I clutch the dagger so hard my knuckles ache in protest. I’m almost to the throne. Almost close enough to knock the crown right off his overinflated head.
But as I gaze from my blade, still slick with the guard’s blood, to Hadrien’s neck, my stomach churns. There’s been so much death today already. More than anyone should have to witness in a country that’s not at war. But then, I guess that’s what this is.
Hadrien rises from the throne, gazing past me at Lysander and the guards. Remembering the way Lysander’s eyes had returned to their usual amber brown, I wish I could see what’s happening, but I won’t turn my back on Hadrien for an instant.
“Take off the crown,” I say firmly as his eyes return to mine. Finally, we’re face-to-face, standing on the narrow platform that holds the throne. “If you come with me peacefully, I’ll tell Valoria not to have you hanged. We can get you your own dungeon cell, where you’ll never have to gaze upon any of the Dead again . . .”
Hadrien lunges for my dagger. I drop the blade and grab his wrist with both hands, twisting it as hard as I can. The resulting crack raises gooseflesh on my arms.
He screams several names at me as we both scramble to retrieve my fallen dagger. I reach it first, my fingers closing around the hilt and the fingers of his good hand closing over mine. He spits a curse, releasing his grip as though my skin burned him.
Lysander growls low and long like thunder, drawing my gaze for the briefest moment. Like a sheepdog, he’s herded all the guards into a far corner of the room, unimpressed by their blades and their taunts.
Sensing my distraction, Hadrien wraps his good hand around my neck, snarling as I struggle to pry him off.
“It doesn’t—” I splutter as his fingers squeeze the breath out of me. I strike with the dagger one-handed, still trying to pry him off with the other, but my aim is terrible as stars dance before my eyes.
The dagger sinks into his shoulder, which only makes him choke me harder.
“It doesn’t have to be like this,” I gasp. “No one has to die.”
Hadrien shakes his head, smiling almost sadly as he tightens his grip, crushing my throat. I dig my jagged fingernails into his hand, to no effect. “Only one of us will walk out of this room alive, Sparrow. So think of what’s best for Karthia. Think of what our people need. You, or me.” Gazing calmly into my eyes despite the blood oozing from his shoulder, he adds, “I trust you’ll choose what’s right.”
Finally, I manage to shove the dagger just beneath his ribs despite my lungs screaming for breath. “Fine,” I growl, plunging the blade deep into him before he has time to react. Finishing what I started back on the hillside. “Me.”
My heart thuds in my ears and time seems to slow, Hadrien suspended on the end of my blade. Every monster can be beaten. Of course, he hardly looks monstrous now. He looks like a pale, scared boy who has no idea how many lives he’s ruined.
He collapses at the base of the throne, gasping for breath, trying vainly to stop the life from leaking out of him.
Swallowing hard as I’m reminded of Evander’s final moments, I kneel beside him.
“If you’d been the least bit afraid of me, you might’ve had a chance. You might’ve bothered to fetch your blade before I made it all the way to the throne,” I whisper.
His eyes are glassy as he nods. “You . . . you’re unkillable.” He tries, I think, to smile.
“No. Just lucky.”
He raises a bloodied hand to my face. I bite back my revulsion, allowing the hesitant touch to my cheek. “I wish I were strong like you, Sparrow,” he murmurs. “Like it or not . . . you’re the one who will change things around here. But you’re going to regret this someday, I promise.”
His hand falls from my face. As his body blurs beneath my gaze, I press my fingers to his neck, clumsily feeling for a pulse. His heartbeat slows to nothing.
The reign of Karthia’s mad king has ended after just one day. Yet for some reason, I don’t feel any better.
Evander. Jax. Simeon. Master Cymbre. Master Nicanor. I whisper their names as I stand over Hadrien’s body. He may be gone, but in case his spirit is lingering, I want him to hear everything he took from me.
I want to hate him more than I do. I just don’t have enough anger left.
Lysander’s fishy breath washes over me, and I brush the tears from my face.
