Tamriel wavers, his entire body tense. His guards were murdered in front of his eyes—he would have followed them had Mercy not stepped in—and now the spirit of the woman he has despised all his life is telling him to leave everything to explore the war-torn Cirisor Islands. At best, it’s a leap of faith. At worst, they’re running headfirst to their deaths.
“Tamriel,” Ghyslain says slowly, “step away from her.”
“She saved my life.”
“She’s the reason we’re in this mess.”
Mercy frowns and shifts closer to Tamriel, opening her mouth to say—
“Not one more inch,” Ghyslain snaps. His eyes are dark as ink, full of rage. “Do not step any closer to my son or I swear to the Creator I’ll have your head.”
“I haven’t done anything except protect him when your soldiers failed.”
“You will leave my castle—alone—this instant. You and your people will no longer plague my city—”
“Stop!” Tamriel commands. The king freezes, taken aback, as Tamriel stalks forward until he is face-to-face with his father. “I’m not leaving because of her. I’m leaving because of you—because of your lies! You’re too cowardly to search for the cure to the disease which is killing more of your people each day. How many has it been so far, Father? A thousand? Two thousand? Do you even know? Do you even care?”
Ghyslain’s hand flies out and strikes Tamriel across the face. As the prince staggers back, a hand to his reddening cheek, the anger on Ghyslain’s face bleeds away to horror. “I-I didn’t mean to—”
“Don’t.” Tamriel lowers his hand and squares his shoulders, slipping behind that emotionless mask he wears so well around his father. “Enjoy the rest of your time on the throne, because it ends when I return with the cure.”
“It’s not that simple. There are things you don’t know—things you must learn before you make your choice,” the king says.
“I’m listening.”
“Not in front of the Assassin. Come with me into the throne room.”
“No. Anything you have to say, say it now.”
A muscle works in Ghyslain’s jaw. “Very well,” he says. He turns to the commander. “Seize them. Take the prince to my chambers and leave the Assassin here. I will deal with her myself.”
Four soldiers run forward, but Tamriel jerks out of their reach, pushing Mercy behind him. “Fine,” he spits. “I’ll listen to what you have to say, but it’s not going to change my mind.”
The king turns on his heel. The guard standing in front of the archway to the throne room steps aside, and Ghyslain enters, not bothering to look back at his son. Tamriel has no choice but to follow.
The prince steps forward, but Mercy catches his arm, stilling him. “Be careful.”
He looks away and nods, placing a hand on top of hers. He takes a deep breath, then turns and follows his father into the throne room.
Mercy strains her ears, but all she can hear is the low murmur of their voices drifting from the other room. In addition to the guards lining the room, two stand on either side of her. She looks left and glares at the one closest to her.
He completely ignores her.
Lylia and Faye are still somewhere in the castle. Liselle’s thunderclap—whatever it was—had been enough to disable them for a short while, but it’s only a matter of time before they’ve recovered enough to come after her, and the longer Mercy is trapped in the great hall, the easier it’s going to be for them to find her. They won’t set foot in this room, but she knows they’ll be stalking the halls, waiting to catch the prince and her unawares. Whatever kinship had remained between Mercy and Faye is undoubtedly gone now that she has committed the worst sin of all: killing a fellow member of the Guild. There is no going back, no chance of forgiveness. Ever. Whatever value Mother Illynor believed Mercy to have is now worth nothing. If she tries to return to the Keep, they’ll kill her before she steps through the gate.
Something clangs against the doors to the castle, and Mercy and the guards look over to see the handle jiggling. When he realizes it’s locked, the person begins banging on the doors with his fists. The ten guards glance at one another as they turn and lift their swords.
“Let me in!” he shouts, his voice muffled through the wood. “Let me in or I swear—”
The commander hurries forward and opens the door to a petrified-looking Calum, who stands with his enormous crossbow in his hands, a heavy bolt aimed straight ahead. Seeing the commander, he lowers the crossbow and sprints into the castle, bumping shoulders with one of the guards in his haste. He stops dead when he sees Mercy, his eyes flicking from the grim expressions on the soldiers’ faces to the blood splattered on her hands and clothes. His face drains of blood and the crossbow slips out of his fingers, clattering loudly on the stone tile.
