They have Won
“We’re done being squashed by the House of Morgan and their goldsoaked nobles,” Brados says, “while we starve. We’re taking power for
ourselves.”
At my side, Malleus draws his sword. “Just try.”
Talan raises his hand. “Enough. Put your sword away. You look like an
idiot.”
Malleus flushes and sheathes his sword.
Talan meets Brados’s stare. “You’re right. This country shouldn’t be
ruled by the House of Morgan. In fact, the House of Morgan has never ruled
this kingdom.”
Brados stares at him. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Auberon lied. The throne was never his. Mordred is not his father. He
descends from Merlin.”
“Do we really need to worry about old history?” Aedan blusters.
“It’s true,” I say. “Mordred, son of Morgan, is still alive on Avalon. I am
his daughter. He told me this himself.”
“You’re lying,” Brados says coldly.
“Ask your advisor,” I say calmly. “She saw Mordred only yesterday.
They got along very well, actually.”
Brados turns to Nivene in shock. She purses her lips and gives him a
tiny nod.
“Well, then this makes it even clearer,” Brados says. “We’re not going
to let Mordred, whom none of us has seen in over a millennium, rule over
us. And we definitely won’t let a family of liars rule, either.”
“Neither will we,” Aedan says, his oily voice sharp and dangerous.
“Clearly, the strongest noble family should take charge. Farmers and
peasants don’t know how to run a kingdom.”
“The most powerful noble family?” Malleus raises his voice. “And who
would that be? My father holds the largest army—”
“Your father has the plague, boy,” Aedan spits.
“He’s already getting better—”
A Dead womans Dairies
“This is who I am, Julian.” I try to keep my breathing even, try to sound like a king. The words make sense as I think them, but they come out wrong. Stumbling, unsure. “It’s everything I’ve ever known, the only path I’ve ever wanted or been made to want.”
My uncle tightens his grip on my shoulders. “Your brother could say the same, and where did that lead him?”
I bristle at that, glaring at him. “We’re not the same.”
“No, you aren’t,” he replies hastily. Then his attitude changes, a strange look coming over him. Julian narrows his eyes, lips pressing into a thin, grim line. “You haven’t read the diary, have you?”
Again I drop my gaze. Ashamed of how afraid I am of a simple, small book. “I don’t think I can,” I whisper, barely audible.
Julian offers no quarter, no comfort. He stands back, crossing his arms. He doesn’t need many words to scold me.
“Well, you need to,” he says simply, taking on the air of a teacher again. “Not just for yourself. But for the rest of us. All of us.”
“I don’t see how the diary of a dead woman can be any help right now.”
“Well, hopefully you summon the courage to find out.”
Reading it feels like pushing a stone through mud. Sluggish, difficult, foolish. The words pull at me with inky fingers, trying to hold me back. Each page is heavier than the last. Until they aren’t. Until the stone is rolling down a hill, and the voice I give my mother rings in my head, speaking as quickly as my mind allows. Sometimes my eyes blur. I don’t stop to wipe the tears from the pages, letting them mark the hours as the night passes. Sometimes I find myself smiling. My mother liked to tinker with things. Repair and build. Just like me.
Sometimes I even laugh. The way she talks about Julian, their kind rivalry, how he gave her books she would never read. I can
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Ohh Nanny
“Keep going.” He raises dark eyebrows, goading her on. Perform.
She does as he commands, naming Osanos nymphs, Welle greenwardens, a lone Rhambos strongarm. One after another, but they’re wearing colors, and she is a servant. She’s supposed to know these things. Her ability is a parlor trick at best, a lie and a death sentence at the worst. I know she feels the sword hanging over her head, growing closer with every tick of Maven’s jaw.
At the back, an Iral silk in red and blue gets to his feet, adjusting his coat as he walks. I only notice because his steps are strange, not as fluid as a silk’s should be. Odd.
And Halley notices too. She trembles, only for a second.
It could be her life or his.
“She can change her face,” she whispers, her finger quivering in the air. “You have no name for this ability.”
The usual whispers of court end without an echo, snuffed out like a candle. Silence falls, broken only by the rising beat of my heart. She can change her face.
My body buzzes with adrenaline. Run! I want to yell. Run!
And when the Sentinels take the Iral lord by the arms, marching him forward, I beg to myself, Please be wrong. Please be wrong. Please be wrong.
“I am a son of House Iral,” the man growls, trying to break the grip of the Sentinel soldiers. An Iral would be able to do it, twisting away with a smile. But whoever he or she is does not. My stomach drops to my feet. “You take the word of a lying Red slave above mine?”
Samson reacts before Maven can even ask, quick as a swift. He descends the steps of the dais, his electric-blue eyes crackling with hunger. I guess he hasn’t had many brains to feed on since mine. With a yelp, the Iral son stumbles to his knees, head bowed. Samson slams into his mind.
