That explains why the city seemed so quiet.
Above the people of Grenwyr, closer to the palace, sits a metal cage large enough to hold ten men or more. It’s mostly covered by a sheet, but I glimpse a few pairs of boots and the bottom edges of the bars that form the cage. The sight makes my skin crawl.
And beside the large cage, looking handsome as ever in a tailored green doublet as he gazes down at the crowd, is Hadrien. I’d know his saunter and blond hair anywhere. Several men and women in archer’s uniforms stand behind him, holding bows.
“Meredy,” I say softly. “I need you and Lysander to go find Valoria, Jax, and Simeon. Warn them about Hadrien, if they don’t already know.” With shaking fingers, I unfasten Evander’s sapphire pin from my tunic, the last piece of him I have to hold on to. “And take this. For luck.”
Meredy closes her fist around the pin. Her gaze softens, telling me the gift needs no explanation. “Are you sure about Valoria?” She sticks the pin gently below her beast master’s emeralds, blinking mist from her eyes. “What if she’s been helping Hadrien with . . . whatever this is?” She gestures to the distant crowd on the hill.
I shake my head. “There’s no way.” Of course, I would have said the same thing about Hadrien just two days ago. “But be careful. Vaia knows I’m no great judge of character.”
After a pause, Meredy says, “And assuming I can trust her?”
“Get her and the others out of the city, if they’re willing,” I murmur, wrapping Vane’s blood-crusted cloak around my shoulders and pulling up the hood. “Otherwise, make them hide somewhere for now. You and Lysander must join them.” I check that my cloak is concealing my sword completely. “Hadrien’s only one man, even if he’s a mad one, so I need to do this alone. Besides, I’ve got the perfect disguise.”
Meredy’s eyes widen as I put on Vane’s silver mask. I’m sure I look like a nightmare. A nightmare who can barely see out of these tiny eye holes.
“I’ll warn them, but then I’m coming right back for you,” she says softly. “And before you try to argue, I’ll save you the trouble. You won’t change my mind. Now tell me what you’re going to do in that awful costume.”
It takes me a moment to form the words. I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but then, I can’t see another way. I just know I’ve got to stop whatever’s happening up on that hill.
“Kill Hadrien,” I answer as I dismount from my horse.
“Odessa.” Meredy slides off her horse’s back and moves to my side, putting a hand on my arm. She doesn’t tell me to be careful. She doesn’t need to. The plea is there in her eyes, along with something else I can’t name.
“You’re nothing like I expected,” I murmur from beneath the mask. It’s already too warm against my skin. “You’re nothing like, well, him. Evander.”
Meredy purses her lips. Her expression is harder to read than ever as she pulls the mask from my face, running a finger along my jaw. “Is that a bad thing?”
“No,” I insist, my mouth suddenly dry. “What I meant is, I’m scared. More scared than I’ve ever been. But . . .” But with her fingertips lingering on my cheek, even though I know what’s waiting on that hill, I feel ready to fight.
“That makes two of us.” She drops her hand to my shoulder. “You unsettle me.”
“Me? Not the madman on the hill?” That earns a shaky smile from her.
In one swift motion, she closes the space between us and kisses me, wrapping her arms around my neck, and I melt into it, parting her lips with my tongue. Her hands grip my waist, pulling me closer, and I slide my fingers through her silky hair. Maybe it’s too soon, but it doesn’t feel that way anymore, not when she’s so gentle and sure. She tastes of salt and a hint of strawberries, and I hunger for more. The way she muddles my thoughts with a single brush of her lips, making the whole mad world disappear and every part of me achingly, perfectly, wonderfully alive, is all the encouragement I need to survive.
Up on the palace hill, a nervous murmur rises from the crowd, loud enough to startle us apart. Meredy puts a hand to her lips, and I shiver as I realize we’re doing the thing I swore I wouldn’t do. Betraying Evander.
“This was a mistake,” Meredy stammers as I slip my mask back on. “Evander. Firiel . . .”
