“The prince has been ill,” the king cut in. “Nothing more.” His gaze landed hard on each of them. “There are too many allies in the palace tonight, too many potential enemies.”
Alucard did not care about the ball or the tournament or the people beyond this room. He only wanted to touch the prince’s hand. To feel the warmth of his skin and assure his own shaking fingers, his own aching heart, that it was not some horrible trick.
The room emptied around him, the king first, and then the guards and priests, until only the queen and Alucard stood, silently, staring at the prince’s sleeping form.
Alucard reached out, then, his hand closing over Rhy’s, and as he felt the pulse flutter in the prince’s wrist, he didn’t dwell on the impossibility of what he’d seen, didn’t wonder at what forbidden magic could be strong enough to bind life to the dead.
All that mattered—all that would ever matter—was this.
Rhy was alive.
X
Kell staggered out of the street and into his palace chamber, caught by the sudden light, the warmth, the impossible normalcy. As if a life hadn’t shattered, a world hadn’t broken. Gossamer billowed from the ceiling and a massive, curtained bed stood on a dais on one wall, the furniture dark wood, trimmed in gold, and overhead, he could hear the sounds of the winner’s ball on the roof.
How could it still be happening?
How could they not know?
Of course the king would have the winner’s ball go on as planned, Kell thought bitterly. Hide his own son’s situation from the prying eyes of Vesk and Faro.
“What do you mean Holland’s here?” demanded Lila. “Here as in London, or here as in here?” She trailed in his wake, but Kell was already to his chamber doors and through. Rhy’s room stood at the end of the hall, rosewood-and-gold doors shut fast.
The space between their rooms was littered with men and women, guards and vestra and priests. They turned sharply at the sight of Kell, bare-chested beneath his coat, hair plastered and skin streaked with blood. In their eyes he read the shock and horror, surprise and fear.
They moved, some toward him and others away, but all in his path, and Kell summoned a gust of wind, forcing them aside as he surged through the mass to the prince’s doors.
He didn’t want to go in.
He had to go in.
The screaming in his head was worsening with every step as Kell threw open the doors and skidded into the room, breathless.
The first thing he saw was the queen’s face, blanched with grief.
The second was his brother’s body, stretched out on the bed.
The third, and last, was the slow rise and fall of Rhy’s chest.
At that small, blessed movement, Kell’s own chest lurched.
The storm in his head, held so brittly at bay, now broke, the sudden violent flush of fear and grief and relief and hope giving way to jarring calm.
His body folded with relief; Rhy was alive. Kell simply hadn’t felt the faint return of Rhy’s heart through the raging and erratic pulse of his own. Even now, it was too soft to sense. But Rhy was alive. He was alive. He was alive.
Kell sank to his knees, but before they hit the floor, she was there—not Lila this time, but the queen. She didn’t stop him from falling, but sank gently with him. Her fingers clutched at his front, tightened in the folds of his coat, and Kell braced himself for the words, the blow. He had left. He had failed her son. He had nearly lost Rhy—again.
Instead, Emira Maresh bent her head against his bare and bloodstained chest, and cried.
Kell knelt there, frozen, before lifting his tired arms and wrapping them gingerly around the queen.
“I prayed,” she whispered, over and over and over as he helped her to her feet.
The king was there, then, in the doorway, breathless, as if he’d run the length of the palace, Tieren at his side. Maxim stormed forward, and again Kell braced himself for the attack, but the king said nothing, only folded Kell and Emira both into a silent hug.
It was not a gentle thing, that embrace. The king held on to Kell as if he were the only stone structure in a violent storm. Held so hard it hurt, but Kell didn’t pull away.
When at last Maxim withdrew, taking Emira with him, Kell went to his brother’s bed. To Rhy. Brought a hand to the prince’s chest just to feel the beat. And there it was, steady, impossible, and as his own heart finally began to slow, he felt Rhy’s again behind his ribs, nestled against his, an echo, still distant but growing nearer with every beat.
Kell’s brother did not look like a man close to death.
The color was high in Rhy’s cheeks, the hair curling against his brow a glossy black, rich, at odds with the mussed cushions and wrinkled sheets that spoke of suffering, of struggle. Kell ducked his head and pressed his lips to Rhy’s brow, willing him to wake and make some tease about damsels in distress, or spells and magic kisses. But the prince didn’t stir. His eyelids didn’t flutter. His pulse didn’t lift.
Kell squeezed his brother’s shoulder gently, but still the prince didn’t wake, and he would have shaken Rhy if Tieren hadn’t touched Kell’s wrist, guided his hand away.
“Be patient,” said the Aven Essen, gently.
Kell swallowed and turned back toward the room, suddenly aware of how quiet it was, despite the presence of the king and queen, the growing audience of priests and guards, including Tieren and Hastra, the latter now in common clothes. Lila hung back in the doorway, pale with exhaustion and relief. And in the corner stood Alucard Emery, whose reddened eyes had turned storm-dark irises to sunset blue.
Kell couldn’t bear to ask what had happened, what they’d seen. The whole room wore the pall of the haunted, the too-still features of the shocked. It was so quiet Kell could hear the music of the damned winner’s ball still trilling on overhead.
So quiet he could—finally—hear Rhy’s breathing, soft and steady.
And Kell so badly wished they could stay in this moment, wished he could lie down beside the prince and sleep and avoid the explanations, the accusations of failure and betrayal. But he could see the questions in their eyes as they looked from Lila to him, taking in his sudden return, his bloody state.
Kell swallowed and began to speak.
XI
The boundary between the worlds gave way like silk beneath a sharpened blade.
Osaron met no resistance, nothing but shadow and a step, a moment of nothing—that narrow gap between the end of one world and the beginning of the next—before Holland’s boot—his boot—found solid ground again.
The way between his London and Holland’s had been hard, the spells old but strong, the gates rusted shut. But like old metal, there were weaknesses, cracks, and in those years of questing from his throne, Osaron had found them.
That doorway had resisted, but this one gave.
Gave onto something marvelous.
The castle was gone, the cold less brittle, and everywhere he looked was the pulse of magic. It trailed in lines before his eyes, rising off the world like steam.
So much power.
So much potential.
Osaron stood in the middle of the street and smiled.
This was a world worth shaping.
A world that worshipped magic.
And it would worship him.
Music drifted on the breeze, as faint as far-off chimes, and all around was light and life. Even the darkest shadows here were shallow pools compared to his world, to Holland’s. The air was rich with the scent of flowers and winter wine, the hum of energy, the heady pulse of power.
The coin hung from Osaron’s fingers, and he tossed it away, drawn toward the blooming light at the center of the city. With every step he felt himself grow stronger, magic flooding his lungs, his blood. A river glowed red in the distance, its pulse so strong, so vital, while Holland’s voice was a fading heartbeat in his head.
“As Anasae,” it whispered over and over, trying to dispel Osaron as if he were a common curse.
Holland, he chided, I am not a piece of spellwork to be undone.