Master of One

by Jaida Jones

  “Prince Laisrean Ever-Bright. I regret having to interrupt your dinner.”

  “Morien the Last,” Laisrean said. “Didn’t the swamp hags who raised you teach you any manners?”

  Inis was aware of Somhairle trembling where they stood shoulder to shoulder, of Three wheeling furiously overhead. Two’s silence chilled her. A bare sliver of light between the curtains, not enough to see much by.

  Laisrean let out a strangled yell and fell to his knees. Inis caught sight of movement, Morien lifting his hand. The mirror Laisrean had uncovered glowed.

  “I’m afraid there won’t be any concern for etiquette where you’re going, Prince Laisrean.” Silver armor flashed past the crack in the curtains: Queensguard, surrounding Laisrean. “You’re under arrest for consorting with enemies of the Crown.”

  No clever comebacks from Laisrean this time. Somhairle clutched the red fabric tight and Inis peered forward despite herself. Laisrean lay on the ground, curled up and twitching like a dying insect. He cried out once, growled a curse. Then he was silent.

  Rage coursed through Inis’s veins, a siren song that would dash her on the rocks. She couldn’t rush to Laisrean’s side no matter how much she wanted to.

  This was like hiding with Ivy in the closet while—

  “Search his rooms.” Morien said. “I want to know how this treason was able to fester.”

  Somhairle covered his face with his weak hand. Inis risked a glance over her shoulder, calculating how high up they were. They couldn’t jump and they couldn’t overpower Morien and his Queensguard. Not with Somhairle’s condition. Not with the shard in Inis’s heart.

  The crashes continued as the Queensguard searched Laisrean’s room, overturning furniture, tearing pillows open with their swords.

  The beat of wings above made Inis look up. Three was swelling in shape, rearranging her metal components, stretching from a normal-sized owl to a bird the size of a small horse. Somhairle sucked in a breath, his gaze suddenly glassy. A flash of silver in his eyes.

  “Yes,” Somhairle said. The frailty in his voice was almost unbearable. “Do it.”

  Three hovered low and picked them up in her claws. Together they rose along the outside of the castle, heading back to Somhairle’s wing.

  80

  Rags

  Rags was drawing a map of the castle with a sooty finger on the floor when shit literally hit his window.

  The only thing Rags could think as Inis, Somhairle, and Three crashed onto the balcony, shattering the glass to burst into the room, was how lucky he was that he still had the sorcerer’s cloth over his heart.

  Rags tried to calm said heart. It hadn’t reacted well to the surprise, his first thought being, Fuck, they’ve found us plotting crazy treason; his second, If Morien’s mirrorcraft isn’t what kills me, a surprise like this is gonna do the trick.

  Inis was the first to her feet, Two bounding to her side from the other room. Flash of silver in her eyes, and she nodded.

  “We have to get out of here,” she said.

  “Right, except there’s Morien to consider—” Rags began.

  Inis shook her head. “This fabric—it can keep us hidden.” Something caught her attention and she cursed, a gutter phrase she’d definitely picked up from Rags. Couldn’t have learned that one with her fine upbringing.

  Rags would’ve mentioned it if she hadn’t lost her mind and started breaking all the turned-around mirrors in the room. One hanging over the fireplace instead of artwork, a second, small one on a tea table. When she was done with the ones in that room, she went storming into the next, and the sound of shattering glass continued.

  Meanwhile, Somhairle was still dragging himself to his feet, Three at his shoulder to help.

  “Want to explain why she’s gone mad?” Rags asked. Paused. “Madder than usual, and not at me, I mean.”

  “She’s blowing off steam.” Somhairle gasped for air, cheeks flushed in red spots, wincing as he straightened his bad leg. “But she’s right. We need to get out of here. It isn’t safe. Morien’s distracted”—now he winced from more than physical pain—“but he won’t be for long.”

  “No fucking kidding. We’ve known that since—”

  “There’s a Resistance against the Crown,” Somhairle explained. “I know it’s troubled Her Majesty for some time, but I never knew it was serious. We’ve just discovered that Prince Laisrean is helping it. If he is, he has good reason to.”

