Isadora

by Charlotte McConaghy

  I disentangled myself from the bed. I didn’t want to leave her, this tiny sleeping figure of white and red, this child I had hardly spoken two words to and had spent the last days being suspicious of. I couldn’t bear to leave her alone with her pain. But that was when Osric skidded inside, looking frantic. ‘The power – it was so much more than I thought. It broke through the shield. They’re coming for us.’

  One frozen moment of horror was all I allowed myself. Then I started moving. ‘Finn, get everyone outside immediately – they bring nothing but weapons. Osric, help me find stretchers for Falco and Isadora.’

  ‘No need,’ Wes said as he and Anders arrived in the hallway. Anders grabbed Isadora, who was tiny in his arms, and placed her over his shoulder, while Wes hurried to lift Falco. I armed myself and we shepherded the terrified group into the courtyard. Thankfully Eve was asleep in her mother’s arms, and I prayed the baby wouldn’t wake.

  ‘They’re moments away,’ Osric warned.

  ‘Which direction?’

  ‘All!’

  I thought quickly. ‘You’re with me. Finn – get everyone south-east to the tunnel, swift as you can.’

  ‘Ava −’

  ‘Just do it.’

  I pulled Osric with me and we climbed over the wall to the alley. ‘Start using some of that power of yours, first-tier,’ I told him, ‘and make it impressive.’

  Understanding passed through his eyes before they rolled back in his head and he began to glow. I led him out onto the main street and stopped in full view of the approaching warders. They sent a bolt of energy at us, but it was blocked by the iron force of Osric’s shield. The warders on the other side of the house would hopefully come straight to it, feeling the draw of its unexpected power.

  A striking woman, with faded-red hair, stood at their front. ‘How long do you think you can deny us, Osric?’ she asked him as more warders appeared behind us, boxing us in.

  ‘As long as I must, Viper,’ he snarled.

  So this was Gwendolyn. She was a first-tier, and right hand to the Mad Ones. She had been named the Viper because they sent her to annihilate any threat. None saw her coming and none survived her.

  But it seemed there were first-tier warders and there were first-tier warders. Osric gave a roar and sent Gwendolyn flying through the air with a mighty burst of power.

  ‘Touch my skin,’ he ordered me quickly. I grabbed his arm and as we moved into the throng of warders I felt the pressure in the air that meant his shield had enveloped me. The bodies around us threw their wards at us again and again; there was a woozy kind of shimmer to the air, a swelling of the moon above. One or two of them tried to attack us physically, but I ran them through with my sword. An oversight, not to train the apprentices to use their bodies as well as their minds.

  Osric seemed to be pinning Gwendolyn to the ground even as he was maintaining our shield. I could see sweat trickling into his eyes. The strength it must have been taking to keep her impotent and immobile; we reached the fallen warder and I met her eyes. I couldn’t help it – I winked at her as we passed.

  ‘Get to the house!’ I heard Gwendolyn order her warders, and knew we’d have a few minutes to get away. It concerned me that she sent none after us, but perhaps she thought Osric would kill them.

  To be safe he dropped his magic so they couldn’t follow it, and we pressed ourselves into a hard sprint through the city. I made us pause and hide a dozen times to ensure we weren’t being followed before we cut across to intercept Finn’s group on its way to the tunnel. They’d hardly made any progress, and were all huddled under a shop’s eave not far from the house. ‘Why aren’t you moving?’

  Finn’s head whipped around to spot me. ‘We can’t find Penn!’

  My heart fell.

  ‘He hid when Izzy started screaming,’ Jonah said. ‘He can’t handle that much feeling.’

  ‘Gods curse it,’ Osric muttered.

  I caught Elias’ eye. ‘Get everyone to the tunnel. We’ll follow.’ He nodded and most of the group hurried off. ‘Jonah, go with them in case they need protection.’ Though what he could do against more than one warder I had no idea.

  ‘I’m not leaving Penn.’

  ‘Now,’ I snapped, and whatever he heard in my voice must have alarmed him enough to obey. I had no patience for those who didn’t follow orders in a crisis.

