“Which peer did you piss off?” I whispered.
“Suppose we’re about to find out,” he whispered back, hand slipping around Julian to squeeze my arm. “Don’t worry.”
How often had he said the same for me? Will had treated me like kin since I got here, keeping me fed and sheltered till I earned enough healing and undertaking. Twelve years ago, he’d finally done what most of Felhollow dreamt of and cut a deal with several peers for lumber, and now he had a seat on the common council. He was Felhollow’s point of contact with the rest of the world and rich enough to get out of jail time, surely. He’d breathed life into Felhollow and me. I grabbed his hand.
“Here is the warrant,” said the officer, pulling a thick letter from the inside of his coat. “Read it for yourself if you doubt me.”
He tossed it to the ground before Old Ivy, and she passed it back to Will.
Will picked it up with trembling fingers. The smooth paper was bleached to pale ivory and stippled with gold flakes. Blue ink so dark and thick my skin grew cold just looking at it lined the front, and the colors of the wax seal bled into the envelope. I’d never seen the seal of the Sundered Crown of Cynlira in person—red and blue phoenixes twisted together in a writhing circle and eating each other’s tails. Inside the ring was Will’s name. No one in Felhollow had ever received a royal summons. There was only one reason anyone would.
“A sacrificial summons,” I whispered.
Will ran his thumb across his name, and the ink smeared. I reached out and touched the wax. Still warm.
“From the desk of Her Most Serene Excellency Hyacinth of the House Wyrslaine, the Crown of Cynlira and What Else Remains,” Will read aloud, a flush speckling his face like watered-down blood on fresh snow. “Information has been laid before the Peers’ Court that Willoughby Chase of Felhollow in the South of Cynlira has engaged in fraud, larceny, and treason against the Crown and her great nation. He is summoned to Mouth-of-the-River-of-Gods to be held until he appears in court to answer for this information. Should his answers prove unsatisfactory, he shall be sacrificed for the good of this great nation.”
Beneath it was the signature of the Heir, Alistair Wyrslaine, in swirling blue ink and the date Will was set to be sacrificed—ten weeks from now.
“Treason?” Julian’s voice cracked.
Will shushed him, folded the letter shut, and cleared his throat. “This summons was obviously just written. What evidence is there of these charges?”
“Evidence is for the trial,” said the officer. “Chase is to be remanded in custody until then.”
“Willoughby Chase is a productive and beloved citizen of Cynlira backed by the court of peers and common council,” I said loudly. “Even if this hadn’t been written when you got to town, he could be trusted to appear for court. There’s no need for this threat of sacrifice.”
“We are not judges. We have orders, and we will follow them.” The captain glanced back at the soldiers under his command, and they squared their shoulders. “We have work to do, and you are wasting our time.”
“Hand him over to be killed for our Crown’s fun?” asked Old Ivy. “I don’t think so.”
Will slipped his hand from mine. Sweat gathered in the wrinkles of my palm, the terror of losing the only family I had settling over me. The sacrificial trials were a sham. Outlandish rumors about them haunted Cynlira, and the official statement from the court didn’t quell them. They started decades ago and occurred every few years and then once a year. Now once a month, the Crown sacrificed the guilty “in order to keep the Vile from returning.”
Even peers and councilors got sacrificed when they moved against the Crown.
“Orders are orders,” said the captain. “Any issues you have may be taken up in Mori.”
“Well, that’s horseshit,” shouted someone, and I peeked around Julian to see who. Kara, strong arms bare and bandaged from the fight this morning, leveled a carrot at the captain. “We’re supposed to let you take him with no evidence of wrongdoing and expect you to give him back when he’s proven innocent? When I can see the ink’s still wet from over here?”
“Yes,” said the captain. “You will, or we will take him by force.”
“Will you now?” asked Kara, snapping the carrot in half with her teeth.
One of the soldiers raised their rifle toward Kara. Next to me, Kara’s partner, Ines, stepped forward. I tugged them back.
