by V. E. Schwab
“Please wake up.”
His touch trailed down the prince’s sleeve, coming to rest on his hand.
Alucard had always loved Rhy’s hands, smooth palms and long fingers, meant for touching, for talking, for music.
He didn’t know if Rhy played anymore, but he had once, and when he did, he played the way he spoke a language. Fluently.
A ghost of memory behind his eyes. Nails dancing over skin.
“Play me something,” Alucard had said, and Rhy had smiled his dazzling smile, the candlelight turning his amber eyes to gold as his fingers drifted, chords flitting over shoulder, ribs, waist.
“I’d rather play you.”
Alucard threaded his fingers through the prince’s, now, relieved to find them warm, relieved again when Rhy’s hand tightened, ever so slightly, on his own. Carefully, Alucard climbed into the bed. Cautiously, he stretched himself beside the sleeping prince.
Beyond the glass, the darkness began to splinter, spread, but Alucard’s eyes were on Rhy’s chest as it rose and fell, a hundred silver threads knitting slowly, slowly back together.
IV
At last, Osaron was free.
There had been an instant on the roof—the space between a breath in and a breath out—when it felt as if the pieces of himself might scatter in the wind without flesh and bone to hold them in. But he did not scatter. Did not dissolve. Did not cease to be.
He’d grown strong over the months in that other world.
Stronger over the minutes in this one.
And he was free.
A thing so strange, so long forgotten, he hardly knew it.
How long had he sat on that throne at the center of a sleeping city, watching the pulse of his world go still, watching until even the snow stopped falling and hung suspended in the air and there was nothing left to do but sleep and wait and wait and wait and wait …
To be free.
And now.
Osaron smiled, and the river shimmered. He laughed, and the air shook. He flexed, and the world shuddered.
It welcomed him, this world.
It wanted change.
It knew, in its marrow, in its bones, that it could be more.
It whispered to him, Make, make, make.
This world burned with promise, the way his own had burned so long ago, before it went to ash. But he had been a young god then, too eager to give, to be loved.
He knew better now.
Humans did not make good rulers. They were children, servants, subjects, pets, food, fodder. They had a place, just as he had a place, and he would be the god they needed, and they would love him for it. He would show them how.
He would feed them power. Just enough to keep them bound. A taste of what could be. What they could be. And as he wove around them, through them, he would draw a measure of their strength, their magic, their potential, and it would feed him, stoke him, and they would give it freely, because he was theirs, and they were his, and together they would make something extraordinary.
I am mercy, he whispered in their ears.
I am power.
I am king.
I am god.
Kneel.
And all over the city—his new city—they were kneeling.
It was a natural thing, to kneel, a matter of gravity, of letting your weight carry you down. Most of them wanted to do it; he could feel their submission.
And those who didn’t, those who refused—
Well, there was no place for them in Osaron’s kingdom.
No place for them at all.
V
“Two cheers to the wind…”
“And three to the women…”
“And four to the splendid sea.”
The last word trailed off, dissolving into the coarser sounds of glasses knocking against tables, ale splashing onto floor.
“Is that really how it goes?” asked Vasry, tipping his head back against the booth. “I thought it was wine, not wind.”
“Wouldn’t be a sea shanty without the wind,” said Tav.
“Wouldn’t be a shanty without the wine,” countered Vasry, slurring his words. Lenos didn’t know if it was for effect or because the sailor—the entire crew for that matter—was soused.
The entire crew, that was, except for Lenos. He’d never been big on the stuff (didn’t like the way it muddled everything and left him feeling ill for days), but nobody seemed to notice whether or not he actually drank, so long as he had a glass in his hand for toasting. And he always did. Lenos had a glass when the crew toasted their captain, Alucard Emery, the victor of the Essen Tasch, and had it still when they kept on toasting him every half hour or so, until they lost track.
Now that the tournament was done, most of the pennants sat soaking up ale on tabletops, and the silver-and-blue flame on Alucard’s banner was looking muddier by the round.
