Destroy the Day, page 39
My horse practically skids to a stop, breathing hard and dripping sweat, but the animal paws at the cobblestones, ready to run again if necessary.
Any other time I’ve been here, I’ve had heralds and guards and advisers, and my visit has entirely been planned. I’ve never ridden right up to the gate alone, in the middle of the night. I’m not sure what to say to gain access.
“I need to see the consul,” I say breathlessly, keeping a tight grip on the reins. “It is a matter of great urgency.”
The man doesn’t even get off his chair, and he looks me up and down, then scoffs. “Just who do you think you are? It’s the middle of the night.”
“King Harristan. Open the gate.”
He snorts and lifts the pipe. “All right, Your Majesty. A pleasure to meet you. Why don’t you come back in—”
“Now.” I draw the crossbow off my back and point it at him, then shoot the pipe right out of his hand. “Open. The. Gate.”
He swears and scrambles out of the chair while I load a new bolt. “Now!”
He opens the gate.
I gallop through. He’s shouting behind me, likely calling for reinforcements, but I don’t care. We’re going to need them.
When I make it to the manor, I’m startled to find that lights glow in most of the windows despite the late hour. I practically throw myself off the horse and sprint up the steps to the main door, then pound heavily with the butt of the crossbow.
I keep banging until a latch is thrown, and the door swings open.
Consul Beeching’s guards face me, their faces lit with surprise.
“I need to see the consul,” I say. “I am King Harristan, and it is a matter of great urgency.”
They stare at me, then look at each other. They’re both better prepared than the man at the gate was, and I watch their hands go to their weapons.
“Please,” I say desperately. “I need—”
“That’s enough,” says a man from behind them. “Let him through.”
The guards step aside. Just behind them stands Jonas Beeching, and his eyes widen when they fall on me. A dozen people are behind him, either seated in chairs or standing along the walls, but I don’t have eyes for any of them. He’s the only one of importance right now.
“Your Majesty,” he gasps. He looks like he’s seen a ghost.
My chest is heaving like the horse’s. “I haven’t poisoned the people, Consul. I know what they’re saying, but I haven’t.” I have to pause to take a breath, and I push sweat-soaked hair back from my eyes. “I had no idea what my father was doing. Maybe—maybe I should have. But any treachery he plotted with Sallister and with Ostriary was kept from me. I swear it.”
He says nothing.
“I’ve been hiding among the people in the Wilds,” I say. “But Sallister is sending the army to kill them. They’re coming to Artis for sanctuary. You have to stop the army at the border.”
He still says nothing. His eyes are fixed on mine, and he stares like he can’t believe I’m daring to ask him for anything at all.
“You must!” I cry. “Jonas, you must! I know they attacked the Royal Sector. I know what they did to you. But they didn’t deserve to die of the fever, and they don’t deserve to die now.”
My breath catches, and I think of all of the people who’ve already lost so much, and who will lose even more, just because they hid me away. Just because they believed in me. I might not be able to do anything else, but I can at least return the favor.
“I will surrender to you if you demand it,” I say. “You can hand me to Sallister yourself. Hang me in your courtyard. But please! Please, Jonas. You can stop this. Send your own soldiers to stop them at the border. Allow the rebels sanctuary in Artis.”
He draws a breath, then gestures to a woman near the wall. “Pour His Majesty a glass of water.”
I’m frozen in place, because that doesn’t mean anything.
But Jonas immediately looks to his guards. “Send word to the border at once. Let’s remind Sallister that he doesn’t control the king’s army yet. Wake my medical team. I’m certain there will be injuries.”
The breath eases out of my lungs, and I cough. Once, then twice. I run a hand across the back of my neck and find it damp.
Jonas pulls a chair toward me. “Please, Your Majesty. Sit.”
I sit. The woman sets the glass of water beside me.
I drain the whole thing. I feel everyone’s eyes on me the whole time.
He pulls another chair toward me. “May I join you?”
