Page 59

Morgana

I t’s dusk when we reach Hallowbane, the sun dipping low over its mix of gaudy wealth and harsh poverty.

Damia and Stratton flank Tira and me on our horses as Leon rides on ahead.

Five humans fan out around us—members of the Hand Harman insisted we take with us, including the person I’ve by now realized is his right-hand woman, Esther.

The rest of the fae soldiers stayed behind in Tread with Alastor and Dots.

Alastor’s not well enough yet to travel, and Leon didn’t want him left alone with the rebels.

It felt strange to split the group up, but I understand Leon not being ready to fully trust Harman yet.

“Not far now,” he says when I draw parallel with him.

“Do you think he’ll be happy to see us?” I ask wryly.

“Probably not, but if this information is as important as your brother claims it is, Wadestaff will see the advantages of getting it for us.”

I study Leon’s face. I know he’s not happy about us deviating from our original plan, trying to uncover Caledon’s secrets instead of just going straight to Elmere and killing Oclanna. Not to mention the strain of working with the Hand after the years he’s spent hating them. Speaking of which…

“What were you talking to Alastor about at the Crossed Keys?” I ask. “Right before we left?” I’m pretty sure I know the answer, but I want to see how honest he’ll be.

His eyes slide toward me.

“We were talking about his power, discussing when he thinks it’ll be back to full strength.”

“Any particular reason?” I ask knowingly.

“If there’s truth to be had about the death of my parents, it won’t come easily,” Leon says. “The members of the Hand are used to living covertly—they’re the type most resistant to Alastor’s power.”

“Members of the Hand…like my brother,” I say. Leon meets my gaze but doesn’t deny it. This is the uneasy reality we have to accept at the moment—we’re playing by Harman’s rules and keeping a wary eye on him at the same time.

Suddenly, Leon stiffens, and Damia draws up beside us.

“We’re being watched,” she murmurs, and Leon nods.

“Yes, I feel it too,” Leon says.

My heartrate picking up, I glance around us, looking for some kind of movement in the shadows. We are at a crossroads where the alleys of Hallowbane open up into a main street. The windows in the houses around us are mostly dark, and the nearest shop front is boarded up.

“We should get off the crossroads,” Leons says. “We’re too vulnerable he?—”

The clatter of something collapsing in one of the nearby alleys has everyone drawing their swords. I grab my knife from my belt and concentrate on readying my magic, trying to see into the dark.

Something dashes past my vision to my left, and I whip my head around in time to see Esther being pulled off her horse.

She cries out but fights back against whatever’s grabbed her, and the rebels rush to help her, blades flashing.

Moments later, they drag a body around from behind her horse, and my heart stops for a beat before I realize it’s not Esther.

She follows behind. Her sleeve is ripped open, and blood is dripping from a deep scratch down her forearm, but she looks in far better shape than the creature on the ground.

It takes a beat before I can even identify it as a person.

Or rather, what’s left of one. His face is the gray of rotting flesh, his mouth an open, oozing black hole.

He’s dead, his torso all but split in two by the rebel’s weapons, but I’m sure he must’ve been dying before today.

His hands are contorted into claws, and I notice several fingers are missing, the wounds old and congealed.

“What is that?” Tira gasps.

“The ruined,” Esther says, grabbing her horse’s reins. “We need to go; there’ll be more.”

As if her words have summoned them, a host of heavy, rasping breaths come from the alleyway to my right.

“Back up!” Leon shouts. Stratton and Damia draw their horses tighter around Tira and me as three more gray-skinned beings sprint out of the darkness toward us.

Stratton pulls something from his belt—it looks like a glass jar of water—and hurls it at the nearest attacker.

It explodes upon impact, searing red burns across his skin.

The man stumbles but doesn’t stop moving, unconcerned by the sizzling of his flesh.

Damia grunts behind me, and I look down to see another one of them attacking her horse while more of the “ruined” emerge from the alleys behind us.

Damia’s got a blade embedded in the creature’s shoulder, but that doesn’t deter him.

He already has several gouges in his face he doesn’t seem to have noticed—one so deep I can see his teeth through it.

I pull my horse around as best I can and bury my knife in the ruined’s neck, pinning him between our two blades so he can’t move.

“Hold tight,” Damia grunts as she puts all her weight into her sword, the blade sinking deeper.

