“I remember that,” I say softly, and I do. The mother had the fever all through her pregnancy, but she kept taking the teas we brought, and the baby was born perfectly healthy. But within a week, the infant had a fever, and she succumbed to the cough right in front of us. I swallow. “He was filthy because he helped the father dig a grave.”
“Yes,” says Quint. “He told me. He told me everything.” He glances at Harristan. “He was helping his people, Your Majesty. How is that treason?”
The weight in the room is potent.
Harristan runs a hand over the back of his neck. “I hate that he wouldn’t tell me.”
“He couldn’t—”
Harristan silences me with a look. “I know,” he says evenly. “I know what he risked.” He looks at Quint. “You should have told me.”
Quint says nothing. He doesn’t look afraid. He looks resigned.
I glare at the king. “You don’t make it easy to tell you anything at all,” I say.
“Tessa,” breathes Quint.
“I’m not just talking about Quint,” I continue. “I’m talking about Corrick, too. You said you know what he risked, but I’m not sure you do. He let those rebels beat him nearly to death because he didn’t want to be used against you. He was willing to sacrifice his life to protect you. He doesn’t want to be cruel. He doesn’t want to kill anyone. He does these things to spare you from doing them. He wants to be honest and he wants to be just and he wants to be better. Not just for you. For all of Kandala. And you—well, you are a—”
“Tessa.”
It’s not Quint’s voice this time. It’s Corrick’s. He stands in the doorway, Rocco at his back. He’s a bit pale, the bruises on his face stark in the artificial light here in the palace. His hand is braced on the doorframe, his knuckles white where he grips the wood.
“Corrick,” I whisper.
He limps to the table, and I stand to help him, but he stops by my side. He brushes the back of his uninjured hand against mine, looping our fingers together, causing my heart to skip a beat. But his eyes are on the king. “You should be questioning Arella and Roydan, not chasing down my pastimes.”
Harristan looks from Corrick to Rocco. “What happened? Why are you here?”
“Allisander came to my cell. He said he plans to force you to make an example of me, or he and the other consuls will stand against you. He says he has enough of a force to pull it off.”
The king’s expression darkens. “He grows too bold.”
“I agree. Which is why he’s locked in a cell.”
“Corrick! You cannot—”
“This is beyond bold, Harristan. This is revolution, and it’s coming from all sides. I don’t know who he’s working with, but he’s talking about an attempt to remove you from power. The rebels in the Wilds have explosives from Trader’s Landing. We have no idea how they were able to get enough into the sector to attack the Hold, which means they could attack any other part of the sector, including the palace. We have no idea which consuls will ally with Sallister—or if they would even stand with us against a rebellion.”
I glance between him and the king. “You said Consul Sallister has his own army.”
“He does,” says Harristan. “Consul Marpetta has quite a force protecting Emberridge as well, but Lissa has always seemed content with the status quo.” He looks at Quint. “Which consuls are in the palace?”
“Nearly all of them,” says Quint. “Lissa Marpetta is the only one who returned to her sector.”
“The people of Artis are struggling,” I say. “I don’t know of any military force, and when I worked for Mistress Solomon, we would have heard of such a thing.”
“He wanted silver for a bridge,” says Corrick. “Allisander said we should have granted it. Remember when you told me that in public is all that matters? You were talking about me and Allisander—but I think they’re pretending to hate each other. I think Jonas is working with him.”
The king looks at him. “But they do—” He breaks off with a cough. His fingers grip the edge of the table.
All the men exchange a glance, and Harristan doesn’t miss it. He glares at Corrick. “Stop it. I’ve told you before, I don’t need—” He coughs again.
“Here,” I say. I seize the teapot and pour hot water into a china cup, then add honey. I don’t have a scale, but I toss a few petals into the mortar bowl to grind them up. But as soon as I see the petals against the stone, I hesitate.
Harristan coughs again.
“Tessa,” says Corrick.
