“I’m an executioner, not a god,” he says flatly. “Your sister was screaming loud enough even Perrote could have tracked her in the dark. And blessed Saint Thaelan wouldn’t”—he chokes as I apply more pressure against his throat—“leave her behind.” He arches an eyebrow, arrogant even as color drains from his face. “He lacked the same survival instincts as you. As me.”
Rage explodes through me and I press my entire weight against his. “He was a better man than you will ever be!”
“He was a liar,” Alistair wheezes. Sweat breaks out above his lip. “He broke his vows to the Guard, he kissed one girl while betrothed to another, and he turned his back on his family, his commanding officers, his king. Saint Thaelan—”
I strike him, hard as I can, loosening my stranglehold in the process. Alistair’s head rolls away from my blow and he snorts, using his free hand to tentatively touch the side of his mouth. “Not bad,” he says, still rasping. “It certainly earns me money every night down at the Stone and Fern.”
My blood turns to ice. He goes to the tavern? He watches me? Bets on me with the same money the king paid him for killing Thaelan?
I raise a hand to hit him again. With a practiced move, he twists my arm behind my back, wrestling me to my knees. Dark hair hangs over his eyes “I’m not just a pretty face, Faris; I can fight if that’s what you want.” Swallowing, he adds, “But I’d rather not spill more blood.”
“Then why are you here?” I growl. My nose is bleeding again and I wipe at it, humiliated. I was supposed to be iron, unbreakable, reunited with Alistair Pembrough with a blade in one hand, his throat in the other, and nothing between us but his apologies to eulogize his death.
Instead we’ve barely begun and he’s already taken control.
Releasing me, Alistair snaps a handkerchief from the pocket of his coat and offers it, making a face when I refuse. Sighing, he rakes his hair back into place and adjusts his waistcoat, giving the handkerchief a sour look before his eyes fall to the coins spilled across the floor.
“Is this all you have?” he asks, gesturing. “God Above.” Laughing, he picks up a copper tretka and bounces it across his palm. “I didn’t even know they made them this small.”
I hate him. I hate his arrogance, his entitlement; the birthright that gave him inherent power over a Brim rat like me when I know I’m just as strong.
Rising to my feet, I wipe my nose again, edging toward my bedroll.
“It’s not there,” he says, dropping the tretka before standing, sliding his hands into his pockets.
Frowning, I nudge the bedroll aside with my boot, confirming: My knife is gone. He’s been here long enough to have gone through my things. If he was at the fight tonight, he knows what happened between me and Reed, and yet he waited until now to face me, when he knew I’d be powerless.
When he knew he would win.
Blood echoes in my ears, shivering through my veins until I’m shaking with fury. I force my fingers into fists at my sides, taking a position of defense. I’m battered and I’m bruised but I am not broken, not if this is the only chance I’ll have.
The glass from the window.
“Thaelan used to talk about you,” Alistair says, and I freeze like a rabbit caught in the terraces. “Never by name, of course; he was too selfish to share that, but then, no name was ever needed. You were perfection to him.” He scoffs, shaking his head. “I called him a liar. I knew the girl he was going to marry and she did not have gold hair and pale eyes and skin like velvet. No such creature could exist.”
My mouth dries; no such creature does exist. After ten years of working the fields like my father, my skin has never been soft, my hair more dross than any gold, and yet, that was Thaelan’s gift: brightening everything and turning the ordinary into more.
Despite resenting the temptation of Alistair’s words, I crave more of Thaelan the way I crave the sunlight after too many months of winter. I have all my memories; I want more. The Thaelan I never got to see, hidden in the hours while he trained and played dutiful son.
“But then I saw you that night,” Alistair says, and he takes a step closer, hands falling out of his pockets. “Standing in the tunnels, terrified. And I understood.” The shadows of the room muddy his eyes. “He was smart to protect you, Faris,” he says softly. “To keep your name from me. But your name is my weapon now, and I know exactly how to use it.”
The threat chills me with its simplicity. This boy could destroy me with one single story told to the king about a third traitor in those tunnels that night. He could destroy Cadence.
So why hasn’t he?
“What do you want?” I ask.
“A chance,” he says. “An out. The same I gave you. The same I gave him—”
Twisting, I knock out a piece of glass from the broken window behind me and lunge, barreling him to the floor. Pinning him beneath my weight, I clutch the glass in my hand, ignoring the way it bites my own skin, angling it against his throat.
He stares up at me, incredulous. “So then kill me,” he says. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? Cut my throat and settle the score.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
“It’s not much of a temptation if you’re resisting this easily,” he says flatly. Dust settles in his hair; his lip has started bleeding. But he’s calm, unresisting, blue eyes blazing even as my own hand shakes, the glass skating between his throat and the collar of his overcoat.
Breathe, I tell myself. Think. But I’m exhausted from the fight, bruised inside and out. Shadows spin around me, dulling my vision, dulling my nerve.
I shake away my hesitations, dipping the glass against his skin, drawing a line of ruby blood. This is what I wanted, I remind myself: This is how this ends.
“Thaelan was my friend,” Alistair says softly.
The sight of his blood is not as satisfying as I needed it to be, and I stare at it in accusation. Tears flood my eyes. “Then that makes you even more of a monster,” I say, voice breaking. “If not my sister, you could have at least saved him.”
“How?” At last, a spark of anger to match my own. “What power do you think I have, Faris? Only the king grants innocence, and I assure you, his majesty is stingy in his absolutions. Do you know what this is?” Ignoring the glass at his throat, he rakes back the collar of his shirt, exposing a dark symbol on the soft slope of his chest, above his heart.
It’s the king’s mark, branded with an iron so hot it cauterizes the flesh and leaves a scar. Threads of magic run between the raised lines of the brand, no more than smoke and shadow, like ink diluted in water. A loyalty oath, linking him to the king.