The gray-skinned man barely reacts to the fact he’s being slowly decapitated, continuing to try to rip and tear at Damia with his rotting hands.

She kicks them back with her foot to avoid the worst of his scratches until his movements start to slow.

I look away, feeling dark blood pour over my fingers and wondering how people don’t vomit in the middle of battle.

Then his arms finally stop scrabbling, and Damia puts her foot against his chest, shoving against him so our blades slide free and his body hits the ground.

I look up to see one of the rebels lying dead on the ground, his neck at an odd angle, but everyone else seems to be holding their own, and Leon is in his element.

His sword spins so fast it’s a blur as he slices through body after body.

Then a high- pitched scream pierces straight through my heart. I recognize it instantly.

“Tira!” I shout as I whip my head around to see she’s down off her horse, two ruined dragging her across the ground.

Terror tunnels my vision as my blood boils in my veins. I throw my hands out and shoot a pair of blazing sun beams across the street, burning holes straight through the backs of Tira’s attackers.

They fall instantly, and I sprint toward my friend, grabbing her to me. There’s a scratch across her neck, and her clothes are torn up from being dragged, but she looks otherwise okay. Until her eyes go wide, looking past me.

“What’s happening?” she gasps. I turn to see shadows flooding the crossroads, swallowing up our friends and the creatures, who seem to be multiplying by the minute. I hold Tira tight, conjuring up some more of my sunlight to protect us in the gloom.

But the shadows retreat almost as quickly as they came—and when they’re gone, I see each of the ruined men and women have abandoned their attacks on our group.

Instead, they’re battling each other in the center of the crossroads, fighting over something on the ground there.

It’s a storm of gouging, tearing limbs, of the noise of breaking bone and ripping flesh.

“Finish them,” Leon growls. But he doesn’t leave anyone else with much work to do, cutting through the ruined like sheaves of wheat in a field.

They seem unable to save themselves—to fight back or escape—too rabidly focused on whatever’s on the ground.

In moments, they’re nothing more than a pile of cooling corpses.

Damia reaches in among the bodies and pulls out a torn bag about the size of my fist, leaking a dark powder.

“I’d be careful with that if I were you,” a voice comes from the shadows.

Corrin Wadestaff steps out into the light, followed by four burly men. While our party is scratched and bloody from the fight, he looks as flawless as always, a dark suit complimenting his black hair, tied back with a ribbon.

“What is it?” Damia asks, holding the bag further away from her.

“The only thing that will distract a ruined,” Corrin says. “More of the medicine that made them what they are. Warren, would you dispose of that for us?”

One of the burly men steps forward and takes the bag from Damia with a gloved hand. With the other, bare palm he conjures a flame and burns the bag to ashes before our eyes.

“Now, if you wouldn’t mind coming with me before you make more of a spectacle of yourselves, that would be appreciated,” Corrin says. His words are casual, but a brightness in his eyes makes me think he’s genuinely nervous.

“Spectacle?” Leon growls.

“Apologies, Your Highness,” Corrin says. “Were you wanting to attract every cleric in this city with your activities?” His eyes sweep the crossroads, as if expecting to see scarlet robes coming toward us already. “If not, we need to get inside quickly.”

We gather ourselves and our horses. The rebels lift the body of their fallen member—Lafin, I remember his name was—and secure it to the back of his horse, tethering his animal to Esther’s so we can lead it through the streets.

The members of the Hand look grim but resigned.

After their failed mission the other night, I’m coming to understand that death is a normal part of their lives—the inevitable sacrifice they make to further their goal of undermining the Temple.

I wonder what it must be like to believe in something that much.

I’m still trying to decide whether I believe in the future Harman sketched out for me in Tread.

One where I’m queen, accepted by my people, and the Temple’s hold on Trova is wiped away.

I recognize these streets. We’re not far from Corrin’s gambling den. I don’t bother asking the crime lord how he found us. I imagine he makes it his business to know what’s going on in his neighborhood. Instead, I ask him about the ruined.

“You said medicine made those things,” I say. “What did you mean?”

Corrin sighs. “Their condition is a side effect of having exiled dryads in the city—healers no longer bound by their vow to do no harm. Some become interested in making a quick florin and experiment with their viatic magic…with dangerous results.”