The Beasts We Bury (The Broken Citadel #1)

10. Silver

10

S ILVER

|6 DAYS UNTIL THE ASSURANCE|

I’m not really sure how I managed to get sidelined in my own plan. Yet here I am, pretending to dust an oversized vase in front of the arena while I watch the guards pat down Vie for hidden weapons. As they rifle through her hair, pull at the seams of her shoes, and shake out her clothing, all I can think about is how the person in the arena should be me.

Well, that and how ridiculously overprotective the guards are being. When they ask her to open her mouth so they can check for needles hidden in her gums, even Mance rolls her eyes.

No one’s patting her down, by the way. When the guards are done with Vie, they’ll probably each give Mance a high five and a “go get ’em.”

Vie snaps her teeth shut just shy of the guards’ fingers when they finally pull them out of her mouth, and I flinch, almost knocking over the vase I’m supposedly polishing. It wobbles perilously until I grab it with both hands and force it back to stillness, my knuckles white and my heart pounding out of my chest.

Okay, so I’m a little tense.

We haven’t practiced this fight as much as I would’ve liked. We tried, but Vie was more interested in taunting than choreographing, and the battles quickly devolved into uncoordinated brawls that I had to break up before Vie left an actual mark that could invite questions.

Today, there won’t be any rules about marks. And there won’t be anyone to hold Vie back.

Which I know she’s been looking forward to.

I polish the vase so hard that it gleams aggressively in the light of the wall sconces. Part of me wants to shove it over and let it smash into pieces on the glossy marble floor.

“Mancella!”

My thoughts are derailed as a thin woman bustles down the hall, her skirts voluminous and her glass corset pulled so tight it’s amazing she can still breathe. Mance’s mother. I rarely see her apart from meals and I think this is the first time I’ve heard her speak. Her voice is drab and clingy, like wet clothing, and I resist the urge to wipe it out of my ears.

Mance straightens as she approaches, regarding her with an expression that seems oddly guarded. “Yes?” she asks.

The woman stumbles to a stop in front of her daughter. A couple wisps work their way free of her carefully arranged updo and she doesn’t reach up to tuck them back in. Something vulnerable enters her expression as she takes in Vie, who sneers up at her obligingly.

“Is it true?” she asks, in that same soggy voice. “You’re going to fight this… girl?”

Wow, could she be any more disdainful? I wring out my rag into the bucket, twisting the cloth until its threads bulge.

“It’s true,” Mance says.

“Oh.” Lady Wespa fidgets, rubbing a thumb along the edge of her corset, leaving a smudgy streak on the glass.

“Are you… all right?” Mance asks. “I thought you’d be happy.”

“I am, of course.” She says it quickly, but distantly, like it’s an automatic response. “I just wish…”

“What?”

She parts her lips, but then Prime Merod strides up to say something to the soldiers and she pinches them back together in a stilted line. She shakes her head, dislodging even more strands, and puts a hand on Mance’s cheek. “I wish you didn’t have to,” she whispers. “But I think you’re very brave.” She says this last part louder, like a proclamation, and pairs it with a tight smile.

Then she flees back down the hallway, clearly not intending to stay and watch.

I snort as her skirts disappear around the corner. Some support she was. She must have to keep her corset so tight because it’s the only thing holding her upright. What with the lack of spine and all.

Rooftop, in full soldier attire, brushes past me, and although neither of us acknowledges the other, I know we’re both noting each other’s location, scanning the hallway for exits and potential threats, and keeping an eye on Vie.

It’s almost time.

Rooftop brushes past Vie as well, with a similar lack of eye contact, and enters the side room where the soldiers watch. I’ll need to find my way in there, too, but not until Vie leaves this hallway. I’d like at least one of us to have eyes on her at all times. Despite what Mance said about the magic liking a fair fight, I wouldn’t put it past her father to try something underhanded. So far he’s given Vie a wide berth, but you can never be too sure.

As if hearing my thoughts, the Prime shoulders past the searching guards and lifts Vie’s chin with one hand, studying her himself. I tense, and Vie straightens to her full height, returning his gaze with a glower. Whatever he sees must satisfy him because he lets her go.

“You understand the terms of the fight?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Vie shoots back, rubbing the bottom of her chin. “The magic likes it fair, so no holding back. I actually had a question about that.”

Prime Merod raises an eyebrow, expression detached. “Go on.”

What is she doing? I sneak a quick look at Mance, but she doesn’t seem to know either.

Vie blows her bangs out of her face. “Well, if I’m not holding back, then there’s a chance I actually kill her, right? If it turns out I’m the stronger one? There’s no fair fight if you don’t allow for that possibility.”

