(A Few Hours Earlier...)
The obsidian throne stands on a dais at the center of the round, dome-roofed throne room. The great, hulking thing is carved from solid black stone in the shape of flames that appear to kiss whoever sits upon it. It's plain, almost ugly, amid all the gold and grandeur that surround it, but it is certainly commanding, and that is what matters.
Labians believe that the throne was drawn forth from the volcanoes of Labia and left here in Sozzaria for them by their gods, ensuring that they would one day come and save the country from its weak and willful rulers. To me, that was just a lie to make them powerful. I believed the kingdom was made another way, without judging anyone.
That story whispers through my mind now in a familiar lilting voice, but, like a distant star you try to look at directly, it's quick to fade if I focus on it. It's better left forgotten, anyway. It's safer to live only in the present, to be a girl with no past to yearn for and no future to have ripped away.
I came to the castle to fill in for my father-Jack Spade- on the court stuff. I had worn a male uniform my father sent in a box just in case he was absent. It was the first time I had ever been to any castle event
The thick crowd of courtiers, dressed in finery, parts easily for me to make my way toward the King. I look around and the courtiers all wear Gems for beauty and grace—so many that to look at them is almost blinding. There are others as well—red Gems for warmth, golden yellow Gems for strength.
I scan the room. Amid a sea of pale, blond Labians, Ivan stands out in his place off to the side of the throne. He's the only other Sozzarian not in chains, but he's hardly a welcome sight. After the siege, he turned himself over to the King and begged for his life, offering his services as a helper. Now the King keeps him around to use as a spy in the capital and as a healer for the royal family. And for me. After all, I'm not as much fun to beat if I black out from the pain.
My cousin Bella was not allowed to join me due to her Rodney blood. My mother was fully Sozzarian and her family had stayed in the country and never left. After she met and married my father, I became the first Labian-Sozzarian woman to be born into the world. However, I was considered the black sheep to many people. I'm always alone when Bella's not with me. I should be used to it by now, though I don't think it's the kind of thing a person ever grows used to.
The King leans forward in his seat, cold eyes glinting in the sunlight that pours through the stained-glass roof. He looks at me the way he might a squashed bug that dirtied the bottom of his shoe.
I stare at the dais instead, at the flames carved there. Not angering the King is what keeps me alive. He could have sent me to the army in the last decade and he hasn't. Isn't that a kindness?
"There you are, Luna Spade." To anyone else, the greeting might sound pleasant, but I flinch. There is always a trick with the King, a game to play, a thin line to balance on. I know from experience that if he is playing at kindness now, cruelty can't be far behind.
"You requested my presence, Your Highness?" I ask, dropping into a bow.
Before the King can answer, a guttural cry shatters the still air. When I rise, I notice a man standing to the left of the throne, held in place between two guards. Rusted chains are wrapped around his gaunt legs, arms, and neck so tightly they cut through his skin. His clothes are tattered and blood-drenched and his face is a mottled mess of broken bones and torn skin. Beneath the blood, he's clearly Sozzarian, with fair skin, brown hair, and deep-set eyes. He looks much older than me, though it's impossible to say exactly how old he is with all the damage that's been done to him.
He is a stranger. But his dark eyes search mine as if he knows me, imploring, begging, and I rake through my memories—who could this be and what does he want from me? I have nothing for him. Nothing left for anyone. Then the world shifts beneath my feet.
I remember those eyes from another lifetime, set in a gentle face a decade younger and unbloodied.
There is one man always mentioned in connection with the rebellions. One man who has a hand in every move made against the King. One man whose name alone is enough to send the King into a wild-eyed rage that leaves me whipped so hard I have to stay in bed for days. One man whose acts of defiance have caused me so much pain, but who has been my one spark of hope when I dare let myself imagine there is an after to these infernal years.
No wonder the King is so happy. He's finally caught the last of Sozzaria's main guards. Oliver.
"My King," he says. His voice carries so that everyone gathered in the silent throne room hears his treason.
He wasn't thinking straight. He might be hallucinating from the brutal torture he's been through. They even went so far for him to think I was his king.
I shrink back from his words. No, I want to tell him. I am not a King. I am Lady Luna, Half-blood Labian. I am not who you think I am.
It takes me a moment to realize he's speaking Sozzarian, speaking forbidden words once used to address the previous rulers. In another life, the royal family had an heir. A prince I idolized. That boy was told that one day he would be king, but he never wanted that to be true. After all, being king meant living in a world where his family no longer existed, and that had been unfathomable.
But that boy died a decade ago; there is no help for him now.