“Agreed,” I choke out, to stop her from saying more. Hearing the other girl’s name on Meredy’s lips stings, when it never has before. “It’s already forgotten.”
I don’t want the last thing I ever see to be her guilt-stricken face. I don’t want to wonder whether this would have happened if she’d come home when Evander was still alive.
Heart thumping like crazy, I hurry toward the crowd on the hill and force myself not to look back.
XXVIII
As I weave through the sea of Karthians on the hill, jabbed by a hundred elbows and coughed on by at least three people who probably have the black fever, I try not to think about that kiss.
About the way she pulled off my mask. About the way she tasted. About her startled, “This was a mistake,” as she thought of Evander, or Firiel, or both. She’s right, of course, but she’s the one who started it.
It was only a kiss. A really good kiss, but still. It didn’t have to mean anything.
By the time I break free of the crowd, I’m sweating under the bloodstained cloak. Thankfully it’s a blue so dark that the stains aren’t obvious, but I’m painfully aware of where each patch of dried blood on the cloth brushes against me.
“What kept you, Vane?” Hadrien asks, sounding far more irritable than I’ve ever heard him. He’s paced a circle around the cage, worn his boot prints into the ground in his agitation. “I was starting to think something happened to you, and I was about to move forward without your particular brand of help.” He scowls. “I hate being kept waiting.”
I move to his side, not saying a word, tucking my shaking hands into the folds of the cloak. He seems to be awaiting some sort of explanation, but if I make a single sound, my disguise is ruined.
“Never mind.” Hadrien sighs. He takes a deep breath and seems to brighten. “You’re here now. Let’s get started!” He claps his hands together, his brown eyes shining with manic glee as he spins to face the crowd.
I touch the hilt of Meredy’s borrowed dagger in a sheath on my belt. A faint ringing echoes in my ears as I realize how much I’m dreading this. Dreading the murder of this killer, a man whose darkness was buried so deep beneath a mask of sunshine, I could’ve kissed him and never tasted a hint of shadow. I start trying to pull out the dagger, a difficult task while keeping it hidden beneath my cloak, when a familiar face catches my eye.
Lyda Crowther and several other nobles stand behind Hadrien’s group of archers, all watching the restless crowd with solemn, almost bored expressions. Like they know exactly what’s about to happen. But how could Lyda support Hadrien’s twisted desire to make more Shades, when she never fully recovered from seeing her husband become one?
“Ladies and gentlemen of Grenwyr City,” Hadrien shouts in a booming voice, spreading his arms to the crowd and drawing my attention away from Lyda. “Welcome! I, Prince Hadrien Wylding, have summoned you all here today for a demonstration of the greatest importance.”
Softer, to one of the guards, he snaps, “Drop the cover.”
As the sheet is whisked away from the cage, nearly everyone in the crowd gasps. Six shrouded Dead are cowering inside, gags tied over their masks to muffle their shouts. Two of them wear tall golden crowns set with five gems each, for Vaia’s five beautiful sets of eyes: a glittering sapphire and emerald, a smoky quartz crystal, polished jasper, and turquoise.
The king and queen.
“Now listen up!” Hadrien yells to make himself heard over the shouts of the people. A few citizens tentatively step forward, and the guards take aim with their bows. Something tightens in my chest at the sight of Karthians facing sensel
ess murder, but Hadrien holds up a hand to still the archers’ volley.
“Necromancers have been allowing the Dead to rule over Karthia for far too long. Have you ever wondered why the Dead have to be slain and brought back every few years? Why they have to wear those shrouds?” Hadrien pauses for effect. “It’s all to keep them from turning into the monsters they are inside.”
The crowd is nearly silent now. I clench my fists at my sides, shaking with a hatred I’ve never felt toward anyone but the Shade that killed Evander. I don’t know what Master Cymbre would do right now, but since she can’t give me a better plan, I’m going to shove my dagger so deep into Hadrien’s chest that he collapses on the spot.
