Ree snapped awake. He was here. He was near. A kiss and a cut. Their blood bond called to her.
The swirling soup of her mind took her around and around, smacking words together, making them rhyme, but she felt him. A boat on the waves. Her thoughts surfaced and submerged like vegetables in broth, and she could not grasp any of them for longer than a few seconds. But there he was. Riding the top. A boat on her soup.
She raised her head, and the fire raged at her as it had since the Slink Lord had chewed into her mind. The bonfire flared to her left, burning her, driving her toward Benasca. No matter where she walked, how she turned, it always scorched her south side, pushing her north. The mere thought of Benasca was cool water. She felt she would be safe if only she gave in and went there. The pain could end. The soup would stop spinning, and she could be herself again.
But at the center of the soup was an iron pillar. It remained steady as everything else swirled. It had been thick when she had started out for the Sanctum, but now it was spindly, on the verge of breaking. The bar was her true self, the last spike of her identity. The bar knew that the Slink Lord’s promises were lies, and she clung to it with what meager strength she had left.
In the first instant that He turned her mind into soup, she made her last coherent decision. Whatever He offered her, she must refuse, no matter the pain. She said it to herself over and over again, and soon the pain became her guiding star. As long as she suffered, she was winning.
It was the hardest thing she had ever done, returning to the Sanctum in the face of that horrible heat. One excruciating step at a time, into the flames. She had gotten turned around, had gone north several times only to turn around and fight her way south again. But she had eventually made it here, and they had imprisoned her. The Faia bless them, her sisters had locked her up, and she could rest for a time.
At first, she allowed herself to scream and rage against her prison, letting the compulsion take her. She beat her remaining hand bloody on the bars.
After a time, she took control, resisting the compulsion once more. The strain of picking up that burden almost killed her, but she managed it. She had no memory of whom she had talked to, only that she needed to give them the information she knew. The Slink Lord was in her mind, but she was in his, too. She had learned his secrets. He was weaker than they thought. And stronger. So much stronger. He was plotting to have them all. And he would do it if they didn’t stop him.
She kept trying to tell the others, but they didn’t understand her. Her words tumbled together, twisting and rhyming. Thoughts bobbed to the surface, and she tried to give them away. But she worried her words sounded like the swirling soup. Had they heard her? Could they make sense of it? Had they acted?
But the Whisper Prince rode the soup now. A little boat of hope. She knew him. She had kissed him sideways. A brave boy favored by the Faia. A protector of Fairmist.
He was the one, the only one, who could hear her. She would not need frustrating words to tell him. He could reach inside her and take the vegetables, take them all and make sense of them. He could make the soup stop spinning.
The Whisper Prince was near, and she had to find him.
“Grei,” she whispered, his name bobbing to the surface of the soup. She felt his lips on hers. Young, surprised, excited. She felt her knife sinking into his ear, marking him, making him hers. She had made the blood bond, had taken his blood into herself so she could always find him. But he had found her instead.
She lifted herself to a sitting position. She was weak as a spindly cat. A scab broke on her hand and smeared blood across the floor.
She would have to move fast. She would have to be better than she’d ever been before.
Liana had left some time ago, and now her guard was Wehyan. Wehyan was slower. That was good. That would help.
Ree lay down, positioning herself carefully and slowing her breathing. The soup spun, information bobbing and disappearing. She calmed her breath, focusing on the hard core of herself, and gritted her teeth against the heat. She would look dead, expired at last after her ordeal. Wehyan would come in. She would come close.
And they would see who was faster.
I am coming, Grei. We must kiss once more.
Chapter 49
Adora
The Highblades took the sisters away, and Adora craned her neck, struggled to see Galius. She wanted to apologize, to set things right.
But he was gone.
The emperor’s Highblades took her around the corner, onto the vast western lawn, and Galius’ body disappeared from view. She blinked through her tears. It was all ruined. She didn’t even know what she was doing anymore. Galius was dead. Grei was dead. Even Blevins was likely dead this time. The Order was so far away, and they had sent no one to help her.
She stared at her shuffling feet and thought about that aching moment outside her room when she had so badly wanted to kiss Grei, to take him to her room and make him hers, to have it be just the two of them against a world of cruelty. Instead, she had sent him after a midnight lily and spent their last chance of a life together.
She had no purpose here. Even if there could be another Whisper Prince, she was not the one to steward him. The Order had forsaken her. No doubt they were calmly checking her off as a failure and moving to the next plan. Her life may as well have ended in the slink cave when she was eleven years old.
She set her jaw. If there was no reason for her to exist anymore, if she couldn’t challenge the slinks, then she could at least challenge the man who had bargained with them.
They took the sisters to the emperor’s rooms in the royal wing. Vecenne seemed to have recovered her wits, and she glanced at the door and then at Adora. Adora felt she should say something, but she couldn’t think of what that ought to be.
“What will happen now?” Vecenne asked.
“I don’t know,” Adora murmured.
“You survived what no one else survived. You have lived in secret. You have allies who would dare to break into the palace and kill imperial Highblades just to save you.”
