Authors: Kate Sparkes
Kel coughed and drew a hard breath. “I don’t think I have much choice. Severn’s magic still moves in me. My body’s fighting, but I feel it breaking me down. I can’t fight this.”
As he spoke, a fresh stream of blood coursed from the wound in his side, and he gasped for breath.
“Ulric lives,” he said. “I didn’t want Severn to know. Rowan, you should take him back to camp. Quickly.”
She looked from Kel to me and back. “But I—”
“Please. I need a minute alone with Aren.”
Pain more raw than anything Severn could inflict directly on me welled in my heart. Rowan looked at me, eyes wide and red-rimmed. “No,” she whispered.
“Please go,” I told her.
She lifted his head with trembling hands and placed it gently on the mossy ground, then bent to kiss Kel’s forehead. “Thank you,” she whispered. “If I could return all of my other gifts in exchange for getting back the ability to heal you—”
“I know.”
She turned away and bent to lift Ulric’s arm over her shoulder. He stirred and mumbled. Kel watched as she dragged Ulric away. She set him down, and turned back. Without speaking another word, she closed her eyes and raised her hands.
A rumbling arose from the earth where Severn and I had fought. The ground shimmered as water bubbled up from the ground. Rowan’s face contorted with the effort, and the bubbling turned to a fountain. The water level rose as it filled the broad indent in the ground, and the air grew thick with the rich, metallic scent of it.
She met my gaze, lowered hers, and stooped to pick up the man who hated her. She dragged him slowly through the woods, and they disappeared.
The water kept coming as though a dam beneath the earth had been opened. It licked at Kel’s feet. “Take my boots off,” he said. I did. One ankle was clearly broken, but he didn’t complain as I pulled the boot off. I poked his leg. No reaction.
Still the water kept rising until it surrounded Kel’s body. I pulled him toward the center, where it was deeper.
“Can you change if we get your clothes off?” I asked.
“Are you trying to get me naked?”
I couldn’t muster a smile. “I thought you might be more comfortable in your natural body.”
He drew in a halting breath and watched the clouds that passed over us. “I don’t have the strength to change. But being in the water is good. Bless that woman.”
I dropped to my knees so that the water came to my chest, and held him close. “Does it help the pain?”
“A little, I think. But the magic.” His body shook, and he flailed until he’d gripped my broken hand in his. I hardly felt the pain as the bones ground together. “Aren, I can’t die by magic. I can’t.”
A lump filled my throat, but I managed to say, “I remember.” The merfolk had many beliefs about magic. It had set them against humans long ago, as the mer believed magic should not be used for personal gain or as a weapon. They thought it unnatural, and feared a death by magic more than any other.
Kel’s eyes turned to meet mine. “If I die this way, my body will remain and rot. I saw it once. My spirit will be trapped.”
Another story I’d heard but never truly considered. Merfolk were supposed to disappear when they died, to leave the world entirely, free and unburdened.
A tear slipped from his left eye. “Don’t let me be anchored, Aren. Please. Help me.”
My cowardly heart wanted me to run, to deny him this even after everything we’d been through, everything he’d meant to me. We’d lost many years, but even when I’d left the merfolk behind I’d never had to imagine a world without Kel’s smart mouth, his laugh, his easy confidence that everything would turn out right in the end.
I leaned back and searched under the water until I’d found the place where I dropped my knife.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Sorry you’re here, that this happened. That I let Nox go.”
He tried to shake his head, and winced. The water around his head stained deeper red. “I’m glad she won’t see me like this. Just tell her I love her. And tell her I’m sorry. Aren, I don’t regret any of this. I—”
Another spasm, this one followed by a painful gasp that echoed in my own body.
“Please,” he gasped. “Hurry.”
I dipped my head and kissed his cheek, and didn’t bother to brush away the tear that fell on his skin. “I love you, Kel. And I will miss you always.”
I pressed my knife to his throat, and closed my eyes.
39
ROWAN
W
hen Ulric’s weight proved too much to drag behind me, I hauled his all-but-lifeless body up so that his chest pressed against my back, and I held his arms over my shoulders. The thick forest made passage difficult, as did the exhaustion that had already drained my arms, and the black sorrow that threatened to overwhelm my heart.
