Avery
Author: Charlotte McConaghy
Date: 2013-06-02 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy; Romance; Young Adult; Magic; Paranormal; High Fantasy; New Adult; Young Adult Fantasy; Fantasy Romance; Paranormal Romance
Description: 'Prepare to have your heart and soul and imagination invaded.' Isobelle Carmody 'Beautifully written and grippingly told.' Sophie Masson The people of Kaya die in pairs. When one lover dies, the other does too. So it has been for thousands of years – until Ava. For although her bondmate, Avery, has been murdered and Ava’s soul has been torn in two, she is the only one who has ever been strong enough to cling to life. Vowing revenge upon the barbarian queen of Pirenti, Ava’s plan is interrupted when she is captured by the deadly prince of her enemies. Prince Ambrose has been brought up to kill
Publisher: Random House Australia

About the Book

The people of Kaya die in pairs. When one lover dies, the other does too. So it has been for thousands of years – until Ava.

For although her bondmate, Avery, has been murdered and Ava’s soul has been torn in two, she is the only one who has ever been strong enough to cling to life. Vowing revenge upon the barbarian queen of Pirenti, Ava’s plan is interrupted when she is captured by the deadly prince of her enemies.

Prince Ambrose has been brought up to kill and hate. But when he takes charge of a strangely captivating Kayan prisoner and is forced to survive with her on a dangerous island, he must reconsider all he holds true …

In a violent country like Pirenti, where emotion is scorned as a weakness, can he find the strength to fight for the person he loves … even when she’s his vengeful enemy?

Published as part of the Random Romance series, Avery is a sweeping, romantic fantasy novel about loss and identity, and finding the courage to love against all odds.

Contents

Cover

About the Book

Title Page

Dedication

Map

Epigraph

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Epilogue

Extract from Thorne

About the Author

More Random Romance

Copyright Notice

Loved the book?

For my father

Epigraph

The people of Kaya die in pairs. With the forging of the soul magic, so is forged an unbreakable bond between those in love. When one dies, so shall the other, and forever will it remain so …

– extract from the words of Agathon of Sancia,
First Warder of Kaya

Forged in iron are men.

Bound for the earth are women.

– extract from The Song of Pirenti

Prologue

Avery

The worn, wooden handle of my axe feels comforting in my hands. The weight of it is familiar, and the heady smell of resin fills my nostrils as I methodically work my hands around the wood. The fortress on the other side of this forest belongs to the Barbarian Queen of Pirenti, and in that fortress are the fiercest, most brutal warriors in the world. It is their stronghold, supposedly impossible to penetrate, and here we stand, about to try.

I wouldn’t mind so much if Ava were not standing amidst our small force.

In the quiet of the forest, I cast my eyes around at our group. The three warders have started to glow a brilliant blue colour, their long white hair floating eerily with the strength of their power. Their eyes have shifted to the shade of falling snow, and there is a deadly readiness to the way they stand, alert and gazing towards their mark.

I feel my lips curve in appreciation of them – at the thought of how they terrify the Pirenti. Nigh on impossible to kill, the warders are our greatest weapons.

As I tuck my black hair behind my ears, I catch Ava watching me and meet her violet eyes. She smiles her wild smile, the hungry one, and no matter how many times she smiles at me like that, I always have the same, ridiculous reaction. You’d think our bodies would get used to the closeness of each other, but they never do.

Our leader, Gidion, has a face that is scarred and ugly from all the battles he’s fought, but he looks eager in the way we all do. If we succeed, this could very well end many years’ worth of bloodshed. That thought alone is why Ava and I are here. Something has to be done, or the fighting will never end.

‘Avery,’ Gidion addresses me. ‘You take the lead.’

I nod, feeling the weight of this settle on me. We are leaving the pegasi hidden behind the cover of trees. They need not be tethered; the proud flying horses are tied to us from birth and cannot take to the air unless given permission.

The wild forest doesn’t make a sound as we move silently through it. I fall into step next to Ava. She doesn’t speak – we’ve nearly made it out of the cover of trees and there’s no time for any of the words we might want to say. No need for them either, really.

The drawbridge at the entrance is easy enough to move through when you are protected by warders’ magic, and we walk straight through the enormous front hall. Soldiers are everywhere and the noise is deafening. They sit at row upon row of tables, shouting and laughing and eating, bristling with the brutality unique to their kind. Ava’s heart quickens – I can feel it inside my chest cavity. She can’t help staring at these men as we make our way through, careful not to touch or jostle anyone. Pirenti soldiers look nothing like Kayans – these men are huge and beastly, and there is a deep sense of wildness to them. There are no women in this hall of soldiers – here women are considered inferior and would never be allowed to fight.

All but one, of course: the Barbarian Queen wages wars from her blood-soaked throne, demanding always that she be surrounded by men, and men only.

The top floor. That’s where she’ll be. But there are at least fourteen floors in this fortress, and hundreds of soldiers to trick our way past.

We’ve nearly made it to the end of the hall when an enormous man walks straight through the edge of the warder’s shield, cutting a path between us and the rest of our group. Ava and I are forced out and through a separate exit. We’re dressed in the castle’s colours, so we won’t immediately be recognised, but still – this isn’t part of the plan.

‘Wonderful,’ she mutters. Thankfully, there’s no one in the stone corridor. My dark eyes flash as I meet her gaze.

‘Top floor, right?’ Ava murmurs, reaching out to squeeze my hand briefly.

‘Too dangerous without the warders, petal,’ I tell her. ‘We get out now.’

‘Avery, come on.’ Her eyebrows arch. Up this close I can see the smattering of freckles on her sun-drenched cheeks, and the purple of her eyes is impossibly bright. ‘Please don’t tell me I’ve fallen in love with a coward.’

The familiar scent of her lavender soap drifts past me and for a moment the bond that ties us together flares and changes our eyes to a shining gold.

‘Ava,’ I sigh, ‘I really don’t want you hurt. Understood?’

‘Whatever, Ave. Let’s go already.’

The two of us aren’t given second looks, with Ava dressed as a man, her beautiful golden locks pinned up under a cap. Back home, she’s famous for her hair. The first time I ever saw her, it was because of that hair.

Moving swiftly, we reach the top floor. I’m dressed in the garb of one of the inner-circle guards, so we shouldn’t be stopped, even here. I notice Ava fingering the long dagger at her belt and silently will her not to be reckless.

There is a large room at the end of the hallway. The doors are open, but our view is blocked by the people milling around. They part, and I am faced with something so painful I could not have imagined it before this moment. The room beyond is huge, and, unlike the rest of the grey stone fortress, it sparkles gold and ivory. The walls and ceiling are carved with a craftsmanship that seems utterly at odds with the brutish nature of the people who inhabit it. To the east is a huge, open window, which frames the dazzling sun as it sinks below the ocean and casts the whole room in a reddish, golden glow.

I am abruptly unmoored, as though my heart has been exposed by the force of such unexpected grandeur and intricacy and colour. Because here, amongst the terrible beauty of this room, I realise that people are being slaughtered.

There are bodies on the white marble floor – mangled, broken bodies stewing in pools of blood. The sight of it is bruising, altering; it takes my breath away.

I understand the cruelty of the Barbarian Queen, now. She could have her prisoners executed anywhere but she chooses this room, with all its splendour; the cunning behind such an act is destructive beyond anything I can comprehend.

More prisoners are lined up to be slaughtered and dozens watch on, as though it’s the most natural sight in the world. Forcing myself back to clarity, I move through the crowd towards the prisoners. Ava slips to the back to scan the proceedings. We’re the first here – the task is ours. I should have known it would be this way.

At the far end of the room there is an ivory throne, and on it sits the Queen of Pirenti. One by one, people are led into the centre of the room to have their throats slit while she watches on. I look at her, stunned by the ferocity of her gaze – we’ve all heard stories about the ruthlessness of this Queen, but this is … different. The grey-haired woman before me, dressed in animal fur, watches those being slaughtered and she smiles as if excited by the carnage.

I drag my eyes from the gruesome sight before me and see Ava edging towards the window. The drop to the ground is catastrophic, but soon there won’t be much time for anything else. I can feel Ava readying her pegasis for the jump.

The line of prisoners is shuffled forward – I’m close enough now to feel the hot skin of a young man brush against my arm and quickly take hold of him. He’s Kayan, as I am, which is most likely the only reason he’s about to die.

The Queen waves her hand, the edge of her mouth curling in anticipation. The world slows, stretches out; my focus hones into a knifepoint as sharp as the one in my fingertips. I raise the blade as if to slice through the prisoner’s throat, but instead flick my wrist with a quiet madness in my muscles. The knife leaves my hand, thrown through the air, and I watch as it spins over and over, winking in the candlelight until the blade is suddenly gone, buried deep within the Queen’s side.

A moment of silence, of stillness, as if time has paused. A gasp of horror shivers through the room, and then there is chaos.

I turn to see that Gidion has arrived and is waiting with Ava. But I know, as well as I know anything, that I will never be able to reach them. There are too many guards surrounding me. There were always going to be too many.

They shepherd me towards the Queen. She rises to her feet, clutching the knife in her side. It wasn’t a good enough shot. As simple as that. I’ve destroyed everything we’ve been fighting for, any chance at peace we might have had, all because my throw wasn’t good enough. The Queen’s pale blue eyes glisten as she bears down on me.

I have to do something. Because if I die here, so will Ava. And that I cannot allow.

I square my shoulders as best I can, staring at the Barbarian Queen and trying to think of a way out. I’ve never really hated anyone until this moment. Her face is right up close to mine, her eyes glittering. There is no sign that she even feels the knife protruding from her abdomen. Remnants of beauty line her age-weathered face, but they are obscured by the deadness of her eyes. It startles me, the vacancy hidden behind all this blood lust.

My eyes scan and see a gap – I might be able to make it. If I can reach the daggers at my belt, I can get through and—

Hope dies like a flame that has been doused.

For a man has appeared by the Queen’s side, and I know exactly who he must be. He is too huge, too tattooed, too scarred to be anyone other than the elder prince. They say he’s a beast, this man. That he has berserker blood in his veins and that he’s accomplished the impossible feat of killing five warders. I’m a good fighter, but I know, even as I look at him – at the kind of monstrosity who could only ever be born in Pirenti – that I won’t be able to escape. His blue eyes, icy like his mother’s, are shining with lust as he holds fast to my arms with a grip like iron.

And so. And so you come to the end after all, with no way out, no choice at the last on how you leave the world. I should have known it would be this way: bloody and violent and surrounded by beauty.

There’s only one thing left to do. I turn my head and find Ava. Her eyes burn a brilliant gold, the colour of the bond, and I feel my own flash in response. A terrifying despair, unlike anything she’s ever known, is taking over her body – I can feel it and it’s tearing me apart. I feel frightened now, deeply frightened, but not for myself.

You join souls once in this life, and once only.

Leave, I tell her through the bond. Please. I need you to leave.

Not without you, she whispers into me. Never without you.