“Hold on. I need to think.” I glance up, surveying the array of food. There are no vallis lilies this time, but there are sprigs of thyme on the edge of one of the platters.
I shake the petals out onto the dark tablecloth, grind the thyme, and add it to the cup with the honey. “Here,” I say to Harristan. “Drink that.” Then I look back at the white petals.
“What are you doing?” says Corrick.
“The petals are different.” I quickly divvy them up. “Look.” I point. “Those are clearly Moonflower. Those are . . . I’m not sure.”
“They are very similar,” says Quint. Even Rocco draws close for a look.
“The petals were like this in the rebel camp, too,” I say. I feel like I’m close to figuring something out, but I’m not quite there. “The ones they would have gotten from the Benefactors.”
Corrick’s expression is grave. “Or the ones they would have gotten from stolen shipments.” He pauses. “They’re very close, Tessa. This could be a growing anomaly, or—”
“No! You were never the one to grind and measure. But there’s never been a . . . a growing anomaly.” I pause. “Corrick, you once said you never stole from the palace. Maybe—maybe—” My thoughts trip and stumble as I try to figure this out. “I need my books. My father used to keep track of new herbs.”
Harristan coughs again, but it’s not as strong. “What does this mean?”
“You drink the elixir here three times a day. What if . . .” My thoughts churn. “What if someone realized you don’t really need as much? If you were sickly as a child, maybe you really do need more to keep the fevers at bay, but if someone is tampering with your supply . . .” I let my voice trail off.
“Wake the consuls,” says Harristan. His voice is rough. “We need to determine which shipment these petals came from. We need to determine if the supply was contaminated, or if someone—”
A shout echoes from the hallway, and he freezes. Another shout, followed by a crash, and then splintering wood. Then a woman’s scream.
Harristan and Corrick exchange a glance. Rocco goes for the door.
An explosion rocks the palace, causing the floor to shake and the china to rattle. The lights flare with blinding brightness before dying altogether, plunging the room into sudden flickering shadows from the hearth. Shouts and screams erupt in the hallway before another explosion occurs, somehow closer, making the windows rattle.
“Guards!” a man is shouting, but my heartbeat is so loud in my ears that everything is muffled. I’m distantly aware of a hand closing over my wrist, pulling me through the shadows. Something is burning, somewhere, a scent distinctly different from wood smoke, a bitter taste in the back of my throat.
Another explosion, and the windows shatter. I jump and scream.
Hands catch me, pulling me close. “Tessa.” Corrick’s voice in my ear, low and urgent. “Tessa, we have to run.”
Then I hear the voices, the shouts in the hallway. Many are panicked, people terrified of the explosions.
Some are not.
“Find the king,” a man yells, and I’m not sure how I can tell, but it’s not a guard.
“Shoot anyone you see,” calls another.
Smoke is filling the hallway now, and I hear glass shattering. A woman’s scream is abruptly silenced. Corrick tugs at my hand, and I follow into the darkness.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Corrick
I knew revolution
would find us.
I didn’t expect it to be so soon.
I didn’t expect it to be from all sides.
Alarms blare in the sector, but I have no way of knowing if they’ve attacked anything more than the palace. After Allisander’s comments, I don’t even know if this attack is the work of rebels or consuls.
The hallways are full of smoke and darkness, but I can sense movement, and I can hear the shouts and fighting. We have the advantage of invisibility, but so do they. I keep the wall at my back and head right, away from the noise. I’ve lost track of Rocco and the guards who were in the hallway, but Harristan and Quint are somewhere ahead of me. Tessa grips tight to my hand.
“This guard’s got the king’s mark,” calls a man. “He must be close.”
I freeze. Tessa’s fingers bite into my palm. I don’t dare say Harristan’s name.
The voices fall silent, and I know this is not a good sign. They’re hoping to use the darkness against us. The smoke tickles my throat, and I try to breathe shallow breaths.
Harristan coughs.
