IT WAS KETTERING’S idea to enter the palace at night.
The locals won’t go in at night. They’re too afraid, he’d said. Will had agreed. Day or night, it would be just as dark under the mountain.
Leaving the dig reminded Will a little of his long-ago escape from the Hall with Violet and Cyprian. That day, Cyprian had simply lifted his chin and told the Stewards on watch, ‘My father has sent for the prisoners.’ Now it was Kettering who said, ‘On Sloane’s orders,’ and got them past the guards.
The men on watch at the palace entrance looked nervous and unhappy to be on night duty. They did not challenge Kettering’s arrival or his right to enter the palace at all, except to say, ‘La morte bianca … non portarla qui.’ Don’t bring the white death here.
Huge and black, the outer doors to the palace stood open. There was no sign of activity beyond the entryway. Since the deaths, no one had been inside. Will felt a sudden reluctance to pass out of the thin moonlight into the unknowable dark.
‘We can’t take the horses inside,’ said Kettering, dismounting near the doors.
‘Why not?’ said Will, frowning.
‘Not a single animal has been willing to enter, not even the mules,’ said Kettering. ‘We go alone with packs, and make our way on foot.’
He was right; the horses acted out even before they reached the doors, their heads tossing and bits chinking, breath frosty in the moonlight.
Nothing would go in at night, except them.
Darkness fore and aft; it felt like being swallowed. Holding aloft lamps on poles, they passed through the outer entrance, and it was not long before they saw the twisted inner doors standing warped and battered. Dwarfed, they walked through them.
Kettering took the lead. The outer chambers had been cleared of rockfall and debris, and there were torches installed along the walls, though they didn’t light any of them. They moved through the dark with their two lamps swinging on their poles, keeping their progress and direction hidden. Once, Cyprian turned into a wide entrance, only to find Kettering holding him back. ‘No, that’s the way to the barracks,’ said Kettering. ‘Follow the roped pegs.’ Like a thread through a maze, the roped line left by Sinclair’s workers led them deeper into the palace.
They walked for perhaps a quarter of an hour, until they came to a pile of abandoned work tools and an overturned wheelbarrow. There Kettering stopped, lifting his lamp to show the scattered items.
‘This is where the men died of the white death,’ said Kettering.
The chamber ahead had not been cleared. There were no more roped pegs. This was as far as Sinclair’s men had come.
Will looked up. If this was where Sinclair’s men had died, the locus of what they sought must be right in front of them.
‘Will! Over here!’ Cyprian was bent over a shape that lay in the recesses of the dark.
Bringing his lamp over, Will saw a white body with eyes staring up at the cavernous ceiling. Kettering was striding forward and going to one knee beside the body.
‘Another of the workers … he must have been left behind.’ Kettering was anguished.
‘What should we do?’ said Cyprian. ‘Burn him? Bury him?’
‘No!’ said Kettering. ‘Cover the body. He should be taken to his family.’
Will took a step; a crunch under his foot.
He looked down. He had stepped on a wrist bone; underfoot was a rib cage, a spine, a skull.
‘He’s not the first person to have died here,’ Will heard himself say.
Kettering was rising, holding up his lamp on the pole. What had looked at first glance like scattered rubble or uneven flooring were piles of bones. The pressing horror of it almost made Will gag. There were thousands of them.
‘You said any bones would have decayed,’ Will said to Kettering.
‘They ought to have,’ said Kettering. ‘These bones aren’t from the ancient world; they’re more recent … a few hundred years, maybe longer.’
‘Another group who tried to enter the throne room,’ said Cyprian.
Kettering was shaking his head as if he didn’t understand. ‘But the outer doors were sealed up …’
‘You think these people died of the white death?’ said Will.
‘I pray they didn’t.’ Kettering looked truly shaken.
‘What happened here?’ said James.
Grace held the other lamp, and she was using it to follow the train of destruction. ‘A lot of the bones are clustered here, near the doors,’ she said, by far the most disturbing observation.
‘You mean they were trying to get out?’ said Cyprian. ‘You think they were trapped in here with something?’
Will took one of the unlit torches left by Sinclair’s workers. He touched it to the small flame from Kettering’s lamp, and when it flared into life he held it up and took it to the mouth of the chamber.
Hundreds of people, hundreds of years ago. It was as if anyone who had ventured beyond this door had been struck down. He remembered the warning he’d read in Calais, in Gauthier’s handwriting. None may enter Undahar and live.
‘None of you should go any further,’ said Will. ‘It’s too dangerous.’ He began to step forward.
James’s hand on his shoulder stopped him. ‘You’re joking. You’re not going in there by yourself,’ James said. ‘I’m coming with you.’
To Will’s surprise, Kettering also came forward. ‘I asked my men to enter this place. I ought to be prepared to enter myself.’
