Fifty silver kronets is the king’s going rate for an unclaimed orphan in the workhouse. A bargain, they tell me, for someone so young, with so many years of service left in her bones. Fifty silver kronets to repay her debt to the crown, and proof that she’s my family, that I have the right to buy her back before she turns twelve and is sold to whoever wants her—with or without the spell of obedience still darkening her eyes.
That man today did not want a little girl to do his laundry.
My throat burns, full of acid, and I hug my bag tighter, trying to press the ache out of my chest, but it only rises higher, lodging beneath my scar where it settles with a familiar itch.
Mist from the gorge banks over the kingdom’s walls and worms through the streets, shrouding the rot of the Brim with stretching fingers of white. It mutes my footsteps and dims the sparse oil lamps that burn above my head as I press deeper through the darkened alleys, scaling crumbling walls and balconies, emerging onto the rooftops. It’s a whole second city up here, full of twists and alleys of its own—even the occasional black market where pawnbrokers buy and sell from blankets easy to roll up and hide if a shadow crow comes scrying, looking for the king’s percentage of the deal.
Cadence used to play up here, while I washed our clothes in the water that filled the clogged gutters. She used to practice out here too, living vicariously through Thaelan as he trained for the Guard, filling her hopes with stories of swords and long-ago wars, when Brindaigel and Avinea stood as allies against the rest of the world.
He and I used to meet up here after she’d gone to bed, only we’d climb even higher, to where the buildings spread apart and we could see the stars. There was never more than a sliver of sky we could blot out with our hands held side to side. Never enough to satisfy the hunger in our hearts.
I don’t bother looking for stars tonight as I pick my way toward my current residence, a drafty attic abandoned by its former occupants after their young daughter was caught weaving spells with the magic that holds the mountains in around us.
The king tells us that only he can summon magic from the earth, that it’s a divine gift from the gods inherited through blood and birthright. But he leaves out the part about the gods demanding balance in all things, especially power among men. While the king alone can summon magic, there are others—even filthy Brim rats—who can manipulate it once it’s loose.
In Avinea, King Merlock embraced these magicians, appointing four apiece as provosts to the touchstones he scattered across his kingdom to adjudicate in his stead. A transferent to siphon magic and dispense it as needed, a spellcaster to weave magic into useful spells, an intuit to track the amount of magic remaining; and an amplifier who could thicken a single thread of magic into a rope. At the start of the war, every one of them turned mercenary, draining the touchstones and selling the magic to Prince Corthen to use against his brother. It was this betrayal by Merlock’s magicians that sparked his decision to poison his magic and destroy his kingdom before he abandoned both almost twenty years ago.
Which is why in Brindaigel, King Perrote preemptively kills them all.
Magic does not belong to the people, he reminds us every year, after confirming that our borders must remain closed. Look what happens when a king trusts men and treats them as equals. Only Perrote and one provost can be trusted with that power, and they exercise it absolutely against anyone who demonstrates an inkling of ability. Even little girls too innocent to mean harm.
My blistering headache returns as I slide through the broken window of the attic, breathing in the familiar dusty-damp smell of the rotting wood and stale blankets. There’s a comfort to it and, exhausted, I clutch my bag to my chest and lean against the wall, wilting across the hardwood floor until my legs are stretched ahead of me. Head rocked back, I hold my breath and exhale slowly as I close my eyes.
The man with the oil-slick smile grins back at me, flecks of pear dotting his chin.
Jolting upright, I dig through my bag, pulling out my change purse and tipping coins across the floor, catching a kronet before it rolls away. Trembling, I add tonight’s copper tretkas to the pile and count, recount, sift through them a final time, determined to make more of the little I have.
Nineteen kronets and thirty tretkas and only two months more to double that if I want to save my sister. She turns twelve at the start of the year, but with no one to say so, she’ll celebrate her birthday with the king instead, two months too soon.
A desperate sob wrenches loose and I crush it into silence against my arm. Dirty blond tangles fall across my shoulders and I stare at them in accusation. Why haven’t I sold my hair yet? That’s another kronet in my hand. Am I that selfish, that vain, to cling to my hair while Cadence suffers? Why? Because Thaelan used to spread it across the grass and tell me it was beautiful?
A board creaks ahead of me. In a flash, I’m on my feet, a hand braced to the wall. The air around me shifts, displaced by an unfamiliar smell.
Cigarettes.
“I don’t pay my father’s debts,” I say, drying my cheeks with the sleeve of my dress. The taste of metal fills my mouth as I edge toward my bedroll and the blade I keep beneath it. “Any business with him can be handled at the Stone and Fern Tavern.”
“Liar,” a man says, amused.
I hesitate, wary. “Who are you?” I demand, squinting through the gloom.
A shadow draws closer, head and shoulders, and then trousers that fit close to the leg, a manner favored by men who don’t need to move fast or move often.
A nobleman.
Ghostly fingers lift a cigarette to lips curled in a smirk. Dark hair and blue eyes and a face that haunts my nightmares. “Hello, Faris,” he says.
Alistair Pembrough.
The king’s executioner.
Four
I’VE DREAMT ABOUT THIS DAY, practiced for it every night.
The day I kill the boy who killed Thaelan.
Lunging, I barrel Alistair back, both hands locked around his throat. He stumbles before slamming against the opposite wall, cigarette falling to the floor. We’re matched for height, an advantage I exploit as I squeeze, furious that he caught me off guard.
That he saw me crying.
Surprise gives way to a half laugh of incredulity as Alistair grabs for my wrists. I easily block him, sliding an arm across his throat and pinning his hand to the wall by his head. His smile fades. “I’m not here to hurt you,” he says, “I’m here to help you.”
“Like you helped me that night? Like you helped Thaelan and my sister!?”
“Exactly like I helped you that night,” he says. “You think that I couldn’t have caught you if I wanted to? I gave you an out, Faris; I gave you a chance.”
My knuckles strain around his wrist; a quick snap and I could break it, and the temptation is excruciating. “Where was their chance?”