by Claire Luana
Hale shook his head, worlds passing behind those eyes. “You should have left when you had the chance.”
“Some of us don’t abandon our friends when they need us. If I had left, Callidus and Lucas would be dead.”
“So what, you bought your prince another few weeks? They’re going to find him. Maybe they already have.”
Fear surged through her at Hale’s words. Did he know something about Lucas’s location? She struggled to keep her features calm and unreadable. “Maybe,” she managed. “But maybe not.”
“Just be careful. I can’t protect you anymore.”
She gave a fake little bow. “You have made that quite clear, Sim Firena,” she said, referring to him by his formal Aprican name. Wren spun on her heel and marched up the steps and through the Guildhall’s front door. As soon as she was through, she sagged against it. She felt weary to her bones. Perhaps it was time to go back to bed.
Hale set his jaw against the bite of the wind, trying to think of something, anything besides the haunted expression on Wren’s face. She had looked gaunt, so painfully thin a stiff breeze might break her. But still, he’d have rather battled a dozen warriors than face the truth in her eyes. The truth of his betrayal. Of the man he used to be and the life he used to live.
He hadn’t wanted to go to the Guildhall; the Aprican legionnaires could have sent any of a hundred soldiers to deliver the message. It had been his new commander Captain Ambrose’s idea to send him. Just a bit of sport, the type of idle cruelty Apricans excelled at. It had been so many years since he’d lived in Se Caelus amongst people like Ambrose—he’d forgotten the politics and powerplays and backstabbing. He needed to remember quickly if he was to survive amongst his kinsmen. And survive he would. For this new life with its uniforms and cruelty and loneliness was the cost of the bargain he had struck, the price to be paid for Hale’s revenge on King Hadrian Imbris. It had been his bet, but the stakes hadn’t been his. Anger and despair had overtaken him after Sable’s death, and in that moment all that had mattered was King Imbris’s death. They would all pay the price for his moment of vengeance—the city and Guild who had taken him in, the people he had loved. The cost was nothing less than the freedom of a nation. That had been the bargain, and now he would live with it. Whatever suffering and horror came his way, he would embrace it, knowing it was only a fraction of what he had doomed the people of Alesia to. Maradis was a captive, and so he would be too. He didn’t deserve the blessed relief of death.
Hale rode through the palace gates, his eyes sliding off the pale blue flag with its golden sunburst. He dismounted, handing his horse’s reins to a groom, striding inside the walls of his new home. His new prison.
“Lieutenant Firena,” a smooth voice called to him from down the hallway.
Hale stifled a grimace and turned to face Captain Ambrose. “Sir?”
The captain, sporting a uniform of white and sky blue, was a handsome, sandy-haired man with a neat brown beard. Hale hated him and everything he represented.
“Did you impress upon your old Guild fellows the importance of this afternoon’s summons?” Ambrose asked, a gleam in his green eyes.
“I delivered the message, sir,” Hale said, not willing to give the other man the satisfaction of knowing how much the trip had affected him.
“Excellent. Before you hurry off to your next task, I have need of you.”
“Very well.” Hale fell into step next to the other man, whose long stride ate up the polished marble floors of the Imbris palace. Well, it wasn’t the Imbris palace anymore. The soldiers and officers who walked these halls didn’t seem to fit, too bright and brash for the dark mahogany and gray stone of this place.
“Where are we going?” Hale asked as they rounded a corner into an unfamiliar building and headed down a narrow set of stairs.
“The dungeon,” Ambrose replied. “We’ve got an old friend of yours.”
Hale’s stomach lurched at Ambrose’s words; his mind raced to try to identify who the captive could be. “A guild member?” he asked.
“Indeed.” They passed into a corridor of roughhewn stone, torches burning in iron sconces on the walls. A low moan echoed through the chill air, raising the hackles on the back of Hale’s neck.
Ambrose slowed to a stop, turning to Hale. “I’d like you to speak with this fellow and take his measure. He claims to be loyal to Aprica, but I’m unconvinced. He served Imbris before the coup, and you know anyone loyal to that man is suspect.”
