Hearts & Minds: Book Six in the Crown of Blood series

by White, Gwynn

  That didn’t stop his steps from slowing as they reached the lobby outside the great hall.

  Lukan’s icy voice spilled out of the double doors to greet him. “I called you here today to expose a traitor.”

  A dismayed sigh droned through the hall.

  Unnerved by its almost inhuman sound, Grigor stopped. Morass shoved him through the open doorway. He peered into the hall—and almost cried out.

  The entire court was crammed into the cavernous room. In their usual seats, the high-born slumped, as if sleeping. Every inch of wall was occupied by slouching low-born servants. Only the guardsmen prowled. Faces devoid of animation, eyes unblinking, the high-born and their servants stared at the royal dais—or rather at Lukan, who loomed tall and elegant above the hall. Unbelievably, one of his hands glowed with cold informa light, although no image showed.

  Grigor’s churning stomach turned to water.

  Meka had appeared just as dead as these people in the vision Father had shown him of his brother in the Hive. Father had blamed Meka’s ice crystal. Had Lukan destroyed the entire court’s minds in the same way? It would explain why he openly held an informa, a device usually hidden from these people.

  Too scared to breathe, he sought Natalia in the crowd.

  She sat at her family table. Lolling apathetically in her chair, her beautiful, intelligent face was utterly blank. Her eyelids drooped over equally vacant eyes. Drool collected at the corners of her sagging lips.

  Her mother and two younger brothers were no better. Even her father, bulldog-like Pytor Pavel, was a shell. Stefan Zarot, who usually sat with them, wasn’t there.

  Grigor clenched his fists and stepped right into Lukan’s line of sight. Voice raised, he demanded, “What have you done to everyone?”

  “Grigor, our traitor,” Lukan replied languidly. “I would call you an Avanov, but you are not worthy of the name.”

  Almost as if automated, the high-born turned in unison to stare at him.

  The eeriness of their hollow eyes dried Grigor’s mouth.

  Lukan held up the informa. An image of Grigor at the great hall doors flickered above it. He’d been captured on one of the many cameras. Lukan had probably watched him from the moment he’d awoken. “Join me.”

  “Thanks for the invite,” Grigor called, “but I’m only interested in Natalia and her family.”

  Lukan hissed like an asp.

  Grigor braced himself for a command to Morass to attack him.

  It didn’t happen.

  Not sure what that meant, he picked his way through the tables of somnolent high-born toward Natalia.

  She watched him approach with no sign of recognition.

  Behind him, steel rasped on leather. He peered cautiously over his shoulder. So light on his feet, Morass had crept up behind him unawares. The dagger from his hip was now clenched in his hand.

  Grigor yelped and spun. “Stab me in the back? Is that the plan?” He grabbed Morass’s hand to wrench the blade away.

  A flick of Morass’s wrist and he tossed Grigor onto Countess Rosina. Tears smarting, he groaned as her shoulder crushed his scabs. They oozed, hot and sticky on contact.

  “Bleeding,” Countess Rosina mumbled. “On me. The traitor is bleeding.” Her arms flailed as if she were trying to shove him away but couldn’t muster the coordination for the simple act.

  Someone below the dais stuttered, “L-Lukan, d-don’t. G-rigor is already i-injured.” Kestrel, without doubt, although the drunken slur was missing from her stutter.

  His mother had defended him against Lukan. He shook his head in wonder.

  Surely that was impossible? If he wasn’t tangled up with Countess Rosina, he would have pinched himself to check that he wasn’t dreaming.

  “Kestrel, unless you want a turn with Morass, shut up and watch.” Lukan’s chilling voice cut across the hall.

  “L-leave my son a-alone.” Despite her stutter, Kestrel’s voice rang with defiance.

  Not impossible, then. For the first time ever, she really was putting him before her lover.

  If Kestrel had abandoned Lukan, things in the palace had to be desperate. He wrenched away from Countess Rosina and peered down a gap between the tables to find her.

  Hair disheveled, wearing a filthy gown, Kestrel stood directly below Lukan. Tears streaking her face grimy, she mouthed, “G-Grigor, don’t cross h-him. P-please.”