Their illustrious captain was long gone, probably toasting himself up at the winner’s ball. If Lenos strained, he could hear the occasional echo of fireworks over the rattle of the crowd in the Wandering Road.
There’d be a proper parade in the morning, and a final wave of celebration (and half of London still in their cups), but tonight, the palace was for the champions, the taverns for the rest.
“Any sign of Bard?” asked Tav.
Lenos looked around, scanning the crowded inn. He hadn’t seen her, not since the first round of drinks. The crew teased him for the way he was around her, mistaking his skittishness for shyness, attraction, even fear—and maybe it was fear, at least a little, but if so, it was the smart kind. Lenos feared Lila the way a rabbit feared a hound. The way a mortal feared lightning after a storm.
A shiver ran through him, sudden and cold.
He’d always been sensitive to the balance of things. Could have been a priest, if he’d had a bit more magic. He knew when things were right—that wonderful feeling like warm sun on a cool day—and he knew when they were aven—like Lila, with her strange past and stranger power—and he knew when they were wrong.
And right now, something was wrong.
Lenos took a sip of ale to steady his nerves—his reflection a frowning amber smudge on its surface—and got to his feet. The Spire’s first mate caught his eye, and rose as well. (Stross knew about his moments, and unlike the rest of the crew, who called him odd, superstitious, Stross seemed to believe him. Or, at least, not disbelieve him outright.)
Lenos moved through the room in a kind of daze, caught up in the strange spell of the feeling, the cord of wrongness like a rope tugging him along. He was halfway to the door when the first shout came from the tavern window.
“There’s something in the river!”
“Yeah,” Tav called back, “big floating arenas. Been there all week.”
But Lenos was still moving toward the tavern’s entrance. He pushed open the door, unmoved by the sudden cut of cold wind.
The streets were emptier than usual, the first heads just poking out to see.
Lenos walked, Stross on his heels, until he rounded the corner and saw the edge of the night market, its crowd shifting to the riverbanks, tilting toward the red water like loose cargo on a ship.
His heart thudded in his chest as he pushed forward, his slim body slipping through where Stross’s broad form lodged and stuck. There, ahead, the crimson glow of the Isle, and—
Lenos stopped.
Something was spreading along the river’s surface, like an oil slick, blotting out the light, replacing it with something black, and glistening, and wrong. The darkness slipped onto the bank, sloshing up against the dead winter grass, the stone walk, leaving an iridescent streak with every lapping wave.
The sight tugged at Lenos’s limbs, that same downward pull, easy as gravity, and when he felt himself stepping forward, he tore his gaze away, forced himself to stop.
To his right, a man stumbled forward to the river’s edge. Lenos tried to catch his sleeve, but the man was already past him, with a woman following close behind. All
around, the crowd was torn between staggering back and jostling forward, and Lenos, unable to move away, could only fight to hold his ground.
“Stop!” called a guard as the man who’d swept past Lenos sank to one knee and reached out, as if to touch the river’s surface. Instead, the river touched him, stretched out a hand made of blackish water and wrapped its fingers around the man’s arm, and pulled him in. Screams went up, swallowing the splash, the instant of struggle before the man went under.
The crowd recoiled as the oily sheen began to smooth, went silent as it waited for the man—or his body—to surface.
“Stand aside!” demanded another guard, forcing his way forward. He was almost to the bank when the man reappeared. The guard stumbled back in shock as the man came up, not gasping for air, or struggling against the river’s hold, but calm and slow, as if rising from a bath. Gasps and murmurs as the man climbed out of the river and onto the bank, oblivious to the waterlogged clothes weighing him down. Dripping from his skin, the water looked clean, clear, but when it pooled on the stones, it glistened and moved.
Stross’s hand was on Lenos’s shoulder, straining, but he couldn’t take his eyes from the man on the bank. There was something wrong with him. Something very wrong. Shadows swirled in his eyes, coiling like wisps of smoke, and his veins stood out against his tan skin, darkening to threads of black. But it was the rictus smile more than anything that made Lenos shiver.