“Our benefactor is eager to continue his journey,” said the captain, “so please know that we have no qualms about how we acquire Chase, so long as it is quickly.”
“Julian,” I whispered, “we can’t win this fight. Trust me?”
“Course.” He squeezed my hand, gaze fixed on his father. “Is there anything you can do? Anything at all?”
I swallowed and nodded. My noblewright flattened against my back, uncomfortable and out of the way. It wasn’t the only god in my veins.
Take Julian’s memory of his eleventh birthday, I prayed, tightening my grip on his arm so my vilewright would know what to do, and destroy these officers’ memories of coming here for Will Chase.
My vilewright tore away from me like a scab, and I gasped. A shudder racked Julian’s body. I looped one arm through his to hold him upright. A soldier turned to us.
Take my memory of Mother’s laugh that night before she died, and create a new memory in the minds of the officers. They came here to arrest the bandits, not Will.
My noblewright drifted to the officers. A glaze passed over their eyes, each of them blinking.
Dualwrought, my mother had called me with a stifled sob, like Her Excellency the Sundered Crown. I’d a noblewright who could create, a vilewright who could destroy, and so few memories of my mother. But Will was worth it. He would be family. He was as good as family.
The officer took a deep, steadying breath. “If only we had gotten here in time, those bandits wouldn’t have been a problem. We will keep our ears to the ground for word of any more bandits in the area.”
Every single face in Felhollow turned to me except for Will’s.
“We understand,” he said, hands clenching and unclenching at his side. “Your work is much appreciated.” And he bowed his head slightly to the man who’d been threatening to drag him to his death not five seconds ago.
Ines looked at me, their eyes wide at my untouched flesh. People were so unimaginative. They always expected sacrifices to be physical.
“Memories,” I whispered to them, “work just as well.”
I’d told no one I was vilewrought, not even Julian. The only other dualwrought alive was the Crown, and I knew what folks thought of her. I’d no desire to be her competition or her plaything, and I knew well what Julian thought of people with a vilewright. I wanted a home. They didn’t need to know.
Old Ivy whispered something to the folks next to her, and they whispered to the ones near them. The knowledge of what had happened—or at least what Old Ivy thought had happened—spread. They would think I had used my noblewright in some curious way, and Julian would only notice his missing memory if he thought on that day too hard. I didn’t worry. He wasn’t one for reminiscing.
My wrights returned, their presence little more than a breath against my skin. They always preferred to huddle at the back of my neck, but now they lingered over each shoulder like an invisible, intangible mantle. My vilewright let out an appreciative hum.
“Now,” said a new voice, “which one of you did that?”
A knife of a man stepped from the carriage. He wore a sharply pleated shirt of pure white silk with a red waistcoat and cravat beneath a black greatcoat, and a single red thread ran down his coat seams like a vicious drizzle. His black hair hung in a fishtail braid over one shoulder, feathery pieces framing his pale white face. The weight of his vilewright knocked the breath from my lungs.
Everyone but me sunk to thei
r knees and pressed their foreheads to the dirt.
“Fascinating,” said the Heir to the Crown of Cynlira, the red-eyed vilewrought more feared than any army, Alistair Wyrslaine. He adjusted his scarlet glasses and pinned me with his bloody gaze. “You’re not the vilewrought girl I was looking for, but you’ll do.”
Three
I was seven the first time I saw the Heir. My mother was dead, and I was living on my own in the Wallows, trying to hide my wrights and survive. Processions weren’t uncommon, but the Heir hadn’t been seen since his vilewright had been discovered and he’d been bound to serve his father. His mother had paraded him through the city, the white and red greatcoat that marked him as a vilewrought in the service of the Crown swallowing him whole. He was nine and barely bigger than me.
