The Cruelest Mercy

by Natalie Mae

  Whatever I’m going to do, I have to do it tonight.

  Which leaves me with only one option.

  “Send Jet in,” the Mestrah says, closing his eyes. “Nadia may come with him.”

  I turn, my nerves still buzzing, and pause before the closed door. The torches crackle and pop. I’m ashamed to say that I deliver this next line entirely to ensure Kasta doesn’t know I’m up to something, and not to get him his rightful place in line.

  “Mestrah?” I say.

  “Speak.”

  “I think you should call Kasta in.”

  Surprise opens the king’s eyes. He turns his head, squinting, and finally nods. Perhaps he thinks I’m softening to Kasta.

  I don’t know what it means that I hardly feel guilty about it.

  When I open the door, Kasta is on the far side of the room, arms crossed and cape drawn around his chest like a shield. He doesn’t even look over. He knows who the Mestrah will want next.

  Jet catches my eye, but I shake my head.

  “Kasta,” I say.

  Kasta’s gaze jerks to me, then Jet, and it’s a few moments before he moves. When he reaches the door, he pauses across from me in the frame. But he’s not searching my face for a lie. He looks broken, like he wants to say something, like he wants to thank me, but this, at last, is too much for me, and I move away before he can.

  The door clicks closed behind him.

  Jet and the General lean against each other on the couch, and I kneel on the floor before them. And this time, I do take Jet’s hands.

  “How is he?” Jet asks, his voice thick.

  I slowly shake my head. Jet’s pain splinters between us, a bridge as bright as gold, and I glance at the General, who still stares at the windows. And I steel myself for what I’m about to do. Jet can’t be involved in this next part of my plan. This is something I need to do on my own, and he should be here with his parents, not worrying about Kasta and proof.

  He sniffs. “I’m going to tell him about Sakira. I think my father should know before he passes.”

  “You should.” I brush my fingers over his knuckles. “Will you be all right for a while? There’s something I need to take care of. I’ll come back as soon as I can.”

  His focus clears. “Now?”

  “You know what for.” I touch Numet’s mark on my chest.

  Jet sits a little straighter, trying to shrug off his grief, and rubs his damp cheeks on his tunic. “I can come. Just let me talk to my father . . . I can meet you after that.”

  “No.” His stubbornness bricks the connection between us, and I know if I leave it at this, he’ll come find me anyway. Because that’s what he does. Even when his father is dying and his heart is in shreds, even when things are shaky between us, he would still set it all aside to help me.

  At least until he figured out what I intend to do.

  “Stay,” I say, twisting my fingers around his grief, untying the threads of his loyalty to me, one by one. “Your mother needs you. I can handle this.”

  He starts to argue. I watch his protest flare, and shift, and dull in his eyes. “All right,” he says. “I’ll be here.”

  “Thank you.” I slip my hands from his, my chest pinching. “I’m sorry.”

  He doesn’t even ask for what.

  I close the Mestrah’s door quietly behind me and start for Hen’s room.

  XXVII

  I do not think about what I just did as I walk the palace halls.

  Not how easy it was. Not the way Jet’s eyes dulled as my will overrode his. And especially not that the main reason I didn’t want him to come—moreso than protecting him if I’m caught doing this—is that I’m afraid he’d stop me.

  I knock on Hen’s door.

  She doesn’t ask questions when I tell her what I need. I lie on her couch while she works, twisting my tunic between my fingers, bracing myself for the sound of horns that would mark the Mestrah’s passing. They don’t come. Within an hour Hen hands me a stack of five fake pelts, expertly tailored to look real: a falcon pelt of dyed crane feathers; a snakeskin of fish scales. A tawny velvet cat, a satin mouse, a silken blue bird like those that frequent the garden trees. Small animals useful for sneaking in and out of places.

  It’s a convincing stack. Kasta couldn’t use these to change in reality, but a Runemaster won’t know the difference.

  Hen places the pelts in my hands and nods.

  * * *

  Marcus answers his door with a heavy frown.