I couldn’t think about what had happened, and I couldn’t think of anything else. When my mind tried to speculate on what might be happening back at the clearing, I focused on the sound of my feet instead, falling heavy and crashing through the woods like an injured monster. So intense was my focus on our return to camp that I didn’t hear the hoofsteps behind me.
“Let me help.” Florizel’s soft voice pulled me from my stupor. She lowered her forequarters and held her wings aside, and I used the strength that remained in my arms to shove Ulric over her back, arms hanging over one side, legs dangling down the other. I held onto one boot to keep him from falling, but Florizel bore his weight as we moved on.
“Where’s Aren?” she asked.
“Back with Kel.” My voice sounded far away, and unconnected to me. Even my body felt distant, though it did everything I asked of it. The only thing close to me was emptiness. It should have been horrifying to feel nothing at such a time, but I welcomed it. Feeling just hurt too much.
“Is Kel—?”
My breath hitched. “I think so, by now. They wanted to be alone. To say goodbye.” More than that, I knew, but that was between them. I remembered what Cassia had told me about mers dying by magic. The emotions threatened to return then in a swell of agony. Not for Kel, but for Aren. Gods willing, Kel was gone now, released from his pain. Aren’s was only beginning, and there was nothing I could do this time to save him.
Crowds gathered as we entered the camp, but no one stepped in to offer assistance or to ask questions. I supposed no one dared touch the old king, even now. I led Florizel to Morea’s tent, and when we found it empty I unloaded and dragged Ulric inside.
“Find the Potioner,” I said, and Florizel hurried off as I let Ulric slump onto the bedroll. Morea couldn’t have gone far. It felt like a lifetime ago that she’d offered me her potion on top of the bald rock. I reached for the flask and sipped again. Perhaps it hadn’t helped, but it also hadn’t hurt. I’d been strong enough to offer Kel one last gift. I would be grateful for that, even if I now felt dried up. The magic was still there. I would recover.
A pair of bottles clanked together as I knocked one with my boot. The edges of the floor were lined with them, all full of potions and ingredients, none labeled.
Ulric’s eyes cracked open, and I couldn’t help being thankful that I was too drained to show my shock at his appearance. He’d grown old. Truly old. His eyes had clouded over since his collapse, and his sagging skin had developed dark spots.
Suddenly the mysteries of magic didn’t seem so perfectly wonderful.
“What happened?” He tried to sit up, but couldn’t so much as raise his body onto his shaking arms. “Where’s Aren?”
“He’ll be back soon. He’s alive. Severn is gone for now.” A tear squeezed out of my eye, though I’d been sure they were used up. “Florizel has gone to find Morea. She’ll help you.”
His eyes narrowed, then softened. “And the other? Kel?”
I pressed my lips together and shook my head.
“I see. Severn’s doing?”
I nodded and wrapped my arms around myself, as though that might hold in the flood.
No weakness,
I told myself.
Not in front of him.
“Is Millie coming, then?”
“Morea?”
He glared at me, then rested his head on the blankets. “That’s what I said. Damn beetles can’t raise a barn to save their hides.”
Before I could answer, Morea stepped in. She wore dirty work clothes, but had a white apron tied over, and her thick hair plaited neatly behind her back. “Good afternoon, Uncle.” Her face registered shock at his appearance, then careful scrutiny. “Perhaps a fresh batch of what Nox worked up for you. Victoria’s got some barbaroses coming along quite nicely for you, and I think I have a few ideas for additions.”
He waved a hand at her, like batting away a fly.
She crouched next to him. “I’m going to help you feel better, but you have to trust me.”
I left them, and went to Aren’s tent to wait for him.
Everything inside was neat, orderly, and completely without indication that an actual person spent any time in the place. Bedroll made, everything else put away, out of sight. No papers on the wood crates that he might have used as a desk, no clothing left out.
I sat cross-legged on the bedroll and tried not to muss the blankets. I waited. When it became too much to hold my body upright, I lay down and rested my head on the folded blanket that served as his pillow. Outside the tent, people talked and worked. Someone laughed.
To think that someone would laugh. That the world would dare to just go on.
