The Speaker

by Traci Chee

  Cradling Eduoar’s body against his chest, he pressed hard against the blood-soaked sheets. “What have you done?” he whispered, his lips moving against the king’s damp hair.

  Eduoar had followed in his father’s footsteps.

  Just like the Guard had wanted.

  For a moment Arcadimon let up on Eduoar’s wrists. This was what he’d been planning for, all this time.

  The death of the king.

  A tragedy, just like his father.

  Darion would want him to let Eduoar die. The timing was off—he still needed the support of Gorman Province if he was to succeed in his coup—but he couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity.

  Eduoar’s eyelids fluttered. “I couldn’t let the curse get you.”

  Arcadimon clamped down on his wrists again. “I’m not a Corabelli, you fool.”

  “You have the love of a Corabelli,” Ed whispered. “For us, love and death are the same.”

  People flooded into the room. Guards. Servants. A doctor, maybe. The sounds of their footsteps mingled with the sounds of the rain. They were speaking. They were trying to pull Arcadimon away.

  He hugged Eduoar tighter in his arms.

  Someone was nudging Arcadimon aside. Someone was putting pressure on the king’s wrists. They were taking him.

  “Besides,” Eduoar murmured faintly, “you were taking too long.”

  Arcadimon’s grip went slack. The king’s fingers slid from his own.

  Eduoar knew about the poison—How long? All this time?—and he’d taken it anyway.

  They whisked Eduoar’s body out of the room, and Arcadimon was left sitting in a pool of the king’s blood, alone.

  You were taking too long.

  CHAPTER 29

  Born for This

  While the rain hammered the quarry outside, Archer leaned over the table and sketched out a plan for attacking the Artax.

  A two-pronged assault, like they’d done to Obiyagi and her caravan at the Rock Eater. As soon as the storm dried up, before the pirates could gather their bearings, they’d take the rowboats and hit the Artax from both port and starboard, pinning their enemy amidships.

  “It has to be soon,” he said, “before they realize what’s happened. Before they can escape.”

  Archer was surprised by the even keel of his own voice—pragmatic, confident, the voice of a leader in total control of himself. Not the voice of a leader who had just killed one of their best, one of their brothers.

  He found it hard to believe the bloodletters had shown up at all, trickling in a few at a time, leaving wet splotches on the floor as they took up positions around the table, against the stone walls: Scarza, brooding in the back; Frey, sitting beside Aljan, clasping his hand.

  Archer tried not to look at him. Whenever he looked at Aljan, he saw Versil—eyes open, mouth slack, never to speak again.

  Archer traced the edge of the table, his thumbnail digging grooves in the wood.

  He kept experiencing it—the gun in his hand—the widening of Kaito’s eyes as he realized he was going to die—the recoil shuddering along his arm.

  Why didn’t you stay down?

  Archer dug out another crescent of wood from the tabletop.

  “Why?” Griegi said, interrupting his thoughts. “We already got the boys out. The mission’s over.”

  It’ll never be over.

  “Not for me.” Archer looked down at his hands so he wouldn’t have to look at Aljan. Blood darkened the undersides of his fingernails. Slivers of wood littered the table. “Not after what they did to Versil.”

  “That was one man,” Griegi protested, “and we got him. The pirates on the Artax have done nothing to us.”

  “They did, actually,” one of the newest boys said quietly. “They executed one of us as soon as they got here. He’d been injured in a fight and . . . well, I guess they didn’t want him in that condition.”

  Archer nodded. “Those are Serakeen’s pirates. Strike now, and we’ll be doing the world a favor.”

  The bloodletters shifted uncomfortably, muttering among themselves.

  Across the crowded room, Sefia’s dark eyes met Archer’s. “You sound like Kaito,” she said.

  The others went silent.

  He stared at her for a moment. She could’ve stopped him, he knew. Could’ve stopped the bullet. He’d seen her do it dozens of times. But when it had really counted, she hadn’t even tried.

