Long Live the King
“They’re not dead. Anna, you have to go, somehow. They’re not—”
“How do you know?”
“Because that one’s still got control of the Pricolici that have their shade on us. And the other one’s breathing.”
I heaved a heavy breath, unsure whether it was relief or frustration that washed over me.
Cheșa twitched. His shoulder jumped, then he raised his head. It took what seemed like an eternity, but eventually he sat up. He glanced at Rareș’ body and threw a strange sign in his direction. I whispered as quickly as I could.
“He doesn’t know Rareș’s still alive. Do we warn him?”
“No.”
I wanted to trust her, but staying silent went against everything I believed in. “Are you sure?”
She only stared at me fiercely. My chest was full of rocks and refusal to accept Cheșa could be as wicked as they said he was. He turned back to us. The look in his bright eyes was feral and sharp. He raised his crimson-coated knife and pointed it straight at us.
Did that mean we were next?
Then, at the sky, in what I could only assume was a greeting, or gratitude.
Slow and careful, he unclasped a small vial from his belt and popped the cork, then poured the contents over his knife. To clean it? What a strange moment to do so.
After tossing the vial over his shoulder, he searched the ground for a moment and picked up a stone. I was curious what he was doing, but not so much I wouldn’t have escaped if I’d known how, but we hadn’t a chance. When he smacked the stone and knife together, causing a spark that set the whole blade aflame, I was enthralled.
Fiery knife in one hand, he opened his shirt with his other, revealing the scars trailing down onto his chest. Then he placed the tip of the burning blade against his own collarbone. Holding the handle in both hands, he eased his head back and dragged the point of the knife deeply through his skin, up the neck, over one side of his chin and into his mouth. Half the length of the blade had gone in before he suddenly yanked it out again, extinguished. The blood loss would have been staggering without the fire sealing at least some of the cut shut. The gash and burn were bright red and angry, and they would eventually heal into a scar just like every single other of the hundreds of scars that rose along his neck. Was each of them a Whisper he’d ended?
“Anna, please go. Crawl away. He won’t bother you.”
“Don’t worry, I’m right here. I’m with you.”
“I don’t want to be the reason you die. I can’t.”
She was sobbing now. It killed me that I had no comfort to offer. Even if I did, by some miracle, slip my constraints, then what? I could do nothing for her except kill Cheșa, and I doubted I had the skills for it, even if I did – maybe for only the second time in my life – have the motive.
I shouted to get his attention. “Cheșa. You’re not going to hurt us, are you?”
He shook his head. No.
Could I trust him?
“Look at him. Whisper Killer. What can you possibly say to him?” Perdy’s voice rose as much as her restricted breathing would allow, enough for Cheșa to hear. “You can kill me, but you’ll never kill us all. This isn’t a forest. This isn’t a country. This is a world.” She choked on her own saliva and the last words came out rough and wicked. “We hate you as much as you hate us.”
He didn’t seem to care. If anything, his expression was bemused as he caught his breath and started tying a strip of cloth around his injured leg. Behind him, something rustled.
Rivulets of moving mulch and chaff flowed and circled beneath the surface of the leaf litter, meeting and spiraling over and over, faster and faster, by some law that was clearly not gravity. Rareș started twitching.
I turned to Perdy and whispered as quietly as I could, “When they’re fighting again, crawl away. Is there anything nearby?”
She thought for a second. “It’s risky, but if I lead you into the lake—”
She gasped, and I followed her gaze to where Rareș was rising from the mulch only a few steps behind Cheșa, amaranthine entrails trailing from the opening in his chest, alive and animated. Concentrating on giving himself first aid, Cheșa noticed nothing until after the tendrils of muddy guts rose, wove themselves together, and wrapped around his blood-soaked neck with the speed of a garrotter in a dark alley.
He tried to grasp them and pry them loose, suffocating open-mouthed like a fish out of water, but his fingers only slipped off the living wet rope. Slowly, he rose.
Behind him, so did Rareș, his chest splayed open and his insides violently torn out. Some of his guts fell limply to the ground, then dug into the earth searching for something; others rose into the air and wove around his horns, then reached even higher for the last rays of light like real branches. The last ones were stretched out before him, squeezing the life out of Cheșa.
