The Cruelest Mercy

by Natalie Mae

  They cannot possibly reward Kasta’s ruthlessness.

  They cannot.

  The Mestrah raises his hands. “The coronation will continue.” The people lean forward, and I clasp my other hand in Mora’s. “For my son Kasta, whom Numet has marked with her own hand.”

  * * *

  “No,” I choke out as Fara’s fingers tighten. Mora covers her mouth in disbelief. The queen sobs in joy. Shouts of surprise and confusion echo from the walls, and the guards straighten when the crowd begins to shift, but the few nobles who protest are quickly urged to silence by their neighbors. It’s no small thing for the Mestrah to declare someone divine. Jet casts a helpless glance first at his mother, then me, and I bite back tears as I hold his gaze. We’ll make this right, I promise, hoping he can read the defiance in my eyes. Mestrah or not, I won’t let Kasta get away with fooling the priests again.

  “We will require a few minutes to prepare him,” the Mestrah announces. “Hold your assembly.” He gestures to the High Priests and to Kasta, but when Jet steps forward, the Mestrah raises a hand. “Join your mother,” he says, glancing our way.

  My chest pinches. Jet goes rigid. He’s not only being dismissed, but he’s also expected to drop quietly into the background on a day that was meant to be his. Jet opens his mouth to ask what I’m sure is the first of many questions, but the Mestrah has already turned away.

  The royal party disappears through a scarlet curtain at the back of the room, and the crowd erupts.

  “All right,” Hen snaps, tugging me from the safety of Fara. “We are talking about this right now.”

  She yanks up the necklace to reveal my mark, and I snap it down again.

  “No, we’re not,” I say. “Because for all I know, this just means he was supposed to kill me, and if I tell the priests, they’re going to let him finish the job.”

  “Zahru?” my father asks.

  “It’s nothing, Fara.” I cast a pleading look at Hen. “Just . . . give us a moment.”

  “Fine,” Hen says. “But we’re bringing an expert with us. Prince Jet!”

  I start to protest—Jet already has enough to deal with right now—but I have to admit that knowing whether my gods’ mark means I’m still supposed to die is rather critical information. I worry my thumb over my palm as he heads our way, though he moves in a daze, his eyes distant, his shoulders slumped.

  “Bubble thing,” Hen orders, when the three of us have gathered at the side of the scarlet carpet.

  “Bubble thing?” Jet mutters, his eyes on the dais.

  I touch his arm. “Jet, I’m really sorry about this, and I know a lot just happened. But can you put up your sound barrier? There’s something I have to tell you.”

  “Oh.” He shrugs. “Right. It’s up now.”

  “Zahru has the same mark,” Hen blurts.

  “Gods, Hen,” I say. “At least ease him into it.”

  Jet snaps awake. “You what?” His eyes drop to my necklace. “What do you mean, the same mark?”

  “Look,” I say, holding the necklace down. “First I want to say you know Kasta is faking this. I don’t care what that paste is supposed to prove; he’s gotten around stuff like this before. Like when he cut my wrist to make me the sacrifice. Like when he faked being a Deathbringer for his whole life.” I glance at the curtain where the royal party disappeared, static prickling through my blood. “We’re going to figure this out. And after we expose him, you’ll still be king.”

  “Zahru,” Jet says. “Show me the mark.”

  I’m not sure he listened to anything I just said. But I slowly lift the necklace, half praying my mark really is just a bruise, half praying it will give me some crazy decisive power, like the ability to choose who rules.

  “Tyda,” Jet curses, but a wide smile breaks onto his face.

  A pang of hope shoots through me. “This is good, right? A smile means good things? I won’t be sacrificed again?”

  “This is very good.” Jet laughs, turning the necklace so he can see better. “How long have you had this?”

  “A moon,” Hen chimes.