  “Maybe Kaito was right,” he said. “He wouldn’t have passed up this chance, and neither will I.”

  “He can’t take this chance.” Her voice was a knife. “He’s dead.”

  “I know.” Archer’s eyes burned. “Don’t you think I know? I’m the one who did it. I’m the one who killed him.”

  Kaito had known as soon as he’d pulled his weapon that it was a mistake. He hadn’t wanted Archer dead, not really. Archer had seen it in his eyes, a split second before the bullet struck.

  But by then it had been too late.

  Archer gouged out another chunk of table. He had to fight, to make things hurt, to make things end. If he didn’t fight, all the things he felt would break him, bit by bit, from the inside, splintering his bones. He’d do anything not to feel like that. Anything to forget.

  “We all saw him draw on you. He would’ve killed you,” Scarza said softly. “And the sorcerer is right. He would’ve wanted to attack the Artax too. He would’ve been first to the boats.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Aljan said hoarsely.

  Archer forced himself to look at the mapmaker.

  “Someone needs to pay for what happened to my brother.” His voice was low, and he had the same hysterical light in his eyes as when he’d beaten a man to death in the shadow of the Rock Eater. “Since you won’t let me kill the bonesucker that did it, this is good enough.”

  “You’re not going alone.” Frey squeezed his hand.

  “I’ll go too,” Scarza added. “For Kaito.”

  Archer stood as the bloodletters began to nod, agreement passing through them like a quake through stone. He didn’t care about their reasons for joining them. He cared that their blades were sharp. He cared that their chambers were full and their enemies were within reach.

  “My brother is dead,” Aljan said. “But when I fight, he will rise.”

  “We were dead, but now we rise.” The bloodletters’ voices echoed around him. “We were dead, but now we rise.”

  Without another word, Sefia walked out the door and into the rain.

  Archer should have been relieved that the bloodletters were with him. He should have been disappointed Sefia wasn’t.

  He should have been afraid more of them would die.

  But with battle so near, it was as if all of his emotions had shrunk to pinpoints no bigger than flecks of blood, and he felt nothing but his desire to rip and rend and smother.

  He was a bloodletter. He was a killer.

  And for once, that didn’t bother him at all.

  • • •

  The bloodletters assembled after midnight, as the storm abated with a few last growls of thunder. They’d blackened their clothes and shining bits of weaponry, pulled up their hoods and covered their faces, but they’d left their forearms bare, tattooed letters exposed.

  Archer stood in the gravel, watching them.

  His bloodletters. His army, made for killing.

  At his signal, the bloodletters began loading into the boats. Wind beat about their ears. Waves gnashed at the prows.

  As Archer was about to climb in with them, there was a touch at his wrist.

  “Archer.”

  Sefia was here. He hadn’t known if she’d show up, but she was here. Her hand slid up his arm. She tipped her face toward his. Their lips touched.

  He almost pulled back, but his body would not ob
ey.

  It was a reminder: I know you, even if you’ve forgotten.

  It was a declaration: I’m with you, even in this.

  The words went unsaid, but he felt them there, between their teeth.

  She broke contact so suddenly it was like she’d stolen the breath from his lungs. When she turned toward the boats, he saw the green feather, the only splash of color on the entire rocky shore, glinting in her hair.

  He remembered giving it to her—the simplicity of it, the way she’d described the birthday party she’d never had, the sad beauty of her face, the way her eyes brightened as she ran the feather through her fingers. Everything had seemed so simple then.

  But nothing would be that simple again.

  They seized their oars and shoved away from the beach: Archer, Sefia, and twenty bloodletters, the ones who weren’t guarding the prisoners or too injured to fight again.

  Silent as sharks, they paddled out onto the water, pushing through the swells as the tides threatened to throw them onto the rocks. No one spoke.

  They passed the breakers. Soon it was only them and the black water and the charcoal skies. Out on the bay, the Artax bucked at anchor like a startled bull.

