Page 24 of The King’s Man #5

A nother stinging slap meets my cheek. I startle upright and blink up at Megaera, who bites out fiercely, “The surest way to lose is to give up.”

I touch my cheek with a pained wince, and when she pulls a hand back to slap me again, I spring up like the sting has given me clarity, has knotted my stomach into steely resolve.

It’s something Quin would have done, if he were here. I can see him now, a storm in his eyes as he asks me savagely if that’s all I’ve got. I feel a surge of anger, a need to show him; to prove myself to him.

He’d goad me, and I’d rise to it.

I’ll fight to the end. I’ll fight until it kills me.

I scramble to the vines, whip out my clasp and use the sharpest point to scratch our life-saving nectar into a hollowed rock. It’s an intricate task; a lot could go wrong, but my teeth are clenched with a determination that simply won’t let that happen.

We slap on our soggy feather masks and race back through the caves into the harsher light of the clearing.

Four of the teams have arrived. The royal team and the Orange Cloaks are swirling with autumn-coloured magic as they spell the antidote, while the other two teams are crawling to their patients, suffering under the effects of the puff.

For one of those teams, the poison clogging their meridians makes using their magic impossible.

The other team at least left a person behind with their patient, someone whose meridians are still intact.

But they only absorbed the pollen in the cave, didn’t bring any nectar back; they need to use an extraction spell, which would tire the one magic wielder, before they can work on the antidote—or, they have to go back into the caves. ..

I sink to my knees at our patient’s side and check his pulse, asking Olyn to give me her calculations. She tells me how long between bouts of seizures and I call out measurements to Megaera, who gets to work grinding the herbs we picked up earlier and the key nectar.

Two flags are raised—onlookers cheer for the royal team and the orange one. The teams next to me are yelling out solutions. The team who’ve lost throw a sachet to the sole magic wielder in the team that still has a chance.

I don’t look over. I don’t let the glow of magic distract me. My vision tunnels to my patient and his consumption of our antidote. He chokes on the bitterness but swallows, and Megaera and Olyn hold their breath as I keep two fingers at his pulse, waiting for the change.. .

I focus on the rhythmic beat of blood under my fingers becoming slower, smoother, silky—

“Judge!” I call, and our shocked orchestrator stumbles to our patient. His face pales.

“He’s cured,” I say.

“How could he be...” the judge looks at me strangely, like his own magic has to be failing him when he checks.

The next team call for a judge, and my heart rams against my chest. “Your flag. Raise your flag.”

“But . . . but . . . you don’t have magic.”

I stare hard into his puzzled gaze. “This trial of itself is the reason why you should not be shocked. Poisons and perils. Save and survive. The sharp and the weak.... With the peril of being poisoned, vitalians may have their meridians temporarily damaged. To survive, they have to find other ways. Healing methods like ours. You are a healer. Judge from your heart.”

He stares at me and slowly his disbelief morphs into respect. Just as the neighbouring judge grabs his flag, ours shoots his arm into the air, golden fabric flapping smartly.

I sink onto my haunches, murmuring over and over my gratitude to the world for this narrow win.

My enthusiasm is not shared by many. Megaera and Olyn, the prins, Kjartan, the stormblades.

The rest—the surrounding teams and the crowds between the trees—are silent.

The kind of silent that tries to smother overwhelming mortification.

The kind of silent that precedes a storm of anger, frustration, retaliation .

I dare to glance at the regent and my nape prickles. He’s staring right at us, one hand drumming the arm of his throne.

The sixth team—the team that had been rendered unconscious by fungi spores—emerge from the caves, their mouths and noses still covered. They bow to the remaining teams, graciously accepting their loss. “Thank you to whoever aided us. Only true healers would stop in a race to help the helpless.”

Teams look at one another, and I hold Megaera tight with a quiet shake of my head.

Under the eyes of the regent, it’ll only add fuel to the fury.

Florentius, not far from me, catches my eye and I feign a clumsy fall in his direction, tossing a pouch to his feet.

He bends to pick it up as I gather myself and murmur under my breath.

“There’s more nectar in there. Make a show of it. ”

His intelligent eyes hit mine; he rises and pulls his team with him in a dramatic display of saving the last suffering patients—and curing the members of the failed teams.

