Soulstar

by C. L. Polk

  At the far end of the rings of writing desks stood Severin, head bent as his pen juddered across a page of his own book. He raised his head at the sound of our entrance, his lips pressed together so tightly they were white. He put down his pen and drew a pistol, its barrel swinging to point at me.

  Grace huffed. “Guns. How cute.”

  “Now,” the King said, and a flurry of movement burst from behind us. Basil Brown held his bare hand against Grace’s mouth, and she went limp in his arms. She didn’t struggle, didn’t make a sound—but her unseeing eyes were white all around the iris, wide with terror.

  I moved for Basil, but the King’s voice stopped me. “Move and she dies.”

  I stopped. “You’re that good a shot?”

  “No. But she is.”

  I followed Severin’s gaze up to the banister rails circling the loft and stared up the barrel of a long black rifle. Zelind touched my wrist and shook kher head.

  Khe could yank the gun out of one opponent’s hands, but khe couldn’t see both at once. Whichever khe disarmed, the other would have time to shoot. And the King wasn’t gunning us down just yet. We needed to buy some time if we were going to convince him to step aside.

  “All right,” I said. “Let’s just take it easy. I came to talk.”

  “You came to demand my crown,” Severin said. “All the years I ran charitable foundations, funded the Rose Crown scholarships, headed relief programs, and you couldn’t see that I was on your side? You couldn’t see that as king, I would steer our course toward reform, that my rule would be good for you?” He looked at me with hurt in his eyes. “I had so many plans. Why didn’t you trust me?”

  “Because we’re asking for so much more,” I said. “Because a good king is still a king.”

  “You could have waited to see what I was like. I understood your dissatisfaction with my mother. I shared it, didn’t I? I was prepared to bring the change you wanted. Decree by decree, I would show my Cabinet what mattered to me, lead them to a better Aeland. Only you lot wouldn’t let up. You wouldn’t take what I offered. You didn’t even give me the chance to prove myself.”

  “You would have proven yourself if you had decreed free democracy,” I said. “You never called a meeting with Solidarity to hear us. You never expended even the slightest effort to reach out to us.”

  “A king doesn’t ask for permission from his subjects,” Severin said. “You were in the way. I had a plan. With you telling the Chancellor what your people wanted, I could employ the best of those ideas myself. But instead, you defied me. I don’t understand you people at all. I offered your spouse a fortune. Look what khe did with it.”

  This need to be in control as the supreme authority—that was why Jacob died. It all led back to Severin’s need to rule. To be right. To be loved by his subjects unquestioningly.

  “I understand now,” I said. “I see what you intended, and your intentions were good, but your plan wouldn’t work if Jacob was still putting Solidarity to work against you.”

  “Exactly,” the King said. “I didn’t want to see Jacob dead. He was a good man, as you said. He just didn’t know when to quit fighting.”

  “So you had to kill him,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sorry you had to kill him?” I asked.

  Severin paused. “I regret his death.”

  “Because a king can’t apologize,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “Then there’s a problem,” I said. “Because the dead are here, and they want your apology. They want your amends. And they won’t leave until they have them.”

  Silently, I called to the dead. I opened my senses to them and beckoned them to me. They came in a great rush, their presence swooping through my senses like the fluttering of many wings, their spirits like soft points of cold in the beeswax-scented room.

  Joy was first at my side. Mahalia came next. They floated beside me, the strongest-willed spirits I knew, and floated toward the King, who was white as a sheet.

  “No,” he said. “No, get away.”

  The gun barrel swung away from me and pointed at Joy.

  “Get back!” the King cried.

  “Duck!” Zelind cried, and from behind me came a firecracker pop and a shivering chill.

  The sniper. I’d forgotten.

  I froze in the sliver of a second before the bullet ripped through me. Zelind flung out kher hand, defending me to the last. Kher mouth opened on a shout, kher nose loosed two thin streams of blood that poured off kher upper lip. Khe coughed, and a fine-mist cloud of blood landed on my face. Khe fell, and while khe was falling I realized, finally, that I was still alive, that I wasn’t shot and bleeding.

