I shift my rook forward and wait, watching as Quint surveys the board.
He’ll win. He usually does, but tonight I’m distracted and unsettled, so Quint has an advantage. Allisander and Lissa left after dinner, which should be a relief. With evidence of smugglers running loose and whispers of revolution in the street, it’s not. I can’t remember a time when the Royal Sector felt as if it held its breath like this, waiting, but the anxiety has bled into the palace, sharpening tempers to a razor’s edge.
A knock sounds at my door, and I pull my pocket watch free. It’s an hour till midnight.
“Enter,” I call.
The guard swings the door wide. “Your Highness. Consul Cherry requests an audience.”
Quint looks up from the board. “Should I send her away?”
It’s tempting, but Arella has never come to my chambers, and I’m curious. “No.” I run a hand across my jaw and sigh. “Send her in,” I tell my guard.
Allisander always blows into my room like a thunderstorm wrapped up in silken finery, bringing demands disguised as requests, so I’m surprised when Arella eases in like a breeze, stepping quietly, her dark hair unbound, her body encased in a simple velvet gown that reveals every curve yet leaves plenty to the imagination. She curtsies to me, her fingers gracefully lifting the heavy velvet of her skirt. “Your Highness.”
I don’t move. “Arella.”
Quint stands and offers her a nod. “Consul Cherry.”
Allisander would ignore him, but Arella nods back. “Master Quint.” Her eyes fall on the chessboard. “Do forgive me for interrupting your game.”
I trace a finger over the top of my wineglass. “We’ll see.”
Quint is waiting to see if I’m going to send him out. He knows everything that goes on in the palace, and there are no secrets between him and me, but many of the consuls act like he’s a nuisance and ask for privacy.
Arella doesn’t. “I’ve seen the display you left at the gate.”
“I’m hoping everyone has seen it. That’s why I left it there.” I glance at Quint. “It’s still your move.”
He eases back into his chair. He glances at me and then back at the board.
He might be the only one in the palace who knows how very much I hate this. All of this.
Arella isn’t easily distracted—or put off. “Someone will climb up there and steal the flower.”
“Good. Then we’ll have a second body. My brother is disappointed we don’t have three strung up there already.”
In all honesty, I actually think Harristan was disappointed we caught one so very quickly. As much as he wants to appease his consuls and offer a show of strength, he doesn’t like the thought of rebellion. When the smugglers were hiding in the darkness, it was easy to see them as criminals, as individuals clearly doing wrong.
It’s hard to bring down the sword of justice on a thousand citizens who scream for rebellion and mercy in the bright light of day.
Arella appears to be choosing her words carefully, so I speak into the silence to say, “You’ve been spending a great deal of time with Consul Pelham.”
I watch her for a reaction, but she offers none. One perfectly manicured eyebrow lifts. “Jealous, Corrick?”
“Of an eighty-year-old man?” I smile. “Maybe.”
She doesn’t smile back. “I find we have similar goals.”
“You and Roydan? Tell me more.”
“No.”
“Check,” says Quint.
I glance at the board. He’s moved his knight into position to capture my king, but that’s easily solved. I move one space to the right and look back at Arella. “Allisander and Lissa believe you are making a statement in opposition to them.”
“How lucky for me that I don’t pander to Consul Sallister and Consul Marpetta, then.”
That statement is a little too barbed, and I lose the smile. “Why are you here, Arella?”
“Your people are suffering,” she says. “These whispers of rebellion are not an attack on you and your brother.”
“They’re not whispers,” I say.
“People are desperate. They’re dying.”
“Check,” says Quint.
I sigh and move my king again. “I know people are dying.”
“Your brother may wear the crown, but everyone knows two consuls rule Kandala.”
My voice gains an edge. “You should watch your words.”
“Or what? You’ll throw me into the Hold?”
I inhale a breath of fury, but Quint says, “Check.”
