“I’d better go,” Jeremiah said. “I’ll return with your breakfast, although your sister will probably be awake by then.”
Rose nodded. “Just one more thing then…” She stood on the tips of her toes and quickly kissed his cheek.
He flushed at the contact, went to say something and lost his words.
“Go,” said Rose. “And think about it. Please.”
He left and she climbed carefully back into bed.
It was time for her father’s reign to end. And she was going to be the one to do it. Not alone, for that was the way her father had chosen to rule his kingdom—alone—she was going to do it with help. If everyone joined together to work against her father, surely even the most powerful Whispers in the world wouldn’t be enough to protect him? She had Jeremiah. And his sister. And she had her mother and sisters. They could do this. This plan could work.
“He’s cute,” said Eliza, her eyes springing open.
“You were awake?” Rose swatted her playfully across the top of her head.
“Of course I was. You were just too love drunk to notice.”
“You can’t tell anyone about this,” said Rose, gripped by sudden concern. “Not even Mother.”
“I won’t,” said Eliza. “Promise.”
“Thank you. It’s very important. Not anything you heard or even that you heard Jeremiah speak. He could be killed for it. Do you understand?”
“I’m not stupid,” she said, sitting up and crossing her arms. “Tell me, are you really going to kill the Conductor?”
“I don’t know.” This was the most honest answer she could give her. She hoped she’d have the courage to do it, but she couldn’t be sure. “We have to do something, Eliza. There’s more going on here than you understand. Please trust me. I’ll always look after you.”
Eliza nodded. “I do trust you.”
“Thank you. I’m counting on you to keep quiet.” Rose looked toward the door thinking she heard Jeremiah returning, but it was too soon for that. Perhaps she imagined it.
“Just one more thing then,” said Eliza, leaning across to give Rose a peck on the cheek.
“You’re teasing me!” said Rose, laughing.
“Not really. I’m happy for you. I’ve always liked that Whisperer, although I usually hide from him. He was a lot less scary when he was talking to you just now. Like a real…”
“I know. Like a real person,” Rose finished. Her nose crinkled at the smell of something she couldn’t place at first. She sat upright when she realized what it was.
“Eliza! Do you smell that?”
Eliza sniffed deeply. “It’s smoke.”
She was hoping she’d imagined it. This couldn’t be good.
“There’s a fire. Quickly now.” She took her sister’s hand and dragged her from the bed. “We need to leave.”
Was her father wasting no time in dispensing of her?
Eliza started to cry, seeming so much younger than she had only moments before. “I’m scared. I don’t like fires.”
“I know. Me neither,” she soothed. “It’s okay. We’ll stick together.”
She went to the door and turned the handle, only to find it was locked. That must have been the sound she’d heard at the door. She didn’t even know their doors locked. How was this possible? She tried again. No, it was definitely locked.
The smoke was creeping under the door now and billowing into the room. Eliza coughed. Her lungs had never been strong. Being kept indoors her whole life, instead of being allowed to run and play, hadn’t helped her.
Rose dashed to the window, threw open the shutters and looked to the ground below. They were too high up to jump. Three men could stand on each other’s heads and still they wouldn’t reach their window from the ground.
“We can’t jump,” shrieked Eliza.
“No, we can’t.” Rose looked around the room for ideas. If only the girl in the tower was here to let down her long hair.
With a sudden idea, she reached for Eliza’s bedsheets and stripped the bed. She tied one end to the bedpost and joined the sheets together, dangling them out the window, dismayed to see they didn’t even reach halfway to the ground below. She pulled her makeshift ladder back up, looking around the room for anything else she could use.
“Take off your nightgown,” she said, already unbuttoning her own. “Quickly.”
Eliza was coughing now, blinking her eyes and not moving.
“Quickly! Eliza!”
She tied the sleeve of her gown to the sheet and removed Eliza’s to add to the end. Dangling it out the window once more, she saw she was close. Perhaps they’d only break their legs if they fell now, instead of their necks.
“You go first,” she said, pushing Eliza toward the window. “You need to climb down.”
Eliza shook her head. “I can’t.”
“You can. And you will.”
“I’m in my unders!”
“Nobody cares about your unders! When we get to the bottom, we’ll put our gowns back on. You trust me, remember? You need to trust me now.”
Eliza nodded, clutching at her body, like she had a secret to hide. Her poor sister. If she didn’t move quickly now, her little body would never grow old enough to develop any curves worthy of hiding. And anyway, their unders—as her sister liked to call them—covered everything that needed to be covered, reaching from their elbows to their knees.
“Eliza. I’m not leaving without you. If you don’t climb down, then we both die. We’re not dying today. Do you hear me, Eliza? Climb down!”
She was shouting now. It wouldn’t be long before the flames broke down the door and once that happened they had no hope. If the sheets caught alight, then there was no way they were ever getting out of here alive. Her father would win. And she couldn’t have him win. She’d already decided that she was going to win this game.
The door cracked and flames licked their way at the edges.
“Go! Now! Please! Just hold the sheets and slide your way down. You can do this. I’ll be right behind you.”