“You just want me to…talk to him?” Hale asked.
Ambrose leaned closer, the torchlight limning the angles of his cheekbones, making them stand out in stark relief. His voice was low. “I want you to pretend you’ve snuck down here to speak with him. Tell him you might be able to get him out if he’ll help you against us. See what he does. If he agrees to betray us, I have my answer.”
“Who is it?” Hale asked, swallowing the bile rising in his throat.
“Grandmaster Beckett.” Ambrose grinned slyly, holding a heavy iron key out to Hale.
Hale relaxed imperceptibly, taking the key from Ambrose’s outstretched hand. He didn’t wish to see Beckett’s head on a pike, but he wouldn’t spare any tears if Beckett got what was coming to him. The man’s betrayal of Callidus and the Guild had set in motion the chain of events that had led to Sable’s death. “I’ll do it.”
“He’s right down there,” Ambrose said, pointing to a cell two doors down. “And Hale...I’ll be listening.”
Hale nodded stiffly, trying to resist the urge to look through the cells at the other prisoners. He didn’t want to know. Not really.
Beckett’s door opened with a screech of hinges. Hale slipped inside, closing the barred door behind him.
Beckett was sitting on a lumpy mattress on the floor, his watery blue eyes wild and wary. He didn’t relax when he saw Hale, his fingers worrying a button on his stained suit. “What are you doing here?” he rasped.
Hale stood awkwardly in the cell, his head nearly touching the foul ceiling, wishing he had somewhere to sit. He approached slowly. “They don’t know I’m here. I’m trying to find a way out. To do that, I need allies.”
Beckett scoffed, his pale jowls quivering. If anything, the man had gotten fatter during his several-weeks confinement. “You look like you’re doing fine…Lieutenant?” He pointed towards the gold bars on Hale’s jacket, signifying his rank.
“Don’t let the clothes fool you,” Hale said. “I’m as much a prisoner as you are.”
“And what do you think I can do for you?”
“You were well connected once. If I get you out, we could help each other. Get out of Maradis. Out of Alesia.”
“Your inbred Guild family doesn’t want you anymore?”
Hale rumbled in anger. He took a step towards the door. “I must have been mistaken.”
“Wait!” Beckett cried, throwing out a hand towards Hale. He quieted. “What would I need to do?”
Hale wracked his brain for an answer. “Just be ready to go when the time comes. Be willing to do whatever it takes to get out of here. Even kill Aprican soldiers.”
Beckett nodded, licking his lips nervously.
“Good,” Hale said, striding back towards the door, anxious to be gone from this place. What was Ambrose going to do now that Hale had confirmed that the man was willing to betray the Apricans? He shoved down his guilt. He was sure it was the first of many distasteful tasks Hale would be required to perform. It was no more than he deserved.
Beckett called after him. “Hale. Can you do something for me? Do you...have that power?”
Hale stilled, his hand resting on the bars. Would the man ask him to take a message to his daughter, Marina?
But no. “No more bread,” Beckett said. “I can’t eat any more. Please. Just get me something else.”
What? Hale’s brow wrinkled. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Every day they stuff me with it. Sourdough, rye, pumpernickel. Bear claws and croi
ssants and doughnuts. I’m drowning in it. I can’t eat any more. I think I’d rather die.”
“They’re feeding you too much bread?” Hale asked, still confused.
Beckett nodded, his face weary. “Please, no more.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Hale said before hurrying out of the cell.
Chapter 3
The letter Hale had handed Wren summoned her, Thom, and Grandmaster Callidus to the royal palace at 2 p.m. that afternoon. And so Wren found herself sitting in the silence of a rocking carriage, looking out the window onto the bleak Maradis afternoon. The gray winters had never bothered her before, not really. She’d had Master Oldrick’s kitchen to keep her warm, and the world outside had seemed little her concern. This year, the rain seeped into her soul, bearing her down with heaviness and damp. It threatened to wash her away, and she was half-inclined to let it.
