Page 27 of The King’s Man #5

Liandros looks up, catching him, and their gazes meet on sharp breaths.

Before Valerian can pull away, Liandros lifts a hand to his cheek.

Their eyes are whispering confessions, and Liandros leans in.

It’s no ordinary kiss. It’s the clash of two lovelights, bursting out of them simultaneously.

Their magics chase each other playfully, leaving blossoms on the trees once more in their wake, before barrelling into their chests with a force that has their kiss breaking.

They stare at one another, and laugh. Valerian rubs over his heart. “So warm.”

Liandros tucks himself against the prince again. “Let’s never forget this feeling.”

I swallow at the soft scene and move out of it into the next one with apprehension.

Again, it’s a memory I’ve seen before. The outdoor banquet.

Valerian is seated next to his brother, and across from him is Prins Yngvarr, who he keeps narrowing his eyes on.

Casimiria—her younger remembered self—sits among the marriage candidates, and it’s in this scene I learn that it’s Valerian who ordered his aklos to drug her wine.

It’s Valerian who had Prins Yngvarr’s room trashed; Valerian who left the banquet right after the prins.

In the shadows, he meets two vitalians—one silver sashed, the other green and Florentius’s young father.

“Can you do it?” Valerian asks.

Chiron grimaces. “We shouldn’t.”

“This is for the prince. I can see the light in his eyes. He looks at her and... trust me, I know that look. If I do this, I can make sure he gets who he wants. He’ll experience this unimaginable warmth. He’ll finally see what I’m capable of.”

“The pain—” Chiron is cut off by Valerian’s glare.

“For her, it’ll be fleeting. She’ll become one of the most powerful women in our kingdom.”

The silver vitalian inclines his head and tugs Chiron’s sleeve. “His highness is commanding you. Know your place.”

“Here she is,” Valerian says, spying Casimiria stumbling away from the banquet with the aid of an akla.

I tense, sickened as I drag myself through the scene. Casimiria led to the bed, the vitalians ripping out her lovelight, Prince Anastasius bursting into the room at her cries, catching her as she falls into unconsciousness. Valerian in the shadows, shocked at the prince’s outrage.

“What have you done?” Prince Anastasius screams at them to leave, and Valerian sweeps out first. In confusion and anger, he tears the vines off the trellised wall and storms off .

I glance at the courtyard he’s left behind and know any second Prins Yngvarr will be here, will see the vitalians and assume Prince Anastasius viciously stole Casimiria’s lovelight.

As the scene starts to fade, I yank off nightshade leaves and cut a portion of vine, then race back through the rune door. I drop most of my collected plants onto the platform, calling for Lucius to prepare them.

“This should be enough.” The rest, I keep with me. I don’t know what kind of state I’ll find Quin’s mother and brother... A wave of desperation hits my gut and I scramble over to a red rune door. “Only two left.”

I charge through the door and into a familiar clearing in the woods. It’s covered in soulbloom and sunk into the ground at one end is a dilapidated cabin with a broken roof.

Valerian is pacing angrily in the treeline, as if he followed Prins Yngvarr here and perhaps witnessed the stolen moment between him and Casimiria.

He’s motioning for his redcloaks, aklos and aklas, and vitalians to hurry along and break the two up.

In his fiery mood, he casts out a flare of magic into the glade—the flare that in King Yngvarr’s memory separated my shivery moment with Quin. ..

When young Casimiria is escorted away, Valerian orders two soldiers and his vitalians to teach Prins Yngvarr a lesson.

Chiron grits his teeth and refuses to move into the clearing, and Valerian gets into his face.

“Even you don’t show me respect!” He jerks a finger towards Prins Yngvarr.

“ He hurt my man. He’s disrespecting my brother’s woman.

You’ll make sure he regrets it, or I’ll hold it against you and your future family! ”

One of the redcloaks shoves Chiron into the clearing and together they torture and heal and torture Prins Yngvarr until the Skeldar prins is screaming towards the skies a promise of revenge.

While my stomach twists at the tortured cries, I stumble through the surrounding woods searching for Casimiria, imagining her watching this, imagining her crumpling to her knees wishing for it to stop.

