by C. S. Pacat
Will laughed: a dry, hollow sound.
Simon’s head snapped around to him.
‘Your birthright? You’re not the Dark King,’ said Will. ‘You’re just a pretender to the throne.’
Will drew his sword. Long and straight, a sword of the Stewards with a star emblazoned on the hilt. He faced down Simon, and he thought: The Stewards are dead, and my mother is dead, and all the warriors of the Light are dead.
But I’m here. And I’m going to do this.
‘A sword?’ said Simon, with a laugh. ‘But of course. James told me. They tried to train you, but you couldn’t use her power.’
‘You can’t use his,’ said Will.
‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ said Simon, and pushed back his coat, reaching for the onyx hilt and in one smooth motion drawing the Corrupted Blade.
It was Death, thirty inches of black steel, and Simon unleashed its full devastating force. Black fire spewed from its blade, and Will cried out at the annihilating blast of it, as if the air itself was made of pain.
Birds fell out of the sky. The ground began to split open. The tearing power of it ripped at Will’s clothes, which were in tatters, and he flung up his hand uselessly, driven to his knees as Simon held the sword, barely controlling it as its black fire erupted, killing everything.
And in the haze, Will seemed to see those eyes of black flame. The image filled his mind, overpowering everything; the pain in his head was blinding, he let out a terrible cry, and the whole world was burning. A nightmare unleashed to destroy every living thing, a dark inferno that would scour away all life—
—and then it stopped, as suddenly as it had begun.
Silence; nothing left alive, just cratered earth.
Will opened his eyes slowly, his fingers moving in gritty, blackened dirt. Slowly, he lifted his head.
He was kneeling in a blasted, ruined crater, the valley gouged open, the birds and animals dead, the trees shattered into splinters, the farmhouse sundered. For miles in every direction, he and Simon were the only things alive.
Alive. He saw the look of incomprehension on Simon’s face.
It was Will’s turn to laugh, except that it might have come out as a dry sob, shaky with the effects of adrenaline, his heart-pounding preparedness to die. But he hadn’t. He was still alive. The Blade hadn’t worked on him.
He knew why. His mother’s last words, her last moments, all of it made sense. What she had known all these years he now knew too. The truth, tested and proven in the fires of the Blade.
‘Why didn’t it work?’ said Simon.
Slowly, Will pushed himself up from where the blast had driven him to his knees. He looked right across the flattened landscape at Simon. His chest was heaving. He was bleeding from new cuts, where small rocks and sticks had hit him during the blast.
‘You know, I came to London looking for you,’ said Will.
‘Why didn’t it work?’ said Simon. He was staring back at Will in disbelief.
‘At first I thought I could destroy your business. I sabotaged your cargo, untying ropes so that your gunpowder would be lost in the river.’
‘That was an accident,’ said Simon.
‘That was me,’ said Will. ‘When your fiancée left you? That was me too.’
‘What do you mean, left me,’ said Simon.
‘I kissed her in the garden of the house you bought her. She came to me in the Hall.’
‘Katherine?’ said Simon.
‘I think you valued James more. You liked the idea that he was Sarcean’s favourite. I heard they called him Simon’s Prize. He’s left you now too.’
‘How do you know James is missing?’ said Simon sharply, real suspicion in his voice for the first time. Will felt a surge of triumph at that; he’d been right, James had taken the Collar and not returned to Simon. His heart was pounding.
‘What could I take from you? What is it that you care about? Your wealth? Your lover? Your plans? What’s equal to a mother?’
‘My God, what is this? Some pitiful boy’s revenge?’ said Simon. ‘You think you can stand in the way of my destiny? The plans my father and I have put in motion can’t be stopped.’
Simon’s voice was full of scorn and mild annoyance. Will glimpsed himself through Simon’s eyes: a nuisance, an obstacle that he would soon clear from his way. Simon still held the Blade; it was a straight line pointing downward from his hand.
‘You’re right,’ said Will. ‘It’s a boy’s revenge. Just not against you.’
