He didn’t even look at me before he left the room.
Jossalyn has left a sleeping shift hanging from a hook on the closet door, but I ignore it and paw through the closet until I find what’s probably riding attire, but is definitely more comfortable than a gown: soft calfskin pants, a knit pullover, and a pair of boots.
Once I’m redressed, I throw open the door again.
Rocco is standing there, and his eyebrows lift as he takes in my attire.
“I don’t have to stay in my room?” I say.
“No.” He pauses. “I can send for a meal if you would rather—”
“No. Thank you.” I have to clear my throat. “I’m not hungry. I want . . .” My voice trails off as I stare up at him. I might not be a prisoner, but he’s still the king’s guard. “Can you take me somewhere?” I say quietly. “Like . . . outside the palace?”
He frowns, which makes me think he’s going to decline, but he says, “Where?”
I take a deep breath. “I want you to take me to Prince Corrick.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Corrick
Scorched bricks and splintered wood litter the floor, and remnants of smoke form a haze around the one remaining torch in this part of the Hold. Guards removed the bodies a while ago, but they haven’t returned. This part of the Hold isn’t usable, and I’m sure they think I’m long gone.
Allisander is. He didn’t last five minutes.
I’m glad. I don’t want him here. I don’t want anyone here.
When we walked in, the prisoners were bound on the ground. For a moment, I thought both men were dead, because their faces were black with soot and their clothes were charred. The scent of burned flesh was sickly sweet in the small space. It was obvious why they’d been caught so quickly. They probably hadn’t made it out of the Hold.
But then I saw the rise and fall of one’s chest, and the other made a pathetic keening sound.
Allisander was right behind me.
I wished they were dead. I wished they’d escaped. I wished Harristan would call a halt to all of this, instead of leaving me to prove how vicious we could be. I wished I were Wes, free to help, instead of Corrick, trapped by circumstance.
I wished. I wished. I wished.
All the while, Allisander was waiting.
I’m not usually the one with the blade or the arrow or the ax. I give the order and someone else provides the action. But tonight my thoughts were wild and scattered and if I opened my mouth to give an order, I worried I’d unravel everything my brother has worked so hard to hold together instead.
So I took a blade from the guard and cut their throats.
I held the weapon out for the guard to take it, but I kept my eyes on the consul. “Satisfied?” I asked him. My voice was rough, my hands sticky with blood.
He was breathing hard, his nostrils flaring like a panicked horse. Maybe he didn’t expect me to be so quick—or so brutal. Maybe he expected me to shy away from the violence.
“Yes,” he said.
“Good.”
Then he was gone, and the guards were dragging the bodies out.
I’m sitting in the dust against the wall now. My hands are dark with dried blood, thick and black around my fingernails. The air feels thin and hard to breathe—but maybe that’s my chest, which has been gripped with dread since the moment I heard Tessa cry out for me to stop.
Here, you can only be Prince Corrick. You can only be the King’s Justice.
I know, Quint. I know.
I press my fingers into my eyes. As always, I envy Harristan. Not for his throne, but for his ignorance of all this. His distance. His privilege.
Maybe that’s the same thing.
I keep telling myself that at least eight of them escaped, so it was only two. I keep telling myself that these men wouldn’t have lived much longer. I keep telling myself that what I just offered was a mercy, not cruelty, but I don’t know for sure.
I wish my head would empty itself of thoughts, that I could wrap my mind up in the darkness that lets me be who I need to be. Every time I try, I think of Tessa, her eyes dark with censure.
She’ll never forgive me. She’ll never let me touch her again.
I’ll never be free of this. Of who I am. This will be my life as King’s Justice: Cruel Corrick, the most feared man in the kingdom, and somehow also the most alone.
I want to scoff, but to my shock, my eyes prick and burn. I blink hard and swipe at my face. This is ridiculous. I haven’t cried since the day our parents died. I don’t want to cry now.
A tear falls anyway. I drag a sleeve across my face. It’s damp, and I realize I’m dragging blood across my cheek.
I bring nightmares to life, I said to Tessa. I’m very likely the living equivalent.
Somewhere in the darkness, a boot scrapes against the stone floor, and I jerk my head up. One of the guards must be returning.
I scramble to my feet. Swipe at my face again. Grit my teeth against everything I feel.
A new thought enters my brain, almost worse than the sorrow and dread. Prisoners escaped. There was an attack on the Hold. This might be someone other than guards. I reach for my blade automatically.
It’s not there. I gave it to Tessa.
Alarm chases away the anguish. I grab a rock from the rubble and pull back into the shadows, peering through the hazy dimness, wondering if I’ve been very foolish in remaining here.
But then the light strikes a bit of silver and the shine of a black boot, and I recognize the palace guard uniform. I recognize Rocco, one of my brother’s personal guards.
My breath catches. Has Harristan come looking for me? He’s come here, to the Hold?
Relief hits me so fast and sudden it’s like a blast of wintry wind against all the hot sorrow. I nearly leap out of the shadows. For once, I won’t be alone here. I won’t be alone in . . . this.
I drop the rock and start forward. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but so much emotion has clawed its way up my throat that I’m worried I’m going to fall on my knees, clutch at my brother’s hands, and beg for a release from all this.
