It was late afternoon, the sun casting long shadows across the landscape, when Kalen left the castle and headed along the back roads to a property on the edge of town. He stood, leaning against the wooden fence and staring at the columns lining the front of the residence. The paint had faded, but it still presented a formidable expression, awnings like heavy eyelids over aged eyes and a gaping mouth of massive double doors. Kalen felt the weight of them against his shoulder as if he had walked through them only yesterday.
But it had been six years.
Suddenly he heard his name being shouted. Terrack rode up on horseback. “The king needs you.”
Kalen took a deep breath. Questioning requests usually came from Ryndel, but on occasion the king required Kalen’s services for nonroyal matters. He didn’t look forward to whatever the king had in store.
The next words, however, were a surprise.
“The prince collapsed and has yet to awaken.”
He extended a hand to help Kalen up onto the horse behind him.
They galloped away, and Kalen gave one more sweeping glance at the yard before it faded into the distance.
He wondered if Mathew remembered Kalen chasing him up the winding staircases or exploring the backyard maze where they tried to catch flickerflies.
He wondered if his younger brother remembered him at all, or if his parents had wiped the family free of the stain of his magick.
Terrack muttered to himself. “I didn’t mean to hit him that hard. He attacked me out of nowhere. We were no longer sparring, I tell you. I had to protect my life.”
“What does the king want with me? Did he ask Jenna for help?” Kalen glanced at Terrack. As the king had done with Kalen, he had a way of snagging the few sorciers in the kingdom and bringing them into his fold. That way, he kept a pulse on their abilities while keeping them under control. There were currently eight sorciers in Mureau, and their abilities covered a wide range of magick: the ability to find water sources, read emotions, manipulate dreams, manipulate others’ movements, communicate with the dead, attract things—and Kalen’s own talent.
Jenna was several years older than Kalen, and her ability was diagnosing ailments via touch. She could trace her way through the body and recommend a course of action, although she couldn’t do much to heal.
“She found nothing, nor did the other sorciers or the physician. The prince hasn’t so much as blinked. I think the king is hoping you can access his mind and see what’s going on.”
Of course Kalen was the last resort … the king kept Kalen’s abilities at arm’s length, so it made sense to keep them away from his son as well.
They continued on in silence until they reached the black iron gates leading to the castle grounds. The click of hooves echoed off the stone courtyard before they stopped near a waiting stable boy. As soon as they dismounted, Terrack handed the reins over and motioned for Kalen to follow close behind him.
Terrack and Kalen paced through the massive main entrance, past the myriad columns, up the ornate staircase, and down a long hallway lined with portraits of the royal family and their ancestors. Plush carpets flattened under Kalen’s boots, and strings of bulbs, each filled with a dozen flickerflies, pulsed overhead.
Finally, Terrack pushed open an engraved door and urged Kalen in. “I’m not invited,” he said.
“Why?”
“I’m still at fault here. We’ll see if the king forgives me.”
Kalen stepped forward and found himself in the king’s own quarters. The king jumped up from a chair near the hearth. His eyes were bloodshot, and his hair was bunched at his scalp where he appeared to have gripped and yanked at it. The king was relatively young, and Cirrus was his only child. The queen had died when Cirrus was a toddler, so it was only the two of them. Distress wafted off him like a sour cologne.
Or perhaps that was mulled wine.
“Please, Kalen, you must help.”
Kalen nodded, although his stomach clenched. He wasn’t a healer. “I’ll do my best.”
The king pointed Kalen toward the bedchamber. Cirrus lay sprawled on top of a rich maroon coverlet stretching across a raised four-poster bed. He was still dressed in his breeches and boots. His shirt had been unbuttoned, leaving his chest bare, and the physician bent over him, tapping on his ribs with some sort of hammered instrument.
“Make room,” the king said, the words polite yet firm.
The physician stepped away, and Kalen neared the bed. He slid out of his cloak and draped it over the footboard before he sat on the edge of the mattress at the prince’s side. He quickly removed his gloves and tucked them in his pocket.
“I can’t promise anything.” Kalen looked at the king. His palm hovered over Cirrus’s chest near his collarbone as he debated the sanity of delving into the prince’s mind. If Cirrus died—whether it happened now or in the next weeks—Kalen could be blamed. While he wouldn’t mind not having to serve as the King’s Questioner, he didn’t know that he’d like to spend the rest of his life in a tower cell. Or eternity without a head.
“I won’t hold you liable.” The king seemed to read his mind.
A promise easily dismissed. Still, Kalen closed his eyes, lowered his hand to the prince’s skin, and was swept under.
His world spun, disconcerting as ever. After doing this gods knew how many times, Kalen thought he’d be used to it by now.
He took a moment to orient himself, but he was already familiar with the open structure of Cirrus’s mind. Not much had changed in the arrangement of the prince’s memories since he’d been a child. There were certainly more doors and locks, secrets Cirrus had formed over the years, but on the extreme edge of the horizon, clouded beneath a shroud of darkness, Kalen could still make out the heavily locked door.
Kalen settled in the open space and looked around, determined to see if there had been any injury to Cirrus’s mind. He spent a minute observing, not exactly sure what to look for. Perhaps a disturbance or fading thoughts, but nothing appeared out of the ordinary or faulty. He’d once been in the mind of someone suffering from mental illness, and it had looked like a spiderweb. Memories sticky and stretched, woven into other memories and thoughts. It had made him dizzy, and he’d removed himself from that mind immediately.
Kalen knew he should do the same now—pull away and reassure the king, but he was drawn to the dark, clouded door like a moth to flame. He walked closer, the key searing against his chest. He pulled the cord up and over his head, and his fingers worried at the metal.