Prime Merod tilts his head back, regarding her. “In theory, yes. You’ll need to give it your all, and there is a risk associated with that.”

Mance wrinkles her nose at her death being called an “associated risk,” and even I can’t suppress a wince.

But Vie seems pleased. “Great,” she says, pushing on. “So let’s say I do. Kill her. No penalties for that, right? You’re not gonna punish me for doing exactly what you told me to do?”

The cloth drops from my hand with a wet plop.

I know Vie, and she wouldn’t ask something like that without a reason. She knows Mance isn’t actually trying to hurt her, so there’s no way she’s afraid. In fact, she’s been excited for this fight. A little too excited.

And a little too guarded about her reasons why.

Of course, it’s not exactly a secret that she hates Mance. I mean, we all hate the Cliffs. We’ve spent almost every day since the Academy cursing their names, talking about what we’d do if we were ever alone in a room with any one of them. But it was just talk. Even Vie isn’t reckless enough to try to murder a member of the ruling family right in the middle of their own castle.

At least, not without a guarantee that she could get away with it scot-free.

“No,” Prime Merod says finally. “No penalty. If you win, then you walk.”

“Excellent,” Vie says.

The Prime turns away, and for a second I see a vicious, vindictive smile on Vie’s face that makes my stomach clench. But before I can figure out if I should do anything about it, they’re shoving her into the arena.

Mance strides in after, an uncertainty in her step now. She’s probably turning Vie’s questions over in her mind just as much as I am. Her shoulder slants, like she wants to turn back and look at me, but at the last moment she remembers herself and keeps her face forward.

And then the great doors slam shut, the bolt clicking into place.

I swallow, my mind racing.

Prime Merod hurries through the same door Rooftop used, eager for the match to start, but I don’t follow right away.

In the emptiness of the hallway it suddenly occurs to me that if Vie did have some plan of her own, there’s nothing I could do to stop it. Not in front of the Prime himself. My veins buzz in alarm.

Hurriedly, I slip into the side room as well, hoping it’s crowded enough inside that one spare servant won’t raise any eyebrows.

Turns out, I didn’t need to worry. The place is packed.

There are soldiers there, but plenty of other servants, too. Cooks, cleaners, ladies’ maids, groomsmen, and gardeners, all crammed into every crevice of the room. They must be drawn to the spectacle. I guess it’s not every day the Seconde agrees to a death match with an unknown girl. Still, it makes me sick.

Anxious, I cast around for a spot to stand that won’t be too noticeable but also grants a good vantage point. After shifting through the bodies, I end up near the Prime, because everyone else is trying to give him room, so the only free space up front is right at his elbow.

Standing that close to the man I hate most in the world makes me almost dizzy, but I shove my hatred aside for now.

Because I don’t want to miss a thing.

In the arena, Vie and Mance are circling each other. Neither’s made much of a move yet, and the room around me is on edge. Everyone’s waiting for the first strike, me included.

“It’s not too late to stop this,” a woman at the front says, voice low enough that probably only the Prime and I can hear it.

I’m surprised by the opposition, so I tear my eyes away from the fight to search out its source.

The woman is squat and armored, with salt-and-pepper hair. She stands at the Prime’s right hand. According to the badges on her uniform, she’s a captain, and I can’t help but be impressed with her because I’ve never seen an old lady so buff.

“Enough, Petrice,” the Prime says, not sparing her so much as a glance.

But the woman is not silenced so easily. “She’s still a child,” she hisses.

“So are many of your soldiers. And she agreed to this.”

“I’m certain she didn’t agree to it without coercion, sir,” the Captain says pointedly.

“I said enough!” the Prime roars, wheeling on her. “You forget your place.”

Several around us make startled noises and take a step back.

The Captain, however, does not cower under his anger. In fact, she seems to stand up straighter. But she does bite her tongue with a terse, “Sir.”

I take advantage of everyone’s shifting to sidle farther in, closer to Rooftop and the door. Neither the Captain nor the Prime seems to have taken notice of either one of us, which is how I’d like to keep it. And no matter how interesting it is eavesdropping on the Prime, I don’t want to get distracted again.

In the arena, things are picking up. Vie is employing her typical ruthless style, ducking under Mance’s guard to administer brutal and efficient jabs to her vital points. I can tell she’s missing her knives, wishing she could slide them into each of the soft patches of flesh she hits, but she’s making a good show of it anyway.