  The bullet that had been hovering in midair succumbed to gravity and fell to the floor.

  But Zelind was on the ground, chest heaving, blood smearing over kher cheeks. A bullet lay beside her, shining dully on the golden oak floor. Zelind looked past me as khe lifted kher hand, and Laura’s rifle sailed through the air.

  It crashed to the floor, and Zelind closed kher eyes.

  “No!”

  I fell to my knees beside kher. I seized kher soul and held it inside kher body.

  “You do not get to die today,” I said. “You hear me? Your soul is not going anywhere. Joy!” I shouted. “Get Miles. You get him and you bring him here.”

  As I held in kher soul, a memory of sunlight glittered on the Densmore Canal. I felt Zelind beside me on a canal barge, asking me to explain germ theory and avoiding infection. Khe listened while butterflies swooped in kher stomach, picking out the next question to keep me talking until the barge stopped behind the clan house and I had to disembark.

  “Fight,” I said. “Void damn it, fight for me.”

  We walked across the open field toward school, our shoes crunching on the frosted grass. Zelind asked, “Will you help me with my health science report?” with so much tension quivering inside kher, I held my breath until the younger me shrugged and said, “Sure.”

  We were fourteen, and Zelind’s joy at my acceptance made tears blur my eyes.

  “You loved me,” I said. “We were knee-deep in puberty, and you loved me and I didn’t even notice.”

  Zelind smiled. Kher teeth were bloody. “There was only ever one girl for me,” khe said. “Besides, you—”

  Blood sprayed from kher mouth as khe coughed.

  “Just stay still,” I said. “Miles is coming. He’s coming.”

  Zelind heaved, kher breath tattered. “It hurts.”

  “I know,” I said. “It hurts like the blazes. That’s how you know you can still fight.”

  Beyond me, Severin sobbed like a child, the air around him so thick with the dead that he was hard to see. They passed through his shuddering body, pouring everything they’d felt inside the soul-engines into the King’s terror and torment.

  “Please,” he bawled, and tried fighting them off, but they kept coming.

  “Make them stop.” Basil pointed the gun at me. “Make them stop hurting the King.”

  “It’s over, Basil.”

  Basil’s response was to lower his aim. “Or I could shoot kher. Call off your spirits, or your sweetheart is dead.”

  “If I let kher go, khe’s dead.”

  Basil shrugged. “I think you’re having a bad day, Auntie. Time to choose.”

  But the spirits closed in on the King, who held his pistol out before him like a talisman, his face taut with horror.

  “I can’t stop them,” I said.

  Basil looked regretful. “That’s a shame. Should I do you next?”

  Joy burst through the door an instant before it flew open. Tristan cut toward Basil, who swung his pistol around—and blinked as Tristan vanished. Basil gasped as blood flew from his mouth, his head snapping back as if he’d been caught unawares by a powerful blow. Amaranthines poured into the temple, seizing Basil and putting him on his knees.

  Grace fell to her knees and gasped, rolling out of the way. Mile
s knelt beside me, feeling Zelind’s throat.

  “I’ve got kher. It will be all right,” Miles said, his palm spread against Zelind’s forehead. “Get the King.”

  “Are you sure you don’t need me to—”

  “Trust me. Go,” Miles said.

  I dashed toward Severin, who stared at the ghosts as he sucked in rapid, anxious breaths. I lunged for him, and the ghosts closed in. Severin uttered a thin scream, and I snatched the pistol out of his hands.

  He grabbed the front of my singed coat. “Help me.”

  “No.”

  I grabbed his wrist and Severin whimpered. The ghosts raked their hands over his face, the whole writhing, haunting mass of them whispering. Some of the most damaged couldn’t speak. But they could all scream, and they howled at the King while clawing at him, their hands passing into his body.

  “You need to apologize to them,” I said. “But a king can’t apologize, can he?”

  “Stop it,” Severin wailed. “Make it stop. Make them stop.”

  “They will never stop,” I said. “Not while you’re king. They will come to you every day and every night. They will haunt you forever, until you apologize.”

