Chapter Twenty-Four – Scarlett
Chapter Twenty-Four
Scarlett
Wind whipped my hair back from my face as I climbed to the battlements.
It was the one place that I knew I could be alone. The one place that I could properly mourn Severin.
He was everywhere here. Inescapable.
I wondered what he would think of my decision to sail to Kalure tomorrow. Would he think that I had made a fatal mistake? Perhaps. Zandri certainly seemed to think so.
But it wouldn’t have felt so overwhelming if I still had Severin with me. Instead, I had Aric – and Lillian. The two people who should hate me most, who would eventually have to choose between their loyalty to me and their loyalty to Mira.
Life certainly had a sense of humour. But I couldn’t tell whether the joke was with me or on me.
I supposed I would find out soon enough.
I slumped against the parapet and raised my knees to my chest. Alone except for the death magic inside me. I watched the dark veins crisscrossing my skin, filling me with ice. The ice that only Severin had dispelled.
I missed his warmth. I missed his tenderness, his inner strength, the passion he had reserved just for me.
My gaze shifted towards the distant city of Ravalis, where my people slept peacefully, utterly untouched by their princess’s suffering.
Death rose up in me, eager to be unleashed. To consume, to punish –
I shuddered at the sensation. If Malek was to be believed, this power was warping my mind. What a terrible irony it would be if I claimed the Ravalian throne only to destroy my subjects and all the countries under my command.
Was this what Severin had seen in me – a darkness so terrible he hadn’t been able to look at me the same way ever again? A darkness that could surpass even my father? My mother?
Tears blurred my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. I didn’t want to feel this grief anymore.
As if responding to my wishes, the death magic travelled up higher – until I felt its coldness wrap around my heart.
I could have willed it back. Instead, I closed my eyes and allowed the darkness to take me.
At some point, I must have fallen asleep. I knew I was dreaming, because what I was seeing couldn’t possibly be real.
My breath hitched as Severin gazed up at me from his knees. His smile was soft and sad – the same sad smile that he had worn in the seer’s vision.
A bejewelled hand wrapped around his throat.
‘No!’ I screamed at the figure standing behind him. ‘Stop it! You’re killing him!’
Zandri didn’t stop. Her malicious smile widened as Severin’s gasps grew weaker and weaker.
Then they stopped altogether.
Somewhere in front of the dais in the throne room, the court laughed and tittered. Like this was an entertaining show.
‘Get up,’ Zandri said coldly as my legs gave out underneath me. ‘I taught you to be stronger than this.’
But when I glanced up, it was no longer Zandri standing over Severin’s body. It was the version of myself that I had seen on the lake in Kalure, inhumanly perfect and inhumanly cold. My father’s bone crown gleamed on top of her head. And when she finally looked up and met my gaze–
Her eyes were as black as tar.
‘Isn’t this what you wanted?’ she asked me, stepping over Severin without a glance. The train of her dress left a trail of blood in its wake. ‘It should be. You won’t be empress for long if you show weakness. Or do you think they’ll save you?’
I followed her stare to the watching crowd.
Mira, Roran, Cassius – they were at the front, their black eyes burning with vengeance as they watched me, their corpse-pale skin riddled with dark veins.
And beyond them . . . I recognised my father.
Drakos and his brothers. The stableboy I had killed, the vendor I had poisoned–
A sea of corpses. My corpses.
Each of them ravenous and furious and terrifying. Far more terrifying in death than they had been in life.
‘They only answer to me ,’ my doppelg?nger laughed, and threw me backwards.
I teetered on the edge of the dais, staring down into the hundreds of merciless faces.
I opened my mouth to scream–
Lillian grasped my hand. Her grip was unnaturally strong; I gasped as I saw exposed bone in the place of skin. When I looked up at her, Lillian’s skin was rotted, her eyes empty holes in a skeletal face.
‘I didn’t mean for you to die,’ I said desperately, staring pleadingly up at my friend.
‘But I did.’ Lillian’s expression softened, until her features were heartbreakingly sad. ‘You should have let me stay dead,’ she whispered–
And let me fall.
‘You look terrible,’ Zandri said in greeting as she swept into my chambers.
‘I didn’t get much sleep,’ I replied, lacing up my boots. ‘I’ve had a lot on my mind.’
‘I should say so.’ My mother’s voice was sharp.