Eliza blinked once. Twice. Three times. Her body still, her mind undoubtedly racing. Then she moved.
She swung her little body out of the window, clinging to the sheet and sliding down fast. Too fast perhaps. Or maybe it wasn’t fast enough. They only had seconds now.
Rose was right behind her. Gripping. Sliding. Screaming. Raging! How dare her father do this to them!
The fabric slipped from her hands and she fell the last few feet, landing partly on the ground and partly on top of Eliza.
“Are you okay?” she asked her sister, reaching for her and cuddling her close.
“No.” Eliza sniffed, burying her head in Rose’s chest. “My foot hurts.”
“You’re okay,” said Rose. “We’re both okay. We got out of there.”
“What about Tash and Cara?” Eliza asked.
Rose jumped up, ashamed for forgetting about her younger two sisters for a moment. She looked up at the palace, directing her gaze to the window to the right of the one they’d just climbed out of. There, looking out at her, were two little faces. Two frightened little faces.
“Tash! Cara!” she called, stretching out her arms. “Jump to me! Jump!”
She wasn’t certain she could catch them, but jumping had to be a better chance than letting the flames eat them alive.
The noise of the fire was roaring now, drowning out any hope of her words reaching her sisters’ ears.
Then a face appeared behind her sisters. A man in a robe. A Whisperer. What was he doing there? She peered harder to see if it was Jeremiah, but it wasn’t. This was a face she knew though. It was the Whisperer who worked in the garden. She’d seen him outside her window. He’d been at the palace for years. Only now his face looked different. Like there was a man inside the robe, instead of an empty soul.
“Save them!” she called, even though she knew he wouldn’t hear. “Save them!”
He reached for the girls, cradling th
em in his arms and sat on the window ledge. The girls were screaming, clutching onto him.
“Throw them to me!” Rose called, waving her arms now. Soon it would be too late. “Eliza, help! We need to catch the girls.”
Eliza limped to her side.
The Whisperer pushed himself off the edge, holding the girls tightly. The next few moments in time seemed to pass in slow motion. He fell, turning himself in the air with the screaming girls holding the front of his robe. When his back hit the ground, it was chaos. Bodies scattered and separated. There was screaming. So much screaming.
Then Rose realized the screaming was coming from her own lungs. She reached Cara first and scooped her into her arms. She was alive. Her arm and possibly a leg were bent at strange angles and most certainly broken, but she was alive.
“I have Tash!” Eliza called.
Rose turned her head to see Eliza cradling their sister in her arms, in much the same way she’d held Eliza only moments before.
They were injured. Only time would tell just how injured. However, they were alive. All of them. Her father had failed.
She crawled to the Whisperer to see how he’d fared, still clutching Cara in her arms.
He was lying on his back, his breathing shallow. Death hadn’t claimed him, but it was certain to. He was in terrible shape with blood pouring from a wound on his head.
“Thank you,” Rose said, taking his hand. “You saved my sisters. Thank you.”
He shook his head, the movement slight as he groaned from the effort.
“I didn’t.” His words were hard to make out, so she came closer, her face only inches from his.
“You did save them. I saw you.”
“No.” His breathing was raspy now, with blood bubbling in his lungs. “I tried to kill them.”
“No! I saw you. The way you jumped. You protected them with your fall.”
“I lit the fire. King’s orders.” His head fell to the side. “I’m … sorry.”
“No, Whisperer!” Rose said again, placing a hand on his cheek. She’d seen him try to save her sisters. Seen the pain on his face. Except there’d been something else in that pained expression. There’d also been guilt. Clearly, he’d been forced to light this fire.
“What’s your name?” she asked him, wanting him to leave this earth as a man, not a nameless servant.
“Jack,” he choked out, before closing his eyes.
“Thank you, Jack. You saved my sisters’ lives. You’re a hero.”
His chest fell still and she was unsure if he’d heard her words before he’d gone.
Why hadn’t she listened to her mother and run when she’d had the chance? If one of her sisters had died today, it would’ve been all her fault. She may as well have lit the fire herself.
Instead, a determination lit inside her. Her father may have avoided war with the other kingdoms since he’d had his Whisperers in the palace, but right now, he had a war raging inside his kingdom. A war with his own daughter.
She knew right then that she had the strength to kill the Conductor. She’d kill ten conductors if she had to.
Evil wouldn’t win this war.
She would.
JEREMIAH
SEVEN
Jeremiah could smell smoke. Lots of it. It unsettled him, even more than Micah had with her crazy plan for him to become the Conductor. More than Rose seeming to agree with it.
He’d gone to the kitchen to collect Rose’s breakfast tray, only to find it gone, which meant he was no longer required to deliver it. So, he’d gone to the dining hall to queue for his own breakfast with a heavy heart. He’d been looking forward to seeing Rose for a second time that day, even if her sister would have been awake by then. He hoped Rose knew how lucky she was to have a sister to sleep safely by her side.