  “Zahru, this is a big deal.” He looks at me like I’m made of gold. “Clearly we’ve never had a sacrifice survive before, so I can’t say exactly what it means, but I know if the marks are present, the contest is definitely over. No chance of further sacrifice. But a very big chance that this is the real mark. The knife chose you, which is proof enough that Kasta’s is fake. You can stop him, right here, before a crown ever touches his head.”

  I blink, certain I didn’t hear him right. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “You are marked to be Mestrah.” Jet grips my shoulders. Like he’s telling me I’ve won a trip around the world, or a new house, and not that I’ve possibly just inherited an entire kingdom and a war. “You can stop him.”

  My response is to stare. The rest of me is freezing up, maybe literally, gooseflesh spreading through my entire body as his words sink in. The mark does not mean death. It means that at the end of the Crossing, the gods reached out their hands and placed on my skin a symbol that’s meant only for a person they deem worthy to rule.

  My vision goes white. The world slips from my grasp like the edge of a cliff.

  It’s only Jet’s and Hen’s quick reflexes, and the appearance of a rather random stool, that keep me from experiencing the full glory of the throne room floor. I cling to them as they set me upright and try to remember how to breathe. This has to be a terrible joke. A punishment from the gods for the years I begged them to see the palace, to see the world, to see any place that wasn’t my home. For evading death. For leaving Kasta knocked out in a tent in the middle of the desert.

  They can’t truly mean for me to be Mestrah. They can’t mean for me to take the place that even Jet, with his entire lifetime of royal training, felt unqualified to accept.

  “Very amusing, Valen,” I whisper, a hysteric laugh bubbling up my throat. The god of fate must be loving this. “It’s all right, I get it. I prayed way too much to be given an adventure, and it got annoying, but I’ve definitely learned my lesson and I’ve stopped. Can you pinch me so I wake up now?”

  Hen does, hard.

  “Ouch, gods—”

  “You’re not asleep,” Hen says. “Remember what you were just saying about how we’d do anything to stop Kasta?”

  “And get Jet back on the throne,” I say, looking desperately between them. “You can’t really think this is a good idea. When was the last time you saw me negotiate treaties? Or command soldiers? Or rule an entire country?”

  “You’ll have help,” Jet says. “You can form your own circle of advisors for areas you’re not familiar with. And you know I’ll be there every step of the way, if you want me to be.”

  He sounds far too calm for someone who’s just lost the throne. I imagine right now he’s just relieved there’s a way to stop Kasta, but I have to wonder if he’ll be this happy after the rest of it settles in.

  “No, it has to mean something else.” I wipe my palms on my jole. “It’s another of Kasta’s tricks. He’s the one who pulled me into this, and this . . . this is just more of it.”

  “More of it?” Hen says. “As in, he snuck into our room in Kystlin, into a barn where no one else knew we were staying, and put that mark there while you were sleeping?”

  “Obviously not, but—” But I feel my excuses unraveling. Even if Kasta and I had been staying in the same room this last moon, there is no turn of events in which he would mark me with a Mestrah’s symbol.

  My mark is real.

  Dizziness threatens to overtake me again, and I lower my head into my hands.

  “The gods can’t mean it.” The words pinch my lungs. “It’s a mistake.”

  Jet brushes a strand of hair behind my ear, his fingers soft on my jaw. He lets me breathe a moment longer before his hand drops away. �
��I know this is terrifying.”

  My reflection shines in his eyes, small and disbelieving, but I know he’s not just saying that to be comforting. He knows this fear firsthand.

  “Do you remember what you said to me when I was afraid to rule?” he asks.

  I groan. “That’s not even fair. You were raised for this. You’re supposed to be Mestrah.”

  “That you believed in me. That you knew I would succeed because you could see me even as I couldn’t see myself.”

  Tears blur my vision. I look toward the exit doors, toward freedom, and I know that if I asked him, Jet would let me go. The question is on the tip of my tongue. The coronation was supposed to be the end of my story, the ride-off-into-the-sunset, the finale—

  “You said Kasta would be cruel,” Hen says, quieter. “That he might want good things, but he’d hurt people to get them.”