  Finn, Osric and I started creeping back towards the house. I was scrabbling desperately to come up with some kind of plan. There was no way the warders wouldn’t find him in there, not if they were using their power to search. We crouched a block from the courtyard, looking at each other for inspiration. ‘Have you enough energy left to shield yourself again?’ I asked Osric, but he shook his head.

  ‘Not against Gwendolyn.’

  Damn it.

  ‘We have to hurry,’ Finn whispered.

  ‘Let me think.’ But in my heart I was coming to one conclusion. We could not risk losing multiple people on a suicide mission to save one, when there was every chance he was already dead.

  A tragedy, one Finn might never forgive me for.

  Footsteps sounded in the night and we all turned to see Isadora – who only moments ago had been deeply unconscious – moving through the shadows.

  ‘What in gods names?’

  She didn’t look at us, nor did she react as Finn pulled her to a halt. Her face was blank and slack, her eyes empty. ‘Izzy?’ Finn waved her hand in front of Isadora’s face but the girl didn’t react at all.

  ‘I think she’s … sleepwalking,’ Finn whispered. ‘Isn’t she?’

  Isadora’s unblinking eyes noticed us for the first time. When she spoke her voice was lazy and lilting, as though she could barely get the words out. ‘I’ll get him,’ was all she muttered, and then she pulled herself from Finn’s grip and went for the wall. I grabbed for her but she was too quick, climbing up and over with the economic agility of a cat.

  Finn passed a trembling hand over her eyes. ‘I think I’m gonna be sick.’

  ‘There’s a chance she may yet be alright,’ Osric said, deep in thought. ‘If she was sleepwalking …’ He scratched his chin absently.

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  ‘Not sure. But warders can’t enter dreams.’

  ‘What does it matter? There are still too many!’ Finn exclaimed. ‘Way too many. Falco would never let her go in there alone.’ She shook her head furiously and rose out of her crouch. ‘I have power. I’m going.’

  I pulled her roughly back down.

  ‘Not enough, kid,’ Osric told her. ‘There are at least thirty of them.’

  It came down to the same decision again. Finn was pleading with me to help. To do something. I was meant to be able to fix things but my hands were trembling with a wretched powerlessness. This was beyond me. If we followed them in, the three of us would die.

  And perhaps I would have made that choice earlier tonight, before Falco did what he did. Perhaps I would have chosen not to let them die alone, perhaps it would have been enough to die fighting for friends. But now I had no idea what the Emperor of Kaya would ever be capable of again, and if this country had no ruler, and no heir, no one who even knew of our plan, it would crumble to dust. Which meant I couldn’t afford to let the three of us die.

  Isadora and Penn were on their own.

  Isadora

  I should have known.

  But madness had taken over my limbs and all I wanted was an end to it. So I drank the sleeping draught given me by the Queen of Pirenti. She had no idea what she’d condemned me to, could have no way to know. But I should have.

  Sleep was quick – it was a strong potion. Then came the pain. Pain to tether me to awareness – and there was so much pain. It would trap me here in this ravaged body, here in this realm of nightmares, lucid and knowing it, feeling it.

  It was the void. The nightmare had sent me straight back to the screaming void. I had to get out. I had to find a way to get out. I had to, right now, right now now now. Bu
t the pain was everywhere. It wasn’t part of my body it was just everything and I couldn’t breathe or find my way up and I didn’t know which direction up was or even if up existed in this madness, I had to get out right now, right −

  ‘Isadora.’

  The screaming went quiet. Everything went quiet and there he stood in the cold dark of it.

  He wasn’t the real Falco. The real Falco didn’t look at me like that, with love in his crystal eyes. This was Falco as I dreamed him in my most secret of hearts. I was about to speak when he pressed a finger to his lips to quiet me. That’s how I heard the words.

  We can’t find Penn. He’s hiding.

  A second stretched into an eternity and then

  Falco bridged the space between us and whispered into my ear, ‘Don’t wake up.’

  Pain sheathed through my head, a very different kind of pain. Much sharper, more pointed. I was in my body once more, and I was not in the void but being carried in someone’s arms through the normal dark of the city at night, and I was still asleep.

