by V. E. Schwab
“… all my fault …” Rhy’s voice dragged him back.
“Hush,” said Kell, sinking into a chair beside the bed.
“I just wanted … like it was before.”
“I know,” said Kell, rubbing his eyes. “I know.”
He sat there until Rhy fell quiet, safely wrapped in sleep, and then pushed himself back to his feet. The room rocked faintly, and Kell steadied himself for a moment on the carved bedpost before making his way back to his own rooms. Not via the hall and its contingent of guards, but the hidden corridor that ran between their chambers. The lanterns burned to life as Kell entered, the magic easy, effortless, but the light didn’t make the room feel more like home. The space had always felt strangely foreign. Stiff, like an ill-fitting suit.
It was a room for a royal. The ceiling was lined with billowing fabric, the colors of night, and an elegant desk hugged one wall. A sofa and chairs huddled around a silver tea set, and a pair of glass doors led onto a balcony now coated with a thin layer of snow. Kell shrugged off his coat and turned it inside out a few times, returning it to its royal red before draping it over an ottoman.
Kell missed his little room at the top of the stairs in the Ruby Fields, with its rough walls and its stiff cot and its constant noise, but the room and the inn and the woman who ran it had all been burned to nothing by Holland months before, and Kell could not bring himself to seek out another. The room had been a secret, and Kell had promised the crown—and Rhy—that he would stop keeping secrets.
He missed the room, and the privacy that came with it, but there was something to the missing. He supposed he deserved it. Others had lost far more because of him.
So Kell remained in the royal chambers.
The bed waited on a raised platform, a plush mattress with a sea of pillows, but Kell slumped down into his favorite chair instead. A battered thing by comparison, dragged from one of the palace’s studies, it faced the balcony doors and, beyond, the warm red glow of the Isle. He snapped his fingers, and the lanterns dimmed and then went dark.
Sitting there with only the river’s light, his tired mind drifted, as it invariably did, back to Delilah Bard. When Kell thought of her, she was not one girl, but three: the too-skinny street thief who’d robbed him in an alley, the blood-streaked partner who’d fought beside him, and the impossible girl who’d walked away and never looked back.
Where are you, Lila, he mused. And what kind of trouble are you getting into?
Kell dragged a kerchief from his back pocket: a small square of dark fabric first given to him by a girl dressed as a boy in a darkened alley, a sleight of hand so she could rob him. He’d used it to find her more than once, and he wondered if he could do it again, or if it now belonged more to him than to her. He wondered where it would take him, if it worked.
He knew with a bone-deep certainty that she was alive—had to be alive—and he envied her, envied the fact that this Grey London girl was out there somewhere, seeing parts of the world that Kell—a Red Londoner, an Antari—had never glimpsed.
He put the kerchief away, closed his eyes, and waited for sleep to drag him under.
When it did, he dreamed of her. Dreamed of her standing on his balcony, goading him to come out and play. He dreamed of her hand tangling in his, a pulse of power twining them together. He dreamed of them racing through foreign streets, not the London ones they’d navigated, but crooks and bends in places he’d never been, and ones he might never see. But there she was, at his side, pulling him toward freedom.
V
WHITE LONDON
Ojka had always been graceful.
Graceful when she danced. Graceful when she killed.
Sunlight spilled across the stone floor as she spun, her knives licking the air as they arced and dipped, tethered to her hands and to one another by a single length of black cord.
Her hair, once pale, now shone red, a shock of color against her still porcelain skin, bold as blood. It skimmed her shoulders as she twirled, and bowed, a bright streak at the center of a deadly circle. Ojka danced, and the metal kept pace, the perfect partner to her fluid movements, and the entire time, she kept her eyes closed. She knew the dance by heart, a dance she’d first learned as a child on the streets in Kosik, in the worst part of London. A dance she’d mastered. You didn’t stay alive in this city on luck alone. Not if you had any promise of power. The scavengers would sniff it out, slit your throat so they could steal whatever dregs were in your blood. They didn’t care if you were little. That only made you easier to catch and kill.
