by S. M. Boyce
He shrugged. There was still time to learn.
Sunlight darted through the window as a cloud passed by. He swung the sword once, twice, savoring the way the light turned red when it passed along the surface of the Sartori.
But on the third swing, the sword shot from his hands into the bed of clover.
The hilt disappeared into the dirt, slicing the heads from the plants in its way. In the seconds it took for him to race over to the patch of dirt and decapitated weeds, the blade had submerged itself. He dug through the soil, but it was gone.
“What did I just do?” he asked the dying heads of clover.
An unrelated panic raced through him and jolted him into a frenzy. Sweat poured down his back, and it was difficult to breathe. He rubbed his face until his cheeks were red from the friction. It was more than the thought of losing the blade; this burned deeper. Something terrible was brewing. His mother was in danger.
He grabbed his own sword from the cherry oak desk and ran out the door, down the stairs, and behind the castle. There were gasps, whispers, and even screams, but he ignored them all. His only purpose was to find his mother.
His feet led him to the stables, where he flung open the double-doors to the Queen’s private wing and hurried along the stalls. The animals were all in an uproar, flailing around in the same panic that was slowly numbing every other thought in his mind. He stopped when he came to his mother’s favorite mount: Mastif, her massive gray wolf.
The creature was the only steed in the hall that was not pacing or running or screaming. Mastif sat with its legs apart, braced to bolt with its haunches high in the air. The corners of its mouth quivered, exposing its sharp white teeth in its rage. Gavin threw open the wolf’s stall door.
“Take me to her!” he commanded.
Mastif knelt. Gavin dug his hands around the long fur and pulled himself on without pausing to find a saddle. The wolf waited only long enough for Gavin’s weight to fall onto its back before it tore through the stables and into the streets of Hillside.
Gavin didn’t notice the countless citizens he passed as he and Mastif sprinted over the shifting roads of the market quarter. He didn’t hear Richard rallying the guards and troops of all Hillside, or notice the fear which racked every face he passed. But most of all, Gavin didn’t notice the one twisted soul, settled in the alley by a glove vendor, who was smiling at her handiwork from behind a face that was not her own.
Lorraine lunged at the Stelian king, her sword now in hand. She had only a fleeting moment of his surprise to leverage against him. It needed to be used well.
Carden parried her attack, spun, and threw an uppercut to her jaw. She buckled under the hit but stood just as quickly, already healed, and shot her hand toward his face. A trail of thorns and ivy burst from the ground at the gesture, flying and turning and twisting in any direction she chose. The thorns wrapped around his face and neck, slicing apart whatever skin they touched. Black blood oozed over the thorns.
Her heart skipped a beat. Black blood: this truly was Carden. It hadn’t been real, even after seeing the Sartori, until she saw his blood.
Her thorns twisted and tightened the more he fought, but a black fog whistled from the pores on his arms. It warped the thorns, bending them as they dissolved with acidic pops and hisses. The vines drooped and broke off, falling in limp streaks of green to the charred grass at Carden’s feet.
She swung for his neck as the hundreds of oozing black wounds congealed and shrank away, healed. He parried and hit her hard in the chest with his palm, drawing the wind around him in a rush of hot air that shot her backward a dozen feet. Her body skidded and rocks scraped away layers of skin, but the wounds stitched themselves together as she stood and dove for him once more. They attacked and retreated in this deadly tango, leaving curving trails of broken meadow grasses as they fought and ducked and rolled.
Lorraine tripped over her long skirt and fell, rolling away from Carden mere seconds before he stabbed the ground where she’d just been. She grabbed the edge of her skirt as she ducked beneath another swing and, with three mighty rips, made her elegant silk gown a knee-high dress without sleeves.
Carden grinned. “I am pleasantly surprised. I was under the impression that this would be too easy.”
He twirled his Sartori in his hand and the blade shimmered, blurring until it became a spiked mace with foot-long barbs that reflected the sunlight. She resisted the instinct to match his weapon and shift her own Sartori, since she was best with a sword. If he’d known enough to lure her away from Hillside while she walked her favorite trails, he probably knew her strengths and how to play around them.
“I already knew the truth about your son,” the Queen said, using the truth in an effort to throw him off-guard. “I’ve known from the first night, when Braeden changed form in his sleep.”
Carden raised his eyebrows in surprise and paused. He grimaced and laughed darkly, shaking his head. The air around him vibrated and hummed as his body stretched higher and his skin faded into the same dark charcoal gray Lorraine had seen the night Braeden had been brought to her. Carden sneered.
“This is what you saw?” he asked, his voice deeper than before.
A rush of memories made her stagger: Braeden shifting to his Stelian form, fast asleep and only twelve; her Sartori blade hovering over the boy’s neck as he slept; her throat catching as he reached for her hand in his sleep. She’d pulled the sword away, wondering if Richard would understand while simultaneously knowing that Gavin never would.