The man lurches, weighed down by his chains. He's too weak to make it to the door, but he doesn't even try for it. Instead, he topples to the ground at my feet, fingers on my black boots and staining the floor red.
No. Please. Part of me wants to drag him up and tell him he's mistaken. Another part wants to shrink away from him because this uniform was given from my father and he's getting blood on it. And yet another wants to scream at him that his words are going to ruin us both, but at least he will have the mercy of death.
"He refused to speak to anyone but you," King Mark says in an acid voice.
"Me?" My heart is beating so hard in my chest that I'm surprised the whole court can't hear it. Every eye in the room is on me; everyone is waiting for me to slip, desperate for the slightest hint of rebellion so that they can watch the King beat it out of me again. I will not give it to them.
I will not anger the King and he will keep me alive. I repeat the mantra to myself again and again, but the words have grown limp.
The King leans forward on his throne, eyes bright. I've seen that look too often before; it haunts my nightmares. He is a shark that has caught the scent of blood in the water. "Don't you know him?"
This is the King's favorite kind of question to ask. The kind without a right answer.
I look back at the man, as if struggling to place him, even as his name screams through my mind. More memories come and I force them back. The King is watching me carefully, waiting for any sign that I am not under his thumb. But I can't look away from this man's eyes.
"No. We just met today."
As a Soldier, he would travel often to keep the country safe, but he always returned with sweets, toys, and new stories for the heir. Once I clutched his red gem that always hung around his neck when he visited our village. Its magic would buzz through me like a lullaby, singing me to sleep.
When the King and Queen died and the world I knew turned to dust, I waited for him to save everyone. That hope waned with every soldier's head the King had piked in the square, but it never disappeared. I still heard whispers about Oliver's rebellions, and those kept my hope alive, even after all the other Soldiers fell. Few and far between as they were, I clung to them. As long as he was out there, as long as he was fighting, I knew he would save all of us. I never let myself imagine, even in my worst nightmares, that I would see him like this.
I try to empty my mind, but it's futile. Even now, a dim hope flickers in my heart that this day will have a happy ending, that we will see another sunrise together, free.
It's a stupid, dangerous hope, but it burns all the same.
Tears sting at my eyes, but I cannot let them fall.
He doesn't wear his gem now. Taking it was the first thing the King's men would have done when they captured him. For an untrained courtier, a single gem can barely provide enough warmth to keep them comfortable on a winter's night, but Oliver was blessed. One gem was all he would need to burn this palace to the ground.
"This is the famed soldier Oliver," the King says, drawing out each word mockingly. "You must remember him. He's been sowing treason throughout the mines, trying to rally them against me. He even instigated the riot in the fourth mine last week. Silas found him nearby and brought him in."
"Wasn't it an earthquake that incited the riot?" The words slip out before I can stop them. King Mark's jaw clenches and I recoil, readying for a strike that doesn't come. Yet.
"Caused by him, we suspect, in order to rally more people to the cause," he says.
I have a retort for that, too, but I bite it back and let confusion cloud my features. "What cause, Your Highness?" I ask. "I wasn't aware that there was one."
His smile sharpens. "The one seeking to, as they say, 'restore the heir to their rightful place as King of Sozzaria.' "
I swallow. This conversation is taking an entirely new direction, and I'm not sure what to make of it. I think I'd almost prefer the whip to whatever new game this is.
My eyes drop to the ground. "I'm not anyone's King, and there is no Sozzaria anymore. I am a lady, by Your Highness's mercy. The real heir died long ago. This is my rightful place, and the only one I desire."
I can't look at Oliver as I tell him that his hallucinations were not true. I've only said it once and that's today and it doesn't mean anything, but saying it in front of a veteran causes shame to run through my veins.
The King nods. "I said as much, but Sozzarians are stubborn old mules."
The throne room erupts into laughter. I laugh, too, but it is a sound wrenched from my gut. Have they forgotten I'm half Sozzarian?
The King turns to Oliver, his expression a mockery of sympathy. "Come and bow before me, mule. Tell me where I can find your rebels and you can spend the rest of your days in one of the mines." He grins at the broken man still lying at my feet.
Agree! I want to yell. Pledge your loyalty to him. Survive. Do not anger the King and he will keep you alive. These are the rules.
"I bow before no one but my King," Oliver whispers, tripping over the hard edges of the Labian language. Despite his low voice, his words carry throughout the room, followed by gasps and murmurs from the court.
He raises his voice. "Long live King Sky Newton."
Something shatters within me, and everything I've held back, every theory I've repressed, every moment I've tried to forget—it all comes rushing forward and I can't stop it this time. I look in shock, why is he doing this now out of all times? I was not the King, the real heir died in the invasion unless...