But it’s not my brother following the guard.
I stop short. My heart feels like it wants to explode from my chest. Every muscle tenses. That cool wind of relief turns into a hot wash of shame and vulnerability.
Tessa has stopped short, too, and I can tell from the shift in her expression that I was right: I am a living nightmare. Her lips part and her eyes widen and she sucks in a breath. “Oh,” she whispers. “Oh no.”
I want to be indifferent. I want to not care. I want so much that I can’t have.
I look at the guard. “She shouldn’t be here,” I say viciously. “Why would you bring her here?”
“I asked him to,” says Tessa—and for the first time, her voice isn’t full of censure, it’s . . . mollifying. She steps toward me.
I step back. I keep my glare fixed on Rocco. “Take her back to the palace. Now.”
“No.” Tessa steps forward again. “Just—”
“Stop.” I pull back again. I can’t meet her eyes. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Please. It’ll be—”
“Go,” I snap. “Or I’ll lock you down here forever.”
“No, you won’t.”
She reaches for me, and I jerk away. My boot catches on that rock I dropped, and I stumble back, tripping over a splintered beam of wood. My shoulders slam into the wall, and my fingers curl into fists. I’m breathing hard like a cornered animal.
She has the good sense to stop pursuing me. We stand there in the flickering torchlight. Her hair is loose over her shoulders, her face clean-scrubbed, her clothes so simple I’m surprised she found them in her closet.
I’m wearing the same fine jacket I wore to dinner, but every inch of me is streaked with dirt and soaked in blood.
“No illusions now,” I say.
“No,” she agrees, her voice even.
I glance at Rocco w
ho’s waiting not far behind her. “How did you get him to bring you here?”
“I asked him to find you.”
“Where is Harristan?” I look at the guard, and a new worry lances my heart. “Why aren’t you with the king? What has happened?”
“His Majesty ordered that I attend to Miss Tessa,” he says impassively.
“Your brother is fine,” says Tessa, and her voice is careful. Again, she’s seen through me. “He had a coughing fit after you left, but he doesn’t—”
I push off the wall. “He what?”
“He’s fine. No fever. I gave him some tea with honey and vallis lilies.” Her hand closes on my forearm and gives a gentle squeeze. “He’s fine.”
Something about her touch forces me still. My breathing slows fractionally.
Her eyes are piercing, though, and I worry she’s going to ask what I’ve done. She’ll ask, and I’ll tell her, and I’ll destroy any remaining flickers of . . . whatever is between us.
I was ready to kneel at my brother’s feet and beg for release.
I’m ready to kneel at Tessa’s and beg forgiveness.
She slides her hand down my forearm and laces her fingers with mine. She doesn’t flinch at the blood. My chest tightens at the thought of her touching it.
Please, I think. Please don’t ask.
Please don’t hate me anymore.
I hate myself enough.
I start to pull away, to draw back into the dark and shadows. Her grip on my hand forces me still.
“Walk with me?” she says.
I inhale to refuse. I want to sit in the dark and pray for the earth to swallow me whole.
Instead, I nod. She leads and I follow, and we step out of the crumbling bloodstained room and into the bright lights of the Royal Sector.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Tessa
I don’t know where to take him, but I couldn’t keep standing in that tiny room. The scent of blood and death was thick in the air. I wish we could walk straight out of the sector and get lost in the Wilds, but I already know he won’t leave his brother.
Instead, I lead him toward the palace. The lights out front are bright, the cobblestones glistening. Horses and carriages still clatter over the cobblestones despite the late hour, as messages about the explosions are sent and elites come and go. When Harristan’s guard led me out of the palace, the halls were busy with activity, and I doubt that’s changed much.
I don’t want to think about what Corrick has done. There’s blood all over him, so I know it was violent. His blue eyes are hollow and haunted, so I know it was terrible. When we found him in the shadowed chamber of the Hold, a part of me wanted to run screaming—until I saw the anguish in his expression.
“Rocco,” I say quietly. “We can’t go through the main doors. He can’t go through the palace like this.”
“They know what I am,” says Corrick. He still looks flighty, his eyes a bit wild, but there’s an element of challenge to his voice. I wonder if this is how he convinces himself to do the things he does.
I ignore him. “Maybe a back entrance?” I say to the guard.
“No,” says Corrick.
“We could enter through the servants’ entrance,” says Rocco. “The day staff is gone. There are washrooms and fresh linens.”
“No.” Corrick seems to draw himself up, but he’s glaring at Rocco, not at me. “I will not sneak into the palace.”
I can’t tell how much of this is defiance and how much is some form of self-preservation. Either way, I should let him do whatever he wants. He’s the prince, and I’m . . . no one. But I’ve only been here a day and I know how much rumor and appearances matter, and I know that right now, he can’t afford to appear weak. Walking through the palace covered in blood certainly doesn’t seem like a vision of strength. I consider the note in his voice when he realized I was with Rocco and not his brother.
“Would the king want you to be seen this way?” I say.
“Do I look so terrible, Tessa?” he says.
Yes. But not in the way he means. “You look . . . desperate.”
