Newt still hadn’t moved, but Alys could see that his chest was rising and falling with soft breaths. She looked over to find Evander’s hip near her left hand. He was on his back, dragging his hands across his face with miserable sluggishness. Alys tried to say his name but ended up coughing instead.
He looked at her for a few seconds, then gradually pushed himself onto his elbows.
“What—” he started but couldn’t seem to finish.
Alys shook her head again. It was coming back to her in brief flashes. The poison, Solan’s agonized cries, the cut on his arm sealed with a mirasma scar. Then the knife. Mira. Crying. There was something else. Something worse. Alys didn’t know if she couldn’t remember or if she just didn’t want to. Newt began to stir. Alys dragged her gaze around the room. No Cassa.
It took them ten minutes to recover enough to find their feet. No one said anything as they each took stock of themselves and their situation. They were still in the seers’ chamber. The only light was from the ghost globe at the base of the statue. Alys’s chest tightened as she surveyed the murky shadows.
“Where’s Cassa?”
No one replied. Evander’s face was pale and pinched with worry as his eyes drifted across the chamber. Alys took a few unsteady steps closer to the ghost globe, straining to see past it. The knife was lying there, still crusted with blood.
Mira had held it to Solan’s neck. None of it made sense. She had come down here to help Solan. She knew that he was going to help them destroy the council. None of it made any sense. She’d been crying.
There was something else. Something worse.
Her eyes were drawn to the inkiness beyond the globe. Something much worse. She stumbled forward wordlessly past the knife, past the light. She dropped to her knees beside Mira’s supine body. She shook her, but Mira didn’t wake. Her hair was tangled across her face. One arm rested on her stomach, the other flung over her head, fingers dangling only inches from the surface of the still waters. She’d been crying, and then she’d told them what Solan had done to her father.
Alys’s throat felt tight and raw. She pressed two fingers into Mira’s neck, just below her jaw. Evander knelt down beside her. Alys waited for a long time, much longer than was necessary, straining to feel any hint of a pulse. Nothing.
A dry sob she hadn’t realized she was holding back burst from her chest. Mira had told them the truth, how three months ago during a visit to the citadel, her father had crumpled to the ground, crying out in pain before falling unconscious. When he awoke, there was nothing of her father left. That same day, a voice—Solan’s voice—had crawled into her mind and told her that she could have her father back if she helped the Seras when they came to her door. Nothing else. No details. She convinced herself that her own mind was playing tricks on her, and after a couple of months of trying in vain to awaken any recognition in her father’s blank eyes, she convinced herself that it was hopeless. And then Evander and Alys arrived at her doorstep, and she knew that helping them was her only chance to save her father.
She’d begged Solan. She’d threatened him. And then suddenly she collapsed. Solan shoved her limp body away and climbed to his feet. Alys remembered scrambling backward. She remembered the others doing the same. Newt had kicked the ghost globe in his haste. She remembered making it to her feet. She remembered Evander asking him why. And then there was nothing.
“We did this,” Evander said from behind her, his voice hoarse. “We brought her here.”
“She must have known who he was from the moment we told her what we were going to do.” Alys struggled to keep her voice even.
“Do you think Solan ever intended to give her father back his memories?” Newt asked.
She didn’t say anything, but Alys couldn’t help but think that they should have known. They should have known that it couldn’t be this easy. They should have known that bringing Mira here was as good as leading her to her death. They should have known that Solan really was a monster.
If you want to insult me, Alys, have the courtesy to do it to my face.
Alys lurched at the voice in her head, and she looked sharply at her brother.
“Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
Alys jumped to her feet. A wave of dizziness almost sent her right back to the ground, but Newt grabbed her arm and kept her steady.
“Solan is still down here,” she said, glancing toward the corridor that led to his chamber. “He’s waiting for us.”
“This is just a suggestion,” said Evander, “but maybe we should stay far away from the murderous, immortal executioner who’s well on his way to becoming all-powerful?”