“I’m too late, aren’t I?” he whispers. “It’s done.”
Mercy narrows her eyes.
His shoulders slump.
Across the room, Tamriel walks out of the throne room. His expression is unreadable, but it shifts to shock when Calum runs up and sweeps his cousin into his arms. “Thank the Creator,” he says, looking like he might cry. He pulls back and stares in horror at the blood on his hands, then turns Tamriel around to stare at the back of his soaked shirt. “Tam, you must see a doctor.” He glares at each of the guards in turn. “Has no one sent for Healer Tabris? Go—go now!”
Two guards rush out of the room.
“No, I must leave now,” Tamriel says.
“Why?”
Ghyslain trails in from the other room, regarding his son with sad eyes. “If you still insist on leaving, I cannot stand in your way. You know the risks, but it is your choice to make. No one here will stop you.” He gives the soldiers a meaningful look and they lower, then sheathe, their swords. They bow their heads in respect and withdraw to the sides of the room, leaving Mercy, Calum, Tamriel, and Ghyslain standing in the middle. “I insist you wait until Healer Tabris arrives. He’ll patch you up and you can gather anything you wish to take with you.”
Tamriel frowns.
“Humor me. I need to know you won’t be leaving here only to bleed out on the road.”
The prince clenches his jaw. “There is no time, and I am fine.”
“Don’t even try it,” Calum snaps.
“Tamriel.” Mercy tugs on his sleeve. He looks at her, surprised, as if he had forgotten she is there. She jerks her chin toward the throne room, and Tamriel’s breath catches when he sees Liselle peering out from behind the archway. Her slate gray skin blends into the wall, and Mercy would have mistaken her for shadow if she hadn’t known better.
Liselle watches Ghyslain sadly before her eyes lift to Tamriel. She offers him a single nod before disappearing.
The prince runs a hand through his hair and winces, then lets out a long sigh. “Very well,” he finally says. “One hour, and not a minute longer.”
53
Mercy stands in the middle of Tamriel’s bedroom, staring at the carnage all around her. In the fighting, several end tables and ottomans had been knocked aside, the candles splattering wax across the floor when they had fallen. Books lie scattered and open on the floor, their old and yellowed pages now soggy with blood, the ink smeared and unreadable. The blankets on Tamriel’s bed are crumpled in a pile on the floor, thrown off in haste.
And, of course, there are bodies.
Eight men and women lie scattered around the room. Their blood pools together into a carpet of dark red which sticks to the soles of Mercy’s shoes when she carefully steps around them.
She had come to check for survivors, but every body she has examined is undeniably, irrefutably dead. She should have known better than to hope; the Daughters are trained too well. Unsurprisingly, Faye and Lylia are nowhere to be found. There’s not a trace of them in the room; even Aelis’s body is gone.
They’re back at Blackbriar now, Mercy hopes, gathering their strength and nursing their wounds. Infinitely more terrifying,
though, is the knowledge they are likely still within the castle. They must have stashed Aelis’s body in one of the unused rooms, waiting until after they kill Tamriel to move her body. It’s a small comfort to know that while they are still hunting the prince, they will at least be a little distracted by the prospect of bringing Aelis back to the Keep without anyone noticing; they would never leave her to be buried in some unmarked grave in the capital.
The bigger comfort, though, is that Tamriel is sitting in the throne room now, being patched and bandaged by Healer Tabris. Ghyslain and fifteen of the soldiers had chosen to remain with him.
Two guards move about Tamriel’s room in silence, picking up their fallen comrades and carrying them out into the hallway. Mercy pretends not to see their tears, and they pretend not to be appalled by her lack of emotion.
“Ready to go back?” Calum asks. A bag containing clothes and provisions is slung over his shoulder, and he carefully sidesteps a pool of blood as he makes his way to Mercy’s side.
