I’m less surprised when I see how her eyes follow Crisea, as if the other girl is her lifeline. Or her ward to protect. Even so, Bethea looks half-dead already. Her iron collar has climbed a few rounds higher up her pale throat. It’s going to reach her face soon, at this rate. Her gaze snags on me, and she freezes, while Crisea only has eyes for Tumarq.
“Crisea,” the general breathes, and all his stony stoicism melts as she throws herself into his arms. She herself nearly caves in. She’s always put on a strong face, but not now.
“I’m sorry,” she sobs. “I’ve failed in my duty. They told me if I didn’t come, that you and Mother might die—that the whole polis was at risk!”
The general glares at us over her head.
“It’s true,” I say. “And she’s going to die if she doesn’t get out of the necropolis. Look at her, General. The king did this to her. To your daughter.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Tumarq nearly spits. “But it is my duty—”
“To fight for the polis. For your king. But he’s not the man you thought he was. He’s a monster who will doom the polis and the entire world for his own gain. Crisea, look at me.”
She turns, sudden fire behind her shining eyes. But then they widen as she takes in me and Ivrilos. Bethea hasn’t stopped staring at me.
“Tell him who this is, and what I am.”
“He’s a shade,” Crisea says. “I’ve seen him before, in glimpses. That’s Ivrilos. And you, I thought you were dead, but—” She gasps.
“She is dead,” Bethea whispers. Her hand covers her pale, chapped lips. “And you have death magic. Oh, Rovan.”
I nearly flinch away from the pity in her voice. “The truth from someone you can trust,” I say to Tumarq.
Lydea sniffs. “He should have trusted Japha, if not me.”
“Forgive me, Princess, if I doubt your motives,” the general bites out.
“What you know about my motives wouldn’t fill a—”
“Shh, everyone.” I raise my hand, cutting Lydea off. There’s a muffled sound from outside. The blighted mages were too quiet to detect because of their magic, but this is the sound of someone trying to be quiet. “Someone’s coming.”
Ivrilos drops my hand, vanishing from anyone’s view but mine. This time, before I can react, the door is kicked in …
… to reveal Penelope, bristling with armor and weapons. She stares at Tumarq—along with Crisea, Japha, Lydea, me, and Bethea—and her jaw drops. To her credit, she doesn’t drop the sword in her hand.
She levels the blade at me. “Out. Get away from the general and my daughter. And Princess Lydea,” she adds belatedly.
“Your priorities, as ever, are painfully clear,” I snarl. Lydea shoots me a wry look.
“Penelope,” Tumarq says slowly. “You might want to hear them out.”
Hope flares in my chest.
“We can talk when she’s in chains! This girl is a traitor! She murdered our nephew and is supposed to be dead. What is Crisea doing here?”
“You still might want to listen to what Rovan has to say, as well as Lydea and Japha.”
“Then they’re with her?” Penelope shakes her head. “I won’t ask why you slipped out in the middle of the night without telling me, Tumarq, but I imagine it has something to do with them.” She tosses her head at Japha. “Missing, presumed dead or to have played some role in the assassination of the crown prince.”
“Mother, Japha would never have,” Crisea says, and for a moment I appreciate her presence more than I thought possible.
Tumarq’s jaw hardens as he faces off with Penelope. “Don’t make Japha … or me … your enemy in this.”
“I thought I was rescuing you from an assassination attempt!” she hisses. “I didn’t know I would find you with a secret … cabal.” She whistles sharply, and I hear the distant scrape and clank of armor out in the square.
“Soldiers,” I say.
Turmarq curses. “Stand down, Penelope.”
“Stand down?”
Crisea looks desperately back and forth between her parents. Japha is grim-faced, and Lydea furious. Bethea is like a shadow. Ivrilos is a shadow, already heading through the wall outside.
“That’s an order,” Tumarq says. “I outrank you.”
“As a general,” Penelope snaps. “I outrank you as a princess.”
“Oh, so now you want to be a princess, when it suits you,” Japha says.