“Damn it, Quint!” I shove my king one more space to the left, then stand to face Arella. “I know our people are dying. So does Harristan. I am doing my best to keep them alive.”
“Hmm. Would the man hanging from the gates agree?”
Her confidence would be impressive if it weren’t all being used to stand against me. “You requested a pardon for the eight smugglers who were imprisoned.”
“Yes. I did.” Her eyes don’t flinch away from mine. “Do you think your presentation before the sector gates would have ended in cries for revolution if your brother had granted it?”
I go still.
Outside my window, lights flash, and the faint sound of the alarms carries over the quiet of the night sky.
“Another prisoner,” says Arella. She all but spits the word at me. “Another body for your wall.”
“Another warning to other smugglers,” I snap. “A promise to the people that their medicine supply will be kept safe.”
“The medicine only a privileged few receive?”
My voice is tight. “We grant as much of the supply as we can, and you well know it.”
“True strength is not determined by how brutal you can be,” she says, and her tone is still quiet, but full of steel. “True leadership is not determined by killing those who oppose you.”
“True leadership is not determined by slipping into the prince’s chambers in the dead of night either,” I say. “You could have gone to Harristan at any time, Arella. I notice you waited until the others were gone, and you bring your pleas to me instead of my brother.”
To my surprise, she laughs. “I told you, I care nothing for Lissa and Allisander.” She pauses, and her voice drops again. “I care for my people. I care for your people.” Another pause, and she takes a step closer. “You are the King’s Justice, not his executioner. I thought someone should remind you.”
My jaw is tight, and everything I want to say would be a betrayal to someone who matters.
So I say nothing.
Arella frowns, then offers a curtsy. “Thank you for granting me an audience, Prince Corrick.”
Once she’s through the door, I take a long breath and run my hands back through my hair. I look at Quint, who’s sitting impassively beside the chessboard.
“What?” I say.
He inhales as if to answer, then shakes his head. He reaches out and knocks over my king. “Checkmate.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Tessa
I lose track of how many days pass. Maybe four, maybe five, maybe an entire month. I go to work, I mix the potions for Mistress Solomon, and then I walk woodenly back to my rented room where I fall into bed. The vials and scales and bottles for real remedies sit untouched on my side table. Herbs and leaves and petals dry up and crumble on their own, worthless.
I haven’t returned to the workshop. Every time I try, my breathing goes short and my legs refuse to work. Too much . . . Wes.
I haven’t listened to the names of those lost to the fever, read at the end of each week. There are many, though. Without Weston and me delivering a daily dose, the number of people dying has surely risen.
The guilt is almost as bad as the loss. I’ve hardly eaten. I’ve hardly slept.
When I do, I dream of Wes, of the warmth in his hands or the light in his eyes or the promise in his words. And then the dreams shift into nightmares, where a man in black drives daggers into Wes’s eyes while he lies t
here screaming for mercy.
I hope he didn’t beg. I hope he didn’t give that evil prince the satisfaction.
This is the only thought that chases away some of my sorrow, letting rage pour in to fill the gap.
Weston’s death is different from my parents.
Weston’s death is different from them all.
I wish I’d listened. I wish we’d stayed in the workshop.
I want to wish he hadn’t kissed me, but I can’t. Every now and again, I touch my fingertips to my lips, as if the feel of him still lingers there. My throat always closes up and I choke on my tears, but I can’t move my fingers, as if this tiny memory will soon be gone, too.
“Tessa. Tessa.” Karri’s whisper takes a moment to break through my thoughts.
I clear my throat. “Sorry.”
She studies me with clear concern. She’s asked me a dozen times what happened, but I’ve already risked so much. I can’t tell her anything. The night patrol is still doubled. I’ve heard rumors of other bodies stretched along the gate, but I have zero desire to discover what Wes’s remains have been reduced to, so I haven’t gone to see.
She knows something happened, though.
Her eyes flick down to the thimbleweed roots I’m grinding together. It’s supposed to be a tincture to help someone with their complexion. As if someone’s skin matters while people are dying.
