by C. S. Pacat
‘No, don’t get up,’ said James pleasantly, and before Will even thought to rise, an invisible force slammed him forward so that he sprawled onto his hands and knees.
It was like pressure. Like James’s hands on him, if James had a thousand hands. It was hard to breathe. It was hard to do anything but stay on all fours, unable to move a muscle. He had seen James stop a crate in midair with his power; he knew James could do this. He hadn’t realised it would feel personal, like James’s hands all over him.
‘The boy saviour,’ said James conversationally.
‘Simon’s Prize,’ said Will.
That got James’s attention. Will’s own heart was pounding. The scent of night flowers in a garden … Everything felt so familiar. Having James close to him was making him dizzy. He was aware of James strolling closer when James’s long legs came into view.
‘Everyone thought you died at Bowhill,’ said James. ‘You were supposed to die there. Instead you survived and escaped Simon’s ship. How exactly did you do that?’
‘With pleasure,’ said Will.
James said, ‘Pretty necklace.’
Will’s breath shallowed. The collar of his shirt began untying itself, invisible hands pulling it open, exposing his neck, then his collarbone, then baring his chest. Will’s pulse spiked with danger as the medallion swung free from his shirt.
It was part of the old world just like James was. For a heart-stopping moment Will wondered if James recognised it, not from this world but from that one. James isn’t merely a descendant, the Elder Steward had said. He is the Dark King’s general, reborn into our time.
It hit him fully then. James was a Reborn. Not a reflection in a mirror, nor a fake mounted on a wall. He was a living piece of the old world, somehow strolling around in this one.
No wonder London seemed to fade around him. No wonder being near him felt like reaching across time. I will find you. I will always find you. Try to run.
And they had thought they could capture him? The audacity of it struck him. Three of them against James – his plan felt foolish, juvenile. This wasn’t hunting for rabbits with slingshots. This was bringing down big game. The Betrayer. Even the greatest Stewards feared him. Will remembered the squadron James had decimated, the bodies wrapped in grey cloth that he had torn apart without even touching them.
‘Did you get it from your mother?’ said James, and the fingers on Will’s neck slid to his chin, tilting it up. They weren’t James’s real fingers. James wasn’t close enough to touch him.
His eyes travelled up James’s boots to his satisfied expression. Behind James, Will could see Cyprian’s sword, lying in its sheath near his sprawled body.
‘Don’t touch it,’ said Will as the medallion started to slide from his neck.
‘Or you’ll do what?’
On Simon’s ship, he had called a sword to himself – it had jumped to his hand. Now – he couldn’t reach the sword; he couldn’t move his arms or legs, no matter how much he strained against James’s invisible hold on his body.
‘You can’t use your power, can you?’ James said.
All those lessons, hours with the Elder Steward, trying to concentrate. He was supposed to be the one with the same powers as James. He was supposed to be the one who could stop him.
‘You’re weak,’ said James.
Will focused everything on the sword. Reach beneath the surface. Look for a place deep inside. The Elder Steward had taken him in believing that he could do this. Believing that he would be the one to help them. And he wanted her to be right … to prove her right.
‘Like your mother.’
And this time, when he hit that closed door, he threw everything he had against it, even though there was a part of him that was afraid of what was on the other side—
It hurt; a sick, nauseating pain, like pushing on a broken bone, but he forced himself through it, dots of black and red swimming in front of his eyes. And for a moment he saw—
—sparks of light on a dark field: torches, amid the massing dark of an army, and at its head a figure that at first he could not make out, but he somehow knew. It was turning towards him as the Lady had turned towards him, but he didn’t want to see, didn’t want to meet those eyes burning with black flame. No—
He gasped, panting, coming back to himself in a rush to a throat full of blood, as though something had ruptured. In the next second, James’s fingers gripped his chin – James’s real fingers, lifting his head up. James’s eyes were blue, not black; he was looking down at Will with pleased satisfaction. Will felt James’s fingers slip in the blood flowing sluggishly down his face, and he had the absurd thought that he was going to mess up James’s jewelled rings.
