The morning of Will’s trial dawned red and bright. The color bled through the thin vents in the top corner of the room, creeping along the bed until I pried myself from Alistair’s sleeping grip. We had turned in our sleep. His head was nestled against my calf, and mine was pressed against the arc of his foot. Not once in the night had he expected more.
“Don’t leave,” he mumbled. The warmth of his breath against my thigh shuddered up my spine.
I tugged his toe. “We have to get ready.”
I left him to get dressed, the soft rustle of the palace coming alive only adding to my anxiety. So many people. So many potential deaths.
This would go right. This had to go right.
When I entered the courtroom, there in the seat beside Will was Julian. Will was bent to speak softly in Julian’s ear, and Julian’s gaze swept over me. All twenty-five councilors were present, and as I made my way to Julian, I counted each councilor with a sigil displayed on their chest. All twelve were here, and I sat next to Julian with a soft smile. The soldiers around the room weren’t in Wyrslaine red and black. I touched his arm.
“How are you?” I asked him, not looking at Will.
If Will and the councilors believed in their purpose enough to kill for it, then they could die for it. They could be the sacrifices for once.
“Good,” said Julian. He grabbed my hand and squeezed, smiling as if the last few weeks hadn’t happened at all. “I miss you. I miss us. I feel like I’m not myself.”
I didn’t feel like myself either, but this was necessary for all of us and not just some of us.
“Me too.” We’d been such good friends, and the Julian sitting next to me now wasn’t the Julian I had loved at all. Cynlira had changed him.
Or me. This plan had opened him up and showed me the darkness in him, and now it was all I could see. My best friend was gone. The boy I’d loved was gone.
Cynlira stripped us of control till we broke ourselves down piece by piece, sacrifice by sacrifice, workday by workday, to feel even a little in control. The world depended on our self-sacrifice and harm. As long as we were struggling against each new loss of some part of ourselves, we weren’t fighting against Cynlira. As long as we weren’t working together, we couldn’t fight.
It couldn’t continue. We didn’t deserve this pain.
“We’re so close that I can taste it,” whispered Julian.
The world had taught us to swallow our honor and eat each other to survive, but it was always the rich and powerful who dined on us. The fruits of our labors were always theirs first. It was always Will Chase and his ilk feasting, telling us that if we were very, very good, one day we might be allowed a taste. They pitted us against each other so that we didn’t turn our teeth on them. They made us think we needed them and the scraps they threw us. We didn’t.
“Me too,” I said and kissed his cheek. “Goodbye, Julian.”
But he only had eyes for his father.
I took a spot behind Northcott. Alistair entered a short while later. He wore his crown atop tangled hair, the binding over his heart oozing slightly. He must’ve started working after I left, only remembering this with enough time to don the marks of his station and not clean clothes, and he scowled through the introductions. He straightened his glasses constantly during the opening talks, his mind wandering. I didn’t understand how those who lived here feared him.
He was so easy to read.
Create a bar through the two doors, keeping them locked and shut, and take my doubt.
It was best to go into this clear-eyed and certain. And, of course, there could be no interruptions or escapees.
“Willoughby Chase,” said Alistair from his seat before the full council, “how do you plead?”
I slipped the penknife from my pocket and shifted toward Northcott. He’d a six-shooter in his lap.
“Guilty,” said Will, rising to his feet.
Destroy as many bullets in this room as you can once they’re fired, but do not destroy Julian’s shot.
I jammed the knife into Northcott’s throat, slicing through the arteries of his neck, and let out a low, long-held breath.
Take him as sacrifice.
Shots rang out, the sound echoing in the large stone room. Smoke slithered up my nose, and I coughed. The council had gone overboard.
Please.
A breeze from my noblewright ripped the smoke away from me, and I dragged in a ragged breath. I blinked the grit from my eyes.
Alistair still sat at the head of the table. The left eye of his glasses was shattered, red scattered across the table. One hand covered the crossbow bolt buried in his chest, blood splattered against his pale face, and a hush fell over the room. The other had jammed his needle through the muscle of Hana’s thigh, and she stumbled, yanking free. The needle clattered to the floor.
Julian stood. “Is he?”
Hana stared at the soldiers, each of their rifles on Alistair. It was hard to blame them; we all made sacrifices for survival. She placed her pistol on the ground. Alistair slumped.
“Well, shit. You were right, Lore,” said Julian, turning to me. “What happened to Northcott?”
“It happens occasionally.” I took Northcott’s gun, my limbs shaky from the sacrifice. I saved Alistair’s life, and Northcott’s death had barely been enough. “Necessary sacrifice.”
One of the councilors, oblivious to Will’s slow look from me to Alistair, approached the throne and prodded Alistair with his pistol. He cocked the hammer. “He’s only vilewrought, but—”
Alistair ripped the bolt from his chest, plunged it into the councilor’s side, and lurched from the chair. The councilors shrieked, more shots ringing out. In the panic, I took careful aim and fired six times. My bullets hit three of the councilors.
Take them as sacrifice, I prayed.
Will swiveled his gun to me and fired.
The hit never came. My vilewright thrummed around me, waiting for the rest of the prayer. Alistair stood unsteadily across the room, and he spun the crossbow bolt like his needle. He nodded to me and then Will’s now empty hand.
“That was remarkably uncalled for,” said Alistair, spinning the bolt in his fingers as he did his needle. Blood poured from the wound in his chest. “Are you going to shoot Lorena and me again, or will you let me arrest you all?”
I’d not expected such restraint.
And Julian, hand shaking, turned to me with his crossbow loaded for a second shot.
I froze.
“Move your arm, Chase,” said Alistair, viciously quiet. “Now.”