She glares at him. “I don’t know what you think you are doing here,” she hisses, “but don’t think for a second you are fooling me into believing you care for Tamriel.”
He waits for the guards to leave the room with another body before he speaks, clenching his jaw as he eyes her warily. “He’s like a brother to me. This—all of this—was a mistake. I don’t want him harmed for a crime his father committed.”
“But you were fine with having me executed?”
He rolls his eyes. “You were never in any danger. The Daughters were already on their way, and I knew Tamriel would postpone your death as long as possible. Somehow you managed to put him under your spell; he seems to care a great deal about you.”
She scoffs.
“Look,” he says, “I know you don’t trust me, but I owe you for saving Tamriel’s life. Should you choose to accompany him on this silly expedition of his, you have my aid. But,” he murmurs, shifting closer to whisper into her ear when the guards return, “if you breathe a word of this to anyone, I will put a bolt through your skull.”
Mercy glares at him with unadulterated hatred, but she cannot keep the memory of the crossbow bolt pulverizing the brick in the Keep’s wall from surfacing in her mind. “You had a partner in all of this,” she murmurs. “Elise.”
“Do not touch her.”
Mercy smirks at the fear on his face, the first real emotion she’s seen from him. Whatever is between them, it’s more than a mere business arrangement. “I believe we have an understanding, then.” As a serenna, Elise has access to countless documents bearing the signatures of not only Ghyslain, but his most trusted advisors, as well—perfect for practicing forgeries. “It was her calligraphy, wasn’t it? She forged the signature for you.” Then, Mercy remembers the huge canvas in Elise’s parents’ gallery, the painting of the strangely familiar young boy, and realizes him now to be Calum. With her father as one of the king’s right-hand men, Elise had practically grown up in the castle alongside the prince and Calum—it’s no surprise they’d have bonded over the years. “You offered her a solution to her arranged marriage and a chance for the throne. How could she have resisted?”
Calum frowns.
A guard, sensing the tension, hesitantly approaches. “We’ve moved everyone, sir,” he says.
“Thank you, Aksel. I’m . . . sorry for your loss.”
The guard grimaces. “We should return to the throne room—the prince is waiting. My men will clean all this up. The slaves are terrified enough already.”
Calum nods, then turns to Mercy, adjusting the bag on his shoulder. “Shall we?”
“You go. I have something I have to do first.”
“Oh-ho, not so fast. You think I’m going to let you go anywhere alone?”
“Come with me, then.”
He frowns again.
“It’ll only take a minute. I made a promise to someone.”
“A promise! And you’re going to follow through? Is this a first for you?” He widens his eyes, staggering back as if struck.
She punches his arm.
“Damn. Fine. Let’s go,” he says. “I’m trusting you not to pull a knife on me, though.”
He lets go of her and follows her out of the room. She scowls as they walk down the hallway.
If only I could.
Calum doesn’t realize what she’s planning until they turn into the hallway leading to the infirmary. He stops and catches the back of her shirt. “No. Nope. Not going in there.” He shakes his head. “Are you mad?”
“I didn’t say you’re going in. I am.”
“Because you think you’re immune?”
“I spent days in there and wasn’t affected.”
“It could’ve been luck.”
She presses her hands to her heart. “Calum, are you worried for me?” she asks innocently, batting her lashes. “I didn’t think you capable.”
He releases her, making a sound of disgust. “Just do what you have to do. Get in and get out.”
He follows her down the hall, and when they reach the two guards standing in front of the infirmary, he orders them to step aside.
They glance at each other uneasily. “Sir, we can’t let anyone inside. It’s not safe.”
“And it’s against our orders,” the other adds.
“This order comes directly from the king.” When they don’t move, Calum lets out an exaggerated sigh. “What, do you wish me to fetch him? His Majesty has enough to deal with as it is—he doesn’t need to be dragged down here to personally deliver orders to two imbecilic guards, now, does he?”
