I knew her instincts told her not to trust me, but my power mingled with what she wanted to believe, so she gave me as much information as she could to assuage her own anxiety and prove to herself that I was on her side. For now, she was right.
Torquil and Aika worked together to cook the evening’s meal, and we all took stock of what—and who—we had left. The mood was subdued as we all refused to think or talk about what the future held.
Farrell’s absence was the most palpable, but he wasn’t the only one we had lost. Four other members of our guild were missing; I hoped some of them had just decided to disappear rather than stand up against Misha’s plans, but I feared they were more likely to be dead. That left ten of us, not including Aaron, who was currently at the palace.
I was walking the camp’s perimeter when Torquil caught up to me, distressed.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Some of us were talking with Misha about having a mourning ceremony for Farrell.” He spoke in a hushed, careful tone. That, combined with the worried glance he cast over his shoulder in the direction of the campsite, made it clear that the debate had been contentious.
“Misha isn’t ready to mourn,” I said. She and I had not spoken on the subject, but I knew I was right. Mourning meant remembering someone as they had been. It meant acknowledging the empty space left by their absence. Misha had lost too much of herself. If she ever tried to stare into that void in order to honor her grief she would suffocate. “I don’t think I’m ready either,” I added.
I had spent the last year as if in a spider’s web. I had watched my sister’s mind rot. I had felt my brother die. I had seen Farrell fall, on the basis of my selfish words, and now I was witnessing the death of the Obsidian guild. There was too much to mourn, and so little of it could be acknowledged aloud.
“You were closest to him,” Torquil said. “If you need to wait, then we will wait. But when the time comes, tell me we will come out here, to the woods? We won’t go somewhere like the mourning hall in the palace.”
“We’ll honor him in the open air, just as he always lived,” I assured him. “Has Misha said otherwise?”
“She thinks we should have the ceremony after the coronation, in the palace, because it was Farrell’s dream to see us all there,” Torquil whispered.
I shook my head, just a fraction, and tried to repress a shudder.
“Misha forgets,” I said, “that a child of Obsidian kneels to no king, or queen, even one of our own blood. If Farrell had lived to see Misha take the throne, he would have watched her coronation with pride, and then walked back into the woods. He would not have bowed before her.”
Torquil nodded, but there was a new wariness in the response. His tone was guarded as he asked, “And do you expect us all to do the same?”
I blinked at him, aware of the sudden tension between us, but not sure I understood it.
“I’ll miss the stars,” Torquil said carefully, “but I joined the Obsidian guild because I crossed Julian and the dancers’ guild, and refused to beg their forgiveness so they would let me stay. Once Misha’s in charge, I’m not going to object to having four walls around me when the winter winds blow or a roof over my head when it pours. If fate finally grants Aika and me children, I don’t want them to grow up resigned to cold and hunger and fear.”
It was clearly important to him that I understand his motivation; he didn’t realize I never could.
“Four walls and a roof,” to me, might as well be a cell. I had no misty, sentimental memories of walls or a roof over my head.
But the others had lived different lives. Kadee had been raised in a home with loving parents. Vance had been raised with beautiful walls made of colored glass. Aika had kept a home once, and Torquil had lived in the dancers’ nest, where the food and wine flowed like ambrosia and the central fire always burned.
Did they all dream that, once this dirty business was done, we would return to those fantasy lives?
“I guess I hadn’t thought that far ahead,” I said honestly. It had never occurred to me that the others might see the palace as an end in itself, instead of just the means to one. I fell back on the old creed, though in this context it felt like paste in my mouth. “But either way, why would I be contemplating your future? You’re a child of Obsidian. If you wish to live with your family inside palace walls, that is your choice to make, not mine.”
I supposed a child of Obsidian even had the right to follow a king and queen if he chose; our way was one of freedom, not limitations. That wasn’t a choice I could ever comprehend, because there wasn’t a monarch alive I had ever viewed as anything but abusive and selfish, but Torquil would make his own decisions—and I would make mine. He would follow Misha even if she claimed a crown. I had other plans.