  “Dōmmel,” he says. “How is the Mestrah?”

  I tighten my grip on the sack I’m holding. The assumption that the suffering king is foremost on my mind pushes against my heart. “You can still call me Zahru, Marcus. And he’s not well.”

  “Ah. I’m very sorry to hear. Do you think Jet wants company?”

  “Maybe later. He and the General are with the Mestrah now.” Nerves flush through me, a rush of cold. Once I show the pelts to Marcus, there’s no going back.

  “Is your Runemaster contact available?” I ask.

  Marcus’s hand drops from the doorframe. “Likely. Why?”

  I hand him the sack. Marcus peers in—and inhales. He pulls the drawstrings tight, glances around the hall at the distant guards, and pushes the bag back into my arms.

  “Give me a moment.” He squeezes into his room.

  The door floats closed, stopping just wide enough to show me a slice of a redwood desk and part of a darkened window beyond. The storm has moved in, wind snapping at the garden trees. A low voice I don’t recognize asks if Marcus is all right, but Marcus answers too quietly for me to make out the words. His fiancé must be in. In a moment Marcus reappears, a silver cape wrapped over his broad shoulders and his hazel eyes haunted.

  “I wrote my contact to meet us in the armory.” He shuts the door and ushers me down the hall. “Where did you find those?”

  “In his room.” I’m getting disturbingly quick at coming up with lies.

  “You searched his room while he’s—” He cuts off. While he’s with his dying father? is how I imagine he meant to finish that, which does nothing to make me feel like I’m still the hero. “Never mind, I know you had to. And you found them not a day too late. I just hope Conlee can work quickly if the Mestrah’s time is truly at a close.”

  How completely Marcus trusts me. He doesn’t even find it suspicious that right when I needed it most, critical evidence fell into my hands. But I promise myself I’ll make up for this. Once this is settled and I’ve proven what Kasta is, I’ll confess to everything. To Marcus and Jet, at least. The pelts, the plan, changing Jet’s heart while he was worrying for his father. But right now I need to be a leader, and this, unfortunately, is exactly the kind of thing desperate leaders do in stories.

  This is also the kind of things villains do, but I’m adamantly not dwelling on that right now.

  By the time we reach the armory, I’m ready.

  A massive, triangular door marks the entry, a bronze monstrosity stamped with Sabil’s balancing scales to depict the balance between magic and its cost. Seeing it sends ice blooming up my spine. Not only because it’s the same symbol that forms the hilt of the sacrificial knife, but also for the reminder that the Mestrah is dying in his thirty-eighth summer because of his magic. I imagine Influence won’t be much kinder to me, depending on how much I have to use it.

  I can’t think about that right now.

  A blast of heat hits us as we step in.

  Having never been to an armory, I naturally assumed the inside might be a cave, or the opening of a small volcano, or filled with sweating, busy Metalsmiths who all have inexplicable accents, because that’s what I’ve been told in stories. Of course the only thing inexplicable about the armory is that it’s clean. The space stretches generously, as long as the width of Orkena’s main river, with a domed bron
ze ceiling that reflects the room’s many torches in a brassy sheen. At least fifty Metalsmiths and Runemasters hunch over rows of stone workbenches, shaping molten metal with their gloved fingers into swords and arrowheads, stringing runes on strips of leather. I suppose it could be cave-like, considering there are no windows, and maybe the pool-sized vat of molten metal at the center could be like a volcano. Though its sides are bricked and neat, and no actual flames spew from the surface.

  Marcus leads me to the back, where a short, pale boy with a shock of red hair bends over a thumb-sized stone. More square stones stack in a pile to his right, a mix of onyx and garnet and marble. The Runemaster lifts the new rune, turning it once so the symbol on its face glows, and sets it in a pile to his left before noticing us.

  “Hail, Conlee,” Marcus says, clasping his arm. “Were you already working? I thought it was your day off.”