“I outrank you all,” Lydea bursts out. “For the goddess’s sake, Aunt, the king isn’t your brother. He’s a monster who’s lived for centuries, and he needs to be put down.”
“What?”
Before anyone can explain, I hear it—the sound of hooves. More than a few sets. It doesn’t take long for the rest of the group to hear them, too.
“You ordered in the cavalry?” Tumarq exclaims.
Penelope curses. “No. No one mounted.” She rushes outside.
We all look at one another and follow, making a rather jumbled exit from the storeroom. I seize Lydea’s arm and drag her back.
“Stay here,” I say. “You’re too important.”
She grimaces. “To Thanopolis or Skyllea?”
“To me.” That makes her freeze. “Please stay and hide.” Saying that dredges up a distant memory of my father once telling me the same thing. I hadn’t listened to him. Before I can dwell on that, I draw the shadows around me and conceal myself in darkness. Invisible, I head outside.
Out in the square, it’s like a military drill has been ordered in the middle of the night. Dozens upon dozens of soldiers are gathering, torches flaring and steel flashing, apparently in preparation for whatever assassination attempt or treason Penelope thought she might find brewing.
And now come the bloodmages on horseback. It’s not every bloodline in the Hall of the Wards, but as many as could be assembled at this late hour, led by Lady Acantha … and the king. The two of them are nestled in a phalanx of mounted bloodmages cloaked in black and red, silver helms glinting in the night. Acantha is swathed in crimson, the king in midnight, his true face hidden behind that mask of stony middle age, iron eyes, and salt-and-pepper hair crowned in golden laurels.
The horses come to a stop, facing the ranks of foot soldiers. Everyone looks confused—the bloodmages, the troops, and Penelope alike.
“What is the meaning of this?” the king asks calmly into the awkward, heavy silence. His eyes skip over me—but several times, as if they’re fumbling for what they know is there. I swear I see a flash of red in them.
Penelope’s gaze is alarmed as she glances back and forth between the assembled ranks and the mounted bloodmages, backed by the king. “Your Majesty, how … why…?”
“You don’t think I’m aware of what’s going on in my own palace?” the king asks coldly. “I suspected you might try something, Penelope.”
I watch a war play out in her expression. She neither wants to let herself be accused of treason nor to accuse Tumarq of it. “I’m not trying anything. I’m trying to stop it. Something was amiss, and I wanted to investigate before I disturbed you, Your Majesty.”
“The company you keep is far more disturbing.” His eyes flicker over me again, and then settle on Tumarq. “And perhaps oddest of all is finding my most trusted general here with you, alongside truants from the necropolis and potential traitors.” He pauses. “Order your men to stand down.”
“No,” Turmarq says before Penelope can speak.
“Then you”—the king tosses an unconcerned, arrogant look at Acantha—“order your bloodmages to attack any who will not surrender. If they resist, take no prisoners.”
He doesn’t look back as he turns his horse away. He’s not even going to watch his people kill one another by his command. And with him will go my chances for revenge, and for averting a war.
I move.
32
Surprisingly, it’s Bethea who moves first. Before Acantha can open her mouth to give the order, Bethea casts off a
length of the iron from around her neck and flings it, her spoken words of death magic whipping it through the air like a blade. For a split second I think it’s going to cleave the bloodmage’s head from her shoulders, but instead it binds around her throat, choking her off and knocking her from the saddle.
Bethea’s face is set in grim satisfaction. Acantha was the one who sent her and her mother to the necropolis, after all.
The king pauses, barely sparing Acantha a glance where she wheezes and gags on the ground, and turns his horse to face Bethea. But Crisea has already stepped in front of her, shielding her.
“Cris,” Penelope cries. “Don’t!”
Maybe it’s because that’s the nickname my father once used for her. Maybe it’s that she’s protecting Bethea like I was already moving to do. But I step out in front of both of them and the lines of troops. The phalanx of bloodmages points at me like a crossbow, the king like the bolt about to fire. I doubt he’ll lift a hand to do it, so as not to give his hidden powers away, but he’ll use someone else’s.
