Master of One

by Jaida Jones

  Although he couldn’t imagine feeling worse than this.

  One of the initial qualities stamped out of trainees in the Queensguard was imagination. It only got in the way of duty and obedience, of action and reaction, of drawing a blade without thought spared for defeat.

  Cab focused on his breathing. Another Queensguard training technique that still served a purpose, however little he liked to admit it. A captain’s voice barking, If you can breathe, you can take stock of your situation.

  He was lying on his back in something wet. His throat felt rough, as if he’d been shouting orders. No matter how he tried to call his mind to attention, it wouldn’t heed.

  He was aware of a bruise on his head. Chafing on his wrists. He’d been bound at some point. The knot on his blindfold was too tight, and his head ached beneath it. Other than that, he was unharmed.

  He tried not to think about the obvious. The shard of mirrorglass in his heart—now the empty space its removal had left behind.

  Whenever Cab pushed the stray thought aside, it roared back to the forefront of his mind, twice as demanding.

  He heard One tsk in chastisement, so he left it alone. Felt like he’d swallowed a flaming bramble.

  Whatever happened now to Prince Shining Talon, Rags, and the Ever-Loyal girl was beyond him.

  His mirror shard was gone. No matter how much it hurt, whatever damage the extraction had done, Cab was grateful. He was free.

  He didn’t have to decide what to do with his freedom alone.

  Left a scar. One’s voice again. How much time had passed? A trickle of sweat beaded in the hollow of Cab’s throat, dislodged when he swallowed. On your heart. I’m looking forward to meeting the Lying One again, getting the chance to repay him for that.

  Where am I? Cab asked.

  A dark place.

  You don’t know, Cab realized.

  We were separated. I have decided to remain undetected for now. Try not to get into too much trouble without me, my pretty.

  Prone and blindfolded on a hard surface. Where to go from there?

  Cab waited. He relinquished control. Either someone would come to free him, or he’d regain his strength and make his escape. Eventually, the blindfold would come off.

  When it did, he was half dozing again. Listening to an unfamiliar melody hummed with a metal edge, One sharing a fae lullaby with him. He got lost in its repetitions and only caught the last few steps approaching. Had barely a moment to brace himself before the edge of the blindfold was lifted and pale light flooded in.

  Above him, an inhuman face. Black stars at both corners of its mouth. Silver eyes. A long, thick fall of stone-white hair. Golden skin.

  Cab recognized the features, what they meant, but not who wore them.

  Another fae. Not Shining Talon.

  How many of them were there? And what had happened to them, if they hadn’t been wiped out?

  Cab’s heart tried to race but couldn’t move around its wounds.

  “I am so sorry for what you have suffered,” the fae said. Clear tones. Young. Very. “I have done what I can to heal your heart, but the Lying Ones have grown strong feeding on our power.”

  “Fae.” It was all Cab could squeeze out of his tight throat.

  “Yes. I am Last Beacon of Silent Burning,” the fae told him. “But my human friends call me Sil. You may tell your One she is free to join us. I already know she is here.”

  46

  Inis

  While Rags was unconscious, Inis ran downstairs to take stock of the bodies on her lawn.

  It was barren. The overgrown grass billowed in the breeze, unbent by the masked raiders she’d seen swarming her home. Gooseflesh crept up Inis’s bare forearms, and she hugged herself around her chest.

  Sorcerers had beaten the fae with mirrorcraft, so it made sense that they could kill a host of mere human enemies, then make all proof disappear. Inis had once trusted the joyful side of magic: the intricate displays of light and water created for Summersend; Ever-Land’s fragrant fields of ever-blooming wildflowers.

  But this—the eerie calm after a massacre, bodies gone, death lingering—was too much like the night the Queensguard came for Inis’s family, even without the bloodstains and charred frame.

  Remember, your kind needs to breathe every now and then. Two’s voice plunged through the wreckage of her thoughts. Her family lived, and that was what mattered.

  This time, Inis told herself, she’d seen the enemy coming, and no one had to dig any graves.

  Did that make a difference?

