Beneath the Citadel

by Destiny Soria

  “I had a feeling you’d be back.”

  Newt whirled at the voice.

  “I was hoping to catch more of you,” Captain Marsh went on in an unhurried tone, crossing his arms. “But one at a time or all together—it doesn’t matter. None of you are leaving the citadel alive.”

  He was standing on the other side of the table, equidistant from the stairwell and the corridor of cells, cutting Newt off from both of them. He took stock of the captain, who wore a sheathed knife at one hip and a looped iron chain at the other. No pistol at least. Newt’s heart was pounding again, but his energy reserves were already wasted. His knees wobbled and his jaw trembled. Newt crossed his arms too, so Marsh at least wouldn’t see how his hands shook.

  “The others are already gone,” he said. A useless lie, but he was still trying to think of a way out of this. He took in the room instinctively, every object, every possible advantage he could take. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

  “Then I guess there won’t be anyone coming to help you,” the captain replied.

  The chain lashed out from his side so fast that Newt barely even saw it. His movement was simple reflex, and he dropped to the floor just before the chain would have caught him across the neck. He rolled under the table and kicked the chair toward the captain. It hit him, but not with the force Newt had hoped. Still on his knees, he ducked out from under the table before the chain could fly back but was met with a searing pain in his left shoulder. He looked down to see the knife protruding from his arm, buried almost to the hilt, which glinted iron in the lantern light.

  His vision dimmed, and he fell forward, catching himself with his right hand. Slowly, sickeningly, the knife slid free from his flesh, guided by the invisible hand of Marsh’s bloodbond. It was slick with blood, and for a second that darkly luminous red was the only thing Newt could see. A sound met his ears. He realized dimly it was his own cries of pain.

  The blade was coming for his heart next. He knew it in the part of his brain that was pure animal instinct. If you’re fast enough, nothing can hurt you.

  A lesson. A lie. Maybe that’s all his father had ever given him in the end. Or maybe he just wasn’t fast enough.

  The knife lanced toward him again, and Newt twisted to the side. The blade sliced across his chest, cutting a long, stinging line, but at least it wasn’t buried in his heart. He rolled under the table again and pushed upward, his shoulder screaming in protest. The table toppled. A split second later there was a thump as the blade slid between two slats of wood, stopped at the hilt—and an inch from Newt’s eye.

  He pushed off from the table and charged the captain, before his mind could catch up and protest the terrible idea. There wasn’t much distance to cover between them, but Marsh was fast. Faster than him. Dimly, Newt heard the scrape of steel against wood. He was only a few feet from the captain. At the last second he dove to the left. He tried to roll with the impact, but his body refused to cooperate, and he ended up on his back just inside the corridor. He looked up in time to see—with no little satisfaction—that Marsh had only barely stopped the knife from driving into his own chest.

  The satisfaction was fleeting. Captain Marsh plucked the knife from the air and turned a glare on Newt that might have melted steel. Newt’s instincts sang. He scrambled to his feet and started to run down the corridor. He wasn’t sure where he was going, but he did know he had to run. Maybe he could be fast enough. Maybe he could—

  The iron chain whipped around his ankles, and he flew face-first into the floor. His ears rang, his shoulder throbbed, and his chest ached. He tried to move, to at least pull himself to his hands and knees, but his muscles wouldn’t respond. His knee felt odd, and he realized it had popped out of joint. Prisoners had caught on that something was happening and were shouting and banging on their cell doors. The floor was rough and cool against his cheek, and he could feel the dampness of his own blood pooling beneath him.

  He expected the knife, but it never came. Instead, the chain slithered from beneath his legs, hissing along the ground. With one last flash of clarity, Newt managed to slip his hand under the chain just as it tightened around his neck. He pushed against it with all his dwindling strength, keeping it from crushing his throat, but still he could drag in only short, painful breaths. His other arm was useless. He couldn’t push himself off the floor, could only press his forehead into the stone, press his hand against the iron. Not enough.