An arrow suddenly shoots across the glade and embeds into a tree, an arrow that wasn’t in King Yngvarr’s memory.

I tug it out, knowing instinctively this is not Valerian’s memory, but evidence of Casimiria’s grief.

She must have taken one of the bows; she must be trying to kill the men hurting her friend.

I whirl in the direction the arrow came from, but I don’t see her.

Another arrow, two , whistle towards the redcloaks, and they fall listlessly.

There are no cries, no reactions. It doesn’t even stop Prins Yngvarr’s cries of pain.

None are real after all; they’re just puppets acting out Valerian’s memory. And Casimiria has messed with it.

I run around the edge of the trees, snatching soulbloom and stuffing it into my belt, and skid to a stop where Casimiria should have been.

I call out for her, but there’s no response.

I search the area, but she’s nowhere to be found.

Perhaps she already left, I just saw the remains of her visit, her.

.. The damp trees and glistening glade begin to lose their texture, their scent, their colour, and I hurry out, catching my breath on the musty platform on the other side.

One more door left.

I shove it open, feeling something sticky against my hand, and step out into deep woods, sniffing my fingers—

I freeze at the subtle scent. Frostbloom. Casimiria and the prince must have unknowingly touched this too, slowly becoming paralysed until frozen, locked in this memory forever...

I grab the soulbloom from my belt—it’s not emberleaf, but it has similar enough properties.

I chew it and quickly smear it, with some heat-inducing vine-sap, over my skin.

I put the rest in my pouch. My cloak whips behind me and snags on bark as I race through trees towards the celebratory sounds coming from the almighty violet oak at the border of Lumin and Iskaldir.

Around the shimmering oak, rings of linea dance, pouring magic into a glittering canopy over the heads of the attending royal family.

Over music and song, Valerian—resplendent in rich, bejewelled attire—sneaks sweet words to Liandros, channelling the most beautiful blossomed garland throughout the canopy.

“Seriously,” Liandros says on a laugh. “Can’t you see I’m working? ”

“I can’t help it; whenever I see you, I want to be near.”

“Three generations of my family are staring at us right now!”

“They’re staring at their illuminating handiwork.” He pauses, and says with a mischievous smile, “You know, you have a lot of competition for becoming the next grand luminist. If you’re not indulgent with me, maybe your cousin—ouch.” Valerian laughs.

“There are more thorns where those came from.”

“Fine, I’ll leave you alone. So long as you promise me a sneaky moment in the woods later...”

Liandros smiles.

I scan the crowds for Casimiria and Nicostratus. Would they be where they could see the scene play out? Or would they be lost somewhere in the recesses of this memory after the scene faded?

Valerian steals my focus again as he approaches his brother, who is gleefully throwing and catching a giggling baby.

“Constantinos will be sick all over your face if you keep that up.”

I halt abruptly and shuffle nearer to the child. Constantinos? This was baby Quin?

Quin giggles again as his father throws him up towards the glittery canopy, and my chest feels funny, light and sad at the same time.

This little baby will grow up, will experience so much hate and manipulation, will eventually be—on his uncle’s orders—held captive in Iskaldir with the threat of his head adorning a stake. . .

This little baby. He’s the reason I’m inside this memory at all. “We truly have an unusual fate,” I murmur.

The little baby giggles.

A loud scream has heads turning, and suddenly the trees surrounding the clearing shake to life.

Men drop from the trees, purple cloaks billowing like ominous clouds.

All around the ceremony sharp steel glints: spears, tipped with long nails, glistening in the light.

With unsettling speed, those sharp edges turn gasps into screams.

“Seal in the royal family!” the grand luminist cries, and all those surrounding the royals cast their magic into a protective shield.

Valerian throws himself towards Liandros, and their eyes connect as Liandros forms a thick buffer of blossoms between himself and the prince.

Valerian’s eyes widen in horror, but no matter how much he pries and casts his own magic, he can’t break through it.

The luminists turn, facing the onslaught.

