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CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Cat

W e cannot be caught here, Cat thinks, squeezing Fen’s hand as they hide. I cannot go back. Not yet. Not now. What will happen if he does? They don’t know who the traitor is. Fen would be left here, alone, to find them, and then what? I could find him. The thought strikes him hard between the ribs. His heart lurches in his chest. If I get brought back to the cells . . . if he’s there . . . I could find Elician. I could free him.

King Aliamon’s taunting questions circle around his throat like a vice. Is Cat actually willing to betray his queen? Just for Elician? And even if he did find the prince, what then? What would that mean for his Reapers? For all of Alelune in return? He would likely have to kill hundreds of Alelunen men and women, his brother, his mother, everyone in his mother’s court, anyone who stood in their way. And for each person he killed, it would create another person who would stand against him. Alerae would flood with the blood of the dead and . . .

He would have to destroy his own kingdom to save one man.

He will not do that.

There has to be another way to get Elician free and to find the traitor within Soleb. Another way to end this war and free his people without a death toll that would rival Shawshank’s historic plague.

Ambassador Laure slams her lantern on her desk. It echoes loudly in the room. ‘When did it arrive?’ Laure asks sharply. Another voice answers, someone out of view – a man.

‘Only an hour ago, my lady.’

‘An hour is too long . I should have been informed at once .’

‘You left us orders to not disturb the fête, my lady—’

‘This was a missive straight from our queen.’

Fen tugs Cat’s hand in alarm. He glances at her. But she only shakes her head in confusion, points to her ear.

She doesn’t understand what they’re talking about, Cat realizes. They are talking too fast, and their accents are too thick, far from the practised schooling Fen is used to. Laure is moving, walking to the box.

‘I did not know it was of such importance,’ the man babbles.

‘Get out!’ Laure howls, and he goes, door slamming shut in his haste. Then there’s the sound of metal on metal. Cat nudges Fen to the side so he can take a look for himself. Laure is kneeling, turning a key on the padlock that keeps the box closed. She slides the metal loop free and lets it fall to the ground with a clank . Then the box opens, and Laure steps backwards.

There is a shuffling. Fabric moving. Limbs knocking against wood. I know that noise. These were the sounds of his life when he had been taken from Alerae to the warfront in a barrel. Someone is in that box.

Laure’s back obscures the view, but slowly the body reveals itself. Hands at the edges of the box. A swish of dark fabric, designed to conceal the wearer. Laure steps back, lantern swinging in her hand. Still, Cat cannot see the other person’s face. Laure speaks. ‘You have your orders. Go.’ The light shifts. The body moves. It is a woman, all in black, and she steps past Laure and walks through the office door.

Cat jolts to his feet. Laure starts to turn – Die, he thinks. Laure collapses into a heap on the ground, eyes staring up at the ceiling.

Fen curses. ‘Cat, what the fuck are you thinking?’

Too much. He is thinking too much. He rushes to the desk, shuffling hands over papers, trying to find his queen’s seal. ‘Cat!’ Fen hurries towards him, very nearly tripping on Ambassador Laure’s body in the process, then stops when she sees the box is lying open.

‘You can bring her back when we leave,’ he says, barely remembering to respond in Soleben. ‘She didn’t see me. It was too fast; she won’t know what happened.’

‘What did she say? What happened?’ Fen rushes to him and looks at the papers he is sifting. ‘We can’t just kill people and bring them back . . . Zinnitzia says there are consequences!’ Of all the times to listen to Zinnitzia.

‘She just sent an assassin into the city,’ Cat replies. He opens another set of papers. Nothing. Nowhere. The order had to have come from his queen, and she always stamps the pages with—

‘This one.’ He slaps it on the desk and Fen presses to his side to look down at the curved and swirling letters of the Alelunen alphabet. At the top of the page is Queen Alenée of Alelune’s half-moon and star emblem.

‘What does it say?’ she asks, squinting at the page. ‘No, wait . . . hang on . . . that doesn’t make any sense.’ She is faster at reading than him. More familiar with the spelling that still catches him off guard and the too-similar letters that he struggles to fit to the right phonic. He can read it. He can . But he doesn’t have time.

‘Read it out loud.’

‘I— Fine, it says: Apples have been planted in the water, but they are taking too long to – go bad?’ She does not sound certain, but she carries on. ‘The . . . the gardener will handle the immediate shipment of fruit once you confirm delivery.’ She looks up at him. He mouths the words, trying to make sense of them. He reaches for the paper and stares at the squiggles and curls. Fen is right. She read it perfectly. But the meaning is not truly about apples or gardens.

My queen had plans, but they are taking too long. He puzzles it out. She is going to give something to someone once the assassination takes place. Over a year ago, Cat had been sent to Soleb to kill the royal family. He failed. And when he met with King Aliamon, the King had seemed almost disappointed that Cat had no interest in killing him. And in every moment afterwards, he has given Cat ample opportunity to rectify that. No guard. No overseer. Private meetings and training, constant training, cast alongside questions asking him where his loyalties really lie. Something is wrong, Cat had thought then, and he thinks it now. He shoves the letter into a pocket sewn into Elician’s borrowed tunic. He takes Fen by the hand and pulls her around the desk. ‘We need to go.’

Fen stumbles, desperate to keep up. ‘What about Elician? Is there anything about him in there? What about—How are we supposed to escape from here?’

‘Quickly,’ Cat tells her.

‘Wait – don’t forget Laure !’ She nearly trips over herself to get to her knees and press her fingers to Laure’s outstretched hand, but she makes the contact she needs. Laure gasps back to life even as Cat pulls Fen out the door.