Cyprian and Grace both nodded. ‘We’re coming too,’ said Cyprian.
‘I saw Katherine die of the white death,’ said Will, looking at each of them. ‘There was no warning, and it couldn’t be stopped. That’s what you’re risking.’
But he saw in their eyes that they each knew it, and had made the decision anyway.
‘All right,’ said Will, seeing the determination on their faces. ‘But I go first. You all touch nothing, and stay behind me.’
That won him reluctant nods. James’s hand on his shoulder released.
Will walked forward with his torch aloft, the others in twos behind him. Alert to any sense of danger or of magic, the fear was constant that his friends would drop to the ground behind him, their skin turning white. Or was it his own presence here that protected them, the king returning with his retinue?
Don’t think about that.
He passed through the entryway, whose twin doors lay like two giants of twisted metal on the ground. And he entered the palace throne room.
For a moment, it was as if the torch lit everything and revealed a chamber of blazing gold, the Sun King resplendent on his shining throne, the chamber filled with supplicants and joyous celebration, a golden disc on the flagstones, a sun emblem below to match the splendour of the fiery orb above.
Then Will blinked and saw the room was dark and empty, with black marble floors and a long, dark approach to black stairs. The only thing that remained from his vision was the disc of gold embedded into the floor, but it no longer blazed like the sun. It looked abandoned and cold.
Above it rose a the pale throne; beautiful and terrible, appearing like bone out of the dark. Its power could be felt: the hum of force, a demand of subjugation. It rose in dominating horror over the room, promising a conqueror the gift of violence and destruction.
‘One throne,’ said James. ‘Just as you said.’
Will saw himself climbing the steps to sit on that pale throne, the ghosts of the past rising around him from these crushed ruins, a word from him returning the glory of those distant days. It was in his bones, in his teeth, in his head. He would have said the throne was hungry for it, but the hunger wasn’t in the throne; it was in him.
James strode past him, took the steps two at a time, and put his hand on the carved armrest, turning to face him.
‘Let’s try it out. How does it feel to be a king?’
‘No!’ Will grabbed James’s arm as he began to sit, jerking him back. They stared at each other, Will’s immediate and instinctive action not easy to explain.
‘Want it for yourself?’
James’s tone made a joke of it, but this close to the throne he was breathing shallowly. And Will …
Will had come too close, and now the throne was just a step away, its pale height towering over him, and he knew the way it felt to sit, the black silks of his robes spread out around him, and know he had power over all before him—
‘No,’ said Will. ‘No one sits in it.’
He expected James to resist. But after a tense moment, James shrugged, relaxing and moving back as if it was of no consequence.
‘All right.’
A little more light. Kettering was ascending the steps with his own torch, using the dais as a kind of lookout to survey the throne room. Grace and Cyprian were approaching, but their presence only seemed to highlight the emptiness of the chamber. Nothing else was visible.
‘Is this what Sinclair was seeking? A throne?’ Cyprian sounded scornful, a little confused.
‘It’s symbolic,’ said James.
‘The locals believed a great evil would be released,’ said Will, shaking his head.
Grace spoke. ‘And the Elder Steward said what Sinclair sought was a greater threat than the return of the Dark King.’
Kettering turned to James. ‘Can you think of what the Dark King might have hidden here? Or perhaps you know the location of a hiding place, a secret door?’
‘Why would I know that?’ said James.
‘You’ve been here before,’ said Kettering, lifting his torch to show what lay on the dais.
A thick gold chain, coiled at the foot of the throne. A permanent fixture, it was bolted at one end to the black marble. It conjured to mind a magnificent beast chained to a king’s feet, Sarcean reaching down absently to scratch his exotic pet. But it was not a dragon or a leopard that had been chained here. The other end of the chain had a clasp set with red rubies.
Humiliation in James’s cheeks, the same colour. He looked up, as if daring them all to comment. No one did, but the silence burned.
‘He liked to show off his possessions,’ said Kettering, and it was Will’s turn to feel his cheeks flame hot.
‘We all knew that,’ said Will.
‘It’s a declaration. You see? I have tamed Light’s champion. I can’t think of a greater show of his power.’
Anharion on display for every visitor, every courtier, every vassal. Kneeling at his feet, dressed not in armour but in paint and silks to show off that at night he—
‘Ignore it,’ said Will. ‘We’re here for something else.’
Kettering raised his torch, looking out again into the darkness of the throne room. ‘Aside from the throne and the chain, this room is empty.’
‘Spread out and search,’ said Will. ‘But be careful. If you feel or see anything out of the ordinary, don’t approach it without me.’
‘We don’t even know what we’re looking for,’ said Cyprian.
‘We’ll know we’re close when someone dies of the white death.’ James didn’t even say it with his usual ironic humour, instead grimly matter-of-fact.
