The captain of the palace guard is a large man with blond hair, ruddy cheeks, and a fondness for chocolates and bitter ale. He’s an honest man, as far as I can tell, but he’s known for taking bribes in exchange for bits of gossip about the royal family. He’s been captain since my father was king, but when Harristan chose his personal guard, Huxley was overlooked, a slight I don’t think he’s ever forgiven.
We haven’t forgiven him for failing to keep our parents safe, so I think we’re even.
He’s all but blocking the doorway. I barely glance at him. “What?”
He hesitates when he hears my tone. “This girl is unknown. I should ride with you.”
“I will take it under consideration while you ride behind.” I shift to move past him.
“Regardless of what stories she bears, she slipped into the palace—”
“Yes. She did. Walked right past one of your guards.”
“Yes, well—that is—Your Highness—” he begins, blustering.
“I am very hungry, Captain.”
He hesitates, then takes a step back. “As you say.”
When I climb into the carriage, Tessa has taken the seat to the front, so I jerk the door closed and ease onto the velvet cushions on the opposite side. Her eyes are dark and cool as they regard me, but her fingers are twisted together, her knuckles pale.
I give her a wry glance. “Captain Huxley offered to ride with us,” I say. “I declined.”
“Is he worried about the dagger I’ve hidden in my skirts?”
“Say that a little louder and you’ll find out.”
The driver chirps to the horses and a whip snaps in the air, and suddenly we’re rocking and swaying over the cobblestones.
A small lantern hangs above the window, throwing shadows across her cheeks and making the red highlights in her gown gleam.
I lean back into the cushions. “Tell me: Do you really have a dagger?”
Tessa turns to look at the window. “Keep your hands to yourself or you’ll find out.”
“For as much as you hate me, you can’t be this upset about a fine carriage ride and a meal at the most exclusive establishment in all of Kandala.”
Her eyebrows go up. “I can’t?”
Lord, she is so brazen. “Fine. Perhaps you can.”
She says nothing. I say nothing. The silence grows cooler between us, punctuated by the rhythmic clopping of hooves against the cobblestones.
“Forgive me,” I say. “I should have started by saying that I owe you a debt of gratitude.”
She whips her head around. She looks like she expected me to be teasing her, but when she sees that I’m not, her eyes narrow. “Why?”
“Because you didn’t tell Harristan about . . . us.”
She turns to look out at the night again. “I did, in fact.” She pauses, her fingers flexing. “I told him the truth. I was partners with a man I thought was a friend, until he was caught by the night patrol and hung along the gate.”
The truth. I wonder if that’s the truth she’s told herself, too. That it doesn’t matter that I was Weston Lark—because he’s dead. Now I’m just me.
She clears her throat. “I thought it wouldn’t matter anyway, since no one would believe me.”
“Harristan suspects . . . something between us.”
Her eyes snap to mine. “What?”
“It’s not like me to be lenient.” I shrug. “He’s not pressing me for answers.”
Her fingers twine together again, like this is worrisome. “Why not?”
“Because he’s my brother, Tessa.”
She looks back at the window. “It doesn’t matter. There’s nothing between us.”
“So I’ve heard.”
Silence ticks along between us again. The night is very dark here, but ahead, fire flickers in a massive circle that appears to hang suspended above the earth. Despite her ire, Tessa shifts slightly closer to the window to see better. I’ve seen it all my life, but even still, the illusion at night really is quite spectacular. It’s not a circle at all, but a large archway hung with a hundred torches, each spilling ash and sparks onto a glistening pond that reflects the light. Tessa’s lips part as we draw closer, the light illuminating wonder in her eyes.
I shift to the opposite side of the carriage to sit beside her so I can see it as clearly, and she gasps and swings a fist.
Honestly. I catch her wrist. “Don’t cause a ruckus in the carriage,” I say. “I was serious about the captain.” I keep hold of her arm and nod at the window. “Look, before we’re past.”