That’s all the time we have left, because as Ava watches, transfixed by the horror of it, the Barbarian Queen we’d so foolishly come to assassinate wrenches my dagger from her body and sheathes it violently into my heart. A cry escapes Ava’s mouth as she feels the impact the same way I do. She feels my heart in her chest as it shudders in shock.

As the woman stabs me over and over again, enjoying the primal cruelty of it, I see Gidion take hold of Ava’s shoulders and pull her backwards out of the window. She disappears beyond my sight, and for a moment I lie still, feeling nothing. The Queen continues to stab me, but her prince has let go, and now simply watches. There is no lust in his eyes anymore. He meets my gaze and I imagine he is very tired. In this moment, he is bigger than the world, bigger than life. He takes up every space left to me, because he is looking into my eyes with an impossibly vast sense of understanding. He knows me, knows who I am and what I am here to die for. For a second, it is strange to me that I should be met now with something as profoundly intimate as that look, but then the thought drifts away on a current of exhaustion.

My blood seeps over the stone flaggings and my vision goes black. I can sense that my dying, flailing soul has torn Ava’s out of her body, and now both halves lie on the floor beside me. The bond will never break. Not even after death. It has simply torn the two of us to pieces.

My eyes flutter open once more, to glimpse the blood-streaked sky through the window. I close them for the last time, and I’m met with the memory of her hair, way out at sea. It enfolds me, wrapping me up and carrying me away with it, warm and perfect and endless.

The people of Kaya die in pairs. So it is and will always be.

But even now, at the very last, even knowing how desperately she will suffer because of me, I simply cannot bring myself to see the bond as a curse.

Anyone who does, clearly never bonded with Ava of Orion.

Chapter 1

Ambrose

I was already walking across the frosted ground when the sun rose, my boots crunching, breath making clouds in the air. At the end of the stone walkway was a set of steps, and as I followed these down into the cold earth, I was aware of nothing more than the deafening beat of my heart.

Once in the dark, I lit a torch and carried it with me, through a stone tunnel that twisted and turned, and took me deeper under the world than any man should go.

At the end of the tunnel was a crypt, and here I stopped, sure and unsure and colder than I’d been in years.

Setting the torch in the wall bracket, I stepped inside and stared at the stone slab.

Memories flickered like ravens’ wings at the edge of my sight. I didn’t let them come any closer.

I saw his shadow first, a shadow that belonged to a giant. His hand on my shoulder, then his voice behind me, rough like gravel under boots.

‘You were banned from here long ago.’

I didn’t reply. He remembered that day as well as I did.

‘I’ll have to report it.’

That’s when I stepped away from his hand. Glancing over my shoulder to look at my brother, I merely shook my head, too tired to play this game. As I looked at him, I missed him, physically missed him.

‘Why this fixation?’ Thorne asked. ‘Why must you come here?’

I walked around the slab, running a finger over the smooth granite.

He folded his arms decisively. He was impatient, and always, always quick to anger.

‘He was weak, you were strong. There is nothing else. Stay away from this place, little brother. Don’t let it twist your head.’

I watched him walk up the steps and disappear, knowing he’d go straight to inform Ma of where I’d been. He was a simple man.

I stayed a moment longer looking at the grave, my father’s grave. Then, because this was where my nightmares waited for me and I could only face them for a few minutes at a time, I followed Thorne up into the daylight to await whatever punishment met me.

As evening neared, I slung my bow over my shoulder and struck out beyond the wall. Guards on watch duty saluted me as I passed, and I nodded before pushing myself into a run. Quickening my pace as the forest closed in around me, I breathed deeply, seeking the scent of game for hunting.

What I found instead was the smell of lavender soap.

Stopping dead in my tracks, I took another deep breath, mystified by the scent and where it could be coming from. Tracking it southeast brought me closer to the ocean, and then up into the canopy of the trees. Swinging up through the branches, I made it all the way to the top of a massive elm before finding a clear view of the sky.

And that was when I saw him.

A boy, slender in size, riding a glorious pegasis. The creature’s pelt was a perfect white, its wings blood red and stretching to infinity. I peered closely as they soared through the air, watching the twists and turns and swoops of legs and arms and wings.

As I gazed, I came to learn something about the boy in the sky. The winged horse he rode was moving in a way I’d seen less than a handful of times before. This was rider and mount reflected, the heart of a rider threading its way through the muscles of the animal. And in those muscles was an aggressive, aching fearlessness – an unnatural fearlessness. Those who could ride their pegasis without fear were the most formidable, the most terrifying. In a way, it was something to envy. In another, it was deeply repulsive, for to have no fear surely meant you’d lost a part of your soul, and that was the darkest fate a man could have.

I felt something strange then, watching the pegasis and rider. The connection between them was clearly unnatural, but there was a fragile beauty in it. Darkness unfurled from the heart of this boy, and it was the most intriguing thing I’d ever come across. I wanted to know him. Wanted to know what had made him like that, and what he was capable of because of it.

The two circled gracefully as the boy leant low over his mount’s back, whispering in its ear, stroking its mane. I was so mesmerised by the intimacy of it that it came to me as a jolt in my guts what I was actually looking at. The boy was Kayan – that much was obvious. Which left me only one path to tread.

Slowly, I drew my long bow from around my chest and nocked an arrow to it. Lining the boy up in my sights, I stretched the bow taut. Years of training had made my arms strong enough to use my enormous weapon. I didn’t want to hit the horse – it was too beautiful – although if I killed its rider it would undoubtedly die anyway.

I waited until the boy circled towards me, opening up his chest, and, without thinking enough to hesitate, let loose my arrow.

In that moment I realised how well trained the Kayan was. He heard the hiss of the arrow as it sailed through the air, and jerked sideways so that my shot whizzed straight past his neck, landing heavily in the pegasis’ wing. The flying horse let out a scream of pain and instantly began to struggle, flapping furiously.

I’d already nocked another arrow to my bow and let it loose. This time, because of the flailing creature he rode, the boy wasn’t able to dodge it completely – the arrow grazed his right arm, causing him to flinch. Using his knees, he turned his mount towards me and approached quickly. The pegasis wouldn’t be able to stay airborne for long – it was already angling down towards the canopy of trees. I didn’t have time to let off another shot before they were on top of me, the boy swinging his mighty sword at my head. I ducked and watched him come around again. This time, instead of moving out of the way I leapt at the boy, tackling him headlong off his horse and sending the two of us into the tree branches.

I gripped onto the Kayan as tightly as I could and we fell, hitting boughs and leaves and grazing ourselves against trunks, our descent slowed by the density of the branches. Finally, we slammed into the ground and I felt all the air flee my chest. My vision went black. When I dragged my eyes open again I was blindingly dizzy and my whole body throbbed. Heaving myself up, I saw that the boy was unconscious. I looked down at him, dazed in the sudden stillness of the forest. His face was odd – too fine, too … pretty. If he’d been born in Pirenti, he’d have been beaten every damn day of his life. His skin was a golden bronze colour, his hair underneath the cap a bright shade of blond. There was a smattering of freckles across his nose and cheeks. Belatedly, I realised I was staring, and felt for a pulse. Blood throbbed beneath his skin, strong and steady.

Wincing at the pain in my head, I stood and looked for the pegasis. It had landed close by, drawn to its rider, and was staring at me. The red of its wings made it hard for me to see how much blood I had spilt. I removed my leather belt and used it to tie the boy’s hands behind his back, then lifted him over my shoulder to start the walk back to the fortress.

In my arms was a boy so damaged he felt no fear – a freak of nature, and the first thing to spark my interest in what felt like years. There was a shift in the air, in my heart. The world had changed at the sight of this boy. But I didn’t understand it – could not contemplate what it might mean. Instead I marched blindly on.

Ava

It was lonely being the first of your kind – the first to survive when you shouldn’t. But I knew a thing with certainty: if you could not endure loneliness, then you wouldn’t survive long in this world.

I’d woken up with headaches before, but this was a whole new world of pain. As soon as my mind moved towards consciousness, my entire body seemed to ignite. The pain shot up my spine through my neck, culminating in my head. It throbbed and ached so badly that all I could do was lean over and retch onto the cold stone floor beneath me. I wondered, vaguely, if this was what it felt like to have broken your spine.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the blinding pain lessened and I opened my eyes. I was in a small stone cell that smelt of rot and human waste. The stench didn’t help my nausea. Groaning, I tried to sit up, struggling as I discovered my hands were tied behind my back.

‘Alive, pretty boy?’ a deep voice spoke from behind me. Moving slowly, I turned to face the bars of my cell. Standing on the other side easily resting his forehead against the iron was a young man. He was very clearly Pirenti – tall, broad and well muscled where Kayan men were small and fine. His skin was paler than a Kayan’s bronze, and his hair was dark, shaved close to his head in the way of warriors here. His eyes, when I met them, made me feel cold inside – they were an incredibly pale blue, so pale they looked almost white, and they seemed to glow under his heavy, dark brow. A long scar ran through his eye, evidence of the violence in his life. In another lifetime I might have been able to appreciate his beauty, but I was ruined now, utterly unable to see such things. His lazy grin was the most antagonising thing I’d ever seen, and I instantly loathed him.

‘Where am I?’ I asked, making sure to keep my voice as low as I could without it sounding false. Back in Kaya it had been easy enough to fool everyone into thinking I was a small, slender man. Here, however, the men prided themselves on their strength and size. I’d padded my clothes to give my body more bulk and tucked my long hair under a cap, but I was still laughably small. My engagement ring was hidden deep within the bandages around my chest, because it would mark me clearly as a bonded woman.

The brute was staring at me too closely for comfort – I couldn’t tell if he’d noticed anything was amiss.

‘You’re in a dungeon cell at the bottom of the palace you attempted to enter uninvited,’ he informed me mildly.

‘I didn’t attempt to enter anywhere!’ I spat. ‘I was just flying my— Where’s Migliori? Where’s my pegasis?’ My heartbeat ratcheted up against my chest and I scrambled unsteadily to my feet.

‘He’s fine. I had our animal physician tend to his wing and set him free.’

I blinked. Then this was the man who’d tackled me from the sky like a lunatic. I felt my anger rise. ‘You can’t set him free. He’s tied to me until the day one of us dies. He’ll sense me in here, and he won’t stop searching until he reaches me.’

‘A fitting fate for such a creature, don’t you think? To spend its life tied to the unnatural emotions of a human, waiting for him instead of flying free?’

I stared at him, my anger slipping away to be replaced with a hollow quiet. He was a pig who couldn’t understand the intricacy of the bond, or any real connection. I was not about to try to explain it to him. ‘Only those who’ve experienced it could understand,’ I murmured.

He seemed to consider that for a moment, but didn’t say anything except, ‘What’s your name, kid?’

I’d known all along – all the years I’d been planning – that I’d be asked this question. And I’d known that if my disguise had any hope of working, I’d have to lie. But as I opened my mouth and uttered the name that wasn’t mine, it still tore through me, inside my broken, ruined heart with both a fierce pride and an interminable sorrow.

