‘Answer, demon,’ he ordered.
Demon. A memory brutalised me, but I pushed it back inside its box and locked it tight at the bottom of my mind.
‘She’s just a girl,’ Penn said quickly. ‘Born differently to you or I, but a girl.’
‘I’ll have the answer from the demon,’ the warder said. He wasn’t as small as Penn or me, of course, but small nonetheless. He bore it poorly, the weight of being so small in both body and spirit. It made him cruel.
Calmly, I placed my packages on top of Penn’s and told him with my eyes to leave the square. He shook his head, but I darted a second, firmer look at the exit and he acquiesced. Calmly, I straightened. Calmly, I squared my shoulders and met the warder’s faded eyes. And, calmly, I spat in his face.
Oh, boy. The fury that manifested in the alley was like a living, throbbing thing. The sheer force of his anger sliced a sudden crack of lightning into the road beneath my feet and the force sent me flying back. Right before I hit the wall I went limp to lessen the impact. It still hurt. A lot.
I straightened myself slowly out of a crumpled heap in time to see Penn shepherding people from the markets. The warder stormed towards me. A second bolt of lightning struck a stall to his side; the material of its roof went up in flames and then his magic pummeled me into the wall, pinning me there. Pain flooded every muscle and bone, every nerve ending. I thought my teeth would shatter, my eardrums burst.
‘What are you?’ he snarled, too close to my face. ‘Why is your mind blank? You are no warder to block my powers, so why can’t I see anything?’
Because there was nothing. There was a body and a purpose and nothing else.
‘Speak or die, demon!’
He intensified the pain and I closed my eyes. The lake of liquid calm spread through my mind.
For twelve years I lived in a cage. Suspended over a chasm haunted by monsters. And when finally I escaped it, I stumbled through the forest and came upon a vast, still lake. Its silver surface was calm until I waded into it. But even then it seemed to close around me and I had the clearest sense that nothing could disturb it. With a single breath I sank below to where the scraping claws and bars of my cage didn’t exist anymore. Here I knew a quiet that moved inside me, taking root in my mind and soul. I became the lake, and it me.
Now, in the marketplace, I let it soothe the pain and allay the hatred until I became nothing but the reflective glass of its surface, protecting the truth of what lay beneath.
The warder grunted in outrage and his eyes held their intent to kill me.
‘That’s enough,’ a flat voice said.
The small warder lowered his hands immediately, ceasing the hail of pressure on my body. I sagged to my knees, trembling so badly it was a miracle I didn’t lose consciousness.
Approaching was a second warder, a woman tall and physically strong, far stronger than this male. She’d once had red hair, but it was now streaked through with white. ‘You’ve made your point,’ she told the man. ‘Killing in anger is beneath a warder.’
‘She was insubordinate.’
‘I will punish her. You are too emotionally disturbed.’
The male warder looked like he wanted to argue, but she clearly outranked him so he strode away. I forced myself to stand; my body felt like it had been taken apart and sewed clumsily back together. The female appraised me carefully, probably probing my mind like the man had tried to. ‘I am Gwendolyn.’
Interesting. This was the Viper, Galia’s right hand. A first tier warder and very powerful. She was on my list, after Lutius, head warder of Kaya.
‘What’s your name, girl?’
I said nothing.
‘Are you mute?’
I inclined my head subtly. Let her think I was. Words were precious and powerful, and hadn’t nearly been earned by her.
‘Wretched creature,’ she murmured, and her voice held vague, weary pity.
I could have smiled then. She was amusing, this woman and her magic, that small man and his.
‘I find myself reluctant to punish you,’ Gwendolyn mused. When you rarely spoke people deemed you stupid as well as silent, and said things in your presence they wouldn’t otherwise. ‘I had a daughter born with a lame leg,’ the Viper continued in the same detached voice. She had a shrewd look in her eyes and I suspected she was trying to manipulate me somehow. ‘Her father drowned her.’
We stared at each other. I let my eyebrows narrow coldly. She wanted anger. Empathy. Pity. I would give her nothing but contempt: for not having stopped him.