But not Ojka. She’d carved her way through Kosik. Grown up and stayed alive in a city that managed to kill off everyone. Everything.
But that was another life. That was before. This was after.
Ojka’s veins traced elegant black lines over her skin as she moved. She could feel the magic thrumming through her, a second pulse twined with hers. At first it had burned, so hot she feared it would consume her, the way it had the others. But then she let go. Her body stopped fighting, and so did the power. She embraced it, and once she did, it embraced her, and they danced together, burned together, fusing like strengthened steel.
The blades sang past, extensions of her hands. The dance was almost done.
And then she felt the summons, like a flare of heat inside her skull.
She came to a stop—not suddenly, of course, but slowly—winding the black cord around her hands until the blades snapped against her palms. Only then did her eyes drift open.
One was yellow.
The other was black.
Proof that she had been chosen.
She wasn’t the first, but that was all right. That didn’t matter. What mattered was that the others had been too weak. The first had only lasted a few days. The second had scarcely made it through the week. But Ojka was different. Ojka was strong. She had survived. She would survive, so long as she was worthy.
That was the king’s promise, when he had chosen her.
Ojka coiled the cord around the blades and slid the weapon back into the holster at her hip.
Sweat dripped from the ends of her crimson hair, and she wrung it out before shrugging on her jacket and fastening her cloak. Her fingers traced the scar that ran from her throat up over her jaw and across her cheek, ending just below the king’s mark.
When the magic brought strength to her muscles, warmth to her blood, and color to her features, she feared it would wipe away the scar. She’d been relieved when it didn’t. She’d earned this scar, and every other one she bore.
The summons flared again behind her eyes, and she stepped outside. The day was cold but not bitter, and overhead, beyond the clouds, the sky was streaked across with blue. Blue. Not the frosty off-white she’d grown up with, but true blue. As if the sky itself had thawed. The water of the Sijlt was thawing, too, more and more every day, ice giving way to green-grey water.
Everywhere she looked, the world was waking.
Reviving.
And Ojka’s blood quickened at the sight of it. She’d been in a shop once, and had seen a chest covered in dust. She remembered running her hand across it, removing the film of grey and revealing the dark wood beneath. It was like that, she thought. The king had come and swept his hand across the city, brushed away the dust.
It would take time, he said, but that was all right. Change was coming.
Only a single road stood between her quarters and the castle walls, and as she crossed the street, her gaze flicked toward the river, and the other half of the city beyond. From the heart of Kosik to the steps of the castle. She’d come a long way.
The gates stood open, new vines climbing the stone walls to either side, and she reached out and touched a small purple bud as she stepped through onto the grounds.
Where the Krös Mejkt had once sprawled, a graveyard of stone corpses at the feet of the castle, now there was wild grass, creeping up despite the winter chill. Only two statues remained, flanking the castle stairs, both commissioned by the
new king, not as a warning, but as a reminder of false promises and fallen tyrants.
They were likenesses of the old rulers, Athos and Astrid Dane, carved in white marble. Both figures were on their knees. Athos Dane stared down at the whip in his hands, which coiled like a snake around his wrists, his face twisted in pain, while Astrid clutched the handle of a dagger, its blade buried in her chest, her mouth stretched in a soundless, immortal scream.
The statues were grisly, inelegant things. Unlike the new king.
The new king was perfect.
The new king was chosen.
The new king was god.
And Ojka? She saw the way he looked at her with those beautiful eyes, and she knew he saw the beauty in her, too, now, more and more every day.
She reached the top of the stairs and passed through into the castle.
Ojka had heard tales of the hollow-eyed guards who had served under the Danes, men robbed of minds and souls, rendered nothing but shells. But they were gone now, and the castle stood open, and strangely empty. It had been raided, taken, held, and lost in the weeks after the Danes first fell, but there were no signs of the slaughter now. All was calm.