Lorraine took a deep breath to bring herself back to the meadow. Her body warmed and the magic took over, clearing her mind while dissolving the fear and shame into a rush of glee. The burning current of power— Father had called it the daru when she was little—churned beneath her skin, begging for release, but she wasn’t yet sure if she needed to tap this deeper power. It would give her added strength and speed, certainly, but its cost was control. She would be lost to the bloodlust of the fight.
She swallowed. Against Carden, she would likely need control and cunning over strength. She hoped he was too arrogant to tap into his own daru, and since he’d come alone to face her, that was likely the case. Whatever he’d done to Braeden had scarred that boy for life, so she would end this. She would end him.
“Braeden deserves better than your bloodline,” she said. “I have always loved him, though, regardless of what he is.”
“You’re lying,” Carden snapped. “You would never have allowed him into your home if you knew.”
“I never lie. He will be more powerful than me, someday, and is already more skillful than you if this is the best you can do. I saw his potential. He is capable of good, even though he was bred to destroy. He needed a second chance.”
“This is a surprise, I suppose, but irrelevant. I need my son to return to me, my Queen, and I have reason to believe that your son isn’t as wise as you are. When he reigns, he will send Braeden back to me.”
The Stelian king swung the mace and missed her jaw by inches. She rolled away and tightened her hands around her sword’s hilt.
“Gavin will surprise you.”
Blood Carden swung again at her neck, but she ducked her head beneath it. It sailed overhead, and a spike sliced off a trailing lock of her hair, which fell, smoking, to the ground. Carden continued twisting until he spun around completely. He aimed his left fist toward her jaw.
She pressed her hand to the ground and the soil convulsed at her touch. A wave of dirt and rocks melted beneath him like an ocean, twisting as it swallowed his legs. The forest rumbled and the wave bent with his weight, pulling him into the earth as Lorraine lunged for his neck. She swung as he was pushed off balance, but he managed to twist just out of her range. She missed his neck, but the blade dug deeply into his wrist instead.
He yelled in agony. Her Sartori’s poison seeped into his blood and settled deeper along its deadly course. She could feel its movement as if she directed it: deeper, deeper through his vein
s, headed for his heart.
This would all be over once it found his tiny, black heart.
The wave of soil and dirt froze, but he broke through it like a hammer through ice. He rolled onto the grass beside the chasm, cradling his hand, and even though he had overcome the liquid rock which she’d used against him, she smirked.
“At last, you prove your worthlessness,” she said, sword point to the grass. “A quick battle is all it took? You should have known not to underestimate your opponent, however fragile she may seem.”
Lorraine lunged for the Stelian king’s chest, certain, now, that this was the end. Braeden would become the Stelian Blood, yes, but she could teach him to master the darkness. He would learn to control the rage and then, once he was ready, she would tell Hillside. Her adopted son would no longer have to hide who and what he really was.
But as she charged, she fell into Carden’s trap.
Carden spun with a sudden force and knelt, catching her arm. He stood, pulled her around, and slid behind her. His Sartori shifted into a simple black dagger that he sank into her lower back. Its handle pushed against her spine. Nerves snapped. Bones shattered. Her blood raced to the wound, but the poison kept the healing stitches at bay. Her senses quickly faded, and numbness seeped into her fingertips until all she could feel was the soft wind on her dry lips.
A thick hand cradled her jaw. Her eyes shifted, slow, to see the Stelian king’s thick black gaze so close to hers. He brushed back the hair hiding her ear.
“You failed to take your own advice, pretty little Queen. Never underestimate your opponent,” —he chuckled, the noise rumbling in his chest—“or his tolerance for pain.”
He released her face and yanked his Sartori from her back, letting her crumble to the ground. There was a dawning thought that her hands were empty, her Sartori gone. She heard a sizzle. Carden held the green sword with a grimace as his skin burned on the hilt he was not meant to touch. She wanted to scream at him, but her throat was dry. Parched.
None should touch the Sartori but its master! I am its master. I am not yet—I am not yet—
She meant to think “dead,” but her mind went blank as she watched the Stelian Blood retreat. His breath came in ragged gasps, and his jaw was tight from the poison seeping through his veins. His entire hand was soaked in black liquid that dripped over the hill, hissing as his acidic blood burned away the rich meadow grasses. He paused and looked back over his shoulder, turning toward a sound she couldn’t hear.
“Your son is quick, but not fast enough.” He winked. “How sad that your senses are almost gone. You will barely hear his voice when he does arrive. Still, try to tell him that I send my best.”
He peered once more into the woods beyond her vision before he turned away. Something scampered onto his shoulder—or was that just a play of the light? The air around him cracked after a few limping steps, and a thick black mist erupted around him, swallowing him entirely. The smoke engulfed him, marring the summer morning like dark dust tumbling from a fan. When it cleared, he was gone.
