With a single surging motion, the sphere rose above the panicked crowds and—
That was all Lenos saw before the shadows came for him.
Fingers of night snaked toward him, serpent fast. There was nowhere to go—the Antari was still casting his spell, and Lila was too far away—so Lenos held his breath and began to pray, the way he’d learned back in Olnis, when the storms got rough. He closed his eyes and prayed for calm as the shadows broke against him. For balance as they washed—hot and cold at once—over his skin. For stillness as they murmured soft as shoretide in his head.
Let me in, let me in, let me—
A drop of rain landed on his hand, another on his cheek, and then the shadows were retreating, taking their whispers with them. Lenos blinked, let out a shaky breath, and saw that the rain was red. All around him, dew-fine drops dotted faces, and shoulders, settled in mist along coats and gloves and boots.
Not rain, he realized.
Blood.
The shadows in the street dissolved beneath the crimson mist, and Lenos looked at the Antari prince in time to see the man sway from the effort. He’d carved a slice of safety, but it wasn’t enough. Already the dark magic was shifting focus, form, dividing from a fist into an open hand, fingers of shadow surging inland.
“Sanct,” cursed the prince as hooves pounded down the street. A wave of royal guards reached the river and dismounted, and Bard moved quick as light between the armored men, brushing bloodied fingertips against the metal of their suits.
“Round up the poisoned,” ordered Kell Maresh, already moving toward his horse.
The afflicted souls didn’t flee, didn’t attack, simply stood there, grinning and saying things about a shadow king who whispered in their ears, who told them of the world as it could be, would be, who played their souls like music and showed them the true power of a king.
The Antari prince swung up onto his mount.
“Keep everyone away from the banks,” he called. Lila Bard hoisted herself up beside him with a grimace, arms wrapped tight around his waist, and Lenos was left standing there, dazed, as the prince kicked the horse into motion and the two vanished into the streets of London.
VI
They had to split up.
Kell didn’t want to, that much was obvious, but the city was too big, the fog too fast.
He took the horse, because she refused it—plenty of other ways to die tonight.
“Lila,” he’d said, and she’d expected him to chastise her, to order her back to the palace, but he’d only caught her by the arm and said, “Be careful.” Tipped his forehead against hers and added, almost too low to be heard, “Please.”
She’d seen so many versions of him in the past few hours. The broken boy. The grieving brother. The determined prince. This Kell was none of those and all of them, and when he kissed her, she tasted pain and fear and desperate hope. And then he was gone, a streak of pale skin against the night as he rode for the night market.
Lila took off on foot, heading for the nearest cluster of people.
The night should have been cold enough to keep them inside, but the last day of the tournament meant the last night of celebration, and the entire city had been in the taverns, ushering out the Essen Tasch in style. Crowds were spilling out into streets, some drawn by the chaos at the river’s edge, and others still oblivious, drinking and humming and stumbling over their own feet.
They didn’t notice the lack of red light at the city’s heart, or the spreading fog, not until it was nearly upon them. Lila dragged the knife down her arm as she raced between them, pain lost beneath panic as blood pooled in her palm and she flicked her wrist, pricks of red lancing like needles through the air, marking skin. Revelers stiffened, shocked and searching for the source of the assault, but Lila didn’t linger.
“Get inside,” she called, racing past. “Lock the doors.”
But the poisoned night didn’t care about locked doors and shuttered windows, and soon Lila found herself pounding on houses, trying to beat the darkness in. A distant scream as someone fought back. A laugh as someone fell.
Her mind raced, even as her head spun.
Her Arnesian wasn’t good enough, and the more blood she lost, the worse it got, until her speech dissolved from, “There’s a monster in the city, moving in the fog, let me help….” to simply, “Stay.”
Most stared at her, wide-eyed, though she didn’t know if it was the blood or the shattered eye or the sweat streaming down her face. She didn’t care. She kept going. It was a lost cause, all of it, an impossible task when the shadows moved twice as fast as she could, and part of her wanted to give up, to pull back, to save what strength she had—only a fool fought when they knew they couldn’t win—but somewhere out there, Kell was still trying, and she wouldn’t give up until he did, so she forced herself on.
She rounded the corner and saw a woman lying in the road, pale dress pooling on the cold stones as she curled in on herself and clutched her head, fighting whatever monstrous force had clawed inside. Lila ran, hand outstretched, and was nearly to her when the woman went suddenly still. The fight went out of her limbs, and her breath clouded in the air above her face as she stretched out lazily against the cold stones, oblivious to the biting cold, and smiled.
“I can hear his voice,” she said, full of rapture. “I can see his beauty.” She turned her head toward Lila. Shadows slid through her eyes like a cloud over a field. “Let me show you.”
Without warning, the woman sprang, lunging for Lila, fingers wrapping around her throat, and for an instant, she felt the press of searing heat and burning cold as Osaron’s black magic tried to get in.
Tried—and failed.
The woman recoiled violently as if scorched, and Lila struck her hard across the face.
The woman crumpled to the ground, unconscious. It was a good sign. If she’d truly been possessed, a blade wouldn’t have stopped her, let alone a fist.
Lila straightened, aware of the magic as it swept and curled around her. She couldn’t shake the feeling that the darkness had eyes, and it was watching.
Intently.
“Come out, come out,” she called softly, twirling her knife. The shadows wavered. “What’s the matter, Osaron? Feeling shy? A little bare without a body?” She turned in a slow circle. “I’m the one who killed Ojka. I’m the one who stole Kell back.” She spun the blade between her fingers, exuding a calm she didn’t feel as the darkness shuddered around her and began to pull itself together, thickening into a column before it grew limbs, a face, a pair of eyes as black as ice at night and—
Somewhere nearby, a horse whinnied.
A shout went up—not the strangled cry of those fighting the spelled fog, but the simple, guttural sound of frustration. A voice she knew too well.
The shadows collapsed as Lila cut through them, racing toward the sound.
Toward Kell.
She found his horse first. Abandoned and galloping down the street toward her, a shallow slice along one flank.
“Dammit,” she swore, trying to decide whether to bar the horse’s path or dive out of the way. In the end she dove, letting the beast barrel past, then sprinted in the direction it had come. She followed the scent of his magic—rose and soil and leaves—and found Kell on the ground, surrounded, not by Osaron’s fog, but by men, three of them with weapons dangling from their hands. A knife. An iron bar. A plank of wood.
Kell was on his feet at least, gripping one shoulder, his face ghostly pale. He didn’t look like he had the blood left to stand, let alone strike back at the attackers. It wasn’t until she got closer that she recognized one of the men as Tav, her shipmate from the Night Spire, and another as the man who’d played Kamerov at the Banner Night before the tournament. A third was dressed in the cloak and arms of a royal guard, his half sword held at the ready.