Soul of Cinder

by Bree Barton

  It happened again. And again. Pilar had seen some dark magic in her day. But watching Celeste’s sanctimonious sheep shit re-appear on the door over and over took the cake.

  And then she spotted what she’d missed. The door had been sealed shut with some kind of caulk—also red, probably also magic. But when she traced a finger down it, she saw it had been slit down the middle with a blade.

  A dagger was plunged into the side of the door. The hilt studded with blue uzoolion.

  Someone had broken into the Gymnasia—and she had a feeling she knew who.

  Silently, she nudged the door open.

  At first she didn’t see him. The room was pitch-black, and he was in the far corner, hunched over on the floor. Only the outline of his hair gave him away.

  Stone’s head was buried in his hands, his shoulders racked with sobs.

  Pilar stood helplessly in the shadows. Groping for the right words. A joke to make him laugh. A kind word to console him. But what could she say? She’d taught him the Gymnasia was not a place for jokes and kindness. You went there to be hard, not soft.

  And then her eyes adjusted to the darkness.

  Her mouth fell open.

  The Gymnasia had been stripped bare. Gloves, wrist straps—even the mats on the floor—all gone. The room had been scrubbed clean. Instead of sweat and blood, it reeked of lemon and sage.

  Pilar imagined Celeste burning sage to clear out the evil spirit of violence.

  In other words: the evil spirit of Pilar.

  Her gaze snagged on a giant mound. Large, lumpy objects were piled carelessly on top of each other, like bodies lying in the dark. The sandbags. They hadn’t just been cut down from the ceiling. They’d been gutted. Sliced open to ensure no one could ever punch them again.

  The pain was physical, a blow to the solar plexus. All the things that made the Gymnasia a safe haven had been taken from them.

  “Stone?”

  Pilar froze. Shay’s voice was coming from just outside the door.

  “Are you in there, Stone? Please don’t ignore me. I’m just as upset as you are. Please let me in.”

  Stone stayed hunched on the floor, though his sobs stopped abruptly.

  Pilar’s stomach dropped. Stone and Shay were the first of her brood. She should comfort them. Share their grief. And it was true grief she felt, standing in the ravaged Gymnasia. Knowing Celeste had stolen something precious from them all.

  She should face them.

  But she didn’t. She hid like the coward she was.

  Pilar ducked behind the sandbags. Crouched catlike on the floor. She could still hear herself bragging to Shay. Being small has been one of my biggest advantages. I’m light on my feet.

  What a bill of goods she’d sold them. Acting like she was tough, courageous.

  Shay slipped into the room.

  “Stone. Please.”

  He didn’t look up.

  “I’ve been searching for you everywhere. I didn’t know my mother would do this, I had no idea. It’s so hurtful. This is too much, even for her.”

  “Your mother disgusts me.” Stone’s voice was low. Raspy. “You disgust me.”

  From her hiding place, Pilar watched Shay go completely still.

  “I do?”

  “Things were fine before you started coming. I felt happy sparring. I’ve spent years looking for something that makes me feel happy and strong. And now it’s gone, thanks to you.”

  “I’ll talk to Mumma. I can make her listen. She just doesn’t understand what we do in here, how good it is for us.” Her voice wavered. “Would you come walk with me, Stone?”

  He laughed. A nasty sound that cut Pilar to the core.

  “Why would I walk with you?”

  “We could . . . talk about how you’re feeling. I know you’re angry. I’m angry, too. I want to be there for you. If you lean on me, you won’t have to be alone.”

  “I don’t need anyone to lean on, Shay. I know you want me to like you. You’d do anything for people to like you. It’s pathetic.”

  “But . . . yesterday at the festival, I thought . . . I thought you liked being with me? You said you couldn’t remember the last time you’d felt so happy.”

  “I was happy to get out of the House. It had nothing to do with you.”

  He stood. In the dark room Pilar could only see their outlines. Shay was so small next to Stone. But she was trying so hard to be tall.

