Nightborn: Totally addictive fantasy fiction (The Hollow King Book 2)

by Jessica Thorne

  ‘But what if it—’

  She felt his powers kindling inside him, fell the wave of it building around her. ‘I won’t let you hurt anyone.’

  What else could she do? He was right. They couldn’t leave it there for someone else to find. She couldn’t give it to someone else with the Deep Dark infesting it. She had to be ready for what might happen and so did he.

  ‘If you’re sure,’ she whispered, knowing there was no choice. Only Ellyn had a chance against it. And she couldn’t ask that of her friend. It was her burden.

  When she picked the warrant up it was cold and dead, depleted. Not even a hint of power in it. She put it back around her neck and tried to breathe evenly. Bastien held out a hand and she took it. Together, they made their way down the stairs and out into the early morning’s cold light. They walked across the yard and Grace waited. Waited for something to happen. Waited for him to speak. Eventually they sat side by side on the low wall as the dawn slid up in the sky behind the inn.

  ‘I saw Lucien Larelwynn,’ Bastien told her. ‘I spoke to him. I remembered. I saw what happened to me. Grace… I wasn’t always the Hollow King… I was human, once.’

  Her heart lurched inside her. It was a distillation of every nightmare he’d ever confessed to her, since they had discovered what he had once been, and what the Hollow King’s crown could make of him again. ‘Of course you’re human, Bastien.’

  ‘No… I mean… I was, I was a boy, Lucien’s friend and… and maybe more. And I was killed. The Hollow King killed me as part of the pact because there had to be…’ His voice trailed off and he choked on the words.

  ‘A sacrifice,’ she whispered.

  ‘Someone… something to hold all that power. The Hollow King. Me. Or whatever… whatever I am.’

  Grace pulled him into her arms. He buried his face into her shoulder and she held him for as long as she could.

  She didn’t want to let him go.

  And she didn’t want to think about what had just happened to her. She didn’t want anyone to ask. If he had become the Hollow King, what did that make her?

  The Deep Dark had overwhelmed her so easily but it hadn’t only come from the warrant. That was only its way out, the door. The darkness had come from inside her.

  Silence swept over them, awkward and unsure. The breeze turned cold.

  Grace couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched, of something lurking behind her, following her every move. Bastien’s arms around her should have been a comfort. But they weren’t. His hands slid down her shoulders, along her muscles. She couldn’t handle tenderness from him, not now.

  He hugged her and didn’t let go. ‘We will find a way, my love.’

  My love. Those two words meant more to her than she could possibly articulate. ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘It’s not gone, Bastien. The power in the warrant might be dormant for now but I can feel it still inside me, waiting for a chance to get out again.’

  He smiled at her. A heartbroken, regretful smile. ‘So do I.’

  He bent to kiss her, his lips soft but demanding, and she responded, indulging in this forbidden pleasure.

  ‘This isn’t an answer,’ she told him when she could catch her breath.

  ‘It’s a question,’ he said, and kissed her again.

  It couldn’t last. They needed to move on. Jehane and Misha appeared first, then Lara, handing them orders about the horses.

  ‘You should check on your wife,’ Grace said. ‘We need to get moving.’

  ‘Grace…’ he breathed. For a moment she wondered if he wanted to argue that Rynn wasn’t his wife, that this was all a misunderstanding, that he loved her… but he didn’t. ‘Thorndale isn’t far now.’

  She shook her head, pushing her hair out of her face. ‘Don’t try to make promises, love. We don’t know how this will turn out.’

  He frowned. He had to understand, he had to. She couldn’t say it out loud, but she didn’t believe in fairy-tale endings. Not any more. She was dangerous to him. Dangerous to all of them. She was barely holding onto herself by her fingernails. And if she lost control again…

  When she left, he didn’t come after her. And that was what she wanted, wasn’t it? Asher was right, she was his weakness. Now more than ever. The Deep Dark knew it too.

  She was about to go through the door to the guardroom when she heard Ellyn speaking.

  ‘It wasn’t her fault. I felt it when I took the necklace off her. I heard it inside me. All those voices, all that power, constantly clawing at me… Divinities, Danny… it was… it was a fucking nightmare.’