He’d returned a month later with the two thousand or so rebels of Hila—peer and common alike—trailing behind him like dogs, their free will destroyed by his vilewright. His father had gifted him part of his army to assist him in proving his worth by crushing the rebellion, and instead he had used them as sacrifices. Children thought in terms of equivalent exchange, so he had done just that—sacrificed the free will of his father’s soldiers to destroy the free will of the rebels. His vilewright, of course, had demanded a larger sacrifice than two thousand, so all four thousand soldiers had lost their will. His father had been horrified. His mother had thrown him another parade.
“What use are soldiers who question orders?” she had asked, so the rumors said.
The binding on Alistair Wyrslaine’s chest may have stopped him from killing with his vilewright, but his wright wasn’t what made him monstrous. He’d shed no blood in Hila, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t killed them.
They had all killed themselves without question the day after returning.
“You’re mistaken,” I said, trying to reckon this looming sliver of a man with the small boy barely able to ride a horse from my memories. “I’m not anything to you, and I never will be.”
“I don’t make mistakes.” He smiled and laid one hand atop the officer’s head. “She destroyed your memories of the true warrant. Be on guard.”
The soldiers all rose, but now their hands trembled as they tried to hold their rifles steady. Another soldier, this one in the black uniform of the Wyrslaine army, slunk from the carriage and followed in the Heir’s footsteps. Her uniform was thin silk and peppered with tears. Scabs lined her knuckles.
A sacrificial guard—the Crown and Heir had a whole group of soldiers employed solely to serve as sacrifices to their vilewrights.
The Heir approached. His gaze swept across the Felfolk prostrate around him, and he looked at them the way a hawk might glance at ants. He was hungry, but they would never be enough. I stared up at him, my noblewright pressed flat against me. He stopped only a step away.
I’d a whole wright he didn’t know about. I could get out of this.
“Is there another vilewrought here?” the Heir asked. He didn’t even lower his chin to look me over, his expression hidden behind large, round glasses. The Vile could look like anything and anyone, but their eyes—the same sanguine color as the god of Chaos—had always given them away. The Heir wasn’t one of the Vile, but he had fashioned himself to look like one with those red glasses. No one had ever seen his eyes. “Who trained you? What was that contract?”
Contracts: I’d always called them prayers, but this was what proper wrought called them. They wrote contracts, specifying exactly what to sacrifice and exactly what they wanted to be created or destroyed, and then hoped they were specific enough. If they weren’t, their wrights took liberties—frequently, dangerous liberties.
The Heir had been trained in writing contracts. His vilewright required them, even if he could speak them in a pinch. Mine didn’t.
“That vilewrought’s dead,” I said and lifted my chin.
He chuckled. “Fortuitous for me, then, that the universe loves balance so much that it put you in my path after removing the other vilewrought from it. We are very rare, you know.”
No mention of me refusing him.
“Ah, Your Excellency,” said Julian, trembling hand closing around my ankle. “She’s not vilewrought.”
“‘Your Majesty,’ actually.” The Heir tucked the toes of his boot beneath Julian’s wrist and lifted his hand away from me. “We always know one another. It’s not your fault that you are unobservant, but try to keep up.” The Heir raised one hand to my face, not touching but intending to, and let it fall to my shoulder. “May I?”
No wasn’t a real word when speaking to royalty.
I inclined my head. More delicately than I would have thought possible for the red-eyed vilewrought, the Heir pulled back the collar of my shirt and revealed the bare flesh over my heart. A thrum, his vilewright drawing nearer, shuddered from him to me. He let go and stepped back. His fingers never brushed my skin.
“You’re not bound. You’re self-taught.” His voice was the low, breathy rasp of sleepless nights. “You’re perfect.”
“I’m not anything,” I said. “I’m not—”
The Heir smiled, clapped his hands together once, and spun to the officer. “We must finish our business here. Willoughby Chase—acquire him.”
“Who?” the officer asked and swallowed.
The Heir’s sacrificial guard pried the summons from Will’s hands. “The traitor you were supposed to be taking into custody.”
“He’s not here,” I lied. “So you can’t take him.”
