TWAS A HUNDRED YEARS AGO AND THE BLOODIEST night in Faelen history.”
The creepy voice is accentuated by dimming candles and a low rumble of drums, and the entire room is instantly focused on the ten-foot-tall speaker in front of the stage.
My relieved sigh slips out. I don’t even have to see the man to recognize him as the funny dwarf, wearing stilts, from the Travellers’ Carnival who gave me, Colin, and Eogan breakfast the morning after I caused an avalanche. The morning after Eogan first kissed me.
Allen the Fabler, Travelling Baronet. A smile rises at his kindness, at the memory he brings, but I’m fairly certain acknowledging it would dissolve what wisps of sanity I have left.
He looms over the audience, flourishing his short arms to make shadows on the wall. “Three kingdoms—Faelen, Bron, an’ Drust were at war.” His voice booms through the air. “Except the real war was here, near where you’re all standin’. And Faelen’s streets began runnin’ with blooooood.”
I recoil and go back to my search just as shivers and whistles reverberate through the crowd, urging on the dwarf’s recount of Faelen’s most horrific legend—The Monster and the Sea of Elisedd’s Sadness. As if the story is somehow now of interest to those high courtiers who doubted Draewulf ever existed as anything more than a past rival king. Have they decided to acknowledge him now that he’s supposedly dead? Or maybe they’re simply celebrating the happier ending tacked on. What has King Sedric told them?
“Under a fog-cloaked night,” the dwarf continues, “Drust’s evil king, Draewulf, snuck through these streets.” Behind him a group of wild-looking actors emerge on the low stage.
“Shape-shiftin’ into human form to draw in men, women, and youngsters. Then returnin’ to his wolf form to slay ’em, one by one.”
“Stop,” I want to hiss at him. “You’re only encouraging whatever Draewulf’s got planned.” But I keep my mouth shut and the dwarf keeps going as I push my way through the audience. The men and women I bump into give me startled looks followed by comments of “well done” and “Faelen’s weapon.” I ignore them. Where is he? He should be close, enjoying the sound of his own disgusting story.
A loud growl from the dwarf just about yanks me from my skin. My swearing is met by that of the spellbound listeners as the performers do five flips before falling theatrically on the ground—all except for the one dressed as a wolf, who pretends to devour them.
The dwarf laughs. “But when the captain o’ the guard caught up with him that evenin’, Draewulf was dressed up like one o’ the men he’d just killed. Climbed inside his body and slowly absorbed his soul. ’Til there was nothin’ left except his wolf self hidin’ inside the man’s flesh.”
I should’ve plugged my ears. My stomach turns. I begin weaving faster through the balcony crowd. There are too many bodies and giant hats swaying to the dwarf’s word rhythm. C’mon, Eogan, where are you?
“An’ the only reason the captain was able to catch him and bring him in? The shape-shifter allowed it. Wanted an audience with Faelen’s King Willem.”
Someone tumbles against me and I reach out to keep from tripping. “Beg your pardon,” I mutter, before recognizing one of the few Bron guards allowed in the Castle this week. Part of Eogan’s personal protection unit left here from Bron. He stares coolly, but there’s a slight awareness in his gaze that says he knows who I am.
He doesn’t move.
I don’t either.
“Where is he?” I demand.
“For twenty months he’d been makin’ war with Bron and Faelen.” The entertainer’s voice grows more exuberant by the second. “Now he was lookin’ to make a deal! Swore he’d become Faelen’s ally. For a price. Which was . . .”
The guard in front of me glances at the dwarf and smiles.
My neck twitches. Ah litches.
“Our Elementals,” someone in the crowd shouts. And just like that the entire room shifts its attention.
I don’t have to look beyond the first few faces to know that two hundred more gazes are glued to me.
“So tragic, so horrific,” the dwarf says. “The price was the Elementals. Condemned to death by King Willem’s and Draewulf’s treaty note. An’ the Sea of Elisedd, she’s churned noisy ’bout it ever since. Cryin’ for those Elemental children for the past hundred years. Until . . .”
To the side of me a woman giggles too prettily. When I peer over, there’s a man with jagged black hair beside her, leaning into her, and a host of Faelen soldiers nearby.