She inhales like she wants to snap at me, but we’ve drawn close enough to hear sparks sizzle as they strike the water, and the sound pulls her attention to the window again. It’s too dark to see the woven branches that support the torches, and starlight twinkles beyond the suspended flames. Each spark that falls glitters on the surface of the pond before drowning.
“It’s called Stonehammer’s Arch,” I say. “You can see it from the palace. It was built by my great-grandfather as a declaration of love for his bride. He said as long as the torches kept burning, so would his love for her. When we were children, Harristan and I used to dare each other to climb across.”
She jerks her hand out of my grasp. “I hope you fell a lot.”
I lean close. “Never once.”
“I’m going to stab you.”
“I don’t really believe you have a dagger.”
She draws herself up, challenge flaring in her eyes, brighter than the arch. This bickering reminds me of the way we’d tease each other in the workshop, and at once it’s both disheartening and exhilarating.
But suddenly her expression shifts, turning pained, and she presses her hands to her chest, as if it’s hard to breathe.
I straighten, alarmed. “Tessa—”
“How could you do that to me?” She shoves me right in the chest, and I can feel all of her sorrow in the motion. Her voice breaks. “How could you?”
I freeze. For a moment in the darkness, I forgot.
Maybe I really did need Quint’s warning.
She’s so tense beside me that it feels like a cruelty to sit here. I shift back to my side of the carriage and tug my jacket straight. Shadows fall across her face, reminding me of the mask she once wore.
“Do you have any idea what I went through?” she whispers, her voice thin and reedy. “Do you?”
“No,” I say quietly. “Tell me.”
She goes still and looks at me.
“You died,” she whispers, as if it should be obvious. Her eyes fall closed, and she shudders. “You were my best friend. You were . . . I was . . . I was in . . .” She draws a breath. “Everything was so awful. I just wanted to help people. You did too—or so I thought. And then . . .” Her voice hitches. “You went . . . you went over the wall for me, and I heard the alarms . . .” She sniffs and dabs at her eyes. “And then, at daybreak, I saw . . .”
Her voice trails off.
I know what she saw.
She dabs at her eyes again and fixes her gaze on the window. Stonehammer’s Arch is fading into the distance. We’re nearing the end of the private road behind the palace now, and soon we’ll be thrust into the midst of the elites again.
“Tessa.”
She swallows so hard it looks painful. “Don’t.”
“I need you to understand something.”
“I don’t care.”
I lean forward and brace my arms against my knees. “Do you know,” I say evenly, “that every time I am called to the Hold, I worry I’ll find you in one of the cells?”
“I suppose that would have put a quick end to your game.”
“It wasn’t a game,” I snap.
She finally looks back at me. “Then what was it? You are King’s Justice. You are the brother to the king. One death away from the throne yourself. You have more power than almost anyone in Kandala.” She spreads her hands. “So what were you doing? Was it some kind of penance? Some way to assua
ge your guilt?” Her voice breaks again. “You’ve seen what’s happening to the people! You’ve seen it with your own eyes! I can’t blame your brother. He’s surrounded by people who probably only tell him what he wants to hear. But you’ve seen the suffering, the deaths and the desperation, and still you lined those prisoners up on the stage, and you—you—”
“Tessa.” Every word pelts me like a stone. My own chest feels tight.
She presses her fingertips to her eyes. “Why are you doing this to me?” she whispers. “Just throw me in the Hold with the others.”
“I can’t.” My voice is rough and broken, and it gets her attention.
She lowers her hands to blink at me.
“I can’t,” I say again, my eyes burning into hers. “I can’t, Tessa. You don’t know how many times I wished dawn wouldn’t come so quickly. How many times I wanted to stay with you instead of returning to this. How many times I wished I were truly Weston Lark, that Prince Corrick was the fabrication.”
She swipes a lone tear from her cheek angrily and gestures at the plush confines of the carriage. “You couldn’t leave all this finery?”