  Don’t go, I whispered in my heart, but he was already gone.

  ‘Shit,’ the person in whose arms I lay muttered. ‘Sorry, little one.’ It was Anders, and he reached to wipe the blood from where he’d knocked my scalp against a wall. The moment he caught sight of my open eyes his hand jerked away and he set me down. ‘Isadora?’

  They couldn’t find Penn. So within the dream realm I turned and forced my body to move, to work. It was almost impossible; the pain allowed it, but so too did it make it difficult. I was a skeleton under water, barely in control. This was how it would feel to be a ghost, I imagined. How it must feel for Quillane and Radha.

  It only came to me very slowly that Finn was in front of me and halting my path. I’ll get him, I promised her. I thought I promised her, but perhaps not.

  Concentrate now, I willed myself. You must concentrate. I had no weapons. Somewhere in the chaos they’d gone from my body. I was climbing into a house full of warders. And my muscles carried a thousand lead weights, the entire volume of the ocean was in my heart, and I was missing him and missing him and –

  They had Penn in the living room.

  He looked petrified as I crept through the courtyard. I could see his heart through his chest, glowing with blood and throbbing throbbing throbbing. Perhaps this was how Penn saw all hearts, perhaps this was how he felt them, as I could feel his now. The roof of the house creaked and then with a rumble it detached entirely, flying up and away into a clear night sky filled with stars. I wanted to go with it. Wanted to take Penn in my arms and carry him up, up until we couldn’t see the ground any longer –

  Concentrate.

  At least a score of warders stood around him, waiting for their orders, while Gwendolyn the Viper crouched and spoke to him. ‘… did they go?’ Her voice drifted to me as I drew closer. ‘It’s no good. His mind’s blank. We’ll take him to the palace.’

  ‘No,’ I murmured.

  Because. The hunter or the hunted.

  They whirled to see me, hands flying impotently.

  ‘Run, Penn!’ I roared, flinging myself into the fray. Several grabbed at him, but I attacked them first, my blows as heavy and sharp as I could make them. Penn stumbled to the ground and I pulled him against my side, using one arm to drag him through the chaos of arms and legs hitting and batting at me.

  ‘Stop her!’ the Viper was ordering again and again but they couldn’t, they wouldn’t, not ever. I would drag him forever, I would never let go.

  I felt arms wrench me back so I lashed out with an elbow and took the warder in the face. The coward dropped me and I swung wildly at anything I could reach, anything that was in my way or pulling me back, and always I was hauling Penn’s struggling body towards the door. I felt a chunk of my hair ripped out and fingernails raked at my neck, drawing blood, but I was already bleeding and it didn’t matter because we were here, we’d made it. I shoved Penn roughly into the courtyard and turned back to block the way.

  ‘Izzy,’ he sobbed, ‘come on.’

  ‘Run,’ I told him, and then I fought, properly now, going for eyes and testicles and throats, anywhere that would drop them quickly.

  They were too many, of course. They were always going to be too many. Even with weapons, even with full control of my body, it would have been so. One too many blows to the head and they overpowered me, pinning my struggling body to the ground. Quickly I looked to see that Penn was gone, he’d made it away and hopefully the warders rushing after him wouldn’t be quick enough to catch up.

  I allowed myself to stop. A life for a life, then. A tainted life for an innocent one. An unfair trade, really. And too easy. Much too easy.

  ‘You surprise me, demon child,’ Gwendolyn said. ‘And I’m not easily surprised. What are you? Why are you invisible to our wards?’

  I spat in her face.

  She wiped her cheek. ‘Take her to the palace.’

  It’s alright, it’s alright. This was your plan all along. I just had to stay asleep long enough to get free and find a weapon. But I knew, even as I thought it, that the sleeping draught would not keep working forever, not in this kind of danger. I would wake sooner or later, and they’d be able to kill me with their magic.

  And so as I watched the falling stars in a sky made of dreams, I thought of my end, this approaching return to the screaming void. I thought of the bowels of the underworld and the strange beauty of the dream realm, which I would never again visit beyond tonight. But I wondered, as they carried me south to the palace, what the breaths in my lungs or the beats in my heart or even the most beautiful fantasms I could dream up were worth without him, without Falco of Sancia.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Thorne

  The timing was not ideal.

