Knowing what he’d done to bring back his cousin in a society that condemned all magic, I could imagine the cycle of self-loathing that must have taken hold.
“I never saw you as a monster, though. A criminal, yes. Definitely a troublemaker. But even when I learned you were a radiant, I didn’t see you differently. I thought maybe you were like me.” He didn’t meet my eyes. “Since then, I’ve fought actual monsters. Not just wraith beasts or glowmen, but the kind of people who come out of hiding when the world falls apart. I’ve traveled through the wraithland of my own home. I’ve seen things I couldn’t begin to describe.”
“Like this?” We’d come to the battleground: a huge park surrounded by shops, taverns, and food stalls. I’d been here once before; people had been planting trees and beginning the frame of some kind of stage or platform. Now vines covered the brickwork, growing every second. Broken glass windows glimmered like teeth.
“Dear saints.” Melanie pressed her hands to her mouth.
Mist writhed between thousands of men and women caught mid-fight. Wraith beasts, too, had been trapped with their claws raised or their jaws clamped around a leg.
Many of our people were turned away, identifiable only by the knives painted on their uniforms, but I caught a few faces I knew. They blinked and gasped, and struggled against the solidifying mist, but it was futile.
I stepped toward them, as though I could help.
“Don’t get too close.” Melanie raised her arm to bar me from proceeding. “Remember what Ferris said happened when they threw in a pebble. It’s there.”
Indeed, a small piece of rock hung in midair.
“You heard Chrysalis. It won’t hurt me.” When I lifted my palm to the mist, it seemed to melt. It was still wraith, but simply the kind that changed things, rather than trapped. With another step, the floating pebble hit the ground with a faint clack. “I have to free our people while this immunity still works. Maybe they know where Patrick and Prince Colin are.”
“Fine.” Melanie crossed her arms. “In the meantime, we’ll just stand here, useless.”
“Don’t be foolish. Find a building to climb up and get a good look at everything. Or go around the edges and look for Patrick and Prince Colin there. Just don’t touch the mist.” That wasn’t a useful instruction; there was mist everywhere. “Look, you can see how this mist is different. It sheers off at the edge of something, and there’s a shimmer to it.”
“I see it.” Melanie scowled.
My smile was forced. “Take James; that way we’ll each have a boy to look after.”
James and Tobiah shot each other unamused looks, but after a moment, Melanie and James went off together, discussing their best course of action.
I took another step into the mist, which melted at my nearness. “Watch my back, Black Knife.”
“Intently.”
Another step, and then another. I reached the nearest soldier with a black knife on her uniform. She’d been trapped in a silent scream, someone’s blade coming toward her from behind. I’d seen her before. Met her once. Her name was . . . Denise something.
“It’s all right, Denise,” I murmured. “I’m going to free you.”
Her eyes widened as the mist cleared away. Her mouth moved. She dropped from the wraith’s grasp and pointed behind me.
I drew my sword and spun, letting the mist scatter and melt around me.
A figure in a shredded indigo uniform limped around a corner. Blood poured down his cheek and neck, and his skin shone with sweat. He kept one arm tucked against his chest.
“Uncle.” Tobiah moved toward him, but stopped as Prince Colin hefted a sword with his good arm.
“I should have known I’d find you with her.” Prince Colin’s glare cut from Tobiah to me, his eyes narrowed. “Flashers. Filthy creatures. You deserve to die in this stuff, not my people.” He brought his sword around, cutting through banners of wraith accumulating around him. It didn’t help.
“Is that why you attacked the city?” Tobiah sidestepped so that he was between his uncle and me. “Because of Wilhelmina’s magic? Or because you don’t want to give up Aecor?”
Denise was kneeling in the muck, silently gasping, but recovering. I moved toward another black-knifed soldier, freeing him while Tobiah had Prince Colin distracted.
“You planned this.” Prince Colin shuddered as heat blasted through the street. “The coronation. Patrick Lien’s release. The wraith destroying us both.”
“We didn’t plan anything.” Tobiah’s voice was firm. “Do you really think I want to see another place become wraithland?”