Elazar’s eyebrows lifted.
“You kept him alive,” Ben pressed on. “You had an agent on Grace Loray, one who could have been useful in doing the Pious God’s work, and you—”
It was a guess, a wild, furious stab into the night, so when Elazar held his hand up, Ben froze with terror.
Elazar lowered his hand. “Your cousin was too erratic to be useful. I didn’t inform you that he was alive because there was nothing to gain from it, and it has been clear for some time that the Pious God wishes me to do away with him. He will now be dealt with.”
The lanterns around the room were thick squares of glass with gaps to feed oxygen. But Ben tasted bitter smoke, ash filling his lungs.
The man beside Elazar cleared his throat, and Elazar stood. “Of course—Benat, as you have pointed out, it is beneficial to you to know the moves of the Pious God on Grace Loray. General Ibarra has been instrumental in our plan.”
Ben refocused on the man his father had been speaking with. Not a defensor. Ben had seen General Ibarra only once or twice, as Ibarra had spent most of his time on Grace Loray, leading the war charge. Last Ben had seen him, Argrid’s nobility had gathered to send off the contingent bound for the treaty negotiations in New Deza.
Ben nodded at Ibarra, then realized he’d have to react more if he wanted to hold his cover. “General, I thank you for your service. It is not an easy war to fight.”
Ibarra bowed. “With you assisting us, we will at long last fulfill Argrid’s great destiny on this godforsaken island.”
But Elazar was already talking. “My contacts have proven true supporters of the Pious God and have delivered us plants for your use, Benat. Defensors are unloading them now.”
Ben had to forcibly pull himself away from memories of the headiness of smoke, burned corpses, and Paxben’s smile. “Your contacts?”
Elazar waved behind Ben. The door opened, a burst of sea air chasing away some of the smoke stench. “The Mecht stream raider syndicate. Thanks to their visit, we have convinced them to aid us. They have given themselves over to Argrid and the cause of purifying the world.”
Ben’s mouth opened. The Mecht stream raider syndicate? A visit?
The memory hit so hard he fought to stay upright. He saw visitors weeks ago—the Mechts they’d begged for aid hadn’t been diplomatic officials, as Ben had thought, as Elazar had told him. They’d been raiders from Grace Loray.
“Praise the Pious God,” Ben said, the words cutting his tongue.
“Indeed. Ah, here we are. Benat, Ibarra, you are dismissed.”
Ben turned, numb.
And stopped.
Paxben, wrists and ankles in manacles, shuffled into the room. The girl trailed him, her dark features bent in an ironclad expression of ferocity.
Defensors prodded Paxben to stop paces from Elazar and Ibarra, behind the desk. The girl stumbled into Paxben and pressed her hand on his back to right herself.
Her eyes shifted over Paxben’s shoulder, to Milo Ibarra.
“No,” she said, ducking behind Paxben. “No—”
Defensors yanked her forward, ignoring her pleas. She dropped to her knees as Ibarra bowed his farewell to the king, his eyes skimming over Paxben.
The look of victory on Ibarra’s face increased with a bellowing laugh.
“Why, Devereux Bell,” he said. Paxben lunged as Ibarra stepped around the table, but defensors kicked the backs of his legs, sending him to his knees. “I heard you’d escaped.”
“Who?” Ben asked.
Ibarra dropped his gaze to the girl, who caved forward—not in submission, but more like she was trying to hide. “A stream raider nuisance on this island,” Ibarra said. “The man your dear returned cousin pretended to be.”
Ben couldn’t see Paxben’s face, but wanted to, to see if the new name matched what his cousin had become.
“What I don’t understand is who she is,” Ibarra continued. “One of my informants said his lovestruck daughter freed Bell. But that girl is nothing but a meek lady, not a—”
Ibarra stopped. He crouched and ripped the girl’s head back, his fist tangling in her hair. Elazar did nothing to stop him—why would he? They were prisoners.
Ben fought the instinct that wanted him to dive forward. On the edge of his awareness, he saw Jakes, against the window, watching the situation. Watching him.