She hadn’t spoken to me – not one word – since I’d accepted General Harte’s ultimatum.
She’d barely even looked at me. ‘It will be a miracle if you survive this. Roran is no fool; the smartest play is to dispose of you quickly. I’ve spelled a contingent of loyal Warriors to sail with you to Kalure, but even they may not be enough. ’
‘They will be,’ I said, with a certainty I didn’t feel.
Aella’s fingers deftly braided my hair, correctly assuming that I would want it out of the way.
I watched her darken my eyes and lips with cosmetics, her attention never straying from her task.
It was bad enough that Lillian would have to accompany me, but she had to remain reasonably close in order to stay breathing. Aella had no such restrictions.
‘You don’t have to come to Kalure,’ I said suddenly, and Aella’s hands stilled in their work. ‘If you prefer, you can remain here–’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Zandri interrupted. ‘I want her with you. A loyal servant could prove useful.’ Under her breath, she muttered, ‘Sorceress knows you haven’t given me much else to work with.’
If Aella took offence at that remark, she didn’t show it. Just dusted some red eyeshadow across my lids.
‘Despite what you clearly believe,’ I said, glaring at my mother in the mirror, ‘I didn’t accept Roran’s invitation so that he could kill me. I accepted it so that I could kill him .’
‘Then you’re a fool.’ The blackness in Zandri’s eyes was more prominent than usual, probably a result of whatever magic she had performed on those Warriors.
Combined with the blood splatter on her cheek, she was downright unnerving as she advanced on me.
‘You should have stayed in Ravalia, and allowed Mira and Roran to finish each other off.’
‘You’re forgetting about my death magic. All I need is to get close to Roran, and I can end this war with one touch.’
‘And if he decides to kill you from a distance?’
‘That’s more Cassius’s style,’ I said after a pause. ‘Roran is furious with me for my victory in the Western Lands – I think he’ll want to look into my eyes as I die. To savour the moment.’
Zandri crossed her arms. ‘It’s still a gamble.’
‘It’s the only chance we have.’ I stepped away from the mirror, conscious of dawn brightening the horizon. ‘Now that I’ve accepted Roran’s terms, there’s no going back. If I did, I would lose the support of the Ravalian people. I would lose the throne .’
I knew all of this had already occurred to Zandri, but she seemed content to let me say it. She reached over and took my hand in hers. I flinched in surprise as she pressed something into my palm.
‘Aric’s blood ruby,’ she told me. ‘Just in case.’
I stared down at the pulsing jewel, feeling its warmth travel through my skin. I didn’t need to ask why Zandri had given it to me. She must have had the same concerns I did about Aric’s loyalty – and whether it would hold up when he was finally reunited with Mira.
I rolled the blood ruby in my palm. If I had to, I could use it to ensure Aric’s obedience. But he’d given me his loyalty freely these past few months, and it felt wrong to contemplate taking it by force.
I still pocketed the blood ruby.
‘What about Mira?’ I asked. ‘You have hers too, don’t you?’
‘You let me worry about Mira,’ Zandri said with a secretive smile. ‘I have a plan to deal with her. And the Temple.’
I wanted to ask her what that plan was, but perhaps it was better if I didn’t know. I had one focus right now, and that was Roran.
I followed Zandri to the oval windows, staring in the direction of the docks – where a ship would already be crewed and waiting. When I glanced back at my mother, her dark eyes were no longer hard and cutting, but filled with unexpected softness.
‘Go, Scarlett,’ she told me, kissing my brow. ‘Kill your brother. Take Mira’s throne for your own. Win back everything that was stolen from us. And become the empress I always knew you could be.’
I rolled Aric’s blood ruby in my palm as the harbour of Taiga came into view: a calm expanse of glacial blue water with craggy cliffs on either side.
Roran’s fleet was moored in the natural harbour, the elegant vessels bobbing gently in the briny breeze.
His black-garbed Warriors lined the wooden docks, an impressive show of force.
But they were nothing compared to the morbid display that stretched from the docks to the Kalurian palace.
Roran never was one for subtlety , I thought as we disembarked.
‘Don’t react,’ I warned Lillian, feeling her tense beside me. ‘Just focus on a point ahead of you.’
Aric remained close at my side, his hand on the hilt of his sword. ‘I thought I’d seen horrors in the Western Lands,’ he murmured, ‘but this . . .’