The sixth team assume the royal vitalians are their heroes too, and again bow to them. Whispers of how gallant, gracious, and generous the royal team is sweep through the crowds until they’re chanting. Medicinal and moral winners. The clear favourites.

The regent is placated by this show of enthusiasm for his chosen team and announces—to the shock of the orchestrators—that he himself will design the third and final trial, and that it’ll be more difficult than any that has come before.

“An impossible challenge, if you will.” His gaze cuts to mine and he adds, with a sudden soft smile that makes me shiver, “But as a token to our guest team, I’ll give it a Skeldar twist.”

When the regent is gone, the crowds drift in, trying to get the attention of the royal team. The orange team is also well admired, and I’m relieved that their leader is at least occupied by this. I’m too tired for another round of folly.

Prins Lief and his crew march away, and I catch a walnut zooming towards my face. I follow the path it took and find a dark eyed, devilish shadow in the treetops. I throw the nut back to the smirking vespertine with a murmur that I know Bastion will hear. “Shell it for me first.”

I hear his quiet chuckle on a breeze and move across the clearing to Akilah dropping off her leafy perch. “Meet me tonight,” I whisper as I pass her.

There’s a chill bite to the woods once the sun has sunk.

Inky black has taken over the skies. My lantern swings on its stick, illuminating a small circle of shivering trees, and there—Akilah, huddled into a thick cloak, tucked on a branch of a sprawling chestnut with her own lantern between her feet.

I climb past her and up to higher branches; she silently follows until we emerge to a vast view of the starry night. We used to do this growing up, in trees or on rooftops. Stargazing, quietly being with one another, letting the worries of the world fall away.

“I missed you,” she says croakily.

My heart aches and I can only nod. It’s the same for me.

She sighs heavily, breath fogging towards the sky. “You left me on that island.” I tense, waiting for more. Expecting it. “I looked at you and you looked away. That’s the last I saw of you.”

I close my eyes on the stars.

“How could you . . .”

The words hang in the cold air and I shiver to the bone.

“Say something,” she chokes.

My sigh comes out quiet, tired, heavy.

She sniffs.

I swallow and look over at her. “I was afraid.”

“You weren’t the only one.”

I’ll have to hold this guilt forever. I left her to experience the wrath of the regent, the violent loss of her newest friend; I left her to suffer through my sudden demise.

An apology feels too paltry. I rip off a bunch of leaves and squeeze them until juice trickles down my wrist. “I’ll live the rest of my life making it up to you. ”

“Promise me.” Her gaze meets mine and her words shatter my heart. “Give up in the third trial. Make sure Florentius wins.”

I slam my eyes shut and shake my head, pleading with sorrys, with the promise I’d do anything else.

But when I reopen them, she’s gone. The stars have dulled above; clouds cover the moon, and the forest beneath me is swelling like a heavy sea.

I climb down the tree, slipping and sliding and scratching myself.

My world feels like it’s cracking open and I’m being dragged into an abyss.

I have to fix things with Akilah, somehow—

A gravelly male voice has me swinging around with my lantern. Florentius emerges from behind a trunk. I wonder how long he’s been there, and know deep inside he’s been there long enough.

Our gazes meet and I plead with him. “We have a plan to save them.”

“Your plan may backfire. My plan, all prisoners walk free.”

“Winning isn’t only about proving a point about non-linea healing—”

“Our king is a captive, trapped in Iskaldir,” Florentius says bluntly, “I know .”

“Then you must understand!”

“Our king has done nothing for me. I owe him nothing. Lucius is my life.”

I shake my head sadly and Florentius’s eyes flash with frustration. “When will you learn? You can’t do everything. You can’t save everyone. You’re full of lofty ideals but that is not our reality!”

He steps forward with a rush of emotion and I brace myself against it.

“Our reality is messy,” he bites out. “It’s grey.

We all have to make choices: who lives, who dies.

The regent, the king, you, me—we’re all just fighting to be the one who decides.

” He steps in again, and this time my balance falters and I stumble back.

His eyes fill with glassy tears. “I’ll always choose Lucius. I’ll always choose my brother.”

The knot in my throat thickens. “I’m choosing the poor, the non-linea, women... I’m choosing the bigger picture.”

He storms off, laughing, and it echoes ominously around the trees, hitting me over and over. “Don’t fool yourself.”

Trees swallow his elegant form until I’m left alone with my flickering lantern.