As if I care about manners at a time like this. “Yes,” I say.
He eases into the chair. “About the matter of your . . . ah, surrender,” he says.
My eyes flick up, and my chest goes tight at once. All of a sudden, I’m worried he’s going to have someone shoot me right here, or Sallister will, the instant he arrives and discovers part of his plan has been thwarted. My entire body goes cold, and I feel like I need to say everything at once. “If I may—please spare my guards. Thorin and Saeth. They should not be punished for their loyalty. Quint as well. Could I possibly write a letter to my—”
Jonas tsks and lifts a hand. “I don’t want it.”
I go still. “What?”
He looks up, past me, then lifts a hand in a gesture. I follow his gaze to discover a girl Tessa’s age rising from a chair. She looks as tired and haggard and travel-worn as I feel.
“Karri,” I say in shock.
“It took me so long to deliver each letter,” she says in a rush. “The other consuls kept saying there was too much proof, and they sent the night patrol after us. They killed my escorts. No one would listen until I got here.”
Now I’m staring at her the same way Jonas was staring at me.
The consul clears his throat. “I was supposed to be at the palace tonight. But as fate would have it, Your Majesty, you actually aren’t the first person to arrive at my gates with a wild story of people in need.” He pulls my folded letter from his jacket pocket, the one I wrote with desperate hope that one of the consuls might listen.
“As I said, I don’t want your surrender.” Jonas looks between us both, then taps the letter. “This girl has spent the last few hours convincing me to be your ally.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Corrick
For as hard as Rian fought to conspire against me, he’s remarkably quick to let me go when his country is under attack. Within minutes of learning that Oren Crane has abandoned me and Lochlan here in favor of attacking the palace at Tarrumor, Rian and his people have departed, taking soldiers and horses with them. It leaves me free in the house with Tessa, as well as Lochlan and Rocco, which would seem ideal—until I realize there’s a woman with dark spiral curls pulling desperately at Rocco’s arms.
“Let me go,” she’s saying. “Let me go, Erik. I need to get him.”
“I’ll go with you,” he says. “I’ll help you. Let me saddle a horse—”
“We can take the wagon,” says Tessa briskly. “We’ll go after them.”
“It’s too slow,” the woman wails. She slips free of his grip and bolts from the house, the door slamming open behind her.
Rocco doesn’t even glance at me. He makes a sound of pain, presses a hand to his waist, and runs after her.
“Corrick.” Tessa takes hold of my hand and squeezes tight. Her eyes are gleaming in the moonlight. I can’t believe I’m here. I can’t believe she’s with me. I want to take hold of more than her hand. I want to inhale her breath until the end of time. I want to make sure no one ever takes her away from me again.
But she says, “We have to go. We have to help Olive.”
“We just got free,” says Lochlan. “You want us to ride into their war to help some girl we just met?”
“Yes,” she says, but she’s not looking at him. She only has eyes for me. Every emotion I’m feeling, I see echoed in her gaze. Love. Desire. Need. Relief. Hope.
But there’s also a plea there.
I remember the very first night she looked up at me in the Wilds, the very first time she needed my help—how badly I wanted to give it, no matter the risk. I think of all the nights since that she’s begged me for action, for revolution, for change.
I have no idea who Olive is, or why any of this is so important to Tessa. I just know it is, and I’m done failing her.
I bring her hand to my mouth and kiss her knuckles. My mind is already making plans. I know Tessa can’t ride well, and I rather doubt Lochlan can. “You said there’s a wagon? Do you have any weapons?”
Lochlan’s mouth drops open. “You can’t be serious.”
“As you said, you’ve faced an army before. This probably won’t be much worse.”
“We have everything the guards brought on the ship, so there’s armor and supplies, too,” Tessa announces. “Come on. We have to hurry.”
I move to follow her, but Lochlan is staring at me as we pass.
I look right back at him. “You don’t owe him anything. You don’t have to fight this battle.”
“You’re right,” he says. “I don’t owe him anything at all.”
