63. Bastian
Bastian
I killed a dozen of them before they managed to knock me out.
The whole thing was a tangle in my mind. Snatches of moments. More fighters pouring from the forest and down the cliff. A body sliced in two, slumping to the floor. A neck in my grip as I squeezed and squeezed and squeezed. A man clutching his thigh as his life seeped out.
And Kat’s blood on my hands.
Standing over her, I roared through it all, more animal than man. More broken than the bodies scattered at my feet.
The empty space in my chest echoed with the memory of a heartbeat.
I wouldn’t let them have her. I wouldn’t let them live.
But my will was not enough, and the universe had other ideas.
I woke with a terrible sickness roiling in my stomach. Someone thrust a bowl before me just in time for me to throw up until there was nothing but bile.
Gasping for breath, I gripped the edge of the bowl. My hands had been cleaned, but there was still something red caught under my nails.
Kat’s blood.
Was she…? The arrow sticking out of her chest. She was. Had to be.
My eyes burned as the truth crept through every vein and nerve. It choked me.
I would kill them all. Even if this bowl was my only weapon, I would destroy every last one of them.
I shook, but not entirely with anger. Weakness seeped into my very bones, cold as iron. And my shadows…
No shadows.
I knew what I would find before my gaze trailed down to my wrists.
Iron manacles.
Unless it was alloyed and thus rendered safe, iron was technically illegal in Elfhame and hard to get hold of, but I owned a similar pair of cuffs. I hated using them, but it was the only way to deal with prisoners whose magic made them dangerous.
They’d been wrapped in felt so they wouldn’t burn my skin, but their poison still radiated into my body, killing my magic and slowly killing me.
Be smart, Bastian.
Survive a little longer so you can take revenge for her. Then join her.
One breath, two, I gathered myself and gradually became aware of something other than my own body and the horror of what had happened. Rows of beds. An armoured woman with silver hair stationed at the end of my bed. Gilded constellations clustered around a grand chandelier.
An infirmary inside a ballroom.
At my side, a man in a bloodied apron watched me with narrowed eyes before holding out his hand for the bowl.
So long as I had these manacles around my wrists, I wasn’t strong enough to kill anyone with the bowl, so I returned it.
He gave me water and a piece of hard cheese. There was no point in worrying about consuming poison—they already had the stuff wrapped around my wrists.
“Get up,” the guard bit out once I’d forced the food down.
Standing felt like lifting three Faoláns. My thighs didn’t burn like I’d worked them hard, they just strained as though they’d never had any strength to begin with.
I was a boy again. Weak and helpless.
I would not remain that way.
Following the guard and flanked by two more with a fourth behind, I pulled on the manacles, but in this state I had no chance of breaking them.
Kat was… She was gone. I’d been an idiot, thinking we had more time— all the time in the world .
But memento mori , like she’d said. And like a fool, I’d forgotten. Forgotten how delicate life could be, how short it was for humans. I thought we’d have more time .
We passed through a long corridor. Its rich decoration and sleek furniture matched my earlier assessment of the infirmary. This was a grand manor house, though cracks marred the walls and windows.
It was nothing compared to what was missing inside me.
“The woman—the human woman I was with. Where is she?”
The silver-haired guard didn’t turn to me. “I was just ordered to bring you.”
“To bring me where?”
She didn’t reply.
Dimly, I noted the turnings we took and the ones we didn’t and counted the doors until we reached a large set of double doors with guards stationed on either side.
I frowned at their deepest blue uniform—the same colour as the armour Dusk’s guards wore. And on their chests…
Red, outlined with gold—a hydra.
Fuck. The iron was making me stupid. And Kat’s… absence had occupied the thoughts I had left. I hadn’t even considered who had attacked us.
Hydra Ascendant. And they had the Night Queen’s Shadow as their captive. Either I was on my way to my execution or they were going to torture then execute me.
I was still staring at the insignia when a tight knot of guards reached us and one stepped aside revealing—
“ Katherine .” My legs gave out, and I didn’t even care that one of my guards had to catch me.
Because she was alive .
Pale and wearing manacles as well as a shirt several sizes too large instead of her own, but alive .
She eyed me, frowning. “Are you all right?”
Of all the things, when she had been shot through the chest.
“I thought you were dead.” I finally let myself think the word I had been avoiding since she’d been hit.
She flashed a small smile. “So did I. They have healers who operated on me.” Her gaze fell to her hands, now unstained, and the smile faded. “Someone touched my blood and died.”
There she was, thinking of herself as a monster again.
I reached for her. “It’s all—”
“Silence.” A guard blocked me, then the doors swung open.
A long space. Originally a formal dining room, most likely. Glazed doors lined one side, facing the setting sun, casting the room in an orange blaze. I catalogued it all as the guards hustled us inside.
Kat was alive. That meant my plan wasn’t one for revenge anymore, but escape.
Even with the weakness in my limbs, I carried that idea in my chest, a beacon that filled me.
Gardens outside, but overgrown with ivy and shrubs that might have once been clipped into topiary. They’d provide cover.
“Well, look who it is.” A woman’s voice rang out across the room.
The blood in my veins froze.
That voice. Like Braea’s but higher pitched.
I knew that voice and the laugh that followed it.
The world shifted in and out of focus as I blinked at the table the guards led us to.
Behind it sat Princess Sura.