Julian’s jaw tensed. His hand shook, but he didn’t move.
“It’s fine,” I said and nearly cried, because how could it be? “This does hurt more than Will trying to shoot me though.”
“You lied,” said Julian.
“No, I didn’t.” I stood and let Northcott’s pistol fall. “I told you the truth, but it wasn’t the one you wanted to hear.”
He shook his head. “Who are you?”
Seven years, and all of it destroyed so quickly. I’d met them my first day in Felhollow, Julian bundled up in Will’s too-big coat, and both of them had turned to the small, bedraggled girl I once was with blackberry juice stains on their hands and lips. They’d offered me some without question. They’d taken me home.
“Oh, Jules, I don’t think you ever knew me.”
Alistair’s hands flexed, and a terrible taste filled my mouth, the brimstone and ash taste of a vilewright working something big.
Take my first memories of meeting Will and Julian, I prayed, and create a garden from the bow. Make it unusable. Make it beautiful.
My noblewright unfurled from me. A release, like the pop of a baby tooth from its home, shivered through me. Spring green vines burst from the wood of Julian’s crossbow and twined around his wrist. He startled and dropped it. The writhing plants clung to him.
“Would anyone else like to shoot me?” Alistair asked, picking up Hana’s pistol. “I’m not above killing everyone in this room.”
The soldiers knew the fight was lost. They dropped their guns, knees clacking against the stone floor. The councilors nearest the door lunged for it, and Alistair fired. Several more aimed at Alistair. I didn’t bother with those bullets.
Alistair sacrificed a councilor aiming at him, and the bullets were destroyed in a smattering of metal shavings.
Will grabbed Julian’s arm and tucked him to the ground, a tangle of flowers and thorns knotted around Julian’s hand. Finally, the rest of the councilors gave up. I paced the room and checked the dead. Five of the fallen bore the wrought bindings.
Destroy the hearts of the final three who control the wrought. Use the ones I killed earlier as sacrifice.
My vilewright reared, the rumble of its howl escaping me as a sigh, and even Alistair looked up. The three remaining councilors died.
Feast on my enemies, old magic mine, I prayed and laughed. It wasn’t enough. Pain ached so deep in my bones I was sure it would never leave me. The sacrifices were never enough.
“Lorena?” Alistair groaned and grasped his chest. A red rash like blood poisoning ran up his arms.
Magic, even with sacrifice, reaped.
I stumbled and caught the table edge. My vilewright weighed more than it ever had, a mountain of corpses upon my back, and I looked up at Alistair. My vision doubled and blurred. I opened my mouth. Nothing.
He leapt over the table to me and stumbled, catching himself by grabbing my collar. We flailed backward until my back hit the wall. He pinned me there, thigh between my legs and knuckles against my throat, and I brought my hands up to his chest. If he were going to kill me, he’d have used his vilewright. He’d think that more personal.
“Hana,” he said as if we weren’t the only ones standing in a bloodbath, “fetch some of our soldiers and arrest everyone breathing.”
“You’ll have to destroy the lock,” I muttered. “My noblewright jammed it.”
Alistair sighed and dug his nails into my arm until I bled. A sickening crack echoed from the doors. Hana shouldered them open.
“So,” said Alistair, “did you want them all dead or arrested?”
“Arrested,” I said and wiped the blood from his face. I slid a piece of broken glass from his skin and cut my hand. “They were plotting treason, a sacrificial offense.”
“You could’ve asked,” he said. “I could have had them arrested with no questions or bloodshed. Honestly, if you wanted, I could’ve kept the bloodshed too.”
The bloodshed, however terrible, was another necessary notch on my soul.
“I could’ve asked, yes, but I didn’t because I knew you would do it without question,” I said and tried to continue, but Hyacinth Wyrslaine’s magic stopped me.
I couldn’t create a better world not beholden to power by abusing power, I wanted to say, but that wasn’t true. I could have. I didn’t want to.
Create new flesh to heal the wound in his chest enough to stop the bleeding. Take any more blood you need.
“Let me have one part of me that is still better than them,” I whispered. “Arresting them they couldn’t have avoided. Everyone here today chose to be. They had their chance to walk away. They didn’t.”
He glanced at Northcott. “Even him?”
He was dead, but I felt no better for it.
“You understand, don’t you?” I asked.
His fingers spread out across my chest, covering the skin where a binding would’ve been, and the warmth was enough of a sear to brand me. His thumb traced the edge of my collarbone. It stopped on the fragile hollow of my throat. “Did you mean for the assassination to fail, or were you taking everyone you hate out at once?”
His wound stopped bleeding, and my blood sunk into my noblewright. Behind him, soldiers poured into the room. Hana sat near the door.
“Yes, I meant for the assassination to fail, though it got a bit messier than I intended.” My voice wavered. Black peppered the edges of my sight. “Alistair, I will never kill you.”
His hand stayed flush against me. “Will you have someone else do it?”
I blinked and slumped as if nearer to fainting than I really was. “I don’t want you to die.”
He pressed his cheek to mine. His lips brushed my ear.
“That wasn’t an answer,” he whispered. “I didn’t kill him, but he seemed happy enough to kill you. Remember that.”
For all our faults, we had an understanding.
“Thank you.” I shuddered and felt the creep of his smile against my neck. I glanced down at the warmth where his hands held me. “The dead and arrested have to turn over all their property to the Crown. I’ll begin sorting through it today. I can tell you who I know was in on it, and we can go from there.”
Their safe havens, their soldiers, their resources—they were all mine.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
Cynlira was broken. Alistair couldn’t fix it. Julian couldn’t fix it. I couldn’t fix it.
“Creating something new.”