In the end, that was all that mattered.
THE CAMP LAY under a smooth bed of snow and ice and the serpents within it ringed tightly around a feeble fire. Finding dry wood had been difficult after the early-winter storm caught them all off guard.
Malachi stared into the tiny, flickering flames. Around him, he could vaguely sense the others moving, but his mind was far away. He was in a dark cell, where his brother and sister were waiting with dread for the trainer’s attention to turn to them again.
Farrell sat next to him. His once-brilliant aura had faded into a dismal swirl of dashed hopes and sacrifices made for what seemed like no reason. He, too, stared into the fire as he said, “Everyone’s ready.”
Malachi nodded, and forced himself back into this place and time. Now that all their members had gathered, it was time to vote. They had not needed to cast ballots about whether or not to engage in slave-trading because no one had even considered objecting to the trainer’s deal. The hawk he asked for was a stranger to all of them, and a royal; the white viper he offered in return was their kin. No, what they needed to decide was which of their people they would save.
“He’s only interested in one hawk,” the mercenary had said, when she offered her deal. “Choose.”
They could bring home their brazen, prophesied queen, Misha, or they could bring home Shkei, their youngest and most innocent member.
Farrell handed two small stones to each of them—one dark, and one light—and then held a sack out so they could drop their stone in.
“White for Misha,” Farrell said. “Black for Shkei.”
At Farrell’s insistence, they concealed their votes from the others. However the vote went, Farrell didn’t want the white viper who came home to know who chose freedom and who chose death.
Malachi’s hand shook as he dropped his black stone into the dark bag, where it let out a dull and hopeless thunk as it hit the others. He knew his little brother would not win this vote.
He didn’t need to wait for Farrell to upend the sack and count the stones—twelve white, only two black—and seal Shkei’s fate. The Obsidian guild had been told that Misha was the one who could save them all from Midnight. They didn’t know that Malachi had lied all those years ago and every day since. They didn’t know his lies had now sentenced a sixteen-year-old boy to a life of slavery.
—
Seven months had passed since we took the trainer’s deal and Misha returned to us. Even though the vote had not gone the way I hoped, I was still grateful that the choice of which sibling to save had not been left to me alone—especially when my brother’s life had ended barely more than a month later.
As the days passed, and I listened to Misha make declarations about our guild and give orders about where everyone should be and what we should do when we met Nathaniel, I had to choke back a thousand biting remarks. Hara’s guards may have physically killed Farrell, but Misha had killed his spirit when she started treating the surviving children of Obsidian as nothing more than tools. I could see Vance clench his jaw and avoid meeting Misha’s gaze whenever possible. Kadee took long hunting trips that kept her out of camp for hours at a time.
By the time the fateful day arrived,
we were all as tense as bowstrings. Misha and the others split off to join her conspirators, leaving Vance and me to guard the clearing. Time passed slowly but interminably, the only positive aspect being that the rain had finally let up. When I heard movement, I braced myself in anticipation. Some last wild hope in me wanted to believe that when Misha returned, she wouldn’t have Hara with her.
But she did. Specifically, Torquil had Hara’s unconscious body slung over his shoulder. A man in the uniform of the serpiente royal guard trailed after them, his gaze scanning the woods constantly, and his expression utterly blank. I suspected that, like us, he had been convinced that this needed to be done “for the greater good,” supported by a great deal of Misha’s magic. I also suspected that he was as or more concerned about the children of Obsidian that he knew were in the woods around him as he was about the possibility that they could have been followed.
Misha looked on as Torquil and the guard bound Hara’s wrists behind her back to the ring in the old iron hitching post. At some point many years ago a road had traveled through here. Only the crumbling stone hearth remained from what might have been a wayfarer’s hut, a place for travelers to pause for the night and rest out of the elements. Now the iron horse head nestled against Hara’s spine. The metal there would keep her from being able to shapeshift once she woke.
