“It’s ceremonial,” whispers a voice behind me. It’s Sir Millicent. The red-lined cape of her uniform brushes my shoulder as she leans closer. “It represents the racer’s loss of identity.” My hand goes to my own embed at the base of my throat. The woman is already back beside her husband, lifting her little girl. “If she wins, her whole family receives citizenship,” Millicent adds. “She must be doing it for the child.”
I watch the volunteers file up in turn, maybe two dozen in all. There are only a few entrants left in line when a bell in the tower of the Queen’s Temple tolls eight times.
Eight o’clock. It’s finally here. Renya gives my hand a small squeeze. “And now the parade!” calls Lars over the loudspeaker. “I’d like to invite the parade master, Sir Augustine, to strike up the first band and send them on their way down the avenue. In the meantime, as we await their arrival, my family would like to take a few minutes to greet some of you.”
In the distance, maybe a few blocks away, the first notes of the frenzied melody of a jig start up, all fiddle, tin whistle, and drum. Renya turns and whispers into my ear, “This is it.”
I hand her the small purse I’ve been holding with the royal order inside, and she tucks it under her arm. I’m suddenly as unsteady as a drunk. Everything speeds up and my vision narrows, like I’m watching the proceedings through the wrong end of a telescope. Renya gives my hand another squeeze before stepping away from me and following King Marchant and Prince Lars down a set of steps to the street. The crowd waves from behind the barricades. A woman with a camera runs ahead of them, a flashbulb going off over and over like a strobe.
It’s happening. My father will soon shake Renya’s hand and receive the royal order. It’s just moments away.
The king is moving along the line of people, letting each one bow or curtsy and give their names. People in the crowd behind are standing on tiptoe and craning their necks to try to see what’s happening at the railing. Only a bent citizen Outsider woman and a young Enchanted boy separate King Marchant from my father and brother, who stand like two dignitaries. Marlon keeps a hand under Papa’s elbow. I’m certain that’s all the assistance our father will allow. He is a proud man.
Heat fills my chest. My head expands, as if it might pull me up and carry me over the crowd like a balloon. I wonder what will happen next. Will Papa be able to see a doctor at the Citizens Hospital tonight?
Sir Arnaud is suddenly beside me. “That’s your father, is it not?” he asks me. “The person to whom the princess will be giving the royal order the king signed this morning?”
“Yes,” I say, all at once remembering the one time Sir Arnaud saw both my father and Marlon—on the night Jayden ran away, when he saw them through the Pontium bridge. Right before Jayden slipped past his men and beyond his reach.
I turn my gaze back to my father. His eyes are locked on my face. He is smiling. I wish my mother were alive to see Papa this happy.
Then he coughs.
At first, it’s a small cough, nothing. But that cough is followed by a hack, and then another, becoming loud and deep and as raspy as a growl. The King’s Knights who stand like a partition behind the group at the railing all move back, as if Papa might infect them. Anger ignites in me, but my father ignores the Knights. His eyes are on the king, who is stepping widely around him. Lars follows, not even offering a hand to my brother. I wonder if he recognizes them from that night.
It doesn’t matter. Renya is next. I’m watching her without blinking as she takes the purse from under her arm and lifts out the royal order. It’s in his hand! But then he’s coughing again, grasping at the railing, and Renya backs away.
I watch helplessly as my father sways, buckles, and drops to his knees behind the metal fencing.
My breath catches in my throat and my hands fly up, as if I might pull my father to his feet from here. The music grows louder; the band that leads the parade is getting closer. Another cough tears the air, and Marlon tugs something from his pocket. He hands it to Papa. It’s a cloth handkerchief, bright and white and clean.
I’ve never known my little brother to carry one, and it occurs to me that this was something that he thought of as he prepared for this day. Perhaps he decided to carry a handkerchief like a proper gentleman. Or perhaps, I think, he brought it in the event our father collapsed in a coughing fit as he greeted the princess.
The white handkerchief is balled up in my father’s hand, held to his lips. The cough comes heavy and wet, and then, mercifully, it stops.
