Page 52 of The Shattered King

The scent of smoke burned my nostrils. Smoke and blood and death. Plumes of black billowed skyward, one from the castle bailey to the north, a few more from the city. Fainter smoke lines choked the winter sky from older fires—houses and shops lit up during the night.

I pulled a homespun dress out of my bag and pulled it on over the one I already wore to hide the bloodstains.

I couldn’t discard the cloak without freezing, but it didn’t stand out too starkly.

Trekking away from the castle, I searched the streets desperately.

They were filled with people—people sobbing, packing, rummaging through debris.

Refugees in their own city. Among them I spied the blue-and-black uniforms of Sestan dragons.

Fear clenched my stomach, but the soldiers did not seem interested in the people.

At least, not with what they were doing.

They seemed to be searching for something, or someone.

I had watched Prince Adrinn die. I had to assume the others had made it out through the tunnel. But where would they go once they were out?

I made it to the wall, finding no secret doors or gates.

Followed it around and was soon met with a throng of people pushing past each other in attempts to leave, to escape the carnage.

Children were loaded with packs while others pulled wagons or led goats and mules.

The dragons did not seem interested in stopping them. And why should they? They had the city.

They’d sacked Rove in less than a day.

I broke away from the throng, finding a street corner to sit on as the realization dawned on me. Clenching my hands into fists, I silently pleaded, Protect him, Hem. Please keep him safe.

“ Maybe he didn’t leave, ” Ursa suggested. “ He could still be in the city. ”

I considered that. Under my breath, I responded, “I suppose the Noblewights might better lead their troops from within city walls than without.”

I thought of the dragons in the Lords’ Hall, screaming that Adrinn was the heir. Pouncing on him like a pack of wolves. He had been a target, a goal. I could only assume all of them were.

If King Nicosia wanted the royal family dead, he would have set men at the gates to watch for them. Slaughter them without mercy, as they’d done to Prince Adrinn.

These soldiers were still looking for the Noblewights.

The chill proved too sharp for loitering, so I picked myself up and wound through less dense streets, a little closer to where the tunnel had let out, and started searching.

For what, I didn’t know. I doubted that in the rush Renn, Ard, or Sten had thought to leave a trail for me to follow.

If I could follow it, so could the Sestans.

It felt utterly hopeless, but I had to try. I had to try .

I crossed an intersection, noting more soldiers. One looked right at me, but I was not what he searched for, so he did not pursue me. Just another townsperson. Worthless. Good. I adopted that persona, lowering my head, hunching my shoulders. I am no one. I am lost. I am not worth your time.

Another cluster of dragons had me changing direction yet again.

I dared not push my luck. I peered through windows.

Searched the faces of the lingering, the weeping.

A man outside a shop carefully picked up glass from a broken window.

Haggard women whispered to one another. Someone was trying to put out lingering embers on a half-burned home.

I didn’t realize I’d been walking uphill until my lungs burned. I’d wandered past the market, closer to the castle wall. The thinning smoke stung my eyes. I wiped them with the back of my hand, then squinted toward the castle, wondering if dragons manned it or if it had been abandoned.

As I looked, I saw , and I stumbled backward, vomiting where I had stood.

Heads. Heads on spikes near a pyre, their eyes gouged, their mouths hanging open.

Look, I told myself. You have to know. Still, it took me a few seconds to gain my courage, to brace myself for the ghastly sight, and then I looked. Three heads on pikes, barely recognizable in death, but I knew them.

King Grejor, Queen Winvrin, and Prince Adrinn. Dead, decapitated, and left for the birds.

“ Take care of my brother. ” The eldest prince’s last words. Renn was right. He did have the ability to be a good man. Might have changed into one, had he been given the chance.

I bent over, ready to be sick again. Bile scalded my throat, but I swallowed it.

“ Renn is not among them, ” Ursa whispered.

But that did not mean he lived. I had dowsed into Renn last night, but magic could not simply sweep away the days of exhaustion he’d accumulated in my absence. If he were on the run, the fatigue would only multiply. Weaken him and make him more susceptible to breaking.

Yet still, I hoped. Princess Eden was not there, either, and so I hoped.

I spent the rest of the day circling the castle, evading soldiers, searching more windows and faces.

I saw no trace of Renn nor his sister. My only balm was knowing that if I could not find them, perhaps the dragons had not, either.