“Wait,” I cry as I let the shadows around me dissipate. The king’s eyes shoot to me, and I don’t imagine it this time—they flash red. In that moment, his mask cracks, his lips move, and his hand rises.
This is my chance.
Metal darts wreathed in blue flame lance from his fingers—blood and death magic that only I could block. Instead of trying, my own hand flickers and my breath exhales the words. A stone clacks at the king’s feet as I brace for his unearthly projectiles to hit me.
Ivrilos appears before me, stepping back against my chest so he materializes fully. His blades, along with a huge gust of air that rises with his whisper, hammer aside the metal darts, and a gout of water douses the flame, leaving only steam in the air. Japha stands next to me, hand extended—the one that guided the water.
I didn’t have to save myself, because they did it for me.
“That was death magic, from the king!” Bethea cries.
“And blood magic as well,” says Japha, their voice carrying. “The king is a bloodmage.”
“More than that,” Ivrilos shouts. “He is my brother, dead these four hundred years. But whereas I am a shade, he is a monster. A revenant in disguise.”
“And I can prove it,” I add, and I sketch the final sigil, the one under my eye that my father left me. The stone I threw toward the king shimmers. And then the light expands—the shield I cast on it—billowing out like a blown glass bubble, encasing the king like a miniature veil. Inside, he flickers and ripples like a reflection in water. At times, you can see the king everyone knows as he struggles to maintain his mask against my magic, and other times—red eyes in a too-young, too-mad face; short dark hair with no gray; a leaner chest heaving in anger; muscular arms streaked with a bloodline. Kadreus.
A different person entirely.
The bloodmages, at least, would know what sort of sigils I used. It’s much like the city’s own veil against the blight. Some of them pull their horses away in surprise and horror.
“They speak the truth,” Tumarq declares. Finally. “The king has fallen to this blighted impostor, who sits in his place on the throne. Rally to me!” He raises his sword, and all the foot soldiers draw their own.
The king looks around at his bloodmages. “Kill them,” he says.
Even though a few horses shy sideways, none of them move forward.
“Kill them,” he repeats, growling. “I am still your king. And a truer one you’ve never had since Athanatos.”
“It’s literally been only you, since him,” Japha says, their sardonic tone carrying across the courtyard. “But that doesn’t mean you’re true. You’ve kept the throne through an endless string of lies and regicide. You’ve ruled by deceiving your people. I’d say we’re done with all of that.”
“You did this.” The king turns slowly to Japha, those flickering red eyes finding them across the gap between the two forces. “Tumarq would never betray me otherwise, not for the little blue-haired witch. You’re a disgrace. You’ve never belonged in this family.”
If the words are meant to be damning, they don’t have their intended effect. Japha grins. “Or maybe you don’t belong anymore.”
The king’s eyes don’t leave theirs. “Indeed. Our blood is too diluted. This latest generation is a shame. I’ve had to tolerate you as a bloodline because your sister was inadequate and took her own life. Kineas was a fool, Lydea willful. And Crisea has always been her mother’s greatest weakness.”
Tumarq’s hand tightens on his sword. “Never mention my children with your foul lips ever again.”
The king ignores him and looks at Ivrilos, his brother. “Children are always a liability. He should have entirely rid himself of you, bastard.”
“You too, then,” Ivrilos says.
“No, because I made myself indispensable. His greatest strength.”
Tumarq takes a step forward, moving closer to his children. Both of them. “Then Japha and Crisea are mine.”
I hear Japha’s breath catch. And then I hear a door slam open. Footsteps over the courtyard’s cobblestones.
“And perhaps I will be my father’s,” says a voice that makes me flinch, “even if he doesn’t have a say in it.” Lydea comes striding out from the storage building. Her wine-colored peplos flows around her like a storm, her dark eyes practically sparking in the torchlight. I shake my head at her, willing her back inside. She’s in too much danger out here. And yet she stands in a line with the rest of us, hands held ready by her strophion-twined hips.
The king smiles down at her from atop his horse. “Why would I not have a say in your significance, daughter dear?”
