The Beasts We Bury (The Broken Citadel #1)

24. Silver

24

S ILVER

|2 DAYS UNTIL THE ASSURANCE|

Okay, so Operation Fix Stuff is off to a rocky start. Between Mara scowling from the roof, the definitely-supposed-to-do-something chain that fell next to my head, and Mance glaring at me with a jaguar-level ferocity, it’s clear I’ve managed to mess something (else) up.

Not to mention the assassin is still hurtling toward us.

Thinking fast, I roll to the side—an action that elicits infuriated shrieks from the girl in my arms—but that only causes the creepy shadow crack to veer again, so instead I leap up and haul Mance onto the table.

“What are you doing here?” she hisses. “Of all the—”

“Yell at me later,” I tell her. “What’s the necklace do?”

She kicks at a plate, sending it clattering to the ground, presumably in an effort to misdirect Rift. “It forms a barrier,” she huffs. “We were trying to—”

“Got it.”

As Rift springs into being, trying to figure out why we’re not touching the ground anymore, I fling myself off the table, scoop up the oversized chain, and toss it over his head. He turns, and Mance throws herself at the necklace on the floor, engaging some clasp. A breath later, when Rift’s sword arcs toward her, it halts in midair, mere inches from her face. And it makes an odd… crunching sound.

He frowns, then tries to take a step forward, only to meet the same resistance. He folds back into shadow, but that doesn’t work either.

Curious, I reach out a hand, and there’s something solid in the air above the necklace. It feels weird and scratchy, like knots of matted hair. I look down and see Mara’s black tresses threaded throughout the chain’s metal links.

Gross.

Gross but cool.

Behind us, the Prime draws his own sword and slashes a cut in the ground, severing the line of blood that shields the doorframe. It goes from bright crimson to an aged brown in a second, and he storms past it.

For whatever reason, he heads to me first.

“ You! ” he bursts out. “What are you doing here?”

I knew he’d remember me.

As he stalks forward, I straighten, my gaze leveling on his. Through the power of my scowl alone, I try to convey something like, “Look, I still think you’re a monster and if it were up to me you’d probably be dead, but I doubt your daughter would forgive me if I killed you and at some point her happiness became more important to me than my hatred of you, which is kind of a big deal for me so I’m trying not to mess it up.”

I doubt all that got through, though.

I glance at Mance for help, but she only crosses her arms. “He’s no one important,” she says cuttingly. “And he’s leaving now.”

“Hold on,” I say, shoving down the well of hurt that rises at her words. “I understand why you don’t trust me, but I promise I’m here to help.”

“You’re doing a great job,” she scoffs, and I’m once again struck by the difference in the way she’s treating me now. Struck by the fact that I deserve it.

“Just give me a chance, okay? I’m not even here to talk to you. I’m here to talk to him.”

I jab a thumb at Rift, who has taken human form again, and Mance narrows her eyes. “About what?” she asks, each word edged.

In answer, I turn to face Rift, opening the satchel and withdrawing a fistful of letters. “Do you recognize these?” I hold up the slate-gray seals and he narrows his eyes at them.

“Of course I do,” he says stonily. “Why do you have them? For that matter, who are you?”

I once again wave away the question and kneel down on the ground in front of him, laying out the letters so he can see them. At first he just scowls down at me, but eventually he lowers himself enough to look. Mance glowers over my shoulder, but even she leans forward.

I take a deep breath, relieved that they’re at least hearing me out.

Now I just have to make sure I convince them.

“These are the letters your Prime wrote,” I explain, fanning one of the stacks. “But these are the ones our realm actually received.” I leave the second stack unfolded and facing toward him, so he can skim for phrases like “unwilling to negotiate” and “building battlements” and “inevitable war.”

Rift squints at them, careful not to touch the wall, his frown growing more and more pronounced. “Why?” he growls.

“Her advisor, Guerre,” I tell him. “The one who has guided her so dutifully since she took the throne. He’s been swapping them out for as long as she’s been writing them, trying to convince her—convince you —that our Prime was a warmonger and her only chance at peace was for you to kill him and his savage daughters. He promised that the next successor would give her the alliance she craved, never letting on that he was that successor.”

Rift sucks in a breath at this, and behind me I hear an outraged bellow from the Prime, then Mance’s urgent shushing.

I’m briefly encouraged that she’s at least letting me talk.

“He killed Sangua.” I brandish a letter with the recipe for a fast-spreading poison followed by a receipt for the purchase of its ingredients. “And then he made himself indispensable to Azele by helping her broker an agreement that both sides already wanted. Finally, when those falsified negotiations got to a breaking point, he tried to use you to get him the throne here, so he’d essentially be ruling two realms at once. It’s all there…”

Rift scans the pages, brow furrowed, occasionally asking me to turn one over, or hold it up. Finally, he meets my gaze.