  “Dōmmel.” The Runemaster touches his fingers to his sweat-beaded forehead before turning to Marcus. “I know, but I can’t afford to take it. We’re working double shifts as it is. If I don’t finish these tonight, it’ll be that many more I have to do tomorrow.”

  For a moment I forget the pelts. The piles before the Runemaster reach his elbows, and hundreds of already finished runes hang on racks behind him. “You still have this many to go?”

  “Prince Kasta’s orders,” he says wearily. “These will help the soldiers control their magic from greater distances, so their attacks can reach the Wyri before forsvine can disable them. The Metalsmiths have been working around the clock, too, casting swords and spears for emergencies. The entire army needs them.”

  Which is tens of thousands of soldiers. With a jolt, I wonder if this is the reason so little progress has been made on countering the Wyri metal.

  “Is anyone studying forsvine?” I ask, baffled.

  “No, dōmmel,” the Runemaster says. “There’s no time.”

  Marcus and I exchange a look, my skin prickling. Kasta told me he wanted to march on Wyrim soon and end the war before forsvine advanced too much, but that’s no reason not to study the metal at all . . . unless he doesn’t want us to have an easy solution. If I needed any convincing that Kasta intends to make the Wyri suffer and extend this fight as long as possible, I just got it.

  I will be changing that soon, but I need to deal with him first.

  “Marcus told you why we’re here?” I ask.

  The Runemaster nods. “We spoke about the possibility. Does this mean . . . ?”

  His golden eyes dart to the sack, and I open the burlap folds.

  “Gods’ blood,” he whispers. He glances at the crowded room and gestures to a door in the back. “Come with me.”

  He leads us into a narrow storage closet, its marble shelves stacked with bars of metal and rolls of uncut leather. The thick door closes. I hand him the bag, and while he lifts the snake and the mouse pelt, inspecting Hen’s flawless handiwork, Marcus and I fill him in on Kasta’s other inconsistencies. His miraculous healing at the end of the Crossing, his improved strength when our boat was attacked, me being able to hear his thoughts. When we finish, the Runemaster’s face has gone as pale as milk.

  “It’s true, then,” he says.

  Marcus nods. “Do you think you could finish a binding necklace by tomorrow? If the Mestrah passes, the priests will move up the coronation.”

  “Probably. I have most of the required runes in my personal stash, so I’d only have to make one or two others. But I have to admit . . . I left something out when we were discussing it, Marcus.” A flash of his fear brushes my skin, strange and brief. “Because I had to be sure this was worth the risk. There’s one more piece I need to complete the binding.”

  I straighten. “Anything.”

  “I need the Shifter’s blood.”

  Apos. I grit my teeth, cursing that I thought this would be the end.

  “Conlee,” Marcus growls. “That’s a very critical detail to have left out. We may only have a day—”

  “I know, my friend, I’m sorry. I thought I was being careful. I didn’t know we’d be so crunched for time.”

  I sigh. “How much do you need?”

  “Not much. Enough to smear across six stones.” He digs a couple from his apron pocket and holds them out. Each is as wide and tall as the knuckle of a finger. “My mother once made one from a floor stain. A Shifter cut himself breaking into a house, and it was enough. If that’s helpful.”

  I nod, though my head already aches from imagining all the ways this could go wrong. This means getting very close to Kasta again. Possibly with a weapon, considering what we need. Which I don’t see going well at all.

  “Then we’ll get it,” Marcus says. “Thank you for your help.”

  The Runemaster bows. “I’ll be here. But do you mind if I hold on to these pelts, dōmmel? I will keep the Shifter’s identity secret, but if anyone catches me making this, I can assure them with these that the necklace is legal. I’ll keep them safe in case you need them again, I promise.”

  He reaches for the bag, but I step back. It never occurred to me I might have to leave the evidence, and I’m suddenly paranoid that he wonders if they’re fake. But that would be ridiculous. That would mean someone Marcus trusts is lying to me, and push me even closer to becoming Kasta, who wouldn’t trust anyone with anything at all.

  Gods, I’ll be so glad when this is over.

