42. A Knight no Longer
N ico wished he could see Jax’s face. There was something disconcerting about speaking to a person you couldn’t see, a disembodied voice in the dark. It might help him know what his former foster brother was thinking.
“I’d say it’s good to see you,” Nico said, lacing his voice with brevity, “but…”
“I’m sorry about the darkness,” Jax continued. “I know you’ve never liked it.”
Nico clenched his jaw. Jax had never known the reason Nico didn’t like to sleep in the dark, and apparently he was too stupid even now to put two and two together. But he’d never asked questions. He’d always let Nico keep a small lightstone in their bedroom though, even if the light annoyed him.
He locked you in a dungeon, Nico reminded himself. He’s going to have you killed and probably tortured. He dropped a building on you!
Nico clenched his fist against his leg, letting the pain remind him. Strange how one soft word from Jax had him forgetting, had him questioning revenge, had him questioning everything.
“I thought you were dead,” Jax said, when Nico remained silent.
“Sorry to disappoint.”
“You think I’m disappointed? You think I wanted you to—”
“Die in the remains of that building?”
Jax paused. “That was… a mistake. I didn’t know— ”
“A mistake? ” Nico moved forward, as though he could reach through the bars and throttle him. The chains around his hands yanked him back, and he winced as the impact shot through his leg.
“I’ll have a healer come down shortly,” Jax said, registering the pain in his groan.
“What’s the point? Aren’t you just going to kill me?”
Jax sighed. “It’s not up to me, Nico. You’re a shadowmancer. I can’t alter that law. Not even for you.”
“Well, it’s nice to know I’m such a special case.”
Jax went quiet for a moment, like he was choosing his next words very carefully. “Ser Windbright seems to think you are.”
Nico jolted again. “Is she all right? Have you spoken to her?”
“I didn’t have to. It was clear from the way she screamed your name.”
Nico’s chest both stung and heated with the memory of her screaming for him. Maybe Jax wasn’t so stupid after all.
“I take it you’re the reason she can remember the realm of the giants?”
“I might be.”
“What did you do to her? How did you turn her against her own country—”
“If you think Viola Windbright wouldn’t turn against you the second she found out what you were doing, then you don’t know her at all. She’s the finest knight in your ranks, but her loyalty has never been to you.”
Jax sighed like an old school mistress sick of answering the same questions, although it reminded Nico of something else, too. It took him a moment to place it.
He sounded like his mother. Not Nico’s—Jax’s—although there’d been a time when she had felt like Nico’s too.
“Tell us what you did, Nico,” Jax begged. “If we can wipe her memory, if you say you manipulated her, I can make this go away. There’s no reason she can’t go back to being a knight. She only spoke to me. I can lie for her. I can save her. She doesn’t even need to know who you are—”
“No,” said Nico, surprised how quickly his words came. He ought to have jumped at the opportunity to save her. Even now, he was amazed at the sound of his own objection, and yet… it felt less like a betrayal than the opposite.
Jax hesitated. “ No ?”
“I would burn down the world for her,” Nicodemus clarified. “I would commit any atrocity in the name of keeping her safe. But I won’t let you destroy her. I won’t let you strip her will from her. I won’t let you make her not her. If I thought she’d want another chance to be your puppet, I’d do whatever you asked of me. But that’s not what she wants.”
“You love her,” said Jax, as if the concept was impossible .
The word barely seemed enough to contain what Nico felt for her. It wasn’t just love, it wasn’t just obsession or admiration or lust. It wasn’t just his soul grappling for hers, desperate not to be alone in the void. It was all of that and so much more. It was trust and respect and understanding and awe. It was humbling and all-consuming, painful and comfortable. It was desire met and desire lost, it was selflessness and selfishness. It was the worst and the best of everything he was, everything he’d ever felt.
“It isn’t hard to,” he said, even though it was the hardest and easiest thing he’d ever done.
Jax sighed. “Nico… if you don’t do this, she’ll die.”
“There are some things worse than death,” Nico said, as placidly as he could, because the thought of a world without Viola in it was unthinkable, and his only consolation was he wouldn’t have to remain in it for long. “At least she’ll be with her family. I think a part of her has been longing to return to them for years. It’s why she never cared what you asked of her.”
Jax paused again. Although he couldn’t see his face, Nico thought he might have been grimacing.
“Her family…” he began.
But then the door at the top of the stairs banged open, and whatever Jax was going to say was lost.