As I searched for a place to lay my head for the night, I passed a brothel and noticed lamplight between the shutters in its basement; someone still occupied it.

I came around to the front door and knocked, but no one answered, so I went to the back and knocked once, twice, three times until a beautiful middle-aged woman wrenched open the door.

She scowled at me. “What do you want?”

“Information,” I said. “And a place to sleep.”

She looked me over. “We’ve no employment for you. Obviously.”

“I saw your light on.” I chose a different tactic. “I’m a healer. Do you have any injured?”

“We already have a doctor.” She started to shut the door.

I stuck my boot in, stopping it. “I’m a craftlock healer.”

She hesitated, looked me over once more, then opened the door. “Come, quickly.”

The entire main floor of the establishment was purposefully dark, not a lamp nor candle in sight.

The woman led me down a flight of stairs to a room that smelled of cigars and incense, where only a few candles illuminated the space.

Pallets had been set up all in a row, some occupied by people talking and playing cards, others taken by the injured.

Men, but mostly women, with piles of bloodied bandages on the floor.

I went to the worst of them, someone covered in burns, and dowsed into them, proving myself in minutes as the skin softened and stitched itself together, regrowing lost layers, infection receding.

I moved to the next and the next, weakly accepting expressions of gratitude in my wake, until exhaustion weighed on my limbs.

I was bone-tired and so very lost. I had one sole target, but I was aimless, an archer blindfolded in a field, trying to hit a bullseye.

What if the last time I’d ever hear Renn’s voice was him screaming my name as I abandoned him?

I returned to the woman who had let me in.

“Kari.” She held out her hand for me to shake. “This is—was—my establishment.”

“Nym,” I offered. “You’re close to the castle. Why haven’t you left?”

“And go where?” She snorted and gestured to the room. “We are already outcasts on our last legs. Where would we go? If the Sestans move in, they’ll want women, and we’ll be here. If they don’t, we’ll rebuild and find new trade.”

I nodded woodenly. “The Noblewights. Their heads ...” I hesitated, my mind suddenly trying to match up the glaring image of severed skulls with the faces of these people I had known .

People I had spoken to, argued with, healed.

I sniffed, cleared my throat. Dug my nails into my palms until the skin threatened to break beneath them. “They’re on pikes near the pyre.”

She folded her arms. “The king and queen and their heir, aye. I watched the men mount them.” She shivered. “They came in on birds. Big ugly things, but not big enough to carry grown men.”

I swallowed, nodded. “Soulbinders.” Magic of the body fell under the jurisdiction of healers. Souls were a different medium entirely. A medium I didn’t understand.

She spat on the floor.

I grimaced. Prince Adrinn’s bloody handprint still marked my sleeve. “But the younger two, Prince Renn and Princess Eden—”

“They took Eden,” Kari explained, tilting her head toward one of the women playing cards.

At her words, all my senses zeroed in on her, as though she were one of the gods come to visit mankind.

“Shila saw it. Back to Sesta, my guess. A bride for Nicosia, maybe. Would give him claim to the throne. Or a new whore.” Her nails dug into her arms.

I released my fists. Grabbed the foot of a bed to keep myself upright as a dizzying, dreamlike stupor threatened to overcome me. “And the prince? Renn?”

Kari shook her head, and my heart cracked. I heard it like it was a visceral thing, like a walnut beneath a boot. “I don’t know. Haven’t seen, haven’t heard. Bad as he was ... I assume he died in the castle.”

“Bad as he was?” I repeated.

She scrunched her nose. “Do you live in a hole, Nym? He’s been stricken since childhood.”

I shook my head. I guess rumor spread quickly in the castle and far slower outside of it, especially among commonfolk who had no opportunity to behold him. “No, he’s ... he’s better. He’s been walking for months now. He’s been in the city.”

This was news to her, by the way her eyebrows crawled up her forehead. “Really? Huh. I wouldn’t know him if I saw him.”

I drew in a deep, incense-laced breath—it brought me back to Prince Adrinn’s bedroom the night he’d propositioned me, and while I had no love for the elder prince, the thought brought sorrow, knowing his end.

“He’s about five feet ten inches tall. Bright golden hair, vivid blue eyes.

Pale. Twenty-one years old. If you do see him .

.. if I come back here and ask, you’ll let me know, won’t you? ”