The Prince is alive.
He was supposed to save him, but he never did. I've been waiting for ten years for someone to come for him, and Oliver was the last scrap of hope he had.
"Maybe he'll answer to you, Luna," the King says.
My shock is dim, drowned out by the sound of my name echoing again and again in my mind. "I…I couldn't presume to have that power, Your Highness," I manage.
His mouth purses in an expression I know all too well. The King is not a man to be refused.
"This is why I keep you alive, isn't it? To assist as a liaison to bullheaded Sozzarian scum?"
The King kept me alive because I was half Labian, I think, but then I realize once again that he doesn't spare me out of kindness. He keeps me alive to use me as leverage against my other nationality.
My thoughts are growing bolder now, and though I know they are dangerous, I can no longer quiet them. And for the first time, I don't want to.
I've been waiting for ten years to know if the heir is really alive, and the only ones that know are the Labian guards and the dead rebels. With Oliver caught, there is nothing more the King can take. We both know he is not merciful enough to kill him.
"May I speak Sozzarian?" I ask the King. "He might feel more at ease…."
The King waves a hand and slumps back into his chair. "So long as it gets me answers."
I hesitate before dropping to my knees in front of Oliver, taking his shredded hands in mine. Even though the Sozzarian language is forbidden, some of the courtiers here must understand it. I doubt the King would let me speak it otherwise.
"Are there others?" I ask him. The words sound unnatural in my mouth, though Sozzarian was the only language I spoke until the Labians came. They pried it away from me, made it illegal to speak. I can't remember the last time an Sozzarian word passed my lips, but I still know the language somewhere deeper than thought, as if it's embedded in my very bones. Still, I have to struggle to keep the sounds soft-edged and long, unlike the halting and throaty speech of the Labians.
He hesitates before nodding. "Are you safe?"
I have to pause a moment before speaking. "Of course I am. Is your King alive?"
He shakes his head and drops his gaze from mine. "Alive and imprisoned," he chokes out, though he draws out the second syllable to sound more like "dead" to lazy ears.
That doesn't make any sense. The heir was imprisoned for a long time and presumed dead to the public. Most Sozzarians are slaves now, though there were rumors they were working with some allies in other countries. It's been too long since I've spoken Sozzarian; I must have mistranslated.
"Why?" I press.
Oliver sticks his gaze to the hem of my skirt and shakes his head. "Today is done, the time has come for little birds to fly. Tomorrow is near, the time is here for old crows to die."
My heart recognizes the words before my mind does. They're part of an old Sozzarian lullaby. My mother sang it to me before she died, and so did my relatives. Did my father ever sing it to me himself?
"Give him something and he'll let you live," I say.
Oliver laughs, but it quickly turns into a wheeze. He coughs and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. It comes away bloody.
"What life would it be at the mercy of a tyrant?"
It would have been easy enough to slur together a pair of consonants and make the Sozzarian word for tyrant sound like the one for dragon, the symbol of the Labian royal family, but Oliver spits out the word with enough emphasis, directing it at the King, so that even those who don't speak a word of Sozzarian can understand his meaning.
The King leans forward in his chair, fingers gripping the arms of the throne so tightly they turn white. He gestures to one of the guards.
The guard draws his sword and steps toward Oliver's prone form. He presses the blade to the back of Oliver's neck, drawing blood, before lifting the sword again to ready the killing strike. I've seen this done too many times to other rebels or slaves who disrespected their masters. The head never comes off on the first swing. I ball my fists in the material of my dress to keep from reaching out to shield him. There is no saving him now. I know that, but I can't fathom it. Images swim before my eyes, and I see the knife drawing across my mother's throat. I see slaves whipped until the life leaves their bodies. I see soldiers' heads on pikes in the capital square until the crows take them apart. I've seen people hanged for going against the King, for having the courage to do what I haven't.
Run, I want to tell him. Fight. Beg. Bargain. Survive.
But Oliver doesn't flinch from the blade. The only move he makes is to reach out and tether himself to my ankle. The skin of his palm is rough and scarred and sticky with blood.
The time is here for old crows to die. But I can't let the Kaiser take another person from me. I can't watch Oliver die. I can't.
"No!"
The voice forces its way through the fractured bits of me.
"No?" The King's softly spoken word echoes in the silence and raises goose bumps down my spine.
My mouth is dry, and when I speak, my voice rasps. "You offered him mercy if he spoke, Your Highness. He did speak."
The King leans forward. "Did he? I may not speak Sozzarian, but he didn't seem particularly forthcoming."