Viola hadn’t been taken to the dungeons. No doubt they were keeping her separate from Nicodemus until they could ascertain the connection between the two of them and work out how exactly she’d retained her memories. She was likely immune to truth potion right now, but she wouldn’t be immune to torture.
Neither was Nico.
Foolish, stupid Nico. Why had he intervened? She could have played dumb if he hadn’t, could have faked a thrall, let herself be ‘enchanted’. She could have lied her way out of this, like she’d lied through the past three—almost four—years. Nico wasn’t the only one who wore a mask.
But then he’d slid out of the shadows and screamed her name.
You screamed his too.
Only because he did it first .
And now King Jax definitely knew that they were involved somehow, although the look on his face when Nico stepped out of the shadows hadn’t escaped Viola’s notice either. She’d assumed that they were old adversaries, but the way he’d called his name spoke of something far more than that.
Someone I loved gave them to me, Nico had told her. She should have remembered. Once upon a time, Nico had loved Jax.
And Jax…
He’d told the knights not to kill Nico, but Viola imagined that order wouldn’t last indefinitely. The Crown would execute them both as soon as they had the whole story, as soon as they knew no one else knew—
Oh Great Goddess, Cordelia. She knew too. She’d be safe in the castle as long as Nicodemus didn’t tell them about her, but if he did… they’d set the forest ablaze to hide the truth.
She knew Nicodemus would rather die than let anyone know about Cordelia, but she also knew he might not be given a choice. Part of a knight’s training involved withstanding torture. There was one absolute: everybody breaks. It is only a matter of when.
This couldn’t be happening. A sick feeling pooled against her bones, akin to the one she felt in the days and weeks following her family’s deaths. The desperate need to wake up, for this all to be a dream.
Viola pulled against her restraints. She was tied to a chair in an empty room. There was nothing in here but a small window. Big enough for her to get out of, if she could get free. There were no bars. She was doubtless very high up. But if she could free her hands and get to the window…
No telling if Blackberry would still be able to hear her, or whether she’d have time to jump after the sound of the glass shattering alerted the guards. It was potentially a leap to her death.
But it was better than torture. It was better than dying here. It was the possibility of freedom.
And Nico…
She didn’t want to leave without him. She couldn’t leave without him. But she had to get herself out first before she could rescue him.
She put her head down, trying to think. Her hair felt unusually heavy against her scalp.
Viola lifted up her head. The hairpin. The chimaera blade. It hadn’t been removed. She had some dim memory of her body being checked for weapons, but either because they were acting quickly or the guards felt guilty about frisking one of their own, no one had checked her hair. Chimaera blades were rare. Even if they’d noticed the blade, they probably wouldn’t think much of it. A simple hairpin couldn’t cut through rope.
A blade could if she could get to it .
Gently, carefully, Viola leaned her head backwards, shaking her head as slowly as she could, trying to dislodge the pin without risking it falling on the floor. Strands began to drift away from her bun. The pin started to glide free…
She opened her fists to receive it, and it fell straight past her fingers.
Shit.
Her feet were bound to the legs of the chair, but she could still move her body. Undeterred, she started to rock, flattening her weight to the side until the chair tilted, slamming against the ground. Her left arm took the impact of the fall, but it was an easy pain to shoulder as her fingers grappled against the plush rug, searching for the pin.
The door opened just as she clasped it.
She slid the pin under the ropes, hoping to disguise it, having no idea whether or not she’d succeeded. If the next guard was smart, the first thing he’d do was check her hands—
“Viola!” hissed a familiar voice. “Are you all right?”
Relief shattered against Viola’s chest. Heindrich.
He grabbed the back of the chair and quickly righted her, checking her face for damage. She’d received at least one punch to the face during the scuffle; she could feel a bruise spreading across her cheek.
“What happened?” he asked. “They’re saying—”
“It’s a long story,” she said quickly. “What are you doing here? How did you get in?”
“Um, I called in a few favours and I may have agreed to step out with one of the guards on duty for a moonlit walk sometime…”
Viola frowned. “You’re asexual and don’t court.”
“For you, I would,” Heindrich told her. “I would court just about anyone, very briefly, for you.”
“That’s very kind,” Viola replied, her chest warm, “but would you let me out?”
Heindrich smiled. “What do you think I came for?”
Viola could have kissed him.
“One problem, though,” he told her, “I had to surrender my weapons at the door.”