“No, of course not. Just be careful,” the first guard says. He unlatches the door and holds it open. Mercy steps through, and he practically slams it on her heels in his haste to close it.
“Alyss?” she whispers.
She tiptoes forward, trying to peer through the shelves of medical books, but the light on the other side is so dim she can’t make out anything more than the silhouettes of the four beds—three of which are empty. A slumbering form is huddled on the one closest to the fire, as if Alyss had stumbled to it one night after working at the desk and hadn’t had the strength to make it all the way to her cot. Based on the stench, she’s been lying there a while.
“Alyss, are you awake?”
The Rivosi woman shifts, and Mercy runs around the shelves to kneel at the side of her bed. On the bedside table is a candle burned down to about a half inch, the pool of hot wax surrounding it threatening to overtake the weak flame. Beside it is a pile of half-eaten food, most of it rotten. How long Alyss has been huddled here, she has no clue. Owl and the other priestess are gone.
Alyss’s eyes flutter open, hazy with fever. A sheen of perspiration sparkles across her brow and the entire left side of her face is covered in boils. Hard, crusty scabs and lines of scratches mark the ones she’d popped with her fingernails.
“Alyss, I’m sorry I didn’t make it here sooner. How long have you . . . Did Owl . . .?”
Alyss stares straight at her, but her gaze is distant, unseeing. She makes no sign of having heard Mercy—or of being alive at all, save for the shallow, rasping sound coming from her throat.
Mercy adjusts the blankets and sees that the neckline of her tunic is damp with sweat, and behind it, the rash has grown and spread across her collarbone and up the side of her neck, red and angry. It takes Mercy’s breath away.
Seeing Alyss like this makes her want to punch something.
She stands and moves to the desk, shuffling around until she finds another candle. She lights it and begins searching for the poisonous mushrooms Alyss had shown her. She digs through papers scribbled with possible cure recipes, each one more and more illegible as Alyss had grown more desperate. Scattered across the desk’s surface are more glass vials than Mercy has ever seen. Each is half-filled with a strange mixture, and several of them have tipped over and leaked onto the wood.
There, at the back, is the small wooden box Alyss had shown her. She opens i
t and—
Nothing.
It’s empty.
Mercy puts down the candle and shuffles through the papers on the desk again. She shoves the vials aside and several fall to the floor and shatter, bleeding their foul-smelling contents. The dried mushrooms had been in a sheer chiffon bag inside the box. They must still be inside the bag—if only she can find it.
Behind her, Alyss falls into a coughing fit so violent Mercy flinches. Each cough crackles like thunder in her lungs, and Mercy hurries to her side.
“I can’t find it!” she cries. “Where is it? Please, speak!”
Alyss shuts her eyes tightly, a few tears slipping out of the corners of her eyes as the coughs subside. As Mercy watches with wide eyes, Alyss reaches out a trembling hand and drops a soft cloth bag into Mercy’s cupped palms. The fabric is moist from her sweat, the mushrooms practically dust from the strength of her grip.
Mercy bites her lip. Alyss had been holding onto it in case Mercy hadn’t kept her promise. The fact that she had survived this long without using it is remarkable. Her pain must be unbearable.
“Oh, Alyss . . .”
At that, the healer looks up and her eyes meet Mercy’s, filled with disappointment and hopelessness. She nods.
Do it.
Mercy closes her fingers around the pouch. “Okay.”
After searching the shelves, she finds a chipped mug and fills it with water, mixing in the mushrooms until the water turns a muddy gray. She stirs it, then pockets the rest of the poison. She returns to Alyss’s side and hesitates before lifting the cup to the healer’s lips.
Alyss drinks eagerly, some of the water spilling out of the corner of her mouth and dribbling down her chin. When she’s done, Alyss leans her head back on her pillow and sighs. Despite the monstrosity her face has become, her expression is peaceful.
Her eyelids drift shut slowly, and her last breath is one long sigh. If Mercy didn’t know any better, she’d have thought she were sleeping, like Alyss had intended.
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