  ‘I’ve never seen her like that. Do you think… do you think Bastien can fix her?’ Daniel didn’t sound convinced. Daniel, of all people, who had always been on her side.

  ‘Him?’ Ellyn scoffed. ‘He causes the problems rather than fixing anything. Anyway, it’s not about fixing someone. There’s no way to fix that.’

  ‘He can do it. You didn’t see—’

  ‘I saw everything you saw. And more… I felt that power. It burrowed under my skin like acid. It almost destroyed me. How long has she been wearing it? There’s something wrong with her, Danny. Don’t tell me you—’

  Grace cleared her throat and they both looked up, guilt spreading all over their faces the moment they saw her.

  Ellyn sat on her bed, and slowly dropped her head into her hands with a mortified groan. Daniel sat beside her, his arm around her, and, as Grace watched, his eyes closed in dismay.

  Her friends. Her oldest friends. The only ones she thought she could always rely on.

  ‘Sorry, Grace,’ he said. ‘She didn’t mean…’

  Grace heaved in a breath. There was no point in having an argument. Ellyn was probably right. She usually was. She won every bet she ever made.

  ‘It’s okay. There is something wrong. I’m trying to keep it under control. It’s not far to Thorndale now. Bastien says he can stop it there.’

  ‘Stop it, how?’ Daniel asked. ‘Wave his hand and make it all go away?’

  ‘It’s where it all began,’ Ellyn replied. ‘Where Larelwynn made the pact…’

  Thorndale, the pact and the sacrifice Lucien Larelwynn made with Bastien… Grace didn’t share her own doubts about that. Neither did they. But they were still going there, as if the place drew him inexorably home. All of them perhaps. Or at least she hoped they were still coming with her.

  Ellyn frowned.

  ‘I’m sorry, Grace. This stuff… magic and royal blood and—’ Ellyn began and stopped when Daniel laughed. She glared at him. ‘What?’

  ‘Our Ellyn’s a princess.’

  Ellyn couldn’t have looked more shocked if he’d kissed her. ‘No I’m not. Fuck off, Danny.’

  The mood shivered into something almost familiar. Grace sat down on the other side, the three of them perched on the narrow cot.

  ‘Shush now, you shouldn’t use language like that when you’re a princess,’ she chided.

  From somewhere she found a smile. A real one. So did Daniel. Her friends, the ones she needed more than anyone else.

  Ellyn threw back her head with a guttural groan of dismay. ‘I’m not a… Divinities, you’re never going to let this go, are you?’

  ‘No. Absolutely not,’ Daniel said with a grin. ‘Princess Ellyn. What is Kurt going to say? A princess and a duchess. I’m moving up in the world. Wait, can I be an earl? No… a count…’

  ‘Something like that anyway.’ Ellyn shoved him away, but gently, half-heartedly. ‘My dad… my dad was always saying one of his great-grandmothers was – ugh, it’s ridiculous. Look at me.’

  ‘Yeah, look at you, gorgeous Valenti specimen that you are,’ Daniel told her, nudging her side. ‘From what I’ve seen you’d shake their stupid monarchy to their foundations. That would be worth watching, wouldn’t it? They’re all inbred and weird anyway. Like Rynn would break if you—’

  Someone cleared their throat pointedly in the door
way, just as Grace had done. Bastien was standing there, with Rynn right behind him.

  ‘We’re ready to go,’ he said, coldly. Rynn stared at the floor, avoiding eye contact, her cheeks red. Bastien took her arm and they swept on outside. And just like that the good humour was doused with a new wave of ice-cold guilt.

  ‘Where was she last night?’ Daniel asked. ‘While it was all going on? Where did she get to?’

  Ellyn got up and grabbed her pack, avoiding meeting his eyes as completely as Rynn had. ‘She was hiding in her room, under the bed.’

  ‘You know that how?’

  ‘I told her to slide underneath it and stay there. She… she’s okay. Leave her alone.’

  Daniel stared. ‘She’s what now?’

  ‘She’s okay. She’s terrified. Her family are all bastards. She doesn’t want to cause trouble, and she hates what she’s done to you, Grace, but… let up on her, Danny.’

  ‘I thought she bothered you,’ Daniel asked.