“I knew there was something suspicious about Sangua’s death,” he says. “And yet I never cast those suspicions on Guerre. He always redirected them, toward more convenient targets. Clearly, I was a fool to let him. But even so…” His eyes flick over my shoulder, where Mance and her father still hover. “Let’s say I believe you, and that all the letters we’ve received have been lies. What then? What’s the truth? You say your realm wants peace, but I’ve seen no evidence of that. Perhaps our conflict on the plains was the result of our disrupted communications, but when we first met with you, your Prospective Seconde summoned a beast in the middle of dinner, and there were no falsehoods between us then. You’ve explained away some words, but how can you explain away those actions?”

Frankly, I’m glad he asked.

I unfurl the last letter and press it up against the invisible wall, which gives slightly beneath my fingers.

“This is the letter Mance, uh, Mancella wrote later that night, one that she tried to send to you.” I swallow, remembering that I’m the reason her words never made it, and the small gasp Mance makes behind me tells me that she’s putting that together, too. I wince but press on. “If you want truth, this is it. There’s no more accurate record of her intentions.”

Rift crosses his arms and leans against the other side of the circle, a move that does not look possible and—I now know—probably feels incredibly weird. But Rift’s expression is cool as he takes in Mance’s curling script.

Finally, he turns his head sharply to the side. “I’ve read enough. Release me and I will return to my Prime with this new information. We will talk about what she wants to do.”

“How do we know you’re not just going to try to kill us again when we let you go?” the Prime asks.

It’s a legitimate question, but the snide tone in which he asks it makes me ponder very seriously whether I’m feeling treasonous enough to slap the Prime upside the head right now.

“You’ll have to trust me, I suppose,” Rift replies, somewhat testily. “The way I am being asked to trust you.”

The Prime frowns, but Mance hurries forward. Even though I read most of the letters and I know that peace is Prime Azele’s primary interest, I still hold my breath when she unclasps the necklace and tosses it to Mara, who has now dropped into the room as well.

Rift snorts like he thought she wouldn’t really do it. Then he sticks his foot out slowly, putting it down when he meets no resistance.

He angles a look sideways at Mance, one hand on his sword, and my heart leaps into my throat. But she meets his gaze with one of her sunshine smiles and my anxiety eases a little. Only a heartless person wouldn’t trust that face.

Thankfully, the bodyguard must not be one, because he folds back into shadow, splitting across the room until he plunges out of the window he came through. The shadowy cracks he left in the carpet flicker and slowly start to fade.

Everyone in the room releases a breath, me included. Then Mance turns that sunshine smile on me, and my breath catches all over again. It’s not her usual full-force beaming—really just the edge of dawn breaking around the corners of her lips—but it’s still the first time she’s smiled at me since my betrayal was revealed. It’s the first time I might deserve it. And it’s the first time she’s given me a glimmer of hope that forgiveness might be possible.

My chest swells with warmth and I grin back, taking an unconscious step toward her as her smile draws me in.

“Well. That was heartwarming,” says a voice by the door. “Truly, what a touching moment. You all must be very proud.”

I freeze in place.

By the time I rip my eyes away from Mance’s rapidly crumbling expression and look, Alect is already strolling inside, a disapproving frown on his face.

“I told you to stay out of it, Mancella,” he says, drawing his sword. “It didn’t have to come to this.”

“Alect?” Prime Merod gasps, his large eyebrows drawing together in surprise.

Mance steps forward, narrowing her eyes at her cousin. “Which Alect are you?” she asks. “The real one or the twisted one?”

For a moment, conflict flashes across his face.

But then it sets.

“They’re all real, Mancella. They’re all me. Splitting just lets certain parts of me take fuller control. Sometimes… I need that.”

Her eyes widen and her head shakes in denial.

He only gives her a self-conscious wince. “I didn’t tell you before because I wanted to preserve the faith you’ve always had in me. But now… it’s too late. You’ve tied my hands. I have no choice but to proceed from here alone.” His grip on the sword tightens. “Goodbye, Mancella. For what it’s worth… I’m sorry.”

His form begins to split and Mancella cries out as the body that’s peeling itself away shoots her a sadistic grin.

Thinking fast, I draw two daggers from my boots and shoot forward. Maybe he’s vulnerable as he’s splitting.

I aim for both chests, but one body twists away as the other dissipates into mist.

Cursing, I dive in front of Mance before the second one materializes, and when it does I point a dagger at each.

“If you want to get to her, you’ll have to go through me,” I say.

The first Alect looks upset, but the second one turns, looking at me curiously, his face deceptively pleasant.

“I’m not sure why you think I’d be opposed to that,” he says.

Then he lunges.