Gwendolyn shook her head suddenly, breaking our shared trance. She sighed and waved her hand. ‘Away with you. Keep the hood raised in future.’
I walked from the alley, focused on keeping my footsteps straight. Waves of ache made my spine feel brittle. At the street corner I found the small male warder. He motioned for me to stop and I braced myself for another attack. ‘If you weren’t so freakish, you might be appealing, demon,’ he told me with a chuckle. And then he backhanded me hard across the cheek.
‘Simple physical pain is often more brutal than anything rendered with the mind, I’ve found.’ He smiled and made way for me. ‘Go on then.’
As I walked past him I met his eyes and gave him six words: ‘I’ll find you in the dark.’
Penn was waiting for me nearby and thankfully didn’t say anything as we walked home. Well, nothing to me. He counted urgently under his breath, trying to soothe himself with the numbers.
The house was a long way from the palace in a small, rundown neighbourhood. We’d boarded up the windows and doors and were careful not to let anyone follow us home. Bands of hoarders had taken to killing and robbing any who strayed into their paths.
Scaling the wall of the back alley, Penn and I swung down into the courtyard to find that Jonah had returned with a package of medical supplies we desperately needed.
Penn and I went into the kitchen to unload our food rations.
There were nine of us living here, including the baby. I had come somewhere in the middle of the party, having lost Jonah and Penn on that fateful night of the invasion. I’d only found them by following rumours and searching house by house. They were holed up here with the owners of the house, Elias and Sara and their baby daughter Eve. Jonah had been deathly ill that night, having jumped the three of us from Pirenti to reach the palace in time to warn Falco of Lutius’ betrayal. Somehow Penn had managed to get him out of that crumbling building. They’d travelled through the night until they could go no further, and when they collapsed in the street, Elias – a scribe for the university – had seen them from the window and run out to help.
In the following days warders raided homes and placed wards on doors and windows to detect magic used in private residences. A great deal was destroyed, many killed. Riots began, but warder magic cut the revolt down with mass slaughter.
Jonah managed to save a woman called Glynn from being trampled in the street. I came next, and then Penn found the brothers Wesley and Anders, who had been beaten to within an inch of their lives for daring to stop the warders entering their home. Their sister was killed that night and the grisly young blacksmiths recovered fast from their beating, keen for blood.
Sara entered the kitchen while we unpacked rations. She took one look at my face and cursed loudly. ‘With me, now.’
I obeyed reluctantly, and after catching sight of me Jonah tagged along. ‘What happened?’
‘A warder attacked her,’ Penn informed them. ‘A warder attacked her. A warder attacked her.’
‘Penn, don’t lock on,’ Sara said distractedly, but he kept saying it anyway. She sat me on one of the beds and started applying cream to my cheek, eye and lip. I was sure it looked worse because of my skin, but I didn’t bother saying that because she’d only keep fussing. Sara took pleasure in fussing.
‘I got what you asked for,’ Jonah told me. ‘Though after this you’ll have to delay the plan at least a week. It might change your skin and hair, but it w
on’t cover bruises this bad.’
I nodded, but there’d be no delaying anything. I reached under my tunic and removed the scroll the market girl had smuggled. An invitation to work in the palace.
‘Are you sure …?’ Jonah asked nervously. ‘I still don’t think it’s a good idea, being so close to them.’
‘Hush,’ Sara told him. ‘She’s made up her mind. And I can always cover her bruises.’ At the thought of this, Sara smiled a glorious smile – the kind of smile given by people who loved easily – and then she reached out to touch my cheek in the casual way people who think touch is normal do. I forced myself not to flinch as she considered how best to work her magic. She wore amazing, strange face paint each day. It was the thing I liked best about her – that even during such danger she didn’t wish to blend in – but I was also nervous about what she might do to my already-strange face.
For now, Sara used some kind of salve to coax my split cheek and lip to heal more quickly, then set me free. ‘I told you last time to watch your mouth,’ she admonished me, then realised what she’d said and laughed. If I’d been the laughing type, I might have too. She knew just as well as I did that the reason I kept getting beaten up by warders was for my lack of mouth, so to speak.
