Loren, a sackcloth that represented her eldest brother, who had vanished mysteriously as a boy and was never seen again, and her mother, the controversial Queen Cecilia Thorne Loren, who took her own life shortly after giving birth to twins, Rhea’s younger siblings, Bea and Leo.
Rhea looked radiant in her night-dark dress of mourning, which hugged her vivacious curves from hip to waist to breast. The thick shapeless frock she’d surely worn when she left the castle lay in a heap on the ground.
Grease dropped silently behind her, grinning to himself. He swept in from the back, grabbing her around the waist and scooping her up. She gasped, but when he swung her around a smile crept onto her pink lips. “How do you do that?” she asked, staring at him in fascination.
Grease was loath to release the princess’s hips, but he did so he could produce the plum. “The same way I nicked this gift,” he said. “With skill.”
She managed to stifle a laugh with her hand, else their stealth meeting be discovered by her protectors guarding the outside of the crypt.
Princess Rhea accepted the fruit and took a big bite, juice dribbling down her chin. Gods, Grease thought, she can make anything look good. She handed the plum back to him and he took his own bite, wiping away the juice with the back of his hand.
Rhea stepped closer and his heart palpitated. “Don’t you feel bad for whomever you stole that from?” she purred. Grease could feel her hot breath on his—it smelled of peppermint tea. Gods, she’s a temptress.
“No,” he answered, trying to maintain his cool façade. “He had a whole cart full of fruit and I had nothing, so he should feel bad for me.”
Apparently it was just the answer Rhea was looking for. She closed her hand over his, prying the plum from his fingers and letting it drop to the ground. Her other hand moved to his chest, probing for the skin beneath the shirt he’d taken the time to wash the previous day. This near, she smelled of summer flowers and burning incense, and he found himself aching with desire. The plum idea had clearly been a good one.
She pushed forward and he tripped on a root, stepping backward to maintain his balance until he collided with the large gray tree. Rhea’s lips fell on the hollow in his neck, full of urgency, tracing a blazing path to his lips, which opened to receive her.
At this point, Grease became incapable of controlling his own body, which seemed to respond to such stimulation of its own accord. Their lips rolled, their tongues danced, and his hands worked their way from her hips to her waist to her ribcage, every touch like getting struck by lightning.
Rhea Loren might only be sixteen, but she was a woman grown in Grease’s mind. A creature more seductive than the women in the clandestine and highly illegal pleasure houses not far from the seedy area where he and his sister lived.
In a rush that stole Grease’s breath, Rhea pulled away. “Wrath,” she said, breathing heavily. “Sometimes I wonder if the ghosts of my bad ideas will come back to haunt me in the
still silence of the winter night.”
Damn, she has a way with words, Grease thought. He loved hearing her speak even when she was having second thoughts. Again. “You’re worried about your father?”
She nodded, biting her bottom lip, a gesture that made Grease’s heart race. “Your father knows nothing,” Grease said. He wanted her, and the last thing he needed her thinking about was the pious king and his so-called holy laws. And it didn’t matter if her father found out about them anyway, right? Grease would live up to his nickname and slide away with his sister, on to another town, another bribe, another crime. The princess was nothing but an adventure to him anyway. What happened to her after he left was of no concern to him.
He ignored the sting of the lie in his brain, stepping closer, inhaling her scent.
Her lips opened once more. Like him, she was unable to resist the danger inherent in their forbidden relationship. With the grace of a thief, he scooped her up under her lithe legs and dipped her back, kissing her deeply while lowering her to the mossy ground. She made a sound that was half human satisfaction and half animal desire as he pried one of the sleeves of her dress over her shoulder. The flesh there was perfection, supple and smooth. He kissed it again and again and again, peeling the dress further away from her body.
His hand trembled as it ran up her leg. Her tongue rolled over his like crashing waves.
And then he was lost in her, the early dawn hours melting away into passion.
“I want to do that again,” Grease said, caressing Rhea’s jawline.
Rhea laughed, a sound so perfect it sent warmth through Grease’s whole body. A sound so perfect that the next noise that broke the silence was made all the harsher:
—A scream rent the still fabric of dawn in half, and they both froze.
“What in Wrath’s name was that?” Rhea said. Her hands were gripping Grease’s arms so hard they were stinging.
“Something happened,” Grease said, a shred of fear slicing through him. When another sound rang out—a muffled groan—he pulled the princess to her feet, grabbing her dress and helping her pull it over her head. He hurriedly tugged on his own pants and shirt, and together they ran for the entrance to the crypts.
Grease slammed to a stop before the princess opened the wooden doors. “What?” she said, whirling around, her golden hair disheveled.
“I can’t go out there. Your guards will see,” Grease said.
“I’m scared,’ Rhea said, and though they shouldn’t have, her words made him long to hold her, to protect her. Why did this—whatever this was—have to happen this morning?
“You’ll be fine,” Grease lied. “It was probably just a wayward drunkard causing your knights trouble. They will protect you.”
Rhea grasped his hand. “We could run away, you and I. We could leave the west forever. We could be free to do as we choose.”
Her words shocked him. Not because she spoke them with such sincerity, but because for a moment her offer was tempting, despite its insanity. Leave? Impossible. For one, he had his sister to care for. For another, she was the bloody heir to the queenship, at least until her younger brother married. Her father wouldn’t rest until he’d hunted Grease down and dismembered him with a blunt paring knife.
