Belrosa twists my hand, putting a popping strain on my wrist, and my body spasms, my legs curling to my chest.
With a slow and controlled sigh, Belrosa kneels down. “This is what power brings to the powerless.” Her words reach me like the hiss of smoke from a fire. “Pain. And now you have mine. Every moment when fear ruled over me and every pain I’ve ever experienced. Every struggle, every ache, all rushing together at once. And it burns you.”
I try to pull my hand from her grasp, but I don’t have the strength. Every effort goes toward stopping the outbursts of terror that surge through me. I grit my teeth. My jaw aches.
Belrosa leans down as if she’s about to kiss my cheek. She lets go of my hand but draws a finger up my arm to the tattoo. It’s like a flame tearing its way up my skin. She presses gently against the ink crown, and a sharp physical pain shoots through me. Shattering terror pierces me. I am empty. I am broken. Everything I am pours out of me, replaced by pain.
She whispers in my ear, “This crown will be mine, one way or another.”
Once again, her fears flood me with the slam of metal and touch of cold stone. Then she lets go.
Belrosa marches to the door. “Have a lovely evening, Your Highness.” She gives a courteous bow. The door slams shut behind her.
My connection to Belrosa is gone, but I can’t stop gasping for air, and I can’t forget the searing pain racing through my entire body.
I am alone. I have ice burning my skin and fire searing my chest, and I have no one.
I can’t stay here.
As I slowly regain my body, I push up from the floor. I will not stay where she left me, curled on the floor in pain and defeat. I will not suffer this way. I grab a coat, tighten the laces of my boots, and turn down the flickering lantern flame. I leave the sleeping quarters, abandoning the bed my body wants to collapse in.
I hurry down the long empty corridors, which take every small sound and amplify it. I hear the faint squelch of my leather boots, the uneasy, uneven gusts of breath in my chest, and every creak in the floors.
I go to the last place I’d expect. I go to the king’s quarters, to the solid, polished oak door covered by a black curtain. I slip inside, and it’s just as Esther and I left it. The faint layer of dust is still undisturbed, and the bed is so smooth, it’s as if it’s never been touched.
If I survive long enough, I could die here of old age, but if someone from Belrosa’s army finds me here tonight, death may come sooner.
With a sigh, I realize that I wish Esther was here. I wish Hat and Glenquartz were here too. I even wish Devil was here.
I stand tentatively at the side of the bed, and I think about pulling the blankets down onto the floor as I did on my first night in the guest sleeping quarters.
Instead I crawl into the bed. There’s a faint smell of body oil and perfume, and I feel my eyes burn as I realize that this is what my father smelled like. This was the man who sentenced me to a life on the streets, but also the man who spoke my name in the moments before his death. I never learned what his laugh sounded like or had the chance to memorize his smile.
I never met my father, but somehow—impossibly—I miss him.
* * *
Someone opens the door. In an instant, I’ve rolled off the opposite side of the bed, shifted my knife to an offensive grip, and gotten a lock on the person coming inside. When I see the dark ringlets of hair and tan skin, I relax.
Esther’s startled gaze fixes on the blade in my hand, and I quickly slide it into my pocket.
“Glenquartz said you were missing,” Esther says. “We’ve been searching for you all morning. We didn’t know if someone killed you, or took you, or if you ran off. In any case, it’s only us that know. We didn’t want to alarm the council. Is everything…Are you okay?”
I rise to my feet, and I summon the blade to my fingertips at a moment’s notice again as heat and anger flood me. I slam the blade sideways, burying an inch of steel into the canopy bedpost.
Esther gasps, and I know on some level that I’ve damaged something I shouldn’t have. I wrench the blade free and stalk past her toward the door.
“I’m not talking about it,” I say angrily. Then, a second later, as I reach the door, I turn around and say, just as angrily, “Fine. I’ll talk about it. But bring Glenquartz. I’m not going through it more than once.”
When she leaves to fetch him, I pace the room.
The fear and hurt I felt last night have morphed entirely into anger. What would I do if I was already queen? I wonder if I would have Belrosa executed on the spot, or if I’d have her arrested and taken before the judiciary. I might even go to the Royal Council for support.
I grip the handle of my knife tighter and tighter. None of that would help me, because I’m Nameless. It doesn’t matter that I have a crown tattoo. I don’t have rights.
“I could do this alone,” I say quietly to the empty room, testing the lie to see how it feels. I could find Devil, leave Seriden. All it would take is for me to walk through that door, past the black curtain, and out of the palace.
But for the first time, I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to face every pain the world has offered me by myself. So I sit on the edge of the bed, and I wait.
Esther returns fifteen minutes later, and she has both Glenquartz and Hat.
“I couldn’t convince her to stay behind,” Glenquartz says apologetically. “Has…something happened?”
Hat pushes past Glenquartz and stands in front of me. She studies my face for a minute, and I feel my cheeks burn red. I take a deep breath and tilt my head down, running through what I want to say.
Hat puts a hand on my shoulder, and I flinch. She bends down to meet my downcast gaze.
“Eyes up,” she says consolingly. “Remember?”
I try to take a stand before them, but I have too much energy, and I begin pacing.