The audience abruptly roars, and then the Bron guard steps around me, blocking my path. When I glance up he shrugs. “King Eogan’s not available yet. You should watch the show.” He points toward the dwarf who has jumped and vaulted himself across a portion of the room to land below the balcony where King Sedric is standing. The little man shoves his hands up to indicate the young king. “Until King Sedric, the Elemental, and King Eogan defeated him!”
The spectators erupt. Even King Sedric applauds and yells over the noise. “Finally someone who’ll tell the legend as a banner of victory rather than a warning!” Then, before the entertainer can pick the story up again, the king raises a goblet and beckons for quiet.
“My friends,” his voice rings loud. Confident. “I toast the demise of Draewulf and the end to our hundred-year war. Here’s to the ushering in of a new era. Of peace. Of sanctuary for all, including our Elementals.” He looks past his subjects right to me and grins. Tips his glass. “Beginning with Nym, whom I offer the gift of freedom from slavery and the undying gratitude of our entire Faelen nation!”
Whoever’s working the wall mirrors flashes the candle lights onto my face. I step back, half blinded, as the citizens whoop and toss their hats in the air with drink-heavy approval. It takes me a second to remember to curtsy in spite of the fact that everything inside me is tempted to scream at them that we’re about to be anything but free.
But the guard moves and the lights leave my face to land on the cluster surrounding the giggling lady and the jagged-haired man, whom the dwarf is now pointing at. The man lifts his head. It’s Eogan-who-is-Draewulf.
I open my mouth. To out him. To unleash on him the Faelen soldiers who may believe me, or more likely would just think I’m drunk.
I move toward him. But he merely stands there looking out over the audience, giving a brandishing wave and an enormous smile, followed by a respectful nod toward King Sedric. I scowl—What’s the wretch waiting for?—and edge to the side while keeping between him and the king. I reach for my ankle knives as the crowd continues cheering.
As soon as the lights flash away, the monster goes back to the woman beside him—one of those who’d giggled when the tittering man had insulted my slave status minutes ago. What’s Draewulf doing? Why is he keeping Sedric alive?
I work my way closer until I’m only feet away and can see Draewulf shift his gloating attention to the dwarf, then back again to the lady. He bends over her and says something.
I freeze just as his hand reaches up the back of her dress’s skirt and grabs her thigh. She laughs but there’s a hint of discomfort in it now.
My gut slithers to the floor. If there were any siren left in my blood, he’d be dust.
His hand gropes higher. I choke. Then abruptly, Eogan-who-is-Draewulf moves his wolfish gaze up to connect with mine. He smirks. And something clicks.
He’s going to kill us all.
Before I can look away, his other hand slides up the woman’s back and casually slips around her neck, like a noose. She chuckles and it sounds like she’s hoping he’s playing. Too bad she can’t see his expression, which is as black as hulls.
The dwarf’s voice grows louder as back in front of the stage he’s assuring the crowd the shape-shifter will never again enjoy the scent of fresh blood. “And his only survivin’ kin isn’t a shape-shifter,” he yells. “She’s a Mortisfaire.”
From beneath my dress I slide out one of the knives Eogan made and wait for the dwarf to add something about how Lady Isobel can turn our hearts to stone with one touch. But he doesn’t because King Sedric speaks again.
“I can assure all of us that Draewulf’s daughter will no longer be a threat. After her betrayal of Faelen, she’s not welcome here. If Lady Isobel appears—when she appears—she’ll be held accountable for her crimes of betraying our Faelen kingdom just like the Lady Adora!”
The crowd cheers as, in front of me, Eogan whips toward the king. His eyes narrow to slits, and I’m close enough to hear his feral growl over the crowd’s rabid hollering.
I take the final step behind him and the woman and lean in to inhale Eogan’s scent. A rush of horror and heartache finds my stomach, my nostrils, my throat. It burns and trickles and digs into that part of me that knows, without a doubt, that Eogan is already gone and I am saving our people once again.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper anyway.
Four, five, nine seconds I count before I grip the handle tighter and, with a quiet sob, shove my blade in my trainer’s back.