by V. E. Schwab
She rounded the corner and saw a woman lying in the road, pale dress pooling on the cold stones as she curled in on herself and clutched her head, fighting whatever monstrous force had clawed inside. Lila ran, hand outstretched, and was nearly to her when the woman went suddenly still. The fight went out of her limbs, and her breath clouded in the air above her face as she stretched out lazily against the cold stones, oblivious to the biting cold, and smiled.
“I can hear his voice,” she said, full of rapture. “I can see his beauty.” She turned her head toward Lila. Shadows slid through her eyes like a cloud over a field. “Let me show you.”
Without warning, the woman sprang, lunging for Lila, fingers wrapping around her throat, and for an instant, she felt the press of searing heat and burning cold as Osaron’s black magic tried to get in.
Tried—and failed.
The woman recoiled violently as if scorched, and Lila struck her hard across the face.
The woman crumpled to the ground, unconscious. It was a good sign. If she’d truly been possessed, a blade wouldn’t have stopped her, let alone a fist.
Lila straightened, aware of the magic as it swept and curled around her. She couldn’t shake the feeling that the darkness had eyes, and it was watching.
Intently.
“Come out, come out,” she called softly, twirling her knife. The shadows wavered. “What’s the matter, Osaron? Feeling shy? A little bare without a body?” She turned in a slow circle. “I’m the one who killed Ojka. I’m the one who stole Kell back.” She spun the blade between her fingers, exuding a calm she didn’t feel as the darkness shuddered around her and began to pull itself together, thickening into a column before it grew limbs, a face, a pair of eyes as black as ice at night and—
Somewhere nearby, a horse whinnied.
A shout went up—not the strangled cry of those fighting the spelled fog, but the simple, guttural sound of frustration. A voice she knew too well.
The shadows collapsed as Lila cut through them, racing toward the sound.
Toward Kell.
She found his horse first. Abandoned and galloping down the street toward her, a shallow slice along one flank.
“Dammit,” she swore, trying to decide whether to bar the horse’s path or dive out of the way. In the end she dove, letting the beast barrel past, then sprinted in the direction it had come. She followed the scent of his magic—rose and soil and leaves—and found Kell on the ground, surrounded, not by Osaron’s fog, but by men, three of them with weapons dangling from their hands. A knife. An iron bar. A plank of wood.
Kell was on his feet at least, gripping one shoulder, his face ghostly pale. He didn’t look like he had the blood left to stand, let alone strike back at the attackers. It wasn’t until she got closer that she recognized one of the men as Tav, her shipmate from the Night Spire, and another as the man who’d played Kamerov at the Banner Night before the tournament. A third was dressed in the cloak and arms of a royal guard, his half sword held at the ready.
“Listen to me,” Kell was saying. “You are stronger than this. You can fight back.”
The men’s faces contorted in glee, surprise, confusion. They spoke in their own voices, not the echoing two-speak Osaron had used on the roof, and yet there was a lilting cadence to their words, a singsong quality that chilled her.
“The king wants you.”
“The king will have you.”
“Come with us.”
“Come and kneel.”
“Come and beg.”
Kell stiffened, jaw set. “You tell your king he will not take this city. You tell him—”
The man with the scrap of wood struck out, swinging at Kell’s stomach. He caught the beam, wood lighting and burning to ash in his hands. The circle collapsed, Tav raising the iron bar, the guard stepping forward, but Lila was already kneeling, palms pressed to the cold ground. She remembered the words Kell had used. Summoned what was left of her strength.
“As Isera,” she said. Freeze.
Ice shot from beneath her hands, gliding along the ground and up men’s bodies in a breath.
Lila didn’t have Kell’s control, couldn’t tell the ice where to go, but he saw it coming and leaped back out of the spell’s path, and when the frozen edge met his boots, it melted, leaving him untouched. The other men stood, encased in ice, the shadows still swimming in their eyes.
Lila straightened, and the night tilted dangerously beneath her feet, the spell stealing the last power from her veins.
Somewhere, another scream, and Kell took a step toward it, one knee nearly giving way before he caught himself against the wall.
“Enough,” said Lila. “You can barely stand.”
“Then you can heal me.”
“With what?” she rasped, gesturing to her bruised and battered form. “We can’t keep this up. We could both bleed ourselves dry and still not mark a fraction of this city.” She let out an exhausted, humorless laugh. “You know I’m all for steep odds, but it’s too much. Too many.”
It was a lost cause, and if he couldn’t see it—but he did, of course. She saw in his eyes, the set of his jaw, the lines in his face, that he knew it too. Knew it, and couldn’t let it be. Couldn’t surrender. Couldn’t retreat.
“Kell,” she said, gently.
“This is my city,” he said, shaking visibly. “My home. If I can’t protect it…”
Lila’s fingers inched toward a loose rock in the street. She wouldn’t let him kill himself, not like this. Not after everything. If he wouldn’t listen to reason—
Hooves sounded against stone, and a moment later four horses rounded the bend, mounted by royal guards.
“Master Kell!” called the one at the front.
