Between Kings, page 22
part #10 of The City Between Series Series
The king fought desperately too, and as time passed, he grew more and more frustrated, blue blood leaking from wounds over his arms and legs. I grinned to myself, because I knew what was likely to happen at this point—and whichever way things went, there was going to be an end pretty soon.
I wasn’t prepared for it to be exactly the way it happened, though. The king was so frustrated that I expected a mistake—and there was a mistake, but it wasn’t from him. Les didn’t back away quickly enough from a vicious slash from the king, and the heirling sword spun away and clattered along the bricks.
The king pressed in without a second thought, swift and deadly, and I pushed myself away from the wall, wearily aware that I was going to have to fight again…just as the king stumbled back again with a fork sticking out of each shoulder.
“Oi,” I said, rocking on my heels. “Those are my best forks!”
They were pretty close to poison for a fae king without quite enough human in him, too: he staggered back another step and dropped to his knees, then, helped on by another four swiftly-thrown forks to the chest, tumbled over onto his back on the cold bricks.
“Flamin’ heck,” I said.
It’s hard to think of someone as the Big Evil when your troppo old childhood playmate has them pinned to the floor with pretty much every fork out of your cutlery drawer. In his life, the king had been all supreme and beyond reach of the very power that kept him in authority—free to kill, preserve, or imprison as he saw fit.
Now, pinned to the floor with stainless steel forks, his magic tied up and unreachable, the power he should have been able to access so utterly out of reach, all he could do was roar his rage, pain, and frustration at the rocky ceiling.
I said, “Ow”, but had neither the hands nor the energy to try and cover my ears, so I just waited until he stopped yelling. And as I waited, I saw Les pick up the heirling sword again.
“Traitor!” snarled the king. “Don’t you dare to try and kill me with the powers that made me king!”
“Not your power anymore,” pointed out Les, still moving toward him.
“You, Pet—”
“You know what?”
He stared at me in helpless rage, and then, as if he thought it might do some good to humour me, snapped, “What?”
“You look flamin’ ridiculous,” I said, dripping blood on the wall as I leaned into it again.
I only had a moment to see the sheer rage and impotence in his eyes before Les cut off his head.
“Didn’t even get a chance to monologue,” I muttered. I supposed I should say something about the banality of evil, but I just didn’t have the energy. Instead, I added vaguely, “Lots of blood.”
“Yes,” said Les, with satisfaction. The blood ran around and beneath his feet, soaking the skin and making blue rivulets all around the body. “He is very dead.”
“Oh well,” I said. “Reckon it’s good to make sure.”
Les prodded the body with his bloody toe, then took another fork out of his pocket and considered it.
“Okay, I didn’t mean you have to stab the bloke again,” I complained. I knew I should push myself away from the wall again, but it was hard.
“Isn’t moving,” Les said, in a soothing sort of way.
“What am I supposed to do for forks now?” I asked him, when I managed to make it over to the king’s body. It took me longer than was probably healthy to stumble over there, but even if his head was cut off, I wanted to be sure the old king wasn’t going to get up again. “Not sure that was sportsmanlike.”
“It’s always sport to them, lady,” he said.
He looked a bit more tethered than he had looked a few moments before—not so much as if the act of killing had solidified him, but that contact with the sword might have.
“How long have you known?” I asked him. I didn’t reach for the heirling sword even though my fingers itched to do so, because it wasn’t mine anymore. I’d only ever been a guardian of it. “That you’re an heirling, I mean?”
“Lady,” he countered, “how long did you know that you’re the harbinger?”
“Not flamin’ long enough, and don’t change the subject. I threw you the sword because I knew you could kill the king and I’ve got a pretty good idea that you’ll be a half-way decent king, if you’re still sane enough to do it. How long have you been out and about in the world? I guessed at the 1920s, but that was only based on how much trouble there’s been from Behind over the last hundred years.”
“Days and nights,” he said. “Years and months, they don’t sit still for me. I remember the dancing and the drink, but I was hiding in the glitter and trying to avoid the blood.”
“Yep, sounds like the twenties,” I said, leaning against the damp bricks and trying to breathe a bit more deeply. It didn’t seem as though I was getting enough oxygen, and I was tired of the world spinning around me. Any vampire spit I’d taken in that morning had long since vanished, eaten away with trying to heal me as my blood slowly but surely drained from my severed arm. “Oi. At the start, when we first met again, and you skipped out on me and the detective after leaving us all twined up in vines—did you know then? That I was the harbinger?”
“Always knew, lady,” he said. “It was a wrong thing to do, but I thought if I could live just a little bit longer—”
“You were going to leave us there to be fed on?”
“You wouldn’t have died,” he said, though he still wouldn’t look at me. “But you would have been nice and quiet and still alive when I got you out. I thought if I had the harbinger with me—but then your big friend came, and it was all up.”
Maybe it was stupid to trust him, but he hadn’t had to tell me. For anything I knew, back then it had just been an unexpected attack followed by a quick escape because he saw Zero coming and knew we’d be safe but didn’t want to be seen by any fae. He hadn’t had to admit that he’d done anything wrong.