“This is not the right time,” Grease said, pulling away. He didn’t say the real truth: that there would never be a right time. That this was probably the last morning they’d ever see each other. He reached for the wall, searching for a handhold.
“Don’t leave me,” she pleaded, her eyes searching his, as if trying to find the soul that wasn’t there.
“I’m sorry, Rhea, but this is who I am,” he said, spider-like as he clambered to the top of the wall. He looked down to find her sobbing into her hand, watching him. He felt something break inside of him, though he refused to believe it was his heart. More likely just a bit of muscle pain from the speed of his climb. “Stay inside the crypts until someone comes for you,” he said, hoping it was the right advice.
She let out another sob but he was already turning away, sprinting along the wall, heading for the corner where the knights had been posted. When he arrived, he peered down, making out three shapes in the gloom. One was bulky and soft, lying in a pool of his own blood on the ground, his throat slit. Oh gods, Sir Barrow, Grease realized.
The other two forms seemed to be locked together, grappling for advantage. No, not grappling. One was wearing armor—Sir Cray—and was simply clinging to the other, who was clothed in all black. The black-garbed person pulled his arm back, a blade flashing silver against the shadows. Sir Cray crumpled with a final groan, writhing several times before going still.
Grease’s mouth was open, his heart thundering. Both knights were dead.
The third person turned and looked right up at Grease. A single eye glowed in the dark. Wait, Grease thought. Not an eye. A bright marking on his head.
Grease was about to scream when the person—creature, thing, monster—vanished.
He whirled around, racing back along the wall, his eyes scanning the House Loren cryptyard. Seeing nothing. Where are you? “Rhea?” he murmured. “Are you there? I came back. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have left you.”
No answer. He climbed down the wall, searching the shadowy nooks and crannies.
She was gone. Rhea was gone.
Nine
The Northern Kingdom, Silent Mountain
Bane
He felt feverish, heat spreading along his hairless scalp. His hand ached from gripping the knife, which felt like it had melded with his skin. It was stained red.
Bear was with him in their cave, but he wouldn’t look at Bane. Couldn’t look at him. “Who am I?” Bane asked the man who raised him. Firelight danced on the walls and ceiling, making the entire cave appear to be alive.
“You know the answer to that question,” Bear said, his words gruff, like they’d gotten caught in his white beard, which seemed to grow longer and bushier every day.
“I don’t!” Bane said, throwing the knife across the cavern. It hit the wall and clattered to the ground near the fire pit. All strength left him and he slumped to the floor, his head in his hands. Smoke and shadows seemed to press in on his vision, an all-encompassing weariness that threatened to pull him under its waves of darkness once more. He wanted to cry, could feel the stinging behind his eyes, but, as usual, no tears would fall. He was incapable of crying. After all, how could Death cry?
He hadn’t wanted to kill those two knights, not really. Nor the guards he’d killed each night that week. But when he disappeared from the cave and reappeared in the Western Kingdom at Knight’s End, something drove him. A compulsion, a need, a desire…
To kill.
“I am Kings’ Bane…” he wheezed.
Bear said nothing, a human monolith.
“…then why I am killing those who are not kings?”
Bear sighed. Bane looked at him, and the only man he’d ever known opened his mouth to speak, but then closed it just as quickly.
“It’s about fear, isn’t it?” Bane said, forcing the words out through dry lips. “It’s not just about the cleansing of the royals. I’m meant to scare the Four Kingdoms into peace. Is that it?”
Bear turned away, his shadow growing larger on the gray wall. “I am a simple man,” Bear said. “I don’t pretend to know the meaning of ancient prophecies.”
Watching the only person he’d ever truly known turn away from him was almost worse than what he’d done, especially because he could hear the lie in Bear’s voice. “Please,” he said, using his last threads of energy to fold his hands together. He immediately unclasped them—he wasn’t worthy of prayer. “Father…”
“Don’t call me that!” Bear snapped, whirling around, his facial muscles twitching, his skin taut and red.
Bane wanted to run from the cave, to throw himself off the cliff, to dash his body against the rocks. But he couldn’t. He was too weak; and anyway, his body was not his own.
&nbs
p; “I am sorry,” Bear said, his face falling. “I didn’t mean to…I wasn’t trying to…I’m not your father. It’s a lie. Your father is dead.” He approached Bane, extending an arm as if to comfort him, but letting it fall before it got too close.
He’s afraid of me, too, Bane thought. The entire kingdom is afraid.
“My father…” Bane said. He shut his eyes tight against the memory. He wanted to scream. Instead he gritted his teeth and growled, “No.” In his head he heard Yes.
He opened his eyes and looked at Bear, who’d moved back several steps. “Am I evil?”
“I asked myself that same question once. Not about you, about me. But I can’t answer for you, any more than someone else could’ve answered for me. Only you can decide.”
“Is that why you let me live all those years ago?”
“I don’t know.” Memories stacked on top of memories, some brighter than others. One stood out, a shining beacon of light. He’d only been eight years old, and Bear had found several thick sacks left by one of the nomadic tribes as they passed by the mountain. They had holes in them and were no longer of use to their previous owners. But Bear had come up with a purpose for the sacks—a second life. They’d smeared goat’s butter on the underside of the sacks, and then used them to coast down the snowy hillside, whooping and laughing from the thrill. They’d ridden them all day, until shadows began to creep in, destroying visibility.