THE PRINCES’ BANE.
There’s nothing past those three words. The world stills and I search my memories for something – a clue, a sign, a trace. Instead of coming away empty, I come away with the idea that I’m a fool.
We rescued Lira from the middle of the ocean, with no other ship in sight. When she first gained consciousness, there was something inexplicably enthralling about her, broken only in the moment when she tried to attack me. She spoke Psáriin on the deck of my ship. And – gods – that siren. What had she said? Parakaló. She begged for her life and I hadn’t thought to question it, even though no siren had ever done such a thing. Of course she would beg. Not to me, but to one of her own. To her princess.
“You of all people didn’t know?” Yukiko asks.
I don’t reply.
I knew Lira was hiding something, but I never imagined this.
My hand flies to my chest, pressing against the scars that lie under the fabric of my shirt. Scars so similar to the ones I saw on Rycroft after Lira was through with him. That day in Midas, the Princes’ Bane found me when I couldn’t find her. She let a mermaid drown my strength and then scraped her claws across my heart as she readied to rip it from my chest. If the royal guards hadn’t come, then she would have killed me.
Lira would have killed me.
I draw my sword the moment Lira’s eyes dash to mine. At first I’m not sure what I plan to do past gripping the blade so tightly, it crushes my bones. But when Lira doesn’t move, even as I advance closer and closer, it only ignites the anger inside me. The betrayal. She doesn’t even have the decency to flinch.
“Elian.”
She says my name in a breath and I lose all sense.
“I’m going to kill you,” I say.
Even as a human, Lira is quick. Faster than most novice fighters I’ve encountered and far more fluid. She’s sloppy, but there’s something primal in it. I cut my blade toward her and she rolls her shoulder back in one swift movement. She looks shocked but recovers enough to launch a punch in my direction. I grab her wrist inches from my face and twist. Teeth bared, she kicks with brutal force. I whirl out of the way, but her foot clips my thigh and pain shoots up my leg.
I nod at her belt. “Your sword,” I say.
“You care if I’m unarmed?” she asks.
“Don’t mistake honor for caring,” I seethe. “If I have to, I’ll run you through defenseless.”
I swing toward her again and she twists awkwardly out of my path. The second she’s not within reach, I hear the sound of metal being drawn.
Lira lifts the sword in a perfect arc, just as I taught her, and snarls.
I see the animal in her then.
Our swords scream together. Steel on steel.
I block as Lira hacks a blow through the air, and I seize her wrist once more. When I bend it harshly to the left, her sword falls from her hand. I spin her into me, pinning her arms against her. My heart pounds furiously on her back as she writhes against my grip. She feels cold – she always does – but sweat licks between us.
“Finish her!” Yukiko screams.
I swallow and consider the sword locked between us. My hands can’t move from Lira to get the right angle, and the thought of being this close – of being able to hear her gasp and feel the life leave her – is too much.
I’m sick with it.
I think of the taste of her kiss, with the stories of stars roofing us. An entire galaxy watched while her body curved into mine. As she asked me to kiss her and it was all I could do to keep myself steady.
Lira angles her cheek toward me now and lets out a low breath.
Then she brings her elbow up and cracks it across my jaw.
I drop my hold on her and she pitches forward to retrieve her sword. With a mirthless laugh, I press a hand to my mouth.
“You certainly live up to your legend,” I say.
“Enough, Elian.” She points her sword between us like a barrier.
I spit blood on the floor. “It’ll be enough when you’re dead.”
When I charge again, I ignore everything but the betrayal that roars through me. I land blow after blow, striking my blade on hers. Again and again. Each attack shrieks through the air, and time seems to move all at once and yet stop dead just the same. Endless seconds and minutes, until she falls to her knees and the crystal rolls onto the floor with her.
Lira doesn’t reach for it and so neither do I. I can’t do anything but wonder how much longer she will keep the sword roofed above her head. Sheltering her from my onslaught.
She takes each blow with a dead look in her eyes. Then her elbows start to shake and her ankle finally collapses. The blade clatters to the cold floor. Lira sprawls on the ground, waiting, her expression indifferent. Giving me the opening I thought I wanted.
She squeezes her seashell necklace and I flinch. It’s like she’s teasing me with every clue I was blind to. I raise my weapon again, feeling heavy steel in my hands. I can have Cristian’s revenge. The revenge of every prince who died in the ocean and every one who may die yet. I can kill her and be done with it.
I drop my sword.
Lira heaves a breath. Sweat paints across her brow and the unsettled look in her eyes slits straight through me. I wish I had killed her. I wish she had killed me. Instead we stare at each other, and then Lira shakes her head and kicks my legs out from under me.
When I slam to the floor beside her, she lets out a frustrated sigh. “Next time you want to kill someone,” she says, “don’t hesitate.”
“Shouldn’t I be saying that to you?”