My father’s hand drops to his side, but he doesn’t get up. He raises his eyes to mine. His lips curl into a strange, apologetic smile. His eyelids flicker, he sags forward, and his body drops heavily against the barricade.
The handkerchief rolls from his hand, stained crimson with blood.
Marlon falls to his knees and leans low over Papa’s slumped body for what feels like a long time. I wait for my father’s cough to return, but there’s nothing but an odd murmur. Across the railing from them, the royal family is whispering among themselves.
Then Marlon lifts his face. His lips move, but I can’t hear him. It doesn’t matter, I know what he said. As I rush down the stairs to the ground and to Papa’s side, I hear the words repeated, passed from one member of the royal family to the next.
“He’s dead.”
Two
By the time I come up beside Renya, my father is flat on the ground, the royal order lying wrinkled on the pavement beside him. I reach through the metal railing of the barricade, grasp his hand, and pull it to my cheek. It’s still warm. “I’m so sorry, Papa,” I whisper into his palm. “I’m so sorry I was too late.”
If anyone can hear me, I’m sure I sound contrite, but the truth is, I’m angry. How long have I been begging the princess to do whatever needed to be done to get my father access to proper medical treatment? My father may be owed an apology, but not from me.
Beside me, Marlon coughs. He’s not sick, of course—it’s just his vocal tic—but his impression of our father’s horrid hack has been honed to perfection by years of practice. The King’s Knights behind Marlon take another step back. I bite my lip and draw in a deep breath to keep from screaming. Marlon coughs again. He’s scared, and he’s telling me so.
I force myself to release my father’s hand. My legs feel like pudding, but I struggle to my feet. “Renya,” I whisper into the princess’s ear. I feel her flinch. Her eyes dart from side to side. She feels the gaze of the crowd. I do too. My Cientia prickles with the revulsion rolling off them.
Two emergency workers—both Outsiders—have appeared. Wearing medical masks over their noses and mouths, they drag my father’s body away from me and slide him onto a stretcher. Neither of them looks at me, but they glare at Marlon.
I hate them.
“He’s not sick!” I say, pulling Marlon up to his feet beside me. “It’s just a tic—no worse than a habit.” I swing back around to face the royal family, but only Renya remains. The king and Lars are already fleeing back up the stairs to the stage.
But Sir Arnaud has come down to the street. He’s heading toward me, holding his cape across his lower face. He sweeps Renya behind him, as if Marlon and I are toxic. “Astrid,” Arnaud says. “Listen to me. Your brother needs to be examined. Let us help him.”
Someone touches my shoulder. My head jerks around and behind me, on Marlon’s side of the barricade, I find a group of Authority guards, all wearing masks like the Outsider emergency workers. Hands close around Marlon’s upper arms, and his grip tightens on my hand. His eyes go wide. Although he’s big for a boy of eleven, his face looks suddenly like it did when he was little. I haven’t seen this much fear in his eyes since the night Jayden ran away. Sir Arnaud never got Jayden, but now he’s got Marlon.
My brother’s wrestled away from me, and I lose my grip on his hand. “Wait!” I scream, but there’s no waiting. The guards close around him, and he’s shuffled away like a criminal. I want to fight them. I want to knock
them to the ground and pull Marlon back to me, but the barricade blocks my way and they’re already disappearing into the crowd.
“Renya, do something, please,” I say, but Sir Arnaud stands between the two of us, as if he’s protecting her.
She shakes her head, the smallest of movements. “It’s too late now, love,” she says. “It’s too late.”
“The parade is almost here,” Arnaud barks, stepping toward the stage and waving us toward him. He’s right. I can see the first band a block away. It’s so loud I can hardly hear his voice over the music. “Princess, you’ll need to move to safety,” he calls. He crosses to the steps leading up, and Renya follows, but she stops in the middle of the street when I don’t move.
“Astrid,” she says, holding out her hand. I shuffle up beside her. My head is swimming. “I’m so sorry about your father,” she says, and I know she’s trying to say the right thing, but it only makes me angrier.