There were attendants, men and women appearing and disappearing, heads bowed, and a dozen guards, but their eyes weren’t vacant. If anything, they moved with a purpose, a devotion that Ojka understood. This was the resurrection, a legend brought to life, and they were all a part of it.
No one stopped her as she moved through the castle.
In fact, some knelt as she passed, while others whispered blessings and bowed their heads. When she reached the throne room, the doors were open, and the king was waiting. The vaulted ceiling was gone, massive walls and columns now giving way to open sky.
Ojka’s steps echoed on the marble floor.
Was it really once made of bones, she wondered, or is that just a legend? (All Ojka had were rumors; she’d been smart, kept to Kosik, and avoided the Danes at all costs during their rule. Too many stories surrounded the twins, all of them bloody.)
The king stood before his throne, gazing down into the glossy surface of the scrying pool that formed a smooth black circle before the dais. Ojka found its stillness almost as hypnotic as the man reflected in it.
Almost.
But there was something he had that the black pool lacked. Beneath the surface of his calm surged energy. She could feel it from across the room, rippling from him in waves. A source of power.
Life might have been taking root in the city, but in the king, it had already blossomed.
He was tall and strong, muscles twining over his sculpted body, his strength apparent even through his elegant clothes. Black hair swept back from his face, revealing high cheekbones and a strong jaw. The bow of his lips pursed faintly, and the faintest crease formed between his brows as he considered the pool, hands clasped behind his back. His hands. She remembered that day, when those hands had come to rest against her skin, one pressed against the nape of her neck, the other splayed over her eyes. She’d felt his power even then, before it passed between them, pulsing beneath his skin, and she wanted it, needed it, like air.
His mouth had been so close to her ear when he spoke. “Do you accept this power?”
“I accept it,” she’d said. And then everything was searing heat and darkness and pain. Burning. Until his voice came again, close, and said, “Stop fighting, Ojka. Let it in.”
And she had.
He had chosen her, and she would not let him down. Just like in the prophecies, their savior had come. And she would be there at his side.
“Ojka,” he said now without looking up. Her name was a spell on his lips.
“Your Majesty,” she said, kneeling before the pool.
His head drifted up. “You know I’m not fond of titles,” he said, rounding the pool. She straightened and met his eyes: one green, the other black. “Call me Holland.”
I
RED LONDON
The nightmare started as it always did, with Kell standing in the middle of a public place—sometimes the Stone’s Throw, or the statue garden in front of the Danes’ fortress, or the London Sanctuary—at once surrounded and alone.
Tonight, he was in the middle of the Night Market.
It was crowded, more crowded than Kell had ever seen it, the people pressed shoulder to shoulder along the riverbank. He thought he saw Rhy at the other end, but by the time he called his brother’s name, the prince had vanished into the crowd.
Nearby he glimpsed a girl with dark hair cut short along her jaw, and called out—“Lila?”—but as soon as he took a step toward her, the crowd rippled and swallowed her again. Everyone was familiar, and everyone was a stranger in the shifting mass of bodies.
And then a shock of white hair caught his eye, the pale figure of Athos Dane sliding like a serpent through the crowd. Kell growled and reached for his knife, only to be interrupted by cold fingers closing over his.
“Flower boy,” cooed a voice in his ear, and he spun to find Astrid, covered in cracks as if someone had pieced her shattered body back together. Kell staggered back, but the crowd was getting even thicker now, and someone shoved him from behind. By the time he regained his balance, both the Danes were gone.
Rhy flickered again in the distance. He was looking around as if searching for someone, mouthing a word, a name Kell couldn’t hear.
Another stranger bumped into Kell hard. “Sorry,” he murmured. “Sorry …” But the words echoed and the people kept pushing past him as if they didn’t see him, as if he wasn’t there. And then, as soon as he thought it, everybody stopped midstride and every face turned toward him, features resolving into gruesome masks of anger and fear and disgust.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, holding up his hands, only to see his veins turning black.