  “I didn’t do this to them! Tell them! I didn’t do it!”

  “You carry your grandfather’s guilt, and your mother’s too. You inherited it along with that crown. This is Cynthia Martin,” I said. “She died two years ago. She didn’t go to the Solace. She went into a soul-engine. It hurt her for two years. It ate her memories. It ate her soul. And you have to apologize. This is Keltan Green of the Sure Winds. He died—”

  “Make it stop,” Severin said. “Please.”

  “Only one thing will stop them from coming to you,” I said.

  “Anything.”

  “You must make amends to them.”

  “How?”

  “Give up absolute rule,” I said. “Or we will fill your palace with the dead. They will find you no matter where you hide.”

  “You can’t.”

  “I can,” I said. “And so can the Deathsingers you had bred to keep the soul-engines running. We will never stop haunting you.”

  “I’ll do whatever you want,” Severin said. “I’ll pay the reparations Grace proposed to me.”

  “Not enough.”

  “I’ll recognize the Free Government,” he said. “They’ll hold equal weight to the Lower House.”

  “They already are the Lower House,” I said. “And it’s not enough.”

  “Please. I’ll make aether free. Please.”

  “You planned and carried out the murder of Jacob Clarke. You sent your spy to murder Grace Hensley. You used her disappearance as an excuse to loose the armed guards on your own citizens. You should be stripped of your crown and tried for your crimes—for which you would hang.”

  “No,” Severin gasped. “I just wanted the chance to prove myself.”

  “You failed,” I said. “You have a choice. Atone for all the dead by restructuring the government. End the rule of the Crown and abdicate. Or spend years where you personally atone for what your legacy has become. Because they won’t stop haunting you until you do one or the other.”

  “Yes! Yes! I’ll abdicate. I’ll do what you want, only please—”

  I looked up. “He’s going to do it,” I said to the ghosts. “It isn’t enough, but he’ll do it. Back up.”

  The ghosts floated away. Severin wept. His body shook, and he gulped down air.

  “Stay near him,” I said. “Don’t let him forget his promise.”

  I pulled the plain gold circlet from his head and turned back to Miles and Zelind.

  Miles wasn’t alone. Aife and Ysonde knelt beside him, shoring up Miles’s energy with their own strength. Ysonde was veiled in shadows that fluttered like wings, flashing bright as the afterglow of lightning. Aife was bathed in clear golden light, her glamor little more than gossamer over her strange, half-divine beauty.

  Miles blazed with power. The thirteen soulstars crowning him glowed, and green light poured from his hands, filling Zelind’s body as the power knitted kher back together. Zelind’s face was taut with pain, and khe gasped for breath, kher fists clenched.

  “Can you save kher?”

  “I’m doing it,” Miles said. “Khe’s a fighter, but I’m borrowing flesh to pay for organ damage.”

  “Kher soul will not untether,” Aife said. “Khe wants to live.”

  I landed on my knees next to kher. “Breathe,” I said. “I know it hurts.”

  “That’s how I know I can still fight,” Zelind said, and groaned as khe laughed.

  “Don’t talk.”

  “Zelind’s going to need total bedrest,” Miles said.

  “Oh. That sounds fun,” Zelind said.

  “I wouldn’t move kher out of the palace right now,” Miles said. “But kher sarcasm is completely intact, so there’s hope.”

  Grace hugged herself around the middle, and Tristan draped an arm around her as they watched my best friend work to save Zelind.

  Miles lifted his hands away. “There.”

  Zelind tried to lift kher head, but Miles stopped it with his hand on kher forehead. “Don’t you move. Not after all the work I did to save you.”

  I wiped at my forehead. “We did it. We won.”

  Grace looked up, stepping out of Tristan’s comforting arms. “There’s something I need to do.”

  “What’s that?”

  Grace straightened her dinner gown and took the Heart of Aeland off her finger. “I need to make Father pay for all this.”

  “Grace,” Miles said, but Grace strode off, straight-arming the door open.

