Kingsbane

55



   Eliana

“The Sun Queen is selfless and pure. She protects and sacrifices. She never breaks. She is never tempted. She shines and she shines and she shines, and she gives all her light to others and keeps none for herself. That is what many of us have believed. But does that sound like a particularly kind life to you? Does that seem a life that any child of this world deserves?”

—The Word of the Prophet

When Eliana awoke, she was sitting in a chair, her arms and legs bound. It was a plain wooden chair, and she was sitting on the deck of a ship. An enormous ship, sleek and black, with red-and-black sails like mourning veils dipped in blood.

Like the tattered gown that clung to her—sweat-stained, bloodstained, drenched from the spray of water.

Awareness came to her in unsteady waves. She squinted at the horizon. There was Festival, slowly receding, but still close enough that, if she jumped, she could make the swim.

But she couldn’t jump without Remy.

She would escape these bindings and find him. Together, they would swim for the shore. They would find another boat, or maybe disappear into the cliffs around Festival. They would reunite with Harkan, Zahra, Patrik.

She reached for her castings—and found nothing. No answering spark of power, no heat flaring to life in her hands. She flexed her fingers. The lack of the chains she had made, the lightness of her palms without the weight of the discs resting inside them, made her stomach heave. Her hands were naked, stripped bare; her power was trapped inside her with nowhere to go.

She looked around, fury sharpening both her vision and her injuries. Her body ached from Jessamyn’s blows, spots of pulsing pain lighting a path across her body. She didn’t understand why Jessamyn had attacked her, what she had become in this new future, but her questions all disappeared when she saw Simon approach her across the deck.

He had exchanged his Jubilee finery for the sleek uniform of an Empire soldier. A trim, square-shouldered coat that fell to his knees. Red on black, trimmed with gold. The crest of the Emperor on his chest. A gleaming fresh sword at his belt.

And he wasn’t alone.

He dragged Remy along with him—one hand gripping his arm, the other holding a knife to his throat.

Eliana’s mouth went dry. She recognized that jagged blade.

Arabeth.

That, absurdly, was the thing that made tears spring to her eyes at last.

He had taken her favorite goddamned knife.

“Let him go,” she said, her voice hoarse.

“El,” Remy said, tear tracks shining on his cheeks. “Don’t do anything they say. If they kill me, they kill me. Don’t give in. Don’t let them win.”

“He won’t hurt you, Remy,” Eliana said automatically.

Simon raised an eyebrow. “Won’t I?”

His voice belonged to the Wolf, iced over and unfeeling.

And Eliana realized, slowly, the truth bleeding slow and cold down her body, that he would do it. He would. He had killed everyone else. He had stood not twenty feet from her and shot them all down.

Remy began to sob.

“It’s all right,” she lied, her voice trembling. “It’s going to be all right.”

She looked away from him, unable to bear the sight of his fear. Instead she focused her rage on Simon’s implacable face. Her memories slapped her, merciless—Simon moving inside her, pinning her to her bed. Simon kissing his way down her body. Simon murmuring words of love against her skin.

Her tears came faster. Her mind spun, searching futilely for answers. And still Simon stood there, Remy weeping in his arms. He watched her expressionlessly, as if she were a stranger, as if they hadn’t shared a single moment together, much less a bed.

“How did you do this?” she whispered. She wanted to yell at him, curse at him, tear herself from the chair and launch herself at him, claw his eyes from his skull, bash his head in, tear out his guts with the blade he was pressing against her brother’s throat. “Why did you do this?”

No answer came. Instead, Admiral Ravikant approached from across the deck, still wearing his awful beaked mask. He held his hands behind his back. He stood in silence, observing them all.

Then he said, “Scarlett, you lied to me.”

“And you knew it,” she said quietly. “You were, what, toying with me? Stalling for time until your ship was ready? Until the army arrived?”

“I’m not going to explain myself to you,” he replied. “Instead I want to tell you what’s going to happen here. I want you to understand your future.”

Away from the crowded ballroom, his masked voice no longer sounded so muffled and strange. In fact, it was almost familiar, though Eliana couldn’t identify it. A note of alarm sounded in her mind; a frantic instinct was screaming at her, warning her.

“Who are you?” she whispered. “I know you.”

“You will be put into a cell,” he said, “until you’ve showed me that you merit something better. The Emperor has given me permission to treat you this way, because you have proven yourself undeserving of kindness. If you try to attack me, or Simon, or any of my crew, if you make even a single move of aggression, I will begin cutting your brother. I won’t kill him. I will cut him, and I will keep cutting him, and I will make you watch. He will beg me to kill him. You will beg me to kill him. And I won’t do it. I will keep him alive and awake so that he feels every moment of pain. So I suggest you do as I tell you.”

Eliana’s mind, shattered and grieving as it was, nevertheless had begun to identify the admiral’s voice. His stature, the shape of his hands. An ill feeling rose inside her, and kept rising, until her mouth had filled with the urge to be sick.

Then he took off his mask, confirming it.

The face of Ioseph Ferracora stared back at her—a jutting chin, like Remy. Dark hair, pale skin, eyes like two thick drops of black paint.

“No!” Remy cried, his voice splitting open. His sobs were terrible, ragged and squalling, and he tried to turn his face away from the sight of their father, staring at them with angel-dark eyes, but Simon wouldn’t let him. Simon, a cruel smile playing at the corner of his mouth, held Remy right where he was.

• • •

The next few minutes passed in a numb black blur.

Eliana was taken below, led downstairs by half a dozen blank-eyed adatrox. Her wrists were bound with chains, as were her ankles—their chains, and not her own. Her chest ached from the loss of her castings; her grief for them snatched away her balance. She fell down the last two steps, and the adatrox let her. They yanked her back to her feet, dispassionate, brutally efficient.