‘You’re supposed to be the fighter?’ said James. ‘You’re no match for the Dark King.’
Will let out a breath of laughter, dizzy with echoes of the past.
‘Something’s funny?’ James’s voice was dangerously mild. Will looked right at him, in the moment before the swing.
‘I’m not the fighter,’ said Will. ‘I’m the bait.’
It was James’s turn to topple, Violet standing over him with the weighted knapsack she’d swung at his head.
‘I’m the fighter,’ she said as James hit the ground, going utterly still.
It worked. The ruse worked! The invisible pressure on Will collapsed. Beside him, Cyprian drew in a shuddering breath – alive, thought Will with a rush of relief. Cyprian was alive. But there was no time to cheer. Will was pushing himself up desperately, seeing James already starting to stir on the muddy ground.
‘Get the manacles on him!’ said Will. Violet quickly shoved down the sides of the knapsack and pulled out the two heavy sets of Steward manacles that had just impacted with James’s temple. They were the same manacles that she and Will had been forced to wear by the Stewards. As soon as they were out of the knapsack, Will could feel them, like an unpleasant taste in his mouth. But they didn’t seem to take full effect until they enclosed someone.
Violet snapped Will’s set of manacles around James’s wrists. After a second, she snapped her own set of manacles on him as well.
‘Just in case,’ Violet said, a bit defensively. Will let out a breath. It was part laughter, part hazy relief. On James’s sprawled, boyish body, the manacles looked oversized, big and heavy. James might not even be able to stand up while wearing two sets of them.
‘Do we have him?’ Cyprian was blinking his way back to himself. One hand to his temple, he had forced himself to stand up, though he still looked disoriented and unsteady.
‘We have him,’ said Will.
His plan had worked. James had taken the bait. James had followed him out after Devon had recognised him, thinking him unguarded. James had attacked him. And he had held James’s attention while Violet had gotten into position.
But as he looked down at James, Will couldn’t help feeling that what they had captured was a dangerous creature they didn’t understand and had no idea how to contain. He drew in a shaky breath.
‘Now we take him back to the Hall.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THEY DECIDED TO put James on a horse with Violet.
‘You’re the strongest,’ Will said to her. But it was more than that. ‘You ought to be the one who hands him over to the Stewards.’
Violet nodded; Will knew she understood. She was the one who had risked her life to learn James’s whereabouts from her family. She was risking more now, going back to the Stewards after they had thrown her in chains. The Stewards should have no doubt who to credit for James’s capture.
Violet dragged James up without much effort, just as he started to come around. Will got to watch the entirely satisfying moment when James reached for his powers and found them blocked by the manacles.
‘What is that?’ said James, blinking at odd intervals and unsteady on his feet.
‘The power of the old world,’ said Will as James shot him a killing look. ‘I suppose neither of us are a
match for it.’ In fact, Will was relieved. There had been a chance that James might have been simply too powerful to contain. This felt precarious and exhilarating: for the moment, they had him.
Pushed forward towards the horse, James appeared to notice the identity of the Steward he’d almost killed. He let out a breath of contemptuous familiarity.
‘Cyprian. You must be loving this.’
‘You two know each other?’ Violet’s hands tightened on James’s body.
‘You could say that.’ James’s eyes on Cyprian were mocking. ‘Your brother talks about you all the time. He calls your name, begs to see you, cries out for—’
‘Shut up.’
James’s head snapped to one side as Cyprian backhanded him across the face. It was a shock, coming from the controlled teacher’s pet. Cyprian’s breathing was slightly disrupted.
James paused to run his tongue over his teeth. ‘That’s the Stewards I know.’
‘Gag him,’ said Will, sensing the emotions beneath Cyprian’s ordered exterior. ‘He’s provoking you on purpose, and it’s working.’