Then he falls in step beside me.
Tessa talks while I drive the wagon. The horses run hard, the wood rattling and bouncing over cobblestones. Lochlan clings to the railings in the back. I learn everything that’s happened while she’s been on Fairde, from their walk to Rian’s palace to the poison that she assumes is spreading through the water. I don’t have all the pieces of what happened in Kandala yet, but I have a lot of them. I learn about Olive and her son, Ellmo, and the medicines they’ve been distributing, and the way everyone here reveres Rian.
In turn, we tell her about Oren Crane, about Lina and Mouse and the rest of his henchmen, about the way he seems to have a stranglehold on Silvesse that he maintains through fear. She hears about how Lochlan and I have been forced to work together, but he doesn’t mention the reading lessons, so I don’t either.
“Why was Olive so panicked?” says Lochlan. “You said she and Rian don’t get along.”
“They don’t,” Tessa says. “But the children were in the palace.” She pauses. “To keep them safe while Oren was ‘rescuing’ me.”
I glance at her. “The children?”
“Little Anya, too,” she says.
I remember the little girl from Rian’s ship who played jacks—well, knucklebones—with me. She had bright eyes and a lively laugh and scarred arms from whatever Oren Crane did to her.
I grit my teeth. As much as I hate Rian, Anya is a child. I think about Lina and Mouse and what I’ve seen them do, and I crack the whip, driving the horses faster.
The glow of fire lights the sky before long, and Tessa gasps. Smoke begins to obscure the moon. We hear the sounds of battle before we see it, because the boom and roar of cannon fire followed by screams are unmistakable.
“We’re close,” Tessa says, and there’s horror in her voice. “The palace is just over this hill.”
Then we crest another hill. Tessa gasps again.
“The palace,” she says.
“What palace?” says Lochlan, and he’s right.
There’s no palace at all. There’s nothing but fire.
We tether the horses and take a spot at high ground to try to assess the situation. We’re armed and ready for battle from what we gathered from the guards’ trunks, but I know Tessa isn’t a soldier—and from the look of things down below, the three of us aren’t going to make much of a difference.
Oren Crane’s ship has pulled into the harbor, and he appears to be firing on what’s left of the palace. Without Rian and his best people here, there was no one left to defend anything. It seems that a lot of Oren’s men have already claimed the ground below. What’s left of it, anyway.
Tessa pulls a spyglass from our supplies and peers down at the harbor. “This is horrific. I don’t see Olive or Erik. Not Rian either. I don’t know Oren’s people, though.” She hands the spyglass to me. “What do you see?”
I look through the lens. “Oren is still on his ship.” I frown. “With Lina and Mouse.”
Lochlan swears. “They’re horrible.”
“She is,” I agree. “Mouse wouldn’t be.” I shift the spyglass and find a crumpled body leaning against the railing. Ford Cheeke. He’s bleeding from his temple, and there’s more blood in a pool under his body. I don’t know if he’s dead or not, but it doesn’t look good.
I swallow heavily. I didn’t do it, but I feel as though I was a part of the cause.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
Another cannon fires. The sound cracks through the night, and we all jump. Fewer screams erupt down below.
Because Oren’s people are winning.
My heart keeps pounding. I don’t know how to help here. I tried to do the right thing, and it didn’t work. I tried to be the King’s Justice, and it didn’t work.
I look at Tessa and Lochlan. This isn’t even my battle, but they’re both staring at me expectantly. They’re looking at me to lead. Somehow it reminds me of that day in the clothier’s shop, when I needed to be the one to provide hope. Just like when I had to handle things for my brother, success—or failure—has become my responsibility.
I steel my spine and look through the spyglass again. Oren is on the ship. Untouchable from the shore. He’s sending people down to fight on the ground, but he’s safe on the water, as usual. He used my plan to get Rian and his people away so they’d have an advantage.
He used Rian’s desire for revenge, or for me—or both—to get them away.
