by Mary Taranta
“You have a choice,” North says. “But I do not. I move forward.”
Chadwick’s shoulders slump. “Corbin, I beg you.”
“I’ll go,” I say suddenly. “I can find Merlock again. I can fight him—I have the weapon. And as long as I have strength, I have a chance.”
“That’s suicide,” Cohl says.
“I knew that when we left New Prevast,” I say. To Chadwick I say, “You know that if we go back now, we’ll never return. Don’t do this to him, Ben. Don’t give his crown away so freely. At least make them fight for it.”
“Ben,” Rialdo repeats. “Am I the only one she doesn’t have her claws in?”
North rounds on Rialdo and slams him into the wall. “Give me one good reason why I should spare your father the effort of killing you himself.”
“You have witnesses,” Rialdo says with a pointed nod to the others. Chadwick tries to pry North back, but it’s too late—a ribbon of poison bleeds into Rialdo’s skin, a ghostly smear of damp charcoal that begins to bloom down his throat.
Horror crosses North’s face; guilt. He backs away, hands curling into balls that he shoves under his arms. “Where are my gloves?”
“He poisoned him!” Elin grabs Terik by the sleeve. “Did you see that?!”
“It—it was an accident,” North says shakily.
“Here.” Sofreya darts forward, a stone webbed with magic in one hand. “It hasn’t gone far; we can extract it.”
“You are unfit to be king,” Rialdo snarls, leveling a finger at North. “You’re an animal, Corbin. Do you hear me?! A bullet to the head would be a mercy for a man like you.”
“Stop,” Sofreya begs. “You’ll only spread the infection faster like this, and I can’t excise all of you! Ben? Cohl? Please.”
They both step forward and hold Rialdo down as Sofreya draws the poison out. It was an accident, and barely more than a trace, yet Rialdo’s panic is contagious, spreading through the others. Once Sofreya finishes, Rialdo sinks to his knees, flattening his palm to his throat and checking his fingers as if expecting to see poison come away. “This is what my father was afraid of,” he says. “Poor planning, terrible execution. We are stumbling blindly in the trail of a madman, and it will kill all of us. We go back to New Prevast and we return with an army. A strategy beyond the spell of a girl like her. Guns.”
I punch him as hard as I can, satisfied by the double crunch of his bones beneath my fist and his head as it recoils back against the wall. “Guns will not kill shadows,” I say.
Chadwick hauls me back as the others close around Rialdo like a shield. The crack between us has widened into a ravine. If we don’t jump now and join sides again, we’ll be separated irrevocably.
“It’s over,” Chadwick says. “That’s it. We’re going home. All of us,” he adds.
North turns away, hands folded over his head. He’s shaking, struggling to fight back the infection burning through his blood. “One more day,” he pleads, and I see myself in this moment, begging Thaelan for another night. But where I wanted one more day to plan, North needs one more day to execute.
Wait.
“Pack your things,” Chadwick orders. He releases my arm. “We head back immediately.”
Kellig straightens. “You’re not leaving me out here.”
“I’m not leaving,” I say, mind spinning.
Chadwick covers his face with his hand and growls. “Locke, for the love of gods and sainted virtues—”
“Perrote knows about this spell,” I say. “He’ll take it for himself if I go back. Then he won’t need North; he won’t need any of us. We get one shot, Ben, and this is it. And so long as my sister is still breathing—while she still has a chance to be saved—I am not giving up.”
“I’m coming with you,” North says in the silence that follows.
“Shut up,” Chadwick snaps.
“You’re demoted,” North says.
“I resigned hours ago,” Chadwick says. “I’m here as your friend now, which means I don’t have to listen to you.” He turns to me. “You have no idea what’s out here, Locke. Dagger or not, without magic, neither one of you is in any condition to fight! We’re better suited to taking you back to the Mainstay where it’s safer to try this again.”
“Look, Merlock was only a few miles away,” I say, gesturing the direction with an open palm. “He was walking north, toward Prevast. If I can get to the outskirts of the city, I won’t need magic to protect me.”
Elin snorts. “Of course you won’t.”