I hoped we would be gone by then. I did not want to see righteous fury in her Cobriana-garnet eyes, as if this were not a fate she had inflicted upon others. And I did not want to see fear.
“Our guests are here,” I called when I spied the group riding toward us through the trees. Across the clearing, I saw Vance flutter to a higher branch, so his dramatic green plumage would be out of sight when the others arrived.
Nathaniel was no longer alone, which didn’t surprise me. Vampires had the ability to transport themselves instantly from place to place, but Nathaniel wouldn’t be able to carry a shapeshifter with him, so it was useful to have employees help him transport more difficult “cargo.” I recognized the two foxes who had worked with him for years, earning themselves a special level of hatred from most other shapeshifters that even I hadn’t achieved, but I did not know the human woman with them.
Her hair was warm brunette and her eyes were nearly the same color, maybe a touch toward hazel, though it was hard to tell because she never looked up. The cast of her facial features was somewhat familiar, but it was the way she kept her gaze on Nathaniel as if he were the only one present that helped me make the connection. I was certain that this woman had been born in Midnight, a slave bred much as I had been. Why had Nathaniel brought her here?
“This the one?” Nathaniel asked Misha, as if there could be any doubt. Hara did most of the tariff negotiations for the serpiente. Nathaniel must have met her before.
Perhaps at the sound of his voice, or from instincts warning her of a predator’s presence, Hara stirred. She spoke softly, her words slurred so badly they were incomprehensible, as she struggled against the drug’s hold.
The foxes moved closer to Hara, though Misha warned, “She can’t shapeshift completely with metal against her spine, but she can shift enough to be poisonous.”
Did Julian give them the same warning about you and Shkei? I wondered, glad that I wasn’t on the ground so Misha wouldn’t see my expression.
I had wondered before how Misha could stand to work with the same man who had sold her. Now I realized the answer. Vengeance. Hara would see the same faces Misha had, from the mercenary who had picked her up to the trainer who had taken her.
Hara shuddered, and lifted her head. She focused first on Misha, and said, “I saw you with Aaron.”
“That you did,” Misha replied. “You saw me before then, too. Do you remember?”
Hara frowned. Her pupils were so dilated that she had to be seeing halos around everything. She looked past Misha, trying to figure out what was going on. Her gaze briefly settled on me, dragging an image of the past into my present.
I screamed as the blade sliced into my back.
Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed Hara Kiesha Cobriana, the eight-year-old serpiente princess. She shouldn’t have been allowed to watch this. Did her father, wielding the blade, not care or had he not noticed the girl lurking in a corner?
I saw her, and saw the way her garnet eyes blazed with hatred. My magic let me glimpse the images in her mind, of the fire that had killed her mother, for which the Obsidian guild had been blamed.
Only when Hara’s attention turned elsewhere did I manage to rip myself from the unwanted vision. I could still feel the blade—the serpiente’s response to petty crimes, which at that age I had been stupid enough to be caught for—in my skin, and see the young cobra’s satisfied expression. For a moment, I couldn’t remember why I had wanted to save her.
Then Hara saw Nathaniel, and the drugged flush abruptly disappeared from her face, replaced by ghostlike pallor. She whispered “Dear Anhamirak” under her breath, then lifted her head and looked around with more focus, pausing as she beheld each of us waiting in the woods. “You hypocritical fools,” she said. “And you,” she added to Nathaniel, “have no right. These criminals have been exiled from serpiente society for years. They have no power to sell one of us.”
Nathaniel just shrugged. It was a mercenary’s job to follow the laws, not explain or justify them. Vance and Kadee had recently made a deal that made it illegal for us to sell anyone in the future, but unfortunately, it had been too late. Misha had already set this up. Even if she hadn’t, Aaron was a prince of the serpiente. By Midnight’s laws, he had the right to sell any of his people at any time he wanted.