‘Avery,’ I told him. ‘My name is Avery.’

‘Ambrose.’

I stared at him blankly. He was looking at me like … like he could see me, like I was a real, solid person with hopes and desires, and not the ghost I’d become. He was looking at me as though I deserved to be noticed.

‘So what? You want us to be pals now?’ I snapped, stunned and unsettled by his gaze. Nobody saw me like that anymore, let alone Pirenti pigs. ‘What do you want? What will you do with me?’

He smiled, moving slowly to pace back and forwards. ‘You’re a naughty boy, Avery of Kaya. Here, guts and audacity only get you rewarded if you’re Pirenti. You’ll be punished.’

‘For doing what, exactly?’

‘For trespassing into our country and attacking a Pirenti man.’

‘You attacked me!’

‘Do you really think the Queen will believe that?’ He grinned lazily, pale eyes flashing, and my heart lurched. ‘More to the point,’ he added, ‘Do you think she’ll care?’

The Pirenti murdered Kayans simply because of our race – a result of the blood feud between our two nations that ran as deep as any river and existed as far back as any history book bothered to record. Nobody knew what the fighting was about anymore – it was just a fact, something we were all born into. Mortal enemies until the day we died. I hated the Pirenti as much as anyone – more, in fact. And I had no doubt that, despite Ambrose’s cool manner, he hated me just as much. There was no way out of this for me except—

‘Execution, probably,’ he murmured. He didn’t seem amused anymore. But I couldn’t read his eyes, steady as they were. ‘If you’re very lucky, and very nice to me, you might get away with life in prison.’

Women in Pirenti were raped and abused and made to be slaves. And a Kayan woman who had trespassed and attacked a man … I shuddered to think what they’d do to me if they knew the truth.

I walked to the bars and spat in the soldier’s face. ‘Nice enough?’

He stared at me without flinching, then calmly wiped his cheek clean, never looking away from my violet eyes. They shone a bright purple when I was angry and they went red when I was furious. I wasn’t sure what he would think of that – Kayans were the only people whose eyes changed colour to suit their moods.

Moving slowly, he drew a set of keys from his pocket and unlocked the bars, then stepped into the cell with me. I was tall for a Kayan woman, but my head barely reached his shoulders. It occurred to me that I was about to be in a lot more pain.

He struck me hard, a backhand to my cheek. I thought he’d snapped my neck, it made such a noise. The room spun and I fell to my knees.

‘That was a kindness,’ I heard him say softly, as if from far away. ‘I could have killed you. I should have. Get up.’

I didn’t move. A tiny, insignificant act of defiance, but all that I was capable of. Ambrose took my arm and jerked me to my feet. My cheek throbbed as I looked at him.

‘How old are you?’ he asked me.

‘Seventeen.’ I was twenty, but as a boy I didn’t look it.

‘Do you understand that you’re about to die?’

‘Of course.’

‘But you aren’t frightened.’

I lifted my chin in response.

‘Why?’

‘Death,’ I said slowly, ‘is easy.’

‘And how, my pretty boy, could you possibly know that?’

My jaw clenched and I made no answer.

His frown deepened. Holding me by the arm, he led me from the cell. My mind started whirling, trying to pull together the pieces of my training, but I felt useless and weak beside his outlandish strength.

Ambrose led me upwards, and I realised with a jolt that we were following the exact path that Avery and I had used two years ago. Nausea clutched at my insides. Even though I’d devoted the rest of my empty, half-life towards punishing the woman who’d murdered my mate, I suddenly didn’t care that I hadn’t achieved it because the sense of loss was so exhausting that I just wanted it all to end. I simply wanted to die.

‘Where are we going?’ I muttered.

‘To your sentencing.’

We came to the room, the very same room. I peered at the floor where the blood had been, wondering if there would be a stain, or some sort of proof, but there wasn’t. Of course there wasn’t – people were killed here all the time. The room was empty but for a woman seated on her throne. She looked like she spent all her time here luxuriating in the residue of death. The Barbarian Queen. The woman I’d watched as she stabbed Avery over and over again, as though she couldn’t tell that he was already gone.

Forget dying. I suddenly wanted to inflict pain. My anger was like a living, breathing thing, controlling my body, making me shake. It was funny what a person with only half a soul could feel: no joy, no pleasure, no amusement, no longing or desire or fear – but they could feel anger, more keenly than if they were whole. Sharper than they ever had before they were destroyed – anger like it kept you alive, anger like air. I’d thought, many times, that it might have been only this anger that allowed me to survive at all.

Ambrose seemed to sense the change in me, for he looked sideways, eyes sharp. He posed a problem; he alone was going to make it hard for me to get this done.

‘Well,’ the Queen said as we approached. ‘It’s the brave little beast, come to be a hero.’

Beast. I would have smiled if I could.

This woman had been in power in Pirenti for thirty-two years, and she looked like she’d aged a lot in the last two – her face was even more wrinkled than I remembered. Her hair was completely white, and her eyes were the same icy colour as the eyes of the guard who held me. She had four bodyguards flanking her, making it impossible for me to see a way to get to her. I dreamed about this woman every night – of her cold, hard sharpness, of her brutality. I dreamed of her beastliness. It revolted me. They all did. I decided to tell her so and the room stilled.

‘What did you say?’ the Barbarian Queen asked me.

‘You make me sick,’ I repeated carefully. ‘You are everything that’s rotten in this world.’

She stared at me, and her fury empowered me. My hands were working behind my back, quickly and subtly.

‘This from the boy who has come here to what? Assassinate a poor, old woman?’

I stared at her. If I’d been physically able to, I might have laughed. ‘Poor old woman,’ I repeated softly, buying time. ‘Tell me. When did you turn from an evil, murderous tyrant into a poor, old woman? It might be something I’ll need to alert my friends about.’

She smiled. ‘Your friends.’

‘I have plenty and they are coming for you, one after the other until you are dead – of that you can be certain.’

The rope around my hands frayed against the file I’d sewn into the back of my breeches. I kept my shoulders very still as I worked – this was a trick I’d practised almost every day over the last two years. A second of silence, and then my hands were free. I didn’t move them, not yet. Instead, I allowed my fingers to stretch out and slide my knife from my waistband.

‘What have you got planned for me?’ I asked. ‘Will you slaughter me on this floor? It doesn’t seem as dramatic with no one here to watch.’

‘But there is someone here to watch,’ the Queen disagreed softly, her eyes flashing to the soldier gripping my arm. It piqued my curiosity. ‘Ambrose would probably quite like to see a young Kayan like you scattered over the marble. Wouldn’t you, soldier?’

Ambrose said nothing. I snuck a look at him – he was still as a statue. His expression was unreadable, but much harder than it had been alone with me in the dungeon.

‘You’ve yet to be punished for this morning,’ she told him. ‘Perhaps I’ll allow you to torture your captive while I think of an appropriate penance for you.’

The blade now firmly in my hand and hidden beneath the fold of my tunic, I was making plans. With my right arm caught in the soldier’s clutches, I would have to use my left. If I ducked low and aimed for the woman’s throat, I could possibly get my knife into her jugular before any of the bodyguards had time to block her, but I’d have to be very, very quick.

‘You may begin,’ the Queen told the soldier.

I took a breath—

‘I don’t think so.’

I paused, whipping around to look at the strange man holding me, speaking out against his Queen. He was staring at her.

‘I beg your pardon?’ she asked him, a dangerous edge to her voice.

‘This boy is unnatural. I’d like him sent to the isle where his mount can never reach him – it will send the two of them mad.’

A shiver of cool horror made its way down my spine. My heart hurt. He couldn’t possibly mean it.

The Queen’s face filled with a demonic grin. ‘Well, well. Aren’t you in a surprisingly macabre mood.’

‘He’s my catch. I’ve rights to decide his fate,’ Ambrose said simply.

He’s a monster, I thought with a dizzy rush of fury. I had to do this now.

Switching hands, I moved the knife into attack position and ducked— a jerk brought me out of my movement. All of a sudden, without me even realising how it had happened, Ambrose, the pig beside me, was holding my knife in his hand, and sheathing it in his own belt – so fast it was virtually invisible.

‘What was that?’ the Queen snapped.

I held my breath, knowing that what had just happened was going to make things very, very bad for me.

And then I heard Ambrose respond with, ‘Nothing. The boy stumbled.’

There was a fist around my heart. Hatred unlike any I’d ever known. How dare he? How dare he take my fate in his own hands, propose to send me to a waking nightmare of a prison and then lie for me? It made no sense and the confusion was a savage thing inside me.

I started struggling, wanting his hands away from my skin, wanting this beast gone from my life forever, but he only tightened his hold into an iron grip and I couldn’t get away.

The Queen watched me through hawk eyes. Finally she smiled, even more widely. Her teeth glittered. ‘Very well, Ambrose. Since you have yet to be punished, and you’ve taken such a personal interest in this case, you shall accompany the boy to the isle.’

‘What?’ he roared. ‘I’ll not go there! You expect me to waste weeks on a miserable journey into the forsaken lands?’

‘Obey the rules and you’ll not be made to do anything you dislike.’ She shrugged. With a wave of her hand we were dismissed.

‘Haven’t you done well,’ I muttered cruelly under my breath as Ambrose yanked me roughly from the room. ‘Now we’ve both got exactly what we want.’

‘Quiet,’ he snarled, his jaw clenched into a hard line. But when he looked at me I saw something strange behind his pale eyes, like the ghost of a thing I’d felt long ago.

Thorne

The best fight I’d ever had was with my little brother. He could dish it out well, that kid. The day he turned fourteen, I beat him to a bloody pulp in front of every soldier in my army – a rite of passage, an honour. But when he turned sixteen, he beat me just as badly, and for me that was a prouder day. We hadn’t fought since. Strangely enough, that fight was what I thought of when I came across him in the crypt that morning. I wondered if we’d ever match ourselves against each other again, and this time, who would win. He was big these days, and he hadn’t lost a fight against any of our men in a very long time. But I was the slaughterman of Pirenti. I didn’t like his chances.

I’d seen him leave his quarters, dressed for the cold, and something about his expression had made me follow. Down into the earth, and my heart had sunk as I’d realised what had driven him out of bed so early.

The same dream, haunting him time and again.

I made my way up the stairs, back into the main building and up to Ma’s private chambers, thinking as I went about the changes in a life – the weight of responsibility and how it altered you over time. First sons and second sons – two very different roles. If brotherly love would have me hold my tongue, duty brought me here and made me speak. You could not, in this life, willingly break the rules without punishment – no matter who you were. There had to be a hierarchy of strength in order for everything to function. I happened to be at the top of it – if I didn’t do my job, things fell apart.

‘What is it?’ Ma asked when I was shown in. She sat behind her desk, reading sheaves of parchment.

‘Ambrose was in the crypt.’

She looked up sharply, disbelief at her lips. ‘Again? After the last punishment?’

I nodded.