Viola grinned. “I didn’t,” she said, and gestured behind her back.
Heindrich frowned, moving around to the back of the chair. Viola slid the hairpin out of the ropes and transformed it into a serrated dagger.
Heindrich gasped. “Is that a…. I’ve forgotten the name!”
“Chimaera blade,” Viola told him. “Would you do the honours? I don’t want to cut myself.”
“Of course.” Heindrich seized the blade and made quick work of the ropes .
Someone knocked on the door. “Two minutes!”
They didn’t have long. Viola leapt from the chair as soon as her feet were free, massaging her wrists. She took the blade back and transformed it into an unassuming pin again.
“If they ask you if you helped me—”
“Then I pray they ask the right questions. ‘She had a chimaera blade, she escaped, she punched me in the face—’”
“I haven’t punched you in the face.”
Heindrich winced. “ Yet. ”
Viola wanted to argue, but there wasn’t time. “Why are you trusting me?” she asked instead. She hadn’t even told him what was happening.
Heindrich shrugged, as though the answer were obvious. “Because you’re Viola Brightstone. You don’t do bad things. If you’re consorting with a shadowmancer, there’s a reason for it.” He paused, as if frightened by the sound of his own words. “There is a reason for it, right?”
“Yes, there’s a reason for it,” Viola said, wishing they had more time, time to explain everything. “Fall against the door when I punch you. I’m going out the window.”
“Of course you are.” He groaned. “Go on, then. Do your—”
Viola curled her fist and punched him squarely in the jaw. Heindrich stumbled, falling back and slumping against the door. Viola seized the chair and smashed it through the window, knocking out the remaining shards whilst whistling for Blackberry. Outside in the corridor, the guards shouted. The door heaved, blocked by Heindrich’s massive form. He held steady, winking at Viola.
A familiar squawk sounded through the sky. A dark shape grew, feathers flapping. Viola heaved herself onto the windowsill, flinging herself out into the air just as the doors burst open.
She slammed against Blackberry’s saddle, hauling herself upright and soaring off. She knew she didn’t have long. It would only be moments until the queensguard were on flying mounts of their own. She could probably outfly them, if she headed for the Feywood. She could get to Nico’s castle, find Cordelia, work on a plan.
In the meantime, they had Nico. Perhaps they’d execute him straight away, worried she’d come back for him. Perhaps they’d start the torture, if they hadn’t already. At the very least, they’d move him. They wouldn’t want to risk her inside knowledge if she returned another day.
They would be expecting her to flee.
But Viola knew even before she’d crossed the water that she couldn’t. And not for any sensible, rational reason.
She couldn’t leave because she couldn’t leave him.
Viola swept low over the barracks and stopped Blackberry in the courtyard, racing through the corridor towards her room. The passing seconds thundered through her. She kept thinking of Nico in the dungeon, Nico being questioned, Nico alone in the dark, Nico hurting—
She bolted into her room and grabbed what she could find. Her cape was a good call. She didn’t have time to waste on putting on her armour. She stuffed her pockets with lightstones and flares, grabbed a blunt weapon…
For a second, her eyes fell across the twinned notebook. She’d not looked at it since she returned from the Farms. There was barely any point taking it with her now.
She left it on the stand.
She turned to leave the room, and nearly bumped straight into Freya.
“Frey—” she started.
“Viola, what’s going on?” Freya asked. “They’re saying they finally caught the Shadowmancer, but some people… there’s a rumour you’ve been consorting with him.”
Viola froze. “I don’t have time for this.”
She barged past her, heading down the corridor.
“I keep thinking about when I woke up in the mountain,” Freya said, following her out. “When I woke up, there were vials at my feet. One of them smelled a lot like memory-muddler. But who would save me and then drug me? Who would do that and had the strength to slay a dragon and not ask for the credit?” She grabbed Viola’s arm as she went for the courtyard door. “Someone who didn’t want to be seen.”
Viola yanked back her arm. “If I were you, I’d worry less about the time you’re missing in the mountains, and more about the time you’re missing on the Farm.”
Freya buckled. “What do you mean?”
“Your memories have been tampered with. Everyone’s have been. It doesn’t matter who rescued you from the mountains. It matters what you did there. What we did. ”
Freya hesitated just long enough for Viola to slip away from her. She hurtled towards Blackberry, threw herself onto his saddle, and galloped off into the night sky.