“What if Cassa’s in there?” Alys demanded.
Evander bit his lip and stared at the golden light that seeped through the tunnel.
“We should at least have a plan first,” Newt said quietly. “If we go in there now, we’re at his mercy.”
Come, or I’ll do more than make you sleep.
“I don’t think we have a choice.” Alys was unable to keep a tremor from her voice. She hated that Solan was in her head. She hated that he could see exactly how scared she was.
“Newt’s right,” Evander said. “We need a plan.”
“Let’s head back toward the lake,” Newt said. “At least get some distance.”
I’ll start with him, I think.
“No!” Alys cried. She didn’t know if it was directed at Solan or Newt.
The boys looked at her strangely. Evander put a hand on her shoulder and tried to catch her eye.
“What’s going on? What’s wrong?” he asked.
Would you prefer I start with your brother?
Desperation flared in her chest. Alys decided to try the move that had always worked for Cassa in the past.
“I’m going in there,” she said. “You can follow me or not.”
She pulled away from Evander and walked quickly toward the corridor. At first, she didn’t hear them following. She wondered if when Cassa tried it, she felt the same barbed tangle of emotions in her chest. The certainty that of course they would follow. The creeping fear that maybe this time they wouldn’t.
But of course, they followed.
Good girl, Alys.
And the only emotion she had left was fear.
THE NIGHT ANSEL BETRAYED SOLAN
It was the middle of the night when he woke. He knew it without looking at a clock, and so, in the memory, Cassa knew it too. Summer. The windows were open, and a faint night breeze brushed the curtains. Yellow curtains. His wife loved the color and only laughed when he complained about their bedroom looking like a giant lemon had exploded in it. She was asleep beside him, her soft gray curls falling over her eyes. A very long time ago, when she was just a milliner’s daughter and he was just a farmer’s son, her hair had been yellow. Not like a lemon, but like sunlight on wheat fields just before the harvest.
Those years were so far past, they felt like stories someone else had told him. Blurred and unreal. She’d followed him so far, from a lonely, distant village to the citadel itself. It had taken him so much longer to get here than he’d thought it would, back when his dreams were only a poor boy’s ambitions. Tomorrow those ambitions would finally mean something. Tomorrow he would take his vows as the high chancellor of Eldra.
You’ve done well, Chancellor.
The voice, faintly familiar, scraped the back of his mind. He shivered, despite the warmth of the room, and sat up. For a few minutes, all was quiet. Sleep was tugging at his eyelids again.
Surely you haven’t forgotten about our bargain.
Ansel leapt out of the bed, nearly tripping over the rug in his haste. His joints creaked and complained until he’d steadied himself against the wardrobe. He gasped and shot a glance at the bed. Nima stirred but didn’t wake.
“What do you want?” he whispered, pressing his hands against his head as if he could somehow force the executioner out.
Only what I was promised.<
br />
“I—I need more time.” He’d never forgotten the deal he’d made for Eldra’s survival. He’d also never intended to follow through with it. Solan was too dangerous. His prison beneath the citadel was the only way to ensure the city’s safety from his unnatural gifts.
A long moment of silence, and Ansel dared to hope that his excuse might work. Then the voice again, just as soft, just as calm.
I see.
Somewhere in the house, someone began to scream.
Ansel’s feet carried him into the hall before his mind had even fully registered what he was hearing. Some sounds called to the deepest of instincts. He ran toward the east wing’s guest quarters, where his son was staying with his wife and the twins. Aden. Kira. Reed. Rowen. Their names were a pounding rhythm in his head, in his heart.
If you hurry, maybe I’ll let you say good-bye.
The voice was not drowned out by the rising cries of pain. It remained an insistent whisper at the back of his mind, impossible to ignore. Though his bones felt like they were splintering and his lungs felt like they were withering, he ran faster. Aden. Kira. Reed. Rowen.