When Ben refocused on Ibarra, he had to blink twice to clear his vision, because this fuming, red-faced man couldn’t be the same self-confident general from before.
Ibarra shot to his feet, staring at the girl as his lips curled back over glinting teeth.
“Adeluna Andreu,” he said like he was trying to rearrange the letters to make something new. “You conniving bitch.”
“One of my informants said his lovestruck daughter was the one who freed Bell.”
Lu’s mouth dropped open.
One of my informants . . . his lovestruck daughter . . .
Pieces of her resolve had been chipping away since she had revealed her past to Vex. But that had not been destructive so much as recognizing the ache of wounds from long ago.
This was the final tap on fragile glass. The last bullet to take her down.
She was coming undone.
“I’m so sorry, Lulu-bean. I’m sorry this happened to you. It shouldn’t have happened—”
Her father had brought the news of the storehouse that had taken their soldiers away from the headquarters the night of the final battle. He had constructed most of the rebels’ plans, their attacks and how many soldiers would fight. Kari and others had orchestrated the alliance with the stream raiders. Tom hadn’t known of that until it was done.
Milo continued talking, and Lu came to with an aching jolt. He knew who she was now. Who she really was.
“—spy during the revolution,” he was telling the king. “A useless coward of a girl who ran away during the final fight. She tried to make a fool of me.”
I did make a fool of you, she wanted to say.
The king flicked his hand up, cutting off Milo, and Vex shifted toward Lu.
Elazar squinted at her with a level of calculation, as she might study a new plant. How can I use this? Or is it of use to me?
“I’ve heard stories of the final battle.” Elazar touched a look to Milo. “The stream raiders sided with the insurgents. If I remember, it was you who ran that night. But that is no matter.”
It was. In the way Elazar scorned Milo, stepping around him, focusing on Lu.
The fractured pieces vibrated in Lu’s body, her heart catching itself on things she was helpless to undo.
“You were the girl. The one they tortured,” Elazar said.
“No,” Vex responded. “She’s a member of my crew. She’s—”
“Every word out of you is toxic, nephew. The Devil’s impurities have infected you.” Elazar cupped his hands to his chest. “But your life has not been forfeit, praise the Pious God. You have brought me the final key to our salvation.”
Vex’s face pinched. Lu watched him, unable to bring herself to look at Elazar, whose voice carried the lilt of a man entrenched in insanity.
“You gave this girl treatments,” Elazar said. “More than enough to strike her down with Shaking Sickness within the year, according to you, General Ibarra.”
Lu rocked, caught herself. This was new information—she knew already that ingesting large amounts of plants caused Shaking Sickness, but the dosage controlled how quickly it killed people. The more plants a person had, the quicker the condition would claim them.
Her throat convulsed.
Lazonade. Awacia. Croxy. More, and more, until her mouth had burned and her stomach had felt scraped raw. Too much, she had known even then.
“Yet she survived. Again, according to you, Ibarra.”
Lu looked up at Milo, who stood off to the side. “Yes,” he stated. “It’s her, my king.”
Elazar smiled. “Then we have indeed been delivered.”
“Father
?”
Lu had forgotten the prince was in the room.
“My son.” Elazar clapped the prince on the shoulder. “You will figure out how this girl survived the disease that comes from magic overuse. With that information, you should have all you need to create the tonics as ordained by the Pious God.”
Vex had told her Elazar was desperate for the Shaking Sickness cure—but seeing the joy on the king’s face made Lu realize with horror how dangerous she was.
She knew how to cure people when they had too much magic. She could keep test subjects alive as Elazar tortured them in his experiments. Permanent magic was not impossible—the Mechts had manipulated Eye of the Sun in such a way—so he might, one day, figure out how to make any magic permanent.
With Lu’s help.
“But, Ibarra.” Elazar didn’t look back at him, his eyes going in an unspoken command to the defensors behind Lu. She heard them move, reaffirming their position, and Milo rose straighter. “You said this girl was the daughter of one of your informants, and yet you didn’t know her identity. Your informant didn’t tell you that his daughter was the girl from that final battle, and that she had miraculously survived without succumbing to Shaking Sickness. Why is that?”