Once she’d bustled out, Jonah asked, ‘Want to try it now?’
I nodded, so he retreated to find his stolen goods.
Penn walked past the doorway, muttering under his breath. ‘A warder attacked her. A warder attacked her.’ Inwardly, I sighed. There was nothing to do but wait it out.
Jonah and I made our way to the washroom and I sat on the side of the tub. He showed me the small glass pots. ‘This one is for hair, this one for skin. I can’t do anything about your eyes, though.’ He opened the pots and made as if to start applying them.
‘I’ll do it,’ I forestalled.
Jonah looked at me, softening. He was very slender, a little bit pretty. His eyelashes were long, his blond hair growing out and his lips were shaped like a perfect love-heart.
I could feel that he still wanted more than friendship from me and the notion aggravated. There was some kind of affection living in his touches, but no sign of the same thing in mine. I was too far away from it all, incapable of anything of the sort.
I didn’t think of the other one. I never thought of him, or the throbbing unease at the base of my spine, or the dual hearts beating against the cage of my ribs.
‘You’re not going back out tonight, are you?’ Jonah asked as he handed me the pots of dye.
I didn’t answer.
‘Iz … I go to sleep every night thinking I’ll wake to find you dead.’
There was nothing I could say to that, so he left me alone in the washroom.
I undressed and steeled myself to stand before the mirror. I hated my reflection, but this would require a careful eye. With steady hands I lathered the ointment over my skin and into every inch of me. It was an arduous task and I took my time to make sure I hadn’t missed any spots. Then I washed my hands and started working the powder through my white hair.
When I was done I looked at myself for a full minute, counting the seconds and forcing myself to stay. It would take some hours for the effect to be visible. So until then a bloody-eyed snow-creature would still stare back at me. She was unusual, certainly. Was she monstrous? I wasn’t sure.
But perhaps that was because I knew the truth: the real monstrosity lived on the inside.
Chapter Two
Falco
‘No. Again.’
Inwardly, I sighed. Inwardly, I said, shove the blasted training up your enormous Pirenti backside. Outwardly I made no reaction at all. I was a picture of dispassionate calm.
A trickle of laughter cut through the afternoon and I looked over at Finn lounging along the top of the battlement. ‘Ambrose, he just said you have an enormous Pirenti backside.’
‘I did not say that,’ I replied, folding my arms petulantly. ‘The witch snuck inside my head and stole thoughts that do not belong to her.’
Finn laughed again. They all did, actually. ‘This is fast becoming my favourite activity,’ she admitted.
Thorne sat next to her, his back iron-straight as always, stiff alongside his small, lazily sprawled wife. His massive white Alsatian, Howl, sat attentively between his legs, Thorne’s fingers perpetually threaded through the dog’s fur. Finn’s fingers, on the other hand, were perpetually touching her husband in some way, and now traced idly along the back of his neck. I was distracted by the thought of how those fingers would feel on my skin, and hoped she didn’t catch that one.
Ambrose remained standing to watch the proceedings, growing more impatient by the minute. Fair enough, I supposed. He’d been trying to teach me for months, to no avail. Opposite me stood Osric. The only first tier warder in all of Kaya. Except he wasn’t anymore. He was the only legal first tier warder.
‘Focus!’ the King of Pirenti ordered me in that deep booming voice of his, the one that scared birds from the trees in the forest below.
‘Shall I point out that yelling at me is not helping clear my mind?’
Ambrose’s glare was so displeased I would not have been surprised had he used that ludicrously large axe of his as a pike for my head. I turned back to Osric, trying to ignore the endless laughter of bloody Finn of Limontae, gods-cursed bane of my existence.
‘Oh, come now, I’m not the bane of your existence,’ she murmured. ‘And if I am, then you lead a very sad existence indeed, Emperor Feckless.’
‘Muzzle your dog!’ I snapped at Thorne, who smiled beatifically at me.