“I was alone,” I start. “For a very long time. I grew up in a crew of as many as twenty children underneath the leadership of a Nameless man called Marcher.”
Hat cringes and sits on the bed, pulling a pillow to her stomach.
“It wasn’t like this for everyone,” I say, “but there were no friendships for me. There were no companions or mentors. There was just Marcher and the insane, competitive, challenging, impossible world he raised me in. And then I did make a friend. Another kid in our group called Echo. And Marcher got her killed. I was so angry that I…” I pause to roll my shoulders and get my head on straight. “I tried to kill Marcher, and I failed. I failed because you showed up.” I gesture at Hat, and her eyes are shining.
“I almost did it,” I say. “But I didn’t. And it occurred to me in that moment that even if Marcher got someone else killed, he was looking after the rest of the kids in a way that no one else could, and in a way that the city never would. So I compromised, and I just left. Over the next few years, I struck out alone and made a name for myself. I became a grifter and a survivor, no matter what else that meant.”
Glenquartz eases down into a chair by the wardrobe, and Esther remains standing.
“Every time I saw you, Hat,” I say, “I knew there were more like you. And I couldn’t look after all of them or any of them. Somehow, that meant I couldn’t look after just you. I don’t know if I was wrong to think like that, but I’m sorry for everything it meant for you. And…this is the first time in my entire life that I haven’t felt like I have to do everything alone.” A weak smile flickers on my face.
“Something happened,” I confirm. “Something is happening. And I don’t want to deal with it alone. I want to tell you what happened, and then I want to ask for your help.”
All three of them stand firm. All of them are ready.
I tell them about the army. About Marcher. About Belrosa’s visit, how fears I’d never imagined and angers I’d never co
nsidered burned through my body like ice. I tell Esther that Belrosa implied that she’d practiced her abilities on Fallow, subjecting him to her cruel thoughts and fears the same way she did me.
Esther’s eyes shift from troubled and pained to something darker. Her shoulders tighten, and her lip twitches in disgust. Her expression grows fierce and desperate as her fists curl tightly, her arms trembling.
I recognize what she’s thinking. Her aura is cold yet distant, like the freezing of ice behind a sheet of glass.
I step closer. “Don’t,” I say, gentle but firm.
“Don’t what,” Esther says, but she doesn’t even say it like a question. She grits her teeth. Her eyes flit to the knife in my hand.
“I know that look,” I say. “I know what it means.” She wants to kill Belrosa.
“Do you?” Esther challenges, her hands balled into fists. “Because I just realized my father probably spent my entire life suffering at the hand of the person who was supposed to protect him. No wonder he kept me at a distance! He was protecting me from her. Tell me: What Belrosa did to you, was it the worst pain you’d ever felt?”
I consider briefly whether I should lie, but at this point, she’d know.
“Yes.”
Esther’s resolution wavers. Her aura shifts from the fear of ice to the splintering of glass.
“This isn’t about whether or not Belrosa deserves it,” I say. “It’s not about her. It’s about you, and whether or not you can live with yourself.”
Esther stares at me hard.
“You knew our father better than anyone,” I say. “Would he want you to become a killer?”
I don’t need an answer to sense the softening of her aura, the anger melting and falling away, the heavy grief crawling to replace it. She relaxes and falls silent.
Hat stands now, as though it’s her turn for outrage. “We should confront her. As a group. She can’t do what she did to me or to Glenquartz.”
I shake my head. “No. You don’t understand. You’re trying to help, but you don’t understand. I shouldn’t have even told you.”
“Not tell me?” She glowers.
“I want to protect you from things like this and from people like that!” I say.
“You can’t do that, Coin,” she says. “You can’t protect me from everything.”
“Why the hell not?” I demand. “I grew up in fear and anger! That was my whole life, and it was all I knew. Then I was alone until…until you came to me and asked me to teach you how to be brave. I don’t want this for you, Hat.”
“You turned out fine,” Hat says.
“No, I didn’t,” I say. “I’m broken. And yes, I may have found a way to be happy sometimes, but I’m not a happy person. Not like you are.”
Hat narrows her eyes, annoyed. “I’m not just happy by nature. You know that, right?”
I stare at her. “Of course you are. You have this inherent optimism that I don’t have.”
Hat nearly scoffs. “Then you don’t understand me at all! You think I was happy to live out on the streets and spend every night in that house full of kids who are so competitive with each other that none of us have any real friends? You think it’s easy for me to spend every day with you, knowing that you can only bear to have me around for half the day before you send me back to Marcher? No. All of that hurts. The whole world hurts. I can’t stop it or control it. But it’s like you said to me after you saved me. You have to let things make you strong instead of damaged. You have to choose how the world shapes you.”
I open my mouth to speak, but she keeps going.
“So, yeah, I choose to be happy,” she says. “I make an effort to wake up each morning in the best mood I can, because I know it will go downhill if I let it. I don’t want to end up like those Nameless who sit on the corners of stoops, staring at nothing and starving to death because the world doesn’t care about them and they’ve forgotten how to care for themselves. I want friends. I want a family. I want to learn how to take care of myself and be as badass as you are. So don’t think anything is easy, because nothing is. Stop acting like happiness is something you can’t have.” Hat huffs in frustration, and she stalks away from me. She stands at the far end of the room, staring out the window.