‘What is his obsession with that damned place?’

I shrugged. It had been a dark day for Ambrose, that winter solstice so many years ago. I didn’t want to explain that he carried that day with him even now, because I was worried that it meant that he was softer than the rest of us. Ma wouldn’t understand it – she understood nothing of softness.

‘He knows something wasn’t right about that day,’ I murmured. ‘He can scent it.’

Ma frowned. ‘We must keep him out of that hole in the ground. What will get through to him? No punishment seems to work.’

‘Because he’s not a mewling woman,’ I said bluntly. ‘You can’t just whip him and think it will bother him.’

She met my eyes. ‘Very well. I’ll consider that. You’re dismissed.’

I turned, worrying that I may have just set something bad in motion – that light in Ma’s eyes often boded very dark things.

I was at the door before she stopped me. ‘Thorne? Have you disposed of the girl yet?’

A faint voice whispered inside me – this one made of anger – but I quelled it and spoke calmly. ‘I will not be doing that.’

She shrugged. ‘It’s your decision, of course. But you do understand that she’s made a laughing stock of you? She’s touched in the head. Why keep her?’

I stared at my mother, unsure of how to answer. My mouth opened but nothing came out.

Eloise sighed in irritation. ‘Sometimes I think you’re as stupid as she is. Get out of my sight. And in the Gods’ names – deal with her stench!’

I made my way down to the armoury, thoughts whirling. The truth was, I didn’t know the answer to this problem. I flushed with humiliation when I thought of Roselyn. The rest of the nation thought she was dim-witted, thought I must be dim-witted myself to have married her. And yet it wasn’t that simple, even though I might wish it was. Roselyn wasn’t stupid, she just had other things in her mind: soaring birds and oyster shells; all the numbers in the world. She wasn’t stupid, she was distracted. Ambrose had said that to me once, as though I hadn’t already deciphered it myself.

In any case, it hardly mattered what he thought about my wife – Ambrose was wayward. There seemed to be no respect left in his heart for his family or his crown. The absurd notion that my little brother no longer cared about Pirenti sometimes woke me at night. How could he not care about our people or the war we were fighting?

Ambrose seemed lost, and I didn’t know if I’d be able to save him much longer – which hurt, because I’d always loved him best of all.

Roselyn

My favourite pastime is making wishes. Big wishes, sometimes, but mostly small ones, like a wish that the sky would clear so that I could walk on the battlements without getting wet, or wishing I’d have a chance to wear the purple satin gown I’d been sewing. Wishing the cold stones of the castle weren’t so cold. Wishing the Queen didn’t despise me. Wishing I could conceive a child. Wishing my husband loved me. If I had a harder wish to make, I’d even it out with some simple ones. I liked everything better that way – even. In order to balance out one of the really big wishes, I had to make sure lots of little wishes came true. But there was one wish I would never make, because I knew with a bone-deep kind of certainty that it could never come true, not in my lifetime: I would never wish to stop being thrown in the dungeon. I made too many mistakes for that particular wish to come true.

How I came to be there on the afternoon of one of the biggest storms in Pirenti was due, once again, to my own stupidity. I wasn’t supposed to go to the highest levels of the fortress, but I wanted to glimpse the oyster bays through the eastern window – they always looked so beautiful at night, glistening under the stars. And tonight I had the chance to be alone, because Thorne was working with his ma and wouldn’t be ready for bed for hours.

I walked the halls, listening to my shoes clip against the flaggings, counting how many steps it took me to get from one doorway to the next and then trying to do it in less. The easy order of the numbers was comforting.

To get to the eastern window I had to pass the execution room. To my surprise, there were people within. Curiosity got the better of me, as it always did. This was, without a doubt, my deepest, truest flaw, as my husband liked to point out. My curiosity overruled rational thought, fear, and plain common sense.

I paused by the door to the massive room and peeked in. The Queen was seated on her throne, flanked by four of her bodyguards, and standing before her – I realised with a quickening heart – was Ambrose. I’d know the look of him from a million leagues away. He was restraining a struggling Kayan boy with ease, almost as if the boy was nothing more than a toy in his big arms. I felt a tremor flow through me. I hadn’t seen Ambrose in days.

‘You make me sick,’ the boy said, and my mouth dropped open, stunned. Didn’t he know that he’d be tortured for saying such a thing? I held my breath as I waited to hear how the Queen would react – a particular kind of violence threaded moments like these, when power was challenged.

What I did not foresee was the way Ambrose turned and beheld the boy. There was an expression on his face I’d never seen before, one I’d never even come close to seeing. As he stared at this strange, angry Kayan, I saw a kind of desperate panic flash across his features, and then some hastily flung words flew from his mouth. He wanted the boy to go to the isle, which didn’t make sense, because that was a fate worse than death.

I watched in confusion, wishing I understood what was going on. Wishes, wished especially hard, as a sound came from beside me – of someone clearing their throat very softly – and I jerked in fright to realise I wasn’t alone. I spun to face my husband. He towered above me, massive arms folded over his barrel chest. Thorne was the biggest, most intimidating man I’d ever seen, covered in tattoos and battle scars. His bright blue eyes glinted at me. Silently, he flicked his head for me to follow and then strode down the hallway. I followed him to our chambers, my heart beating wildly in apprehension, knowing that the punishment for this trespass would be bad and cursing myself endlessly. Why don’t I ever learn?

But even so, even within the shame, there was a dark, foolish place where a piece of me relished the simple fact that he was looking at me.

Once he’d locked the door behind me, I bowed my head and waited. Thorne stared at me for what felt like an age and my blood rushed in my ears. ‘I don’t know what to do with you.’

Wild despair in my chest. ‘I’m sorry,’ I murmured, chancing a look up into those clear eyes. They were a shade darker than his brother’s icy gaze, but no less frightening. They held a kind of reckless violence, and no matter how well I knew him, I would never stop being afraid of how unpredictable Prince Thorne of Pirenti was.

‘You continue to disobey me.’

‘I don’t mean to.’ It was true – I never thought about the stupid things I did until it was too late. It was as though I couldn’t quite grasp that what I was doing was wrong until I was found and punished.

‘What did you hear up there?’ His voice was deep and gravelly, as if he had swallowed cut glass.

‘I … very little. Only that Ambrose caught a Kayan boy, and now he must take him to the isle. I promise I didn’t hear anything else.’

‘Why were you up there? You know you’re not allowed to go to the top floor.’

‘I …’ I flushed bright pink and looked down at the floor. ‘I wanted to see the moonlight on the oyster farms.’

I wished for him to forgive me. I wished for him to hold me and tell me it was all right. A stupid waste – they were two wishes that would never come true.

‘Why have you still not bathed?’ he demanded.

I blushed even redder. ‘I have, I—’

‘Not with a cloth,’ he growled.

I didn’t know how to answer him, how to explain the fear.

Thorne breathed out, a puff of impatience. ‘My mother constantly tells me I’ve married a half-wit. Sometimes I agree with her.’

Shame washed over me. He grabbed me by the wrist and marched me down hundreds of steps. I knew this staircase very well. The air grew colder as we moved underground. The dungeons were usually full of criminals and Kayans waiting to have their punishments carried out, but there was a cell at the very end that was always left empty. For me.

Thorne stopped before it and turned to face me. He reached out a large, strong hand and tilted my face towards his. ‘What do I tell you, every day?’

I swallowed. ‘To think things through before I act.’

I barely had time to take a breath before he slapped me across the cheek. It stung and brought tears to my eyes, but I knew I had to hold them in until he was gone – Thorne didn’t like it when I cried in front of him.

‘That was for ignoring me,’ he said bluntly. I nodded shakily. Then he kissed me on the mouth. I usually yearned for his kisses – they were rare – but this one was rough and hard, and made my lips hurt. Still reeling, I stumbled as he pushed me into the cell.

‘Good girl,’ he murmured. ‘Think about what you’ve done.’

As he strode away, he drew his knife and raked it across the bars of the prison cells, waking the prisoners and grinning wolfishly at their discomfort. I crawled into the corner of the cell and covered my face with my hands so I could sob as softly as possible. How could I have been so stupid, yet again? Maybe the Queen was right and I was a half-wit.

‘Are you all right?’ a voice asked from nearby. I looked up to see the Kayan boy standing at the bars between our cells. He was small and lean and too delicate looking. With his bronzed skin and very blond hair, the purple of his eyes stood out garishly. They were strange, unnatural eyes. I hated to think of them changing colour – it was unnerving.

‘I’m fine,’ I whispered.

‘He hit you pretty hard.’

It was nowhere near as hard as I’d been hit before, but this didn’t seem like something I should point out.

‘Don’t tell me you’re married to that beast?’

I licked my lips and tasted blood.

‘Why?’ the boy pressed.

I stared at him. ‘Don’t you know who that was?’

He shrugged.

‘That was Prince Thorne, elder Prince of Pirenti.’

His expression didn’t change and I wondered if he was stupid. ‘Then you’re the princess?’

‘There are no princesses. Only princes.’

‘That seems fair.’ The boy’s eyes flashed in the darkness. ‘If you’re his wife, why did he hit you and throw you down here with all the evil Kayan monsters?’

‘I behaved badly.’

‘Of course.’ He seemed to be mocking me.

‘Thorne doesn’t enjoy punishing me.’

The Kayan stared at me a long moment, then shook his head and sat down against the wall. ‘That’s bullshit,’ he said softly. ‘That man is power hungry. He could crush you in those huge hands of his, and he likes to see the knowledge of it in your eyes.’

I stared at him, feeling faint. ‘You’re wrong.’

He shrugged and lay down to sleep.

I blinked a few times. Realising that all my tears had dried up. I shifted to my usual spot beneath the window to look up into the sky. I wish for this stay to be short. I wish for Thorne to come and let me out first thing in the morning. I wish for the clouds to move out of the way so I can see the moon. I wish for it not to get too cold tonight.

Thorne didn’t collect me the next morning, or the one after that. The Kayan boy was taken away shortly after we’d spoken, but I was left in the dungeons for three nights, and on the third it started to pour with rain. The flash of lightning and rumble of thunder overhead scared me, and rain entered my cell through the window, soaking and chilling me to the bone. Fear sliced through my bones and I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to disappear inside the numbers in my head. I’d already counted the stones in the walls one hundred and ninety-eight times, and the bars that surrounded me three hundred and twelve times. After a while I started to make wishes instead, as loudly as I possibly could to try to drown out the surrounding storm. I wish it would stop raining. I wish I were lying warm in my bed. I wish the Kayan boy had never spoken to me. I wish Ambrose hadn’t looked at him like he did. I wish I didn’t know what that look meant. And failing all of those, I simply wished for dry, dry, dry.

Chapter 2

Ambrose

For someone who rarely got angry, I was fuming. I so pissed off I couldn’t sleep. Avery didn’t seem to have any such trouble, even with his wrist tied to the frame of the bed – his breathing was deep and slow. Annoying little brat – the incredibly shit turn my life had taken was entirely his fault.