“I—” Milo’s jaw bobbled open. His eyes fell to Lu with an accusatory glare, as though he was realizing the true weight of her presence in his life.
She had made him look a fool when he’d been unable to break her as a child; she had made him look a fool now when she’d proven his inability to recognize details. And, more, his inability to control his informants.
Had Tom known the gravity of what Lu had endured? Either he hadn’t realized what it meant that she hadn’t gotten Shaking Sickness, or he’d protected her.
Neither option gave Lu relief. She saw Tom smiling at her in a moldy cellar.
“Kari doesn’t know about this enemy. It will be so helpful to her, to the war. This is why you’re my Lulu-bean—because you can keep a secret so well, it’s as if you took a magic plant that sealed your lips. Now, just a quick trip. You won’t see a thing, I promise.”
Lu had murdered for her father. Had spied for him. Secret missions that Kari hadn’t known of, because Tom had stroked her head and smiled at her and loved her.
She had told herself they were enemies—she killed out of self-defense, but once, it had been intent. She had reasoned it all away as Tom had told her.
“They’re enemies, darling. Their deaths will help the war.”
But which side of the war had it helped? Who had she killed?
She heaved, her stomach folding inside out—but as she bent double over herself, she became so aware, too aware, of how she was kneeling before Milo.
“Clear the room,” said Elazar. “Not you, Ibarra. We must discuss your shortcomings. Benat, do what you must with this new tool. Defensors, dispose of my nephew.”
The prince made a trill of objection. “We may yet need him, Father. Let him live until I can figure out the girl’s compliance.”
Elazar nodded. “Bring him to the cells, then.”
As the room awoke, Milo’s glare remained on Lu, a hatred that she drowned in.
She was at his mercy, again. Manacled and a prisoner, with guards grabbing her arms, the prince saying, “To my laboratory. Chain her with my assistant.”
Suddenly it was five years ago, and she huddled next to Annalisa, watching as fate hunted her.
No, she’d thought that night in the headquarters. Whatever fate is coming, it is not Annalisa’s—it is mine. Mine alone.
She had known she deserved few of the good things she had gotten. Her skin was too soaked with blood, stained in ways she could never wash out—and that had been when she thought she’d killed people who at least deserved it, in some awful way.
But now.
What had she done? Had she killed innocent Grace Lorayans, threats who Argrid wanted out of the way? Had she murdered people who might have helped the revolution end sooner?
As Lu looked at Vex, seeing the wild panic in his eye, she went without a fight. The Argridians would try to use him against her if she fought, so she wouldn’t. She needed to hold out long enough for Cansu to rescue him.
Tenacity settled over her, suffocating but familiar. She had always known her fate, the last few years when she’d pretended to have a normal life. There it had waited, a shadow on the outskirts of her every thought: the knowledge that she did not deserve ease and normalcy. She had made this her future the moment she had obeyed her father.
Now that she knew the extent of what she had done, a strange calm descended over her. This was what she deserved, punishment and pain. It was righter now than it had ever been.
Vex’s panic raged when she stood. He scrambled up, held back by defensors.
“Don’t give in to what they want!” he cried. “Lu! Lu!”
They took her back out into the briny air. Lu twisted her hands so her palms faced up, holding pools of moonlight.
“Fight!” Vex cried behind her. “They’ll destroy you!”
But she knew the truth. I’ve been destroyed for years.
32
BEN SHOULD HAVE gone after the girl. Adeluna, Milo had called her. For the sake of his cover, he needed to march to the laboratory and examine her, or pretend to, to pick apart how she had kept herself from getting Shaking Sickness.
Which did pique Ben’s curiosity. She kept herself from getting Shaking Sickness? How is it possible?
Ben hung back outside the captain’s cabin until the defensors hauled Adeluna and Paxben belowdecks. Jakes talked with Elazar’s men near the railing, so Ben stayed by the door, counting the waves that broke, listening to his father berate Milo Ibarra within the closed room.
