by Sara Holland
I don’t think my brother could stop the doorway from opening anymore even if he wanted to. He straightens up, shaking, pale and small against the chaos that has filled the room. The wineglasses that I’ve spent so many hours washing and drying and hanging whip off their racks and shatter against the wall. The chairs along the side of the room shake and tip over. Paintings and mirrors crash from the walls. I see one slip through the liquefying floor.
Suddenly Taya is there, in the center of the room. She has Nahteran by the arm; she hauls him across the heaving floor to the side of the room where I stand, clinging to the outer wall for support as everything shakes. Nahteran is wearing the phoenix flame armor. Beneath Marcus’s coat, I can see one gauntlet on each wrist and the golden breastplate shimmers with a red stain, Byrnisian blood.
I feel like I’m spiraling. Falling.
This isn’t how it was supposed to go.
“What is this?” Taya screams, shaking Nahteran by the collar.
He’s a foot taller than her, but he doesn’t stop her or react. Instead, he just wraps an arm around a pillar to stay upright.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
The howling wind steals his words, but I can read his lips.
“The trade isn’t supposed to be in Havenfall,” I cry, shell-shocked. “Nahteran, what are you doing?”
“They planned this,” Taya says furiously, keeping one hand fisted in Nahteran’s jacket, even though he’s not trying to go anywhere. “You and the Silver Prince. Didn’t you?”
He hesitates for a second, and then nods, the motion almost lost in the upheaval all around us. My heart plummets, all the hope and happiness evaporating out of it.
Brekken was right.
Nahteran betrayed us. Again.
Then—
“It’s not what you think,” he yells.
One of the ballroom windows blows out behind him; he ducks, his arm to his face against the broken glass. Outside, trees sway, caught in the gale. The wind and crashing have intensified so much that when Nahteran speaks again, he has to almost scream to be heard.
“He told me it had to be here in Havenfall, or he wouldn’t come. But he doesn’t know about the trick armor. This can still work.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” I ask, confused and impossibly hurt, so hurt it feels like a void has opened up in my chest to match the one forming beneath our feet.
I can feel the wood changing just like it did in Winterkill, turning honey-soft. The soles of my boots sink down. I see silhouettes beneath the floor, upside-down buildings, metallic and strange against a violently red-and-gold sky.
“Because you might not have believed me.” Nahteran stumbles and almost loses his footing as the floor bucks beneath him. “And then there’d be no one to follow the Silver Prince’s instructions and he’d kill Mom.” He clings to the pillar like it’s a life preserver in a thrashing sea. “I swear he doesn’t know about the counterfeit. I swear it.”
“Shut up,” Taya snarls. Her hand whips out to point toward the opening to Oasis, and I see that the nail of her pointer finger has lengthened and darkened, into a blue claw.
“He’s coming.”
Nahteran blanches and hastily buttons his jacket. I don’t know why. It’s warm in the ballroom. Too warm. The hissing intensifies, glittering steam rising up from the opening into the air, and the ground shudders, the transparent part spreading until it’s almost at our feet. I fling my arms out to keep my balance, and Taya grabs me and hauls me back before I fall over the edge. She drops to her knees, bracing herself against the wall, and I do the same.
A warm, metallic-smelling breeze fills the ballroom. Nahteran is standing, still. His expression a mask, impossible to read, his eyes glassy and his jaw set. His gaze stays fixed on the light in the doorway to Byrn. Its center, where the blood fell, is clear as diamonds. I can see Oasis’s buildings and shining empty streets, black shapes in the sky.
Then a figure starts to rise from the opening in the floor. I can see only a silhouette through the dark steam, but I instantly recognize it. I know that pale form, those sharp features and proud posture. I know the Silver Prince.
He steps out into the ballroom, just as calm as if this were another night at the summit, another dance. He wears a crown that I never saw when he was pretending to preserve peace at Havenfall. It’s a circlet of black metal with spikes rising straight up. A long, slender white sword dangles lazily from his fingertips. As I watch, frozen, he raises his hand and sends a thin, silent blast of fire at the doors to the hallway. Melting the filigree from the heavy wood—sealing the doors shut.