“Because you’re not my father,” Lydea says, and then waves a hand over the bloodmages. “No one will be charged with treason if you resist this man … if you stand with me. I am Thanopolis’s future, so help me. Help your polis. Because my father is gone.”
The king stares at her, death in his red eyes.
“Children are nothing without their fathers,” he says. “Headless beasts without guidance. You are already nothing. But some of you are still too much.” His gaze flickers. His hand moves even faster.
I realize what he’s doing, but too late. I’ve been focused on protecting Lydea. Japha, Bethea. Even Ivrilos. I spin toward Tumarq just as the king reaches for him.
The father of Japha and Crisea. Head of the army.
I try to block whatever it is the king has thrown. It looks like liquid darkness, slithering like a snake through the air. I rip up the stones of the courtyard as a shield, but his magic just flows around it. Fire, I think frantically—I could burn it, turn the liquid to mist, but that much heat would scorch everyone around me.
The toxic darkness coils and strikes.
And hits Japha, square in the chest, who has thrown themself in front of Tumarq at the last second.
Japha stumbles. They look around, almost in confusion. And then I see the poison streaking up their neck, deeper and darker under their skin than their bloodline. They collapse to their knees.
“No!” I shriek.
Tumarq cries out at the same time. He catches Japha’s shoulders as they topple sideways, cradling them in his arms. The darkness is bleeding into Japha’s eyes, turning them fully black. Their limbs shake uncontrollably against the cobbles. Their chest convulses.
“Fight this,” Tumarq commands, his strong hand cupping Japha’s cheek. “You are my greatest strength. You always were. You were always enough. Now fight. I’m begging you.”
Japha opens their mouth to respond, and blackness like tar bubbles out.
Tumarq’s words grow more frantic. “I’m supposed to be your shield. It should have hit me.” His voice breaks. “Why, Japha?”
I’ve moved without realizing it. I’m almost to them, fingers outstretched, mouth opening to stop this however I can. But no words come, no sigils, because I hear Japha’s heart stutter … and stop.
Tumarq lets out a bellow of angui
sh. Lydea stands frozen, hands over her mouth, eyes flown wide in horror. Crisea and Bethea both dive for Japha, taking their hands and muttering frantically, but there’s nothing either of them can do.
Japha just called themself the luckiest of us. And now they’re dead.
“No,” I say. “No.” I can’t believe what I’m seeing, what I’m feeling. Pain tears through me, starting in my chest and dropping, leaving me with no sense of the bottom as it turns me inside out. I fold forward, clutching my useless, empty stomach as a cry rips out of me.
Behind me, my back turned on him, the king says calmly, “Attack.”
“No,” Ivrilos breathes.
Because the king isn’t speaking to the bloodmages anymore. He’s speaking to their guardians. I spin just in time to see every bloodmage collapse in their saddles, some sliding to the ground, backs arching, eyes and mouths wide in anguish, as an army of darkness steps out of the shadows.
An army of the dead facing an army of the living.
Behind them, the king wheels his horse around and rides away from the field of battle, out of the courtyard and toward the palace.
The guardian shades flood forward. I flex my fingers and say the word, and the shield I used against the king expands, encasing a dozen or so bloodmages. They cough, stirring feebly, suddenly blocked from what was drawing the life from them. A few of their shades are likely vanishing from sight, no longer able to fight the living.
But not enough of them.
“Rovan,” Ivrilos says. “Save your strength. We have to—”
“I know. We have to follow the king.” I look around frantically. The general is still down on his knees next to Japha, along with Crisea and Bethea. Penelope stands above them, gripping Tumarq’s shoulder hard. I can’t tell if she’s comforting him or urging him to get up. The lines of soldiers look terrified even as they raise their steel. Flesh meets shadow in a flickering clash of swords, and already there are screams among the living. Our group knots together, Ivrilos whirling around us, fighting off other shades, as I maintain my shield over the few bloodmages I can cover. “But how can we leave everyone like this?”
In the Ravenous Dark Page 33