He could hear the servants stirring downstairs, but they couldn’t help him. He rounded the last corner. He could see the open door of the twins’ bedroom. A light shone dimly from inside. Aden. Kira. Reed. Rowen.
Abruptly, the screams stopped. For a brief eternity, Ansel’s heart did too.
“Please,” he whispered. Somehow his pace had slowed to a walk. Each step took him too far and not far enough. The light still shone like a beacon in the corridor, but everything was quiet. So terribly quiet. Even the voice had fallen silent.
When he finally stood in the doorway, it was like standing on the edge of the world’s end. He didn’t think he was breathing anymore. He couldn’t feel his heartbeat. It didn’t seem to matter somehow. Kira was on the floor with Reed still clutched in her arms. His hair, yellow like his grandmother’s once had been, gleamed in the candlelight. Slumped over one of the beds was Aden, who only hours ago had been laughing at the twins’ insistence that surely once Grandpa was the high chancellor, he could do away with bedtime. Wrapped in his arms, as if somehow he could be protected, was Rowen.
Everything was so quiet.
“Please,” he said again, into the wretched silence. “Please, I’ll do anything. Just bring them back.”
More quiet. Aden. Kira. Reed. Rowen. He moved on shaking legs, touched each of their faces with shaking fingers, willing it to not be true. Willing some movement, some hint of life. Willing himself to wake up.
You forget that I can see the future. I’m afraid the time for bargains has passed.
“They’re all I have.” He swept his hand over Rowen’s yellow hair. He looked so peaceful now. But those screams—
On the contrary, Chancellor, you have so much more to lose.
The servants rushed into the room, bleary-eyed, wielding lamps. The entire house had awoken, it seemed.
That was when Ansel realized who was missing.
He pushed past the servants, who were just starting to realize the gruesome truth. He might have been screaming Nima’s name, but maybe it was only in his mind. He didn’t have any space for conscious thought. Instinct alone drove him. The shadowy corridors were never-ending. The bedroom door was still open, with no light beyond, no sign that Nima had awoken. This time he didn’t slow. He plunged straight into the dark.
She was just as he’d left her, on her stomach, hugging the pillow, her face turned toward the window. Moonlight rested gently on her curls. As Ansel pulled himself unsteadily onto the bed, he thought of sunlight on wheat fields just before the harvest. How far away those years were now. The milliner’s daughter and the farmer’s son. Making plans for a grand, unreachable future.
He lay down beside her and ran his fingers across her cheek, through her hair. She didn’t stir. She was already gone. His eyes burned with tears, but his sobs were trapped in his chest, a tangled mass of agony. Aden. Kira. Reed. Rowen. Nima.
Just kill me, he thought. He didn’t have strength for speech anymore. Isn’t that what you really want?
Not yet. We’ve a new future now, you and I. So much better than the one we had before. Until then, give my regards to the council.
And that was the last thing Cassa remembered.
THIRTY-SEVEN
CASSA
She hadn’t expected Vesper to be here, but that didn’t change anything. If she could hold in her head the memory of the night Chancellor Dane lost everything and still have more hate than pity in her heart, then there was nothing that could change her mind now. Maybe she had become a monster too. Solan was wrong; she could never be great. She could never be even half of what her parents were, but she could at least finish what they’d started.
The rain stung her face and eyes, and she couldn’t catch her breath. Her feet—still bare, since her boots were sitting on the lakeshore under the citadel—ached and bled. She’d run almost the entire way here, cutting across the valley to the road that wound through the wood to the Blacksmith’s cottage. It would have been wiser to make her way through the forest, safe from any ranging patrols, but there wasn’t time for that. If the prophecy was truly infallible, then there was nothing that would stop her from reaching her destination, from standing face-to-face with the chancellor one last time, from pulling the trigger.