The ship we were travelling on was small – designed to transfer prisoners directly to the isle where our most formidable prison waited. The fortress there was inescapable, the conditions utterly brutal. I felt bad for condemning Avery to it, but for some bizarre reason I hadn’t been able to watch him die. I now regretted my decision immensely. He was the grumpiest kid I’d ever met. Sighing, I climbed out of bed and made my way up to the deck. The captain was at the wheel, and I joined him there. ‘Good fortune,’ I said, sitting down.

‘And to you, sire.’

‘Where are we now?’

‘Level with the Araan region, day one of fourteen. We’ll head out to sea tomorrow to skirt around the shoal.’

The shoal was Pirenti’s greatest resource – an enormous oyster farm that spanned hundreds of miles.

‘How’s the captive?’ the captain asked, his red hair shining in the moonlight. He grinned sideways at me. ‘Suffering enough? We can make it harder for him, if you want. Rough him up a bit more.’

‘Tempting,’ I told him truthfully. ‘But I’d like to take care of the pretty boy’s pain myself.’ The sailors had spent the whole day taunting and bullying Avery, hitting, pushing, kicking and tripping him. He was covered in bruises and cuts, but he’d taken the beating with a stiff upper lip and not a word of complaint. The gaze he’d levelled on his aggressors was so deeply disdainful that I wondered for about the millionth time what had made him like this, so impossibly detached.

The captain gave a wheezing laugh, slapping his huge, meaty hand on the wheel. ‘Kayans – weak like pre-pubescent girls. They make me sick.’

I nodded faintly, thinking of how Avery had said the same words to the Queen. Had that been weak? It didn’t seem so to me. Petulant and foolish, yes, but not weak.

Back in my cabin, trying to sleep, I was roused by the sound of Avery’s soft moan. I looked over at him in the darkness, but he was still asleep. Whatever he dreamt about had him tossing and turning, groaning in agony. I had to cover my ears with a pillow to drown out the wretchedness of it. I didn’t sleep much that night – the nightmares that racked him seemed to echo in my own ears, long after he stopped making any sound at all. It came to me, as I lay there, that the sharpness of real human suffering was not something I’d ever expected to find in a Kayan.

The next morning I woke to find Avery staring out the small circular window of the cabin. I yawned and stretched. ‘Get a good look, ’cause you won’t see much of the sky once you’re on the isle.’

He turned his amazing purple eyes towards me, with an expression so bleak I shut my mouth and watched him turn back to the window.

‘What were you doing in Pirenti, anyway? A boy like you shouldn’t be flying into enemy lands on your own.’

‘A boy like what?’ he asked coldly.

I shrugged. ‘You haven’t got the strength to harm a man from Pirenti. What were you planning to do?’

Avery’s gaze was furious. I actually blinked in surprise at the heat of his anger – his eyes went bright red. ‘You’ve got no idea what I’m capable of,’ he spat at me. ‘Besides which, tough guy, I wasn’t planning on trying to harm a man from Pirenti.’

‘No, I suppose you weren’t.’

‘And what punishment will the Queen receive for her crimes?’ he asked.

‘What crimes are those, kid?’

‘You know exactly what they are.’

I shook my head, stretching my back. ‘You’re getting on my nerves.’ I pulled on a tunic and rang the bell beside my bed. A serving girl entered, her eyes downcast.

‘Fetch us some food.’

‘Yes, sire.’

Once she was gone, Avery turned to me. ‘Do you speak that rudely to all women?’

‘What was rude about that?’

‘How about a “please”? Or don’t you consider women worthy of manners?’

‘What are you talking about? She’s a servant, so she gets me food. We all have roles to play.’

He stared at me. There was darkness in his eyes. ‘You’re a fool,’ he said softly.

I blinked. ‘There’s no need to take offence at the differences between the two sexes.’

He turned pointedly away. I would never understand Kayans.

Once the food was delivered, I handed him a bowl of oats. He dumped it straight into my lap. I looked down at him, barely daring to believe what he had just done. I hadn’t been treated with such disdain for a very long time – not since a winter solstice and a challenge that had ended in the snow. ‘The last time you tested my temper I knocked you flat on the ground,’ I murmured. ‘Next time you do it, you’ll get a broken wrist. Understood?’

He glared up at me, daring me. I didn’t like hurting him, but insubordination wasn’t to be tolerated. If you were weak enough to be dominated by someone stronger, then you deserved to be. Men fought for power – that was the way of things and I was no different. All the power I possessed came from the strength I’d demonstrated. Clenching my jaw, I backhanded his other cheek, harder this time. A grunt of pain escaped Avery as he fell against the bed, spitting blood. He didn’t reach to touch his cheek, only glared up at me, eyes blazing into a much brighter shade of purple. They glowed, and the tiny flecks of navy in them danced. I felt as though I was looking right into his fury. But there was no fear – still no fear.

I ran my hand over my scalp, then turned my knuckles downwards and knocked them against my skull. ‘You’re doing this to yourself – you know that.’

‘No,’ he said, his voice muffled, ‘You’re doing it to me, Ambrose.’

I felt a weird sensation at the sound of my name on his lips for the first time – heat gathered in my belly. It was said with a derision that raked at me.

I strode from the room, saying over my shoulder, ‘Clean yourself up. I’m certainly not helping you use the latrine, so you’ll have to figure that one out yourself. Use the bowl you just emptied on me.’

Ava

I was not going to pee into a bowl, no matter how bloody long he kept me in this room. If there was any chance he could walk back in and find me with my breeches down, squatted over … Not happening.

Hours ticked by and Ambrose didn’t come back, which I was extremely glad about. I needed to harm him in some way – a need as potent as any bodily function I’d ever had – but I couldn’t figure out how to do it tied to this bed.

The last two years, apparently, hadn’t been worth much. The days and nights of training, of practising … they hadn’t even been worth the untying of knots.

It had started almost as soon as Gidion got me safely home – I didn’t like to think about those weeks. The nightmares had stopped me from sleeping, but I couldn’t wake, either. I walked in a dream-state, a kind of semi-conscious daze. No one had known what to do with me, how to even look at me. My parents had cried more than I’d thought possible; I hadn’t shed a tear. It was like being alive to see the aftermath of my own death. They started planning my funeral, and mourned me while I was still there, lying paralysed in my childhood bed. But weeks went by, and then months, and still I didn’t die. I wasn’t the same – I was barely a shadow – but my body held on for some torturous reason. At times I thought it was punishing me. My own form had started to feel very foreign – a half-soul in a body not its own. It was no wonder I became an outcast.

When the people in my town realised that I hadn’t died, they hated me for it. A petition went up banning me from entering public areas or shops. When I braved the streets, I was spat upon and called a demon. They said I was disgusting and inhuman, and they tried to drive me out of town – throwing things at the house and drilling holes in my father’s fishing boat.

One moonless night I drew a cloak over my face and stole away without a word to my poor, wretched parents or my four younger brothers, all heartsore with grief and shame. On that night I didn’t have a plan, but I walked and walked until my boots fell apart, and then continued with bare feet until I reached Avery’s house in Limontae, and I fell to my knees and begged his parents to take me in so I could sleep in his room and be close to him.

They slammed the door in my face.

And so I came to be a ghost with nothing to haunt. The only creature that saw me was Migliori, who was only a piece of what he’d once been but still stronger than me. We looked at each other, he and I, and decided something together. I would die and he with me, but I would not die without the Barbarian Queen – she and I would share a death. I’d tear her limb from limb, if it took every last piece of my tattered, broken soul – that was my vow to Avery, to the memory of all he’d been. A vow, it seemed, that not even two years of training could help me achieve. All it had taken to thwart it was a man from Pirenti with cold blue eyes, and now I was on my way to live out the rest of my miserable existence in a rotting hole in the bowels of the world.

The leather around my wrist was tied in an elaborate knot, as was the one around my ankle. It was impossible to undo with only one hand – I’d been trying all day. And so it would be a knot that proved my defeat. The sun began to sink, leaching the colour from the cabin. I couldn’t move to light any lamps, so I sat in the darkness, alternately longing for Avery and scheming ways to inflict pain on Ambrose. I didn’t even realise how cold it had gotten until I began to shiver. It had been dark for what felt like hours by the time Ambrose strode in. He sank onto his bed and started unlacing his boots. Next he set about lighting lamps, all without looking at me. We had to share a room so he could keep an eye on me – which he definitely wasn’t doing, since he’d just spent the whole day above deck – and he didn’t seem too happy about it. Eventually he threw me the blanket off his own bed, obviously having noticed that I was shivering. I threw it on the floor. Ambrose made a grunting noise, then picked up the blanket and pelted it into my face, hard. I coughed and pulled it off, stubbornly throwing it back – we could have gone on for hours. He caught it and for a second I thought he was going to hit me again. His pale eyes flashed dangerously as he loomed over me, holding the blanket. Maybe he’s going to suffocate me with it, I thought. He leant down and used one hand to pin my free wrist to the bed, the other to tuck the blanket tightly around my body. He held it there while I struggled pointlessly. Only once I’d stopped did he step back, a smug smirk on his lips, and slump down on his own bed. I waited a few minutes, then soundlessly dropped the blanket to the ground so that he’d only notice it in the morning.

I didn’t manage to sleep, but instead imagined that the sound of Ambrose’s breathing was Avery’s. I closed my eyes and told myself that he was right there next to me, that if I wanted to I could reach out and touch him – could stroke his beautiful black hair and look into his perfect amber eyes. I imagined the feeling I got when my own eyes glowed golden looking at him. I imagined, with a brutal denial, that he was real and solid and here to look after me, that we didn’t live in a world of violence, disguises and dishonesty. For a moment I could actually feel his slender hands on my body, could feel the strength in them as they held my bones and muscles and skin in place.

Then the boat lurched, throwing me heavily against the wall, scattering me to pieces once again. Ambrose grunted awake, looking around in alarm and blinking rapidly. ‘What in Sword’s name?’

Without looking at me, he leapt up and dashed out the door.

‘Ambrose!’ I yelled, struggling against the restraints. The boat was lurching violently and the noise was horrific. It sounded like the whole thing was cracking in half. I swore and desperately scrabbled with the knots. The water level had risen above the window – according to my da I was no boat expert, but it was pretty obvious that that wasn’t good.

‘Ambrose!’ I shouted again.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ he said, charging back into the room. ‘I’m here – though I don’t know why. You’d be less annoying at the bottom of the ocean.’

He grabbed his sword and cut straight through the leather that bound me. I sighed in relief and scrambled to my feet. ‘What’s happening?’

‘Sinking ship, pretty boy. Massive storm. I hope you can you swim.’ He winked at me and led the way up onto the deck.

‘Oh, Gods,’ I muttered. It was chaos above – men were shouting and screaming over the din of the creaking hull and the waves were huge, constantly sweeping people overboard. Ambrose grabbed hold of my wrist in that insane grip of his and didn’t let go. Heavy rain lashed down on our heads.