  What the hell had happened since his beating?

  Morass’s hand shot out. It slammed into his back. Gasping, he shot forward. His outstretched hands skidded across Natalia’s table. They stopped him from slamming into her.

  The dagger that had started the trouble lay across her place-setting.

  He straightened and shouted to Lukan, “If you think I’m going to hurt Natalia, you must be crazy.”

  “Crazy?” Lukan pounded the balustrade with the informa. “You dare to call me crazy? You will pay for your insolence.”

  Hands clutching her dress, Kestrel looked up at Lukan. “Y-you promised you would n-never hurt my s-sons.” A sob wracked her. “I—I g-gave you e-everything… b-but you still lied.”

  Could the day get any more surreal?

  He took advantage of her outburst to swipe at the dagger. If he could knock it off the table…

  Morass’s big hand thumped down over it first. His other hand landed heavily on Natalia’s shoulder.

  She didn’t even blink.

  Unsure of what enraged him more—Morass’s effrontery or her passivity—Grigor flew at Morass. He drove one fist into the sadist’s solar plexus, and the other into his kidney.

  They stopped as if they’d hit a wall.

  Jarring pain shot up both his arms, into his shoulders and down his back. The blood drained from his face and, with it, all his strength. It was only the pressure of the table edge against his legs that stopped him from slumping to the floor.

  Morass laughed. “Puny boy.”

  From behind, hands clutched his biceps. “S-stop f-fighting! Stop!” Kestrel’s hysterical voice.

  “Mother and son. Traitors both.” Lukan threw the informa across the hall.

  It smacked Natalia’s forehead and bounced onto the table. Saliva shot from her mouth and hit her little brother’s chin. The boy didn’t react.

  “Lady Natalia Pavel,” Lukan drawled. “I command you to pick up that dagger.”

  Grigor’s heart hitched as Natalia’s fingers clawed across the table to the dagger. Guessing what was coming—only Lukan was sick enough to do this—he tried to shake Kestrel off him so he could get to the dagger first.

  Kestrel clung on like a tick. “N-no fighting. He will k-kill you.”

  He slashed his arms out to his sides. She lost her grip on his left arm but clung on tighter to his right.

  What a time for her to start caring! Hadn’t the misguided woman figured what her ex-lover planned?

  Natalia’s fist closed around the hilt.

  Lukan laughed manically. It cut off as sharply as it had started. “Lady Natalia, cut out Grigor’s heart. Rip it out with that dagger in the same way Lynx of Norin cut out mine.”

  Dagger clenched, Natalia pushed back her chair and stood. She turned slowly to face him.

  Dragon’s ass! This can’t be happening.

  He yelled, “Natalia, no!”

  Her eyes locked on him. “I must do as commanded.”

  Kestrel let go of him. “G-Grigor, run.” She shoved his bloody back.

  Still not wanting to believe this nightmare possible, Grigor only took two steps away from Natalia. He held up his hands beseechingly. “Please. Fight this. You support Nicholas, not—”

  “Traitor!” Natalia lunged at him.

  The tip of the dagger hooked his forearm. He cried out as it gouged a deep wedge into his flesh. His blood dripped onto the flagstones in coin-sized drops. Cursing himself for his stupidity, he jumped away and darted through a gap between the tables. He braced for someone to stop him—he’d knock their heads off—but n
o one lifted a finger to slow him.

  “Lady Natalia,” Lukan yelled. “Hunt him down like the cur he is.”

  Clutching his bleeding arm, Grigor glanced back at Natalia.

  The dagger glinted in her hand as she lumbered after him. Thankfully, her uncoordinated feet struggled to negotiate the maze of tables, chairs, and high-born.

  Morass jumped in front of her. “Move,” he shouted at the high-born. “All of you.” Without waiting for them to scramble to their feet, he tossed their tables over.

  People scattered.

  It opened a clear path for Natalia to reach him.

  With no such clear run, Grigor was suddenly much slower than she was. He had to negotiate dazed high-born milling around while still keeping tabs on what was happening behind him.