  Marcus raises a brow, and I thrust the sack forward. “Of course. Not a problem.”

  The Runemaster takes it. We step back into the armory, and I shake off my nerves, determined to see this through. Just one piece left. One more before I make Kasta confess how he survived . . . and he discovers exactly how far I went to stop him.

  * * *

  The death horns sound just as Marcus and I emerge from the armory.

  The High Priests’ guards find me before we’ve even left the military wing. I’m taken to a private room, where I sit behind a wooden scholar’s table and one of the Mestrah’s somber-faced advisors lays out my future like a terrible hand of cards.

  The Mestrah is dead.

  Kasta and I are unofficially Orkena’s rulers.

  And our coronation has been rescheduled for tomorrow night.

  This is a show of force, he says. To show our enemies that Kasta and I are so unfazed by the last attack and the king’s loss that we can step up to our duties at the drop of a hat. Just as we will step up, very soon, to handle Wyrim.

  He tells me these things as if I said them myself.

  And what else can I do but agree?

  I leave in silence. A handmaiden brings me a gray mourning cloak, and I slip it on without seeing her. I have less than a day to get Kasta’s blood. Less than a day before I become locked into a future from which I will never escape, before I fail Maia, before I’m forced to face a war with a boy who literally thirsts for death.

  I already have the start of a plan. It involves swords and a great deal of risk, and I will not be telling Jet about it. Even Marcus agreed to wait until morning to fill Jet in on what we did tonight. He has more than enough to deal with already.

  But even in my urgency, I know Kasta has enough to deal with right now, too. And so I will give him the night to mourn.

  And tomorrow, this ends.

  XXVIII

  IN the morning, after the Royal Materialist has stopped in to take my measurements for a coronation gown, and a commander has briefed me on security measures for the ceremony, and approximately a thousand servants have streamed into my room to set incense around and ask my preferences for food and colors and décor, I stand before Kasta’s door.

  I have three hours until I’m supposed to be back to get dressed. Three hours to finish this.

  I knock.

  No answer. No rustle of movement. I wait, and knock again. The guards at either side of the doors watch me, and just a
s I’m about to ask if he’s in, the shorter guard tips his staff.

  “He’s only let two people in all morning, dōmmel,” he says. “Though I imagine you’d be the third, if you announced yourself.”

  “Thanks,” I say, heat prickling my skin. That I’ve fooled even them into thinking everything’s fine between Kasta and me sits like oil in my stomach.

  I turn back to the doors. “Kasta?”

  More silence. This is not going to work if he won’t even see me.

  “Kasta. It’s not about the coronation.”

  More silence. I tip my head back, frustrated, fretting that now I’ll need yet another plan, when the door clicks open.

  Kasta looks out at me, entirely unkempt.

  His hair falls into his eyes, unruly and tangled. He’s dressed in the same white tunic and belt as yesterday, and old makeup smudges around his eyes, less sharp lines and more like bruises. He’s still wearing sandals. It doesn’t look like he slept.

  “Gods,” I say. “You look terrible.”

  All things considered, this is not a very sensitive thing to say, even if I am hoping he’s in prison by this evening. But Kasta gives me a small smile.

  “Come in,” he says.

  “Actually,” I say, alarmed by the invitation, “I think what we need is some time at the training grounds.” He raises a brow, and I twist my hands together. “You just lost your father, and it’s clear to me now that I really need to know how to defend myself without magic. I’m worried there will be another attack today. I meant to look into this soon anyway, but then the Mestrah . . .”

  Kasta winces, and I rush on.

  “Will you teach me to use a sword?”

  His hand drops from the door. Whatever he was expecting, this wasn’t it. “Right now?”

  “I want to carry one for the coronation. And actually be able to use it, if needed.”

  His eyes narrow. “Does Jet know you’re asking me?”

  “Jet and I . . . disagree on this,” I say, which I’m very sure would be the truth, if Jet knew what I was doing. “And I—” My heart ticks up. Please, gods, just say yes. “I want to learn from you.”