He led me quickly towards a couple of small canoes, each meant to seat two people. The captain came charging over and grabbed one of the boats. ‘Climb in, sire,’ he said, moving to the railing. Ambrose didn’t let go of me, but the captain reached out and grabbed my other arm. ‘Not you!’

‘Let him go,’ Ambrose ordered.

‘Sire, he’s just a prisoner. The seat must go to someone else.’

‘The seat will go to whoever I say.’ Cold, blunt authority sliced through the noise around us and slammed into the captain, making him nod quickly and shakily. I wondered for the first time who Ambrose really was.

‘Of course, sire.’ Giving me the nastiest look I’d ever seen, the captain shoved me into the boat so that I tripped and fell heavily. Ambrose leapt in after me, pulled me into a sitting position, grabbed the oars and started rowing. It was ridiculous, really – impossible. The boat was far too small to do anything except be thrown about in the waves. We were slammed straight into the side of the ship, and I felt the impact jar through my bones, but Ambrose struck out, his huge arms pumping with the effort, and we managed to escape the spray of the ship. The screams of the people left on board were in my ears; I couldn’t drown them out.

‘What of the others?’ I shouted.

Ambrose didn’t respond. There was no sign of the other canoe.

‘Ambrose, what about—?’

‘I can’t save everyone,’ he snapped. ‘Only the strong survive.’

I stared at him, stunned into silence. He was emotionless, unfazed. Anyone would think that he was the one with half a soul.

A wave swept over us, drenching me and nearly capsizing the boat. When we were steady again, I watched it sink – watched the vessel, with all those people aboard, sink into the water, screams turning to whimpers in the now-still night. We were a long way from them. A long way away when the sounds disappeared and there was no longer any light on the horizon.

Pirenti men, I told myself firmly. Not my concern. Not mine to grieve.

Funny, though. Their screams had sounded like any others in the dark of night.

The storm ended and the waves stilled, and then it was just the two of us, rowing silently through an endless sea of death.

Time passed slowly, and eventually I glanced down and noticed something strange beneath the surface of the water.

‘Oyster shells,’ Ambrose informed me. ‘We can’t row inland or the boat will be cut to pieces.’

‘So what, we have to row further out to sea? How far are we from the shore?’

‘Well, we were on the ship for two days and a night. It would take us at least triple that time to row back from here.’

‘But you’re saying we can’t, that we have to go the other way. Brilliant.’

‘Yeah, I’m excited about so much alone time with you too, Ave.’

‘We don’t have any food or water!’ I exclaimed angrily. ‘Amb—’

‘I know, Avery,’ he interrupted. ‘I know.’

I sighed and sank down into the boat, listening to the gentle lapping of the waves. After a while I asked, ‘Why did you choose me? To save?’

‘Because I have a job, kid – and I never leave a job unfinished.’

‘Get me to prison or die trying?’

‘You got it.’

‘How noble.’

‘You tried to kill my Queen, and assume I’m just going to let you die?’ He met my eyes. ‘That would be far too easy, Avery.’

I looked into his face, trying to figure out what was wrong with that sentence – trying to find the lie. I could feel that there was one. ‘But, Ambrose,’ I said slowly, ‘you don’t really care about your Queen, do you? That’s not what this is about. You never cared that I was trying to hurt her.’

‘Oh no? What is this about then? Why don’t you tell me, since you’ve got it all figured out?’

‘I believe you about the unfinished job part. I just don’t think you care as much about what I was doing as you let on.’

‘If I hit you in the face again, will you believe me?’

‘Go ahead. Let’s see.’

He grinned at me, a wolfish, wild thing. Then he threw his head back and laughed, and the sound travelled all around us for what seemed like leagues, echoing off the still water. I stared at him, unable to believe it, until I heard the laughter die off suddenly, the way it did when amusement quickly turned to despair. He shrugged, letting the oars drop into the boat. Even though his eyes were very pale, his gaze was dark and heavy, and I felt its weight inside me.

Trying to keep my voice steady, I asked, ‘Why have you stopped rowing? We have to keep going.’

‘What happened to “death is easy”? Here’s your chance, pretty boy. All you have to do is lie back and relax, and soon it will be over.’

I glared at him, thinking about the truth of that statement. I wasn’t afraid of dying, but something about this bizarre turn of events had made me aware that I didn’t want to give up quite yet. If there was still a chance – however slim – of getting back to Pirenti and killing the Barbarian Queen, then I’d take it.

‘What makes you think I’m the kind of person who would choose easy?’

He looked at me, considering this, watching my face, my eyes, my lips. ‘I’ve heard that drowning is a nice way to die.’

I met his eyes. ‘I wouldn’t pick you as the kind of man who’d care to die nicely.’

He leant forward, lacing his hands together. ‘How do you think I’d like to die?’

‘In a blaze of ice and fury.’ He was from Pirenti, after all.

The corner of his mouth hitched up at that, but it was a humourless expression, one filled with chipped edges and painted regrets. ‘And you?’ he asked. ‘How would you like to die, Avery of Kaya?’

I picked up the oars and started to row. ‘I’m already dead, Ambrose.’

Chapter 3

Thorne

Each time I put her in the dungeon, I didn’t stop thinking about her until she was out again. I knew it was good for her – she had to be taught how to think her actions through, that she couldn’t just wander aimlessly around the fortress wherever she pleased, her head in the clouds. And yet my thoughts never strayed far from her while she was being punished.

I’d meant to leave her in there for five days this time. That was my limit. Once I’d left her in there for a week, but she hadn’t recovered well – there’d been something haunted and broken in her eyes for months – so I’d made a decision never to keep her in there any longer than five days. When the storm started, however, I gave in – she was frightened of storms. And my bed was cold without her.

She was curled pathetically in the corner of the cell when I found her. In my eyes she seemed impossibly tiny. ‘Come,’ I said tersely. Roselyn scrambled to her feet and took my hand as I led her to our room. Taking in the sight of her, I sighed. ‘You have to wash, Rose.’

She shook her head wretchedly, teeth chattering.

‘You’re filthy and you stink.’ I crossed to the tub and began filling it.

‘Please,’ I heard her gasp. ‘Not the bath.’

Impatient fury stole over me and I growled, grabbing a washcloth instead. Crossing back to Roselyn, I pulled her clothes roughly from her body and started wiping her dirty skin as clean as I could. Her hands were too stiff from the cold to do it herself.

Some days she was fine – some days she found a way to distract herself for long enough to bathe properly – but other days the terror was too much for her, and when that happened a cloth was the only way to get my wife clean. I hated the weakness, and refused to ask her why she was so afraid of water – refused to indulge her in the fear. Who, in this world, ever had time to indulge in fear, no matter its source? And when there was no source? When a girl lived in the shelter of her father and then her husband for all the years of her life? It made no sense; there was no excuse.

When even Ma was noticing the smell, then it was time something was done. When I finished I threw the cloth on the ground with a grunt. ‘Dry yourself and come to bed.’

She did as she was told and then slid under the sheets next to me. I was startled by the iciness of her skin. She didn’t stop shivering, even when I wrapped my arms around her.

I closed my eyes and buried my face in her red hair. If she wasn’t so damn beautiful it might have been easier not to feel so sorry for her. I’d never tell anyone this, but secretly her whimsical, vague poeticism was endearing to me. It made me think she must be imagining great, wonderful things inside that head of hers – exciting things that could captivate her as the real world could not. I wanted to know the things she imagined – I wanted to know what was inside her. But I knew at the same time that I never would, because she wasn’t capable of expressing it in any normal way.

She whispered something under her breath.

‘What?’

‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated softly.

I sighed, long and slow. ‘You’re forgiven – but don’t do it again. What if my ma had found you? I really want you to try this time.’

‘I will.’

We lay silent for a moment, then I rolled her over to face me. ‘Ambrose left with that Kayan boy a couple of days ago.’

She stared at me, her eyes big and brown. Those doe eyes were part of the reason people thought she was stupid – there was something vacant about them. I thought they made her look innocent, which she was – more so than anyone I’d ever met. The responsibility of that sometimes daunted me – if your wife was innocent, it was your duty to keep her that way. The problem was that she bruised so easily. Roselyn was a fragile peach, hurt by anything and everything – protecting her was a full-time job, one I didn’t have enough hours in the day for.

‘It was his punishment for nosing into Ma’s private room,’ I went on. ‘I think it will be good for him to do something selfless for Pirenti.’

Roselyn nodded slowly, thoughtfully. ‘He grows weary of not understanding his place, and seems to need something to believe in, more than anything else.’

I stared at her. Rose didn’t always know what was going on around her, but what she did understand – with more clarity than anyone I’d ever met – was people. She would come out with insights into the people around us that would shock me with their accuracy. I didn’t know the first thing about a person’s thoughts – I understood instinct, the primal man, but nothing subtler.

I often wished my mother could see this side of her, but Roselyn had an annoying habit of freezing up completely when she was around the Queen. It was because of her fear, I knew, and was valid given Ma wished her dead.

‘Maybe he just needs a good backhand to set him straight,’ I suggested gruffly.

‘He doesn’t respond to violence like the rest of you.’

I considered that as she ran her fingers over the scars in my skull. ‘He never used to be so different. It’s like he’s changing.’

‘Growing.’

‘But he should be growing into his role, not out of it.’ I was starting to get annoyed. Why couldn’t Ambrose see that he was steering himself away from me? He had less and less to do with the soldiers, even though he was the best fighter I had by far. I wanted to reign him back in and make him mine again, just like he’d been when we were kids.

‘Wine,’ I ordered softly and Roselyn padded out of bed to the dresser. She was pouring for some time, and when I looked over I caught her staring out the window as the wine overflowed around the cup and trickled down her arms. Her profile was stunning, illuminated by the flashes of lightning – she had high cheekbones, a straight nose, and full, plump lips. Her vibrant hair seemed to have a life of its own – it was like flames crackling around her. Once upon a time, when first we’d married, she’d been the envy of the country. Young and very beautiful, quiet as a woman should be – a perfect pick for the first prince. Then her oddities became known and the realm had quickly fallen out of love with her.

‘Rose,’ I reminded her and she snapped awake, making a small noise of distress.

‘Oh, Gods,’ she whispered. ‘Forgive me!’

I got out of bed, grabbed a towel and wiped her hands clean for her. I should have punished her for the mistake but I was too tired, and I’d missed her while she’d been in the dungeon. Once she was clean I nodded towards the bed and she crawled in again.

I walked to my side, gulping the wine and eyeing her small frame, which was curled in on itself. My nerves relaxed more with every mouthful, and I slid in beside her. She was soft in my arms, as she always was. This was what I couldn’t explain to my ma – the way a man needed his wife – and that was simply because I wasn’t supposed to need anyone but myself. Eloise had always taught us that – it’s why she sat atop her throne alone and surrounded herself with men. She had a heightened sense of isolation and an uncommon hatred for the weakness of her own sex. She didn’t think people should need to form relationships, and she believed that Roselyn deserved death for her stupidity. She was probably right, too. My Queen was right about everything else, so why not this? She ruled us with a severe, merciless hand, so that we’d never forget our place or question her authority. And it was because of her ruthlessness that we were winning the age-old war with the Kayan scum.