“The Assassins’ Festival is in thirteen days,” I say gently. “We only have twelve days to prepare. I’ve spent…most of my life on my own. Even when I probably shouldn’t have.” I glance guiltily at Hat, and even though she’s picking at some dried wax on the writing desk, she’s listening.
I continue, “I’m asking for your help. For all of your help. Belrosa has manipulated me twice with a single touch. She tried to kill Hat in front of hundreds of spectators. She arranged the riots and the fires, all to undermine me and prepare the city to accept military rule. People have died. I don’t want more people to die, and I don’t want to face this alone. Belrosa is expecting me to duel her and lose, and the lives of innocent people hang in the balance. Please help me.”
“Of course,” Glenquartz says, bowing his head.
“Absolutely,” Esther says.
Hat walks over and puts an arm tentatively around me, until she has slipped into a hug. “Yes.”
CHAPTER 20
We spend the rest of the day coming up with the plan for the festival. Then, over the next week, it’s nonstop drills of hand-to-hand combat with Glenquartz and practicing magic with Esther; then we start combining the two. All the while, the Royal Council thinks I’m attending etiquette lessons with Eldritch Weathers, and everyone—including Belrosa—still thinks Esther and I hate each other. The council is content if I decide to keep my head down until the festival, and Belrosa probably thinks I’m scared of her. Good. Let them be wrong.
“You know,” I say to Esther, “if you’d asked me a month ago to fight you, I would’ve gladly accepted.” I test my footing on the matted floor.
“You weren’t my biggest supporter,” she says. “But for good reason. I wasn’t supportive of you, either. Our relationship was precarious at best, volatile at worst.”
“If you can just keep channeling your inner pretentious Royal, that’ll make this a lot easier.” I crack my knuckles.
“What do you mean, ‘pretentious’?” Esther says. “I am simply—”
I cut her off, holding up a finger. “Starting a sentence with ‘I am simply’ is pretty much all the evidence I need.”
She lets out a low growl.
I continue, “Glenquartz has been teaching me how to spar for weeks now, so why do we need to do this? I want you to keep teaching me magic. Besides, I don’t think the former princess of Seriden is qualified to—”
The next breath is blown from my chest. I don’t even see it happen. All I know is I’m on the floor.
“Did you just…?” I say as I try to breathe.
“Sternum punch?” Esther says cheerily. “Glenquartz said that was payback. I grew up thinking I was going to be queen one day, and you’ve only known it for about five weeks. I’ve been training my entire life to win duels.” She cocks her head patiently to the side, not offering to help me up.
I consider whether a well-placed kick to her leg would bring her down to my level, but instead she skips away.
“Are you sure you can’t read my thoughts?” I ask as I prop myself up on my knees.
“Very sure,” she says. “Reading thoughts only works with physical contact, and you’re Nameless, so I can’t sense anything from you. Which gives you an advantage, actually.” She extends a gloved hand to help me up.
“You know what sort of advantage I’d like? The napping kind.” I fold my arms under my head and stretch out.
She nudges me with a toe impatiently, and I curl in toward her and bring her down to the floor. She gasps, somewhere between pleasantly surprised and angry, and I smile.
“All ri
ght,” I say. “We can fight fairly now.”
She glares at me through a few misplaced strands of dark hair. “You’re very competitive, you know that?” she says with a huff.
I smirk. “More competitive than you, I bet.”
She shakes her head, holding up a hand to stop me. “As I was saying, between you and me you have the advantage. I can’t sense you, which means I’m going to be like every other dueler you face. You can sense me, and I can’t sense you. Right?”
I pull myself to my feet. “Yeah, except my abilities don’t work the same way as yours. When you make someone see an illusion, you see it too, right?”
She nods.
“My illusions don’t work like that,” I say. “I can’t see what I make other people see, which is very funny to watch, but also not very useful to me. How do I know if what I’m making you see is really there?”
“I think it’s even more useful,” Esther says. “At the execution, you made everyone hear loud bells and you made their vision go dark. That didn’t affect you, so you were able to run through the crowd unharmed. That’s an advantage I’ve never had, and that’s how you were able to save your friend.”
“That’s me! I’m that friend!” Hat shouts from outside the door. She skids into the room. “I ran here all the way from Med Ward.” She pulls off her apron and hat and stuffs them into a shoulder bag.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“Glenquartz told me you’re sparring,” Hat says. “That means I’ll get to see one or both of you get beaten up by the other. I can’t think of a better way to spend an afternoon.” She sits at the edge of the mat and leans forward on her knees.
I point at her. “You are a menace.”
Esther objects. “It’s good that she stays. You’ll have observers at the festival, so you’ll have to be able to focus when you’re the center of attention. Hat will be a good audience.” Esther winks at Hat.
“I love being the center of attention,” I say sarcastically.
“You watch Coin,” Esther says to Hat. “If we do this right, you’ll be able to see her actions and I won’t. If she makes any mistakes, you let me know, okay?”
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