“Are you?” I snap. “What was he to you?”
Her mouth works. A puff of breath escapes before she pins her lips closed between her teeth. Her eyes harden. “What was he? He was the father of my friend.” She draws out the last word, ending it with a hard d. It feels like an accusation. “Don’t forget how hard I worked to get that royal order for him.”
“Oh yes,” I say. “That was quite an effort. Quite a sacrifice on your part—”
“Astrid,” she says. Her hands have wrapped around my wrists. I notice that my own are balled into fists. Would I have struck her? Did her Cientia feel it coming? “You have a right to be angry and you have a right to feel wronged, but I worked hard to convince the king to sign that royal order. I may not have known your father, but you also don’t truly know mine, so save your condemnation for someone else.”
Her eyes burn, bright and scalding. There’s a taste in the air like gunpowder—steam and sulfur—and I know my Cientia is noticing Renya’s indignation. I don’t know if convincing her father to sign that order was difficult or not, but she did it. She helped me. That’s more than anyone else did. “I’m lost,” I say. “I don’t know where they took my father’s body. I don’t know where they took Marlon.” Hot tears spill onto my cheeks, which only makes me angrier.
“I don’t know either, but I’ll find out,” she says. She glances up the avenue. The band leading the parade is just a half a block away. “But right now we need to go back to the platform.”
I let her lead me by the hand. It isn’t until we’re climbing the steps that I notice all the flashbulbs going off, and I hope they are mostly pointed at the parade and not at us, though I doubt it.
Back on the platform, King Marchant stands center stage, looking down on the parade. The wind is gusting, and his white hair is blowing back in a way that makes him look far less dignified. Prince Lars is on his right with Kit behind him, and then Sir Arnaud. The prince is turned away from the railing, glancing back at us. He looks a great deal like Renya, only in place of her auburn hair, his is almost blond. His eyes are cold. He’s handsome in that way a vampire might be handsome.
Below us, the parade draws a torrent of sound from the crowd. People are all calling out, but not in unison . . . not even the same words. Some are shouting Hail the harvest! while others seem to simply be yelling Apples! Renya takes her place on her father’s left, and I stand behind her. Between carts overflowing with red and green apples, military officers pass by on horseback, accompanied by children on bicycles. My eyes can’t fix on any one thing. A gust of wind catches one of the flowers pinned in my hair and it breaks free. Renya’s hand shoots out, trying to catch it. She misses, but when she watches it float away, her gaze lingers on her father and Sir Arnaud.
When she turns back to face me, she smirks like a child who’s found a way around the grown-ups’ rules. “What are you planning?” I ask, knowing whatever it is, it almost certainly will put me at risk of a beating.
Before she can answer, though, a voice calls out, and it’s not Hail the harvest or Apples or anything like that. It’s a scream in pain. I look down directly below us on the street, where a wagon is passing by in the parade.
To call it an applecart would be like calling the palace a barn. This is a massive wagon, loaded down with bushels of silver-skinned apples, decorated with so many flowers it looks like someone died. I’m so distracted by the pageantry of it, I almost forget what called my attention, but then I hear it again.
A scream.
It’s coming from the front of the cart. A half dozen Outsiders are strapped into harnesses, men and women, some old enough to be my grandparents. An Enchanted taskmaster walks behind them, a wide-brimmed hat on her head. There are no horses or mules—these Outsiders are pulling this enormous cart. They’re slump-shouldered, their bodies leaning hard against the load. All of them are suffering, so much so I can’t tell who screamed. But then I hear it again, and I notice an old woman, harnessed near the front, who buckles to her knees.
I can’t help but think of Papa, down on his knees. I wish I could run down the steps to help this woman, but I know it would be futile. Horses could pull these carts, and they’d do a better job of it. But that wouldn’t remind Outsiders what we’re worth: the strength of our backs. Our resilience. Our ability to survive the hardest struggles, to be hurt, fall down, and still, to get back up again. It’s the role of Outsiders in Lanoria, and even when there’s a parade, the Enchanteds make sure we don’t forget.