“The Dead become monsters because it’s nature’s way of telling us they should never be brought back to the land of the living.” Hadrien’s eyes flash in triumph as he says it, though I don’t see anyone in the crowd nodding in agreement. “The necromancers’ magic is a dark magic. A corruption of the natural order. The Dead belong in the Deadlands. And Karthia belongs to the living!”
Silence blankets the crowd. Many people’s mouths hang open, while others turn away, heading back down the hill to their homes and their jobs.
“You don’t believe me?” Hadrien shouts at them. “Then allow me to show you the monsters that have been walking among us for far too long!”
He nods to one of the guards, who removes the king’s gag.
“Hadrien,” King Wylding says in a low voice.
It takes every ounce of control I have not to reveal myself. To run to the cage, to press my face against the bars and promise the king I’ll get him out of this somehow. I fumble to get a grip on my dagger without anyone noticing.
“Please, don’t do this,” the king continues in a shaky version of his usual rasp. “If you want me dead, if you really want me gone forever, then kill me in private. Burn my bones so my spirit has no home. But don’t make me a Shade right here, not where I could hurt my people. Their lives matter far more than mine.”
“You don’t care about their lives,” Hadrien snarls. “If you cared, you’d have stayed dead!”
“You think so?” the king says, anger warming his voice. “I thought you were smarter than this, Hadrien. But since you seem to need a reminder: I don’t enjoy being run through with a sword every few years. I don’t like being pulled from the peace of the Deadlands to this demanding, exhausting, messy life!” The king grips the bars of the cage with his gloved hands. “But I come back to Karthia because I have a duty to my people. No one knows them like I do. No one loves this land like I do. You think you can rule better than me after a mere eighteen years in the world?”
As the king and Hadrien growl at each other, I finally pull my dagger free of its sheath. It’s hard to tell through the narrow slits of my mask whether anyone spotted me, but no one’s coming after me, so I think I’m safe. I make my way to Hadrien’s side, steeling myself for what I’m about to do.
The time for questions is over. I don’t want to hear another word from him. He’s not the prince I thought he was.
Hadrien turns his back on the king and shouts something else to the crowd. I’m too focused on moving with him to pick out the words. I keep close to his side, with just enough room to hold the blade between us. As I’m about to thrust the dagger into his ribs, a guard pushes me out of the way.
I stumble back a few paces, winding up beside the cage.
“See the monster who was making your laws and watching over you?” Hadrien thunders.
“Hadrien, no!” the king cries.
Two more guards reach between the bars, ripping off the king’s shroud.
For a moment, I can see a faint impression of the handsome warrior King Wylding was in life. Though he’s shrunken in stature, though his shaggy dark hair is brittle and his skin is waxy, pulled tightly over his too-thin face and limbs, his brown eyes are as bright and alive as Hadrien’s. Then the change begins. His mouth grows wider, his teeth sharpening. His bright eyes shrink back into his skull until they’re nothing but sightless black pits. His remaining flesh seems to wither before me, turning gray and stretching even tighter over his skeletal frame that grows taller, wider, suggesting great strength.
He throws back his head and howls, scratching the cage floor with his bony fingers, and it’s all I can do to stay standing.
His eternal reign is over.
The other Dead in the cage writhe, either in pain or fear. I can’t be sure. I drop my gaze, sickened by the monster wearing the king’s crown. The cries rippling through the crowd make what I’ve just witnessed seem even worse.
“The king loved his people, Prince Hadrien!” a merchant shouts from near the front of the crowd. “He fed soup to the poor and brought gifts to new mothers and wrote poems for the harvest festival! How could you do this to him? To us?”
It’s everything I wish I could say. Instead, I press my lips together to keep from screaming and concentrate on getting close to Hadrien again. I don’t want the guards to see the knife slide into his ribs until it’s too late for anyone to stop me or a healer to intervene. If I can attack soon, there’s still a chance I can save the queen.
The caged Shade howls, then crunches down on something. Many people scream. The king-monster must be feeding on the other Dead trapped in there with it.