“The sewers,” I say, ignoring her. I saw them labeled in the maps spread through the library in New Prevast, but dismissed them as useless. But now. My breath hitches. “The hellborne thrive in the Burn. They have no reason to go underground. The tunnels will be made of stone; the Burn won’t have bled through them.”
Chadwick stares at me with a touch of respect and, dimly, a spark of hope. “Those tunnels haven’t been used for twenty years,” he says. “They could collapse, or be flooded, or . . .”
I don’t flinch away from his gaze. “Or they could be empty.”
“I’ve been down there,” Kellig says suddenly. “I could navigate the entire city if I needed to.”
“Which means Baedan can too,” Chadwick says.
But Kellig shakes his head, grin spreading. He has the upper hand again, a guarantee. “Like the girl said, Baedan thrives on the Burn. Pride keeps her out of the sewers.”
His words settle over us, intoxicating in their feasibility.
“Then that’s the plan,” North says at last. “We keep going.”
“And now we’re following the most inexperienced member of this entire expedition,” Elin says savagely.
The others chorus their own protests, but North meets my eyes and offers a bare, honest smile that hints at the first night we met, when he asked me for nothing but my name. So much has changed since then, and yet right now we’re both still the same: ready and willing to fight, no matter the cost.
I smile back, albeit weakly.
Chadwick rubs his mouth as he surveys the landscape and the wintry skies overhead. “One more day,” he says, as if bargaining with a petulant child. “If we don’t catch up to Merlock by tomorrow evening, we turn around. No arguments. Agreed?”
“Captain, is that wise?” Jarrett exchanges troubled looks with Cohl.
“Do you trust me?” Chadwick asks, challenge in his voice.
Nobody answers immediately, and it’s apparent that when they finally force a mumbled agreement, it’s out of habit and respect, not conviction.
Chadwick beckons Sofreya forward. “Keep an eye on North,” he says. “I’ll pin him down if I have to, but do not let that poison get past those protection spells again.”
“Ben.” North’s eyebrows are furrowed and his expression is bleak. “Thank you.”
Chadwick grabs North by the collar of his jacket and briefly dips his own head to North’s in a gesture of familiarity. Of friendship. “You’re going to be a villain at the end of this story no matter what we do now,” he says softly. “Make it count.”
Releasing North, he straightens, pulling his hair back into a tidy ponytail. “Gather your things,” he says. “We find a new camp before the hellborne arrive.”
Sofreya stays behind to excise North once more, as I follow the others back to the town house to gather our packs. I’m too far away to hear most of the whispers, but I feel the weight of them, the sharp edges that warn of rising animosity.
“He’s as mad as his father,” I hear Elin say.
“He’s not your only choice,” Rialdo replies. “My father has magic enough to clear the Burn for an entire army, not just a handful of sacrifices. Nor does he have tainted blood to contend with.”
“Then why isn’t he out here now?” Jarrett asks. “Why send us unarmed into the Burn?”
Rialdo doesn’t answer, but I understand now. Perrote wants to be the hero to save Avinea after its rightful leader fails—so no one wil
l argue when he assumes control and North is completely demolished.
Sixteen
BY THE TIME WE GAIN enough distance from the town house and any hellborne I might have attracted there, we’re all exhausted, too tired to even complain when Chadwick orders our stop in the middle of a wasteland of ash with no protection from the bitter wind. Jarrett starts a fire, and we huddle around it, pensive and silent, daring glances at each other, trying to guess how deep the Burn has taken hold, who will be the next to snap, and how. North’s greatest vice is his temper, but what would Elin’s be? Or Terik’s?
North separates himself from the fire—and the recrimination of the others. He sits alone, a slumped figure with a tattered map, staring across the Burn toward the shadowed form of Prevast on the horizon. Once again I’m reminded of cold nights on the farming terrace, plotting impossible escapes that turned ludicrous the later the hour and the more barleywine I drank. Seeing North now awakens that same aching longing, a desire to succeed, marred by the bittersweet sorrow of knowing the much higher probability of failure. I resist the temptation to join him, aware of the way the others keep me tagged from the corners of their eyes. Instead I stay close to the fire—and to my dagger. No one has spoken a word of dissent all afternoon, following Chadwick’s commands with a dutiful compliance I don’t fully trust.