Cat does not try to be subtle. He takes the main stairs, and he runs down them. Heads are swivelling and turning. Fen tries to cover her face. Cat does not bother to do the same. Someone shouts, but Cat keeps running. Faster now. Fen trips again as she tries to keep up. He is faster than her, and he drags her after him each time her steps fumble. They burst out the main entrance and five guards immediately turn towards them. He imagines their lives on a thread, and he yanks that thread taut. All five drop to their knees. Fen screams.

‘I didn’t kill them!’ he calls to her over his shoulder, still running towards the embassy’s main gate. He slashes a hand through the air and those guards fall too, mouths frothing, eyes rolling back. Fen yanks her wrist free just as they cross the main road. ‘We need to go !’ Cat insists.

‘What did you do ?’ she screams back.

‘I just stopped their hearts for a moment ,’ he replies. ‘They’ll be fine. Fen, that box? The assassin inside it? She’s a Reaper. And she’s going to the palace.’

‘How do you know?’ Fen asks, head spinning. ‘And how could you stop a heart for a moment ?’

‘Elena taught us, Fen. I just need to kill the signal from their brain that keeps their hearts beating. When I let the signal flow again – they return to normal. That’s it, that’s all. Now, Fen, please ?’

Her hands curl into fists, and she pumps her arms as she runs. They are not too far from the palace.

That doesn’t make him feel any better.

Cat does not kill the palace guards when they approach, momentarily or otherwise. But they are more than a little taken aback when they hear what he has to say. Fen tells them to raise the alarm despite their uncertainty. Even if they wouldn’t have listened to Cat, they do listen to Fen. Once they are back inside the grounds though, the rush continues.

‘Tell me how you know . . . that the assassin is coming here,’ Fen gasps as she still tries to keep up with Cat as he races through the palace halls.

‘ I was the apple meant to spoil your barrel.’

‘You were a what?’

‘It’s a saying,’ he says. ‘It doesn’t matter. It was my duty to kill Elician and I failed. The Queen must have sent someone else—’ He slides to a stop at one of the balcony windows. Fen crashes into his side. The gate guards that have been following them slow more gracefully, but Cat is already pointing up.

Someone is climbing the walls.

‘There!’ she yells, pointing too, directing the guards to see. ‘Gods,’ Fen chokes out. The assassin – the Reaper – hoists herself inside a window with far more grace than Fen and Cat had managed only hours before. There is no time to lose. Cat turns and Fen manages to outpace him just this once, and only because she knows exactly which route is the fastest.

She skids around corners, throwing open doors that Cat did not know connected to hallways that split across the palace. She keeps screaming the whole time, attracting every guard they pass in the process. They jostle from their posts, blinking at her as she continues shouting about an intruder. Lanterns are lit, soldiers draw their swords. The guards at the King and Queen’s bedchambers startle and try to stop her from advancing, but when she yells, ‘Assassin at the window!’ they burst into the rooms for her.

The Reaper is there already.

Cat had guessed who it would be. Assumed, based on the body shape and movement. She is dressed all in black, but her hands are free. She moves with deadly purpose. The guards charge forward but all it takes is a swivel of her wrist. A bare palm to bare skin. Fen tries to scream a warning, but the guards drop dead from the frighteningly fast attack.

On their bed, Aliamon and Calissia are struggling to untangle themselves from their sheets. Fen dives forward and tackles the Reaper, tucking in her head and driving her shoulder into the Reaper’s chest. They fall to the ground and the Reaper slaps and shoves at her, bare hands slapping uselessly against Fen, who gasps a deep, choking breath as one blow connects and she curls to one side. Cat snatches a fallen guard’s sword. He steps forward. The Reaper turns towards Aliamon and Calissia, but Cat is there. He aims a sword at one of his Reaper’s chests. He hisses his intention. Stop.

And she stops. This is their tongue. Their voice. One voice starts the chorus, a hiss with an intention, and another echoes it, matching the intention, then adding their own emotion to denote a change. He hisses it again. Stop. She echoes it this time, properly, profoundly, but then: an inquisition.

Are you sure?

There are people watching them. Aliamon, Calissia, Fen. Cat keeps his hand on his sword, and he meets the eyes of the Reaper who had lived in the cell directly opposite his for half his life.

‘I defend them, with my life and death,’ Cat swears in Lunae. ‘Stop, Cieli.’

‘You know her?’ Fen asks, dumbfounded. She rises to her feet. And as she rises, Cieli kneels. She kneels and bows her head.

There is rustling at the door. Marina is there. Zinnitzia too. Marina takes in the scene with a swift glance and then looks immediately to her ward. ‘Cat?’ she questions softly.

And Cat turns his back to Cieli to look at the King and Queen, standing close together and looking no worse for wear despite the chaos. ‘Please don’t hurt her,’ he asks, shifting to Soleben.

Instead of answering properly, Aliamon sighs. He lifts a hand to his eyes and shakes his head. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he says, ‘I think we’re going to need another private talk, you and I.’ Cat bows his head but does not deny it.

Marina binds Cieli’s wrists gently but firmly. Calissia peers towards the guards Cieli had killed. ‘Zinnitzia, please?’ she entreats quietly.

‘Your Majesty . . .’

‘Just this once won’t hurt anything,’ Aliamon says. And Zinnitzia crouches, pressing her hand to the guards’ bare skin, raising them from the dead.

Which leaves Fen to slowly, anxiously, raise her voice and ask, ‘What the fuck is going on?’