“That man was Galius Ash,” Adora said. Who now lies dead, and no one will remember his name except me. “And Jorun Magnus.”
“Jorun Magnus!” Vecenne said. “You return to the palace and you bring Jorun Magnus? Please tell me where you have been.”
“The story is seven years long, Vecenne. And not a happy one. My life may as well have ended in the Badlands.”
“Is that where you lived?”
Adora shook her head, but she didn’t say more.
“You cannot tell even me your secrets?” Her sister asked. “I would never hurt you.” Shrouded in Blevins’ cloak, nothing was visible but her face and the curl of her fingers. “I love you, Mimi. I have lain awake each night, wondering what I might have done differently that morning, what I might have done to save you.”
“Vecenne...” Adora began. “I was selfish for one instant. Just one. I ran from my duty without thinking, and I ran into you.” She stopped, trying to manage the catch in her throat. “I did not think what the Archon might do to you. You paid for that selfishness. And now, I cannot predict what Father will do. You think you know him, but you don’t. If I give you my secrets, he might do terrible things to you to get them.”
“Father wouldn’t hurt us—”
“And neither would the Archon,” Adora interrupted, wishing she didn’t have to be harsh. But Vecenne had to know. Their father was a man who would sacrifice one daughter. He would sacrifice the other if it came to that. “You have to tell him that you know nothing, and you have to mean it. If that is the truth, he will let you go.”
Adora reached out a trembling hand and touched her sister’s shoulder, so light that she could only feel the smooth cloth of Jorun’s cloak. “Vecenne, I led the Archon to you, and he—”
Vecenne shook her head fiercely. “That doesn’t matter.”
“It matters,” Adora whispered around a hard lump in her throat. “I’m so
sorry.”
“I would endure worse to help you, Mimi.” Vecenne hugged her. “It is a wound, and I will bear it as you have borne yours.” She squeezed her sister tightly. “I would have crossed the Badlands on bare feet to find you if I had known you were alive. Please let me help you now.”
“No one can come with me where I must go. I don’t even know if I can help myself,” Adora said. “There was a man, and I was supposed to bring him here. He might have changed things...” Adora trailed off.
Vecenne pulled back enough to see Adora’s face, but held on as though she didn’t dare let her go. “Was he the man who led us up the stairs? The one Father killed?”
Adora shook her head. “No.”
Vecenne searched Adora’s eyes, looking for something to say. “I am sorry, Mimi.”
“I do not know what I am supposed to do next,” Adora said. “But I know that—”
The door opened then, and both sisters turned as their father entered. Vecenne secured her cloak with her fist.
The emperor looked haggard, his face ashen. He closed the door behind him.
No one wanted to be the first to break the silence. The emperor leaned against the door and stared at Adora.
“I had given up hope.” His voice was hushed.
“You took away hope,” Adora said.
“My precious Mialene—”
“I am not your Mialene anymore. You may call me Adora.”
Vecenne looked surprised at the sudden steel in Adora’s voice.
“Don’t you understand—” he began again.
“I understand that you threw me to the slinks.”
“If I hadn’t, they would have come again—”
“I was eleven!” she screamed. She had meant to say the words dispassionately. She forced herself to speak in a lower tone. “I have wondered all my life how my father could hate me so much. Not a day has gone by that I have not thought on it.”
The emperor slid to his knees, bowed his head. He looked like a crumpled bag of sticks. Adora approached him one step at a time, her fists clenched.
“How could you?” she whispered.
He looked up at her, his eyes red-rimmed. “I had no choice,” he whispered.
“And what of the Faia you have slain? Did you have no choice as well?”
Vecenne drew a swift breath.
The emperor’s eyes widened. “How—?”
“I know every sin you have committed,” Adora hissed.
“Everything I did, I did to avenge you,” he said raggedly.
She shook her head. “What you have done is serve the slinks. You destroy their enemies and feed them innocents.”
“I have made weapons. I just need more time—”
“You have had seven years!”
“Mialene,” the emperor said. “You cannot understand how I have dreamed about this day, the day that I could see you again, that I might have just one chance to beg your forgiveness—”
“Then beg, Father. Beg, and know what it is like to have your pleas ignored. Know what it is like to have the one you love turn her back on you.”
“Please, Mia—”
“I was a child! I needed you...” Her voice broke. She swallowed hard, clenching her teeth until she could speak evenly. “But I don’t need you anymore,” she said calmly. “And you will answer for your crimes. Every one. You are the reason the Badlands exist. You killed the heart of the Vheysin Forest. You made the Dead Woods. And how many have died in those trees, Father? How many of your citizens have you killed in the name of protecting them?”
The emperor shook his head. “You saw the Slink War. They would have slaughtered every one of us! We had no weapons to fight them then, but I am changing that. I would throw off their yoke.”
Adora shook her head. “How can you think killing Faia could ever save us? Such atrocity could only damn us,” she said.
“Then what other way? Tell me and I will do it!”
“There is a group of wise men called Baezin’s Order,” Adora said. “And a prophecy—”
“Baezin’s Order?” The emperor’s eyes narrowed, and his voice changed. The crumpled majesty of the man rose again. “I know of them. I know of this so-called prophecy and the Whisper Prince. Had I known the Order held my daughter, I would have burned them down. Where is the Prince now? Did he save you from the slinks?” he asked. “Did the Whisper Prince save my little girl?”