After dividing us into shifts, Chadwick approaches North, offering him a canteen as he takes a seat beside him. Together they study the map, no doubt debating Merlock’s likely target—and why, if he wants to talk, he keeps moving forward rather than doubling back. I envy them their friendship, strong enough to survive a day like this.
Kellig watches me from across the fire. He’s been begging for scraps of magic from Sofreya all evening, to no avail, and the hunger I saw earlier has returned, manifested with the addition of a nervous shudder that wracks his entire body. He hasn’t injected any magic into his blood since joining us, and the withdrawal looks torturous.
He deserves it.
The light dances over the slick cracks of poison on his face and the dark bruises on his throat where Cohl’s fingers sank through the skin. He opens his mouth as if to speak to me, but I quickly turn away, focusing on the sky overhead, gauzy with clouds. On instinct, I raise my hands to frame the dimly lit stars. Almost there, I think, and the words are a satisfying weight, like the shell in my pocket I picked up for Cadence. Another promise, but this one for me.
When I fall asleep, my dreams are strange beasts, glimpses of Merlock in between stretches of darkness and flashes of a silver light. A cairn of stones is built upon my lungs, pressing me down, cutting off my air. I wake with a gasp, to find Kellig bent over me, hands flattened against my chest.
My immediate reaction is one of panic. He’s a transferent, and has tried to steal magic from me before. I grab his wrist and twist it, knocking him back, only to feel my mother’s spell unleash itself.
“Stop,” he says, rocking onto his knees and slamming his hands back onto my chest. Something hard scrapes against my coat, and I realize—my armor is gone and he’s holding a small knife to my chest, the iron blade muting the spell.
Surprised, I look at him again. “What happened?” I ask, taking the knife from him and pressing it harder against my chest.
He releases me with an audible sigh of relief, pulling back several steps. His hands tear through his hair and then lock behind his neck. Once again he’s shaking. “You sleep like the goddamn dead,” he growls.
Ignoring his rebuke, I sit up sharply, scanning the camp. The fire went out hours ago and is covered with a layer of ash. Both my armor and my pack are gone. The only relief is Chadwick’s dagger, still hidden in my boot, but the relief is soon replaced with sour panic. No food, no water, no weapons, miles from the edge of the Burn.
And then I see North’s body sprawled several yards from me. I lower the knife in my haste, only to slam it back into position, swearing under my breath.
“When did they leave?!” I demand, dropping to my knees beside North. Chadwick is only a few feet from him. Both have been stripped of their weapons.
“Hours ago,” Kellig says darkly.
I shake North, lightly at first, then more fiercely. His eyes flutter open, only to close again as he swallows hard, eyebrows furrowing in pain. “Faris?”
Relieved, I curl my fingers into the fabric of his coat, briefly dipping my forehead to his chest before leaving him in order to wake Chadwick. Chadwick lashes out like I did, nearly kicking me off my feet only to stop short as he winces with pain. He rolls onto his side and coughs.
“What the hell, Locke?” he rasps.
I straighten, scanning the horizon. Nothing, no one, in sight. “Your canteen,” I say flatly. “They must have put something in the canteen.” One of the palace doctor’s pills, no doubt, intended to stop our hearts before they turned hellborne. A small dose of that would knock anyone out.
Catching my tone, Chadwick frowns and pushes to his feet. He cringes as he surveys the abandoned camp. Fury melts into resignation.
“Even Sofreya?” he asks softly, wounded.
“It doesn’t matter,” North says. “We didn’t need them anyway.”
“Yes, we did,” Chadwick growls. “Locke has no training, you’re falling apart, and now we have no weapons or supplies. Not to mention they have a head start! If they reach the Mainstay before us—”
“Davik will not sail without us,” North cuts in, eyes sliding toward me. He finally realizes my armor is gone and frowns. “Faris?”