  “Let me make this easy for you,” Stone said. “Whatever you thought was happening between us? You were wrong. I know we’ll both be at the House for as long as my mumma is the Shadowess and yours is the Keeper. But I wish I never had to see your face again.”

  Pilar’s blood was on fire. Why was Stone doing this? Why was he lying? She’d seen the way he looked at Shay. He was as smitten by her as she was by him.

  “Thank you for being honest.”

  Shay’s voice had lost all its light. She turned and walked slowly toward the door. Trembling. Even in the dark room Pilar could tell how hard she was fighting to stay upright.

  Shay stopped in the doorway.

  “I’ll talk to Mumma. I want you to have the Gymnasia, Stone. You deserve to be happy.”

  And with that, she left.

  The room went terribly silent. Pilar didn’t know how to accept what she’d just seen. She sure as hells couldn’t make sense of it.

  “So.” Stone’s voice echoed off the empty walls. “How’d I do?”

  Pilar swallowed. Her throat was bone dry.

  “How long have you known I was here?”

  “Since the moment you came in. You forget how much time I spend in here. I know every place the floor creaks.”

  Pilar took a step toward him.

  “What the fuck was that, Stone?”

  They stared each other down. His face was swollen, his cheeks tearstained. After what he’d said to Shay, she thought his eyes would be hard. Angry. But what she saw was pain. And something more complicated. It took her a moment to place it.

  Hunger. That was it. The hunger of a student eager to please his teacher.

  “I did it,” he said. “What you taught me.”

  Pilar heard her breath catch.

  “What do you mean, what I taught you? You were an ass to a girl who cares about you. A girl you care about yourself.”

  “Exactly.” His gaze was fierce. “Why are you acting like this isn’t what you wanted?”

  He kicked one of the damaged sandbags. Red sand oozed from the wound.

  “I came to find you last night because I needed your help. Yesterday, in Shabeeka, Shay and I had an adventure. We spent all day together, just eating and talking. Sometimes she would say something I was thinking before I did. She understood me. I’ve never felt that way with anyone.”

  He shook his head.

  “It was exhilarating—and also terrifying. I didn’t know what to do. So I came to ask your advice. You were drunk, but you answered my question anyway. You said not to trust people. That I shouldn’t leave myself vulnerable to attack, because if I open myself up, people will hurt me.”

  “Shay?” Pilar shouted. “I didn’t mean Shay!”

  “Yes you did.”

  They glared at each other. Pilar clenched her fists. Stone clenched his at the exact same time.

  “Tell me,” she said, enunciating very slowly, “exactly what you mean.”

  “You were obviously too drunk to remember. But I remember. You said if you lean into someone, they’re just going to pull away. I don’t want that. I’ve felt lonely for so long. Everyone says I’m lucky to have the Shadowess and Lord Shadowess as my parents, and they’re good people. Even I can see that. But they don’t understand me. I thought maybe, if I found someone who understands me . . . who likes me for who I am . . . someone who might even love me . . .”

  His voice broke.

  “But you said even the ones who pretend to love you will abandon you in the end.”

  Pilar’s heart was beating f
ast. Too fast.

  “I thought you’d be happy, Pilar. I promised to work harder to learn everything you’ve been teaching me. And I’m trying, I really am. I won’t let Shay into my head. I won’t let her into my heart, either, so she’ll never have a chance to break it.”

  Stone was full-on crying now. She wanted to reach out. Take his hands in hers.

  “I didn’t fail your lesson, Pilar. I did exactly what you told me.” He choked on a sob. “I just didn’t think it would hurt this much.”

  Chapter 36

  THE SMALLEST

  TOBIN’S DEMANDS WERE SIMPLE. Quin would come to the Kaer. His hands bound in uzoolion behind his back. Alone.

  Tobin was holding the Embers hostage. All except Maev and Sylvan, whose scorched heads now graced the castle’s southern parapet. For every hour Quin did not comply, Tobin would burn another body, adding a new head to the balustrade.

  “He’s baiting you,” Domeniq said.

  Dom paced the lodging house as Quin and Callaghan sat tensely at their table. Stoddard and a handful of others stood around the room, their faces grave.