“What are you doing?” Yukiko asks. I sit up as the Págese princess scowls down at me. “She’s the Princes’ Bane.”
She says it like she thinks I might have forgotten. As though it’s a possibility that I let Lira live because I really am that stupid and not because I really am that human.
I stand and brush myself off. “I’m aware,” I say, and snatch both swords from the floor.
“She came for the crystal,” Yukiko says. “Just as we did.”
“And now she’s going to leave without it.”
Lira eyes the Crystal of Keto a few inches from where she sits hunched over on the floor. But she doesn’t even try to reach for the very thing she came here for.
“Get up,” I say.
Yukiko lurches forward. “You can’t do this,” she says, outraged. “If your crew wasn’t sleeping like corpses on the other side of this palace, they would tell you that you can’t just let her go.”
I incline my head slowly toward Yukiko. “You’re not a queen yet. Don’t think for a second that you can tell me what to do any more than they can.”
I wipe the dried blood from my mouth. I always seem to have it on me, but tonight is one of the few times it has been mine. Last time it was below the deck of Rycroft’s ship. Last time it was Lira’s.
On cue, Lira gets to her feet and watches for what I’ll do next. I don’t want to be shaken, but I am. I see her standing there, waiting for my next command like a loyal member of the crew, and the chains holding me together break like cords.
“Go back to where you came from,” I tell Lira. “Right now.”
I crouch down to scrape the crystal from the floor and Lira wavers. I see her shadow move uncertainly in the dim light. Time drags through the room like mud.
“I wish this could be the end,” she says.
It sounds more like a warning than a threat, if there was ever a difference between the two. A divination of the inevitable battle to come. I don’t answer. Instead I wait for her footsteps to disappear from the dome, and it’s only when I’m sure she’s gone that I stand.
“You can’t let her live,” Yukiko says darkly.
“She’ll have plenty of time to die.” I palm the crystal. “Right beside her mother.”
Yukiko is disbelieving. “I warned you about this,” she says. “Love is not for kings. You’ll see that soon enough when we’re married.”
“You can stop talking about marriage now,” I tell her. “It won’t happen.”
Yukiko matches my look with added sharpness. “A prince who goes back on his word? How novel.”
“I told you that I was going to give you an alternative.” Impatience seeps into my voice. “I may not want to be king of Midas, but I know I sure as hell don’t want you to be queen.”
“And what offer could you give me that would be any more appealing?”
I grit my teeth. Reactions are all Yukiko ever seems to want, and Lira took the last I had left in me. “I assume you know of Queen Galina’s affliction.”
“My brother made me privy to the information when he took the throne.”
“Kardiá is gaining prominence through trade deals with other kingdoms. Their queen is proving to be popular in the north. Galina can’t compete with that if she can’t interact with her people for fear of infecting them. Eidýllio is suffering because she has chosen not to take another husband to help her rule.”
Yukiko’s disinterest is well-practiced. “Why should I care?”
“Because she said nothing about not taking a wife.”
“You want me to become the queen of Eidýllio?” Yukiko cackles disbelievingly.
“A queen,” I correct.
“And why would Galina agree to that?”
“Her power doesn’t affect women. You’d be able to liaise with the other kingdoms on her behalf, meeting dignitaries and diplomats. You’d see the people and inspire loyalty. All the things that Galina can’t do.”
“And the heirs?” Yukiko asks.
“She has no interest in continuing her cursed legacy.”
“You’ve thought it all through,” Yukiko practically purrs. “Even speaking to the queen?”
“Galina agreed it would be a mutually beneficial arrangement, especially if it gives her ties to Efévresi as well as Págos. And, of course, places Midas in her debt.”
“And if I refuse?”
I set my jaw. “Either you marry a powerful queen and rule by her side, or you stay in Midas with a future king who will question your every move.” I slip the crystal into my pocket beside my compass. “Who knows if I’ll even survive today? Do you really want to be engaged to a prince with a death sentence?”
Yukiko studies me and I know that it’s irrelevant whether or not this is a good deal. Right now she only cares about winning, and if she concedes so easily, then it won’t matter if she gets a powerful kingdom as a prize. To her, losing face is worse than winning a kingdom.
“I have a condition,” she says.
“Of course you do.”
“When the time comes, I want the Princes’ Bane to die by your blade.”
My hands clench in my pocket, knuckles cracking against the compass. Just like the owner of the Golden Goose to be as immoral as her patrons and just like a princess to make demands with the fate of humanity on the line.
I blink back the image of Lira’s wavering shadow and the look in her eyes when she realized I knew the truth of her identity. How she pushed me from the path of Rycroft’s bullet and asked me to kiss her on the edge of a mountain. I force myself to remember that lying is her greatest talent.
I school my features into indifference. “I can assure you,” I tell Yukiko, “the next time I face her, I won’t even blink.”
I feel the compass jolt against my hand and, slowly, the pointer shifts.