  ‘Stop, Danny,’ Grace said. He never knew when to stop. She understood now what Ellyn thought of Rynn, and why she bothered her.

  ‘That’s what she said,’ he protested.

  ‘Yeah. I did.’ Ellyn pushed out of the door past them and they could only follow, Daniel utterly bewildered. ‘But I know what she was hiding now. And it’s not so terrible a thing. Maybe it is to her family. Not to me. Besides, we all have secrets. Don’t we?’

  The road they took headed through rolling hillside, and beyond it the mountains on the border loomed closer, snow remaining on the tops. There was a chill to the breeze but the winter was some months past. One more day, Lara estimated, and they’d reach Thorndale.

  What then? Grace didn’t know. She didn’t want to ask.

  Bastien rode ahead again, with Rynn beside him. All appearances were restored, everything back in the perfect image of royal procession that Lara insisted upon. Ellyn followed them closely, keeping an eye on both. Larelwynns, Grace thought. All three of them. Even if Ellyn denied it. But none of it sat right. Why was that bloodline so special? Why did everything keep revolving back to them and why did so many people die around them?

  One thing was certain, whatever happened at Thorndale, it wouldn’t be pretty. Grace just needed to keep them alive. Now more than ever since an unkind fate had dragged Ellyn in.

  ‘Grace?’ Daniel and Misha came up on either side of her, their horses huffing away at the brief exertion. ‘We were talking.’

  She glanced from one to the other. ‘That’s ominous.’

  ‘About what Bastien said. And the… the thing in you… what it said. About there being two boys, not just Lucien Larelwynn. But Bastien as well.’

  Grace didn’t want to think about that either. Blood, sacrifice, Larelwynns… all the things that were troubling her. ‘And?’

  ‘There is a story,’ Misha said. ‘A song really. From that time. But it wasn’t encouraged.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The royal family made it pretty clear that singing it and sharing it would be punished. Early on. They had some pretty imaginative ways of dealing with performers who disobeyed. Tongues cut out, fingers chopped off, charming stuff.’

  ‘But you still learned it?’

  He gave her an amused smile. ‘Not just me. Do you know what harpers are for, Captain?’

  ‘I imagine the clue is in the name?’ Daniel laughed, but Misha tilted his head to one side, watching her, waiting.

  ‘What are harpers for then?’ Grace said, humouring him.

  ‘To preserve memory. Even the things some people would prefer forgotten. That’s easiest with songs. They can be passed on, shared, never really stamped out. One day such information might be necessary. Like now.’

  ‘What do you know?’

  ‘There’s a song – “The Prince and the Guardsman”. It’s from the mountains, from this very region. In it the prince goes on a quest to save his people and his faithful guardsman goes with him. They’re both young and the prince is often foolish but the guardsman is loyal and does his duty, time and again, saving the prince. He cheats death twice. He’s buried alive as well. But each time he comes back, to serve and protect his prince. They fall in love. But when they reach the end of the quest, there has to be a sacrifice and only the two of them are there. It can’t be the prince. The guardsman gives his life. It’s an amazing verse.’ He hummed a melody and then sang in his sweet voice. ‘For this is my final wish, to lay my head beside yours, to bend my knee before you, to spill my blood on the cold hard ground, three times dead, twice entombed.’

  Something cold and hard in equal parts knotted inside Grace’s chest. It crawled up through her body to make a lump in her throat and squeeze at her stinging eyes. It was so sad. So horribly sad. She remembered the tune, remembered Misha singing it in Iliz and a few other times. And those words…

  ‘But it doesn’t say it’s Lucien Larelwynn,’ Daniel said. ‘The prince, I mean.’

  ‘No. But his family were the ones to suppress it,’ muttered Misha. ‘His son Anders, actually. Anders the Great… well… Anders the Bastard more like.’ Given Anders was Lucien’s son and must have been the first to change the nature of the pact to Bastien’s unknowing enslavement, Grace was inclined to agree. But there was more information hidden in that song, things which explained what Bastien had seen.

  ‘They killed the guardsman and the Hollow King took his body,’ she murmured. ‘Or the body became the thing to hold the power of the Hollow King. And because Bastien couldn’t remember, Lucien lived with that all his life. He lost his love, but not his memories. He spent his whole life looking at Bastien, knowing that. Knowing the man who loved him was dead and a god walked in his body instead.’