“Time to go, is it?” I ask thickly.
The bear growls in answer, his unearthly green eyes flashing.
Rubbing my sore neck, I take a last look at the still-warm husk of the beloved brother I’ve taken from Valoria. The handsome prince who always asked me to dance. The prince who loved his siblings. And who, in some twisted way, loved his people.
I gently close his empty brown eyes, glad I can’t see the future he glimpsed with them. “Goodbye,” I whisper one last time, snatching the crown from his head.
I set it on the seat of the vacant throne, where it can wait for the new queen to claim it. A queen who didn’t choose to murder or scheme to get here.
Lysander whines, pawing the throne. Past him, I notice for the first time a group of dead or unconscious guards scattered around the base of the steps.
His eyes are brown again, not glowing green.
Meredy.
Even if she’s not hurt, even if she merely kept her word and left the grizzly’s mind, I have to find her. Just to be sure. “Come on!” I tell the bear.
I rush out the doors, wincing from the pain in my lower leg where the guard stabbed me, and collide with a finely dressed woman when I round the corner.
Lyda Crowther gasps, swaying from the impact. “How did you—?”
“Lysander!” I shout, hoping the grizzly will still obey me without Meredy’s influence.
I shove Lyda against the wall. She tries to break free from my grip on her arms, kicking and scratching me with her sharp nails, but I manage to twist her arms behind her back as Lysander dashes to my side.
“You take a swing at me again, and the bear will eat you,” I growl, dabbing at one of the deeper scratches on my forearm.
Lysander raises a paw, eliciting a shrill noise from Lyda, but all he does is press her against the wall so I can search for something to bind her hands.
“Too bad I don’t have those shackles you used on me,” I mutter as I tie her wrists together with strips of cloth from my already-ruined tunic. It’ll have to do, at least for the few minutes it takes to reach our destination.
I steer her down the hall by her shoulders, giving Lysander a nod of thanks. His eyes are still brown, and my heart beats faster with the need to get to Meredy.
“Where are you taking me?” Lyda asks quietly.
I don’t answer. She’ll figure it out soon enough on her own, when we descend the dark steps to the dungeon.
XXXI
It’s not hard to find the crowd this time. Judging by the sight and sound of things, one of the Shades has found them before me. A column of smoke rises over the buildings facing the harbor, dark against the pale gray sky, and Lysander and I run through the empty streets toward the beacon of ash.
I search for Meredy each time we pass a body in the road. My stomach sinks further when Lysander stops to sniff the air and whines near the alley where we saw her last.
I’ve lost enough, more than enough for any lifetime, in just a few months. And somehow, cold and wet and tired as I am, I have to be ready to fight whatever awaits me deeper in the city. I have to protect whatever life Grenwyr has left. And I can’t lose hope.
As we approach a dense cluster of buildings where fishermen live and sell their wares, the voices and shouts that began as faint murmurs on the palace hill grow louder. I stride through the alley between two pale stone buildings and find myself at the back of a crowd. A hundred people or more have formed a circle around the fire that guided me here. Hadrien’s weather ma
ge must have fled or been killed, or he’d have doused these flames by now.
Tears flow freely down some of the gathered faces. But their shouts, I realize, are calls of triumph. There are even a few smiles reflected in the dwindling blaze.
“Was that a Shade?” I ask a grim-faced woman in the uniform of a palace chambermaid, pointing to the pile of rubble slowly burning down to nothing.
“Two of them,” the woman answers, nodding.
“Did Prince Hadrien’s guards kill—?”
The woman cuts me off with a wave and a glare. “Them? They ran away after one of the monsters ate their captain. We”—she nods to a ragged-looking assortment of Grenwyr’s fishermen, merchants, and farmers—“were the only ones who didn’t flee or hide. We trapped the last two monsters here and threw torches at them. They were outnumbered. Didn’t know who to grab or which way to turn.”