  “R-run!” Kestrel yelled at him. Her hands flapped at him to go. “S-save yourself. F-find M-Meka. G-get away from h-here.”

  Lukan leaned over the balustrade. “You really do have a death wish, don’t you?”

  “D-death is freedom.” Kestrel grabbed a chair and swung it at Natalia’s head.

  A killing blow if it struck. Grigor’s blood chilled.

  But before he could cry out to stop her, Morass knocked the chair out of her hand. It clattered to the floor and broke apart, shooting legs in every direction. The sadist scooped one of those legs up. He slammed it across Kestrel’s temple. Her head cracked back, twisting into an impossible angle. She dropped to the flagstones in a heap of filthy petticoats.

  Grigor’s steps faltered.

  Even as he willed Kestrel to move, he knew her neck had been snapped.

  His mother was dead.

  And with Natalia closing in on him, he had no time to explore the heat, followed by ice that revelation rushed through him.

  “Get moving before you turn Natalia into a murderer,” a woman’s voice said in his head. A woman he didn’t recognize.

  He shook away his daze and sprang onto the closest table. The blood streaming down his arm sprayed across the high-born clustered around it. Ignoring their cries, he ran across the gleaming wood. The table juddered beneath his pounding boots. When it abruptly ended, he jumped onto the next, and then the one next to that.

  The gap between him and Natalia opened.

  With just half a dozen tables left between him and the open doors, Morass also broke into a run. He shoveled high-born aside and reached the door first.

  Grigor swore. Teetering on the edge of the last table, he looked back at Natalia.

  She plodded towards him with a mindless determination that filled him with despair.

  And as for Morass—

  Nothing he could do would deter the sadist.

  I’m not getting out of here alive, he told the unknown voice bleakly. I’ll never see Meka again.

  “Not so smug now, traitor?” Lukan called from his eyrie.

  Grigor pulled himself up tall. “You may have destroyed the minds of everyone in this room, but I know who and what you are. You call yourself an emperor, but you’re nothing but a coward hiding behind a shield of mind-controlled women and children.”

  The scar running the length of Lukan’s one cheek whitened against his puce skin. His hand shot out to point at Natalia. “Bring me his heart in your hands, or your family dies.”

  Grigor flushed cold. No matter what happened to him, Natalia could not suffer like this, not when Nicholas, Axel, and Dmitri would ultimately triumph. When they marched into this palace and destroyed Lukan, Natalia’s ice crystal would be neutralized. Perhaps then she would know what she’d done. Aching to find a way to reach the girl inside this shell, he turned imploring eyes on her.

  Probably following his lead, she tried to climb onto the table closest to her, but her feet hooked on each other. She fell. Her backside struck the flagstones with a painful-sounding crunch. The dagger clattered out of her hand.

  A nearby guardsman lunged at her. “Allow me to help you, my lady.” His voice was surprisingly soft. He picked up the dagger, gave it to her, and then hoisted her gently onto the table. When she wobbled uncertainly, he gripped her legs until she’d found her balance.

  Without even acknowledging his kindness—who knew guardsmen cared?—she pulled away and plodded toward Grigor.

  His eyes smarted. How could he evade her now to save himself if that condemned her entire family to death? It was enough that his mother had died for him. He didn’t want more blood on his hands.

  There was only one answer.

  He faced Lukan and yelled, “I will not let Natalia’s family die. I go to my death declaring my allegiance to the rightful Chenayan crown prince, Nicholas the Light-Bearer, and to Dmitri the seer, and to the Pathfinder Alliance.” He raised his bloody hand and shook his fist in salute. “May they triumph in Chenaya.”

  “Show that allegiance by surviving,” the unknown woman said dryly. “Get out of here. Now.”

  His eyes widened. But Natalia’s—

  “Allegiance demands your heart,” the woman snapped. “Choose now to whom you will give it. Lukan or the Light-Bearer.”

  If it was just about him, that choice would be dead easy. Nicholas. Every single time.

  But this wasn’t just about him. Natalia had rights here, too. Before Lukan’s ice crystal, like him, she would have chosen Nicholas. Every single time. He suspected her parents would have, too. But with her brain hijacked, she would give his heart to Lukan without question.