He picked up his own sword, shifting the hilt in his hand.
‘Your father was the one who ordered my mother’s death,’ said Will. ‘That’s why I’m here to kill his son.’
And he took his sword and drove it into Simon’s body.
Simon lifted the sheathed Blade, but the ancient weapon wasn’t something he’d ever expected to have to fight with. It was a power to be unleashed, and once it had failed, he didn’t know what to do. The sheathed Blade barely glanced against Will’s weapon. Simon’s look was one of shock as Will’s sword went in.
It was hard, but easier than it had been before he’d killed three other men. He knew the resistance of the body, the strength of muscle and sinew that it took to push the weapon in. He knew that men didn’t die right away but clutched their wound, the blood pumping out, each pulse weaker than the last, their life fading slowly. Simon was on his knees, looking up at Will in disbelief, but when he opened his mouth, blood and not words came out of it.
‘I might not have stopped your father,’ said Will, looking down at him. ‘But I think he’ll feel this at least a little.’
‘You’re too late,’ Simon managed, his voice thick with blood. ‘The Shadow Kings have been released. I ordered them to hunt down the Lady’s descendant …’ He was grinning up at Will, his teeth red. ‘Your death will bring him back. You’re the final sacrifice … the Shadow Kings … You can’t escape … The Blood of the Lady will return the Dark King.’
He still hadn’t understood. He’d seen Will touch the armour. He’d seen him survive the Blade. But he hadn’t understood what Will had come to realise piece by piece. The truth that his mother had known when she’d died on this very spot, looking at Will with despair in her eyes.
‘I’m not Blood of the Lady,’ said Will, looking at the sheathed Blade on the ground. ‘The Shadow Kings aren’t coming for me.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
VIOLET WOKE FEELING that something was wrong, as if the uneasy remnants of a dream lingered. She glanced over at the place where Will was sleeping.
He wasn’t there; his pallet was starkly empty.
She sat upright, her stomach clenching. The pallet wasn’t just empty. It looked like it hadn’t been slept in.
No, she told herself. He wouldn’t. Would he? But she was already pushing out of bed and pulling on her boots and tunic.
The girls were still asleep; the sisters Katherine and Elizabeth looking oddly peaceful despite the circumstances, while Grace and Sarah lay in a tense sleep of exhaustion. Violet padded quickly downstairs and made for the gatekeep door, only to find it already opening. But it wasn’t Will entering the gatekeep; it was Cyprian, back from a morning excursion, and he spoke to her in a low, urgent voice. ‘Will’s horse is gone.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Valdithar. Will’s horse. He’s gone from the stables.’
The ominous feeling redoubled into a sick certainty, the memory of Will’s untouched sleeping pallet like a terrible premonition. Violet forced herself to stay calm.
‘Has anyone seen Will?’
She addressed the others after returning with Cyprian, and waking Elizabeth and Katherine with a few sharp shakes to their shoulders. Grace and Sarah had slept in their janissary uniforms, both waking jumpily at the sound of the door. Now they were a tense huddle in blue on Grace’s pallet. Katherine was sitting up at the small table, extraordinarily pretty in her white underdress and shawl in the morning light, her sister E
lizabeth frowning beside her, her eyebrows too heavy for her small face.
Violet got blank stares from all of them.
‘No one?’ she said. ‘No one’s seen him?’
‘I talked to him before I slept,’ offered Katherine.
‘What did he say?’
Katherine turned red. ‘Just goodnight.’
Violet remembered looking up and seeing the two of them together, Will at Katherine’s bedside, murmuring to her in the candlelight. Her chest tightened, and she pushed the emotion to one side.
The announcement came from an unexpected place.
‘He’s gone,’ said Elizabeth.
‘What do you mean?’
‘He left. He ran off.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I saw him ride out last night.’
Violet was staring at her. Elizabeth’s tone said, Good riddance. She looked back at Violet defiantly.
Katherine was shaking her head. ‘He wouldn’t leave us.’