And then his hair bleeds gray, shortens, recedes to
They are making Progres
“It’s okay, Luther,” Mr. Carver says. “You can let them see.”
The boy tries again, his brow furrowing in concentration. This time, he takes the fern by the stem, holding it in his small fist. And slowly, the fern curls beneath his touch, turning black, folding into itself—dying. As we watch, transfixed, Mr. Carver grabs something else from the back shelf and sets it in his son’s lap. Leather gloves.
“You take good care of him,” he says. His teeth clench, shutting tight against the storm inside his heart. “You promise me that.”
Like all true men, he doesn’t flinch when I shake his hand.
“I give you my word, Mr. Carver.”
Only when we’re back at the safe house, which we’re starting to call the Notch, do I allow myself a moment alone. To think, to tell myself the lie was well made. I cannot truly promise this boy, or the others like him, will survive what is to come. But I certainly hope he does, and I will do everything I can to make it so.
Even if this boy’s terrifying ability is death itself.
The newbloods’ families aren’t the only ones to flee. The Measures have made life worse than ever before, driving many Reds into the forests and frontiers, seeking a place where they won’t be worked to death or hanged for stepping out of line. Some come within a few miles of our camp, winding north toward a border already painted with autumn snow. Kilorn and Farley want to help them, to give them food or medicine, but Cal and I overrule their pleas. No one can know about us, and the Reds marching on are no different, despite their fate. They will keep heading north, until they meet the Lakelander border. Some will be pressed into the legions holding the line. Others might be lucky enough to slip through, to succumb to cold and starvation in the tundra rather than a bullet in
Sayfa 240
Don't make a promise you won't keep
“We gave the Nikara the keys to the heavens, and they stole our land and
murdered my daughter.” The Sorqan Sira’s voice was flat, emotionless, as if
she were merely recounting an interesting anecdote, as if her pain had
already been processed so many times she could not feel it anymore.
Rin bent over on her hands and knees, gasping. She couldn’t scrub the
image of Jiang from her mind. Jiang, her master, cackling with his hands
covered with blood.
“Surprised?” asked the Sorqan Sira.
“But I knew him,” Rin whispered. “I know what he’s like, he’s not like
that . . .”
“How would you know what the Gatekeeper is like?” The Sorqan Sira
sneered. “Have you ever asked him about his past? Did you have any idea?”
The worst part was that it all made sense—the truth had dawned on Rin,
awful and bitter, and the mystery of Jiang was clear to her now; she knew
why he’d fled, why he’d hidden in the Chuluu Korikh.
He must have been starting to remember.
The man she had met at Sinegard had been no more than a shade of a
person; a pathetic, affable shade of a personality suppressed. He had not
been pretending. She was certain of that. No one could pretend that well.
He had simply not known. The Seal had stolen his memories, just like it
would one day steal hers, and hidden them behind a wall in his mind.
Was it better now that he remained in his stone prison, suspended
halfway between amnesia and sanity?
“You see now. You’ll understand if we’d rather put an end to you.” The
Sorqan Sira nodded to Bekter.
Her unspoken command rang clear in Rin’s mind. Kill them.
“Wait!” Rin struggled to her feet. “Please—you don’t have to—”
“I don’t entertain begging, girl.”
“I’m not begging, I’m bartering,” Rin said quickly. “We have the same
enemy. You want Daji dead. You want revenge. Yes? So do I. Kill
Auren
And then I let my dragon tear free.
Like billowing smoke and streaking shadows, it swarms out of my
skin, collecting, building, feeding off my emotions. When it lands hard at
my side, its chest gleams with gilded scales, and its body is completely
solid.
For the first time, I’ve just manifested a fully physical dragon.
Not vaporous, not intangible. A solidified menace that now stands
even taller and more monstrous than it was when its splintered form
streaked over the skies of Sixth Kingdom.
It stretches taller than the steepled buildings along the street, its
spiked body and coiled tail barely fitting. Then it opens its mouth, showing
off its wicked sharp teeth, and breathes fire of black rot, taking out what’s
left of the soldiers.
Panic decimates the street.
The gathered crowd bolts. Abandoning their tightly packed positions
from where they were trying to get closer to the square, they now turn and
flee. The grieving fae whose body is draped over the boy shakes in fear,
tears caught in every crevice of his face. “Don’t destroy him, please!” he
cries as he clutches at the body.
I shake my head. “You have nothing to fear from us.”
Then I turn and start walking, and people scatter as fast as they can
while the dragon stomps behind me, every step shaking the street.
Hare appears at my side out of nowhere. “A dragon?” he shouts,
shock dripping off his face like drool as he stares at the creature. “You can
manifest a dragon? I thought that magic died out in your family generations
ago!”
“It did.”
He clamps his mouth shut after that, staying behind as I make my
way down the street. The weight of the dragon snaps the stone as it walks,
tail whipping, eyes flashing.
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