He reached twenty waves, and moved.
Two defensors guarded the cells, on the level above outside the hatch. They came to attention when he approached.
“No one is to disturb me,” Ben told them, shutting the hatch as he descended.
Stupid, what he was doing. But he was desperate.
Paxben stood in the center of the same locked cell as before, hands slung in his pockets, posture relaxed. When Ben stopped outside the cell, he saw his cousin shiver.
“What’d you do with her?” Paxben asked.
“She’ll be safe. I promise. I—”
They were alone. For the first time in more than six years.
“Paxben, I’m—”
“Vex.”
“What?”
“My name.” Paxben looked as though he was trying for ease, but his words came out hard. “It isn’t Paxben. It’s Vex, or Devereux, if you like.”
The name got stuck in Ben’s throat. “Fine. I need to tell you—”
“Wouldn’t kill you to put some furniture in here,” Paxben cut him off again. “Even the cells in New Deza have benches.”
“Would you—”
“I suspect these aren’t made for long-term prisoner accommodation, though.”
“Pax—Devereux!” Ben grabbed the bars of the cell, fighting to keep from shouting and alerting the defensors above. “Would you listen to me? I need to apolo—”
“No.” Paxben met his heave forward. “No, Ben. You don’t need to apologize, or help me, or do anything. Don’t throw your life away on me. I won’t let you.”
Ben’s jaw bobbled open. “You’re trying to protect me? Why?”
Paxben chuckled dryly. “He’s your father. You love him. But I know you love me too, so I’m not making you choose. I never wanted to put you in that situation.”
“Never wanted to—” Ben closed his eyes in realization.
That was why Paxben had never told him of Elazar’s madness. Why he had never invited him into Rodrigu’s plotting. The Ben who Paxben had known would have cried heresy and run to Elazar, asking his father if it was true. Ben had had to watch Rodrigu and Paxben die to realize Argrid wasn’t perfect.
“I was so stupid, Pax,” Ben whispered, not caring that he’d said the
wrong name. He wasn’t talking to this Paxben—he was talking to the one from years ago, who had struggled as Church defensors dragged him to the stake but had never once screamed for Ben’s help. Not while Rodrigu had shouted for Elazar. “All this time, I let it happen. I was guilty, and afraid, and I didn’t think there was another way. I gave up.”
He opened his eyes and grabbed the bars.
“I helped kill people,” Ben continued. “I helped kill you. I might not be able to do anything to stop them, not yet, but I’m not ignorant anymore. I’m sorry, Pax—Devereux. Vex. Whoever you want to be. I’m . . .” Ben deflated, head bowed. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s about damn time.”
Ben blinked to find Paxben grinning. Of all the reactions he’d expected—angry yelling, sulking resentment—a smile had not been one of them.
“I told my father”—Paxben faltered, saying the word with a discernable hitch—“that you’d be better than Elazar. The whole time we were helping the rebels? I was doing it for you, you idiot. I knew you’d be a king worth fighting for.”
“I’ve barely begun to make amends for everything I’ve let happen,” Ben argued. “And you’re speaking of kingship? You’ve seen how far Elazar’s reach extends.”
Paxben nodded, solemn. “I know.”
“Of course—I didn’t mean . . . I don’t know what to do. Our country is ill. Where is the source? What do I do to heal it? And you come back.” He blew out a breath. “I realize more each day how little control I have over anything.”
Paxben offered a weak smile. A cracked memory of a time long past.
“I wrote to you,” Paxben whispered. Then laughed at himself. “I knew I’d never send the letters. But I needed to talk to you. I told you about your father’s plans and what my father and I had tried to do. I told you about the night they raided our estate. I told you about the Church’s holding cells, and what they did, and how—” Paxben’s hand went to his eye patch. Ben’s gaze landed on it, and he realized that he’d let himself ignore it.
Not to embarrass Paxben, he thought. Or not to wallow in my own guilt?