I allowed my gaze to drift up to the posts lining either side of the path – and the bodies nailed to them.
‘I know,’ I said. Even I felt sick, and I’d grown up with Roran.
The procession was a grim one. Only Roran’s Warriors showed any enthusiasm; the Kalurian people watched us approach, silent and unsmiling. I wondered if Roran had forced them to attend. Perhaps he had even ordered them dragged from their homes.
If I wasn’t here to confront Roran, I might have admired my surroundings: the snow-capped mountains silhouetted behind the palace’s high walls; the icy lake to the west, partially obscured by snowy pines, and the reflective ice sheets that stretched to the north, where the Kalurian settlement of Fr?r was located.
But my senses were alert, screaming at me.
Touch, smell, taste, hearing – everything was heightened to an almost painful degree.
I didn’t know how Roran planned to murder me, only that he did.
And making my way through streets packed with unfriendly Kalurians seemed like the perfect opportunity to plant an assassin.
Even with my own Warriors positioned around me, all loyal and hand-picked by Zandri, a strategically placed arrow could still cut me down.
But I had to trust my instincts. And my instincts told me that Roran wanted to face me one last time, to dangle my impending death in front of me.
‘This is our best chance,’ I whispered to Aric, knowing that he needed to hear it. ‘To end this war – and to avenge Kain.’
Aric stiffened at the sound of his brother’s name. We hadn’t spoken about Kain in months – but I knew that Aric hadn’t forgotten Roran’s role in his death. Or his vow to avenge him.
He nodded, his jaw hard with tension. Behind him, Aella’s brown eyes met mine – but it was too late to regret my decision to bring her along. Her life was in my hands now, just as surely as Lillian’s was.
My heart quickened as we approached the fortified city of Taiga.
Roran’s Warriors opened the gates, affording me a glimpse of grey stone buildings and narrow alleyways where the pitched roofs almost touched, providing some much-needed shelter from the elements.
But it was the Kalurian palace that demanded my attention: a hulking fortress, built by my father in the image of our ancestral kings.
Roran stood at the top of the palace steps, an emperor surveying his kingdom. High-ranking Warriors flanked him, including the grim-faced General Harte. I wondered whether one of them had already been instructed to take my life.
I didn’t intend to give them the chance.
Dressed in Ravalian colours – red and gold – Roran stood out against the grey stone backdrop of the palace.
I was dressed similarly, in a red battle dress with golden armour, and I knew that Roran was taking note of this.
Calculating whether my choice was a show of solidarity, or an attempt at competition.
‘Sister,’ Roran said, the word filled with false warmth.
‘Brother.’ I wondered whether he could sense the death looming behind my smile.
I sank to one knee.
Roran watched me with an unreadable expression. Behind him, his Warriors looked on with a mixture of wariness and curiosity. But I noticed a few considering glances too. By now, they would have heard of my victory in the Western Lands.
Come on , I willed my brother. Take the bait .
Sure enough, Roran slowly descended the palace steps. He extended his arm, too, as if he might invite me to kiss the gaudy ring on his middle finger.
Anticipation rose, and my death magic rose with it. A single brush of his skin was all it would take–
Roran paused. His green eyes went past me – to something or someone I couldn’t see.
He withdrew his arm in a sharp, violent movement. His Warriors sprang into action immediately, forming an impenetrable guard in front of their prince. Though Roran was only three steps above me, there was no way I could reach him now. His Warriors were too well shielded by their black armour.
More than anything, I wanted to turn my head and discover what had caused Roran’s uncharacteristic hesitation. But I couldn’t afford to take my eyes off him. Not even for a second.
‘Get off your knees,’ Roran instructed over the heads of his Warriors. His cruel mouth twisted in distaste as he said, ‘I have no interest in theatrical displays of loyalty. Or is this your attempt at begging for your life?’
‘Would it make any difference?’
Roran pretended to think. ‘No. Though I could be convinced to hasten your death.’
He motioned to his Warriors, who encircled me in a wall of black. I resisted the urge to reach for my hidden knives as General Harte took Aric’s place at my back, his sword and dagger already drawn.
‘Shall we?’ Roran asked with sickening politeness, turning towards the Kalurian palace.
With no other choice, I reluctantly followed, General Harte’s dagger pressing into my back every step of the way.