I was seven the first time I saw the Heir. My mother was dead, and I was living on my own in the Wallows, trying to hide my wrights and survive. Processions weren’t uncommon, but the Heir hadn’t been seen since his vilewright had been discovered and he’d been bound to serve his father. His mother had paraded him through the city, the white and red greatcoat that marked him as a vilewrought in the service of the Crown swallowing him whole. He was nine and barely bigger than me.
He’d returned a month later with the two thousand or so rebels of Hila—peer and common alike—trailing behind him like dogs, their free will destroyed by his vilewright. His father had gifted him part of his army to assist him in proving his worth by crushing the rebellion, and instead he had used them as sacrifices. Children thought in terms of equivalent exchange, so he had done just that—sacrificed the free will of his father’s soldiers to destroy the free will of the rebels. His vilewright, of course, had demanded a larger sacrifice than two thousand, so all four thousand soldiers had lost their will. His father had been horrified. His mother had thrown him another parade.
“What use are soldiers who question orders?” she had asked, so the rumors said.
The binding on Alistair Wyrslaine’s chest may have stopped him from killing with his vilewright, but his wright wasn’t what made him monstrous. He’d shed no blood in Hila, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t killed them.
They had all killed themselves without question the day after returning.
“You’re mistaken,” I said, trying to reckon this looming sliver of a man with the small boy barely able to ride a horse from my memories. “I’m not anything to you, and I never will be.”
“I don’t make mistakes.” He smiled and laid one hand atop the officer’s head. “She destroyed your memories of the true warrant. Be on guard.”
The soldiers all rose, but now their hands trembled as they tried to hold their rifles steady. Another soldier, this one in the black uniform of the Wyrslaine army, slunk from the carriage and followed in the Heir’s footsteps. Her uniform was thin silk and peppered with tears. Scabs lined her knuckles.
A sacrificial guard—the Crown and Heir had a whole group of soldiers employed solely to serve as sacrifices to their vilewrights.
The Heir approached. His gaze swept across the Felfolk prostrate around him, and he looked at them the way a hawk might glance at ants. He was hungry, but they would never be enough. I stared up at him, my noblewright pressed flat against me. He stopped only a step away.
I’d a whole wright he didn’t know about. I could get out of this.
“Is there another vilewrought here?” the Heir asked. He didn’t even lower his chin to look me over, his expression hidden behind large, round glasses. The Vile could look like anything and anyone, but their eyes—the same sanguine color as the god of Chaos—had always given them away. The Heir wasn’t one of the Vile, but he had fashioned himself to look like one with those red glasses. No one had ever seen his eyes. “Who trained you? What was that contract?”
Contracts: I’d always called them prayers, but this was what proper wrought called them. They wrote contracts, specifying exactly what to sacrifice and exactly what they wanted to be created or destroyed, and then hoped they were specific enough. If they weren’t, their wrights took liberties—frequently, dangerous liberties.
The Heir had been trained in writing contracts. His vilewright required them, even if he could speak them in a pinch. Mine didn’t.
“That vilewrought’s dead,” I said and lifted my chin.
He chuckled. “Fortuitous for me, then, that the universe loves balance so much that it put you in my path after removing the other vilewrought from it. We are very rare, you know.”
No mention of me refusing him.
“Ah, Your Excellency,” said Julian, trembling hand closing around my ankle. “She’s not vilewrought.”
“‘Your Majesty,’ actually.” The Heir tucked the toes of his boot beneath Julian’s wrist and lifted his hand away from me. “We always know one another. It’s not your fault that you are unobservant, but try to keep up.” The Heir raised one hand to my face, not touching but intending to, and let it fall to my shoulder. “May I?”
No wasn’t a real word when speaking to royalty.
I inclined my head. More delicately than I would have thought possible for the red-eyed vilewrought, the Heir pulled back the collar of my shirt and revealed the bare flesh over my heart. A thrum, his vilewright drawing nearer, shuddered from him to me. He let go and stepped back. His fingers never brushed my skin.
“You’re not bound. You’re self-taught.” His voice was the low, breathy rasp of sleepless nights. “You’re perfect.”
“I’m not anything,” I said. “I’m not—”
The Heir smiled, clapped his hands together once, and spun to the officer. “We must finish our business here. Willoughby Chase—acquire him.”
“Who?” the officer asked and swallowed.
The Heir’s sacrificial guard pried the summons from Will’s hands. “The traitor you were supposed to be taking into custody.”
“He’s not here,” I lied. “So you can’t take him.”
“By law, we must take him. Rules are meant to be followed. Contracts are meant to be obeyed.” The Heir took in the crowd and beckoned his sacrificial guard and the soldiers near. “The vilewrought girl will ride with me. Acquire Willoughby Chase however necessary.”