Mance, on the other hand, adopts the same disciplined forms she used with me, every bit of her body a honed and powerful weapon. It’s a different experience watching her fight from a distance. Against my will, I’m struck by the grace and precision of her movements, the way one form flows into the next, the way her footwork is so deliberate and yet so fluid. Though she never summons an animal, she seems to embody them in her attacks nonetheless, slinking like a crafty cat, dodging like a lithe gazelle, striking like a venomous snake.

She’s mesmerizing.

From what I can tell, the sentiment is shared by everyone around me, and it feels like we breathe as one, gasping at tricks and sighing at escapes together. At some points it doesn’t feel like anyone in the room is breathing at all.

I can see the moment Vie comes to the same conclusion I did in my own fight. Mance is better than we are, and denying it out of pride would only give her the win quicker. The only way to have any chance at all is to do something unexpected. Basically, to play dirty. But Vie doesn’t have a bonfire or a sediment-filled cave to work with like I did. I rock on my heels, nervous about what she’s going to do.

Quick as a flash, Vie’s hand lashes out, fisting in Mance’s hair, winding it around her fingers with quick, rough jerks until she’s woven a solid anchor.

Then she pulls.

Hard.

Mance’s scream fills the room as she claws at Vie’s hands, digging in her nails. But Vie just keeps yanking, pushing Mance’s head down low and ripping at her wavy tresses, clearly reveling in this moment of power over her. Mance says something under her breath that the rest of us can’t hear, but Vie only snickers and slams her knee into Mance’s face.

She’s enjoying it, I can tell. And the pain she’s inflicting now is real.

When she brings her knee up again it slams into Mance’s stomach, and then her neck. Mance makes a horrific gurgling sound and then spits blood onto the marble.

My breathing shallows and sweat breaks out on my forehead.

Vie isn’t actually this senseless, is she? She doesn’t really believe the Prime will let her go without penalty if she murders his heir, right? What incentive would he have to uphold that promise?

Mance coughs up more blood and my stomach clenches.

I don’t like seeing her like this.

The realization startles me, but it’s impossible to deny the physical, visceral response I’m having to her pain.

It feels like I’m taking the hits myself.

Even more alarming, there’s a part of me that wishes I could .

“Come on, Mance,” I whisper under my breath.

Finally, Mance digs her thumbs into the soft part of Vie’s wrist and simultaneously gives her a hard kick to the gut. As Vie lurches backward, her grip loosens and Mance manages to detach herself. She backs up, panting, her formerly pristine bun now half unwound, her hair falling in haphazard tufts around her face.

The room is alternately cheering at her escape and jeering at Vie for the cheap moves, but in the midst of their noise I go silent.

Because I see the look on Mance’s face.

Fury.

It’s the same look she had when she was going at that wisteria. Like she was holding nothing back. Like she’d keep going until the thing was ground to dust or her hands were a bloody pulp, whichever came first. Something about that look makes my mouth go dry and apprehension skate down my spine.

“The magic has awakened,” murmurs a voice to my right. Several around me nod, pressing in closer, and suddenly the energy of the crowd is charged. Expectant.

“What does that mean?” I ask, turning toward the speaker.

She angles her eye toward me and I suck in a breath.

It’s Mara, Mance’s sister, and I never should have drawn her attention. I look down at my shoes, trying to act the part of a new hire embarrassed by a social gaffe. But for whatever reason, she decides to answer me, pressing in close to my back and speaking in a low voice, her gaze still on the battle in front of us.

“The magic has a bloodlust,” she tells me. “And at a certain point in the fight, that bloodlust takes over. My sister stops guarding. She stops evading. She becomes the fight. Watch.”

My eyes flick up, and my breath catches in my throat, because she’s right. Mance has changed. She was a creature before, but a gentle one. A beautiful one. One that viewed the back-and-forth as a dance.

Now she’s a predator. Fast, sharp, savage. Vie doesn’t stand a chance. She stumbles back amid an onslaught of attacks that seem to come from everywhere at once, and in that moment an expression passes over her face that I haven’t seen on her in a long, long time.

Fear.

Vie, the girl I always thought was impenetrable, the girl who regularly fights men twice her size just for a few coins and the glee of knowing that she can beat them, is afraid.

All of a sudden none of this feels right at all.

My heartbeat speeds up and the room feels like it gets twenty degrees hotter. The bodies pressed around me feel too close, too claustrophobic, like they’re breathing down my neck.

And Mance just keeps going, attacking again and again. Vie is barely even trying to defend anymore; there’s no time between blows.