Lila recognized the man as one of the guards assigned to Kell. He was older, and he shot a look at Lila, and then, obviously not knowing how to address her, pretended she wasn’t there. “The priests have warded the palace, and you are to return at once. King’s orders.”
Kell looked like he was about to curse the king. Instead he shook his head. “Not yet. We’re marking the citizens wherever we can, but we haven’t found a way to contain the shadows, or shield the city against—”
“It’s too late,” cut in the guard.
“What do you mean?” demanded Kell.
“Sir,” said another voice, and the man at the back took off his helmet. Lila knew him. Hastra. The younger of Kell’s guard. When he spoke, his voice was gentle, but his face was tight. “It’s over, sir,” he said. “The city has fallen.”
VII
The city has fallen.
Hastra’s words followed Kell through the streets, up the palace steps, through the halls. They couldn’t be right.
Couldn’t be true.
How could a city fall when so many were still fighting?
Kell burst into the Grand Hall.
The ballroom glittered, ornate, extravagant, but the mood had altered entirely. The magicians and nobles from the rooftop gala now huddled in the center of the room. The queen and her entourage carried bowls of water and pouches of sand to the priests drawing amplifiers on the polished marble floor and warding spells along each wall. Lord Sol-in-Ar stood with his back against a pillar, features grim but unreadable, and Prince Col and Princess Cora sat on the stairs, looking shell-shocked.
He found King Maxim by the platform where musicians in gold leaf had played each night, conferring with Master Tieren and the head of his guard.
“What do you mean, the city has fallen?” demanded Kell, storming across the marble floor. Between his bloodstained hands and his bare chest on display beneath his open coat, he knew he looked insane. He didn’t care. “Why did you call me back?” Tieren tried to block his path, but Kell pushed past. “Do you have a plan?”
“My plan,” said the king calmly, “is to stop you from getting yourself killed.”
“It was working,” Kell snarled.
“What was working?” asked Maxim. “Opening a vein
over London?”
“If my blood can shield them—”
“How many did you shield, Kell?” demanded the king. “Ten? Twenty? A hundred? There are tens of thousands in this city.”
Kell felt like he was back in White London, the steel noose cinching around his neck. Helpless. Desperate. “It is something—”
“It is not enough.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
“Not yet.”
“Then, Sanct, let me do what I can!”
Maxim took him by the shoulders. “Listen to me,” the king said, voice low. “What are Osaron’s strengths? What are his weaknesses? What is he doing to our people? Can it be undone? How many questions have you failed to ask because you were too busy being valiant? You have no plan. No strategy. You have not found a crack in your enemy’s armor, a place to slide your knife. Instead of devising an attack, you are out there, slashing blindly, not even able to land a blow because you’re spending every drop of precious blood protecting others from an enemy we don’t know how to best.”
Everything in Kell tightened at that. “I was out there trying to protect your people.”
“And for every one you shielded, a dozen more were taken by the dark.” There was no judgment in Maxim’s voice, only grim resolve. “The city has fallen, Kell. It will not rise again without your help, but that does not mean you can save it alone.” The king tightened his grip. “I will not lose my sons to this.”
Sons.
Kell blinked, shaken by the words as the Maxim released his hold, his anger deflating. “Has Rhy woken?” he asked.
The king shook his head. “Not yet.” His attention slid past Kell. “And you.”
Kell turned and saw Lila, hair falling over her shattered eye as she scraped blood from under her nails. She looked up at the summons.
“Who are you?” demanded the king.
Lila frowned, started to answer. Kell cut her off.
“This is Miss Delilah Bard.”
“A friend to the throne,” said Tieren.
“I’ve already saved your city,” added Lila. “Twice.” She cocked her head, shifting the dark curtain of hair to reveal the starburst of her shattered eye. Maxim, to his credit, didn’t startle. He simply looked at Tieren.
“Is this the one you told me of?”
The head priest nodded, and Kell was left wondering what exactly the Aven Essen had said, and how long Tieren had known what she was. The king considered Lila, his gaze moving from her eyes to her bloodstained fingers, before coming to a decision. Maxim raised his chin slightly, and said, “Mark everyone here.”
It was not a request, but the order of a king to a subject.
Lila opened her mouth, and for a second Kell thought she might say something awful, but Tieren’s hand came down on her shoulder in the universal sign for Be quiet, and for once, Lila listened.
Maxim stepped back, voice rising a measure so that others in the hall could overhear. And they were listening, Kell realized, several heads already turned carefully to catch the words as the king addressed his Antari.
“Holland has been taken to the cells.” Only hours before, Kell had been the one imprisoned below the palace. “I would have you speak with him. Learn everything you can about the force we’re facing.” Maxim’s expression darkened. “By whatever means.”
Kell stiffened.
The cold press of steel.
A collar around his throat.
Skin shredding against a metal frame.
“Your Majesty,” said Kell, striving for the proper tone. “It will be done.”
* * *
Kell’s boots echoed on the prison stairs, each step carrying him away from the light and heat of the palace’s heart.