I take a deep breath and slowly exhale, gazing around. Some people are dispersing from the crowd, calling loved ones’ names. A few boys start moving the bodies of the fallen into neat rows where their families can identify them. And a tall willowy girl raises her arms to the sky in a sort of elegant dance, squeezing rain from the heavy clouds to put out the remaining flickers of fire around us with magic worthy of a master weather mage’s robes.
Maybe I shouldn’t worry so much about this city and its people. It turns out Karthia can take care of itself, just like Hadrien thought.
Someone taps me on the shoulder. Before I can turn around, a familiar voice says, “Thank Vaia you’re all right! Meredy said you were headed to the palace alone to confront Hadrien. I was so worried for you, I nearly threw up. Also—hello.”
“Valoria!”
As I turn to face the princess, time seems to slow. Everything around us fades into the distance. Studying her soot-blackened face, her matted blond hair and crooked glasses, I wonder if she’s ready to hear that she’s now queen. To hear what I had to do. But there are other pressing matters. Too many of them.
“Have you seen Meredy and Danial?” I blurt. “Are you hurt? Are they?”
I can’t bring myself to ask about Jax and Simeon.
“I’m fine, thanks to the quick thinking of the good people of Grenwyr.” Valoria tries to rub some of the ash off her face, but she just smears it around. “But . . . your trip to the palace . . .” She frowns, searching my eyes. “What happened up there? Where’s Hadrien?”
A heavy weight fills my stomach as I hear the ache in her voice. “I’m sorry, Valoria. But he gave me a terrible choice,” I explain slowly, hoping she can sense my regret. “He had his hand around my neck, and he said one of us had to die. To think of what was best for Karthia. So . . . I chose.”
She stops me with a look. “After everything he did . . . I’m just glad I didn’t have to do it myself.” She bows her head, then takes my hands.
For a moment, we’re joined in silence.
Necromancer and queen.
Friends, after everything.
“But . . . I can’t be queen,” she says at last. “I never thought I’d—I don’t know the first thing about leading. I hardly left my tower until I met you.” Her cheeks redden as she continues, “And the Dead—those who are left—they’re terrified of what Hadrien’s brought out in people. I don’t think they’d welcome a living ruler. I want to cure the sick and study our magic, but . . . I don’t want the crown if it’s going to make me set in my ways and completely unaware of the plight of everyone who needs me. Or one who frightens and bullies people into giving me more power.”
I gently poke Valoria in the shoulder. “Enough. You’re not him. And you’re not King Wylding, either.” I squeeze her hand, earning a reluctant smile. “You’re exactly what Karthia needs. Even if no one realizes it yet. You have to believe it first, and others will follow. You’ll see, my queen.”
“I’m not that brave.” She shakes her head. “I’m not you.”
“That’s a good thing, because I’m not brave at all. I couldn’t have survived this long without Evander, Master Cymbre, Meredy, Lysander . . .”
My voice trails away as my heart leaps into my throat. The bear is gone, vanished from my side as I spoke with Valoria.
“Don’t worry, Sparrow,” I faintly hear Valoria saying. “You’ll never have to fight alone.”
I frantically look around for Lysander. A creature as large as a grizzly should be easy to spot, even in a massive crowd.
I shake my head to clear it. Lysander still hasn’t appeared, but Valoria’s smiling, pointing to something past the fishmongers’ stalls.
Several familiar figures hurry toward us.
Jax reaches me first, lifting me off my feet and spinning me around until I’m dizzy. I bury my face against his shoulder, assured by the scent of his evergreen soap that it’s really him and not my mind playing a cruel trick.
Simeon quickly shoves Jax aside, squeezing the breath out of me in a rib-cracking hug.
Danial waves from over Simeon’s shoulder, looking tired but no worse off than the last time I saw him. “Hurt yourself again I see, Sparrow,” he calls. “I’ll heal your leg, if these two will let me borrow you for a little while.”
“Not a chance. Not yet,” Simeon murmurs to Danial, quickly refocusing on me. “What happened?” he whispers, pushing back his soggy bangs to better look at me. “You’re as soaked as we are, and we took a dip in the harbor!”