She shook her head. “It was the Faia, Father. She came for me, lifted me up and took me to Fairmist.”
The emperor’s brow wrinkled. “But Magnus took you to the cave—”
“And he left me there. I saw the towering slink with the wide shoulders. The one named Kuruk.”
The emperor's black eyebrows furrowed. “Are you lying to me?” he whispered.
“The Faia took me where I could be safe.”
A knock sounded on the emperor’s door. He paused, as though he would ignore it, but the knock came again, and he stood up. He held up a finger for her to pause. “Enter,” he said.
The door opened and a Highblade, breathing hard, stepped through. He went to one knee and bowed his head. “The Archon is dead.”
“I told you to take him alive,” the emperor growled.
“He was dead when we arrived, your majesty. The empress found him. He was turned to stone.”
“Stone?”
“As if by an Imperial Wand, your majesty,” he said, never raising his head. “There was another man we didn’t recognize. Also stone.”
Adora’s mind raced. What did that mean? Were there slinks in the palace?
“Who was he?” the emperor asked.
“From the east by the cut of his clothing. Young. I did not recognize him,” the Highblade said.
“Find out,” the emperor said. “And bring the bodies here.”
“They are already being carried here, your majesty.”
“Good. And the man who battled the Archon’s Highblades?” the emperor said.
“Mortally wounded,” the Highblade said, his breathing finally slowing.
“But alive?”
“For now.”
“Bring him here as well.”
The Highblade looked around the well-ordered room hesitantly. “He is a bloody mess, your majesty.”
“Blood can be cleaned. Bring him. I want them all in my room. There is a story here and I mean to have it.”
“Of course, your majesty.” The Highblade nodded sharply and stepped back. He left, and they could hear his booted feet running up the hall. The emperor turned, stroking the center twist of his beard.
“Someone has stolen one of your weapons?” Adora asked.
The emperor looked up. “Apparently one of my Imperial Wands has lost the instrument of his office.” He focused his attention on her, and his gaze was fierce. “I would do anything for you, Adora, but I must know. Did you bring an assassin into the palace?”
“I was brought here in borrowed clothes with my wrists bound. There was no assassin down my shirt.”
“I need to know if this is your doing,” he said.
“This is your doing, Father,” she said. “Every bit of it.”
The emperor’s stern gaze softened, and he looked exasperated. “Mialene, I’m trying to help you.”
“Those were the Archon’s words to me as well, before he caged me and used me. Forgive me if I doubt you.”
“What can I do to earn your trust?” he asked.
“Burn your workshop. Destroy everything you have made. Never harm another Faia. Start there.”
“Then the Debt of the Blessed will be endless. Is that what you want?”
“Better for every Thiaran to die than a single Faia. Don’t you realize what you’ve done?”
They all heard the approach of the Highblades again, and the conversation ceased. The knock came soon after, and the emperor opened the door.
“Put them here,” the emperor said, pointing. The Highblades brought in three horrific bodies. Fi
rst was the bloody mess of Blevins. It took six men to carry him, and they set him beside the door. His neck had been slashed halfway through, and there were countless punctures all over his fat belly. He was ashen-faced and unconscious like he had been at the farmer’s house in the Badlands. Adora went to him immediately, touched his bloody forehead.
More Highblades carried the Archon and the other stone body, setting each down with a “clunk” next to Blevins. Adora’s eyes widened as she looked at the second man. That was Julin! She stifled a gasp. How was that possible?
The leader of the Highblades passed a black, blood-smeared sword to the emperor, and he looked at the blade with tight lips. “You may go,” he said. The Highblade captain put a fist over his heart in salute, then left the room, closing the door behind him. The emperor turned to Adora, saw her expression.
“What is it?” he asked her.
Adora tried to rally her thoughts. “It’s...horrific,” she said, covering her slip.
“Mia, if I’m to try to help you, I must know what you know.”
Adora stood up. “Use your eyes, then. That is Jorun Magnus.”
“I know,” the emperor said. “I have been looking for him for six months.” The emperor looked at the bloody sword, then set it against the wall. “And for this.” His gaze returned to Adora. “Do you realize this is the only weapon to have killed a slink?”
“I was there,” Adora said.
He nodded. “Why is Magnus back in Thiara?”
“I don’t know why.”
“If you are following the directives of Baezin’s Order,” he said. “Then your arrival heralds something worse, and I must know it if I am to protect against it.”
“Is this where you sacrifice me again for the greater good?” Adora said.
“Mia—”
“You will get nothing just for the asking. Destroy your workshop. Promise me you will stop your heinous work. Then we will speak.”
“Have you done what she says, Father?” Vecenne asked quietly, and the emperor looked at her as though he had forgotten she was there.
“You should go to your rooms, Vecenne. I will have you escorted—”
“No.” Vecenne shook her head. “I let Mimi go once because I was only nine and I didn’t know what to do. I will not leave her again.”
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