For a second I get the wild, irrational thought to run out there and stop this. Shut the whole thing down. I look at Rooftop and he’s already looking at me, and the fact that we’ve both abandoned subtlety in the same moment makes my stomach lurch into my throat.

Then Mance takes Vie’s head into her hands and whips it to the side, and I will never forget the thunderous crack that her bones make as they snap beneath the Prospective Seconde’s fingers. It feels like the sound reverberates through my very chest. Vie’s expression freezes in shock. Then she slumps to the ground, and there’s a second crack—that of her skull hitting solid marble.

But Vie doesn’t flinch. She just lies there… lifeless.

My heart racing, I remind myself that this isn’t real. We’re here to pretend. It’s a good thing that it looks so realistic. It means we all did our job. Everything’s going according to plan.

Right?

Jubilant applause explodes all around me, and I take a reckless half step toward them, but Rooftop’s faster. He shoots forward, pushing off the wall and charging to Vie’s side, all sense of decorum lost.

“Soldier!” the Captain bellows, storming after him. “You’re to wait for my signal!”

“Apologies, ma’am,” Rooftop says, and I hear the quaver in his voice. “I just…”

But he doesn’t get to finish what he’s saying because Mance falls to her knees, her expression stricken, as whatever came over her evaporates like water beneath the cruel sun. Her hands are shaking, and she looks at them like she’s never seen them before.

“Oh no,” she whimpers. “What did I do? What did I do? ” Her whimper turns to a scream so agonized that it sets my teeth on edge. Even Rooftop takes a step back. At the movement, she whirls on him.

“Is she dead?” she asks. “Is she really dead? Tell me!”

Rooftop needs no other prompting. He bends down and puts his fingers to Vie’s neck. Her head lolls limply to the side. When he lifts his face again, it’s ashen. “She’s dead,” he says. And although his voice is deadpan, I can hear the slightest quaver. One that no one but me would be able to hear, but that hits me as hard as the two cracks that came before it, like the sound of a hammer pounding the final nail into the coffin.

Vie’s coffin.

No .

No no no no no no .

At first I think the word is echoing in my head, but then I realize Mance is screaming it and I feel like I might pass out.

Prime Merod pushes through to grab Mance by the shoulders, shaking her.

“Snap out of it!” he orders.

“Why did you push me to this?” Mance yells at him. “Take her away, please, I can’t even look at her. Tell her family that I’m sorry. Tell them I’m so, so sorry.”

Is it just me, or did her teary eyes flick in my direction when she said that? I reach a hand out to the wall in front of me to steady myself.

“Peace,” the Captain says, pressing something into her palm. Mance stares at it. Turns it over. Swallows.

“I should have made a bigger one this time,” she says faintly. “I…” She chokes up, tries to speak again, and finally lays the item on Vie’s chest with shaking hands. It’s a tiny bouquet of white flowers tied with twine.

The kind of bouquet someone might leave at a grave.

Mance puts both hands over her face and sobs into them, and I am horrified to find a sob rising in my own throat as well. I jerk my head back to see if anyone has noticed my lack of composure, but most are fixated on the scene before them.

Except for Mara, whose evaluating gaze is latched solely on me, and whose mouth is quirked up at the side.

“Never seen anyone die before,” I mutter to her, hoping to explain away my reaction as mere discomfort with violence. Then I turn back to the arena, desperately trying to force my features into something safer.

Rooftop is blank-faced as he scoops up Vie’s body and cradles her to his chest, a gesture she would normally hate. But she doesn’t move.

And I don’t, either.

I can’t.

He rushes out, head bowed and expression shadowed. The medical staff floods in to give Mance an evaluation, but she seems fine. Physically, anyway. Her father must have come to the same conclusion because he swats them all away.

“Focus,” he demands. “Can you feel her?”

Mance raises her head and looks at him. Then with a last sob, she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.

My own breath sticks in my throat, my emotions churning, my feet still frozen to the floor. If Vie is really dead, do I want Mance to be able to summon her or not? The idea of Vie as one of her pets makes me sick, but the thought of never seeing her again makes me sicker. The room reels.

“I-I can’t,” Mance stutters.

Merod’s face falls, but then he clenches his jaw. “Try. Try to summon her anyway. Maybe you can’t feel her inside, but that doesn’t necessarily mean she isn’t there.”

“I really don’t want to do this right now, Father, can’t I rest first?”

“No,” he says. “Try.”

Mance closes her eyes and scrunches up her face. I realize I now have both hands clenched. It’s only the possibility that Mara’s still watching me that makes me forcibly relax them.