The numbers down below are dwindling. I don’t have an army. I don’t know the people here to rally townspeople. It’s not like Lochlan’s rebels in Kandala. We don’t know anyone at all. My chest tightens dangerously.
Tessa puts a hand on mine. “You don’t have to win this war alone.”
The weight of her hand presses into mine, and again, I can’t believe she’s here, that I’ve found her, that we’re together. I can’t help it. I pull her to me.
“Forgive me,” I say. “I don’t know if I can win this war at all.”
Lochlan picks up the spyglass and looks himself. “Do you remember what you said about the treble hook when we were on Silvesse? Do you think you could still do that?”
I frown. “That I could scale the wall to break in?”
“Yes.” He glances back at the wagon. “We have some treble hooks in the guard gear.”
I look at him sideways, because I can’t figure out his angle. “Ah . . . if only we had a building to break into?”
He hands me the spyglass. “There’s half a dozen rowboats sitting in the harbor. No one’s touching them because they’re useless against a brigantine. Half of them might be on fire. But we could try.”
“Try what?” says Tessa.
“You don’t need to scale a wall,” says Lochlan. “How about a ship?”
Tessa is going with me first, because I wouldn’t have it any other way. Our treble hooks whistle up through the night and latch against the hull with a clink, and we wait to see if anyone hears. The sounds of the battle and the slap of the water against the hull must be too loud, because no one comes to investigate. I wait anyway. I’ve been double-crossed too many times now.
But then we’re climbing.
“If only we had masks, it would be like old times,” she says, a little breathless from the effort.
I look at the faint tracing of her profile in the moonlight. “I like it better this way.”
“I hope you know I plan to sob all over you properly later.”
“I hope that’s not all you plan to do all over me later.”
She gasps, then grins, her smile bright in the darkness.
“Not for nothing, but I am right here,” Lochlan says from below us.
But then the ship fires again, and we clutch tight to the ropes as they shudder with the force of the cannon fire.
“I’m rather shocked to see the two of you getting along so well,” she says once we’re climbing again.
“We’ve come to an understanding, I think,” I say.
“Karri will be so relieved.”
If we can get back, I think, but I don’t say that.
I tap my finger over my lips, and she nods, because we’re nearing the rail. The three of us climb over silently. This part of the deck is pitch-black, which is why we boarded here. But there aren’t dozens of people on board anymore—most of Oren’s sailors are on land, or down below, firing the cannons. We’re going to have to be strategic to take out Oren, but we don’t need to sneak past a ship full of sailors. Even still, I tell Lochlan to stay at the back, to make sure no one can come up from behind us. Then Tessa and I slip along the railing, staying in the shadows.
Oren’s attention is focused ahead, on the battle on the ground, so we have an advantage.
He’s standing with his back to the main mast, though, so I can’t just shoot him and be done with it.
I grit my teeth. Lina is off to the side, closest to us, but she looks bored. I suppose the death and destruction of hundreds of people doesn’t excite her. I don’t know where Mouse is now. Maybe they’ve sent him ashore, too.
But there’s Oren, right there, against the mast. Watching Rian’s city fall. The fires are so hot that I can feel them from here.
Tessa’s hand brushes mine, and I give it a quick squeeze. We cling to the shadows and wait for him to move.
He doesn’t.
The ship fires again, another cannonball rocketing toward shore. The floorboards underneath us give a shudder, and I expect that to be the moment that Oren steps away from the mast, but it’s not. He’s clinging to that spot like it’ll save his life—and it very much is.
Sweat forms in the small of my back. We can’t stay here forever. Someone will eventually look this way. More sailors will eventually come up on deck. I look from Oren to Lina and wonder if we should shoot her first—but there are enough people on the deck that I worry they’d retaliate before we could get to Oren.
I consider my brother praising Rian’s crew, their devotion to him. I don’t get the sense that Oren has that. There’s a reason he spends so much time on this ship, protecting himself. Torture and fear breed something, but it isn’t loyalty.