The man spread his arms, streaming water, and announced boldly, “The king has come.”
He threw his head back and began to laugh as the darkness climbed the banks around him, tendrils of black fog that reached like fingers, clawing their way forward into the street. The crowd was thrown into panic, the ones close enough to see now scrambling to get away, only to be penned in by those behind. Lenos turned, looking for Stross, but the man was nowhere to be seen. Down the bank, another scream. Somewhere in the distance, an echo of the man’s words, now on a woman’s lips, now a child’s.
“The king has come.”
“The king has come.”
“The king has come,” said an old man, eyes shining, “and he is glorious.”
Lenos tried to get away, but the street was a roiling mass of bodies, crowded in by the shadow’s reach. Most fought to get free, but dotting the crowd were those who couldn’t tear their eyes from the black river. Those who stood, stiff as stone, transfixed by the glistening waves, the gravity of the spell pulling them down.
Lenos felt his own gaze drawn back into the murk and madness, stammered a prayer to the nameless saints even as his long limbs took a single step forward.
And then another.
His boots sank into the loamy soil of the riverbank, his thoughts quieting, vision narrowing to that mesmerizing dark. At the edge of his mind, he heard the rumble of hooves, like thunder, and then a voice, cutting through the chaos like a knife.
“Get back!” it shouted, and Lenos blinked, stumbling away from the reaching river right before a royal horse could crush him underfoot.
The massive steed reared up, but it was the figures mounted on top that held Lenos’s attention now.
The Antari prince sat astride the horse, disheveled, his crimson coat open to reveal bare skin, a streak of blood, a detailed scar. And behind the black-eyed prince, clinging to him for dear life, was Lila Bard.
“Fucking beast,” she muttered, nearly falling as she tried to free herself from the saddle. Kell Maresh—Aven Vares—hopped easily down, coat billowing around him, one hand resting on Bard’s shoulder, and Lenos couldn’t tell if the man was seeking balance or offering it. Bard’s eyes scanned the crowd—one of them was decidedly wrong, a starburst of glassy light—before landing on Lenos. She managed a quick, pained smile before someone screamed.
Nearby a woman collapsed, a tendril of shadow wrapping itself around her leg. She clawed at it, but her fingers went straight through. Lila spun toward her, but the Antari prince got there first. He tried to force the fog back with a gust of wind, and when that didn’t work, he produced a blade and carved a fresh line across his palm.
He knelt, hand hovering over the shadows that ran between the river and the woman’s skin.
“As Anasae,” he ordered, but the substance only parted around the blood. The air itself seemed to vibrate with laughter as the shadows seeped into the woman’s leg, staining skin before sinking into vein.
The Antari swore, and the woman shuddered, clutching at his sliced hand in fear. Blood streaked her fingers and, as Lenos watched, the shadows suddenly let go, recoiled from their host.
Kell Maresh was staring down at the place where his hand met hers.
“Lila!” he called, but she’d already seen, already had her own knife out. Blood welled across her skin as she shot toward a man on the bank, grabbing him a breath before the shadows could. Again, they recoiled.
The Antari and—no, the two Antari, thought Lenos, for that was what Bard was, that was what she had to be—began to grab everyone in reach, brushing stained fingers over hands and cheeks. But the blood did nothing to those already poisoned—they only snarled, and wiped it away, as if it were filth—and for every one they marked, two more fell before they could.
The royal Antari spun, breathless, taking in the scope, the scale. Instead of running from body to body, he held up his hands, palms a span apart. His lips moved and his blood pooled in the air, gathering itself into a ball. It reminded Lenos of the Isle itself, its red glow, an artery of magic, pulsing and vibrant.
With a single surging motion, the sphere rose above the panicked crowds and—
That was all Lenos saw before the shadows came for him.
