CHAPTER 25
THE CLOSER WE get to Angra’s palace, the more my relief and amazement fade.
This is the moment I’ve feared since I arrived, when Angra will torture me into submission. He’ll make me beg for death until I tell him how I brought down the ramps, how I healed that boy, and when I don’t explain it—can’t explain it, at least not the boy—he’ll make Herod break me.
A shiver eats up my insides. No, I’m not afraid of Herod. I’m not afraid of Angra. I’m not afraid.
But Angra will kill me before I talk to Nessa again. Before I can do anything else to help them, maybe even save them. And after seeing what happened to the boy . . .
I want to dissolve in a fit of incredulous laughter as the soldiers pull me through Abril. The boy is all right. Even as I think it, shock chases away my need to laugh, snuffing it out like a candle getting sucked up into wind.
How did I do that?
Nessa, Conall, and Garrigan look up from their work in Angra’s garden as we pass. Nessa’s expression flashes from numb to panicked in two blinks, her body coiling with helpless realization. She surges toward me but Garrigan stops her, wraps his arms around her as he whispers something quick and low in her ear.
Conall sees me too, his glare dangerously dark. I tear my eyes away from him before I can see his disappointment, before his eyes tell me, I knew you would die too.
I won’t die. Not today. Not after what happened, what I did, what I can do for them. But what can I do for them? I don’t even know how I did it, where it came from—I healed the boy.
I healed him.
“Leave us.”
Angra’s voice ricochets around the throne room. A group of high-ranking advisers stands huddled around his dais, the black suns and gold trim on their uniforms gleaming in the filtered light from the holes above. They turn away at his command, all eyes falling on the battered Winterian girl two of his soldiers drag down the long walk to the throne.
One of the advisers is Herod. He smirks and eyes his king like he’s asking for permission, but Angra’s voice booms out again.
“I said leave us.”
The advisers gather the papers they had scattered on tables around Angra’s dais and file out through various doors. I’m left draped between the two soldiers at the base of the dais. Angra leans back in his throne, one hand as usual clutching his staff. His green eyes are sharp and deadly, and he stares at me as if I’m a prized dog he’s considering buying.
“Report,” he growls.
The soldier on my right snaps to attention. “She brought down the work ramp at the wall and killed and injured many of our men. She also—” He stops, his eyes darting to my face and pulling away like I might strike him dead with just a stare. “She healed a slave.”
My lungs refuse to let in more air, tightening like they know how hopeless it is to continue breathing. I don’t know what I am, what I can do, but Angra will torture me until he either finds out or I die.
Angra stands. “Dismissed,” he says. Both soldiers spin away, the sound of their boots on the obsidian floor fading into silence. The doors shut behind them.
It’s just Angra and me now. Angra and me and the dull, empty thudding of my pulse echoing off the heavy black rock of the throne room. I tighten every muscle against the fear in the back of my mind.
No matter what happens, no matter what he does, I am part of the bigger current of Winter, and that is something he can never take from me.
Angra’s fingers play idly on his staff. “Brought down a ramp, did you? And healed a slave?” His face is impassive, and that lack of emotion is somehow more terrifying than anything else. I surprised him. And he doesn’t like being surprised.
Angra steps forward. He smiles, composed, in control, analyzing me with taunting words until he can figure out what I did, how to stop me from surprising him again. “Clearly you have not learned a Winterian’s place if you think you can do such things without repercussions. But fear not—Herod will be more than happy to show you how a slave should act. Maybe I should have had him tutor you in etiquette from the start.”
The mention of Herod is like a bolt of lightning on a clear day, sharp and jolting. I stumble backward, eyes popping open, and draw in a quick inhale of breath. Angra’s smile widens. He can tell he found a weakness.
“Killed my men,” he muses, half to himself. “And healed a slave. It won’t take long to figure out how you did one, but the other? You came here with nothing but that stone, so what, exactly, gave you the power to heal someone?” Angra takes one step down the dais. “Has a little dead queen been helping you? Is she feeding you information in the hope that you will succeed where even her son has failed?”
I gape at him. Hannah. How did he know—
But Angra steps the rest of the way down, stopping close enough that I can see the anger lingering behind his expression, the threat of explosion should I press the wrong button or refuse to play along. “I see everything,” he hisses. “I control everything. I know she’s still connected to Winter’s magic, but I didn’t think she’d be stupid enough to use her power in my kingdom, especially through a worthless girl. You’re going to tell me what Hannah has said to you, how she is feeding you magic, then I’m going to squeeze every bit of that magic out of your body.”
I swallow, my throat tight. The little boy’s eyes appear in my mind, so wide and awed and relieved, his small back healed.
“I don’t know,” I whisper. My own words shock me. I didn’t mean to speak. I just—I did something. I’m powerful.
“I think you do,” Angra disagrees. He lifts an eyebrow and looks at the orb on his staff. Darkness leaches out of it, one long string of shadow that swerves through the air, wrapping around his hand like a vine hugging a tree branch. The line of shadow uncurls from his hand and makes one great swoop arcing in a wide circle around my head. Toying with me, taunting me with how close the magic lingers to my face. Its darkness plays off the beams of sun that fall down through the holes in the ceiling.
I gape at it. I’ve never seen magic before. This—this isn’t magic.
This is the Decay.
“And I’m sure Hannah’s put some rather interesting bits of information in your head,” he continues. “I’d like to see what she’s been doing to you.”
I’m panting now, the shadow hovering in front of my nose. “All your power, and you don’t already know?”
Angra’s face twitches, revealing his true boiling anger beneath his smug facade. “You were put in a cage with—who was it? 1-3219, 1-3218, and 1-2072. What I do know, R-19, is that my need to know what is in your head is greater than my need to keep them alive. Should I bring them here? Because I’m guessing you care whether or not they live.”