‘I think that’s the nastiest thing you’ve ever said about me,’ Finn sniffed. ‘Or Howl. Either way, I’m offended.’
‘If you are all so feeble-minded as to think I don’t have better things to be doing with my time, then I’m done,’ Ambrose said, striding for the stairs.
‘Wait!’ I called. ‘Sorry, sorry. I’ll focus, I promise.’
Ambrose paused, giving me one more chance. ‘Go!’ he barked at Osric. Who smiled that quicksilver smile and sent a huge blast of energy straight into my body. I didn’t even have time to pretend I was clearing my mind of all thoughts – I sailed back through the air and slammed into the stone battlement. The air was knocked from my chest with a whoomph. I coughed and spluttered, rolling onto all fours and trying to drag in a breath.
Howl padded over to sniff at me, then kindly licked my face.
After a moment a human knelt before me, larger than life. The King of Pirenti with his huge knuckles and huge arms and huge shoulders. How was he so huge? How were they all so huge up here? It’s almost grotesque, I told my poor emasculated self as he struggled to have a lucid thought.
‘Falco,’ Ambrose said in his honey-voice, the singer’s voice. ‘You will never kill a warder.’
I struggled into a sitting position.
‘I don’t say that to wound you,’ he added, ‘but to prepare you. There is far too much going on in that head of yours for you to ever be impenetrable to their powers. So just don’t try.’
‘What do you suppose I do then?’
And that was when he smiled, and the normal Ambrose returned to the roof. ‘Just hide behind me, kid. My head’s empty enough to protect you.’
Which sent the rest of them into fits of laughter. Even I cracked a smile, but had to be careful to maintain an air of wounded pettiness: the act was hardest to maintain around people who constantly made me laugh.
Ambrose helped me to my feet and headed off to do kingly things. I staggered over to my friends. ‘Forgive me,’ Osric conceded gently, reaching to pat me condescendingly on the head. ‘But you did ask me to do this.’
‘I’d be happy to do it,’ Finn offered with a wicked glint in her eye.
‘You’re not coming anywhere near me,’ I warned her. ‘And you know it’s still illegal for you to be using your magic, so your Emperor would be well within his rights to punish every count of mindreading.’
Fin
n flung her arms around my neck and gave a dramatic swoon. ‘Forgive me, oh mighty Emperor! Please don’t punish me!’
‘You think you’re being cute, but you’re not.’ I couldn’t curb the twitch of my lips.
Finn smiled a real smile and kissed me on the cheek. Then told a big fat lie. ‘You’re right. I’ll be more careful.’ She beckoned to her husband as she headed for the stairs, whistling to him like a dog and slapping her thigh. ‘Here, boy.’
Thorne made a face and she made one back, then both their mouths split into smiles. His was the kind only he could offer – an expression infinitely more gentle than anything else that existed under the sky of this world. ‘Give me a moment.’
Finn nodded, dragging Osric from the roof with a rude comment about the lack of finesse in his teaching methods.
I was left alone with Thorne and Howl. We looked out over the oyster farms of Pirenti, which glistened like silver teeth in the distance. The prince placed a thick, meaty hand on my shoulder. ‘What’s going on with you, brother?’
I sat down against the balustrade, needing to not be touched, to have no one look at the pitiful mess of me. Howl rested his head in my lap, knowing. He always knew.
Here was how it seemed to work. I couldn’t block a physical blow from a warder. I couldn’t stop them from controlling my body or coercing me to believe I was sensing what they wanted me to. But I could block them from reading the truth. Finn and Osric read my surface thoughts. They did not read anything deeper. They didn’t see any of the real truths, any of the things I kept hidden. I had training from a lifetime of deceit; no matter how powerful they might be, they would never know what I didn’t wish them to know without, as Finn put it, smashing my mind to pieces.
But Thorne – he was different. The berserker in him could smell what lay beneath the surface, just as his dog could, and I had absolutely no power over that. ‘What are you getting?’ I asked him.
He tilted his head and drew a long breath through his nose. ‘The usual things. Frustration. Amusement. Desire for my wife.’
My head whipped up to him.
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