Fingers of night snaked toward him, serpent fast. There was nowhere to go—the Antari was still casting his spell, and Lila was too far away—so Lenos held his breath and began to pray, the way he’d learned back in Olnis, when the storms got rough. He closed his eyes and prayed for calm as the shadows broke against him. For balance as they washed—hot and cold at once—over his skin. For stillness as they murmured soft as shoretide in his head.
Let me in, let me in, let me—
A drop of rain landed on his hand, another on his cheek, and then the shadows were retreating, taking their whispers with them. Lenos blinked, let out a shaky breath, and saw that the rain was red. All around him, dew-fine drops dotted faces, and shoulders, settled in mist along coats and gloves and boots.
Not rain, he realized.
Blood.
The shadows in the street dissolved beneath the crimson mist, and Lenos looked at the Antari prince in time to see the man sway from the effort. He’d carved a slice of safety, but it wasn’t enough. Already the dark magic was shifting focus, form, dividing from a fist into an open hand, fingers of shadow surging inland.
“Sanct,” cursed the prince as hooves pounded down the street. A wave of royal guards reached the river and dismounted, and Bard moved quick as light between the armored men, brushing bloodied fingertips against the metal of their suits.
“Round up the poisoned,” ordered Kell Maresh, already moving toward his horse.
The afflicted souls didn’t flee, didn’t attack, simply stood there, grinning and saying things about a shadow king who whispered in their ears, who told them of the world as it could be, would be, who played their souls like music and showed them the true power of a king.
The Antari prince swung up onto his mount.
“Keep everyone away from the banks,” he called. Lila Bard hoisted herself up beside him with a grimace, arms wrapped tight around his waist, and Lenos was left standing there, dazed, as the prince kicked the horse into motion and the two vanished into the streets of London.
VI
They had to split up.
Kell didn’t want to, that much was obvious, but the city was too big, the fog too fast.
He took the horse, because she refused it—plenty of other ways to die tonight.
“Lila,” he’d said, and she’d expected him to chas
tise her, to order her back to the palace, but he’d only caught her by the arm and said, “Be careful.” Tipped his forehead against hers and added, almost too low to be heard, “Please.”
She’d seen so many versions of him in the past few hours. The broken boy. The grieving brother. The determined prince. This Kell was none of those and all of them, and when he kissed her, she tasted pain and fear and desperate hope. And then he was gone, a streak of pale skin against the night as he rode for the night market.
Lila took off on foot, heading for the nearest cluster of people.
The night should have been cold enough to keep them inside, but the last day of the tournament meant the last night of celebration, and the entire city had been in the taverns, ushering out the Essen Tasch in style. Crowds were spilling out into streets, some drawn by the chaos at the river’s edge, and others still oblivious, drinking and humming and stumbling over their own feet.
They didn’t notice the lack of red light at the city’s heart, or the spreading fog, not until it was nearly upon them. Lila dragged the knife down her arm as she raced between them, pain lost beneath panic as blood pooled in her palm and she flicked her wrist, pricks of red lancing like needles through the air, marking skin. Revelers stiffened, shocked and searching for the source of the assault, but Lila didn’t linger.
“Get inside,” she called, racing past. “Lock the doors.”
But the poisoned night didn’t care about locked doors and shuttered windows, and soon Lila found herself pounding on houses, trying to beat the darkness in. A distant scream as someone fought back. A laugh as someone fell.
Her mind raced, even as her head spun.
Her Arnesian wasn’t good enough, and the more blood she lost, the worse it got, until her speech dissolved from, “There’s a monster in the city, moving in the fog, let me help.…” to simply, “Stay.”
Most stared at her, wide-eyed, though she didn’t know if it was the blood or the shattered eye or the sweat streaming down her face. She didn’t care. She kept going. It was a lost cause, all of it, an impossible task when the shadows moved twice as fast as she could, and part of her wanted to give up, to pull back, to save what strength she had—only a fool fought when they knew they couldn’t win—but somewhere out there, Kell was still trying, and she wouldn’t give up until he did, so she forced herself on.