A line of Authority guards on horseback moves up beside the cart and blocks my view. The wagon rolls on—the woman must have gotten up—and if she’s still screaming, I can’t hear her voice anymore.
When I turn my attention back to the princess, I notice she’s backed me up to the steps we came up earlier that lead down to the hidden space between the stalls. She presses her hand into mine. I realize what she has in mind, and my heart rattles with panic. She says, “I can see by the look on your face you think this is a mistake.”
“I do.”
“Hear me out. There are medics stationed just one block away. I saw their white tent from the railing. You want to know where they took your father and brother, don’t you? Then that’s where we need to ask.”
“Renya, if we get caught—”
“Don’t be silly; we won’t get caught.” She wraps a shawl over her head and shoulders. It’s one that a vendor foisted on her, red with silver trim. It does help hide her hair and face, but still, this scheme of hers is dangerous. “I never found a silver honeypot. If anyone asks, we went out looking for one.”
It’s pointless to resist her—she’s going to do what she wants anyway, and she is trying to help me—so I let her lead me down the steps and into the crowd. With so many people, everyone’s invisible, even the princess, as long as she keeps her head down, and she drags me behind her as she cuts a winding course along the parade route.
Once we’re inside the white medical tent Renya is immediately recognized. The Outsiders bombard her with bows and curtsies, and the Enchanted taskmaster makes a bit of a fool of himself trying to address her, blurting out nonsense like Your Loveliness and Your Enchanted Highness.
“Your Royal Highness will do,” I say. Renya eats it up with a spoon.
But she knows how to get what she wants. She’s both calming him down and buttering him up. Pulling him aside, she speaks low, as if to take him into her confidence, so I step back out to the street and watch the spectacle: Enchanteds popping sweets into their mouths and pinning flowers in each other’s hair, while Outsiders scurry to serve them or struggle under unbelievably heavy loads. The sounds of the carnival—music and shouting and the feet of dancers pounding on the stones—blur together into one deafening roar. I wish I could lose myself in the festivities, find a silver honeypot and be happy with it. But now that my father is dead, every inequity I see at the carnival strikes me like a slap. My Cientia picks up so many emotions in the crowd—the sour heat of desperation and the heavy darkness of pain, swirling with the light citrus sting of raucou
s joy. Inside me, my grief ripens into rage.
Someone tugs hard on my hand, and I spin around, ready to snap, but it’s Renya, her eyes fiery. “That taskmaster was more than happy to help me,” she says. “Your father was taken to the Citizens Hospital.” I swallow hard. The irony of this is so cruel, my eyesight momentarily blurs with tears, but I blink them away. “He was declared dead when he arrived. I’m so sorry, Astrid. He’s in the hospital morgue.”
My head jerks up and down in a frantic nod. “And Marlon? Did the taskmaster know anything—”
“He could only guess, but he thought they probably took him to the Outsider clinic at the gates of Camp Hope.”
“That was my guess, too.” I suck in a deep gulp of night air, close my eyes, and let it out, just to be sure the tears are no longer threatening. “We should go back.”
“Sure,” she says. Then she pulls something from behind her back and lifts it to my eyes. It’s a silver apple cut in half, top to bottom, with the middle scooped out and replaced with a spoonful of warm honey.
“A silver honeypot,” I say, taking it from her hand. “Where did you find it?”
Renya’s lips quirk into a small smile, but whatever her answer, it’s drowned out by a loud noise—not one sound, but a series of sounds—the rat-tat-tat of fireworks, but way too close. The blasts send everybody scattering, and Renya is carried away by a surge of the crowd that pushes her one way and me another.
The honeypot slips through my fingers, and someone in the anonymous crowd presses a piece of paper against my palm in its place. It’s a leaflet emblazoned with the words Outsider Liberation Army. Suddenly I realize that the explosions may not have been an accident.
Crown of Oblivion Page 3