  ‘That’s the romantic view of it, I suppose,’ said Daniel. The bitterness in his voice made her look at him again.

  ‘And the unromantic?’

  Daniel shrugged. ‘He was a guard, a grunt, same as you and me. Dispensable. His job was to die when his king required it of him. Like us. So he did. At least he got to choose when, I suppose.’

  The words made Grace shiver. She looked ahead again, at Bastien’s back. She wanted to ask him. She wanted to know what he thought but, honestly, she didn’t dare. She was terrified of the answer she would get.

  And another darker thought occurred to her. Bastien, the Lord of Thorns, the Hollow King, was heading back to Thorndale with two women bearing the same blood as the king who had trapped him in that form. Whose family had wiped his memory time and time again and hidden what he really was from him for their own ends. Would he let one of them die to save her? Not the Bastien she knew, surely. But this one, this new king, this man who had seen the darkness in her and others, who had purged it and now felt it his duty to save the world from the nightborn and the Deep Dark? She was beginning to wonder if there was anything he wouldn’t do to stop it. No sacrifice he would not make.

  Of all the people here, she, Daniel and Misha were definitely dispensable.

  She’d died for him. She’d been buried.

  Maybe… maybe the Hollow King had plans of his own.

  Chapter 25

  Zavi, the Master Atelier of the Academy, stood very still, with his arms folded, staring at the pile of glittering treasures on the workbench.

  ‘Well?’ Kurt asked.

  ‘Well what?’ Zavi didn’t offer Kurt so much as a glance. From the doorway opposite, Melia rolled her eyes but said nothing. Kurt had expected more gratitude from Master Atelier Zavi after they’d rescued him from the Temple, at least. Perhaps even a little interest?

  Syl shifted on his feet, looking more nervous than Kurt had ever seen him. ‘Can you use them?’

  Zavi glanced once at Syl, who turned scarlet, then back to Kurt. His expression was unreadable. ‘Use them to do what, Mr Parry?’

  The Mr Parry thing rankled. It always did, no matter who said it, but Zavi’s tone was the worst of all. He didn’t need to sound so much like a school master. Kurt – in
the few brief years he had bothered with what passed for a formal education in Eastferry – had not taken kindly to teachers. Daniel was the one eager to learn. Kurt had already been sure he knew everything there was to know. He was usually right.

  Now he was not so sure.

  ‘It’s everything we could gather that has some way of controlling mageborn. Some of it’s really old, or really rare. Some of it… well, we had to get inside the palace and the Temple for it.’

  Zavi nodded. ‘And luckily you found me as well. Those were sewers we escaped through, weren’t they?’

  Kurt shrugged. He didn’t need gratitude. He wasn’t sure he was likely to get it anyway. ‘People forget what’s underneath this city.’

  ‘But not you, I see. And this is how I repay you, I suppose. Give you ways to enslave mageborn?’

  Oh. That was what he thought.

  ‘Master Atelier, no! That’s not—’ Syl began but Zavi lifted a single finger and Syl’s voice fell away. He lowered his gaze, stricken.

  For a moment Kurt couldn’t think of a thing to say in response, either to the accusation or Syl’s cowed obedience. Once a master always a master, Kurt supposed.

  ‘Your reputation goes before you, Kurt,’ Melia said, the tone just teasing enough that it broke the shock.

  He let out a long breath and fought to keep calm. ‘That’s not what I’m looking for. I’m trying to help people here.’

  ‘Of course you are,’ the Atelier replied in a tone that said he didn’t believe it for a moment. ‘But which people?’

  Damn it, when had he acquired a reputation for enslaving mageborn? Mostly he hid them, helped them or got them out of this godforsaken shithole. Silently, quietly, without a trace. And because of that he was some kind of monster?

  ‘Grace never said you were as bloody-minded as she is.’

  Zavi frowned at the mention of her name. ‘Grace? Grace Marchant?’ He sounded surprised.

  ‘Of course Grace Marchant. How many other Graces do you know as stubborn as a mule with a sore head? Danny’s my brother. You did know that, didn’t you? I thought the whole Academy knew that and never let him forget it. Or has imprisonment made your memory as rusty as your skills?’