  No.

  She tapped her mother’s door. Behind it, Bute had barricaded himself and Ivy. Inis used the secret knock she’d made up for Ivy to memorize—two swift taps, two slow, then three more swift.

  The door creaked open an inch before Ivy practically exploded from within, crashing into Inis, bunching her hands tight in the bundle of Inis’s aproned skirts. She scrubbed her face angrily against Inis’s abdomen, but wriggled away before Inis could return the embrace.

  “I’m sorry about that, little—”

  Ivy snubbed her, turning to beckon for Bute’s ear instead. As he bent to indulge this display of childish stubbornness, Inis caught a glimpse of their mother in her chair. Undisturbed, hands limp rather than clutching the woven black shawl around her shoulders.

  She didn’t know something was amiss, or didn’t care.

  Inis’s mother had once taken great pride in her reputation as a hostess. She glowed at a full table, seemed to possess a sixth sense for what would make the people around her most comfortable. The woman she’d been then would never have missed a Queen’s sorcerer on her lawn. Would have invited him in for tea, then poisoned it before he could threaten her family.

  Bute squared his shoulders, filling Inis’s vision.

  “The Lady Ivy wishes for me to inform you that she is very glad to see you alive.” As Bute spoke, Ivy swanned past Inis as though she wasn’t there, holding out her skinny arms for Two. He’d changed his size to that of a normal housecat—rearranged all his parts to a stature better suited for their small home—and leaped gladly toward Ivy with a laugh only Inis could hear.

  Traitor, she thought, knowing he could feel the warmth of her approval beneath it.

  “Isn’t that lovely,” Inis said aloud.

  Bute cleared his throat. He fought a smile, evidence of his deeper loyalties. “Lady Ivy also wishes me to inform you that she will not speak to you until further notice.”

  Fine. Inis could handle silence better than questions at any stage. Better to let Ivy stay angry than think of this new shadow drawn across their house. Anger was shield and weapon, and the ladies of House Ever-Loyal needed both.

  Inis touched Ivy’s hair as she passed her little sister, teasing out a wild tangle in the back.

  Can you comfort her? Inis thought at Two. That was Inis’s job, but in this moment, an otherworldly fae creation would provide better company to Ivy than her own sister. Please.

  I know my manners. Two’s voice was a throaty purr, a chuckle in her mind. You only had to ask.

  47

  Inis

  Inis settled in alongside the fae to keep vigil over Rags. She intended to be the first to know if anything changed, mostly because change meant danger in Inis’s world.

  There was also the matter of the fae prince. She didn’t like taking her eyes off him. With Morien gone again, the fae was her next most dangerous houseguest and demanded rigorous supervision.

  From her window in House Ever-Loyal, Inis had watched the same great-pine be struck by summer lightning storms year after year. In her girlish mind, she’d thought it romantic that this one tree had grown taller, as if to protect the others in her garden from harm.

  Now she knew: attracting danger was no admirable trait.

  Inis found herself desperate for a clearer image of what, exactly, she was tangled up in. When Two padded into the room, settling like a pan-warmed blanket over Inis’s feet, she decided to take adva
ntage of her time alone with the fae, without the gutter mouth running wild to distract and confuse.

  Morien would still be able to eavesdrop. Nothing could be done about that.

  “What happens when we find all the pieces?” Inis turned to look at Shining Talon. As the hidden strength in him grew more obvious, strangely, she found that made her less afraid of him, not more. His honest hatred of Morien meant they could be allies. He rippled with reserve, a mighty weapon sheathed. Inis could do worse. “We become new soldiers in Her Majesty’s royal army? Help slaughter her enemies?”

  “I cannot answer that. The Great Paragon was not used in my time.” But from the way the black marks at the corners of Shining Talon’s mouth moved, Inis realized he was lying—or at least cleverly omitting some part of the whole truth.

  She didn’t ask him to elaborate.