“All right,” I said, trying to catch a breath that would stay caught. “That was messed up, but you saved me a few times too, so let’s call it even.”
He looked at me quickly, and I wasn’t sure if it was relief or calculation that flashed in his eyes for a moment, so I reached into Between and pulled out the heirling sword once again, leaving him staring at his empty hand.
“You can’t kill me,” I said, resting the point of the blade on the uneven floor. I was panting, but that didn’t diminish the look of cold realisation on his face. “Not with this, anyway. I’m pretty sure I can kill you with it, though. That’s what the harbinger is there for, I reckon—to keep some sort of balance around the place. No king gets too powerful, no heirling gets too dangerous. You get what I’m saying?”
“Yes,” he said, as sober as I’d ever seen him look.
“You need to understand,” I said, “that me forgiving you isn’t a weakness you can exploit. The past is in the past, but if you try to hurt me or my friends—if you start doing the same sort of things as the last king, I’ll come and put this sword through your heart myself, and there won’t be anything you can do to stop me.”
“That isn’t written in the laws, lady,” he said, wary and very, very still.
“Written, no,” I agreed. “But it’s right at the heart of the law, or we wouldn’t be standing here today. I’m not behindkind, and I’m not going to argue about all the minutia until I’ve been argued out of the spirit of the law. You can do that between yourselves.”
“I’m not behindkind either, lady.”
“Yeah? You sure about that? Because from where I sit, you’ve done a lot of wriggling and careful talk to get where you are. I don’t know how much of you is human, but you’ve played their game, and you’re pretty nearly one of them.”
His eyes met mine and then dropped. “I had to live, lady.”
“I know,” I said. “That’s why I threw the sword to you. I reckon you’re worth taking a chance on. I just want to make sure you know that there are gunna be consequences if you forget where you came from.”
This time when Les’ eyes met mine, they held. “I won’t forget. I’ll do what I can to be just and fair, and I’ll do what I can not to make you think you made the wrong choice.”
“It’ll be worth it just to see their faces, anyway,” I said, grinning suddenly although there was cold sweat on my brow. “What do you reckon all the toffy-nosed fae out there are going to do when they realise that they have a human king and a human harbinger?”
A faint shadow came across his face but cleared a moment later. “Make trouble.”
“Yeah, I reckon you’re right,” I said. “If I were you, I’d head on out before the trouble comes down here looking for you. I need to get back up to the bridge to find out if—if—”
I found that I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t bring myself to put out into the sparkling mix of Between and magic the doubt that JinYeong was alive.
I caught a breath that was nearly a sob and asked instead, “We can leave the body here, right? It’s already mostly gone.”
“Corruption should stay underground where it belongs, lady,” he said, one side of his mouth lifting in brief disgust.
Wary of any brawlers who might have outlasted the old king’s demise, I walked with him as far as his exit—right up until I saw the shadows reaching deeply into the tunnel from the direction of the sun and the hospital. Those shadows were behindkind—or, to be exact, fae. I’m not sure the new king noticed me dropping behind, because as he walked forward to meet them his stride grew longer and more certain. There was still a slightly off kilter gait to it that reminded me of his days dancing around after me and leading me on chases through the streets and alleys, but now Les walked as though the ground was firm beneath him.
I, on the other hand, couldn’t seem to find my feet beneath me properly. I breathed, but it didn’t seem to help; my right side, wet with blood where my arm had once been, set my walk at an odd angle that I couldn’t seem to correct now that the ground seemed to move beneath me. I heard the faint mumble of conversation that said The Pet? Where is it? and felt the curious probe of fae magic that was too clumsy to find me and my copy of brownie magic that told it I was just part of the running rivulet.
I half expected the new king to send someone after me. He probably would have been able to catch me if he had: I was slow, dizzy, and still losing more blood than I could really stand to lose. He didn’t do it, and I found myself giggling in relief as I staggered back through the darkness toward the bridge that was somewhere in the fuzzy distance, at once close and too far away.
I’d made the right choice. Well, somewhere in the morass of bad and worse choices, it looked as though I’d made the right choice. Time would tell—if I still had time after this long, tiring walk—but I felt hopeful, even as the world grew dimmer and my feet slipped in my own blood.
“Where’s that flamin’ vampire when I need him?” I muttered to myself.
Then I fell over a body.
The body huffed as I hit the ground but barely moved, and as I lay on the hard bricks with my legs caught up in someone else’s, it occurred to me vaguely that whoever it was I had fallen over was in a worse state than I was.
It took me a while to sort out my own legs, and by the time I finally did get them untangled and found myself sitting against the tunnel wall, it was very nearly a surprise to find out all over again that someone else was sitting there too.
“Flamin’ heck,” I mumbled, waking up a bit again. “I know you. You’re that flamin’ twisty old tea drinker.”
He laughed with his head tilted back against the stonework. “Here we are once again, my dear. I fancy you’ve been bleeding just a little too much.”
He tried to reach out for me but couldn’t do it; the hand shook as he tried to move it and fell short despite the lack of space between us.
“Keep your magic for yourself,” I said, trying to catch my breath. “Reckon you’re gunna need it more than me.”