“No,” he whispered, as the magic traced lines up his arms. “No, please, no.” He could feel the darkness humming in his blood as it spread. The crowd began to move again, but instead of walking away, they were all coming toward him. “Get back,” he said, and when they didn’t he tried to run, only to discover that his legs wouldn’t move.
“Too late,” came Holland’s voice from nowhere. Everywhere. “Once you let it in, you’ve already lost.”
The magic forced its way through him with every beat of his heart. Kell tried to fight it back, but it was in his head now, whispering in Vitari’s voice.
Let me in.
Pain shot jaggedly through Kell’s chest as the darkness hit his heart, and in the distance, Rhy collapsed.
“No!” Kell shouted, reaching toward his brother, uselessly, desperately, but as his hand brushed the nearest person, the darkness leaped like fire from his fingers to the man’s chest. He shuddered, and then collapsed, crumbling to ash as his body struck the street stones. Before he hit the ground, the people on either side of him began to fall as well, death rippling in a wave through the crowd, silently consuming everyone. Beyond them, the buildings began to crumble too, and the bridges, and the palace, until Kell was standing alone in an empty world.
And then in the silence, he heard a sound: not a sob, or a scream, but a laugh.
And it took him a moment to recognize the voice.
It was his.
* * *
Kell gasped, lurching forward out of sleep.
Light was filtering through the patio doors, glinting off a fresh dusting of snow. The shards of sun made him cringe and look away as he pressed his palm to his chest and waited for his heart to slow.
He’d fallen asleep in his chair, fully clothed, his skull aching from his brother’s indulgences.
“Dammit, Rhy,” he muttered, pushing himself to his feet. His head was pounding, a sound matched by whatever was going on outside his window. The blows he—well, Rhy—had sustained the night before were a memory, but the aftereffect of the drinks was compounding, and Kell decided then and there that he vastly preferred the sharp, short pain of a wound to the dull, protracted ache of a ha
ngover. He felt like death, and as he splashed cold water on his face and throat and got dressed, he could only hope that the prince felt worse.
Outside his door, a stiff-looking man with greying temples stood watch. Kell winced. He always hoped for Hastra. Instead he usually got Staff. The one who hated him.
“Morning,” said Kell, walking past.
“Afternoon, sir,” answered Staff—or Silver, as Rhy had nicknamed the aging royal guard—as he fell in step behind him. Kell wasn’t thrilled by the appearance of Staff or Hastra in the aftermath of the Black Night, but he wasn’t surprised, either. It wasn’t the guards’ fault that King Maxim no longer trusted his Antari. Just like it wasn’t Kell’s fault that the guards couldn’t always keep track of him.
He found Rhy in the sunroom, a courtyard enclosed by glass, having lunch with the king and queen. The prince seemed to be managing his own hangover with surprising poise, though Kell could feel Rhy’s headache throbbing alongside his own, and Kell noted that the prince sat with his back to the panes of glass and the glinting light beyond.
“Kell,” Rhy said brightly. “I was beginning to think you’d sleep all day.”
“Sorry,” said Kell pointedly. “I must have indulged a little too much last night.”
“Good afternoon, Kell,” said Queen Emira, an elegant woman with skin like polished wood and a circlet of gold resting atop her jet-black hair. Her tone was kind but distant, and it felt like it had been weeks since she’d last reached out and touched his cheek. In truth, it had been longer. Nearly four months, since the Black Night, when Kell had let the black stone into the city, and Vitari had swept through the streets, and Astrid Dane had plunged a dagger into Rhy’s chest, and Kell had given a piece of his life to bring him back.
Where is our son? the queen had demanded, as if she had only one.
“I hope you’re well rested,” said King Maxim, glancing up from the sheaf of papers in front of him.
“I am, sir.” Fruit and bread were piled on the table, and as Kell slid into the empty chair a servant appeared with a silver pitcher and poured him a steaming cup of tea. He finished the cup in a single, burning swallow, and the servant considered him then left the pitcher, a small gesture for which Kell was immeasurably grateful.