Of course.
“It’s nearly dawn,” Alistair says, fist propped against the mantel of the fireplace. “Shift change.”
Bryn stands and approaches him, kissing him on the cheek. “Thank you, Pem,” she says.
He doesn’t reply.
She disappears through the doorway behind the tapestry. With a scowl, I toss her hairpin aside before pushing myself to my feet. The pin clatters across the uneven floor before stopping at the lip of a drain stained dark around its rim.
“I wasn’t lying to you,” Alistair says, speaking into the fire. “You’ll get your sister back.”
“Alive or dead?”
Alistair ducks his head. “Faris—”
“So do I walk out on my own, or will you drug me again?”
“Look, I’m sorry,” he says, turning to face me. “And I have been sorry every day since it happened. I just . . .” He looks away, teeth clenched. “I need you to know that. I need you to hear that. Thaelan—”
“I don’t care what you need,” I spit back. “You followed me, drugged me, and injected me with magic! You forfeited any right to forgiveness when you decided you wanted a throne more than you wanted your soul!”
“Yes, envy me, Faris: The stars themselves couldn’t have written a more convenient romance. The seventh heir to the throne and the son of an executioner! What a marriage we’ll have and what a king I would make!”
“Why else would you do this if not for a crown?”
“Because she chose me,” he says, stepping closer, eyes bright, “the same as she has chosen everyone who’s ever had something useful to offer her. When Bryndalin is crowned queen, I guarantee you that I will not be standing beside her.” He swallows hard, straightening. “Nobody will.”
“Well, you chose me,” I say, “and I’m warning you that if anything happens to my sister, I hold you responsible.”
I move toward the door but he steps ahead of me, blocking my way. “Swear to me you’ll come back and I swear to you your sister will be safe. Even if I have to outbid everyone in this kingdom to buy her.”
“I’m coming back,” I say. “And you won’t be the only monster in this dungeon when I do.”
His expression shifts, turns sad. “You’re not a monster, Faris.”
I stare him down, unflinching. “If my sister dies, you have no idea what I’ll be.”
It’s only after I shoulder past him and enter the dark-walled sitting room beyond that I realize my mistake. An entire tray full of weapons, and I left every one of them behind.
Seven
THE DUNGEON SMELLS FOUL, FETID, swampy with trapped heat and the lingering odor of human excrement. Guards pace the halls with swords slung low on their hips, faces hidden by hooded cowls and hinged metal masks rubbed with oils and spices to hide the smell.
Being down here renews a thousand dreaded memories that shadow my steps. My insatiable heart starts humming through its familiar litany of all the different endings we could have had. I would rather see Thaelan married and forbidden from me than to be reminded that he’s dead for memorizing these tunnels—tunnels I commit to memory now, keeping silent record of every move we make, just in case. It’s a lesson learned hard, but a lesson learned anyway. Pay attention, Faris. Don’t let anyone get ahead of you; don’t ever lose your way.
“The hellborne are all intuits,” Alistair says, keeping a steady pace, his eyes accustomed to the dim light and murky shadows. “They’ll be able to smell the magic on you. Most would skin you alive to get to it.”
“The hellborne?” I follow his lead without question, stepping where he steps, stopping when he stops, shivering despite the heavy coat he offered as we left. I didn’t want to take it, but pride begets arrogance and no god has ever deemed stupidity a virtue.
“The infected,” he explains. “Once poisoned magic gets in your blood, it goes straight for your heart. You either die, or you feed it with the same depravities that turned it rotten in the first place. All the vices that make a man a monster.” He forces a smile, humorless and brief. “You surrender to those vices, you turn hellborne. Your blood turns to poison and you become addicted to the way it burns through your veins. But like any addiction, you grow immune. Clean blood dilutes the infection; clean magic gives it something to feed on. Either way, it gives them a high.”
I shudder, clutching my wrist and the hard-as-scar spell that circles it. Alistair notices the movement, gaze lingering on my hands. “There are also transferents like your mother,” he says, lifting his eyes, “looking for any scrap of magic they can sell to the highest bidder. Skin on skin is all it would take for them to steal whatever they want from you—or to try. And a clumsy effort to steal that magic could easily tear it apart.”
And magic torn at the edges will start to stagnate and decompose, working its way into my blood, eventually infecting me.
“Trust no one,” Alistair says in conclusion. “Touch no one. Not until you reach Prince Corbin’s palace in New Prevast.”
“How do you know all of this?” I ask.
His smile is grim as he glances to Bryn striding ahead of us. Her dark cloak hides the plain riding dress and simple boots she changed into, her dark red hair a loose cascade down her back. “The first man I executed was an old soldier,” he says. “He fought in the war, before the borders shifted. There aren’t many of them left these days. Do you know what his crime was?”
I shake my head.
The smile fades, replaced with something I can’t name. “A good memory,” Alistair says. “Knowledge is power, and Perrote doesn’t allow anyone he can’t trust to have any.”
I think of the peddler who sold me pirate stories, there one day and gone the next. “And he trusts you?”
“He trusts her,” he says, nodding toward Bryn. “He has to. His family will inherit this kingdom and they can’t do that without knowing the truth.” He snorts, starting to walk. “Like I said: She chose me, Faris, and it wasn’t because she wanted to marry an executioner. She wanted a way out, just like the rest of us. Just like your mother.”
I grab his arm, pulling him back. He pauses, almost hopeful. Despite everything, Alistair Pembrough still wants the one thing he can’t take from me.
Forgiveness.
“Did you know my mother?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer right away, staring instead at my fingers carving divots in the sleeve of his coat. “Yes,” he says at last.
I release his arm. Words stall in my throat and I wet my lips, allowing myself a moment of weakness. “Was—was she going to take you with her?”
Footsteps approach in the hall behind us. Silent as stone, Alistair swings me into an empty cell and pins me against the shadowed wall, keeping careful watch over his shoulder. I ball my hands in the baggy sleeves of my coat and stare at the ceiling as two guards pass, joking among themselves before they stop to urinate.