“That’s too much,” says Karri, her voice a hushed whisper. “You’ll end up killing someone.”
Good. Maybe I’ll spare them from the fever. Or the king.
It’s a dangerous thought, and one I’ve had too often lately. I dump out my bowl to start over.
“Tessa!” cries Mistress Solomon from across the room. “That’s my best thimbleweed!”
I can’t make myself care. Wes is dead. My parents are dead. The world is gray and empty and cold. I cut a new stretch of root.
She hurries across the shop to stand over me. “Honestly, girl, your brain is gone lately. You’re not with child, are you?”
I nearly burst into tears and choke on them to stop any from falling. With child. As if. As if. Without warning, I snort with laughter, and a tear snakes down my cheek.
She’s staring at me, mouth partially agape. So is Karri.
I swipe at my face haphazardly. “Sorry. No. What?”
“That order is for the Royal Sector!” she says. “You’d best pay attention!”
Knowing it’s for someone in the Royal Sector makes me want to light it all on fire. I grind at it half-heartedly.
But then my brain seizes on what Karri just said. You’ll end up killing someone. I glance down at the pile of discarded grindings. She’s right. The wrong combination can turn a tincture to a poison without much effort. There’s a reason I insisted on measuring and weighing the elixirs Wes and I used to distribute.
I’m not entirely sure what I’ll do with the discards, but I sweep the grindings into a length of muslin and wrap it up to tuck it into my pack.
I don’t have a plan. I don’t even have an idea, really. I just have rage and sorrow burning up my insides.
“Well, that’s useless,” Mistress Solomon says. “The rest of the month, I’ll be collecting your wages.”
My head snaps up. I may be wrapped up in sorrow, but I do know that I can’t afford to lose more than half a month’s income. “Let me make the delivery,” I say to her. “Please don’t take the thimbleweed from my pay.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Tessa.” She’s already moving away.
“Please?” I say. “Surely a courier to the Royal Sector would cost more.”
She glances back at me. She’ll do anything to avoid paying for something.
I rest a hand over my stomach for half a second, until her eyes follow the motion, and then I jerk it away and clear my throat.
“Oh, Tessa,” breathes Karri. “I wish you’d told me.”
I swallow. I didn’t consider that I’d be lying to Karri. She’s so good and kind and warm that it feels like a crime.
“He abandoned you, didn’t he?” she says knowingly, and I realize she’s remembering our talk of how so many of the smugglers are just stringing stupid girls along.
Abandoned me. No. Wes didn’t abandon me. If anything, I abandoned him. My throat closes up again.
Karri reaches out and gives my hand a squeeze. “You come round to the house tomorrow, and Mother will brew you some of her tea for the early sickness. She swears it helps.”
Maybe it’s safer if this is what she believes—that I’m just a silly girl who made a silly mistake, but now it’s all over. I have to sniff back waiting tears. “That’s very . . . very nice. Thank you.”
Mistress Solomon draws herself up. She likely has a few thoughts about an unmarried girl getting herself into such a situation, but after Karri has been so kind, she likely doesn’t want to turn down my request. “Very well, Tessa,” she says. “If you’re sure you’re feeling up to it.”
In my willingness to make a delivery to the Royal Sector, I didn’t consider that it would require passing the gates where Wes’s body hangs, and it doesn’t come to mind until the smell hits me.
I stop short on the path. My mouth goes dry. I can’t do this.
I don’t even know what I was going to do.
Deliver a package. That’s why I’m here. That’s what I need to do.
The discarded powders wrapped up in a muslin bundle can just sit in my apothecary pack next to my record books and the delivery I’m to make. I’ll toss them into a fire. Then I’ll toss myself into a fire.
An elderly man is driving a donkey with a small cart, and he glances at me as he goes past. “You get used to it after a while,” he says.
No. I won’t. And we shouldn’t. We shouldn’t get used to this.