“Remove the rest of their shrouds,” Hadrien calls to one of the guards. “And start passing out torches to the living.”
Raising his voice, he shouts at the retreating crowd, “You see? That monster was your king! This is what the Dead all become, if given the chance. But we can fight them, my friends! Together. With me on the throne, a living king. We’ll close Death’s convents and forbid anyone else from becoming a necromancer! We’ll reopen the temples of Change and finally thrive!”
There are too many guards at Hadrien’s side now. For the moment, I’m forced to clutch my dagger and glare at him from several paces away.
“We’ll fight them with fire!” a woman calls from somewhere behind me. Lyda. “Take a torch and pass the rest along! The guards will help you light them. You see? The living are more powerful than the Dead!”
Her words are like a blow to the stomach, sending a wave of nausea through me. I wonder if Evander’s mother knows that by supporting Hadrien’s insanity, she helped to murder her own son. I don’t really want to hear the answer.
If I make it out of this, I never want to see her again.
“Take a torch! Hurry!” Hadrien shouts.
The crowd has stopped retreating, many of them staring at the Shade wearing the king’s crown as it presses against the bars of the cage, straining to get free.
“We can burn these monsters out of existence and take back our city! All you have to do is listen to me.” Hadrien’s teeth are stark white against his tan skin. “We can get rid of all the Dead before they become Shades and hurt those we love! It’s time to take Karthia back from the cold hands of the Dead!”
“Why should we trust you?” yells a girl no older than nine. She clutches three dolls made of gray rags like they’re weapons. “King Wylding was my friend!”
“King Wylding let your friends and neighbors die of the black fever,” Hadrien retorts, his eyes flashing. “I tried working on a cure once, and do you know what your monster of a king did? Threw all my research away. Burned it! Years of studying and perfecting a life-saving potion, all gone.” His voice breaks as he shouts, “The Dead hold us back with their fears! My sister Valoria has created inventions, inventions that could make Karthia a better and safer place to live, yet she’s forced to hide them because of the laws of people whose time in Karthia should have ended long ago!”
I’ve made it to Hadrien’s side again. No one is in my way. No one is stopping me from doing what I need to do. I can’t bear to look behind me at what’s in the cage. I just need to act. Now.
“Goodbye
, Hadrien,” I whisper as I jab the dagger toward him.
With a cry, he leaps aside as the blade nicks him in the ribs. But I know in a glance I didn’t hit quite the right spot. The blade tore through his shirt and made a gash in his pale skin, deep enough to draw blood, but not enough to kill. I chase after him, heart pounding and mouth bone-dry, raising my dagger for a second attack.
But in an instant, two guards are on top of me. They rip off my mask and pin my arms too tightly behind my back, forcing me to drop my dagger.
“Sparrow, my love,” Hadrien murmurs as I struggle against his guards. I kick both of them in the shins a few times, but they don’t loosen their grip. “You were supposed to die in Elsinor.”
He runs a finger slowly along my cheek, and I spit at him.
“Now, there’s no need for that,” he says coolly as another guard clamps a hand over my mouth. I glare at Hadrien, hoping he can feel the hatred pouring out of me from my eyes alone. “I should have known better than to underestimate you.” He leans in, brushing his nose against mine, and all I can do is gag behind the guard’s callused hand. “I really do admire your strength, my Sparrow, even if it’s proving to be a colossal thorn in my side.”
The sincerity in his voice makes me shudder. Not because he admires me in his twisted way, but because if not for Evander, there was a time when I could have liked the prince in return. I did like him, at least as a friend. But now I understand there’s nothing but rot and weakness at his core. Nothing worth saving.
“I had a feeling it wasn’t really Vane under there. He was usually trying to tell me what to do, not just quietly observing,” Hadrien continues, still much too close to my face. “But I’ll admit you fooled me for a moment, Sparrow.”
Over Hadrien’s shoulder, the glow of hundreds of lit torches is getting stronger by the moment, like a second sun rising.
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