“Son of a spicer,” Thom swore, peering out his side of the carriage next to her. His curse roused her enough to lean over to look out his window—a move she regretted instantly.
Her stomach somersaulted into her throat as she saw them, the line of gruesome heads on pikes decorating the palace gate like a string of yuletide lights. “I think I’m going to be sick,” she said as her mouth turned dry and her breakfast heaved itself skyward.
Callidus pounded the ceiling of the carriage. “Stop!” he cried, his blue eyes wide with revulsion. The carriage lurched to a stop, and Wren toppled forward and then back, which didn’t help the precarious situation in her stomach. She tumbled out of the carriage door onto the ground just in time to empty the entire contents of her stomach onto the slick, gray cobblestones.
The heads filled the periphery of her vision—from here she could recognize the twisted and rotting faces of the Imbris line: King Hadrian and his wife, Queen Eloise. Crown Prince Zane. Lucas’s other older brothers—Casius, Maxim, Rikard, and Virgil. Poor, selfless Virgil—an image of him surfaced in her mind—Virgil in the library in his brown robes, petting Ella’s cat. Then the image of him standing before Hale, bravely trying to save his father’s life. A father who had never given him a second thought, who hadn’t deserved his protection. Certainly not his life.
Wren wiped her mouth and shakily hauled herself back into the carriage, shutting the door to let it trundle the rest of the short way up to the palace doors.
Callidus’s nose was wrinkled, his thick brows furrowed. “You smell like sick.”
“Thank you for your astute observation, Callidus,” Wren said, weariness washing over her.
“Are you all right?” Thom laid a gentle hand on her shoulder.
She nodded.
“If you have to vomit again, at least try to do it on an Aprican.” Callidus sniffed.
Wren and Thom exchanged a look. “Was that... Was that a joke?” Thom asked, bewildered, as the carriage came to a stop.
“Surely not,” Wren said. “Callidus cracking jokes? Then I would know the Huntress has come for us all and dragged us down to hell.”
“It may come to that before the end,” Callidus said, disappearing out the carriage door in a flurry of black.
“No way to go but forward,” Thom said, gesturing towards the open door.
The royal palace seemed little changed from the last time Wren had been here, when she had come looking for Lucas and had ended up sneaking out a second-story window. Well, little had changed if one ignored the heads lining the wall and the Aprican blue and gold decorating the palaces’ flagpoles and uniformed officers. And Wren very much felt like ignoring those items. After the trio announced themselves, the guards led them through the ornate hallways, past rows of bleached spaces where paintings of Alesian monarchs had once hung.
Their armed escorts showed them to separate rooms to be questioned. The thought of being split up made Wren’s stomach churn yet again. She tried to rally her courage and found it thin indeed. But she had faced the Grand Inquisitor and the Block. She could do this.
The guards left her in a meeting room that was comfortably furnished with a plush sofa and chairs, a scene of a hunting party hanging on the wall over the wide fireplace. Thick drapes framed a wall of tall windows, and Wren gravitated towards them, letting the darting trails of raindrops soothe her anxious thoughts.
She wasn’t sure how long she stood there before the door opened.
“Miss Confectioner?” A tall Aprican officer with a neat beard and close-cropped haircut stepped through the door, a pleasant expression on his face. “I’m Captain Ambrose of the Aprican Legion. And I believe you know Mister Willings?”
Wren hissed in a breath as the copper-haired man entered, closing the door behind him with a predatory smile. This man, formerly the king’s steward...he had framed her for murder and tried to see her executed. He had escaped censure and continued to be a thorn in the side of her Guild. Gone was his Alesian green uniform, replaced with a simple charcoal suit. The pallid, pockmarked face and the air of malice remained. “Mister Willings,” she managed. Her mind was racing, playing over the last time she had seen him. They’d been a room much like this one, and she’d begged, pleaded with Willings to warn the Imbris family that the Aprican forces were already within the city walls. To save them from the certain death that would meet them if they attended the public execution the king had planned. She’d wondered through the fog of her sorrow why Willings hadn’t convinced Lucas and the others to stay in the palace, out of danger. Why when she’d warned Ellarose and Lucas herself, they’d seemed shocked to hear of the danger. But now, seeing Willings here in bed with the enemy, the awful truth was bared for her to see. The man was both a traitor and a coward.