Viola kept low across the water, cape spread over Blackberry as well as herself, desperate to keep them hidden. She weaved behind boats and stuck to the rocks wherever she could.
Years of patrolling the castle had given her a good understanding of where everything was. She might not have memorised every guard duty, but she knew the routes that were always patrolled, and which weren’t. No use going in through the magically protected waterways. No use going in over the towers, which had sensors to guard against aerial attack. There were, however, several guest rooms on the second floor that were easy to access when empty. She broke one of the windows and slipped inside.
Blackberry found himself a rock nearby to perch on, hopefully out of sight. If Nicodemus couldn’t teleport them out, Blackberry was their best escape route. But if he could…
She wondered when she’d ever see the hippogriff again.
No time to mourn or wonder. She double-checked her cape was hiding all it could, and slipped out into the corridor.
It was easy enough to make her way down to the dungeons, hugging the shadows and sticking close to the walls. The problem only arose once she met the bottom floor. Guards patrolled the narrow entrance to the dungeons. Only two, although she wagered more were likely down below. There were more posted at the other end of the corridor.
She needed to get light to Nico and have faith that he could break himself out as soon as she provided it. As long as he had light, he had shadows. It wouldn’t matter if he was chained or blindfolded.
Providing he wasn’t drugged, or hurt, or unconscious.
Viola swallowed. If he was, then this was it. There would be no getting out from here. But at least she would die knowing she’d tried. At least Nico would know she hadn’t left him to die.
Never, never, never.
She did a quick calculation in her head, memorising the placement of the guards, looking at what they were wearing, where to strike in a way that would keep them alive but stop them from attacking. She didn’t want to kill people just doing their jobs, who had no idea who they were defending. Nico wouldn’t care if she killed people for his sake, but she would. She couldn’t buy his life with another’s.
She took a deep breath, and threw the first flare down the corridor.
The guards’ attention snapped towards it. Viola seized the moment and leapt into the space, bringing her truncheon down on someone’s skull and kicking him into his comrade. She grabbed the dungeon door and yanked it open, tossing her second flare down the steps.
“Nico, light !” she yelled, in case he didn’t know.
Please be down there. Please be all right.
Light exploded into the dungeon. It burst into life, surging against Nico’s body like a tidal wave. But nothing, nothing filled him up as much as hearing Viola’s voice above him.
She was alive. She was unhurt. She’d come for him.
His shadows flared behind him, cutting off his blindfold, sawing through his shackles. Nico rose from the floor, towering over Jax.
“Sorry to cut short our conversation,” Nico said, as the bars of the cell sliced open in front of him. He drifted out on a platform of shadows, tendrils wrapping around Jax’s legs, coiling up his body. They stopped at his throat, licking his jawline.
Nico’s fingers twitched, his own hands straining, as if they were the limbs wrapped around his former brother.
It would be easy to kill him. A slice. A snap. Maybe he could make it last longer and choke the life out of him, let Jax experience a little of what he had as he’d lain trapped beneath the rubble.
But the aim had never been to kill him. Death would be far too swift.
Nicodemus stared down at him, leaving him wrapped in shadow. “I will come again for you,” he told him.
He ascended up the stairs to where Viola waited.
There was no time to wait, no time for Viola to follow, to see if Nico was all right, if he was coming. The guard without a head wound was righting himself, his comrade too disorientated to move. Another two raced down the corridor—
Viola met his sword with her truncheon, yanking the chimaera blade out of her belt and transforming it into another, which she brought crashing against his middle. Winded, he stumbled, allowing Viola to kick him and deliver another blow to the face.
Only to look up and find herself surrounded.
She knew most of these people. Rainwood, Lightworth, Thornflame—even Captain Drakesbane. She couldn’t kill them. She felt bad enough about fighting them. Even for Nico’s sake. She’d told him once she wouldn’t harm innocents even if the Crown demanded it. How was this different?
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she told them.
“Then surrender,” Captain Drakesbane said, the betrayal stark across her face.
More than anyone except maybe Heindrich, Viola wanted to be able to explain things to her, in the desperate hope that the Captain didn’t know the full extent of the Crown’s atrocities. “I can’t,” said Viola. “I’ve seen the Farm, Captain. I know what we’re really doing there.”
The Captain frowned. She didn’t know. That eased Viola, although it would hardly be enough to persuade the Captain to let her go. She’d probably mention it to the King after she’d taken Viola into custody, and her memory would quietly be wiped.
