Instead, he crossed alone to the far wall of the royal chamber where, half hidden by swaths of gossamer and silk, there stood a door.
Maxim brought all ten fingertips to the hollow wood and reached for the metal laid within. He rotated both hands against the door and felt the shift of cogs, the clunk of pins sliding free, others sliding home. It was no simple lock, no combination to be turned, but Maxim Maresh had built this door, and he was the only one who ever opened it.
He’d caught Rhy trying once, when the prince was just a boy.
The prince had a fondness for discovering secrets, whether they belonged to a person or a palace, and the moment he discovered that the door was locked he must have gone and found Kell, dragged the black-eyed boy—still new to his benign breed of mischief—back up into the royal chamber. Maxim had walked in on the two, Rhy urging Kell on as the latter lifted wary fingers to the wood.
Maxim had crossed the room at the sound of sliding metal and caught the boy’s hand before the door could open. It wasn’t a matter of ability. Kell was getting stronger by the day, his magic blooming like a spring tree, but even the young Antari—perhaps the young Antari most of all—needed to know that power had its limits.
That rules were meant to be obeyed.
Rhy had sulked and stormed, but Kell had said nothing as Maxim ushered them out. They had always been like that, so different in temper, Rhy’s hot and quick to burn, Kell’s cold and slow to thaw. Strange, thought Maxim, unlocking the door, in some ways Kell and the queen were so alike.
There was nothing forbidden about the chamber beyond. It was simply private. And when you were king, privacy was precious, more so than any gem.
Now Maxim descended the short stone flight into his study. The room was cool and dry and traced with metal, the shelves lined with only a few books, but a hundred memories, tokens. Not of his life in the palace—Emira’s gold wedding rose, Rhy’s first crown, a portrait of Rhy and Kell in the seasons courtyard—those were all kept in the royal chamber. There were relics of another time, another life.
A half-burned banner and a pair of swords, long and thin as stalks of wheat.
A gleaming helm, not gold, but burnished metal, traced with bands of ruby.
A stone arrowhead Isra had freed from his side in their last battle on the Blood Coast.
Suits of armor stood sentry against the walls, faceless masks tipped down, and in this sanctuary, Maxim threw off the elegant gold-and-crimson cloak, unfastened the chalice pins that held his tunic cuffs, set aside his crown. Piece by piece he shed his kingship, and called up the man he’d been before.
An Tol Vares, they’d called him.
The Steel Prince.
It had been so long since Maxim Maresh had worn that mantle, but there were tasks for kings and tasks for soldiers, and now the latter rolled up his sleeves, took up a knife, and began to work.
VII
The difference of a single day, thought Rhy, standing alone before the windows as the sun rose. One day. A matter of hours. A world of change.
Two days ago, Kell had disappeared, and Rhy had carved five letters into his arm to bring him home. Sorry. The cuts were fresh on his skin, the word still burned with movement, and yet it felt like a lifetime ago.
Yesterday his brother had come home, and been arrested, and the prince had fought to see Kell freed, only to lose him again, to lose himself, to lose everything.
And wake to this.
We heard, we heard, we heard.
In darkness, the change was hard to see, but the thin winter light revealed a terrifying scene.
Only hours before, London had brimmed with the cheers of the Essen Tasch, the rippling pennants of the final magicians as they fought in the central arena.
Now, all three stadiums floated like sullen corpses on the blackened river, the only sound the steady chant of morning bells coming from the Sanctuary. Bodies bobbed like apples on the surface of the Isle, and dozens—hundreds—more knelt along the riverbank, forming an eerie border. Others moved in packs through the streets of London, searching for those who hadn’t fallen, hadn’t knelt before the shadow king. The difference of a single day.
He felt his brother coming.
Strange, the way that worked. He’d always been able to tell when Kell was near—sibling intuition—but these days he felt his brother’s presence like a cord in reverse, drawing tight instead of slack whenever they were close.
Now the tension thrummed.
The echo in Rhy’s chest grew stronger as Kell stepped into the room. He paused in the doorway.
“Do you want to be alone?”
“I am never alone,” said the prince absently, and then, forcing himself to brighten, “but I am still alive.” Kell swallowed, and Rhy could see the apology climbing his brother’s throat. “Don’t,” he said, cutting him off. His attention went back to the world beyond the glass. “What happens, after we put them all to sleep?”
“We force Osaron to face us. And we beat him.”
“How?”
“I have a plan.”
Rhy raised his fingertips to the glass. On the other side, the fog drew itself into a hand, brushed the window, and then pulled away, collapsing back into mist.
“Is this how a world dies?” he asked.
“I hope not.”
“Personally,” said Rhy with sudden, hollow lightness, “I’m rather done with dying. It’s begun to lose its charm.”
Kell shrugged out of his coat and sank into a chair. “Do you know what happened?”
“I know what Mother told me, which means I know what you told her.”
“Do you want to know the truth?”
Rhy hesitated. “If it will help you to say it.”
Kell tried to smile, failed, and shook his head. “What do you remember?”
Rhy’s gaze danced over the city. “Nothing,” he said, though in truth, he remembered the pain, and the absence of pain, the darkness like still water folding over him, and a voice, trying to pull him back.
You cannot die … I’ve come so far.
“Have you seen Alucard?”
Kell shrugged. “I assume he’s in the gallery,” he answered, in a way that said he really didn’t care.
Rhy’s chest tightened. “You’re probably right.”
But Rhy knew he wasn’t. He had already scanned the Grand Hall as he passed through, searching, searching. The foyer, the ballrooms, the library. Rhy had scoured every room for that familiar shine of silver and blue, the sun-kissed hair, the glint of a sapphire, and found a hundred faces, some known and others foreign, and none of them Alucard.
“He’ll turn up,” added Kell absently. “He always does.”
Just then a shout went up, not from outside, but from within the palace. The crash of doors bursting open somewhere below, a Veskan accent clashing with an Arnesian one.
“Sanct,” snarled Kell, shoving himself to his feet. “If the darkness doesn’t kill them, their tempers will.”
His brother plunged out of the room without looking back, and Rhy stood alone for a long moment, shadows whispering against the glass, before he grabbed Kell’s coat, found the nearest hidden door, and slipped through.
*
The city—his city—was full of shadows.
Rhy pulled Kell’s coat close about his shoulders and wrapped a scarf around his nose and mouth, the way one might before braving a fire, as if a strip of cloth could keep the magic out. He held his breath as he plunged forward into the sea of fog, but when his body met the shadows, they recoiled, granting Rhy a berth of several feet.
He looked around and, for a moment, felt as if he were a man expecting to drown, only to find the water two feet deep.
And then Rhy stopped thinking altogether, and ran.
Chaos blossomed all around him, the air a tangled mess of sound and fear and smoke. Men and women were trying to drag their neighbors toward the black stretch of the river. Some people staggered and fell, attacked by invisible foes, while others hid behind bolted doors and tried to ward the walls with water, earth, sand, blood.