  It’s more than that, Two explained. Information Morien wouldn’t learn from their conversation, and might not already know. The Great Paragon can tear open earth and sky, can unleash the same upheaval that birthed the Ancient Ones. I remember the last time . . . No, it’s better if I don’t go into that. Wouldn’t want to overwhelm you. Your thoughts remind me of a hive of angry bees.

  Thanks for that. Very helpful, Inis shot back. Was there anything worse than knowing information was being kept from her?

  Yes. It was understanding why.

  She’d asked Two something Morien couldn’t be allowed to know. He’d torture anyone who knew the truth to get at that truth, and the only way for Two to protect Inis was to keep her ignorant.

  She was quick to conclude that Queen Catriona Ever-Bright wanted the Great Paragon for more than an elaborate showpiece at her next ball. The Queen was planning something. Inis pictured her with more than the might of the Queensguard and her sorcerers combined, then had to stop picturing it. She stared down at her sleeves instead, at her newly rough hands, callused and cracked, bruised and sunbrowned.

  “Very well,” she concluded. “Once the thief—Rags—is recovered from his . . . indisposition, we leave to find the next fragment.”

  “First, we will be brought before the Lying One’s benefactor,” Shining Talon said. “Although whether the Lying One is master or hound is a riddle I have yet to solve.” Though he was a fae, and not inclined to straightforward communication, his meaning was clear. Someone pulled Morien’s strings, provided him with coin and free passage.

  Only a favored Ever-Family—or someone in the palace—would wield that much power.

  Inis, about to escape her exile, didn’t intend to run back to the same brandished swords that had felled her father and brothers. She’d learned freedom could come at the cost of being torn in half, meant leaving behind who she loved most in order to protect them.

  “I suppose we had better get cracking,” Inis said.

  “I know not what we are cracking,” Shining Talon replied, “but you may be assured I will crack with vigor. We must act with conviction at every turn, even if the road we tread leads us to the darkest depths imaginable.”

  If he had been a human prince, Inis would have assumed he’d memorized verse to impress her. But what she felt wasn’t impressed. It was the faintest breath upon the guttered ember she carried within, coaxing to life a wisp of curling flame.

  Inis wasn’t alone. This was a nightmare, but there were others having it with her.

  The gown Bute brought her to wear was one of Mother’s, one Inis had once loved best. Once. Silk puff sleeves and a square-necked bodice, trimmed with lace in plummy shades of red, regal without ornamentation. Around her neck she wore a finely wrought chain with the crest of House Ever-Loyal: two swords crossed over a broken blade, pinprick opals set into the hilts. One of a rare few pieces of finery they’d held in reserve after the first year of exile. A keepsake not yet ransacked for its parts.

  If Inis was to return to the Hill, she’d have to make an impression. Tightening the ties at her waist so the dress wouldn’t gape around her chest, she felt like a child.

  She’d escaped the Hill. One day, she’d escape her mother’s closet.

  She said goodbye to Lady Ever-Loyal without expecting a reply. Leaned down, kissed her mother’s cool brow, found herself tickled by curls she’d inherited. Mother didn’t answer. Inis hadn’t expected her to, although that hadn’t stopped her from hoping.

  Foolish girl.

  Tucking her mother’s shawl more closely around her shoulders, Inis made Bute promise not to let Ivy run after her when she left. It was too dangerous. Ivy’s safety was what mattered, the only thing left to matter.

  Morien knew where Inis lived, knew what—who—she loved. If she didn’t deliver what he wanted, he’d make her watch the last of her family suffer. She had no delusions about that.

  She wouldn’t let him win.

  “I’ll be back soon,” she promised Ivy.

  Another lie, like the first one Inis had told while they hid in the closet, tangled in Lady Ever-Loyal’s finest ballgowns. With every soft scrape of the gem-strewn skirts against the wood paneling, Inis had grown more certain they’d be caught. Would be slaughtered, too. So she had lied through her teeth. We’re going to be fine, little egg. Everything’s going to be all right. Papa and Tomman will protect us.

  “You’re leaving and I hate you.” Ivy didn’t shout. She said it coolly, eyes blazing, before she turned on her heel and ran back inside the house. “And I won’t watch you go!”