  The scar on my chest burns, and I close my eyes. “Yes.”

  “Wouldn’t you agree that literally anyone else would be a better ruler than him?”

  This is not exactly the most supportive declaration, but she has a point, even if my mind is already working out the many ways this could go horribly wrong. My primary concern being that if we can’t convince the Mestrah that Kasta’s mark is fake, there’s a very real possibility this results in yet another competition for the throne, for which Kasta has already proven how far he’ll go to win. But just as I’m opening my mouth to present this worry, I realize—it doesn’t matter.

  Because something else is twisting through my thoughts, sleek as a serpent.

  And when I look up, when I meet Jet’s eyes, it’s not justice I’m thinking of. It’s not that this is the right thing to do, which it is, or that Kasta might be a disastrous king and I have a civic duty to stop him. It’s that this is how I can reclaim the power Kasta stole from me when he first marked my wrist. This is how I’ll make him regret, every day from here forward, the choice he made in the caves.

  This is how I can get even.

  “All right,” I say. “What do I need to do?”

  IV

  I was wrong, a moon ago, when I thought walking down the stairs as the Crossing’s sacrifice was the most nerve-wracking thing I’d ever do.

  No—watching the Mestrah and the priests emerge from the back room with my worst enemy, who now looks untouchable in a white tunic embroidered with gold, while the people drop to their knees and a horn bellows the restart of the coronation: this is far worse. Not to mention that if Jet is wrong about my mark, this little stunt will likely land me in prison. And if we’re right . . .

  My gaze shifts to Kasta, who has stopped where Jet once stood and turned to face the thrones. If we’re right, I might find myself wishing I’d been taken to prison.

  In the travelers’ tales, this would go down with flair: I would denounce Kasta in extravagant fashion, and the people would lift me on their shoulders and carry me to the front of the room, where I’d bow just in time to have the Mestrah set a crown on my head, and rise to greet my new country. Cheering would erupt, evil would be vanquished, parties would ensue. Instead, even though I’m standing, quite visibly, in the exact spot Kasta entered from at the back of the aisle, literally no one glances over due to how absorbed they are with the front of the room. I suppose I can’t blame them. In a typical tale, the surprise-I’m-not-dead prince returning to claim his throne would, indeed, be the biggest shock of the story.

  Oh, good people of Orkena, you don’t even know what you’ve gotten yourselves into. You’re part of my story now, and I apologize for all that’s about to entail.

  The Mestrah raises his arms and launches into the same introduction he made for Jet. He sees me, judging by his quick glare, but of course he doesn’t stop the ceremony, because that would make this easy. I steel myself and start forward, a hundred beetles in my throat. I’m a third of the way to the dais before the crowd finally stirs, and even then, the Mestrah preaches on like nothing is wrong. Instead, as he accepts a bowl of incense from a priest, he nods to the guards behind Kasta.

  Who turn around with their hands on their swords.

  It’s now or never.

  “Mestrah,” I say, stopping. “Kasta isn’t the only one with that mark.”

  The crowd gasps as I unclasp my necklace and drop it to the floor. The queen’s smile vanishes. The Mestrah closes his eyes like he wishes he could make me disappear as easily, but I hold my ground, even when Kasta looks sharply over his shoulder. I refuse to look at him. But I feel his gaze on me all the same—burning across my face, tracing the spiral beneath my throat; sliding down to the scar he left on me.

  “Would anyone else like to lay claim to the throne?” the Mestrah snaps, challenging the crowd with a look. A few of them snicker, but no one dares speak. The Mestrah turns to the smiling—well, now unsmiling—High Priest once more.

  “Test her,” he says, and to the guards: “If anyone else comes forward, remove them immediately.”

  This will be worth it, I remind myself as whispers sift through the crowd anew. I straighten and push forward, my pulse a drum in my ears. The High Priest meets me at the base of the stairs. At Kasta’s side. Where I focus fervently on the glitter of her striking orange eyes, and not on the prince beside me. She lifts the jar she used before and smears the white paste over my mark.