I’d never disobeyed a single command she’d ever given me, and nor did I plan to. That’s why my thoughts had started turning, of late, to the fact that she would undoubtedly order my wife’s death one of these days – and that I didn’t know what I would do when that happened.

I drifted to sleep with the sound of my wife’s soft voice in my ears, counting softly, just as she did every night.

Ambrose

I woke to a sharp pain in the side of my head, followed by the realisation that Avery had whacked me with the oar. ‘Ow!’ I exclaimed, sitting up and rocking the boat with my sudden movement.

‘Wake up,’ he muttered.

I swallowed the urge to slap him again and instead looked around. It was morning, and there was no land in sight. ‘Where are we?’

‘I would ask you the same,’ he said, and had the grace to look at least a little embarrassed.

‘I’ve been asleep for hours – how would I know where we are?’

‘This is your country! I skirted the oysters, but an eastern current caught us and there was nothing I could do.’

‘Why didn’t you wake me sooner?’

He shot me that baleful look of his. ‘What would you have done?’

‘Rowed against it.’

I thought I saw the flash of something lighter in his eyes, perhaps amusement. ‘Trust me. There’s no rowing against an eastern current. Not in these waters.’

I rubbed my eyes tiredly. ‘You’re useless, kid. I wouldn’t expect you to know what a real man can do.’

Avery rolled his eyes and dropped the oars back into the boat. He didn’t look good, actually. His face held no colour and his hands were shaking. I reached under the seats to where I knew the emergency pack was, pulled it out and took stock. There was a large canteen of water, a container of some sort of dried food, two large knives, a long length of rope, some flint, some bandages and a metal pot.

I passed the water to Avery who stared at me, stunned.

‘Is that … did you know we had that all night?’

‘’Course I did.’

‘Then why didn’t you tell me?’

I glanced up quickly at the rage in his voice. ‘We can’t waste it – we might have to make it last.’

‘Ambrose,’ he said softly, his voice low, ‘I’ve been rowing all night while you’ve been sleeping – I nearly passed out from thirst, and you didn’t even think to let me know there was water? You are such an ass!’

Despite the fact that his temper amused me, I did actually feel a bit bad for not telling him about the supplies. ‘Well stop whingeing and have a drink!’

Avery glared at me as he sipped at the water.

I shook my head. ‘You really need to unwind, boy. I’ve never met anyone as tightly strung. Here, let me take over.’

As I started rowing the boat picked up pace. I looked up at where the sun was and tried to angle us back towards the shore. He had been right, though – the current that was drawing us steadily out to sea was very strong. I began to sweat as I struggled against it, pumping my arms as hard as they would go.

‘Stop, Ambrose,’ Avery said after a while. ‘You’re just wasting your strength. The current will take us somewhere eventually.’

‘It could take us straight out into the middle of nowhere to die,’ I snapped, but nevertheless put the oars down and sat back, breathing heavily. I looked over at him – at his strange purple eyes. They were quite a deep shade this morning – dark enough to look almost navy, and I wondered what that meant. I wanted a list of all the colours and what emotions they reflected, like a survival guide to understanding Avery, or Kayans in general. As it was, I was struggling. Sometimes he seemed so empty, so lost, like our tiny little boat in the midst of this mighty sea. Other times he looked at me with such intensity that I wondered desperately what had happened to break him this way. I knew without having to ask that he’d never tell me.

A few hours later the sun was getting hot above us. I took off my shirt and wrapped it around my head, then motioned for Avery to do the same. He ignored me.

‘Look, kid, enough with the attitude – you got yourself into this situation. I could have left you to rot, but, instead, I decided to save you. Show some gratitude.’

His eyebrows arched bitterly. ‘Gratitude? You shot me in the arm, tackled me out of the sky, put me in a cell, beat me up, shackled me to a bed so I couldn’t relieve myself, and now you’ve brought me out into the middle of the ocean to die a slow agonising death of dehydration. Not to mention you’re constantly insulting me. Which part am I meant to be grateful for?’

I stared at him, then grinned, unable to help it. He was funny. ‘I can’t believe you haven’t pissed yet! What’s wrong with you?’

He flushed and looked away.

‘Just go into the water now.’

‘No way.’

‘Why not?’

Avery refused to answer me, just folded his arms and pouted.

‘Well don’t come crying to me when your bladder bursts.’

‘Believe me, I won’t.’

We sat the next few hours in silence, the sun making us drowsy and sluggish. I felt like rubbish – I hated not being able to move around, hated having to sit still for so long. This had to be the worst way to die – stuck here with no way to fight our way out. The strength and size and power that I’d worked so hard to achieve wasn’t worth anything when we were at the mercy of the sea. It pissed me off.

Just when I was starting to think I’d never see anything again besides the horizon, Avery abruptly sat up. ‘Look!’ he yelled, his voice breaking in a strange way. ‘Land!’

There, in the far distance, was a smudge on the horizon. ‘Yes!’ I cheered, punching the air and laughing. ‘Told you we should just ride the current.’

He shot me a look of exasperation, but the hardness in his eyes had disappeared. Grabbing the oars, I started rowing again, my strokes long and powerful, inspired by the thought of endless food and water. As the island drew closer, it grew huge and spread out over the horizon, its mountain peaks shrouded in mist.

As we reached the rocky beach and dragged the boat ashore, all I could see was thick jungle. The air felt instantly humid and I could feel sweat beading over my naked chest. The odours on the air were strange, like nectar and slightly rotting fruit, alongside the heavy, salty scent of the sea.

‘Where are we?’ Avery asked.

I scratched my chin, thinking it through. I wasn’t much of a sailor – I didn’t really like boats, so I’d never been exploring on one before. But I was good with maps, and I’d studied the geography of my lands closely. There was only one possible place we could be. ‘We’re on the isle,’ I told him. ‘We must be.’

‘What? The prison isle?’

I turned to look him in the eyes, and something constricted in my chest. I nodded slowly. ‘It’s the only island in this direction for thousands of miles. The current must have taken us straight to the south beach, instead of following the coastline up and around to the northern side, as the ship would have done.’

He stared at me for a long moment, then closed his eyes, clearly exhausted. ‘Looks like you’ll get your job done sooner than either of us expected.’

I gazed down at the rocks under my feet. ‘Look – it’ll take us a long time to get across the island. Let’s just think about one thing at a time – we need to find food and water.’

We entered the jungle, and I led the way, clearing a path with my sword. Avery immediately disappeared behind one of the trees to relieve himself and came back looking a lot more comfortable. The ground was covered in soft moss, and the atmosphere was strangely magical under the canopy of trees, the tallest I’d ever seen.

We walked for hours, keeping the sun to our sides as it sunk lower and lower, heading towards the base of the mountain we’d seen. We knew we’d be able to find water there – the water in our canteen was finished, as was the food from the pack. Finally, we emerged at the base of the mountain to the most wonderful sight imaginable – a huge waterfall, with a gloriously clear pool at its base.

‘Thank the Sword!’ I grinned, and without another word I shed my clothes and flung myself into the water. The cool shocked my overheated body, biting right down to my bones and making me sigh with pleasure. I surfaced and looked at Avery who was still standing on the bank. ‘Get in! It’s amazing!’

‘It could be infested with disease, for all you know,’ he said. ‘Don’t drink any until I boil some.’

I sighed and sank onto my back. ‘Coward.’

Avery cleared a space and used the flint to create a campfire. He filled the pot and brought it to a boil before setting it aside and looking around. You had to hand it to the kid – he was a survivor. As I watched him, impressed, he picked out one of the arrows in my quill, rolled up the legs of his trews and waded into the water.

‘What are you doing?’

He was peering intently into the water. Slowly he raised the arrow above his head, then, quick as lightning, he jabbed it into the water. I blinked, realising that there was now a wriggling fish on the end of the arrow.

My mouth dropped open. I’d never imagined the boy to be capable of anything remotely like this – he was so small and useless. I felt like a fool for forgetting that Kayan people were fishermen by trade. They were a race that lived by the sea, as the bulk of their country was uninhabitable desert. We might have oyster farms in one region of Pirenti, but most of my people lived inland and didn’t have a clue how to survive by the water.

‘You’re full of surprises, pretty boy!’ I told him. Avery flashed me a smug look, then turned to start scaling and gutting the fish.

I emerged from the water and shook myself off, stretching lazily in the sun. ‘I’m famished! Is dinner ready?’

He glanced my way, obviously noticing for the first time that I was naked. His cheeks flamed bright red as he quickly looked away, clenching his teeth. I couldn’t help but grin, enjoying making him uncomfortable. His eyes, however, made their way back to my chest.

‘Are those …?’ He suddenly stood up very straight.

I didn’t need to look down to know what he was staring at. ‘Two of them.’

He gazed at them, transfixed, and then his eyes went so dark they gave me chills. ‘I’ve never hated anyone as I hate you now,’ he told me simply, an incredible emptiness in his voice.

They were called Marks, tattooed symbols that I’d achieved the impossible – if a Pirenti man killed a Kayan warder, he received a Mark above his heart. Very few people had one, and it was no small feat for me to be adorned with two.

‘I wear them with pride,’ I told the kid calmly, daring him to argue. Instead he looked silently disgusted, and it was worse, somehow.

‘So … dinner?’ I prompted after a while.

‘Did you actually think I did all this work in order to feed my captor?’ he asked me bleakly.

‘You’re kidding, right? You seriously expect me to sit here and starve while you get fat on fish?’

‘You want to eat, then catch your own meal.’

The kid was a selfish little bastard! Feeling my good mood evaporate, I decided it was time to re-establish who was in charge. ‘Avery,’ I murmured, and he looked up at the new tone in my voice. ‘All the food that either one of us catches will be halved, all right? It’s only common decency when we’re stuck out here together.’

‘Decency?’ He stood up, flung the knife to the ground, and gestured at the fish cooking over the fire. For a minute I thought that he might burst into tears. ‘Have it all then. Just take it.’ He turned and stalked into the forest, pausing only to say over his shoulder, ‘It’s funny that you can speak of common decency.’

And then he was gone. I stared after him for a long time, but eventually sat down, telling myself to relax – this kid was no one. He was an enemy soldier who was here to be punished. He wasn’t my equal and from now on I wasn’t going to take any shit from him.

The sun sank below the horizon – I could see it through the tree trunks, casting a warm orange glow over everything. The pool of water looked beautiful bathed in the sunset, and it calmed me. I watched its shimmering surface, and it reminded me of my brother’s wife and the way she was so unendingly fascinated by the sight of light on water. I wondered what would happen to her if I died out here. And Thorne – what would happen to him? There’d be no one to buffer the ferocity of his temper, no one to remind him of his humanity.