Wes wouldn’t hesitate. He didn’t hesitate. He leapt over that wall because I needed him to. Because I wanted him to.
I square my shoulders and walk. There’s a horrific buzzing in the air that finds my ears before I reach the gate, and it’s not until I round the bend that I realize what the sound is: flies. They’re everywhere, in the air, on the trees, feasting on the bodies—because of course there are more than one now.
There are six. I can’t tell which were men and which were women.
I can tell Wes, though. His body has begun to decompose, the daggers beginning to slip from the loosened tissues of his eyes. The flower is gone. The rope of the treble hook has sunk into the gray skin of his wrist.
“It’s not Wes,” I breathe to myself. “It’s not Wes.”
Because it’s not. It’s a corpse. A body. Not the rogue who used to tease me and help me and protect me. Not the young man who pulled me against him and promised to return in an hour.
Do not cry. I don’t.
Flies cling to me as I force my feet forward. I swat them away forcefully. One of the gate guards steps forward, swatting at flies himself. Sweat sits in a sheen on his brow, and he looks bored and irritated. I know I would be.
“State your business,” he says.
I pull free the order that Mistress Solomon gave me. “I have a delivery in the Royal Sector.”
He barely gives it a glance, then nods at the gates and returns to his post.
Well, I always knew it was easier to get in than it is to get out. A woman with a glistening purple carriage is waiting on the other side while guards search her belongings. Her skin is starkly pale, with rich red hair coiled in impossible braids. She stands to the side, haughtily checking her pocket watch. Diamonds sparkle in the sunlight.
That pocket watch alone would buy enough medicine for a family for months. I want to grab a fistful of the powder in my pack and shove it down her throat.
I shake myself. No. I don’t. It’s not her fault. She didn’t put Wes up there. She can’t help that she was born to privilege.
One of the guards opens the door to her carriage and bows to her. “Forgive the delay, Consul Marpetta.”
A consul!
I’ve never seen one up close, and I want to gawk. I probably am gawking. I try to force my eyes away.
She tosses him a coin. It winks in the light and then disappears into his palm. “I’d rather you search everyone than let a smuggler out,” she says, her voice so soft I almost don’t hear it. She climbs into the carriage, and he slams the door behind her.
As her carriage rattles past, the guard notices me staring. “Don’t you have business here, girl?”
“Oh! Yes.” I hurry away.
I’m no stranger to the Royal Sector, but I know it in the dead of night, when the streets are empty, dark, and silent. With the sun blazing overhead, everything gleams, even the gutters. Doorways sport gilded edges. Fountains splash merrily in front of the larger houses. The windows of the shops are all crystal clear, the cobblestones out front freshly swept. Electric lights blaze inside the fanciest establishments, but others are lit by oil lanterns. Doorknobs are edged in silver, carriages and carts are lined with leather and steel. Horses prance and shine, their harnesses richly detailed.
And the people! Women wear dresses with jewels embedded in the bodices, silver stitching glinting along the skirts. Men wear long jackets of brocade or silk or soft suede, their boots thickly heeled and polished. Fabrics burst with every color, brighter than any found in the Wilds, where dyes would be too expensive and too frivolous. At night, these swaths of pink and purple and orange are all muted shades of gray.
There are more common people, too, workers with duties like me, but they’re hidden, invisible in homespun wool or gray trousers that seem to blend with the cobblestones or the brick walls of the storefronts. Even still, I see the differences here as well, from boots with thick leather soles, belts stamped with intricate leatherworking, and buttons that have been made from a steel press, not carved from a piece of wood.
Despite all of the riches and perfection of this sector, I ache for the people dying in the Wilds, for the people struggling in Steel City or Trader’s Landing or Artis. There is so much here. So much wealth, so much health, it’s like a slap in the face.
What Wes and I took . . . they could afford to lose it.
And now he’s dead, and they’re prancing around as if Kandala weren’t dying outside these gates.
Defy the Night Page 9