“Nahteran,” he says, his voice rising above the hiss of the doorway as though carried by the Oasis air filling the room. His voice is warm, jovial almost, but it still sends a shiver through my bones. “I am glad to see you holding up your end of the bargain. I confess I wasn’t sure if you would.”
I shift my gaze to Nahteran, trying to catch my brother’s eye. The look on his face is awe mixed with fear. It hurts my chest to see his reaction, which seems like a look forged out of years of history, and not good history.
He told us a minute ago that he was still on our side, but I no longer have faith that that’s true. I want to believe it. I just can’t. I push myself to a standing position and grab Taya’s hand, pulling her up too. The ground is still shuddering, but I want to be on my feet if the Silver Prince comes at us with that sword. I draw my own dagger and grip it tight.
Nahteran stands his ground, stepping away from the pillar and drawing his sword. His other hand is fisted at his side, but his voice is calm.
“But you haven’t fulfilled your part yet, Silver Prince,” Nahteran says. “Where is she?”
“Ah.”
I can’t see the Silver Prince’s face, but I’d bet anything he’s smiling that Cheshire cat smile that I fell for so many times before. He turns back and kneels down next to the opening, the transparent doorway frothing and hissing around him. Reaching down into it, his hand disappears into the floor—and then a moment later, he draws it back out wrapped around a woman’s wrist.
And then an arm.
And then Mom.
The Silver Prince pulls her out of the opening like a rag doll and sets her on her feet. She looks uninjured, but I wouldn’t say okay. Her face is sallow and gaunt, her hair cropped short. Her clothes are ragged, and there are metal bands around her wrists and ankles—probably enchanted with binding magic. She stands stiffly, like she’s been hurt.
But her eyes flash with life. It’s strange and jarring to see, when so much else is wrong, when I’m so filled with fear. But a part of Mom is fighting back for the first time in forever, and that gives me just the tiniest spark of hope.
Nahteran looks as shaken as I am. His eyes are fixed on Mom, and he’s leaning forward slightly, like he wants to go to her too.
“Mom,” he whispers, and my heart splinters. “Are you okay?”
Could he have been telling the truth? That he only coordinated with the Silver Prince because he wanted her back?
The Silver Prince taps Mom’s back—a deceptively casual gesture, but Mom stumbles forward from the force of it. I leap to catch her, and as I do—as her weight hits me, making us both stumble back—the Silver Prince seems to notice me for the first time.
And smiles. He sheaths his sword and lifts his hands, palms facing inward. Flames spring up between them, bright and eagerly lapping at the air. My breath catches. This isn’t borrowed magic like with the soul-silver. It belongs to the Silver Prince, is native to him. And using it, he will never tire.
“Madeline.” The Silver Prince’s voice is silky smooth as ever, his manner relaxed despite the chaos all around us. “How nice to see you again.”
His voice isn’t raised, but somehow it cuts through the wind all the same, like the sound waves are boring a tunnel through the air just to reach my ears. Maybe they are; maybe the Silver Prince’s control over the air reaches to a molecular level. I push Mom back behind me. Not that I�
��m much protection. I tighten my grip on the knife. It isn’t magic, but it will have to do.
I won’t let fear stop me.
I lunge at the Silver Prince, aiming my knife for his heart. He sidesteps, leaving fire in the space where he just stood; my momentum almost carries me straight into it. I jerk to the side and pivot, trying to regain my bearings. I attack again, and the Silver Prince’s fist catches me across the face.
Stars bloom in my vision, and my teeth rattle; I stumble back, the world tilting around me.
“Stop!” Taya’s scream comes from behind me. “We have what you want! We have the armor!”
I twist to look behind me, and they’re there, both of them, Nahteran and Taya, holding each other to stay upright. Nahteran has a gold breastplate in his free hand, and Taya holds the two gauntlets. Behind them, Mom is looking on in horror, shaking her head wildly, but I know what she doesn’t. That the armor is fake. I can tell, the shape subtly off, the carving not as intricate as it should be. But looking up into the Silver Prince’s face, seeing the naked greed animating his features, I know he can’t tell.