“There!” shouts a man, and I hear the swip of a crossbow. It hits something, but I have no idea what. A man cries out ahead of me.
A rush in the darkness tells me an enemy has drawn close, and I leap forward to tackle them. An elbow drives into my ribs, and my earlier injuries scream at me. We crash to the ground, and I realize I’m not going to be fast enough to do anything but die.
But then the body is jerked away from me, and I hear the unmistakable sound of a blade piercing flesh, followed by a body hitting the floor beside me. A man groans. There’s a scuffle, and I roll just before a booted foot strikes my shoulder. Something—someone—hits the wall with a sickening thud.
I brace my hands against the wall, waiting for a clue about what just happened.
“Corrick?” Tessa’s voice cries out from the darkness. “Corrick.”
A hand brushes my shoulder, and I jerk away. It’s too much fast movement at once, and I have to brace a hand against the floor. I inhale a lungful of smoke and cough.
“Your Highness?” Rocco. His voice is closer, and I realize it was his blade that rescued me, his hand that found me in the darkness.
“I’m all right. Harristan?”
He doesn’t answer, but he coughs again, hard.
“We have to get out of the corridor,” calls Quint, and his voice sounds more distant.
I find my knees, then the wall again. “Get to my quarters,” I call. My room is along the back wall of the palace, which hopefully hasn’t taken as many hits as the front half. I have ropes in my chest to go out the window, but I don’t want to shout that into the darkness.
Crawling through the smoke seems to take an hour, but no further voices cry out in the dark. But then my hand finds the familiar edge of a doorjamb, and we push through the doorway.
At first I’m not entirely sure it’s my quarters. The lights here are as dead as they are in the rest of the palace, and while the smoke is nowhere near as dense as it was in the hallway, the room is still cloudy with a haze, even though a fire burns low in the hearth. But my stinging eyes begin to adjust, and I can make out my side table, my bed, the low chest along the wall.
I can make out Harristan, who’s not still coughing, but I can hear his wheezing from here. Quint, who’s got a hand braced against the wall. The guards Rocco and Thorin, who are already dragging a chest of drawers in front of the door.
Tessa, whose eyes are full of questions I can’t answer.
“Who?” says Harristan between gasps.
“I don’t know,” I say truthfully. I look at the guards. “Could you tell?”
“Just men,” says Thorin.
“With crossbows,” says Quint, and a strain in his voice forces me to look back over. That hand braced against the wall is leaving a dark handprint, and his jacket is unbuttoned, showing a spreading stain near his waist.
“Quint!” I say in alarm. I remember the sound of that first arrow hitting something when Harristan coughed.
Quint waves me off. “I’ll be fine.”
The doorknob rattles, and Thorin and Rocco exchange a glance, just before something heavy slams into the door. The chest of drawers gives half an inch before they both brace against it.
Tessa looks at me. “Can we go out the window again?”
I limp to the back wall and peer out into the darkness. In the distance, Stonehammer’s Arch is blazing against the night, but the palace grounds are pitch-dark. The alarms in the sector are loud and relentless, and smoke fills the air every way I turn.
The rope Tessa and I used to escape is still pooled on the floor by the window, triple knotted around the ironwork along the sill.
Something heavy slams against the door again. Wood cracks, and the chest of drawers whines against the floor. Rocco swears.
Tessa appears at my side. “Can you climb?”
“Yes,” I say confidently. Though . . . I probably can’t. Even if I can bear the weight of a rope around my boot, my shoulder will never be able to support my weight. Then again, I’d rather free-fall out this window than take an arrow in the face, which seems like more of a certainty if we don’t get out of here.
My brother has crossed the room as well, and he coughs again as he peers out into the darkness with me, then inhales deeply of the night air.
“Harristan, do you remember how to climb—”
“I taught you, Cory,” he gasps. He takes hold of the rope.
“One of us should go first, Your Majesty,” calls Rocco. Wood splinters as the rebels slam into the door again.