They fight hard, but they are only a dozen luminists with linea unskilled in sentinian magics—by the clangs and bursts of colour deeper in the woods, redcloaks are fighting another front.

The crusaders are relentless. Linea fall with pierced meridians. Blood splashes against magic.

Liandros stands firm, brow furrowed, sweat dripping down his temples. Valerian is hammering his fists against the barrier, pleading to help, and Liandros shouts, deflecting an incoming spear with swift grace and crackling magic. “I’ll never let them hurt you!”

I stand rooted in the middle of the chaotic, blood- drenched scene, my heart in my throat. Crusaders force forward, slicing through the weaker defensive spells until they find a breach—

Luminists cry one after the other as they fall. Liandros’s uncles, cousins, father...

Tears streaming down his face, Liandros fights on with every ounce of angered energy he possesses.

The shield protecting the royal family is held up only by him.

He defends it valiantly, parrying blow after blow.

But soon three crusaders turn into five, and in the space of a single wavering spell, a spear hurtles through from the side—

He turns to face it, to throw up a hand to deflect it, but the crusader’s thrust was too hard, too fast, too lethal. Seven long nails shoot forth from the spear, piercing Liandros through his chest.

He falls to his knees, blood soaking his white robes. Still, he fights, maintains the protective shield until redcloaks arrive and swiftly reclaim the clearing. Outnumbered, the surviving crusaders drop their spears and plead for their lives.

They’re chained with spells, and only at the call of the commander does Liandros’s shield abate.

Valerian crawls to him and collects his shuddering body, holding him tightly, futilely trying to heal him. Liandros tries to speak, but blood bubbles out of his mouth and he goes limp.

Valerian rocks him back and forth, telling him not to sleep, telling him the vitalians will be here soon. He continues rocking as Prince Anastasius charges towards the crusaders, baby in one arm, sword in the other. He steers it towards a purple-cloaked figure. “Who ordered this?”

When the crusader doesn’t answer immediately, he presses the sword tip against his throat, drawing blood.

Another crusader spits blood to the ground. “The new king of Iskaldir. His revenge aligned with our purpose.”

Valerian strokes Liandros’s cheek, whispering for him to wake up.

My eyes are damp and it’s hard to swallow. But another thought has me lurching out of the messy scene and hurrying through the woods for the door—

A brutally devastated cry pierces the woods and sky, making them rumble, making winds sweep... Valerian’s grief. Gusts tear at my clothes, rip branches from trees, send lethal leaves slicing through the air... I stagger through it, fingers clawing into the fading earth for purchase.

Logs roll down a bank and I scramble out of their way—

Wait, they weren’t logs. They were people. Two people covered in mud and leaves, as stiff as trunks...

I spy the rune door, thirty yards that way. Should I race there first and re-enter the scene from the beginning, hopefully finding them in the recesses of this memory? Or do I risk becoming lost too?

Do I even have time to come back?

With a pounding heart and pounding steps and a pounding gale at my back, I slip and slide and chase after their rolling bodies.

One bumps to a stop against a boulder and the other is about to hurtle off the edge of a cliff—I dive for a limp arm, slamming against the ground, catching it by the wrist as it goes over the edge.

A tornado is forming, whipping all the leaves from the trees.

Need to hurry. I pull at the broad wrist, feeling the hard wood of my carved violet oak armband.

Prince Nicostratus. Through pinched eyes, I see his form as I heave his weight up.

We lurch back with the aid of a wind that is still carrying Valerian’s cries.

With strength that comes from utter desperation, I drag two deadweight souls towards the rune door, fingers clutching their wrists like I’m binding our fates together.

Winds swirl around us, debris a curtain sweeping towards us.

I crash to the ground, covering Casimiria’s and the prince’s exposed faces.

A jaggery branch skids across my back, tearing through fabric and skin, and I bite down on a cry.

When the curtain passes, I take their wrists and pull defiantly, blood sluicing down my back.

The sting keeps me grounded, keeps me focused on the faint glow of the door in the swirling darkness.

To falter now, to fall, is not only to lose Casimiria and the prince, not only to lose myself, it’s to lose...

With a surge of determination, I double my grip.