When his own sister had jumped out of the crate and called “Surprise!” he’d had a thousand thoughts race through his mind. None of them good. And none of them were about her asking him to become the Conductor. That’d been the greatest surprise she’d ever given him. And ironically, it’d been the one time she hadn’t prefaced it with the word surprise. She didn’t seem to understand what it would take for him to make it to the top of the chain of Whisperers. But Rose did. She’d made that clear in their rushed conversation just now, with her idea to have the Whisperers before him sent to the dungeon. Was that really the only way? He was desperate to come up with a better idea, only so far hadn’t thought of anything. He needed to keep thinking. And fast. Because somehow, he was already one step closer to becoming the Conductor. Worried One, who’d slept beside him for five years now, had gone. Her mat had been taken from the arena and he’d had to move up one place. He wondered what could have happened to her and if Micah had somehow had a hand in it? For he was now one place closer to the position she and Rose seemed to want him to take. In his mind, this was only one place closer to death.
It’d felt odd last night without Worried One there, a woman who he never once said a single word to but had known her all the same. The thought of what might have happened to her sent pain shooting to his heart, to sit beside all the other information Micah had given in that brief time they’d spent in the laundry.
His parents were dead. And the baby had never lived to draw breath. And he and Micah were just as good as dead living here in the palace. His whole family wiped out by King Virtus and his lies. At least Tallis was still alive. The only one of them left in the Valley of the Blessed. The name of his former home had never felt more ironic.
It was strange to see Micah again. It was her, but not her. He wondered if she felt the same about him. So much about her had changed, yet so much remained the same.
His nose twitched as the smoke smell got stronger. This wasn’t just a small fire. Something had gone horribly wrong. The palace was on fire!
The Conductor had been very clear in their training about what to do in an emergency.
Nothing.
He was to do nothing. If the flames reached him, he was to let them lap at his sides and eat him alive. He doubted if he would even be allowed to scream. Not that the Conductor would be able to do much about it if he did.
How could he do nothing when he was certain that the flames had something to do with Rose?
He touched his cheek where she’d kissed him and tried to hide a flush from creeping up his face. The feelings he had for her seemed to be mutual. Feelings that stretched beyond friendship or admiration into the realm of… love? Was that what this was? He definitely loved Rose and couldn’t deny it was a very different kind of love than what he felt for Micah. Was this the feeling he’d been waiting for when the girls in the valley had paid him so much attention? He now knew that the reason he hadn’t pursued any of them wasn’t because he hadn’t wanted a family of his own. It was because none of them had been Rose.
Which was why not being able to run to her side to save her was so hard. The Prince had been born. Rose had told him so, and he’d heard a baby crying when he’d passed the Queen’s bedchamber on his way back to the kitchen. That small set of lungs howling had nearly made him howl himself. For surely, now that he’d been born, Rose and her sisters were in danger. This fire could be no coincidence.
He heard the familiar tapping of the Conductor’s sword as he paced the dining hall, reminding them of their punishment if any of them dared to react to what they must all be able to smell by now.
Jeremiah’s heart was beating fast now. He had to get to Rose. How could he stand here and do nothing? Although, he didn’t suppose he could save her if he was already dead or locked in the dungeon. He had no choice except to stay here for now. Besides, if anyone could save themselves, it was Rose. She was strong, feisty and brave. If there was a way to get herself to safety, she’d do it.
He collected his breakfast and ate it even more slowly than usual, his appetite having vanished as his concern increased. However, not to eat would only draw attention to himself. He could see Micah at a nearby table, so at lea
st he knew she was safe.
On his way back to the arena, he tried to figure out which direction the smoke was coming from. The smell of it was so strong, it was impossible to tell. Please let Rose be safe!
He reluctantly took his place on his mat and lay down, begging the universe to let Rose be okay. She didn’t deserve her father’s hatred like this. She was a good person. Too good to have such a malicious father.
From the corner of his eye, he saw the Conductor approach the first row of mats. He swooped down and picked up the mat in the second position and tucked it under his arm, tapping his sword three times on the floor as he waited for the Whisperers to silently assume new positions.
The slow and careful shuffle began. What had happened to Blue Eyes? It wasn’t normal for two front-row Whisperers to leave in such quick succession. Had Micah had a hand in his departure, just as he suspected she’d had something to do with Worried One’s absence? Except Blue Eyes worked in the garden. Micah couldn’t have gotten anywhere near him. Was this just a coincidence? He needed to find a way to talk to Micah again. A safer way than last time. She’d taken far too many risks that time. Her plan wasn’t a good one. She didn’t know the palace like he did. He couldn’t possibly be the Conductor. He didn’t have it in him. The King would have him killed in no time. There wouldn’t be time for him to change the Whisper like Rose had suggested.
Unless…
He could find a way to kill the King before he killed him. The Conductor carried an awfully sharp sword around. If somehow, he could use that sword to take off the King’s head, then perhaps Micah and Rose would be safe. He would certainly be put to death himself, but he was as good as dead anyway. Why not use his life to save others? If Rose were to become Queen, maybe he could even escape death. It was hard to imagine her having him killed.
He turned this idea over in his head, savoring it in the same way he’d seen Micah do with the orange on that fateful day. He was going to kill the King. It was time to see if the sword was mightier than words.
He pulled his face under his blanket to hide his smile.
The Kingdoms of Evernow Box Set Page 12