The locks were still familiar in their arrangement and shapes, as they’d been a constant subject of Kalen’s dreams—nightmares for a while—ever since Cirrus had abruptly severed their friendship.
His fingers traced the top lock, and he inserted the key.
The locks in someone’s mind weren’t like locks in the outside world. Kalen’s key had to trace the wards, often reshaping midturn. Wards of the mind were uneven and inconstant, requiring focus and concentration.
The key finally made it through to Cirrus’s memory. A satisfying click and the bolt slid clear from the wall. Kalen took a breath and removed the key, turning his focus to the second lock. The cloud thickened around him, the temperature cooling and the tendrils thickening to a soupy texture.
It took longer to open the second than the first, but soon enough Kalen had unbolted that one as well. The third took the longest, time seeming both to stop and stretch endlessly as the atmosphere turned even gloomier and darker. The wards were infinitesimal in width and shifted constantly, forming a bending wave in nearly all directions. The key kept catching, and he was ready to exit Cirrus’s mind when the lock finally gave way.
Kalen stretched the cord and dropped the key back over his neck. He gripped the knob and shoved open the door, tripping into a world of chaos.
A darkened room, sconces flickering along the wall. Long shadows thrown everywhere. A wailing newborn. A young boy crouched in the corner. A woman laid out on the bed, her eyes cold and her skin the pasty color of death. Another woman standing in the middle of the room. And a much younger version of the king, distraught beside her.
“I want her out of my sight.” The king’s voice was strangled, the words a dark sash of plum wrapping his throat. He pointed at the newborn. “I want her gone from my kingdom.”
The boy wrapped his arms around his knees, his reddish hair and freckles more prominent against the white of his skin as he fought against a sob.
“That goes against every vision I’ve seen, my lord,” the woman said. Her words were the stark white of truth, as white as the long gown draped over her thin frame. She tugged at the fabric and wound it between her fingers.
“I don’t care about your visions. She killed my wife.” The king’s voice cracked. “She killed the queen. She’s lucky I don’t have her decapitated today.”
The prophet rested a soft hand on his shoulder. “She’s a baby. She’s your daughter.”
He wrenched away. “She is nothing to me.”
Her hand fell to her side. “She couldn’t control herself.”
The king glared at the prophet, his words biting and full of venom. “You came here today to tell me not to send her away. You could have come to me yesterday and told me of the vision, so I could have prevented the entire thing. I should have you killed.”
The prophet stared at the king until he turned away. “My sight doesn’t work in that manner, and you know that. I only had the vision as the queen gasped her last breath. It was clear. If you send the princess away, she will be the death of us all.”
“I don’t believe you. I don’t believe it. I’ll send her far enough away that nobody can find her. She’ll never know her true heritage, so what does it matter?” The king spun around and began to pace the length of the room.
The boy inched upward, his back wedged into the corner. Slowly, with bated breath, he snuck closer to the bed. His hand brushed the queen’s hand.
“That’s not the way it works,” the prophet said again. “The vision shows destruction of the kingdom, an occurrence directly related to her banishment.”
The boy slipped from the queen over to the bassinet. He peered inside at the baby girl, at her startling blue eyes. Enormous tears built in the corner of them and trailed down her face to splash on the blanket beneath her head. Her arms extended, as if reaching for him, and she started to wail, an indigo noose that wrapped around the prince’s throat. He gasped, hands fluttering to his neck.
The king raced over and spun the boy around. “Cirrus, are you okay?”
The boy’s eyes bugged wide, and he fought to breathe against the sobs racking his chest. He crossed his arms tight as he fought to take a breath.
“Look. She’s doing it to him, too. She’ll kill us all if she stays here.” The king’s voice rose, and he spun to the prophet. “Leave us alone so I can make plans.”
Resigned, the prophet walked toward the door. “What of the boy?”
“What of him?”
“He’s heard the truth. He may speak of it.”
The king dismissed the thought with a wave of his hand. “I’ll have the memory removed. It will be better for him never to have known he had a—”
KALEN’S MIND WRENCHED from the memory as his body was flung off the bed. Cirrus bolted upright, his eyes wide and nostrils flaring.
“What are you doing?” In his voice was a mixture of hatred, awe, and uncertainty. Jaw clenched, he choked out the words. “What were you doing.”
Kalen sank to the carpet, and his head fell forward, nearly to his knees. His hands gripped his hair, trying to pull the pain out through his scalp. Nails pounded into every pore. The room spun around him in a lazy circle, and it took him a moment to realize that he had failed to relock Cirrus’s memory.
He groaned and reached out his hand for the mug he knew Terrack would have requested for him. The herbs began to take effect, and then the reality of the memory slammed into his mind with even more force than the pain.
He stood, the tea still grasped in his hands, and moved away from the bed until his back was against the wall, much like the young prince had been in the memory. The king had stepped forward to sit next to Cirrus and bombard him with questions, drilling him on what had happened out in the courtyard with Terrack, was it the guard’s fault and should he be punished, was Cirrus in pain anywhere, did he need something to eat or drink.
Cirrus said not a word, only stared straight ahead into the middle of the room.
The king motioned for the physician to return to Cirrus’s side. The older man reached over to rest his fingers on Cirrus’s wrist to check his pulse and leaned in, face-to-face, to examine his pupils.
Panic tightened Kalen’s chest. Had leaving the memory unlocked done something permanent to Cirrus’s mind? He feared he had damaged the prince and wondered if there was a way to repair it. He pushed away from the wall, ready to touch Cirrus again and delve back into his thoughts.
But Cirrus squeezed past the physician and stood. “I’m fine. I’m tired and hungry. I’d like to eat and go to my chambers.” He nodded at the king and the physician in turn. “Thank you for your concern.”
And he walked away, leaving everyone staring after him.