“I couldn’t leave my brother.”
That draws her up short.
“I couldn’t take him with me,” I continue. “How would I? And even if I could, then . . . what? Leave Kandala to the consuls? I can barely negotiate a reasonable price out of Allisander Sallister for Moonflower petals as it is. He’s worse than his father was. It’s a delicate balance of keeping him happy and keeping our people as healthy as we can. He would volley for power, and considering all he has at his disposal, he’d likely get it.” I pause, then run a hand across my jaw. “Yes. I saw the suffering, Tessa, the same as you. But if Allisander were in power, medicine would be twice as scarce, and the fevers would be twice as deadly.”
She’s staring at me now.
“You can hate me,” I say. “Lord knows everyone else does. But you do not know this side of it.”
She’s gone completely still. The tears seem to have frozen on her cheeks.
I don’t blame her.
But I can’t keep her prisoner. She’ll always hate me. She’ll never trust me. Knowing she’s safe in the palace isn’t any comfort at all if she’s hardly more than a dove locked in a gilded cage.
That’s my life, not hers.
“I’m not going to kill you. I’m not going to throw you in the Hold.” I blow a breath through my teeth. “Hell, if you want to leave, I’ll call the carriage to stop. I’ll step out to speak with the captain, and you can slip away.”
I reach for my waist and slip the buckle of my belt, freeing my dagger. I hold it out to her. “I don’t have a treble hook handy, but you can take my blade if you like.”
She blinks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “This is a trick.”
“I have never tricked you.” I catch myself and roll my eyes. “Well. At any rate, I am not tricking you now.”
She glances from the dagger to my face and then to the window. Her fingers are trembling again.
“Tessa,” I say softly. “I let you think I died because I wanted you to stay out of the Royal Sector. I wanted to keep you safe.”
I drop to a knee before her and press the dagger into her hand.
She glances at it and then up at me. “I can leave. Just like that?”
My chest has grown tight again, and my breathing feels shallow. I force emotion out of my head, reminding myself of who and what I am. The King’s Justice spares no thought for loss or pity.
“Head southeast,” I say brusquely. “There’s a small gate in the wall where the terrain dips. It looks old and rusted, and there’s a padlock, but the hinges are fake, and you can pull the pins from underneath. Do you understand?”
She nods, dumbfounded.
“Captain!” I call. The carriage lurches to a stop.
I pull a small pouch from my pocket and toss it into Tessa’s lap, and it jingles with silver. “That should be more than enough to start over.”
“Wait—”
I can’t wait. If I wait, I’ll change my mind. “You have five minutes,” I say. “We’ll be facing away from the carriage.”
Without a backward glance, I slip the latch on the door and spring out.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Tessa
The door to the carriage slams, and I’m alone. My heart pounds in my chest. Again, too much has happened, and my world feels like it’s been turned upside down for the tenth time today. The pouch rattles with coins when I lift it, and the dagger is heavy. When I pull it free of its sheath, it looks sharp and ready. I try not to wonder if he’s ever used it on anyone.
I don’t trust Corrick at all, but this . . . this doesn’t feel like a trap. What would be the purpose? What would he have to gain?
I’m quick and sure-footed. This dress is dark. If the captain and his men are distracted, I could slip away like a ghost.
I couldn’t go back to Mistress Solomon’s, but I could find work in another city. Especially with a purse full of silver.
But then I think of my meeting with King Harristan. It’s easy to love your king when everyone is well fed and healthy. A bit harder when everyone is . . . not.
He cares. What’s happening in Kandala weighs on him. I’m not sure how I can tell, but I can.
Despite everything, I can tell it weighs on Corrick as well.