“You—what?” I stammer, realizing that both he and Jax are as damp and frigid-looking as I feel. But I don’t care if my whole body goes numb with cold right now, because my heart is soaring. “I was hiding from a Shade. Why were you in the harbor?”
“Hadrien ordered his guards to drown us. I guess so no one would find our bodies,” Jax says, slipping an arm around my shoulders so I’m pinned between him and Simeon. Just like old times. “The bastard. But it took ten of his men to do it.”
“It was more like five,” Simeon counters, grinning slyly.
“However many there were, they did a pretty good job,” Kasmira says, joining Danial with several of her crew in tow. “But I thought these two had brighter futures than serving as fish food.” She winks, tossing her many dark braids over her shoulder. “The crew and I dredged them up as soon as the guards had their backs turned. Hid them on the Paradise, and that’s where the princess here found them.”
“You saved my friends,” I mutter, beaming at Kasmira. “If there’s anything I can do to repay you . . . anything, just name it.”
She arches a perfect brow. “Before today, I might’ve asked you for a raising. But my dead are going to stay that way, I’ve decided.” Her cool gray eyes dart to the mess in the streets, then focus on my face again. “I wouldn’t mind a taste of royal gold, though, if we’re talking rewards.”
“Consider it done,” Valoria says firmly, gazing at each of us in turn: Jax, Simeon, and me in the middle. She holds out a hand to Kasmira. “And from now on, consider yourselves free to come and go from these waters as you please.”
Kasmira grins at her crew, then gives Valoria a long, thoughtful look. “That’s almost a better reward than the gold, Highness.”
“Actually—” Valoria’s cheeks redden as she boldly declares, “it’s Majesty now, but I prefer just Valoria.”
Kasmira blinks. “All right, Valoria.” She bows, and the other smugglers follow her lead.
I raise my voice. “Has anyone seen Meredy?”
I still have to find her, and while everyone around me looks relieved to see each other again, I can’t breathe easy until I know where she is. That she’s safe.
Danial frowns. “She ran off right before I found Valoria and the others . . .” He grimaces. “I wasn’t fast enough, and she disappeared on me. Before that, she was acting strange. Erratic.”
Maybe she’s still nearby. Even if she was in a feral state when she ran off, it may not last l
ong. I’d better find her before someone else does. Someone who might not understand why she’s growling at them like a bear.
“We were looking for her when we found you,” Valoria adds in a small voice. “We thought she might’ve been drawn to the crowd.”
Jax nudges my shoulder, startling me. “Look.” He points to an oddly shaped shadow moving toward us through the late-afternoon gloom. My muscles tense as I wonder if another Shade got loose somehow.
But as Jax reaches for one of his blades, I shake my head. It’s not a Shade, but a large creature dragging a smaller one by the back of her cloak.
Lysander, and—
“Meredy!”
For the second time since leaving the palace, I forget everything happening around me. The steely water of the harbor at my back. The city already starting to heal.
Meredy looks so small and pale when Lysander drops her at my feet. I kneel beside her in the ash and dirt, pressing a hand to her cheek. “Meredy?” When she says nothing, staring at me blankly, a knife of panic plunges into my chest.
“Can a beast master’s magic make them forget their humanity for good?” I ask Valoria over my shoulder.
“I have no idea,” she says, her eyes glistening.
As I cradle Meredy in my arms, racking my brain for something that might help her return to herself, she pulls my face to hers and kisses me.
I kiss her back. Lightly, and then not so lightly, rubbing my thumb over the scar on her cheek the way she often does. She tastes different from before, like the wilderness, like new beginnings, like surrender. I run my hands up and down her back, over her hips, then slide my fingers through her hair.
And her heart beats against mine like it remembers.
She kisses me with a wolf’s hunger, hard and needy, breathing fire into my mouth. Her body bends and presses against mine, finding new ways for us to fit together as we trade kisses like bites of something sweet that only make us ravenous for more. I don’t ever want this to stop, because I’ve found a part of me I didn’t know was missing.
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