Finally, Mance shakes her head. “She’s not there. She’s not anywhere.”

My heart plummets.

Her father stares at her for a moment, then stalks out of the room with a frustrated snarl, leaving a wake of tense silence behind him.

Through the crowd, Mance’s eyes find mine. Her cheeks are blotchy, her hands are shaking, and tears stream down her face. I don’t know what she’s looking for from me, but I can’t give it. I’m not ready for this.

I bolt.

Somehow, I don’t know how, I keep my steps brisk but measured until I’m out of the palace. But once my boots hit grass, I break into a run.

“W-wait!”

That’s Mance’s voice. It’s still teary.

I speed up.

Behind me, her footsteps get louder, hitting the ground at a faster, more frenzied pace.

What does she want, to apologize? I can’t hear it right now. I’m seconds away from a breakdown.

But where can I go? How can I lose her?

I turn on my heel, veering back toward the glass gardens. In the sunlight, the glass is glaringly bright, almost blinding. I charge toward them, driven by the irrational feeling that if I just go back to where we struck this horrible deal, maybe I can undo it. But she’s gaining on me too quickly, so I dart into the hedge maze instead. I dash left, then right, then right again, making turns at random, hoping desperately to lose her. But she knows the layout better than I do, and soon her hand grabs the back of my waistcoat, pulling me to a stop.

And I can’t stand that she’s outmaneuvered me again.

I shrug the garment off and spin, pushing her backward into the shrubbery.

She has the nerve to look stunned as leaves cascade into her hair. “What are you—”

“Was this the plan all along?” I ask. “Get a willing volunteer by telling her it won’t be real and then taking her life anyway once it’s too late to escape? Was your original intention to kill me ?”

I’m advancing on her, and she’s stumbling sideways, toward a gap in the bushes, all innocent doe. But I’m not buying it anymore. I’ve seen the real creature. I’ve seen her darkness. She will never fool me again.

“Listen—” she protests.

But I talk over her, half because my anger is overflowing and half out of fear of what she might say, what she will confirm. “Just because we’re poor, it doesn’t make us less than you,” I shout. “We’re not expendable people. We’re not your playthings!”

“I never thought you were! I—”

My hand crashes into the bushes by her head, blocking her exit. The whole wall rustles and her eyes go wide.

“So, what, it was an accident?” I growl. “You just couldn’t control the monster that you are? Got too carried away by your own sick bloodlust and you’re sorry now? Well, let me tell you something. I don’t forgive you. I will never forgive you. You are—”

In the middle of my sentence, she takes my head in her hands and whips it sharply to the side.

I both hear and feel my own bones cracking beneath her fingers.

My words wither in my throat.

And time grinds to a halt.

I’ve thought about my own death a lot, but I never thought that when it came it would make me want to laugh. It’s funny, though, isn’t it? I can’t believe she’s gotten away with this. Can’t believe that after my life of defying the odds, this is how it ends for me. In a perfectly manicured hedge maze. On a bright, sunny day. At the hands of a teenage girl who I never, ever should have trusted.

At least I’ll be able to apologize to Vie sooner than I thought.

I hope Rooftop will be okay without us.

A beat goes by as I brace myself both mentally and physically for whatever comes next.

But then, shockingly… nothing does.

Feeling foolish, I reach a tentative hand up to my throat. And my pulse is there, thrumming away. I am unexpectedly but very obviously still alive. I’m… great, actually.

It doesn’t even hurt.

“Are you done?” Mance asks in a dangerously low voice. “Because that was a move the healers use on me when my back gets tight. It’s loud and dramatic looking, but all I actually did was realign the bones of your neck. You’re fine. And Vie’s fine, too. If anything, she’s better than before.”

It’s true; my neck feels fantastic now. Like I’ve never spent a night sleeping on cobblestones in my life.

I stare at her, breathing hard. She hasn’t fixed her hair yet, so it’s spilling out of its bun, framing her face with uneven tendrils. This close, and under the bright light of the sun, I can see that her eyes aren’t actually black, like I’d always assumed. They’re blue—a shadowy, impenetrable blue I’ve only ever seen in the depths of a midnight sky. It’s her lashes that are true black, framing those eyes in inky wisps, some of them stuck together in still-damp clumps left over from her tears. I didn’t realize she’d cried that much.

But she isn’t crying now. Behind the leftover tears, her midnight eyes are burning.

My lips part, but I have no idea what I’m about to say.

And I guess we’ll never find out, because before I utter a word, she ducks under my arm and makes a run for it, leaving nothing but the sound of rustling leaves and retreating footsteps behind her.