  “I wish you kids had left the city when you’d had the chance,” came the captain’s voice, but it was very far away.

  Newt’s eyes were blurred with tears. The world had shrunk into a single moment of bright, unending pain. He tried to gasp in more air, tried to stay conscious. Not enough.

  A thump.

  The chain loosened slightly, and Newt sucked in a desperate breath. Another thump. The chain fell slack. He flung it away from himself, blinking at the spots dancing in his vision. With groaning effort, he rolled onto his back, propped on his good arm.

  The captain was prone on the floor, not moving. Over him stood Vesper, her hand outstretched and trembling. Beside her was Alys, clutching a cracked lantern, staring wordlessly at Newt with wide eyes. For a second, even the prisoners were silent.

  “Good timing,” Newt said. It was more like a croak.

  That jolted Alys into action, and she ran forward.

  “Not that good,” she murmured, dropping to her knees beside him. Her hands hovered over his shoulder and chest, like she knew she needed to check his wounds but didn’t know where to start. “I caught a glimpse in the runes when we were leaving the chancellor’s study—I should have seen it sooner—I’m so sorry.”

  Her words were tumbling and her voice torn. Newt frowned in confusion at the misery etched into her features. He thought of her parents, ripped from their beds, branded as traitors. Maybe the trouble with seeing the future was that everything felt preventable, even the things that weren’t. Wincing at the stab of pain, Newt managed to raise his left hand to take hers. It was wet with blood, but Alys didn’t flinch away.

  “You’re here,” he told her. “You saw it in time.”

  Alys’s lips quivered. The jagged regret in her face smoothed the slightest bit. She squeezed his hand, and he thought he saw the ghost of a smile before she was suddenly herself again, all business.

  “Vesper, come help me,” she said. “We’ll need to bandage these wounds before going anywhere.”

  “We’ll have to do it fast.” Vesper glanced over her shoulder. Her cheeks were drained of all color, and she swayed on her feet as she walked, as if the floor was the deck of a storm-tossed boat. “There will be other guards soon.”

  “Can you stand if we help you?” Alys asked Newt.

  He nodded. Alys helped him sit up the rest of way, but when he moved his legs, a sharp pain radiated from his knee.

  “Wait.” He gritted his teeth and took hold of his kneecap. He jerked his leg straight, guiding the joint back into alignment. He gasped out a breath, but the pain was already dissipating. Or, rather, it was overwhelmed by the pain in his shoulder.

  Alys’s eyebrows twitched a little in either concern or curiosity, but she said nothing. She and Vesper supported most of his weight as he climbed to his feet. His vision tilted and darkened, but he stayed conscious. His legs were working at least.

  “The captain has the key to the cabinet,” he said, not entirely sure that he was talking out loud. “The poison.”

  “We’ll get it.” Alys left him propped on Vesper while she righted the chair. “First you need to sit down so I can take a look at the damage. Evander would never forgive me if I let you bleed out on the dungeon floor.”

  Newt wanted to ask exactly what she meant by that last part, but he couldn’t quite form the words. Instead, he did as he was told and sat down.

  FORTY-FIVE

  EVANDER

  He and Cassa stopped running when they reached an abandoned corridor, dark enough that maybe no one would be coming this way a
nytime soon. After a few seconds to catch his breath, Evander studied Cassa from the corner of his eye. She looked the same as he’d seen her last. Gaunt and bedraggled. Her hair was limp and stringy, her features wan. The bruise under her eye was a faint greenish purple. He was a little surprised she hadn’t jumped onto the table and tried to strangle the councilors with her own manacles. But then he was also surprised that she hadn’t killed the chancellor when she had the chance.

  Chancellor Dane was the reason her parents were dead. In a way, he was the reason for everything Cassa had ever done since that day four years ago.

  He wanted to press her for more details of exactly what had happened when she went after the chancellor, but they were too exposed here, in the middle of the citadel. Also he could see in the faint light that her jaw was quivering. He wasn’t sure what to make of that.