  The closer they got, the calmer Archer felt, knowing his next fight was at his fingertips.

  Paddling up to the waist of the ship, they ditched their oars and began to climb.

  The mad scramble, swift and silent, hand over foot along the side, hauling themselves up by rings and wales, ornamentations and anchor cables, anything to reach the rails before they were spotted.

  But they were spotted.

  There was a cry. The crack of a gun.

  One of the boys—one they’d just rescued, Archer didn’t even know his name—shrieked and plummeted into the water below.

  And then chaos.

  Terrible, gorgeous chaos.

  Boys hoisting themselves over the rails. Pirates striking at them with curved swords and shots of powder. Archer leapt into the melee, his sword carving arcs of silver and blood.

  Months after he’d gotten his voice and his memories back, he’d finally figured out who he was. A killer. A butcher. An artist with severed sinew and bone.

  As Sefia reached the deck, she flung out her hands. One by one, the lanterns of the Artax broke, popping, their lights snuffing out in blossoms of glass and flame.

  The bloodletters surged forward. Screams filled the air as the crew of the Artax toppled like fence posts in a flood.

  Archer wove through the battle, his blade finding throats and hamstrings, the vulnerable places between ribs, the chamber of his revolver cycling as each bullet found a target.

  Somewhere inside him, he remembered being horrified. This bloodshed.

  The pirates might not have attacked. They might have sailed away, leaving the bloodletters alone.

  These deaths weren’t necessary—they wouldn’t stop the impressors—but they made him forget.

  They made him empty.

  They made him whole.

  Archer fought his way to the captain’s quarters, where he cut down the woman who had barricaded herself inside. She tried to fight back, but he could see every move she made before she made it—in the direction of her gaze, the bunching of her muscles, the tilt of her wrist.

  She collapsed facedown on the rug and was still.

  Outside, the din of the battle died to a whimper.

  The Artax was theirs.

  In the cast-iron stove, the embers seethed. An uneven bloodstain appeared beneath the woman’s body, nudging the tips of his boots.

  How many dead were out there?

  How many more boys had lost their lives?

  How come he couldn’t stop thinking of doing it again? To stop himself from feeling this?

  From feeling anything?

  Archer flung his weapons away. His sword hit the baseboard. A sharp point appeared in the wood, like an arrowhead.

  He collapsed on the bunk with his head in his hands, feeling the worry stone swinging at his throat.

  The door opened. A gust of cold air shook him.

  “Archer?” Sefia sounded so far away.

  “How bad is it out there?” he asked.

  The door clicked shut. “Two of the bloodletters are dead. Seven are injured. We took twenty-nine prisoners.” A pause. The mattress shifted as she sat beside him. “Most of them are badly wounded. I don’t know how many will live to see morning.”

  Archer closed his eyes.

  The battle on the Artax was already a blur inside him, but he couldn’t stop seeing Kaito’s face again. His curls slick with rain. His brow and cheek and lip split open. The way he’d known, moments before the end, that he’d gone too far.

  Then the resistance of the trigger. The explosion of sound and fire.

  There was so much blood in a human skull.

  Kaito was dead.

  Archer had killed him.

  He hadn’t been able to stop himself.

  He kept remembering the words Kaito had murmured to him the day they decided to go after the last Delienean impressors: You’re born for this, brother. You may not think so. You may try to deny it. But one day you’re going to realize you never had a choice at all.

  When he opened his eyes, the bloodstain had seeped beneath his boots.

  “Archer?” Sefia touched his shoulder, lightly, as if he’d crumble at the slightest breath.

  He blinked at her. Her features were soft, unfocused, wet. Am I crying?

  “I killed him,” he said. “I tried not to. But then he . . . and I did it anyway.”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I know you loved him.”

  “I used to kill boys for the impressors. I tell myself they made me. I tell myself I was an animal. I tell myself I’m different now. But I’m not different at all, am I?”

  Sefia wiped his cheeks. “You are different. You’re not the boy I met four months ago.”