“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised to see you here. The rats always know when to leave a sinking ship,” she hissed at him. Virgil might still have been alive if this man hadn’t betrayed them. Queen Eloise. Willings had been their most loyal subject, and when he’d seen that the tides of fate had been turning against them, he’d run. Dooming them all.
Willings’s face turned purple with fury, and he moved towards her, his hand raised to strike her.
Captain Ambrose was faster. “Mister Willings,” Captain Ambrose barked, his strong hand catching Willings’s wrist mid-strike. “Miss Confectioner is here as Emperor Evander’s guest. She is not to be mistreated.”
“My mistake.” Willings bared his twisted teeth at her, yanking his hand from Ambrose’s grip.
Captain Ambrose grunted, squaring his body so it blocked Wren from Willings. “You’re allowed to sit in on these discussions because of your background with Maradian citizens. If I for a moment believe your presence will not be helpful, you will be excused. Understood?”
“Understood.” Willings crossed to one of the tufted armchairs and settled himself into it.
“Are you all right, my lady?”
Wren’s skin crawled in Willings’s presence; she felt his eyes on her. Felt the weight of his schemes and plots, the times he had tried to ruin her. He was no doubt plotting against her still. This time, he might succeed. She didn’t know if she had the energy to fight any longer. She felt weary and raw and alone. And the thought that he could see it chilled her.
Ambrose’s eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled gently. “Now, if you would refrain from antagonizing my colleague here for the remainder of our meeting—”
“I will make no such promise,” Wren said, not looking at Willings. “I will talk to you. I will talk to your general. I will talk to the whole damn Aprican army. But I will not talk to that man.”
Ambrose sighed. “Master Willings, perhaps you would be better served by joining Captain Thomsian two rooms down, questioning the young lad.”
Willings stood, a sneer on his lips. “Already, she wraps you around her finger. It would almost be impressive, Wren, if you weren’t so predictable.” He slammed the door behind him.
Wren blew out a deep breath.
“I think that went well,” Ambrose said with a jaunty grin, hand on his sword hilt.
Ambrose gestured for her to sit, and she sank onto the sofa gratefully. “A bit of history between you two, eh?” He pulled a plate of cheese and bread off a credenza and set it on the coffee table before returning with a decanter of rose wine and two tiny crystal glasses.
“He killed a good man and framed me for the murder. I was almost executed. And that’s not even the half of it.”
Ambrose raised an eyebrow as he sat down across from her. He had a nice face, Wren thought. Open and honest, with straight brows that angled up towards each other, and a mouth with corners permanently curved in a smile. “Would you like something to eat?” he asked, gesturing to the tray.
Wren thought of her breakfast, abandoned by the palace gates. No, she didn’t think eating was a good idea.
Ambrose poured two glasses of wine and offered one to her.
“No, thank you.” She held up her hands to decline. “A bit early for me.”
“Please.” He waggled the glass at her. “I know that this meeting didn’t begin how either of us intended, but I’d like to be able to work together. Just a quick toast, to start things right. I hear that in Alesia, friendships start over wine. Or food. Or both.”
Wren relented, taking the glass from him. She didn’t have it in her to argue. “That’s true.”
“To a long and prosperous partnership.” He leaned in, clinking his glass against hers.
She took a small sip, meeting Ambrose’s wide white smile with a weak offering of her own.
And then her mouth began to burn.
Chapter 4
Stupid, stupid, stupid! Wren glowered at Ambrose as the wine burned her throat. She buried her shaking hands in the folds of her dress, struggling to maintain control. She didn’t want him to see he had unsettled her, though from the smug smile curving his handsome mouth, he knew. It didn’t matter that she felt as fragile as a porcelain teacup, her thoughts foggy and dark. Taking food or drink from the enemy was stupid. She deserved whatever came next for her foolishness.