He kept his eyes on Cyprian, but his awareness of James was a bright and dangerous thing. He knew what James’s power felt like, sliding over his skin. He half imagined he could still feel it, even as James mounted, a dangerous blue-eyed boy sharing Violet’s horse. And from the look that James gave him, eyes glittering over the cloth gag, James knew it too.
They galloped into the courtyard, four cloaked figures that no one questioned, thanks to Cyprian, the wards parting for him. The courtyard was quiet, the only Stewards visible those guarding the gate and walls. When Violet dismounted and pushed her cloak hood back to reveal her face, it took a moment for the attention of the Stewards to snag on her. A head turned, and then another—
As Violet dragged James out of the saddle and pulled his hood away to reveal his blond head, the Stewards guarding the walls erupted. ‘It’s the Reborn!’ Stewards were drawing their swords; others were lifting crossbows to aim right at them. ‘The Reborn’s inside the walls!’ There was a fear in their shouts that hadn’t been there even when they had learned that Violet was a Lion.
‘We have James St Clair!’ Will called in a loud voice. ‘Call the High Janissary!’
James’s head jerked up at that, and he turned to the Hall’s entry with strange tension.
But it was Justice who came, at the head of a phalanx of Stewards, descending the steps to the courtyard. Cyprian made to move forward, but Will held him back.
Justice stopped at the sight: Violet standing in the centre of the courtyard, holding a gagged and chained James by the shoulder. The other Stewards went quiet as Violet pushed James forward.
For a long moment, she and Justice just stared at each other.
‘You needed him,’ said Violet, her young voice holding steady, ‘so I got him.’
Justice didn’t speak as something silent passed between them. Violet stood there straight-backed, and after a long moment Justice gave a single, slow nod of acknowledgement.
His words were like a signal as he turned to the Stewards behind him.
‘You heard them. Fetch the High Janissary. James St Clair is our prisoner.’
He suited the Hall.
That was the eeriest part of James’s presence in this ancient place. He looked like he belonged here. Standing in rows in their silver and white, the Stewards with their otherworldly appearance had always looked like the Hall’s custodians. James looked like its young prince, returned at long last to his rightful throne.
It wasn’t always the Hall of the Stewards, remembered Will. It was once the Hall of Kings.
James was tied to a chair, his legs lashed to the chair legs, his arms manacled behind the chair back. Will stood beside him, along with Justice, Violet and Cyprian. In front of James, every Steward in the Hall was lined up in ordered rows. Ignoring all this, James had adopted a deliberately casual posture, an aristocrat sprawled and at ease, perhaps even faintly bored, looking for others to entertain him.
Will was acutely aware that despite the chains and the guards, the only thing truly restraining James were the manacles. It was frightening: the manacles were relics, no one really knew how they worked, and if they were broken, they couldn’t be remade. Without the manacles, there might be no way to contain those with the old powers at all. A Reborn like James could rule this world like a god, crushing mortals like glass beneath the exquisitely turned heel of his boot.
The doors opened with a sudden booming. The High Janissary was silhouetted in the entry, flanked by four attendants in ceremonial robes. As the Hall went silent, he strode down the aisle in a processional, stopping in front of James to regard him with a heavy gaze.
James relaxed back deliberately into the chair, returned the High Janissary’s gaze, and said:
‘Hello, Father.’ Before Will could react to the words, James continued, in a conversational voice, ‘I met the boy you brought in to kill me.’
Will turned hot, then cold. He looked around to the other Stewards, expecting to see his own disbelief on their faces. Father? No one looked surprised. But it was Cyprian’s grim expression that made him believe.
You two know each other? Violet had asked him. You could say that, James had replied.
‘What does he mean?’ said Will. ‘He’s your son?’
Distantly he remembered the Elder Steward saying, He adopted Cyprian and Marcus after his first son died six years ago.
It wasn’t – it couldn’t be – James, could it? Lounging in his chains, James’s eyes glinted with goading provocation.
‘I grew up wearing a little frock and reciting my vows like a good little Steward. They didn’t tell you?’ James leaned back, the corners of his lips curving.