Legally, I reminded myself. Midnight’s laws give us the legal right, but no man or woman ever has the moral right to sell another. Even if she would have gladly done the same to all of us, given a chance.
Nathaniel spoke to Misha briefly. “Given she would obviously like to kill you all, perhaps you and your people should move on before I untie her.” He turned back to the cobra. “Lady Hara, do you ride?”
Hara nodded slowly.
“Lady?” Misha mocked.
“Misha, we’re done here.”
Misha stiffened as if struck.
She wasn’t ready to move on. The violence was still twined within her. She had thought that selling Hara would help, that she would feel some relief, some peace, but there was nothing and now it was almost done.
I dropped down from the tree and crossed to my sister, trying to send out calming thoughts. “Misha, we should get back to camp,” I said softly. “I am sure you have plans to meet with your king. There is much still left to do.”
“King?” Hara asked, incredulous. She continued as if casually speculating about the weather. “Can you imagine, a child of Obsidian bowing to my illegitimate brother. But I suppose you grew used to having a master, back in—”
With a cry of rage more suited to an animal than a person, Misha launched herself at the cobra. The two foxes tried to grab her, but she fought tooth and claw. I received a swipe of her nails across my face and an elbow in my chest when I intervened, so I backed off, listening to my heart pound.
At this point, Nathaniel could have claimed Misha for interfering with a trade. If he wasn’t determined to see her on the throne, to get the support of prophecy behind his wild plans against Midnight, he would have seized her as a bonus.
My whole body chilled when the vampire waded into the fray. Within moments, he had Misha pinned to the ground with a hand on the back of her neck.
“Lady Misha,” he hissed, speaking very softly and deliberately, “take your people, and go. Now. Or I will take your people. Am I clear?”
I looked around at the others. I trusted Vance to stay out of the way if Misha continued to cause problems, and Kadee had refused to be here at all for the trade, but some of the others might be spellbound enough to jump in to protect their future queen.
I drew in a slow breath, consciously making the decision: if Misha forced Nathaniel
to respond, I would let the mercenary choose my sister’s fate. Torquil, I decided. If he tried to get involved, I would grab him and hold him back. Aika would be smart and keep safe as long as he was all right.
I couldn’t decide if I was relieved or disappointed when Misha’s body stilled, and I felt the wave of red-hot rage inside her start to cool, like lava blackening on the surface despite the molten rock still flowing underneath.
Nathaniel left her in the dirt and returned to Hara.
I offered my hand to Misha, but she shoved herself up on her own and stalked away. She did not look back at me, or at the cobra we had just given away, like a burnt offering on the altar of…of what? Freedom from Midnight? We gained nothing from this atrocity but illusions. Nathaniel believed some of his potential allies would be more willing to fight if Misha took the throne, but he was playing them for fools. They didn’t know their success was no more assured now than it was yesterday.
Nathaniel’s group left in one direction; Misha and her soldiers went the other way. I waited, wanting to put enough space between the others that I didn’t need to engage in friendly chatter or pretend I found any of this acceptable.
I thought I was alone, until Vance fluttered to the ground and changed back to human form next to me.
“One of us should go with them,” he said, nodding in the direction Nathaniel had taken. “Well, not with them, but to Midnight, to make sure Nathaniel is keeping up his side of the deal.”
“You volunteering?” I asked drily, only to be surprised when Vance nodded.
“I thought about it all night,” he said. “I don’t really want to go back to Midnight, but I want to be here with Misha even less. People are saying we’ll move into the serpiente palace if Misha takes the throne, but I don’t want to. Midnight would believe me if I stormed out of here and told them I was sick of it all.”
“What about Kadee?” I asked.
I was thinking in terms of what Kadee would think when Vance left, but Vance took my words differently. He scoffed. “Kadee doesn’t need me here to take care of her. She’s tougher than both of us put together. She knows how to protect herself, and more importantly, she knows how to make up her mind without letting anyone manipulate her. If I stay with Misha and Aaron, I worry I’ll end up believing them.”