‘Well, he has. I saw him in the stables. He said he was going for a ride. That was a lie, and I told him I knew it was, and he said if I said anything he’d get Katherine in trouble, so he’s a bully as well as a sneak.’
‘Elizabeth!’ said Katherine.
‘You know what happens if Simon finds him,’ said Cyprian in a low voice. The Blood of the Lady will return the Dark King.
Violet tried to be reassuring. ‘If Will went for a ride, it was for some purpose. He wouldn’t just leave us, and he doesn’t do things for no reason. We wait here for him to return.’
Elizabeth scoffed. Violet went to search the grounds to make sure Will was missing, and gestured to Cyprian to join her.
Waiting for him at the door, she saw Katherine looking out towards the gate with a strange expression on her face, her hair shining gold in the morning sun.
Violet turned away. A moment later, Cyprian joined her and they each took a different part of the Hall, splitting up to cover more ground.
They searched for the better part of the day, but Will was well and truly gone. With every silent, empty area of the fort that she checked, the truth was rising in her.
When she finally returned to Cyprian in the courtyard, Violet said what she was really thinking. ‘Will hasn’t gone for a ride; he’s gone to fight Simon.’
Cyprian paled. In the grey afternoon light, his face looked drawn, and it occurred to her that staying here with all the memories of the dead must be hard on him. He was still dressed like a Steward, in his pristine silvery tunic. She’d watched him wake early the last few mornings to train, a solitary figure performing the Steward rituals alone.
‘Why would he do that? His blood is the only thing that can release the Shadow Kings.’ Cyprian was shaking his head. ‘You said it yourself, all we have to do is keep Will safe, and out of Simon’s hands—’
‘His blood isn’t the only thing that can release them,’ said Violet.
She couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen it sooner. She thought about all the plans they had made last night, and felt so stupid. Will had been indulging her, nodding and listening, and all the while planning to leave on his own.
‘I don’t understand,’ said Cyprian.
‘Will’s mother,’ said Violet. ‘Simon killed Will’s mother. Will never talks about it, but—’
‘But if it was violent,’ said Cyprian, ‘there would have been blood.’
The Blood of the Lady. She saw Cyprian realise it. Simon already had what he needed. He could release the Shadow Kings any time he wanted. He just needed to harness Will’s mother’s blood.
Had Will guessed that immediately? Had he heard Katherine’s words and understood right then what he had to do? But why hadn’t he told anyone? Why had he gone to face Simon in secret, and alone?
‘The place where his mother died,’ said Violet. ‘Will’s gone there to try to stop Simon.’
‘Where?’ said Cyprian urgently. ‘Do you know where that is?’
Nights sprawled out on their beds, talking until dawn. My mother and I, we moved around a lot, Will had said at a London inn. But he’d never spoken about his mother’s death. As if there was something in the story that he was holding close, something private that he didn’t want to tell. And now he was travelling there and they had no way to find him. Will, why didn’t you take me with you?
‘No,’ she said. ‘He never told me.’
The truth was that she knew very little about his life. She knew his mother had been killed, but he’d never told her how. She knew they’d moved from place to place, but he’d never told her where. He’d never said what he’d done in the months between his mother’s death and his own capture. He’d never talked about what had happened to him on Simon’s ship. Or on the run before that.
In all their conversations, he’d sprawled on the bed with his head propped on his hand and asked questions as he teased out her thoughts. She’d been the one who talked, telling him far more than he’d ever told her. For all that they’d fought side by side, she knew almost nothing about him.
‘We need to go after him,’ said Violet.
‘We don’t even know where to go.’
A burst of frustration. ‘We have to do someth—’
She broke off, hearing a strange sound, almost like the far-off cry of a hawk on the wind. Her body responded like prey sensing a predator.
‘Do you hear that?’
‘What?’ said Cyprian.
‘That,’ said Violet. ‘It’s coming from—’
‘—the gate,’ said Cyprian as the sound rang out again, louder.