Kettering was right: walking its length revealed a vast but empty chamber, with black pillars reaching upward in an avenue to the dais. The floor itself was black marble covered in rubble.
The only other dominating feature was the immense gold circle embedded into the floor. Once the depiction of a gold sun, part of the white- and-gold shining glory of the Sun King, it now provided an uneasy contrast to the black marble that surrounded it.
Why had Sarcean kept it? Will wondered. The answer returned to him: To tread on it.
‘We’ve missed something. It’s here,’ Will said when they returned to the dais.
‘We believe you, Will. It’s just—’ Grace said.
‘It’s here.’ Somehow. Somewhere.
‘Have Sinclair’s men already been here? Cleaned the room out?’ said James.
‘No, I told you, we abandoned work when the men died,’ said Kettering. ‘Besides, you saw it for yourself: this chamber was undisturbed.’
‘We split up,’ said Will, ‘and clear the rubble. We’re going to find whatever’s here.’
Hours clearing rubble from the floor only revealed more black marble flagstones that did not move or turn over.
‘If this place was once the Sun Palace, how did it fall to the Dark King?’ Will asked Kettering as they searched.
‘Sarcean warred with the Sun Kingdom for years before he conquered it,’ said Kettering, ‘attacking from the north, but unable to defeat the combined sorcery of the Lady and Light’s Champion. No one knows how it fell.’
So Sarcean had left the Sun Palace, Will thought. And then what? He’d grown his own empire in the north? Set his sights on the Sun realm? Years of open warfare, facing Anharion across the battlefield? Until he captured him and forced the Collar around his neck?
As Kettering and the others turned their sights towards the far end of the chamber, Will found himself in the dark recesses behind the throne. At all times, he could feel its presence, looming over him. Instinctively, they were all avoiding it. The footsteps surprised him.
James’s hair gleamed in the torchlight, a golden crown of his own, slightly mussed by the fingers he’d pushed into it. Will found himself wondering how James would brush it into its fashionable style away from the conveniences of the dig. He felt, then extinguished, the desire to run his own fingers through it.
‘If I was wearing the Collar,’ said James quietly, ‘he didn’t need a chain.’
‘No,’ agreed Will.
‘The chain was there because he liked me in it.’
Will, who had realised this, was silent.
‘There’s something I have to show you.’ James glanced out at the chamber, as if making certain no one was watching.
When he saw that the others had moved away, and that he and Will were hidden by the throne, James drew a cloth-wrapped shape from his pack.
Will’s stomach dropped, recognising the shape. Before Will could stop him, James drew the cloth back.
Gleaming gold and red, it wanted to choke him, enclose him; it wanted to gild him, adorn him. A circle of sadistic opulence that begged for James’s throat.
The Collar.
Will shoved himself back from it, staring at James with his heart pounding. ‘You brought it here?’
‘What did you think I had done with it?’
‘I don’t know, I—’ Will broke off, feeling the full force of it, sickly seductive. ‘Why would you have it with you!’
‘Because!’ James’s answer snapped with emotion even as he kept his voice hushed. He cut himself off, looking towards the others again, only continuing when he saw they were too far away to hear. ‘Because it wants to be around my neck,’ James said, even more quietly, with even greater feeling.
‘All the more reason to keep it at a distance.’ His own hissed reply as he pushed the cloth back up over it.
‘I can’t,’ said James. ‘I can’t hide it. I can’t lock it away.’ No matter where James hid it, it would be found. And the person who found it would be filled with the need to collar him. Will remembered Kettering saying, These objects have their own agenda. Like blind things seeking in the dark. ‘Knowing it was out there, I couldn’t think, I couldn’t sleep,’ said James. ‘It would be searching for me every day. No ocean is deep enough. No fire can melt it down.’
James had been carrying it all this time. Will stared at him. ‘When you were weak from the gate – those soldiers who captured us – any one of them could have taken it and put it on you!’
He realised with horror as he said it that James had known that, and had drained himself for them anyway. James had drained himself knowing everything he risked, which had been far more than any of them had realised.
‘You wouldn’t,’ said James, and Will’s skin seemed to tighten. ‘You had the chance to put it on me in London. And you didn’t.’
James chained to that kitchen range, turning under Will’s hands to expose his neck. His flesh had trembled hot under his shirt, and Will had felt the shiver too, keeping his hands on James’s body longer than he had to.
‘I wanted to.’
The admission just came out. He didn’t have to remember how hard it had been to resist the Collar. He could feel it now, could almost see himself reaching out, sliding the warm gold around James’s throat. Its unused chain lay by the throne, a siren song: the open Collar, the ready chain, the empty throne, each of them calling.