  “Yeah.” Rags bent down, smeared his diagrams into nothing with his palm, then wiped the soot off his skin and onto the rug. “No offense, again, but your mother’s a power-hungry kidnapper who’s keeping fae kids hostage so her sorcerers can have near unlimited power. I’d say that’s good enough reason.” Rags took a deep breath. “We can’t leave. Not while those kids are still captive. They’re dying and it’s—” A glance at Tal showed he was watching Rags with a glow in his eyes, the first time he’d started shining again since they’d arrived at the castle and he’d sensed his people crying out for a savior. Tal’s gaze was so bright, so trusting. Rags’s skin burned. “Stop it,” he muttered. “Just—want to make a name for myself by breaking into a royal and royally-fucked-up secret castle chamber and steal the Queen’s greatest treasure. Don’t look at me like that. It’s not for you.”

  “Morien knows there are traitors within the castle.” Somhairle glanced over his shoulder like he could see his half brother, or a ghost of him. “Knows that a prince was acting against Her Majesty. Security’s bound to be higher than ever. Besides . . .” Somhairle reached out with his good hand to touch the cloth on Rags’s chest. “We don’t know that this is enough to stop him from killing you—”

  “Yeah, yeah. Maybe he’ll be busy checking on the other princes for a while, won’t bother with us right away. Probably wants to see how deep the conspiracy goes. That’d give us enough time to free the kids . . . if nothing else.”

  Another flash of silver, this time in Somhairle’s eyes, as Inis returned, little cuts on her hands. By her side, Two was crunching happily on a mouthful of mirrorglass.

  “Enough standing around. We need to—” Inis began.

  “What the fuck?” Rags interrupted. Her eyes were glazed silver, too. Rags looked to Tal for explanation.

  Tal nodded knowingly. “They are speaking with One and, through One, with her master. I do not know what they are saying—”

  “Wait, you mean with Cab?”

  Another nod. “I cannot eavesdrop. It is not my place, without a fragment of my own. But if they are communing, it must be important.”

  “Sure. Important,” Rags muttered, left out as ever from the creepy-silver-connection cabal. He patted the thing in his pocket. Since his conversation with Tal, it had warmed to the temperature of his skin. Did that mean it was alive in there? That it was finally waking up, now that Rags had done something worth waking for?

  Only a little longer, he thought in its direction.

  81

  Cab

  Inis Fraoch Ever-Loyal? Cab thought the name, on One’s instructions, “as loudly as possible,” though it seemed like madness.

  The silence that followed, long and awkward, nearly confirmed that.

  Then, when Cab was about to open his eyes and ask One if pranks made sense at a time like this, he heard it: like a stretching of muscles. Like a cat rising in a nearby room, arching its back after a long sleep, yawning.

  You. It was Inis’s voice and also One’s voice and also nothing like either. What is it you want?

  Cab hadn’t expected her to be pleased to hear from him. There’s a way to help you. Free you from Morien’s control. But I’m with people who also need help—your help.

  In some trouble of our own at the moment, actually, Inis replied. Clipped, irritated, sounding more like herself. Morien’s uncovered conspiracy at the castle.

  The news hit Cab heavier than the blows from the Queensguard, and they’d threatened to split him open. A face sprang immediately to mind. Sil’s
contact.

  Einan was going to be furious.

  We’ll come to you, Cab said. Making decisions without thinking, nothing like the good soldier he’d been trained to be.

  Don’t come to the Hill. Even Inis’s caution sounded annoyed, like speaking in favor of Cab’s well-being rankled her. We can’t stay, we’re going— Shut up!

  Cab got the sense that this last bit wasn’t directed at him. It had to have been one of the others in the room, either the thief or the fae prince, because Inis had cut off their connection, presumably to handle the interruption.

  Cab wasn’t left alone.

  Hello?

  Cab didn’t recognize the new voice. Male. Gentle. Threaded with anger he was fighting to keep at bay.

  Still here, Cab said.

  Oh! So you are. Cabhan of Kerry’s-End, isn’t it? We’re going underground, the young man’s voice said. Three says she’ll be able to guide One, so don’t worry about how to find us.