Growing up, Rhy’s favorite place to hide had been the royal cells. Located directly beneath the guards’ hall, carved into one of the massive stone limbs that held the palace up over the river, the cells were rarely filled. They had once been in frequent use, according to Tieren, back when Arnes and Faro were at war, but now they sat abandoned. The royal guards made use of them occasionally, saints knew for what, but whenever Rhy ran off with nothing but a laugh, or a note—come find me—Kell started by going to the cells.
They were always cold, the air heavy with the smell of damp stone, and his voice would echo as he called for Rhy—come out, come out, come out. Kell had always been better at finding than Rhy was at hiding, and the games usually dissolved into the two boys tucked into a cell, eating stolen apples and playing hands of Sanct.
Rhy always loved coming down here, but Kell thought that what his brother really loved was the going back upstairs afterward, the way he could simply shrug off his surroundings when he was done and trade the dank underbelly for lush robes and spiced tea, having been reminded how lucky he was to be a prince.
Kell had never been fond of the cells back then.
Now he hated them.
Revulsion rose in him with every step, revulsion for the memory of his imprisonment, revulsion for the man now sitting in his place.
Lanterns cast pale light over the space. It glinted where it struck metal, fanned against stone.
Four guards in full armor stood across from the largest cell. The same one Kell had occupied a few hours before. They had their weapons ready, eyes fixed on the shape beyond the bars. Kell took in the way the guards looked at Holland, the venom in their glares, and knew it was the way some wanted to look at him. All the fear and anger, none of the respect.
The White Antari sat on the stone bench at the back of the cell, shackled hand and foot to the wall behind him. A black blindfold was cinched tight over his eyes, but Kell could tell by the subtle shift of his limbs, the incline of his head, that Holland was awake.
It had been a short trip from the roof to the cell, but the guards had not been gentle. They’d stripped him to the waist to search for weapons, and fresh bruises blossomed along his jaw and across his stomach and chest, the fair skin revealing every abuse, though they’d taken care to clean the blood away. Several fingers looked broken, and the faint stutter of his chest hinted at cracked ribs.
Standing across from Holland, Kell was again taken aback by the changes in the man. The breadth of Holland’s shoulders, the lean muscle wrapping his waist, the emotionless set of his mouth, those were all still there. But the newer things—the color in Holland’s cheeks, the flush of youth—Osaron had taken those with him when he fled. The Antari’s skin looked ashen where it wasn’t bruised, and his hair was no longer the glossy black he’d briefly had as king, or even the faded charcoal Kell was more accustomed to—now it was threaded with silver.
Holland looked like someone caught between two selves, the effect eerie, disconcerting.
His shoulders rested against the icy stone wall, but if he felt the cold, he didn’t let it show. Kell took in the remains of Athos Dane’s control spell, carved into the Antari’s front—and ruined by the steel bar Kell himself had driven through his chest—before noticing the web of scars that lined Holland’s skin. There was order to the mutilations, as if whoever’d done them had done them carefully. Methodically. Kell knew from experience how easily Antari healed. To leave these kinds of scars, the wounds would have to have been very, very deep.
In the end, Holland was the one to break the silence. He couldn’t see Kell, not through the blindfold, but he must have known it was him, because when the older Antari spoke, his voice was laced with disdain. “Come to get your revenge?”
Kell took a slow breath, steadying himself.
“Leave,” he said, gesturing to the guards.
They hesitated, eyes flicking between the two Antari. One retreated without hesitation, two had the decency to grow nervous, and the fourth looked loath to miss the scene.
“King’s orders,” warned Kell, and at last they withdrew, taking with them the clank of armor, the echo of boots.
“Do they know?” asked Holland, flexing his ruined fingers. His voice had none of Osaron’s echo, o
nly that familiar, gravelly tone. “That you abandoned them? Came to my castle of your own free will?”
Kell flicked his wrist, and the chains around Holland tightened, forcing him back against the cell wall. The gesture earned him nothing—Holland’s tone remained cold, unflinching.
“I’ll take that as a no.”
Even through the blindfold, Kell could feel Holland’s gaze, the black of his left eye scraping against the black of Kell’s right.
He summoned the king’s tone as best he could.
“You will tell me everything you know about Osaron.”
A gleam of bared teeth. “And then you’ll let me go?” sneered Holland.
“What is he?”
A heavy pause, and Kell thought Holland would force him to drag the answers out. But then he answered. “An oshoc.”
Kell knew that word. It was Mahktan for demon, but what it really meant was a piece of incarnated magic. “What are his weaknesses?”
“I do not know.”
“How can he be stopped?”
“He can’t.” Holland twitched the chains. “Does this make us even?”
“Even?” snarled Kell. “If I could yet discount the atrocities you committed during the rule of the Danes, it would not change the fact that you are the one who set that oshoc free. You plotted against Red London. You lured me into your city. You bound me, tortured me, purposefully severed me from my magic, and in so doing you nearly killed my brother.”
A tilt of the chin. “If it’s worth anything—”
“It isn’t,” snapped Kell. He began to pace, torn between exhaustion and fury, his body aching but his nerves alight.
And Holland, so maddeningly calm. As if he weren’t chained to the wall. As if they were standing together in a royal chamber instead of separated by the iron bars of a prison cell.