“You will stay here,” said the king, gesturing to the prince’s bed. “At least until Rhy wakes.”
Kell started to protest, but Tieren’s hand settled again on his shoulder, and he felt himself sway beneath the priest’s influence. He sank into a chair beside his brother’s bed as the king left to summon his guards.
Beyond the windows, the fireworks had begun, showering the sky in red and gold.
Hastra, who hadn’t taken his eyes from the sleeping prince, stood against the wall nearby, whispering softly. His brown curls were touched with gold in the lamplight, and he was turning something over and over in his fingers. A coin. And at first Kell thought the words were some spell for calm, remembering that Hastra had once been destined for the Sanctuary, but soon the words registered as simple Arnesian. It was a prayer, of sorts, but he was asking for, of all things, forgiveness.
“What’s wrong?” asked Kell.
Hastra reddened. “It’s my fault she found you,” whispered his former guard. “My fault she took you.”
She. Hastra meant Ojka.
Kell rubbed his eyes. “It’s not,” he said, but the youth just shook his head stubbornly, and Kell couldn’t bear the guilt in his eyes, too close a mirror of his own. He glanced instead at Tieren, who now stood with Lila, her chin in his hand as he tilted her head to see the damage to her eye, not even the hint of surprise in his own.
Alucard Emery still lurked, half in shadow, in the corner beyond the royal bed, his gaze leveled not on Kell or the rest of the room, but on Rhy’s chest as it rose and fell. Kell knew of the captain’s gift, his ability to see the threads of magic. Now Alucard stood, perfectly still, only his eyes following some invisible specter as it wove around the prince.
“Give him time,” murmured the captain, answering a question Kell hadn’t yet asked. Kell took a breath, hoping to say something civil, but Alucard’s attention flicked suddenly to the balcony doors.
“What is it?” asked Kell as the man pushed off the wall, peering out into the red-tinged night.
“I thought I saw something.”
Kell tensed. “Saw what?”
Alucard didn’t answer. He brushed his hand along the glass, clearing the steam. After a moment, he shook his head. “Must have been a trick of the—”
He was cut off by a scream.
Not in the room, not in the palace at all, but overhead.
On the roof. The winner’s ball.
Kell was on his feet before he knew if he could stand. Lila, always the faster, had her knife out, even though no one had seen to her wounds.
“Osaron?” she demanded as Kell surged toward the door.
Alucard was on his heels, but Kell spun, and forced him back with a single, vicious shove. “No. Not you.”
“You can’t expect me to stay—”
“I expect you to watch over the prince.”
“I thought that was your job,” snarled Alucard.
The blow landed, but Kell still barred the captain’s path. “If you go upstairs, you will die.”
“And you won’t?” he challenged.
Behind Kell’s eyes, the image flared, of the darkness swarming in Holland’s eyes. The hum of power. The horror of a curse noose-tight around his neck. Kell swallowed. “If I don’t go, everyone will die.”
He looked to the queen, who opened her mouth and closed it several times as if searching for an order, a protest, but in the end, she said only, “Go.”
Lila hadn’t waited around for permission.
She was halfway up the stairs when he caught her, and he wouldn’t have if not for her injured leg.
“How did he get up there?” muttered Kell.
“How did he get out of Black London?” countered Lila. “How did he cut off your power? How did he—”
“Fine,” growled Kell. “Point taken.”
They shoved past the mounting guards, launching themselves up flight after flight.
“Just so we’re clear,” said Lila. “I don’t care if Holland’s still in there. If I get a chance, I’m not sparing him.”
Kell swallowed. “Agreed.”
When they reached the rooftop doors, Lila grabbed his collar, hauling his face toward hers. Her eyes bore into his, one smooth, the other fractured into shadow and light. Beyond the doors, the scream had stopped.
“Are you strong enough to win?” she asked.
Was he? This wasn’t a tournament magician. Wasn’t even a sliver of magic like Vitari. Osaron had destroyed an entire world. Changed another on a whim.
“I don’t know,” he said honestly.
Lila flashed a glimmer of a smile, sharp as glass.
“Good,” she answered, pushing open the door. “Only fools are certain.”
*
Kell didn’t know what he expected to find on the roof.
Blood. Bodies. A sick version of the stone forest that had once stretched at the feet of White London’s castle, with its petrified corpses.
What he saw instead was a crowd caught between confusion and terror, and at its center, the shadow king. Kell felt the blood drain from his face, replaced by cold hatred for the figure in the middle of the roof—the monster wearing Holland’s skin—as he turned in a slow circle, considering his audience. Surrounded by the most powerful magicians in the world, and not a hint of fear in those black eyes. Only amusement, and the sharp edge of want threaded through it. Standing there, in the center of the marble circle, Osaron seemed the center of the world. Unmovable. Invincible.
The scene shifted, and Kell saw Kisimyr Vasrin lying on the ground at Osaron’s feet. At least—what was left of her. One of the strongest magicians in Arnes, reduced to a scorched black corpse, the metal rings in her hair now melted down to dots of molten light.
“Anyone else?” asked Osaron in that sick distortion of Holland’s voice, silky and wrong and somehow everywhere at once.
The Veskan royals crouched behind their sorcerers, a pair of frightened children cowering in silver and green. Lord Sol-in-Ar, even for his lack of magic, did not retreat, though his Faroan entourage could be seen urging him behind a pillar. At the marble platform’s edge, the rest of the magicians gathered, their elements summoned—flame swirled around fingers, shards of ice held like knives—but no one struck. They were tournament fighters, used to parading around a ring, where the greatest thing at risk was pride.
What had Holland said to Kell, so many months ago?
Do you know what makes you weak?
You’ve never had to be strong.
You’ve certainly never had to fight for your life.
Now Kell saw that flaw in these men and women, their unmasked faces pale with fear.
Lila touched his arm, a knife ready in her other hand. Neither spoke, but neither needed to. In palace balls and tournament games they were mismatched, awkward, but they understood each other here and now, surrounded by danger and death.
Kell nodded, and without a word, Lila slipped thief-smooth into the shadows around the roof’s edge.
“No one?” goaded the shadow king.
He brought a boot to rest on Kisimyr’s remains, and they gave way like ash beneath his step. “For all your strength, you surrender so easily.”
Kell took a single breath and forced himself forward, out of the shelter at the circle’s edge, and into the light. When Osaron saw him, he actually smiled.
“Kell,” said the monster. “Your resilience surprises me. Have you come to kneel before me? Have you come to beg?”
“I’ve come to fight.”
Osaron tipped his head. “The last time we met, I left you screaming.”
Kell’s limbs shook, not with fear but anger. “The last time we met, I was in chains.” The air around him sang with power. “Now I’m free.”
Osaron’s smile widened. “But I have seen your heart, and it is bound.”