  The symbol turns frigid on my skin, and where the paste crosses it, it burns gold.

  It’s real. Whatever spell Kasta used to make his fake mark react, I needed nothing to achieve the same. The feeling that I’m in over my head, that I’ll come to regret this, claws up my throat. But I swallow it back. First I have to stop Kasta; then I can think about what this actually means.

  The priest’s hands drop, and she offers a slow nod to the Mestrah.

  “Apos’s blood,” the Mestrah growls. He pulls a tired hand down his cheeks and looks to the crowd. “The coronation is postponed. You are all dismissed.”

  The people shout in confused excitement. My family clasps hands, looking both anxious and hopeful, and Jet ducks around a guard, smiling as he joins my side.

  “That was perfect.” He raises a protective arm around me as his gaze meets the fire in Kasta’s. “Welcome back.”

  “Both of you. And Jet,” the Mestrah barks, descending the stairs. “The war room. Now.”

  * * *

  In retrospect, I might have agreed to this too easily.

  You honestly thought it would be fine? I imagine people asking, when I tell them it took all of five minutes for me to decide the best course of action was not to run away and be safe, but to challenge for the throne a boy who has already proven that he’ll kill for it. Well, no, I would answer. I really was just out for revenge. And the people would nod and share grim looks, probably over my mangled body as a priest read my last rites, because that’s one very real way this could end.

  What am I doing?

  Jet touches my elbow, and I cling to the echo of his words: he believes I can do this, as strongly as I knew he could.

  Blue-burning torches light the narrow corridor we walk, the brown marble of the space making it cave-like and cold. With four guards before us and four behind, the space feels especially cramped. The Mestrah and Kasta lead the way, torchlight rippling over the Mestrah’s cape and the pearlescent white of Kasta’s tunic. But though I try to focus anywhere else, my eyes keep slipping to the scar on Kasta’s arm. His last words, his apology, keep grating in my ears. The pain of dying splinters in my bones, as does the failure I felt in that moment, when he decided to trade my life for magic.

  Lightning flashes through my blood, and I exhale through my nose. At least this time I know what Kasta’s fully capable of. This time, I won’t be foolish enough to believe this can end peacefully.

  The Mestrah stops before an arched doorway bordered in glowing runes.

  “See that no one disturbs us,”
he says without turning. “And send for the Speaker.”

  Two of the guards bow and depart. The rest file to both sides of the doorway as the Mestrah steps through, and I follow with a painful flicker of hope, remembering the kind way the Speaker last spoke to me. If it’s their advice the Mestrah is counting on, I know they’ll be fair. They’ll know my mark is real and Kasta’s is not.

  The runes etched into the threshold turn red beneath our feet. Blue fire races inside a tray that runs the perimeter of the room, triggered by the Mestrah’s entrance, and overhead a massive brazier ignites with a whoosh, its shadow eclipsing the center of the long wooden table that takes up most of the space. At least fifteen chairs surround it, all made of a dark, polished wood. At the far end glistens a grand chair of frosted glass. Numet’s swirling circle adorns its backrest in scythes of gold, and when the Mestrah sits, the symbol haloes his head.

  His glare tracks me like a lion’s. “Sit.”

  Kasta takes his place at the Mestrah’s right. I’m tempted to take the chair directly in front of me, which is as far from them as I can physically be, but if there really is going to be a contest for the throne, I won’t give Kasta the satisfaction of thinking I’m afraid of him. I move past shining paintings of soldiers wielding fire and ice to the Mestrah’s other side.

  The chair scrapes the floor as I pull it out.

  And I can avoid it no longer. I remind myself that yes, maybe Kasta tried to sacrifice me, but he also failed to, and I meet his cold, guarded eyes as I settle in.

  But where I expected the same challenge in response—he looks away.