‘You need to put it away. It’s really,’ said Will, ‘not safe to—’
The cloth slid away like a negligee slipping to the ground. The naked gold and rubies hit both of them with its power. Will felt it in his teeth. James’s eyes were swallowed with pupil.
‘Someone is going to do it eventually.’
‘You don’t know that,’ said Will.
‘I do. I feel it. My past. My future—’
He took Will’s hand and put it on the Collar. ‘Someone’s going to do it.’ Searing, to touch the metal with his bare hand, to feel its heat and its need.
‘If someone’s going to do it,’ said James, ‘I want it to be you.’
Will had him pushed against the back of the throne before he knew it. Hot gold in his hands, as James made a sound and went pliant as if that same hot gold ran like sweet need through his veins.
‘Do it,’ said James. James’s shirt was open, his golden hair disordered around his face, his eyes glazed and yielding. James looked like he was already surrendered, wanting to give himself over, willing the latch to close. ‘Put it on me.’
Will gritted his teeth and called on every particle of willpower. He snatched up the cloth and wrapped it around the Collar. The instant it was covered, its power lessened. Under his hands, the dazed look slid out of James’s eyes.
Breathing shallowly, Will realised he still had James pinioned to the throne. A glance showed the others still on the far side of the room. But anyone could have seen them. Will looked up at the pale throne, its shadow lying across them both. He realised how little James had been in control of his actions, how out of control he felt himself.
He pushed himself back, his cheeks burning.
‘Anyone else would have done it.’ James wet his lips, looking over at Will from where he remained sprawled against the throne. His pose was still surrendered, unresisting.
‘You’re testing me,’ said Will. ‘You shouldn’t.’
‘Why not? You’re the perfect hero, aren’t you?’
‘I’m not your salvation,’ said Will.
‘Are you going to let someone else put it on me? Let someone else—’
‘No,’ said Will, the vehemence of it taking both James and himself by surprise. And then: ‘There must be a way to destroy it. When this is over. We’ll find a way.’ He let the words sink in, James’s blue eyes wide. ‘If you still want me to order you around after that, I can.’
James let out an astonished breath that was part laughter, as if he couldn’t believe Will had said that.
‘God, you’re not like anyone else,’ said James.
‘Neither are you,’ said Will. It came out low and soft. ‘Put the Collar away. Follow me because you want to.’
‘I am. I do. Shit.’
He fumbled the Collar out of sight. Will felt instant relief, and forced down the simultaneous disappointment. He tried to forget that the Collar was there. He couldn’t.
‘Shit,’ said James again, throwing his arm over his face, as if only now realising the edge he had brought them both to.
‘It’s going to get worse,’ said Will, ‘the longer we’re down here.’
It would likely get worse the longer James carried the Collar. He had to wonder how many of James’s decisions and interactions had been powered by it, or what it had already driven James to do.
James putting hands on his waist and whispering in his ear to do magic – James challenging him to sleep beside him in their rooms – for all he knew, all of it was the invidious work of the Collar. Or if it wasn’t the artefact, it was the seductive whisper of the past: time and time again, James had thrown himself back into the role of loyal general rather than striking out for freedom. What was James’s decision to follow Will if not echoes of his former life?
If the Collar was eroding James’s resolve, Will would have to be strong for both of them, and he would. For as long as he had to.
James said, ‘It makes me feel better to know that you feel it too.’
‘It really shouldn’t,’ said Will.
James shifted to face him.
‘I keep thinking … when I was a boy, and Simon told me about my power, about how strong I was going to be, I thought I could show my father. I thought I could take my power and do something big with it. Something so big and important that it would prove I was right to have it. Until I understood what it was for.’
‘What it was for?’
‘Him,’ said James. Him. Sarcean. Pulling the strings behind everything. ‘But maybe it doesn’t have to be. Maybe it could be for—’
James broke off.
‘Good at making people talk, aren’t you.’
‘Am I?’
‘Yes. One look into those big dark eyes. Say something about yourself for once.’
This was easier, just to gaze back at James, as if they were two friends sharing secrets.
‘Like what?’ said Will.
‘I don’t know. What was it like, growing up the saviour of mankind?’
‘There’s not much to tell.’ Will gave a casual shrug, one shoulder. ‘My mother was strict; we didn’t do much.’
‘Have to protect the chosen one,’ said James. ‘I’ll bet you were a real mama’s boy. Everyone doting on you.’
‘Something like that,’ said Will, with an easy smile.
‘I can see it. Tucking you in at night. Pampering you when you were sick. No wonder you turned out the way you did.’
Another smile. Lying was unlaboured. ‘And how’s that?’
He’d expected James to reply with another quip. But James gazed back at him and said, ‘Someone I believe could save this place.’ And then, so quietly Will almost didn’t hear, ‘Someone I believe could save me.’