  The newcomer: another master for the silver fae creatures.

  Don’t suppose you’d be willing to tell me what we’re walking into? Cab asked.

  I wish I knew, the voice replied. My name is Somhairle Ever-Bright. A prince was one of the masters? That was nearly as unlikely as one of the loyal Queensguard joining the Resistance. If only we were meeting under different—

  Be ready for a fight. Inis again. It would take too much time to describe.

  Sadness colored her explanation, tied so tightly to her connection with Two that Cab couldn’t determine who was the true owner of the emotion.

  There you have it, One concluded. They’re off, about to act. We should do the same.

  It took Cab a moment to recover. When he opened his eyes, the world was tinged in fading silver. He blinked, blinked again, and finally his sight returned to normal. Einan stood in front of him, arms crossed over her chest.

  “We have to move,” Cab said.

  Einan tutted. “That much was obvious the second we got here. You’re telling me that’s all you got from your mystical communications? I could’ve told you that for free.”

  Cab stood. He ached from head to toe, ribs bruised, knuckles and face bandaged where they’d been bleeding. He needed a healer’s undivided attention, and to sleep for a week. Einan gave him a look like she wanted to help him stay upright, then clenched her jaw and stayed where she was.

  Cab appreciated that. He needed to see if he could do this on his own. If not, he had to be jettisoned. He’d only slow the group down.

  But he’d been taught to ignore pain, to ignore his needs, in favor of the greater good. Which wasn’t service to the Crown. It was moving against it.

  “We have to go to the castle,” Cab explained. When Einan scoffed again, a raw whip of laughter and a roll of her eyes, he breathed out heavily. “Your man on the Hill’s been compromised. He’s being held in Coward’s Silence. Likely getting tortured. If we don’t break him out, they’ll kill him.”

  Sil pressed her small hands to her cheeks, then covered her face in despair. Hope touched her shoulder. Einan calmly kicked one of Uaine’s chairs over.

  “I’d thank you not to take it out on the furniture,” Uaine said. “Although I get the feeling I won’t be returning to this old house.”

  “We have other allies on the inside,” Cab continued. “Including the Masters of Two and Three. I spoke with them.” Don’t ask how, Cab willed, because damned if he could explain it. No one asked, although Einan’s sharp green gaze narrowed. “Two of them have mirrorglass in their hearts. The Master of Two, and—Rags, the thief who started this.” Sil nodded. She’d known, must have learned that from One. “If we can get Sil to them—if she can help others the way she helped me—then we might be able to turn the sorcerer’s control. We might be able to make a stand.”

  Or escape with some of their lives.

  They’d need to get real lucky, and soldiers weren’t supposed to believe in luck.

  Where they’d go—if they survived—was another matter. He’d figure that out if they managed to mount a successful break-in—and out again—of the castle. Cab focused, recalled what he knew of the castle’s layout: the grounds, the barracks, the little he’d been shown of the Queen’s sanctum. He’d been a promising young soldier, but no Queensguard was allowed to know everything about the castle they protected. Only about the points they were meant to protect.

  “I must save the others who are trapped,” Sil said. Einan’s face tightened. The danger was a knife hanging over Sil’s head. “Or die in the attempt. I cannot leave them to suffer what I have suffered. Some are close to death.”

  Hope touched his brow as though he felt it, too. “I will defend you in this task. They will be saved.”

  “So that’s it, is it?” Einan choked back a dark laugh. “Here’s our plot: We march up to the one place that’s least safe for us, where the entire Queensguard is stationed, and find some way to sneak into the fucking castle, despite every last soldier and sorcerer being on the alert for us. Then we storm Coward’s Silence, because making it to the castle without being caught isn’t impossible enough, and break out our compromised agent—though he’s probably dead already. Then, while we’re not too busy, we rescue the most heavily guarded group of hostages in the place, hostages probably too weak to stand on their own, when saving one a year ago lost us too many good people. On top of that, we’re also looking for someone who’s got mirrorcraft in her, and once we find her, we have to remove that spell so she can fight on our side. That’s if she doesn’t turn on us with her ancient fae weapon first, when Morien the Last snaps his fingers and makes her do it. Plus, there’s only two of us who’ve been trained to fight, and one’s already pounded into mincemeat, so we’re down a man.”