  “I don’t disagree,” said Quin. “But it’s bait I have to take.”

  “You really think he’ll free all the Embers in exchange for you?”

  “It’s me he wants. He doesn’t care about the others.”

  “That’s just it.” Dom rubbed the back of his head furiously. “He’ll slaughter them without a second thought.”

  “I’m going to get them out before he hurts anyone else. I do have magic, remember.”

  “So does he. He’ll bend your mind the moment you set foot inside the Kaer.”

  “And if you’re wearing the gloves,” Callaghan added, “your magic will be weak.”

  Quin had a burst of inspiration. Uzoolion weakened magic, but other stones augmented it. He thought of Mia’s fojuen wren. The same wren he had held himself under the snow palace, crashing it against Angelyne’s black stone—and promptly shattering the known world.

  “Fojuen,” Quin said. “What if we balanced the uzoolion with fojuen?”

  Domeniq rubbed his hands together. “It’s worth a shot.”

  He waved over two men.

  “Gather all the fojuen charms you can get our hands on,” Dom instructed. “Amulets, runes, pendants—anything goes.”

  As the men hurried away, Dom turned back to Quin.

  “We’ll stuff as many as we can inside the gloves.”

  “I imagine Tobin will be ready for that,” Callaghan said. “Stone is his specialty, remember? And anyway, he’ll use head magic to manipulate the aether before you even get close.”

  “It’s not like I’m going to waltz up the eastern road, Cal. I know the Kaer far better than he does. There are passageways he’s never even seen. I spent my whole childhood skulking through them.”

  He stood.

  “I’ll go up the cliffside, then through the crypt. I’ll be breathing down his neck before he even knows I’m inside.”

  Callaghan stood, too. “I’m going with you.”

  “Out of the question.”

  She stared him down, fierce and unwavering. The most Karri-like he’d seen her. He missed his sister more than he missed anything.

  “You have to take me with you.” Cal stepped closer, lowering her voice so only he could hear. “There’s someone else in the castle.”

  He frowned. “Someone other than the Embers?”

  “They’re going to need our help to escape. But only I can take you to them.”

  She straightened.

  “If you won’t take me, then I’ll find my own way in.”

  Against all odds—and despite the fear pulsing through him—Quin felt a smile rise to his lips. Callaghan was still keeping secrets. A fine mistress of the pretending arts.

  He couldn’t bear the thought of something happening to her. But he saw in her blue eyes that she would go to the Kaer with or without him.

  He turned to Dom and the others.

  “Pool all the uzoolion. The gloves, too. She’s going to wear all of it. I want her protected from Tobin’s magic.” He met Callaghan’s gaze. “And from mine.”

  They took two candles. Small and easily concealed. In the clunky uzoolion gloves, Callaghan clutched hers clumsily—but refused to let Quin take it from her.

  “I know how to hold a candle,” she hissed, and he stood down.

  They had already passed the gilded carriage of the Bridalaghdú, dangling at the end of its cable. What a preposterous ritual, to lower a royal bride over the village draped in fine silks and jewels. Thank the four gods Queen Bronwynis had abolished it during her short-lived reign. One of his aunt’s rare rulings that his father let stand.

  Quin still remembered how it had felt, soaring down the cable with Mia by his side. Like flying. Like finally being free.

  “A new head every hour,” Cal reminded him, and he stopped gaping and took the lead.

  As they edged along the cliffside, creeping ever closer to the crypt, the only sound was the guttering of two flames. A soft, uneven rhythm.

  You’ll come to me, under the snow plum tree.

  The night of his secret rendezvous with Tobin, Quin had waited until the whole castle was asleep. He’d paced his drawing room so long that by the time he donned his jacket, his stomach was in knots. He crept silently past the grove of snow plums—and down into the crypt.

  Tobin was there already. Pacing between the mausoleums, fingers tapping a nervous beat on his thighs.

  You came, he said simply.

  Of course I came.