“Not for too much longer, I believe,” he said.
“Shut up,” I said flatly. “You’re not allowed to die until you get a flamin’ good look at the mess you caused.”
“It was beautiful chaos, wasn’t it?” he said, laughing and coughing up blood. “I knew if I could keep it secret just long enough, that chaos would be enough to take over and turn the clock onto the next change. I just had to cover it for long enough. That’s why the parents had to die: there had to be a nice, tidy cover over everything until it was big enough to turn the tide.”
The sound that choked in my throat could have been a sob, or it might have been an incredulous laugh. I turned my head to look into his bloody face. “You killed my parents to keep things tidy?”
“Yes,” Athelas said. He didn’t look away, and that was unnerving. It was like he was punishing himself by not allowing himself to look away from me. “No. It was the only way I could stay alive: follow orders without quite following them until things caught fire on their own. I gave your parents the same choice I gave to the little zombie’s parents: die for your child, or allow your child to die and go on uninterrupted in your own house.”
“Saw how that happened for Morgana,” I said.
My head reeled, but I wasn’t sure if it was from the shock, or because it was hard to breathe. Maybe it was hard to breathe because of the shock. There was enough blood around the place, but it was all on the outside where it didn’t do much good.
I said faintly, “Didn’t work out too well.”
“Her parents chose to let her die,” said Athelas. A smile, twisted and dark, contorted his lips. “They usually do, after all.”
“No, they flamin’ don’t!” I said savagely. “And just because yours were like that—”
“A great many were like that, in fact,” he said.
“That why you kept this?” I asked, showing my remaining hand with the citrine band bloody but present on my ring finger. I couldn’t hold it up for long; like Athelas, I lacked the strength to do what I wouldn’t normally have to think about.
“Ah, that,” he said, and he closed his eyes again. “I rather fancied it might help to unravel things once I was gone. A matter of having enough but not too much evidence on me. It fits you well.”
“You and your flamin’ secrets and plans!” I snapped. “I’m surprised you’re not intent on dragging them into the grave with you!”
“Oh, if one is to die, one might as well make sure that one’s story is well told, after all! I rather fancy dying a hero.”
“You better not!” I said fiercely. “You better flamin’ live and be sorry for what you’ve done! I’m not having you die like a hero when you haven’t lived like one.”
“There’s very little chance of that,” he said. “Should I survive today, I’ll die a traitor’s death in the king’s court regardless.”
“Yeah?” I had my own, bitter thoughts about that. While I didn’t think Les was a fan of Athelas, I wasn’t sure he would really try to kill Athelas if it wasn’t necessary. Not when Athelas was largely responsible for bringing down his predecessor. “You reckon the new king is gunna be too worried about you taking out the old one and clearing a space for him? Even if he does, it won’t make up for all the people you killed.”
“The king was the one who perpetuated it all. There was once a soupçon of justice in the world Behind—but when your king clings to the throne and murders his way through the worlds to keep his power, that rottenness seeps through the entire world. Until he was gone, there was no chance for justice.”
“That’s flamin’ garbage,” I said, my head sinking against the wall in weariness. “You just want to give yourself a big enough reason to make all the killings seem worth it. You would have been happy to just take down Lord Sero, wouldn’t you? You just couldn’t do it without the king and the Heirling Trials, and you couldn’t take down the king without Lord Sero. If one fell, they both would. It was two for one, so don’t pretend you were being noble and trying to bring about the end of a reign of terror instead of just wanting to get revenge.”
“Perhaps so,” he said, his voice grey and tired. “I seem to remember that it all hung together at one time; reason and will and righteous possibility. Perhaps it never did; perhaps I imagined it.”
“Was it worth it?” I asked him through my teeth, sick with pain and blood loss. “Killing all those people just to make sure you were the one who brought down Lord Sero and the king?”
“The sacrifice had to be made,” he said. He nodded at my arm—or at least, where it would have been if it was still there. “You of all people should understand that.”
“It was my arm,” I said. “I get to sacrifice my arm if I think it’s the right thing to do. You don’t get to sacrifice other people—it stops being sacrifice if it’s not you. After that it’s just a massacre.”
“After all,” he said, and his voice was bitter, “I was a murderer from the start. How else would I bring about my revenge?”
I could have replied, but I didn’t have the strength or even the words. I didn’t have the means to express the depths of my disagreement, or the strength to cry them aloud. All I could do was breathe in air that didn’t seem to give me any function or freshness, while my heart thundered but didn’t seem to move blood about like it should.
I was going to die here in the tunnel beside the fae who had murdered my parents, without even being able to see JinYeong—or perhaps, said a cold thought, the body of JinYeong—one last time.
Even worse, I was pretty sure that the fae I would dearly love to hate was weeping, silently and tiredly, too old and tired to be able to continue believing the lies he’d always told himself.
I let out a shaky breath that was just short of a sob, and fancied I could see it dancing in front of my eyes. Darkness that moved with two pinpoints of savage life, and the brief flash of white teeth.
“JinYeong,” I said, staring into the darkness with the breath catching in my throat. “JinYeong!”