I woke to the rocking sensation of a cold, wet hand shaking my shoulder. Not much time had passed. Bleary afternoon sunlight still shone through the walls of the tent.
“You’re soaked,” I said.
Aren looked down at his clothes, as though he hadn’t noticed.
“Is he... gone?” I asked.
“Completely.”
So Aren hadn’t let the magic kill him. I reached for Aren’s hand, and noticed that at some point the blood stains had disappeared from mine. “I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah.” His lips pressed together in a hard line, and he squeezed his eyes closed. “He said to thank you for the water. I think...” His voice cracked. “I think he was happy to end it there. Where’s Ulric?”
“Morea’s tent. She’s taking care of him as well as she can.” I hesitated to add more to his burden, but he had to know. “He looks his age, gods help him. I think his mind is gone now, too.”
Aren sighed. “There must be some magic working if he’s alive, but that’s it for him. He’s done, and we can’t afford to wait for Nox to return.”
It took a moment for me to find my voice again. “So it happens now, unless you want to call everything off and flee.” My voice caught in my throat. We weren’t ready. Not one of us, not all of us together. Not even Aren, who had just pulled Severn to the edge of defeat. If we went ahead now, we were as good as dead.
Aren’s expression simmered with quiet rage that made my skin prickle. “We’re going to get into that city, no matter what the cost,” he said, deadly calm. “Severn will suffer for this. If I have to cast my soul into Despair to do it, I’ll—” He looked up, away from me, beyond the walls of the tent. A maniacal light came into his eyes. “We will not lose this fight. I need to speak to Albion and Griselda. Can you find them?”
“I can.”
“Have them meet me in Ulric’s tent at sunset.”
I stood and went to the door. “And until then?”
Aren lay on his bed and rested an arm over his eyes. “Send for Morea when she’s done with Ulric.” He lifted his left hand, and I fought back a shudder at the twisted fingers and half-flayed flesh. “No one else enters this tent. I need time alone to make decisions. This has changed everything.”
“Of course.” With Ulric completely out of commission, this was all on Aren’s shoulders. He had become our leader in every sense of the word. The absolute last thing he’d wanted.
I supposed the fact that I hadn’t been asked to the evening’s meeting meant I wasn’t in Aren’s inner circle anymore. I tried not to be hurt by that.
“Is there anything else I can do?” I asked.
“Let people know what’s happened, and keep them away from me for a while. Tell Xaven we need the rest of his people brought in from Wildwood. Keep yourself safe, and make sure no one leaves camp.” He rested his arm over his face again. “That’s all I need for now.”
I wanted to go to him, to put my arms around him and try to take on some of the pain he had to be hiding. It was unfair that he should have to deal with it alone, or that any of us should. But I sensed he didn’t want that. Perhaps the emptiness was the best thing for him. Emptiness, or whatever it was that he wouldn’t show me.
I left without another word, and didn’t turn back at the heartbroken moan that he cut off as soon as it began.
We both had work to do. If we were going to attack the city, we would need more help, and I thought I knew where I might find it.
40
NOX
N
o one could tell me where Severn had gone.
“He has concerns he tells no one about,” Myk told me as I carried Severn’s supper to his rooms to await his return—apparently a task that normally fell to Sara. As her new assistant, it was now my job. I hadn’t heard a word from her since Severn called for her, as she’d remained locked in her private chambers, saying she needed some privacy.
I couldn’t say I minded having her out of the way. Severn’s favor had placed me firmly in position over the other Potioners, who hadn’t minded when I gave them the afternoon to rest. With them absent I’d been free to experiment for a few hours, and believed I’d come up with an idea to protect Ulric from his own magic as he healed. It would take a few days to test out my theory and make a proper batch of the potion, but I was on my way toward something promising.
As soon as I found a way out of the palace and the city, my part of the mission would be over. Kel and I would remain to see Ulric’s victory, which I now felt more certain of than I had at any time before, and then we’d leave Luid behind forever.
Just a few more days,
I told myself, and felt a faint surge of hope. With any luck, I’d manage to avoid Severn for the rest of my time in the city. I couldn’t stop worrying about where he might have gone, but wanted nothing more to do with him.