  “Let’s go,” he said. “We’re meeting the others at the chapel by the western wall.”

  Cassa frowned and fell into step beside him.

  “Why there?”

  “That’s where they lower the elixir.” He hesitated. Only a few hours ago Cassa had deserted them at Solan’s word. “It’s the last dose he needs before the bloodbond takes effect. This is our last chance to poison it.”

  If Cassa’s thoughts were whirring, there was no evidence on her face. He wasn’t sure what he expected from her. He only hoped it wasn’t dissent.

  “I’ve been at that chapel before,” she said at last. “The night I met Vesper.”

  A strange sort of relief washed over Evander.

  “You mean the night you almost burned her alive?” he asked.

  “‘Almost’ hardly counts.”

  He snorted but didn’t say more. For a while they concentrated on making their way through the Central Keep in silence. Evading the patrolling guards was a matter of good timing and quick instincts, waiting for the right moment to sprint down corridors and duck around corners. They had to backtrack several times to avoid being seen, but between the two of them, they managed to find a way out of the keep and into the inky night.

  Evander blinked in the chilly air as the clock chimed the half hour. His near brush with death in that forsaken courtyard felt like it had been a lifetime ago, but it had been barely half an hour. He hadn’t let himself think about it too closely. About those raging, breathless seconds, locked in struggle with the guard who only a moment earlier had been ready to kill him. Evander wasn’t sure he’d ever escaped that moment. A part of him was still there, cold iron on his wrists, cold stone beneath his knees, waiting for the bullet that would end everything.

  Cassa led the way as they crept past brick buildings and shops. Everything was quiet out here and shrouded in a misty fog. It was too early even for the shopkeepers to be stirring. Evander had never imagined the citadel to be a place that slept. In his head, it was always a roiling hive of political machinations and society affairs. As they circled the enormous structure that had to be the Mirror Keep, Cassa glanced over her shoulder at him and slowed just enough to fall into step beside him. In the murk, she was only a silhouette, unreadable and untouchable.

  “I’m glad you’re not dead,” she said, her voice low and halting.

  No thanks to you, he wanted to say.

  “Me too,” he said.

  Her steps faltered, but she kept moving. Her head was ducked now, her hands fists at her sides. He could hear her shortened breath punctuating her footfalls. He stayed beside her. He waited.

  “I need—” she began, but faltered again. A few more steps in silence. When her voice came, it was so strained, he thought it might break. “I need you to understand why I did it. Why I had to do it.”

  Despite the anger that still seethed in his chest, he wanted to understand. He really did. He wanted there to be a way that her abandonment wasn’t a betrayal. He wanted there to be a way to forgive her.

  “You didn’t have to do anything,” he said, keeping his voice at a murmur.

  “I didn’t know what else to do. Solan’s infallible prophecy—he said I was the one who killed the chancellor. I was the one who had to kill him. I couldn’t give that up. After everything we’d done, after everything we’d lost, I couldn’t just let our one chance slip away.”

  Her breathing was faster now, uneven. There was familiar fire in her words, but beneath that, something new. Desperation. Evander swallowed against the lump in his throat.

  “Did you even consider that he might be lying? That he wanted to separate us? That he needed you to kill the chancellor because he couldn’t do it himself?”

  Cassa stared ahead, her lips a grim line. Then she shook her head.

  “I think he really dreamed an infallible prophecy—or thought he did. Otherwise why would he have waited all this time? He had all the knowledge of the citadel at his disposal, whenever he felt like taking it. He could have found another way out. I don’t think he was lying.”

  “He’s a murderer!” The words flew out much louder than he’d intended, echoing for a heartbeat. He bit down hard on his lip, tried to ease his own frustration. Cassa didn’t reply, and he continued in a forced whisper. “For seers’ sake, have you forgotten that Mira is dead down there in the dark?”

  “No, I haven’t,” she bit off. “I also haven’t forgotten the thousands of people who died in these streets while the council waited safely behind their walls for the slaughter to be over.”