Pointless. All of this was pointless.
A shadow shot out of the dungeon floor, dividing in two and swiping everyone but Viola to the ground. Nicodemus emerged from the dark, shadows surrounding him like a cape.
Nico. He was here. He was unharmed.
The two of them exchanged uneasy smiles. Nico opened his mouth as if to speak, but a bolt shot past him, scraping his shoulder. A wall of shadow went up in an instant, hurtling down the end of the corridor—
“Don’t hurt them!” Viola hissed.
“Do you see any innards? ”
The shadows met the knights, knocking them to the ground. More followed. Nico twisted towards Viola, reaching for her hand. They could teleport out of here. It was the safest, easiest way—
A volley of bolts shot between them. Guards pooled into the corridor, both sides. Nico sent wave after wave, cutting them down, still battling towards Viola.
There were so many, and without killing them, he couldn’t take them down as easily.
A blade raced towards her. Viola transformed her weapon into a shield at the last second, and found herself face-to-face with Freya.
“It was him, wasn’t it?” Freya asked, her face stony and white. “He was the one I saw in your room. You were the ones who slayed the dragon and left me there in the mountain.”
“I did what I had to do to save you,” Viola told her. “And now I’ll do what I have to to save him.”
Freya lunged at her, blade smacking steel, her attacks wild and frantic. “Why him?” she hissed between blows.
The unspoken question swelled between them. Why not me?
“He’s my mirror,” Viola explained, back against the wall. She held her shield firm as Freya pushed against it, eyes burning. “He’s like me and not like me, in all the ways that matter.”
Freya’s eyes brimmed with tears. “I wish you’d left me to die inside that mountain.”
“You… you can’t mean that.”
“You’re not the only one who can long for death, Viola.”
“I don’t long for death.” Not anymore.
“That’s a pity.”
She pulled back, allowing Viola a second to pull herself away from the wall. She transformed her shield back into a blade, meeting Freya’s.
Almost meeting Freya’s. It missed by half an inch, allowing Freya’s sword to connect with her stomach.
The blade scraped the stone behind her, wet with Viola’s blood.
The scream that wrenched itself from Nico’s chest was a monstrous, awful sound. It was the sound a village might make as an avalanche crushed it beneath the snow, the sound of a mountain falling, a tree being struck by lightning. A body on fire.
A shadow ripped apart.
Viola fell to the floor, a dark stain spreading across her stomach. Freya stumbled backwards, staring in horror. Nico barely registered her at all. He threw his current opponent against the room and ran towards Viola, crashing down on his knees and pulling her into his arms.
This wasn’t the first time he’d held her, weak and bloody. It was the first time he felt like he’d die if she did.
The blood pooled into his lap, her breath sharp and rapid. His shadows poured out of him, wrapping around her, circling over her wound like a plug. It would stop her from bleeding out. It couldn’t fix her if the injury had damaged anything important.
“I didn’t… I didn’t mean to…” Freya murmured, hovering nearby.
Rage replaced panic. Nico lowered Viola to the ground, his shadows snaking around him. Another wave of knights reached the corridor. Tentacles whipped out of him, wrapping around their throats and yanking them to the ground. Nicodemus didn’t watch. His sights were trained on Freya.
Shadows shot from the floor and grasped her limbs, pulling her off the floor. Another snaked around her throat. Her eyes bulged, she wheezed, coughed, struggled.
He could slice her head off now and be done with it. But he didn’t want to do that. He wanted it to hurt.
A hand brushed his ankle. “Nico,” Viola called out weakly. “Please… stop.”
That simple word from her, that plaintive request, cut through Nico’s fury like a hammer to glass. It yanked him back from rage, pinned him to the present.
What was he doing?
He needed to get them out. Nothing else mattered.
His shadows shrank away. Freya fell to the floor, grasping her throat and wheezing as the air trickled back into her lungs. Nico turned back to Viola and gathered her into his arms.
“You’re alive only because Viola cares for you,” Nico whispered across to Freya, “but raise a hand to her again, and I will take you apart piece by piece.”
Freya’s throat was too badly damaged for her to respond, but she reached out a hand towards them, as though she intended to stop them, to prevent them from leaving. Or maybe she was just trying to get to Viola, to erase the damage she’d done .
Nicodemus didn’t care either way. He held Viola close, and with the last of his strength, folded them into shadow.