Above them, sudden as a firework, the sky flared red. She looked up and saw the ghostly impression of a dome across the sky, shot through with sparking red.
‘What’s happening?’
‘The wards,’ said Cyprian, an awed fear in his voice as he stared up at the red sky as if this was new to him. ‘I think – I think the wards are under attack.’
The red was spreading. It looked like a great dome was burning, red streaking across its surface, the wards visible for the first time.
‘Will they hold?’
‘I don’t know.’
Inside, Elizabeth was in the centre of the room, while Sarah was pressed with her back in the corner. ‘She won’t move,’ said Elizabeth. ‘She just keeps staring like that.’ Sarah’s eyes were glazed the way they had been when they’d found her and Grace in the devastated Hall. ‘I’ll pinch her if you like.’ Elizabeth took a step forward.
‘No,’ said Violet quickly, grabbing Elizabeth’s small arm.
The chilling sound cut through the air again, louder and closer, and it wasn’t the cry of a hawk. It was a scream that came from no human throat.
‘What is that?’ said Elizabeth.
It sounded like it was coming from outside the wards. As if there was something out there on the marshes. Something old and terrible, screaming to get in.
‘Don’t let it in,’ said Sarah, her voice sounding strange, ‘don’t let it get inside—’
Violet’s stomach turned. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t. Violet found that she and Cyprian were staring at each other. They had spent the day looking for a way to track down Will; they had forgotten the true danger that hung over them all.
‘A shadow,’ said Violet.
The air was colder, she could feel it. Was it also getting darker? Inside the gatekeep, the shadows seemed to thicken until they were tangible. As if they were responding to a presence outside.
She looked at Cyprian. The last shadow who had attacked the Hall had been his brother. She remembered the hollow look in his eyes as he had stared at the burned imprint of Marcus in the Tree Chamber. He had the same hollowed-out look now.
‘We’re safe in here,’ said Cyprian. ‘It can’t get through the wards.’
‘Marcus got through.’
‘Marcus was a Steward,’ said Cyprian. ‘He didn’t break through the wards; they opened for him. They recognised his Steward blood eve
n though he was a shadow. Nothing else can get through. We’re safe as long as they hold.’
The terrifying, uncanny scream rang out again. Outside, something was rending at the Hall’s protections, trying to get in. Violet imagined a swirl of pure black in the archway of the gate, hungry for entry.
‘Safe from what?’ Elizabeth’s two small hands were clenched.
Violet looked down at her and felt sick. What could she tell a child? That there were things in this world darker and more terrifying than she could imagine? Things that could slaughter your friends?
‘Safe from what?’ Elizabeth said again.
Violet drew in a breath. ‘Simon wants to hurt Will, and has sent a creature here to attack him. I won’t lie to you. It is dangerous, with unnatural powers. But this Hall was built to keep things like it out.’
‘A “shadow”,’ said Elizabeth.
Violet nodded, and tried to look calm, even as a part of her knew it was worse than that. Because if Simon had released it from the Shadow Stone, then—
She looked around at the gatekeep, built centuries ago by a civilisation that they knew so little about, and a new thought turned her utterly cold.
Because what was at the gate was worse than a shadow.
She took Cyprian by the shoulder and led him off to one side, keeping her voice low, and out of earshot of the others.
‘Are you sure it can’t get in?’
‘As long as the wards hold—’
‘This was their Hall,’ said Violet. ‘Before it was the Hall of the Stewards, it was the Hall of Kings.’
Cyprian went pale.
As that unnatural scream shattered the silence, she felt the true horror of what lay outside. This place is theirs, thought Violet with a shiver. More than it was ever yours.
A Shadow King.
Far deadlier than Marcus, it had laid waste to forts far greater than this one. It couldn’t be stopped by force or by magic; it was a Shadow King, a commander of armies, forged into darkness by the Dark King himself. And now it was coming home.
Violet forced herself to think. ‘Cyprian, go and get Grace and Katherine. We can’t stay here in the gatekeep. We retreat to the inner fort.’