  She’d stopped walking, her gaze sweeping across the night, as if she could see the evidence of that slaughter, lurking in the fog, imprinted forever in the stone and shadows. Evander could remember it vividly—the last battle of the rebellion—though he’d been miles away, warm and safe with his family. The sounds had carried though. And after, the carrion birds had swarmed for days, a dismal cloud over the citadel. It had never occurred to Evander to ask Cassa where she’d been on that day. Wherever she’d been, it wouldn’t have been warm or safe, not with her parents in the thick of it all.

  He turned to face her. His eyes were adjusting, but her features were still obscured.

  “You had your chance to kill the chancellor,” he said softly. “Why didn’t you take it?”

  She looked down at the ground, then at the empty, dying night around them. She wouldn’t look at him.

  “It would have just been one more person dead.” Her voice was feather-light and fragile. “It wouldn’t have changed anything—not really. I didn’t know what else to do.”

  It wouldn’t have brought her parents back. Wouldn’t have filled the gouging holes that the rebellion left behind. There would have just been another chancellor to take Dane’s place. The citadel would carry on, as it always had and perhaps always would. Maybe Solan had foreseen the council’s fall, but there was nothing that could undo the damage that had already been done. The world they had inherited was broken, and they were fools to think they could somehow piece it back together.

  “I just wish you had waited for us to wake up,” he said, with a weariness that he suspected was actually forgiveness.

  Cassa flung her arms around him so abruptly that he fell back a step. He let out an involuntary gasp at the pain in his ribs, but once he recovered, he returned the embrace. For a few seconds, while he held her, the citadel faded away. A year ago, being this close to her had felt as natural as silver in his hands. The weight of her against him, the murmur of her heartbeat answering his own, the way her head rested so easily on his shoulder. It was all still there, lingering in memory, but things were different between them now. Not better, not worse. Just different. There was still comfort to be had though. Warmth and safety. He knew that was all she wanted. It was all he wanted too.

  “We should go,” she said at last, but she didn’t move.

  “I thought I’d wait for you to stop crying first.”

  She pulled away from him immediately, her scowl visible even in shadow.

  “I’d be careful if I were you,” she said. “Concussion or no, I’ll still knock you upside the head.
”

  He lifted his hands in surrender, and she started walking. He couldn’t help but notice that though her stride was as purposeful as ever, she did swipe her sleeve across her eyes.

  Once they were away from the Mirror Keep, the possibility of running into guards dwindled, and they picked up their pace. They neared the chapel before the next chime of the bell, though Evander had a feeling it would come soon. The stars had begun to fade behind clouds. The fog felt thicker here, at the edge of the citadel. When the chapel came into view at the end of the street, his heart shuddered. Built of the same stone as the wall, it looked more like a massive tomb than a place for the reverent to gather. The Alchemist’s Fire above the door was swirling and hypnotic. A memorial to the Slain God. A summoning of his children.

  He saw the two guards at the cross street ahead of them at the same time Cassa did. She swore under her breath and yanked him to the side, into the narrow passage between two buildings.

  “Did they see us?” she asked, her back pressed against the wall.

  Evander laid his hands against the cool brick and peered around the corner, just enough to catch a glimpse of the guards’ backs as they approached the chapel. He eased back behind the wall.

  “I don’t think so. They’re headed for the chapel.”

  “They’re early,” Cassa said. The clock rang out as if in response. A quarter till the first morning bell.

  “Or we’re late.” He chanced another look. One of the guards was disappearing inside, while his partner remained in front of the doors. “We’re going to need a distraction.”

  “We need the poison.”

  “Newt will get it. They’ll be here.”

  He didn’t need to look at Cassa to know she wasn’t convinced. Newt wouldn’t fail though. Evander knew that like he knew his own name. His heart skipped a beat. They would probably come down the same street he and Cassa had. If the guard was paying any attention all, he wouldn’t miss three people, no matter how much shadow and fog they had protecting them.