Lorraine sank her cheek into the grass. The light began to dissolve into white spots across her vision.
Gavin caught only the sinister glare of his mother’s attacker before the man limped off and disappeared into a thick black fog. The wind blew it away in a matter of seconds, so that all that remained in the meadow was bright sunlight and his mother’s labored body.
He leapt from the wolf before it stopped and ran to her. Mastif crept up behind him, whimpering, as Gavin knelt and lifted his mother’s head into his arms. The whites of her eyes flickered beneath her eyelids as she tried to see him.
“Gavin,” she whispered. Her voice broke on his name.
He shushed her as the wolf lay down and cried again, setting its nose gently by its master’s thigh. It whined and nudged her.
“Mastif, good boy—” She lifted a hand, and the wolf set his massive nose inside her small palm.
“Mother…” Gavin began, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say. He moved her hand away from her wound. Her blood bubbled, reacting to the poison left behind by what could only have been a Sartori. Tears bruised his eyes. He fought them back so that he could see and hear her.
“Mother, who did this? Who was that?”
“Carden.” She was weak, her voice soft.
He pulled her in tighter and stroked her hair, but she set a finger on his nose to get his attention.
“I cut him, so he took my—your Sartori. In each sword lies the antidote to its poison. He has your blade. You must retrieve it.” Her voice became softer and more distant with every word.
Gavin just nodded, without the faintest idea of how he was supposed to do that.
“How can we heal you, Mother? Is there anything but the Stele’s Sartori? Anything?” The pain in his throat burned his words. Tears snuck by, unbidden.
She just smiled.
“Tell Richard that I will wait for him.”
“You can tell him. Just hold on. Hold on for me.”
She shook her head, eyes closing.
“I knew this was—” She sighed. “The world is changing. I am not strong enough, any longer, to survive it.”
She licked her cracked lips and paused, so he stroked her hair and held her tighter. There was nothing else he could do.
“You are worthy, son. You will make me proud.” Her voice trailed off into a whisper, and she smiled again. Gavin laughed along with her, the sound broken and humorless.
Her eyes snapped suddenly into focus, as if she’d remembered something crucial, and she tried to speak, but her voice came out too soft to hear. The sound was just a rush of air through her lips, which Gavin could barely read. All he caught was his brother’s name.
“What about Braeden?”
She nodded and continued to mouth broken words. He tried to follow, but the movement ate the last of her energy. Her lips slowed, she closed her eyes, and she faded. He cradled her until her lungs stopped.
When her last breath left her, it seemed that his next breath burned him more than any fire ever had. His lungs stung, as if filled with needles that tore through his body with a life of their own. His veins melted. The echo of his yell rang through the forest before he realized he was screaming. The woods were quiet after his noise: breathless, waiting, lost to his agony as he became Hillside’s next Blood.
He curled around himself in the meadow. The charred, broken grasses brushed his face for what seemed like days until the searing blister abated. Even then, he couldn’t move. He lay there, wishing he could still cradle his mother, but unable to budge. He was somehow determined that he could bring her back out of sheer will if he could only touch her.
A dead leaf tickled his wrist as he pulled himself to his hands and knees and crawled back to his post at his mother’s side, pushing through the rippling pain that cascaded through his body at each movement. But as he reached her, as he finally brushed her face and could no longer control the wet splotches at the corner of his eyes, the first bits of her began to dissolve into the wind. Flecks of green, shimmering dust chipped off of her face, revealing a second layer of skin that glowed with a dark green light. A single piece of her dust floated away here and there as the wind picked at her body and drew it away, grain by grain.
She was dead.
Footsteps crunched the grass behind him. He spun around with what energy he had left, but saw only Richard. His father stood at the head of an army, his face twisted in a mask of sorrow, and forced himself to close his gaping mouth as a single, thick tear coursed down his nose.
Richard helped him to his feet as Gavin tried and failed to stand. He leaned in and choked on his mother’s last words.
“She said she will wait for you,” he muttered, his fingers and toes and chest all numb. “But you can’t leave me yet.”
Two hours later, Gavin waited in his mother’s study to bide his time before her sunset memorial, tormenting himself in the silence.
Things migh
t have been different had she not needed to summon the Sartori. He wondered why she’d been so far from home, why she had chosen to fight instead of retreat. Guilt ate at him. Had he pushed her from her throne? His daydream of being Blood had been just that: a daydream. This was too real. This was life and death. He was not ready.
An uncomfortable calm had settled upon him. As he’d ridden home on Mastif, he hadn’t said a word to Richard or to anyone else. He’d expected to go into a fury when he returned to the castle, to burn and break and destroy. Those who manned the castle halls had prepared for this as well; the paths to his room and to his mother’s study had been empty.
But he was calm.