“Then hurry,” I say. I head for the chest of drawers and brace my shoulder against it. I don’t know how many men are on the other side, but it must be half a dozen. “Go, Thorin.”
“No!” calls Harristan.
“You’re the king,” I say. “Go. Get out.”
Thorin disappears out the window, followed swiftly by my brother. Tessa and Quint are both beside the window.
“Go,” I say to them. Another slam against the door. Flaming cloths are shoved through the opening this time, landing on the chest and catching almost immediately.
“No,” calls Quint. “Corrick, you’re—”
“Go!” I shout at him. My bad ankle keeps threatening to give out, and I have to readjust my shoulder against the chest. Flames feel close, and I’m afraid to look to see how close. I grit my teeth against the pain and the heat. “Go now, Quint. Go, Tessa.”
The rebels slam into the door again. More wood splinters. The wall has caught fire behind me. I can hear shouts.
Quint and Tessa go out the window.
I look over at Rocco, braced against the chest like I am. Sweat threads his hair and drips down his cheeks.
“Run, Your Highness,” he says. “I’ll buy you time.”
“You go,” I gasp, trying to hold my grip as the chest begins to shift along the floor. “Go after them. Harristan will need another guard.”
He gives me a withering look, but before he can say anything, I add, “That’s an order, Rocco.”
“I can’t leave you here.”
“Well, I can’t run.” I give a humorless laugh. The chest slips another inch, and I choke on my breath. “And I can’t climb.” Another inch, and I press my forehead against the chest. The room is filling with smoke, and I know I won’t be able to hold this door much longer. “Please, Rocco.”
“Very well, Your Highness.”
He lets go of the chest. It skids six inches, and I cry out. I had no idea he was holding so much weight. Men shout in victory on the other side of the door. I’m not going to be able to hold this much longer—or it’s not going to matter, because they’ll be able to get through the space.
I should have told Rocco to leave me a weapon.
Then again, maybe quicker is better.
An arm hooks under mine, pulling me away from the chest, lifting me to my feet, dragging me forward. I trip over myself for a few feet before I re
alize Rocco is supporting my weight, half carrying me across the floor.
“I told you to go,” I say.
“Execute me later.” He takes hold of the rope. “Can you hold on to me?”
The door explodes inward. Rocco doesn’t wait for an answer and swings us onto the rope, and for a terrifying moment, the world spins wildly, the flaming arch swirling through my vision. The rope brushes my fingers, and I grab hold with my strong hand, trying to support some of my own weight, but we still descend too quickly. Rocco’s legs hit the palace wall as he rappels downward.
I hear the swip before I recognize the sound, and in the darkness below, Tessa cries out. A man is in the window with a crossbow.
“Run!” I cry. “Tessa, run!” She should have gone with Harristan. She shouldn’t be here.
The rope jerks, and Rocco swears. We bounce against the wall one more time.
Then the rope gives altogether.
We hit the ground. It hurts spectacularly. I try to roll, as if that will somehow make it hurt less, but it doesn’t.
“Corrick.” Tessa’s voice, low and desperate in my ear. “Corrick, you have to get up.”
Swip. I feel the rush of an arrow near my head, but I can’t move. I hear a crossbow snap close by, and I flinch, but I blink and realize it’s Thorin and Rocco, returning fire. Men above are arguing, shouting at each other about who cut the rope.
Then I’m lifted again. Someone has an arm under mine. My vision goes spotty, flaring with light. Flames have erupted from dozens of windows along the back wall of the palace. The alarms keep blaring, and I want to lie down right here. I don’t know who has me, but if it’s Rocco, I’ll have to stop hating him.
Then I hear Harristan’s voice in my ear, rough and ragged. “Race you to the gate?”
It’s a taunt from when we were children. His voice is so low and close that I realize he’s the one holding me up. I blink at him. His face is smudged with soot, but his eyes are dark with concern. “You’ll win this time,” I say.
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