  “You’re right. I’m not.” His voice fractured. “I know you said I wasn’t the boy from the legends, but I feel like him. I feel myself turning into him, and I can’t stop. I see what’s happening. I see what I’m doing. But I can’t stop. I can’t stop. I can’t . . .”

  His words lodged in his throat, no longer sentences but sobs. He felt her arms go around him, felt her take his weight. He brought up his knees and curled against her, and she held him tight while all the things he hadn’t allowed himself to feel finally came pouring out of him.

  CHAPTER 30

  Assassination Is a Slow Dance

  Eduoar was alive.

  And he was disappointed.

  Every time he began to stir, he shut his eyes and resubmerged himself in sleep. But like a glass buoy, his consciousness kept floating up, bobbing to the surface of his dreams. In those brief moments of awareness, he discovered his wrists thick with bandages, his aching body, and Arcadimon.

  A glimpse of brown curls streaked with gold, a stubbled cheek, blue eyes with long lashes that caught the sunlight.

  Time passed. Eduoar didn’t know how long.

  But when sleep finally washed him ashore, he woke to the smell of Arcadimon, the smell of wind and snow. In the window, the curtains swayed like slow dancers.

  His hand spread over the coverlet, studying the weave.

  “So . . .” Arcadimon’s voice interrupted him. “How long have you known?”

  Painfully, Eduoar turned. Arc was seated at the bedside, his clothes rumpled, his hair standing up where he’d run his fingers through it too many times.

  “Years.” A weak grin crossed Eduoar’s face. “What, did you think it was that easy to kill a king?”

  Arcadimon fidgeted with a stray thread on one of his cuffs. “If you knew, why’d you let me . . . ?”

  Eduoar looked away. “It was for the good of the
kingdom, wasn’t it? I thought you’d . . .” His voice trailed off as he studied the room. It was immaculate. No clothes littered the floor. No wardrobe doors were ajar. Arcadimon’s doing, though his friend obviously hadn’t taken the same care with his own appearance. “That’s why I let you take over my duties. So you’d know how to run things when I was—”

  “You wanted me to take your kingdom from you?”

  Eduoar shrugged. “I decided a long time ago that Corabelli rule in Deliene was going to end with me. I just thought this way, I’d know it’d be in good hands.”

  His friend sat back, scouring his face with his palms. “The hands of someone who tried to kill you?”

  “Well, I mean, a part of me thought you knew I wanted . . . You had to have known, right?” Grimacing, Ed plucked at the sheets. “All those rumors? That I was like my father?”

  “I didn’t think you’d actually do it!” Arcadimon stood abruptly, pacing the bedchamber.

  Eduoar frowned. “That’s what I don’t get, Arc. This was what you wanted. Why’d you stop me?”

  His friend stalked to the window, staring down at something in the courtyard below. As if on their own, his fingers tugged at his cuff again, unraveling the thread further. “If you knew about the poison, why’d you try to kill yourself at all?” He turned. “Why didn’t you just wait?”

  “Because of what happened on the White Plains,” Eduoar answered softly.

  “Oh.” A touch of pink rose in Arcadimon’s cheeks.

  “The curse claims anyone I love,” Ed interrupted. “Anyone.”

  “But I—”

  “Don’t say it. If you say it, I won’t be able to stop myself. And then you’ll die.” A sad smile crossed his lips. “Don’t tell me you weren’t going to say it either. That’s a heartbreak I’d rather avoid.”

  Arcadimon ran his hands through his hair, tousling it so perfectly Ed wanted to mess it up just to see him do it again. “So if you weren’t cursed—” he began.

  If I could have family, friends, and someone to share my life with? Ed’s heart whispered. If I could have you?

  He might still have his sadness. But if he wasn’t so afraid of loving someone, of letting them in, of hurting them the way he’d been hurt, having to watch so many of his family suffer and die . . . perhaps he might want to live. Perhaps he could live, in a way he’d never allowed himself to before.