The High Janissary was looking down at him without expression. Like the priest of an ascetic religion, his blue robes hung in folds, his thick chain of office gleaming around his neck. He passed his eyes over James coldly.
‘That thing is not my son.’
The words dropped like a cleaver. If there had ever been any connection between James and the High Janissary, it was severed.
Will swung around to look at the others. He saw the High Janissary’s hardened expression on all the nearby faces. The only person mirroring his own shock was Violet.
So they knew about him, thought Will. They all knew about him.
‘The Dark King’s general born into the enemy Hall,’ said James to Will. ‘What better way to learn their secrets and their plans?’
He tried to imagine James as a Steward, rising before dawn to dutifully put on the grey tunic, perform menial chores, practise diligently with the sword … It simply didn’t connect with the gleaming scorpion in front of him.
Underneath that was his own unfolding horror at how a Reborn had come into the world: not magicked, but birthed, to an unsuspecting woman. He had to fight to keep his reaction from his face. A reaction, he thought, was what James wanted – and what he couldn’t afford to give.
‘You weren’t the Dark King’s general. You were his catamite,’ said the High Janissary. ‘You were in his bed. Just like you’re in Simon’s.’
James’s lips drew back from his teeth, not quite a smile. ‘If I were the Dark King’s lover, Father, don’t you think I’d stay faithful to him?’
‘Bring the box forward.’ The High Janissary gestured to one of the waiting Stewards.
‘Whatever you do to me, Simon will return to you tenfold.’
A Steward carrying a cloth-covered rectangular box approached. As the cloth was removed, Will’s stomach dropped. He recognised the long, lacquered wooden box underneath, dark wood, the length of a walking cane.
The High Janissary spoke with calm authority. ‘You’re going to tell us where Marcus is. You’re going to tell us Simon’s plan. And then you’re going to lead us to him.’
‘I’m really not.’
‘Yes. You will,’ said the High Janissary.
A second Steward st
epped forward, a woman with curling dark hair. She flicked open two latches, lifting open the box lid.
Gasps and reverent murmurs rippled across the rows of gathered Stewards, as at a holy relic. Will saw it, was pierced by the sight of it, as breathtaking now as the first time he’d laid eyes on it.
Nestled on a bed of satin, its beauty was painful: the beauty of what was lost. It lay inside like a shaft of light – a long, whorled staff of pearlescent ivory spiralling up to a pointed tip. James turned white.
‘The Horn of Truth,’ said the High Janissary.
Will remembered Devon’s words. The true cornu monocerotis. People will pay a lot for the idea that something pure exists. Even if the trophy means they killed it.
‘You know what that thing does?’ said James.
Will said, half quoting Devon, ‘If you hold it in your hands, you’ll be compelled to speak the truth.’
James laughed when he heard that. ‘Hold it? Is that what they told you? You have to do more than hold it. You have to stab me with it.’
It felt sickly correct the moment James said it. Will’s heart was pounding. ‘Is that true?’
It was true. He could feel it in the thick silence that greeted him, and the sense that this was quickly slipping out of all control. James’s eyes glittered.
‘Are you going to do the honours, Father?’ He tilted his head. ‘The chest? The thigh?’
No. Will took a step forward. ‘You’re not going to stab your own son.’ He was standing between them. ‘It’s not right.’
‘The saviour speaks,’ said James behind him, the words curdling in his mouth.
Will ignored him. ‘I didn’t bring him back here to be tortured. There must be another way.’
‘There is no other way,’ said the High Janissary. ‘James will not talk willingly, and Simon threatens us all. The horn was made to find the truth. If I am not to wield it, then it must be someone else.’
‘Let me,’ said Cyprian. ‘I’ll do it, for my brother.’
‘No.’ It was Justice who spoke, the words slower. ‘Will’s right. The Horn of Truth is not an instrument of revenge or cruelty. If this must be done, it should be a neutral party. Not someone who holds a grudge against him in their heart.’