The moment he was in the air, the Pricolici shades around our wrists retreated, slithering slimily across my body. I had no idea why, but wasn’t about to complain, and instead hissed at Perdy. “Run!”
Perdy rose and followed me without a word, but crashed into me when I stopped suddenly, face to face with the snarling, now fully clad Pricolici waiting for us.
Rareș laughed, a full-bodied bellow. Cheșa floated above the ground, suspended by the neck, his scars turning deathly blue. His knife fell out of his hand, then he stopped kicking and Rareș let him fall on top of it with a thud.
The lake was silent and still. Darkness ruled over everything again, and a damp icy haze floated low over the landscape, muffling sounds and chilling our bones. I suspected creaturelings watched the spectacle unfold from behind leaves and inside hollow trees, but if they did, they chose not to make their opinions known.
When Rareș approached us, the entire glade burst into yellow-orange light from the fire of his eyes. His animate flesh serpents slithered back toward him and nestled inside their pulsating, living vessel.
“Ladies.”
I bristled at his smile. “Rareș. Let us go.”
“I won’t insist that you call me Your Highness, but I will insist that you don’t give me orders. These woods are mine, now.”
His broken torso was already mending and closing up, meaty strips of ivy reaching from both sides to pull the wound together. Either to save his strength or to appear less intimidating, he stood on all fours and his body stretched and reshaped itself so that he truly resembled a large white elk rather than anything carnivorous. Only his golden eyes and sharp, multi-pointed golden horns kept traces of his ferocity, whereas the rest of his body softened and almost begged for a pat on the flank.
Perdy stood tall, practically floating off the ground, defiant. “Was that your first act, Your Majesty? Murder?”
“Murder? I’m not the self-destructive killer he is.” He paused. “Anymore.”
I almost snorted. He actually did. I’d expected the new, changed smith to be any number of wild and alien things when he finally spoke to us. The one thing I hadn’t counted on was him being himself. Oblivious to my surprise, he carried on.
“Never trusted the blighter, but never imagined he was a lunatic either. That was his wish, on the Om, did he tell you? To battle the king and bring him down. And he did.” He gave the unconscious Master a soft kick. “For a minute. He’s not dead. He’ll wake up in a few hours with a hangover, ready to answer questions and discuss his future.”
In spite of everything, I couldn’t help but feel relief at that, and guilt at having felt relief. My voice was choked with those, and with anger, when I replied, “You killed Eugen.”
He darkened and lowered his head. A sigh ripped through him. “No, the boy wouldn’t have made it. But crazed and broken, I did…” he shook his mane in discomfort, “…defile his body. I never would have taken the deal if I’d known what Zburătorul would make me do. The old beast wanted a sacrifice, aye. But not just a life. If he wanted that, he’d have taken it himself. He wanted to sacrifice my humanity.”
I shuddered.
“I came to as if from a dream, covered in blood and with my belly full. And I’ll never forget that. And I’ll never let an innocent be killed again, not if I have a choice.” We stood in silence for a moment, then he whispered, “He was a good boy.”
His remorse fell on deaf ears. It was his choice that’d gotten Eugen killed in the first place, and I’d remind him of that someday. But now was not the time. “Are you going to do it, then?”
“Do what?”
“Kill the queen. I’m guessing that’s why you trapped Perdy here.”
He stole a glance to the lake where, from what I’d gathered, Her Majesty rested. “It’s more complicated now.”
“You’re a Whisper now.”
He nodded.
“So where does that leave us? A Whisper, a human, and a…” I looked at Perdy, unsure which world she belonged to, “…person who has yet to decide. We just want peace. And you?”
Rareș smiled warmly, but sharp-toothedly. “The same.”
Something cold nudged my hand, and I flinched, pulling it up. By my side, the Pricolici sniffed at my filthy clothes and looked into my eyes with his perfectly milky-white ones. He leaned into me like an oversized shepherd dog, familiar and relaxed. I had no doubt he was the one we’d ridden into the Unspoken.
It was hard to look away from him, and harder still not to clench my jaw the entire time he was next to me. He could kill me at any time and had so few reasons not to. One snap, and that would be it. The end of everything.
As if reading my thoughts, Rareș answered them. “They’re my hounds now. I won’t let them take any more lives either.”
“Then let us go.” Perdy sounded almost hopeful.