  “That’s the long of it,” Cab agreed. “The pain’s not terrible, though. I’ll manage.”

  When he met her eyes, Einan was the first to look away. Cab understood. Laypeople did funny things in the presence of death. Like kiss a person, then never mention it again.

  Also—One padded lithely to the door—we’re about to have company.

  How many?

  Thirty, all told, patrolling the streets, sniffing us out. Two Lying Ones. The rest are armed Queensguard with mirrorglass in their hearts. They’ll have to capture us or die. And they’re close. Can we stay and fight them?

  So it was true. The Queensguard were controlled by mirrorcraft.

  The weight of the truth, the confirmation, stilled Cab for a beat.

  Cab had suspected it but never given form to his suspicions. Had Captain Baeth been sharded before she infiltrated the Resistance?

  He could think about it when they weren’t in mortal danger. When he didn’t have to focus around the pain of his bones knitting back together.

  We can’t take them. Not when I’m in this condition, he told One. Can’t risk anyone else getting hurt.

  One pouted but bowed, tongue flicking past her lips, almost as if she was tasting the air. As you say, Master Handsome.

  Cab drew a breath, refused to grunt when it jostled his aching ribs, and shared what One had told him. “We’ve been discovered. Not sure how close they are, but we need to leave.”

  “Kick all the chairs you like, Einan, if you’re quiet about it.” Uaine grabbed a few packets of herbs from her cupboards, stashing them in pouches and attaching them to her belt. She rolled up her skirt and stuck some in there as well, revealing her scarred legs. “And I’d finally made the place proper cozy.”

  82

  Inis

  Finally, Two said, flashing his teeth and sharpening his claws on the marble fireplace. He left deep gouges, perfectly parallel, through the stone. We get to hurt the fuckers who hurt you.

  There were a thousand things that could, and probably would, go wrong. Their plan was foolish. Was it even a plan? Cab had offered his ideas of how best to coordinate their attack, but Inis still had trouble thinking of him as an ally, not an enemy.

  Despite that, Inis smil
ed.

  Tomman was never innocent. The charges against him hadn’t been false.

  Inis had once viewed them through the eyes of someone accustomed to a world reflected by the Hill’s warped mirrors. Treason was unthinkable, and therefore her family had been innocent.

  So what happened when treason was no longer unthinkable, but unavoidable? When it became necessary to rebel against the Crown by denying the Queen her vile source of power?

  Tomman had been killed for the Resistance. Killed before he’d been able to see their task through.

  Inis would finish it for him.

  For her family, those who hadn’t survived. For those who had. For herself. For everyone else in the Resistance, since Tomman had been so committed he’d staked his life on it. Father’s life. Ainle’s. Everything.

  Inis gave the red fabric from Laisrean’s room to Rags. He had mirror shards in his hand, didn’t have a fragment of his own, and wasn’t an unstoppable fae warrior prince, so he was the most in need of it.

  Inis had Two and Somhairle had Three.

  They’d free the fae. They’d make it to Coward’s Silence; meet Cabhan and the others there, if they weren’t killed along the way; and get Laisrean, if he was there, and if he was still breathing.

  Then, if she was still breathing, she’d tear out Morien’s heart.

  With my teeth or your hands? Two asked, still grinning, showing off every tooth in his head.

  Let’s see how inspiration takes us when the moment comes, Inis replied.

  There was the Queen behind Morien, always the Queen at the center of things. She was a problem without a solution, but Inis couldn’t get ahead of herself. She had to remain steady and stealthy, keep a level head and heart. With the blindfold tied around her chest and Rags cloaked in the sheet of red cloth, they filed out of Somhairle’s quarters and into the quiet halls.

  She expected Queensguard at every step. But, Two told her, they were busy elsewhere. Striking early, when Morien was dealing with Laisrean and the Resistance threat, was their best chance.