“By law, we must take him. Rules are meant to be followed. Contracts are meant to be obeyed.” The Heir took in the crowd and beckoned his sacrificial guard and the soldiers near. “The vilewrought girl will ride with me. Acquire Willoughby Chase however necessary.”
Fear roiled my stomach. I could bear the aftertaste of Rylan’s death and maybe even the rotten winds of Mori as the Heir’s plaything, but I could not let Will be taken by the Crown. He had given me a family and a home. I couldn’t let him die for some trumped-up scam.
But they knew now. He knew.
I was vilewrought, and the folks paying attention would have realized I was dualwrought like the Crown. They would hate me for lying or fear me in that quiet way small towns feared newcomers. If I let them take Will, they’d never forgive me.
I grabbed the Heir’s hand. He spun, arm tearing from my grasp. A needle as long as my forearm appeared between his fingers, and he held it over his sacrificial guard’s hand. Blood welled near its point. I held up my hands in surrender.
“I will go with you, willingly, no fight,” I said, “but only if Will Chase stays free until his trial and you don’t bind me.”
“No!” Julian lurched to his feet.
Our friend Mack caught Julian around the knees and yanked him back. One of the officers aimed her crossbow at them. Mack locked his arms around Julian’s chest and whispered in his ear. Julian stilled. Across the crowd, behind the Heir’s back, Kara and Old Ivy lifted their heads. Kara slipped the whittling knife from Ivy’s boot. The Heir’s head tilted slightly toward them.
I’d a bargaining chip, and at least this way, Will had a chance.
“That’s my deal. Do you want it or not?” I asked.
“Why do you think you can bargain with me?” He smiled and turned his back on me.
“Because I bring something to our fight you can’t.” I caught my cheek in my teeth and bit down hard. “So start haggling.”
Create a flat tip like a nail’s head on each end of his needle. Make it useless, I prayed to my noblewright. Take my blood and pain as payment.
This was the boy who’d downed a peer’s whole rebellion, ripped the will from people’s minds without a thought, and collected his fellow wrought for his research, using them until they died. His mother sacrificed her enemies to the long banished Vile, and he didn’t so much as blink.
Now,
he shuddered.
“You’re dualwrought,” he said, breathless and flushed. His hand fluttered toward me before he pulled it back.
Good. He wanted me.
I nodded. “You really want to see what I can do with both of them?”
“You’ve been in hiding,” he said and crossed his arms. One thumb ran across his bottom lip. “You aren’t trained.”
“No,” I said, “but how do you think I’ve managed to stay hidden?”
A wild dog was as dangerous as a trained one.
“You’ll cooperate?” he asked. “You’ll work with me?”
With. Not for. Curious.
“Yes.”
He smiled. “It’s illegal, you know, for a working wrought to not be bound.”
For the nation’s protection, the court and council said, so we couldn’t kill everyone and take over.
“You’re the Heir to the Crown of Cynlira,” I said. “Nothing is illegal for you.”
“Still, there is an order to things.” He stepped closer to me. “You will work with me, and you will do what I say.”
“I will work with you,” I said. “I will not only do what you say.”
“I think we will work together quite well,” he said slowly. “We will draw up the contract on the way to Mouth-of-the-River-of-Gods, but for now, we have a deal.”
A contract. He said it as if simple words on paper could hold someone so rich, titled, and powerful to their word.
“Your Majesty,” his sacrificial guard whispered, head bowed, “Her Excellency will not be pleased. Will Chase is still wanted.”
“My mother won’t know anything about this,” he said. He eyed me, head tilted to the side, and ran his thumb across his bottom lip again. “You said there were bandits. That’s the memory you gave them. Where are they?”
“Dead,” shouted Ivy, voice muffled by the ground. The coils of her white-streaked black hair shook as she spoke, and her fingers dug into the earth. “We executed six after they killed one of our kids.”
“My condolences,” he said without any change in expression at all. “Willoughby Chase must appear in court on his appointed day, or you will die, my new dualwrought. He must answer for his charges. Where is he?”
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