  Miles sighed. “I’m all right here. Go after her. Don’t let her do anything foolish.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  One Last Blow

  Grace was halfway down the corridor by the time I made it out of the temple. I ran, gasping at how the heat-singed skin on my legs and face felt tight and hot as I moved. “Grace!”

  “I have to do this,” Grace said. “I have to make sure he can’t hurt anyone else.”

  “All right, so we can—”

  “I should have stopped him in Bywell. Every setback, every difficulty, every treachery traces back to him. Look what he did to Severin.”

  “Severin wouldn’t have surrendered his power with a smile—”

  “We could have worked something out.” Grace’s strides were so long, and she took the stairs two at a time. “Ceremonial duties, the opportunity to give advice or an opinion—but Father had to have it all, at any cost. He’ll never stop trying to control Aeland, not as long as he breathes.”

  “Grace, stop.” I jogged by her side and tugged at her elbow, but she kept walking. “Let’s get help. Let’s arrest him.”

  “I am.”

  We were before a golden oak door, unguarded and unlocked. Grace yanked it open and strode inside, facing the frail figure of Sir Christopher Hensley, who stood before a table filled with tonic bottles.

  “I wondered if you would come,” he said. “I suppose I knew you would.”

  He stood with his back to us and looked out the window, preoccupied by the sight of the stars—but then he coughed, great horrible coughs that could crack a rib in a man so old, so weakened by his illness. It was a wonder that he could stand, even with the aid of a cane.

  Grace waited until the spasms passed. “It’s over, Father.”

  “So. You’ve fallen in with the rabble,” he said. “I did my best for you. I worked for years to bring you the greatest gift a father could give his most beloved child—the hand of a king, a crown of your own—and you dashed it to the ground to cavort with peasants.”

  “You taught me that I should make Aeland a better place than it was before,” Grace said. “You told me to defend Aeland with everything I had. That’s what I’m doing. I’m protecting Aeland from you.”

  “You little fool,” Sir Christopher said. “Can’t you see what they will do, if you let the mob run wild? I ta
ught you everything you needed to guide a nation. I gave you a king you could rule!”

  He turned, finally, his eyes bright with anger, but that glint was nothing compared to the blaze of hatred that twisted his face when he saw me.

  “You,” he said. “You twisted my daughter’s mind.”

  And then I couldn’t breathe. I choked on nothing, my lungs trying desperately to fill. I groped for Grace, but she ran for her father. She leapt over the sofa, landed before him, and wrapped her hands around his throat.

  “No one understands how dangerous you are,” Grace said. “But I do. You know what else you taught me? To do what must be done and take responsibility after.”

  She was going to kill him. I tried running forward, to flee the bubble denying me air, but my lungs ached with the effort of trying to get a breath. I struck Grace on the shoulder, but everything was fading out.

  “Grace,” I croaked, and thankfully she saw me. Air seeped into my mouth, down my throat—it was only a trickle, but I gasped it in. “Grace, stop.”

  “I can’t. I can’t let him live.”

  “If you don’t, it’s murder.”

  “He won’t stop,” Grace said. “He won’t stop until he’s dead.”

  “And he will hang,” I said. “But I need you to help me heal Aeland, don’t you see that? And if you kill him, he will have succeeded in one last blow against Solidarity, one more thing to sabotage us.”

  Grace looked at me, and Sir Christopher’s thrashing weakened. “He has to pay.”

  “He will. Let him go, Grace. Don’t let him cheat me of the best political strategist in Aeland. Don’t let him take my friend away.”

  Grace’s eyes flared wider, and she took her hands away. Sir Christopher gulped in air, once, twice, and backed into a corner.

  “Get a pillowcase. We need to blindfold him,” Grace said. “We’re taking him to Kingsgrave.”

  “He’ll appear before the Free Government,” I said. “They will pass judgment. He’ll see justice. This will all be over soon.”

  * * *

  We left Sir Christopher in a copper-clad cell with nothing but a straw mattress and a woolen blanket. Grace stopped at the guard station to speak to the warden, and I continued past celebrating citizens who had found the wine cellar, graciously refusing a draft on the way up to the infirmary.