  Good. Inis preferred anger to grief. Anger would keep Ivy alive, keep her from succumbing to the same torpor of sorrow that had swallowed their mother.

  Morien waited for them on the front lawn, astride a black destrier darker than thunder. He led a string of exemplary, if nervous-looking, horseflesh, two shaggy pack ponies bringing up the rear. “Only the finest mounts, provided by Lord Faolan Ever-Learning for his friends and allies,” he said.

  It made Inis’s skin creep, her blood curdle, to think he’d known exactly when to return, had arrived with the precise number of mounts required for their party. Through his mirrorcraft, he could watch all they did, hear all they said.

  She wondered if she was meant to be grateful, and offered her best grimace of obeisance. Behind her, Rags succumbed to a coughing fit.

  They left, once the thief finally managed to mount his horse without falling off the other side, taking the one road Inis had refused to look at since she’d arrived at the cottage at its farthest end.

  Back to the capital, so Morien the dog could report to his master. Back to the Horrible Hill.

  Her nose stung with unshed tears. She didn’t set them loose.

  If they wanted an Ever-Loyal back on the Hill, they’d get one. Her survival was her rebellion. Let the Queen’s Silver Court see her and remember, every day of their lives, what had been lost when House Ever-Loyal burned.

  Eyes fixed on the path ahead, she doused each fresh ember of fury as it threatened to catch flame.

  Shining Talon traveled on foot, easily keeping pace with the horses, while Rags, still in poor shape from Morien’s punishment, slumped over the neck of his thoroughbred and bounced with every step. He clutched his right hand against his chest, a wounded bird nursing a broken wing.

  Fucking Lying Ones, Two groused. When Inis lifted a brow in surprise at his language, he showed his teeth. You don’t spend as much time as I have around cooks and kitchen wenches without learning how to curse like one. You all right, sweetheart?

  I don’t have to be, Inis replied. Has One told you where they are?

  Two’s head twitched in a brief shake. Haven’t heard from her. I’ll let you know when I do.

  By nightfall, they’d covered good ground, and Inis noticed that Rags was even able to dismount and stand on his own, despite wobbling knees. He refused Shining Talon’s help to keep him upright, cursed enough to teach Two some more colorful phrases for his collection, and dropped by the stack of firewood Inis was trying to light, falling into slumber before he even hit the ground.

  Shini
ng Talon covered him with a cloak, lifting his head to place a bedroll beneath it. Inis burrowed deeper into her own cloak and watched the fire lick the twigs.

  Once, she caught the fae prince looking at her. It was impossible to read the nacreous silver of his pupilless gaze, but there was no pity there. Nor was there contempt.

  She’d expected one or the other. Or both. To receive neither unnerved her.

  “You wear the face of a warrior before the battlefield,” Shining Talon said, just loud enough to be heard over the soft snap of the fire.

  Inis understood this to mean she was scowling. Rather than soften her expression, she shifted back to watching the fire, only it reminded her too much of herself. Never steady. Burning until there was nothing left to burn. She gazed out, onto the forest beyond, finally up to the canopy of branches over their heads.

  “Forgive my lack of courtly manners,” she said, though her nose was pointed in the air.

  Shining Talon wasn’t her enemy. The entire realm was Inis’s enemy most days. But one of the fae couldn’t—by his very existence—share in any of that blame. Both of them, she realized with a start, were victims. Both had been stripped of home and family, consigned to the blankest pages of history.

  “Your court was taken from you,” Shining Talon replied. Inis, who had been raised on Hill conversation, knitting together half-truths, deceptions, and omissions, found fae honesty as clear and refreshing as creek water on a summer’s day. “As mine was from me. I would rather stand next to one who has suffered than beside a loyal servant of your”—his nostrils flared—“crown.”

  Inis’s heart flamed hot. She thought of Morien smirking underneath his scarves, and it relit the fuse within her. That monster could be watching her every move, listening to her every word. Gloating that there was nowhere for her to hide.

  Shining Talon knew this and defied it anyway, like he spoke directly to Morien through Inis’s heart.