She’d seen the chancellor’s carriage waiting on the road a short distance from the cottage, but the driver had been too busy fussing with the horses to notice her ducking through the trees. She wasn’t sure if the chancellor was in the carriage or not, but something inside nudged her to the cottage. She’d blinked at it through raindrops for a few seconds, and then, as if all of this was scripted—and in a way it was—the front door swung open. Chancellor Dane hadn’t looked surprised to see her. He stepped out into the rain without hesitation, his steady gaze never leaving hers, even when she raised the gun. Vesper had been surprised as she stumbled after him, tugging her cape tightly around herself.
“Vesper, get back inside,” the chancellor said.
“Like hell,” Vesper snapped. “Cassa, what are you doing?”
Cassa couldn’t look at her. She kept her eyes on Chancellor Dane, kept her gun leveled at his heart.
“Did it never occur to you that disposing of the current regime would involve disposing of him as well?” Cassa asked, loud enough that her voice carried through the rain. A wind gusted, whipping through her legs and hair, but she kept her stance.
Vesper didn’t answer, and Cassa risked a quick look. Water ran down her pale face in rivulets. Light and shadow from the lantern’s wavering glow played across her features. Her lips were a thin, uncertain line.
“Or did you never expect to dispose of the current regime at all?” Cassa’s voice shook a little with the question. She’d thought betrayal was a single, merciless blow, but really it was a blooming ache, unfurling repeatedly with new pain.
“It’s never been as simple for me as it is for you.” Vesper’s cape flapped in the wind, and she didn’t bother to pull it closed again. “You know I hate everything the council has done. You know I want things to change. But I can only do what I think is right—even if that’s different now than it was before.”
Cassa bit down on her lip until she tasted blood. Before. Before they’d been caught trying to infiltrate the citadel. Before she’d hatched her plan to find out what was happening to people’s memories. Before her parents’ death had changed everything.
Before all of that, when they had just been two sharp minds, two fearless hearts, thrust together by chance and bound together by a single purpose. Maybe Vesper had abandoned that purpose, but it was the only thing Cassa had left.
Some part of her whispered that this wasn’t true, and her thoughts drifted back to the cavern beneath the citadel, to the friends she’d left behind.
She shook away that line of thinking. It was too late to go back now. Solan’s prophecy had laid her futur
e out for her, but it was up to her to claim it. She had to focus. She jerked her gaze back to Chancellor Dane, who hadn’t moved. The trigger was slick beneath her finger. Before she could pull it, Vesper stepped into her line of sight, in front of the chancellor.
“Get out of the way,” Cassa ground out through her locked jaw.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Vesper,” the chancellor said quietly, pushing a hand against her shoulder.
Vesper shook him off and crossed her arms, glaring at Cassa. Her hair was soaked by now into a dull auburn. A few tendrils clung to her forehead.
“I’m not moving,” she said.
Heat flared in Cassa’s chest and filled her lungs.
“Vesper, get out of the way!” she shouted, her voice slicing through the wind and rain.
“No!” Vesper shouted right back. “You listen to me, Cassa Valera. If you want to shoot him, you’re going to have to shoot me first.”
Cassa’s finger twitched on the trigger.
“You think I won’t?”
Vesper didn’t flinch, didn’t drop her eyes from Cassa’s.
“I think you won’t.”
“You didn’t think I would help Solan after I saw what he did to your family, but I did anyway.” Cassa wasn’t sure if she was being cruel to Vesper or the chancellor or herself. “He survived the bloodbond. Soon he’ll be free.”
Vesper’s lips trembled. She pressed them together and said nothing.
“The council deserves to pay for what they’ve done,” Cassa said. “If the only way to destroy them is to set a monster loose, then so be it.”
“What about all the innocent people he’s hurt?” Vesper asked. “All the people he will hurt while he gets his revenge?”
“There’s still the poison,” Cassa said. “Once the council is gone, once Eldra is free, I’ll kill him myself.”
Vesper shook her head slowly.
“This has never been about Eldra, and you know it. This has only ever been about revenge.”
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