My mind kicks into overdrive. When Nahteran opened the doorway in the ballroom, I thought everything was ruined. But seeing the fake armor makes me think we still have a chance to pull it off. The words I rehearsed in my head a thousand times yesterday burst from my lips.
“No!” I scream. “What are you doing?” I stagger to my feet, ready to lunge at Nahteran and Taya, to sell the performance that giving up the armor would be the destruction of everything I love.
Turns out I didn’t have to fake the fear in my voice, or that I’m on the verge of tears. The ballroom of Havenfall is destroyed all around us. The Silver Prince is here. The world hangs in the balance.
But then—
A great fwoom sounds in the air. I turn around to see a fireball hurtling straight toward me.
But before it finds its target—namely, me—something hits my back with the force of a boulder. I go down, hitting the ground and rolling. Blue fur and fire flash through my vision, and the dagger drops from my grip. Taya has shapeshifted and pushed me out of the way just as the fireball flies over, close enough to singe the fur on her spine.
“Enough!” Nahteran cries. He sprints toward the Silver Prince, all the pieces of the counterfeit armor now in his hands. “Take it!”
But just as the Silver Prince is about to claim his prize, Nahteran stops, withdrawing the armor.
Nahteran backs up. “Promise me that no harm will come to them,” he says, gesturing at Taya and Mom and me.
“I will make no such promise,” the Silver Prince snarls.
He lifts his hands at his sides, flames flickering between his fingers. A plume of fire rises from his palm, a slender, threatening column like a flaming sword, and lashes out at Nahteran.
Nahteran leaps back, but not fast enough; the fire catches him across the chest and he falls, swearing. I clap a hand over my mouth to hold in a scream. The counterfeit armor almost slides through the floor into Oasis before Nahteran rolls over and grabs it, jumping back to his feet.
“Haven’t you learned that all the worlds belong to the strong?” The Silver Prince advances on Nahteran, who scrambles to his feet and backs away, the front of his shirt scorched from shoulder to shoulder. “It is impossible that we should have our new world without injury. It is them or us. Haven’t I taught you that already?”
The flames lash out again. Nahteran throws up an arm to protect his face and cries out. The flames pull back and coil between the Silver Prince’s hands. Nahteran stumbles, dropping the counterfeit armor to clutch his arm, and I see an angry burn mark running the length of his forearm.
I’m moving before I can think about it, running to pick up the armor. Holding the breastplate in one hand and the gauntlets in another to make it look more real, I advance on the Silver Prince, slow and deliberate, belying the terror battering at the inside of my chest. I realize now it was stupid to expect the Silver Prince would hold up his end of the bargain, to give Mom back without a fight if we gave him the phoenix flame armor. I have to get him out of here before he kills us all and burns Havenfall to the ground.
“Marcus has soldiers,” I lie, keeping my eyes locked on the Silver Prince. “They’re just on the other side of the ballroom door. If you want to live, take the phoenix flame armor and go.”
The Silver Prince grins at me, reaching one graceful arm out toward the armor. “Changed your mind, Innkeeper? Aren’t you afraid of what will happen when I have this?”
“I’m not the Innkeeper anymore,” I growl. “My uncle is alive, no thanks to you. And no, I’m not afraid.” They’re my first words to him that aren’t a lie.
And somewhere, in the background, I can hear pounding. Shouts. Like maybe Marcus is at the door. But all my senses are running together, adrenaline warping my perception. I can’t tell if I really hear it or if it’s just wishful thinking.
“You will be,” the Silver Prince says, and snatches the armor from me.
I freeze, holding my breath, as his grin stretches wider. He lifts the breastplate up and drops it over his head, letting it settle on his shoulders.
Now.
I don’t think anymore, my body taking over. I lunge for the Silver Prince and grab the breastplate, working my fingers through the gaps in the metal. I squeeze my eyes shut and call forth all the fire and poison magic in this metal, directing it inward at the Silver Prince’s heart.
The Silver Prince screams, a terrible, agonized howl that drills into my ears, overtakes my world, and drowns out everything else. His hands wrap around my throat, closing my windpipe.