That seems to hit him like a dart. The fight drains from his eyes. “Fine.”
The servants’ entrance is the same locked passageway I used when I first came to the palace, and it’s just as deserted as it was when I snuck into the back stairwell. The washroom is massive, with electric lights and running water, and several large tubs. I see stacks and stacks of folded linens and a massive hearth and realize this is a room for laundry.
Well, of course. I wouldn’t expect anyone in the palace to be scrubbing fabrics in the stream or hanging tunics in the sunlight. In the corner is a dress form with a maid’s frock pinned to it, with a few sewing tables and yards of fabric strewn about. A long mirror is bolted to the wall, and Corrick walks past it on his way to one of the wash basins. I watch as his step falters and his eyes shy away, but he doesn’t stop moving.
“Your Highness,” says Rocco. “Shall I call for a steward?”
“No. Guard the door.” He tugs at the buttons of his jacket just as fiercely.
I hover between the doorway and the basin. I don’t know if he wants me to wait in the hall with the guard or if I should go back to my room—or if I should stay right here.
I don’t know what I want to do.
“Why did you come looking for me?” he asks. His voice is a bit husky but a bit angry, too. “Did you think you could stop me?”
“I knew you wouldn’t stop yourself.”
His hands freeze on the buttons, and it’s only then that I realize he’s trembling.
I step over to him and place my fingers over his, tugging a button free.
“Stop,” he says. “I can unbutton my coat.”
I smack his fingers hard, like he’s a child who’s been told not to touch the hot stove but does it anyway. I think I shock him, because he jerks them away.
I sigh and pull the next button free. The fabric is tacky, and I try to ignore why, keeping my eyes on what I’m doing.
“If you know I can see through all your illusions,” I say softly, “you might as well stop trying to throw them in my path. I know who you are. I know what you’ve done.” I glance up, and I can’t decide if I hate him or if I pity him—or something else altogether. “I see you. I see what this is doing to you. Has done to you.”
He goes very still, but his breathing sounds shallow. He blinks, and to my absolute shock, his eyes fill.
He must realize it at the same time, because he jerks back, turning away, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Lord, Tessa.”
Seeing his ready emotion summons my own, and I feel my chest tighten. He looked broken in the chamber of the Hold. He looks broken now, like sheer strength of will is all that’s holding him together.
I touch his arm, and he jolts. His hands drop to his sides, forming fists the way they did in the shadowed chamber. His eyes are red-rimmed but dry. “Stop,” he says.
The word sounds like a warning. A plea.
I stop.
He has all the power here, but he faces me like I do. He doesn’t want to admit what he’s done, and I don’t want to ask, but the question is strung between us and someone has to grab hold. I have to clear my throat to speak. “Did you kill those prisoners?”
He doesn’t look away, and he doesn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
The silence that follows that word fills the room until there’s no air left to breathe. I think of Consul Sallister, who was so terrible at dinner, and the control he has over Corrick and Harristan. The control he has over the entire country.
I think of King Harristan’s voice when he said that the King’s Justice can’t be lenient when people are bombing the prison.
Killing people is wrong. I feel that to my core. I couldn’t kill the king when I had the opportunity—not even when I was certain he deserved it. But like the king said, the penalties for smuggling are well known. Some of the people in the Hold were true smuggle
rs—but some weren’t. Bombing the Hold was wrong, too.
Does any of that excuse Corrick’s actions?
I can tell he doesn’t think so. He wears the guilt like a mantle. I thought that all his power lay in his role here, as King’s Justice, but it doesn’t.
The only power he had was in the Wilds, as Wes.
And now that’s gone.
I swallow. “What happened?”
“You heard Allisander.”
“Yes. I did. What happened?”
He doesn’t answer for so long that I think he’s not going to. But then he says, “They were badly burned in the explosion.” His voice is rough, like he’s swallowed fire. “Hardly conscious. They weren’t captured. They couldn’t have escaped.” He runs a hand through his hair, and it must be sticky because he grimaces and yanks it free. He’s not looking at me now. “They wouldn’t have survived the night.”
“Why—” My voice cracks, and I take a breath to steady it. “Why are you—why are you—” I gesture at his clothing, and my breath shudders. “There’s so much blood.”
“Because I wanted it to be fast.” His eyes meet mine now, and I’m sure he’s seeing the horror in my expression. “I needed it to be fast.”
There’s a note in his voice that I can’t quite figure out, but my heart must be ahead of my brain, because my pulse begins to ease, the panic draining out of my chest before I understand: he didn’t want to do it, but if he had to, he was going to make it as quick and painless as possible.
In a way that looked as brutal as possible.
They wouldn’t have survived the night.
He made an execution out of an act of mercy.
I wonder how many times he’s had to do that. How many times he’s had to choose the lesser of two evils, because the option was to execute a prisoner or to watch more people die for lack of medicine. It’s a terrible choice to have to make. A terrible position.
I think back to the moment we were poring over maps, when the tiniest bit of hope flickered in the air. I wonder if the explosions burned it out, if there’s nothing left.
“Don’t pity me,” Corrick says. “If you pity anyone, pity them.”
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