“I’m fine,” I say, and then, begrudgingly, “Kellig—”
“Saved all of you instead of eating you, which is what they suggested I do when they let me loose,” Kellig says, pointing at each of us in turn. “And I kept any hellborne from tracking her down. So just remember that.”
None of us speak.
“You’re welcome,” he mutters.
Chadwick pats his pockets, assessing what they’ve left him with. Very little. A small knife, his clothes, and his canteen. He sniffs the contents before taking a small sip.
North quickly does the same. Relief floods his face as he produces a small leather bag from an inner pocket. It rattles with the familiar click-clacking of stones no doubt threaded with magic. I wonder if he stole them from Sofreya, believing she had stolen them from him. “We’re all right,” he says. “We move forward.”
Chadwick kicks through the ash, searching for anything left behind. “No.”
“Nothing has changed,” North says. “We’ve just lost unnecessary weight.”
“No!” Chadwick hurls his canteen down. “I’m done, Corbin. I’m done! We have no food, no water, no weapons, very little magic, no men, and no way home even if—if—we get out of the Burn alive.”
“We kill my father,” says North, “and we won’t need a ship home.”
Chadwick’s fury is nearly palpable. “We’ve failed, Corbin! Do you understand?! This is it! This”—he extends his arms and turns in a circle—“is how we die. In the Burn, like the idiots we are.”
“You gave me one more day,” North reminds him. “Davik agreed to one week. She will not sail until then.”
Chadwick’s arms drop to his sides as he stares at North. “I’m done.”
“I’m not,” North says. “You do what you have to do, Ben, as will I. Either way, we part as friends.” He turns to me, eyebrows raised in silent question.
A part of me wants to admit defeat. Palms on the floor and a possibility of going home. Bound to Bryn, yes, but alive, with the chance to see Cadence again. But almost there, I remind myself. Neither decision is easy; only one is right.
I take my place beside North, knife still clutched to my chest. Chadwick slumps, deflating. Briefly closing his eyes, he shakes his head.
“Come on,” he says as he straightens, already pushing past us.
“Ben,” North starts, but Chadwick holds a hand out, stemming any further conversation. He unbuckles his empty scabbard and wordlessly hands i
t back to me. Quickly shrugging out of my coat and tunic, I fight the pull of my mother’s spell for several precious seconds in order to tighten the scabbard across my chest, the iron buckle pressed into the soft linen of my undershirt—as close to skin as I can manage without stripping naked in front of them.
The day passes in morose silence, punctuated by glimpses of the capital city looming ever closer. We reach the outskirts by midafternoon, and in unspoken agreement, we all draw to a stop. I’ve seen Prevast before, both from the sea and from my first meeting with Merlock. And yet it’s entirely different to see it from here, spread so wide that it encompasses the entire horizon with its petrified remains. It’s enormous. Overwhelming. So many lives lost, so many homes destroyed, all in the name of magic.
A broken heart broke this beautiful city, and I look to North, whose expression is unreadable. Does he see the risk of history repeating itself in these ruins? Even clean magic is an addiction. And while North intends to wean Avinea from its magic codependency when he is king, will the demands of his people and his need to prove his ability to rule subvert that intention?
Will expectation destroy him the way it destroyed his father?
Moving forward, we pass a camp, the embers of its fire still warm, a hopeful sign that we’re not far behind Baedan. Less hopeful is the body of a young boy left half-buried in ash. A slave, Kellig tells us, bought for his clean blood and left to rot once he became too infected to be worth anything but food for the wolves who live in the city, bred on the poisoned flesh of the hellborne. They howl as the sun begins its early winter descent behind the toothy skyline, sending chills down my back. But there’s no time for a burial, and it hurts to leave him with nothing but North’s hasty prayer.
As we approach the outskirts of the city, North begins testing sewer grates, to find that most have rotted shut. As we wind deeper into the streets, however, we find a narrow alley with tilting buildings that have kept the cobbles from filling with debris. North crouches, twisting a grate open with a screech that echoes. Wincing, he waves away a cloud of displaced ash and peers below.