I have never tricked you. I’ve been treating him like the man who everyone fears, as if his entire life has been one big trick. But he’s been progressively protecting me since the instant I arrived in the palace, from the way he provided me with food and a room to sleep in to the note he slipped me before his meeting with his brother. Prince Corrick has done a lot of terrible things, but his words rang true. Maybe I don’t understand things from this side, just like they don’t seem to understand things from mine. And maybe the king was just indulging his brother by allowing me to meet with the royal apothecaries, but it’s an opportunity to tell people who matter that they could be doing better with the supplies they’re given.
I can’t keep stealing to help the sick, but maybe I can help them in another way.
Maybe.
It’s a lot of maybes.
When Wes stood in front of me on our last night together, I said we needed to stop hiding and cause a revolution. Running now would be hiding. And this isn’t the type of revolution I was thinking of . . . but maybe I can bring about change. Maybe I can show the king how badly his people are suffering.
Maybe this is a chance no one else would ever have.
I leave the dagger and the coin pouch on the seat, then put my hand on the latch of the door. I open it boldly, stepping onto the cobblestones with no effort to be silent.
The captain’s head whips around. So does Corrick’s.
“Ah . . . forgive me.” My voice cracks, and I have to clear my throat. “Your Highness?” I curtsy for good measure. “It’s been a long day, and I’m rather hungry. You mentioned you were as well.”
Corrick looks at me across fifteen feet of darkness, his blue eyes dark and inscrutable. He’s gone very still.
My heart is beating so hard that I can nearly taste it in my throat. I hope I’m not making a mistake.
“Indeed,” he finally says. “We’ll discuss the pattern of those search lights another time, Captain.”
He walks back and looks down at me in the moonlight. In the dark it’s easy to remember him as Wes: the way he moves, the way the stars glint in his eyes. Brocade and silver have replaced homespun wool and rough leather, but he’s still the same man. This morning, I told Quint that my friendship with Wes was an illusion based on a trick, and he said, “Are you so sure?”
As always, I’m not sure of anything.
Corrick’s eyes skim my face as the cool night air streams between us. “Dinner awaits,” he says. Any trace of an edge has vanished from his voice.
A footman scurries forward to hold open the door.
Cor
rick offers me his hand to help me into the carriage.
This time, I take it.
We sit opposite each other again. A whistle and a whip crack later, and we’re rocking over the cobblestones. Corrick settles back into his cushions, regarding me. There’s no challenge in his expression now—simply consideration. He’s obviously waiting for me to speak, to explain myself, but my tongue is twisted into knots.
Eventually, his eyes narrow just a bit. “Did you stay because you truly wanted to, or did you stay because you do not trust me?”
“Oh!” That didn’t occur to me—but voicing either of those options makes me feel too vulnerable. “I . . . I chose to stay. I have obligations in the palace.”
His eyebrows go up. “You do?”
“The king asked me to speak with the royal apothecaries and physicians.”
“Ah.” He says this graciously, but his eyes search mine, and I can tell he knows there is more that I’m not saying. My thoughts are too complicated to put into words.
Maybe his are, too, because he says nothing more.
I pick up the small purse of coins and toss it back to him. He nimbly snatches it out of the air.
My fingers curl around the dagger, though, and I keep my eyes locked on Corrick as I tuck it into the side of my boot, then let my skirts fall to cover it. “You’re not getting this back.”
To my surprise, he smiles, his eyes lighting with challenge. “Consider it a gift.”
In the center of the Royal Sector sits the Circle, which isn’t really a circle at all, and is instead a dais constructed of marble and granite in the shape of an octagon, stretching at least fifty feet across. Hundreds of years ago, it was used when the king wanted to hear from his people personally. Then Corrick’s great-great-great-grandfather took a dagger in the neck, and it was decided that requests from the people should be made in writing and left at the sector gates.
Over time, the Circle became a convenient location for merchants to sell their wares. As the story goes, twenty years ago, an enterprising tavern owner at the edge of the dais set a few tables and chairs out and outfitted his serving girls in fancy dresses. Within a year, he’d taken over the entire space. Now it’s turned into a place where the richest elites gather to gossip and be seen spending their coins on things they don’t need.
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