Fear roiled my stomach. I could bear the aftertaste of Rylan’s death and maybe even the rotten winds of Mori as the Heir’s plaything, but I could not let Will be taken by the Crown. He had given me a family and a home. I couldn’t let him die for some trumped-up scam.
But they knew now. He knew.
I was vilewrought, and the folks paying attention would have realized I was dualwrought like the Crown. They would hate me for lying or fear me in that quiet way small towns feared newcomers. If I let them take Will, they’d never forgive me.
I grabbed the Heir’s hand. He spun, arm tearing from my grasp. A needle as long as my forearm appeared between his fingers, and he held it over his sacrificial guard’s hand. Blood welled near its point. I held up my hands in surrender.
“I will go with you, willingly, no fight,” I said, “but only if Will Chase stays free until his trial and you don’t bind me.”
“No!” Julian lurched to his feet.
Our friend Mack caught Julian around the knees and yanked him back. One of the officers aimed her crossbow at them. Mack locked his arms around Julian’s chest and whispered in his ear. Julian stilled. Across the crowd, behind the Heir’s back, Kara and Old Ivy lifted their heads. Kara slipped the whittling knife from Ivy’s boot. The Heir’s head tilted slightly toward them.
I’d a bargaining chip, and at least this way, Will had a chance.
“That’s my deal. Do you want it or not?” I asked.
“Why do you think you can bargain with me?” He smiled and turned his back on me.
“Because I bring something to our fight you can’t.” I caught my cheek in my teeth and bit down hard. “So start haggling.”
Create a flat tip like a nail’s head on each end of his needle. Make it useless, I prayed to my noblewright. Take my blood and pain as payment.
This was the boy who’d downed a peer’s whole rebellion, ripped the will from people’s minds without a thought, and collected his fellow wrought for his research, using them until they died. His mother sacrificed her enemies to the long banished Vile, and he didn’t so much as blink.
Now, he shuddered.
“You’re dualwrought,” he said, breathless and flushed. His hand fluttered toward me before he pulled it back.
Good. He wanted me.
I nodded. “You really want to see what I can do with both of them?”
“You’ve been in hiding,” he said and crossed his arms. One thumb ran across his bottom lip. “You aren’t trained.”
“No,” I said, “but how do you think I’ve managed to stay hidden?”
A wild dog was as dangerous as a trained one.
“You’ll cooperate?” he asked. “You’ll work with me?”
With. Not for. Curious.
“Yes.”
He smiled. “It’s illegal, you know, for a working wrought to not be bound.”
For the nation’s protection, the court and council said, so we couldn’t kill everyone and take over.
“You’re the Heir to the Crown of Cynlira,” I said. “Nothing is illegal for you.”
“Still, there is an order to things.” He stepped closer to me. “You will work with me, and you will do what I say.”
“I will work with you,” I said. “I will not only do what you say.”
“I think we will work together quite well,” he said slowly. “We will draw up the contract on the way to Mouth-of-the-River-of-Gods, but for now, we have a deal.”
A contract. He said it as if simple words on paper could hold someone so rich, titled, and powerful to their word.
“Your Majesty,” his sacrificial guard whispered, head bowed, “Her Excellency will not be pleased. Will Chase is still wanted.”
“My mother won’t know anything about this,” he said. He eyed me, head tilted to the side, and ran his thumb across his bottom lip again. “You said there were bandits. That’s the memory you gave them. Where are they?”
“Dead,” shouted Ivy, voice muffled by the ground. The coils of her white-streaked black hair shook as she spoke, and her fingers dug into the earth. “We executed six after they killed one of our kids.”
“My condolences,” he said without any change in expression at all. “Willoughby Chase must appear in court on his appointed day, or you will die, my new dualwrought. He must answer for his charges. Where is he?”
Beside me, Julian sucked in a sharp breath. Will glanced up at me.
“Traveling,” I said. “He’s a busy man.”
The Heir beckoned me close, his red gaze never leaving me.
“He will appear for his trial, and you will work for me. If he is found guilty, he will be sacrificed,” he said and held out his hand. “Do we have a deal?”
“If he is not found guilty, he lives and goes free.”
I took his hand. A shiver ran through him to me, and he only touched me for as long as was polite. Such a considerate monster.
“Deal,” he said. “Come with me.”
He took off for the carriage without looking back.
“Lorena.” Julian crawled to his feet and grabbed my arm. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Find me,” I said, prying him from me. “Please. Find me in Mori, and we will fix this.”
I looked to Will. His eyes were hard and his mouth set, the tremor in his hands gone. Julian nodded, and I squeezed his hands once, twice, before pulling away. The Heir waited at the steps of the carriage, holding out his hand to me, and helped me inside. He followed me in, and his sacrificial guard shut the door behind him. I tucked myself into the corner farthest from the door. The Heir sat across from me.
“We,” he said with a shuddering breath, “are going to create such wonderful things.”