  “I wanted to tell you from the very beginning,” Callaghan whispered, knocking him out of the memory. “But you were quite awful, so I kept it a secret. A secret from everyone. There was too much at stake. If Toby found out I was harboring members of your family . . .”

  That brought him up short. “My family?”

  She held a finger to her lips.

  Quin’s mind was spinning. His family was all dead.

  Except for his cousin, he realized with a jolt. Had Tristan ridden to Kaer Killian and sought refuge? And why, of all people, would Callaghan be the one to give it?

  “Are you harboring the duke?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

  Her eyebrows arched. “Is that his name? ‘The Duke’? It suits him!”

  Quin began to sweat. He had sworn to himself that if he ever saw Tristan again, he would not fail to kill him. But was he prepared to take his cousin’s life in front of Cal?

  “This is it,” she whispered.

  They were on the precipice now, the ledge where Mia had shoved Quin into the laghdú for their death-defying descent. If he closed his eyes, he could see the wind whipping her curls around her face. She had looked wild, untamable. He’d been afraid of her. He’d been afraid of everything.

  “Now or never,” Cal said.

  “Wait.” He hugged his candle to his chest, cupping his hand around the flame. “If something goes wrong . . . if it comes down to the Embers and me . . . save the Embers. Get them out of the Kaer and take them somewhere safe.”

  She nodded, and together they ducked into the crypt.

  It took a moment for their eyes to adjust. Quin’s candle had flickered out; now only Callaghan’s burned. But the moon bled light through a fissure, and the crypt revealed itself. He saw mausoleums and charnel houses, row after row of oppressive stones inscribed with names of Killians he had never known, and never wanted to.

  Someone stirred behind the tombs. Quin’s stomach clenched.

  “Do you see them?” Callaghan whispered. “They see you.”

  Slowly, tentatively, two creatures emerged from the shadows.

  Quin let out a cry.

  He was looking at his dogs.

  Wulf and Beo stood before the tombs. He would have known them anywhere. Their dusky yellow fur a burnished gold in the moonlight. Tails that curled into question marks when they were happy. Baleful brown eyes that had always seemed human.


  “Beo.” Quin held out his hands. “Wulf.”

  The dogs did not move. Had they forgotten him? But they forgot nothing. Especially Beo. Quin could hide a beef bone in a particular corner of the Kaer, and years later she would return to the exact same spot, licking her chops.

  His hands were shaking. Did they smell it on him? The hateful things he had done? The things he’d wanted to do?

  Or was it that he had abandoned them?

  Quin loved his dogs more than anything. But he had left his own castle. Abandoned them at the mercy of cruel, violent people. They would not forgive him for it.

  He did not deserve to be forgiven.

  And then they caught his scent. Their brown eyes lit with recognition. Wulf yelped and loped forward, scrambling so fast his paws skittered across the stone. As Quin fell to his knees, Wulf barreled into him so hard with his cold nose they both fell backward.

  Beo trotted forward, then hesitated. She had always been more sensitive than her brother, closely attuned to Quin’s every emotion. When his father hurt him, she knew to lick away his tears. On the nights Quin ached with loneliness, she would jump onto his warm bed and wedge her body next to his, letting him wrap his arms around her.

  “Beo.” His voice was cracking. If she backed away, he did not think he could survive it. “Beo, my love.”

  And then she was coming toward him, climbing into his arms, licking his face, nuzzling her head into the space between his chin and collarbone. She pawed his face, whimpering, and Quin was crying, too, burying his face in her soft fur. She smelled of dirt and must and Beo. He had never loved her more.

  “Wulf and Beo. That’s perfect.” Callaghan crouched beside him on the floor. “This whole time I haven’t known their names.”

  She rubbed Beo’s head, then scratched Wulf under his chin. He licked her hand.

  “I’ve never seen them so happy,” she said.

  Quin was crying too hard to say anything.

  “I hope you can forgive me for keeping them down here,” Cal said. “I had seen them around the Kaer, begging for scraps. But then I heard some of the nastier Embers talking about what they’d like to do to the prince’s dogs, and . . .”

  Her voice dropped an octave lower.