The sun was sinking, turning the sky a bloody red, and his head was pounding from the strain of holding the mist for as long as he had. It was beginning to thin, and there was nothing he could do but wait, wait, and try to summon the strength to— To do what? challenged a voice in his head. Move the sea?
It wasn’t possible. That wasn’t just a line he’d fed Bard to keep her from doing herself in. Everything had limits. His mind raced, the way it had been racing for the last hour, stubbornly, doggedly, as if it might finally round a corner and find an idea—not a mad notion parading as a plan, but an actual idea—waiting for him.
The sea. The ships. The sails.
Now he was just listing things.
No. Wait. The sails. Perhaps he could find a way to— No.
Not from this distance.
He would have to move the Ghost, sail her right up to the ass end of the Veskan fleet and then—what?
Alucard rubbed his eyes.
If he was going to die, he could at least think of a way to make it count.
If he was going to die—
But that was the problem.
Alucard didn’t want to die.
Standing there on the prow of the Ghost, he realized with startling clarity that death and glory didn’t interest him nearly as much as living long enough to go home. To make sure Bard was alive, to try to find any remaining members of the Night Spire. To see Rhy’s amber eyes, press his lips to the place where his collar curved into his throat. To kneel before his prince, and offer him the only thing Alucard had ever held back: the truth.
The mirror from the floating market sat in its shroud on a nearby crate.
Four years for a gift that would never be given.
Movement in the distance caught his eye.
A shadow gliding across the twilit sky—now a bruised blue instead of bloody red. His heart lurched. It was a bird.
It plunged down onto one of the Veskan ships, swallowed up by the line of mast and net and folded sail, and Alucard held his breath until his chest ached, until his vision spotted. This was it. The order to move. He didn’t have much time.
The sails …
If he could damage the sails …
Alucard began to gather every piece of loose steel aboard the ship, ransacked the crates and the galley and the hold for blades and pots and silverware, anything he could fashion into something capable of cutting. Magic thrummed in his fingers as he willed the surfaces sharp, molded serrated edges into the sides.
He lined them up like soldiers on the deck, three dozen makeshift weapons that could rend and tear. He tried to ignore the fact that the sails were down, tried to smother the knowledge that even he didn’t have the ability control this many things at once, not with any delicacy.
But brute force was better than nothing.
All he had to do was bring the Ghost in range to strike. He was lifting his attention to his own sails when he saw the Veskan sails draw taut.
It happened in a wave, green and silver blossoming out from the masts at the center ship, and then the ones to either side, on and on until the whole fleet was ready to sail.
It was a gift, thought Alucard, readying his weapons, pulling on the air with the remains of his strength as the first ship began to move.
Followed by a second.
And a third.
Alucard’s jaw went slack. The last of his strength faltered, died.
The wind dissolved, and he stood there, staring, a makeshift blade tumbling from his fingers, because the Veskan ships weren’t sailing toward Tanek and the Isle and the city of London.
They were sailing away.
The fleet’s formation dissolved as they pivoted back toward open sea.
One of the ships passed close enough for him to see the men aboard, and a Veskan soldier looked his way, broad face unreadable beneath his helm. Alucard lifted a hand in greeting. The man didn’t wave back. The ship continued on.
Alucard watched them go.
He waited for the waters to still, for the last colors to fade from the sky.
And then he folded to his knees on the deck.
X
Kell stared, numbly, at the bodies on the table.
His king and queen. His father and his mother …
He heard Holland say his name, felt Lila’s fingers curl around his arm. “We have to find Rhy.”
“He’s not here,” said a new voice.
It was Isra, the head of the city guard. Kell had taken the woman for a statue with her full armor and bowed head, had forgotten the rules of mourning—the dead were never left alone.
“Where?” he managed. “Where is he?”
“The palace, sir.”
Kell started for the doors that led back into the royal palace, when Isra stopped him.
“Not that one,” said the woman wearily. She pointed to the massive front doors of the Rose Hall, the ones that led out to the city street. “The other one. On the river.”
Kell’s pulse pounded madly in his chest.
The shadow palace.
His head spun.
How long had they been gone?
Three days?
No, four.
Four days, Rhy.
Then you can get yourself into trouble.
Four days, and the king and queen were dead, and Rhy hadn’t waited any longer.
“You just let him go?” snapped Lila, accosting the guard.
Isra bristled. “I had no choice.” She met Kell’s eyes. “As of today, Rhy Maresh is the king.”
The reality landed like a blow.
Rhy Maresh, young royal, flirtatious rake, resurrected prince.
The boy always looking for places to hide, who moved through his own life as if it were a piece of theatre.
His brother, who had once accepted a cursed amulet because it promised strength.
His brother, who now carved apologies into his skin and held his hands over candle flames to feel alive.
His brother was king.
And his first act?
To march straight into Osaron’s palace.
Kell wanted to wring his Rhy’s neck, but then he recalled the pain he’d felt, wave after wave rocking him in the boat, crashing through him even now, a current of suffering. Rhy. Kell’s feet carried him past Isra, past row after row of large stone basins to the doors of the Rose Hall and out into the thin London light.
He heard their steps behind him, Lila’s thief-soft and quick, Holland’s sure, but he didn’t look back, didn’t look down at the sea of spelled bodies lying in the street, kept his eyes trained on the river, and the impossible shadow stretching up against the sky.
Kell had always thought of the royal palace like a second sun caught in perpetual rise over the city. If that was true, Osaron’s palace was an eclipse, a piece of perfect darkness, only its edges rimmed with reflected light.
Somewhere behind him, Holland drew a weapon from a fallen man’s sheath, and Lila swore softly as she wove through the bodies, but neither strayed far from his side.
Together, the three Antari climbed the onyx incline of the palace bridge.
Together, they reached the polished black glass of the palace doors.
The handle gave under Kell’s touch, but Lila caught his wrist and held it firm.
“Is this really the best plan?” she asked.
“It’s the only one we have,” said Kell as Holland drew the Inheritor over his head and slipped the device into his pocket. He must have sensed Kell staring, because he looked up, met his gaze. One eye green and one black, and both as steady as a mask.
“One way or another,” said Holland, “this ends.”
Kell nodded. “It ends.”
They looked to Lila. She sighed, freeing Kell’s fingers.
Three silver rings caught the dying light—Lila’s and Kell’s the narrower echoes of Holland’s band—all of them singing with shared power as the door swung open, and the three Antari stepped through into the dark.
I
As Kell’s boot crossed the threshold, the pain flared in his chest. It was as if the walls of Osaron’s palace had muted the connection, and now, without the boundaries, the cord drew tight, and every step brought Kell closer to Rhy’s suffering.