  The moment Finn’s power and pain hit me full force in the chest, the moment she broke the bond between two souls using the energy of my own and caused me to collapse to the ground, happened to be the exact moment I was trying to kill Sigurd of Vjort.

  Falco

  I woke in the dark to the smell of death and rot. I felt raw. Lacerated. Weak beyond belief.

  ‘Thank gods,’ a voice said and my eyes adjusted to a yellow gaze staring down at me. Finn helped me sit; my muscles were as stiff as if they’d never been used. We were in the cool room above the tunnel. The whole group was huddled around, waiting for me to wake.

  A spike of severe nausea took me and I leant over to retch violently. Pain was a shock behind my eyes and down my neck. It took some moments to gather myself well enough to look up. Finn had tears in her eyes and Jonah was pacing, and Ava looked shadowed with regret. Penn was counting and counting and counting and −

  ‘Where is she?’ I asked.

  I couldn’t feel her. It hit me, the absence. I was shivering with a bone-deep cold and I knew I knew that this wasn’t right, it wasn’t natural. The absence was the most wrong thing I’d ever felt.

  ‘You’re in shock,’ Sara said, wrapping me in a cloak that could never help with the kind of cold I was.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘They took her!’ Penn burst out. ‘They took her! They took her! They took her!’ It was a wail, a mourning cry, barely intelligible but persistent like a heartbeat.

  ‘The warders felt Finn break the bond and came for us,’ Ava told me. ‘We escaped, but Penn was left behind. Isadora went back for him. She was …’

  ‘She got Penn out, but there must have been too many to face on her own,’ Osric finished.

  ‘They took her.’ Penn’s voice had fallen to a whisper.

  I closed my eyes. Through the maddening emptiness and the jagged shards of my soul, I needed to find some kind of clarity.

  Too many to face on her own. Which meant many. The warders had Isadora at the palace. She would wake, if she hadn’t already. If she wasn’t dead. When she did they would make her reveal all. The tunnel, our plan, her identity and my presence. Everything. How did I feel about this? I searched for an answe
r. Angry. I felt angry. With her, with them, with myself. With the whole gods-cursed world. I felt barely human, a creature made of fury. But at least, I realised, I no longer felt chained to a murderess.

  I looked at my cousin. ‘Start evacuating as many as you can tonight.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘I’m going after Isadora.’

  There was a lot of arguing then. It was far too dangerous, it was a suicide mission, someone else should go but who should it be, who had the best chance, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. I barely listened. Instead, I made plans.

  ‘Falco.’ Ava’s voice eventually cut through my thoughts. Finn and Jonah were arguing about something and Penn was still counting tiredly, while most of the others had already started the long journey through the tunnel. ‘This is why you broke the bond,’ the Queen told me. ‘So you wouldn’t have to save her. Her death will not cause yours.’

  She was baiting me to see if I’d admit I felt something for her. That I wanted to go after Isadora because of our connection. But I didn’t, and I wouldn’t. ‘She knows too much,’ I replied.

  ‘So let someone else go. Let Osric. He might be able to shield against their power.’ Which was obviously bullshit. If Osric could shield against every palace warder at the same time, including Dren and Galia, he would have told me by now and we wouldn’t have a problem to begin with. But instead of calling out the lie, I simply asked, ‘All magic aside, can Osric fight? Because he will need to. That place is swarming with soldiers proficient with fists and swords.’

  We both glanced at Osric. We all knew he couldn’t fight: Ava’s abysmal lesson on the road to Kaya had been evidence enough.

  ‘So I’ll go to protect him,’ she said.

  I shook my head impatiently. ‘People take one look at you and know exactly who you are. I’m completely unrecognisable, and I have a natural shield. I will enter as Isadora did, on a work permit. They’ll read only what surface thoughts I give them.’

  ‘Say you’re right and they happen not to probe any deeper. Then what? You ask the Mad Ones nicely to let her go?’ she snapped.