The words flow before I can stop them. "He had only half a dozen comrades left. He believes the remaining men and women were killed in the earthquake in the Air Mine, but if any survived, they are supposed to meet him just south of the Englmar ruins. There is a cluster of cypress trees there."
There is at least a fraction of truth in that. I used to play in those trees every summer when my mother took her annual tour of the town that had been leveled by an earthquake the year before I was born. Five hundred people had died that day. Until the siege, it was the greatest tragedy Sozzaria had ever faced.
The King tilts his head and watches me too closely, as if he can read my thoughts like words on a page. I want to cower, but I force myself to hold his gaze, to believe my lie.
After what feels like hours, he motions to the guard next to him. "Take your best men. There's no telling what magic the heathens have."
The guard nods and hurries from the room. I'm careful to keep my face impassive, even while I want to weep with relief. But when the Kaiser turns his cold eyes back to me, that relief turns hard and sinks to the pit of my stomach.
"Mercy," he says quietly, "is an Sozzarian virtue. It is what makes you weak, but I'd hoped we saved you from that. Perhaps blood always wins out in the end."
He snaps his fingers and the guard forces the hilt of his iron sword into my hands. I give it back and bring out my dagger. It's the first time that I've been allowed to handle any kind of weapon, for that matter. Once, I would have welcomed it—anything to make me feel like I had a little bit of power—but instead, my stomach lurches as I look at Oliver lying at my feet and realize what the King expects me to do.
I shouldn't have spoken up; I shouldn't have tried to save him. Because there is something worse than watching the light leave the eyes of the only person I have left in the world—it's driving the sword into him myself. My stomach twists at the thought and bile rises into my throat. Everything feels too much, hurts too badly, hates too fiercely to be contained now.
"Perhaps sparing your life was a mistake." His voice is casual, but it makes the threat all the clearer. "Traitors receive no pardons, from me or the gods. You know what to do."
I barely hear him. I barely hear anything. Blood pounds in my ears, blurring my vision and my thoughts until all I can see is Oliver lying at my feet.
I turn to the king for a moment, "Your highness, can I have a few moments alone with him. I'm scared I'll get upset."
The king nods, "Five minutes, and you better kill him."
I knelt down at Oliver and hold his bloody hand, his grip twitching.
"Go, save the King," he says in Sozzarian.
He want me to save him? The man who was planning to do it before getting caught is asking me to do it.
"I can't, not now. I'm not like you!" I stated, about to cry.
"You must," he says, but there is nothing I can do for him. "Take him and run, if you hide his escape and take refuge in your home, you two might be safe.
I could not take this child and return home. Once I do, I'll be on the run till I'm dead. I want to be safe and keep the prince out of this.
"Please," he says, before launching into rapid Sozzarian that I struggle to keep up with. "Or he will kill you, too. It is time for the After to welcome me. Time to see his parents again. But it is not your time yet. You will do this. You two will live and fight through it." And I understand. I almost wish I didn't. His blessing is its own kind of curse. If I am to survive, I must be strong enough to live up to the task.
I must be someone new.
My hands begin to shake as I press the dagger into his heart. Oliver is right; someone will do it, whether it's me or one of the King's guards, but I will make it quicker, easier. Is it better to have your life ended by someone who hates you or someone who loves you?
He turns his head so that his eyes meet mine. There is something familiar in his gaze that wrings my heart in my chest and makes it impossible to breathe. There is no doubt left in me. This man became a legend.
"You are your mother's child," he whispers.
I tear my eyes away from him and focus on the King instead, holding his gaze. "Bend not, break not," I say clearly, quoting the Labian motto before I plunge the dagger into his heart. His body is so weak, so mangled already, that it's almost easy. Blood gushes up and I stand before it got onto my uniform.
Oliver gives a twitch and a shallow cry before going limp. I put my dagger away numbly. Two other guards step forward to drag the body away, leaving a trail of slick red in its wake.
"Take the body to the square and hang it for everyone to see. Anyone who tries to move it will join him," the King says before turning back to me. His smile pools in the pit of my stomach like oil. "Good girl."
I bow before the Kaiser, my body moving without my mind's consent. I feel me eyes glowing in a way I couldn't describe, but it stopped a second later.
I drop into another shallow curtsy and bow my head. "Excuse me, Your Highness. I'm gonna clean myself up."
When I left the throne room, I realized the words I said don't feel like my own. I want to scream. I want to cry. I want to take that bloody sword back and stab it into the King's chest, even if I die in the process.
"It is not your time yet," Oliver's voice whispers through my mind. "You two must live and fight through it."
I clutch the dagger and put on the helmet I left in the hall. Oliver is dead, but with me is a chance to redeem myself.