Panic, a pure animal panic that I’ve never felt before, obliterates me. I batter at the Silver Prince’s chest, his face, keeping my left hand on the armor to continue pouring our deadly magic into him. But he won’t release his grip on me. My eyes flutter, my vision going strange and watery, and then dark at the edges—
Then I’m free. I crash to the ground, gagging, and crawl instinctively away, looking over my shoulder to see Taya crouched in a face-off with the Silver Prince. He has one hand to his chest, and his face looks bruised. Red blood gathers at the corners of his mouth. As I watch, he staggers and falls back, spinning like a drunk.
My heart speeds. The magic is working.
The Silver Prince falls to his knees.
We have him. It’s over.
But then he lifts his head toward me. His face is sickly white, blood trickling from his mouth and a hatred in his eyes so intense, it roots me to the ground, freezing me where I am on my knees. He raises my dagger from the floor.
It bursts into flame, white-hot like a tiny star trapped on Earth. And then it flies at me.
I can’t move. I can’t even scream at first; it punches its way free at the same time I feel a blistering heat on my face. The last thing I see before I shut my eyes is the Silver Prince falling forward, face-first. Sinking through the doorway and falling, falling, falling into Oasis.
Someone screams.
I open my eyes. Nahteran is suspended in the air above me, and for the briefest instant I think this is some kind of strange new magic.
Then my brother hits the ground hard on his back, my dagger hilt rising out of his chest.
23
Static fills my senses. Gray and buzzing, crowding out the swirling image of Byrn through the doorway, the clamoring wind, Taya’s shout of dismay. I black out for a few seconds, and when I come to, I’m on my back, looking up at Havenfall’s ballroom ceiling. It’s caved in at the northeastern corner, the beams snapped and splintered, a ragged bit of gray morning sky showing through.
Then I realize the floor beneath me is soft, quicksand-soft. And I’m sinking. I jerk up with a gasp, tugging my limbs free from the translucent substance of the closing doorway to Oasis.
Mom and Taya are crouched at Nahteran’s side. He’s unconscious, and Taya’s back blocks most of the sight, but I glimpse the red of blood. My stomach flips over.
Mom turns to me at the sound I make. Her face is gaunt and grave, bruised and flecked with dried blood. But I don’t know whose blood.
“Maddie, catch,” she says, and throws me something large and gold.
I catch it out of instinct, tipping forward with the weight of the phoenix flame armor breastplate. It’s warm and thrumming with magic, but spattered with Nahteran’s blood.
I shudder, wanting to throw it away from me, but I understand what Mom wants me to do. So I back up carefully, putting more distance between the breastplate and the gauntlets, which are still on Nahteran’s wrists.
The farther back I go, the more the room settles. The seething wind dies down, and the floor settles and hardens, the almost-liquid of the doorway reverting to wooden boards. But warped and broken boards stick up at odd angles, the bedrock below showing through in places.
The orange light dims. The window into Oasis darkens and shrinks and shrinks until I can’t see it anymore.
Then the wind finally dies down. For a moment, everything is silent, until the door to the hallway gives way with a deafening bang, the heavy wood crashing to the floor.
I whirl around, blinking the tears out of my eyes, to see my uncle rushing through, followed by Graylin and Sal and Willow. They drop the concrete planter they were using as a battering ram—another teeth-shaking impact on the floor—and rush toward us all at once. Marcus makes for me, while the other three converge around Nahteran and Mom.
He’s deathly pale, his eyes closed. His chest is rising and falling, but faint and fast, like a bird’s. Taya puts pressure on the knife wound with a wad of cloth that’s already red around her hands. She determinedly blinks away tears. But I can tell from her face that this isn’t good. And Mom. Mom leans over Nahteran, sweat-damp hair falling into her face. For the first time in years, the limp emptiness of her expression is now replaced with a terrible, faraway, lost look.
Back at Sterling Correctional Facility the other week, she told me not to endanger myself by seeking Nahteran out. That he was probably long gone, and she didn’t want to lose two children when I got tangled up with the traders too. But all that forced indifference has fallen away now, leaving her broken, carved open. She didn’t lose two children. But it’s very possible she might lose the same child twice.