  As if to prove it, she muttered repeatedly, “I must obey the emperor.”

  If he didn’t know better, he could almost believe that she was psyching herself up for the task. Her dead eyes caught his. For the briefest moment, panic, fear, and desperation glittered starkly in their depths.

  It chilled him to the core.

  Natalia knows what’s going on, he yelled to the voice. She’s still in there.

  “Do you still want her to murder the man she loves?”

  But her family—

  “Is she looking back at them with the same horror?”

  She wasn’t, but Grigor didn’t doubt that anguish would come if he escaped and she had to carry out Lukan’s vile command.

  “She knows her family would rather die than support Lukan. But she can’t stop herself from obeying Lukan’s first command—to bring him your heart.”

  Still, Grigor dithered.

  “Prince Grigor Avanov,” the woman almost yelled in his head. “Decide now who you serve. Lukan or Nicholas.”

  Eyes as tight and strained as Natalia’s had been, he shouted, “Natalia, I love you. And I honor and respect your family for the heroes they are, but Nicholas needs me alive. And I know you’d choose him too if the roles were reversed.”

  No reaction.

  No matter. He believed she had understood him. He shot around to look at the door.

  Morass’s bulk loomed in front of it.

  Not sure how he’d get past the sadist, he leaped off the table and raced directly for Morass.

  Smiling faintly, Morass stepped forward to intercept him.

  Grigor darted to the side to dodge around him.

  Morass mirrored him. The sadist grinned. “We can play all day, traitor, but you won’t escape me.”

  A whip cracked in the air above his head.

  Caught off guard, he stumbled. Before he could steady himself, the wielder—the guardsman who had helped Natalia—skidded between him and Morass. Without turning to look at Grigor, he whispered, “Stay behind me, my prince, while I clear a path for you.”

  Taller than Grigor, his broad back was an effective shield. It also blocked his view of Morass.

  The guardsman cracked his whip a second time. And then a third.

  “Stop that traitor!” Lukan bellowed from the dais, where he probably had a perfect view of what was happening.

  Grigor poked his head around—and his jaw gaped.

  Morass was on his knees. The whip was locked so tight around his neck, his face mottled. Bloody saliva foamed at his whip-ra
vaged mouth. The cruel metal and bone woven into the leather had slashed through his good eye. Bloody gore oozed out of the socket. The patch covering his other eye was gone, exposing a sunken hole in his face.

  Morass would never see another victim again.

  Gurgling, Morass clawed at the leather. Held taut by the guardsman, the thongs merely bit deeper into his skin.

  Shouts and the shuffle of feet pulled Grigor from his stunned stupor.

  Guardsmen shoved their way through crowds of high-born to get to him and his savior.

  Natalia had also reached the edge of the last table. After a moment’s pause to lock eyes with him, she jumped off and floundered as she landed.

  With time running out, he stepped out from behind his unnamed friend and whispered urgently, “They’ll kill you for this.”

  “Morass will be dead,” the man’s soft voice answered. “And you will be alive. But only if you go quickly. Help Nicholas the Light-Bearer when he gets here.” Sweat beaded the guardsman’s face, and his hands and arms holding the whip trembled against Morass’s desperate flailing. An ordinary jasper would not have struggled. He had to be immune to his ice crystal. That meant he knew exactly what he risked.

  Grigor’s chest tightened. “I give you my word on that.” He bolted out the door into the deserted lobby.

  Behind him, at least a dozen whips cracked.

  A soft voice cried out—then silence. The guardsman had to be dead.

  Grigor flinched. Needing to acknowledge the man’s sacrifice, he skidded to a stop. Noise from the great hall cut his reverence short.

  He ran to the closest stairway. More than anything, he needed a hiding place—and fast. But where? Lukan could watch him on his informa. And Natalia knew all his favorite haunts, both in the palace and in the forest.

  Before he reached the stairs, Natalia and her dagger lumbered relentlessly after him. “Running is futile, Prince Grigor. I will find you. I must find you. I cannot stop until I obey my emperor.”