“I need your help. My goal hasn’t changed, I still intend to end the feud between worlds. It just can’t be by murder now. I can’t.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“Sometimes you sharpen an old blade, sometimes you melt it into something new. Sometimes the iron’s no good but for throwing away. This new life, it lets me change flesh like I did iron. Maybe you’ve noticed.” He grinned.
“A most enchanting skill.”
“I can change things, is the point. The king’s words will have weight. On this side, they’ve been thinking of ways to break the worlds apart ever since this shithead –” he kicked at Cheșa’s body again, “– stole a pup and locked him in the Tower. So I’m going to propose we shut the borders. Completely.”
Perdy considered him, curious, diffident. “True, the queen had vaguely considered how she might put an end to everything. Her latest idea was slaughtering everyone, teleporting to another world, and giving up the throne to grow turnips. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Which is why I need you two beyond being my way down to see her. You’re her spy. I know it would be easier if you backed my claims. Make it clear human–Whisper co-operation is over and done with. Anna could do the same. Talk about what it’s like on the other side. The hardships. The tempers.”
Perdy reached for my hand and wove her fingers into mine tightly. “And then?”
“Then, Anna can go as she pleases. I’d rather she was on the other side when the passage closes.” When his unyielding gaze fell on me, I had to look away. “I have no quarrel with you. We shared ale and saved a life together.”
“But you won’t let me take Perdy back?”
“She doesn’t belong there. They want you to drag her back so they can kill her.”
“I never would have—”
“Of course not. But it doesn’t change the fact that they would.”
“They don’t have to know she’s not human. They don’t get a say.”
Perdy saw my furrowed brow and took my hands. “It’s not that simple. They’ve been suspicious for so long, but I always had excuses. I had time to cover my tracks. After Paul and the old Zmeu clashed, they summoned me back in a hurry. I had no time. Nothing prepared. They’ll know, for sure.”
Tired and sore, I couldn’t find my way to any counterargument. I hugged her then, and it nearly caused my legs to buckle. She was right. They’d know. They already did. I could risk my life and hers trying to bring her back into the town, but it’d only ever be a gamble at best. I wanted to take that gamble. But she had a right not to.
When we let go of each other, I could see she was shaken too. I couldn’t think straight, but she was sharp as ever. “If we do this, waltz over and demand the passageway be shut, what guarantee do we have it won’t hurt anyone? What guarantee the queen won’t put us down?”
“None at all. All you have is my guarantee as the new king that I don’t want to ever have to kill an innocent again. Hellfire, not even a guilty shagger like this prick.”
Perdy squeezed my hand tight. “Anna, I think this might be best.”
I had tears in my eyes that I didn’t expect. “I don’t know what will happen if we do this.”
“Neither do I.” She turned to the former smith and strengthened her tone. “So let’s make a deal.”
“Let’s do.”
“We will come speak with Her Silent Majesty and tell her anything you want us to tell her about how dangerous the situation is. We’ll say whatever needs saying to get us to shut the gates, at least for now. We will help you in getting whatever you want from her, freely and voluntarily. And then we both go free.”
He ruminated for a moment, gazing softly at the Pricolici now lying over my feet in abject tranquility. “As long as we convince her, I don’t care what you do after. You still think you can return to them? It might be to die.”
“And staying with you would mean living?”
His feral grin brought back the vivid image of sharp teeth chewing into Eugen; my stomach convulsed at the sight of his deadly fangs, and all illusions of an elk faded. “Well, now. There’s no guarantee of that.”
“Then let me be what I want to be after we’re done. That’s the deal.”
I didn’t think she knew what she wanted to be. She only wanted to have the choice, and that was something I could respect. I only hoped Rareș would too. Quickly, a little too quickly for my taste, he nodded.
“Then lead the way, girlie. I’ll be right behind Anna.”
The Pricolici rose and shook himself, ready for action. Rareș summoned him and gave him a gentle head nudge. The creature licked at his forehead with a pinkish tongue, then bounded back to me. Only then did I notice several others retreating from their still vigils behind shrubs and bushes.
The smith king stretched and tested his healed chest, then picked Cheșa’s still-unconscious body up by the scruff and flung him over his back.
Perdy gave me another squeeze. “Stay close, and don’t stray. It’ll be strange and unpleasant. I wish I could get us both out of this safely, but there’s nothing so unreliable as wishes here.”