Avery hadn’t reappeared by the time it was completely dark, so I looked around for a big stick and lit the end of it. Sighing crankily, I moved into the forest to look for the stupid kid, managing to stumble over a fallen branch in the darkness. I made sure to keep the campfire in my sights as I wandered around, and just as I was about to give up, I spotted him curled against a tree trunk fast asleep.

All my anger slid away when I saw him there, so small and helpless, and I felt a funny feeling replace it – I wanted to protect him. Gods only know why, but that’s what I felt. I leant down and lifted him gently into my arms, careful not to let my fiery stick go out. Back at the campsite, I placed him next to the fire to sleep. I ate half the fish, then set about boiling some more water.

It was only once I’d finished that I noticed he was awake and staring at me. Wordlessly, I passed him the remaining fish and the canteen of water. He didn’t argue this time, and I knew it was because he was desperately hungry. When he was finished, I took the rope and tied it around his wrist. He struggled, unsure of what I was doing, but I held him tightly and tied the other end of the rope to my own wrist.

‘Now you won’t attempt to escape again.’

‘I wasn’t escaping. I simply wanted to be gone from you.’

‘Surprise, surprise, Avery, but I don’t trust you.’

‘You can’t do this!’ he hissed, trying pointlessly to untie the knot.

‘Why not?’

‘It’s inhumane!’

I shot him a look. ‘You’re a prisoner. I need a way to keep you in line – otherwise you could disappear while I’m asleep.’ While he scowled, I repacked the knives and flint into the supply container, and then curled my body around it to go to sleep – any movement and I’d wake immediately.

I was just drifting off when Avery tugged abruptly on the rope, jerking me awake. ‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

I swore angrily. ‘You keep rubbing me the wrong way and you know what you’ll get.’

He didn’t say anything, but I got the feeling he was very smug. I waited a few minutes then tugged the rope roughly, making him sprawl against me. I sniggered as he recoiled away, and was rewarded with a foot jammed into my thigh. It went dead instantly and I roared in pain.

‘You little …!’ I grabbed him and shook him hard – he flailed around like a rag doll until I threw him violently to the ground. ‘Go to sleep,’ I ordered, leniently, as he pulled himself to his knees and wiped the blood from his face. There was a deep graze where his cheek had scraped against the dirt, and fire in his eyes as he gazed defiantly back at me. I sighed, shaking my head.

‘Don’t you get it?’ I asked softly. ‘The more you fight, the more you harm yourself. I’m only going to get more violent. I don’t want to be tied to you either, but it’s just the way it has to be, so give up.’

Apparently ‘give up’ was the wrong thing to say. Slowly, and very pointedly, Avery took the rope and tugged it so hard that it bit into the skin around my wrist. I was at my wits’ end. His determination was admirable, but his foolish arrogance was incredibly annoying, and I hadn’t got where I was today by being soft. I stood up and pushed him to the ground, and then kicked him in the ribs, just once – not hard enough to break anything, but hard enough that it would hurt to bloody hell and back.

Avery gasped – a tiny sound that escaped his lungs. He stayed silent after that one, surprisingly vulnerable noise. I slumped to the ground, angry at him for making me do it. I’d fought and killed men bigger and stronger than me and had no problem with it, but there was something sickening about hurting a boy his age and size.

‘Ambrose,’ Avery said softly through the darkness.

‘What?’

‘When you run out of those who are smaller than you, will you attack those who are larger, or will that frighten you too much?’

Avery’s words ran around in my head, lighting up the spaces I always kept in the dark, all the things I’d made sure to lock away under the surface. Cold snow under my back, drenched with red. His arm beneath my neck, so big I fit into the crook of his body as if he were cradling me there. I stared up at the stars in the sky, remembering too much. He made me ache, this boy lying next to me, because he was like a mirror that reflected all the worst parts of myself.

Chapter 4

Thorne

‘Quickly,’ I ordered with a bark, not waiting to see if she was keeping up. Her scent made me angry – but it also made me hungry in a primal, beastly way. Swallowing, I tried to rid myself of the desire – it wasn’t right that a woman could rule the way my body worked. Between Roselyn and my beast, I had next to no control over myself, and sometimes it infuriated me. My footsteps echoed loudly as I led my wife down the stone steps to the training courtyard.

Ravens circled through the grey sky above. It was a cold morning, despite the season, and my boots crunched over the frosted ground. The only region of Pirenti that ever climbed in temperature during summer was Yurtt, and that was because it was so far south. I smiled to myself, thinking of the region that had once belonged to Kaya – thinking of how I had conquered the land by making it flow with blood. One day I would conquer all of Kaya, and place the entire world at my mother’s feet.

My eyes went straight to Vincent where he waited in the middle of the yard. He was on the smaller side for a Pirenti man, and his eyes were an unnatural shade of black. I heard Rose stop behind me, not wanting to draw too close to him.

‘I’ll need you for the morning,’ I told my mother’s guard.

‘And the Queen?’

‘Can take it up with me if she has a problem with it.’

Vincent smiled the smile I hated – it dripped with smugness. ‘As you wish. How may I serve Your Majesty?’ My title on his lips sounded mocking, and were he not my mother’s personal bodyguard, I’d have had him sent to the prison isle for his disrespect long ago.

‘My wife,’ I said instead, ‘has a cowardly fear of water and I want it done with. You will fix her for me.’

Vincent’s eyes narrowed in interest, and his gaze flicked over towards Roselyn, who cowered by the pillar.

‘Come here,’ I told her. Her footsteps were tiny as she made her way to my side, keeping behind my large frame.

‘How exactly do you believe I will “fix” her?’ Vincent asked, his eyes glued to Rose. He had a slimy voice that was edged with a lisp, and I didn’t like the way his gaze sought out a person’s weakness before anything else.

My lip curled in distaste. ‘Your foul black magic.’

‘You hate my power, Prince,’ he pointed out. ‘You have since the day you came back from the mountain. I am surprised you would consent to its use on your very own wife.’

‘Can you take her fear or not?’

His head tilted to the side and he surveyed Rose. ‘I manipulate fear. I do not erase it.’

A frustrated snarl left me.

‘Fear is a funny thing,’ he went on more softly. ‘The only way to gain power over it is to change your perception of it. If a trauma occurs, it can change the patterns of a mind, and the only way to turn them back is to go through the same trauma again and come out of it differently.’

I had no damn idea what he was talking about, and I was starting to lose my patience.

Vincent moved towards Rose and reached out a finger to run down the length of her arm. She flinched in repulsion and I shoved him away.

‘You don’t touch her,’ I snapped.

‘If you want me to help her, I may have to.’ Unbothered by my anger, he moved towards my wife again. This time he addressed her directly, ‘Why are you frightened of water, my sweet?’

Rose didn’t reply. I watched her terrified eyes.

‘Can you not figure it out yourself?’ I asked.

‘I already know the answer,’ he shrugged with that same, discomforting smile. This was the only man I had ever met who made me truly uncomfortable. It was probably because he was the only man I wasn’t allowed to kill. Or perhaps it was because he saw far, far too much with those black eyes of his.

Vincent had been born in the prison on the isle, to a criminal who died during his birth. The conception of a prison guard’s rape, Ma had come across him there as a young boy and brought him home to the fortress. He’d been declared her personal bodyguard, even at such a young age, because it soon became clear that he had a dark and unfathomable power – the power to know a man’s fear, and manipulate it to his will. I hated him almost as much as I hated the Kayan warders.

‘Then why question her?’

Vincent and Roselyn were locked in some sort of trance, and neither answered me. While I watched helplessly, Rose let out a gut-wrenching scream and sank to her knees. Her hands latched onto the ground and she started to scrabble for purchase, as though she were sinking or slipping. Wild sobs left her, choked things without any air, and her fear around me was palpable.

My beast stirred to life, enjoying the scent of her terror mixed in with the scent of her filthy body. I stepped away quickly, turning my face upwind of her, but the sounds of her screaming brought a pounding rage to my knuckles.

‘Stop!’ I demanded. ‘What are you doing to her?’

Vincent continued to stare and Rose kept screaming until I couldn’t handle it anymore – I grabbed him by the throat and shook him until my wife’s sobs cut off. Then I threw him to the ground. ‘I said stop. What did you do?’

His eyes flashed as he looked up at me. ‘I made her think she was drowning in the ocean.’

Rose was white as parchment, her lips drained of colour, hands shaking uncontrollably. I took her by the arms and drew her to her feet. ‘I thought she was strong enough for this,’ I muttered, ‘but it seems I was wrong.’ Shame clouded her eyes as I guided her from the courtyard.

‘Your Majesty?’ Vincent called out and I looked back over my shoulder. ‘It was not only your wife’s fear that you could scent here today – and it is not your wife’s fear that runs deep enough to crack this country in half.’

I made a vow right then and there. One day, I would kill this snake.

Ava

The thing that struck me – as we sat within the branches of a tree for a good six hours – was his stillness. I was so uncomfortable I’d been squirming and shuffling every few minutes, but Ambrose was like an inanimate part of the tree itself – his gaze focused on the watering hole below, his fingers unmoving on the bowstring.

I did my best not to look at him, but he was in my line of sight and my eyes kept wandering back to him, stunned anew by that unwavering stillness.

The two Marks on his chest were so obvious to me now that I had no idea how I’d missed them on the boat. Every so often I spent a few minutes contemplating them, only to discover that I was as fascinated by them as I was appalled. To kill one of our warders was like murdering a deity. Throughout history I’d only ever heard of a handful having been slain – it was no simple matter. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how Ambrose had achieved the murder of one, let alone two.

‘Who are you?’ I asked abruptly. ‘What is it that you do?’

He didn’t move, his attention solely with the lake.

Impatient, I struggled to find a new position. My stomach was so hollow that food had become the only constant thought in my mind. ‘There’s nothing—’ I started to say for the fifth time. And saw him stiffen, his jaw clenching.

I followed his gaze and spotted it. There, standing next to the water, its head ducked to drink, was an enormous white stag – antlers as long as Ambrose’s considerable arm span. I felt myself go as still as him – aware that this was a thing of beauty, but unable to feel it stir me the way it once would have. I felt nothing, just as I always felt nothing.

Ambrose was frozen, staring at the creature, and what I saw in his face had more impact on me than any animal ever could have, regardless of how beautiful. All the hard edges in him had melted away and the expression in those eyes was suddenly and inarguably stark. I felt a shiver of something strange pass over me and couldn’t bear to look at him any longer. Instead, I thought about how badly my ribs hurt every time I moved, and the brutality he was capable of.

Very softly I heard him speak. ‘A prince of wolves you are indeed.’

I stared, not understanding.

As if his mind was made up, he shook his head. ‘Not this one.’

‘We’ve been here all day. It’s the first thing we’ve spotted.’

He turned his head slowly to look at me. ‘That beast is sacred – I’ll not shed its blood.’

I blinked, astonished. I’d never pegged him for the superstitious type. But then again, in Pirenti they did have a lot of strange beliefs. I nodded, and he turned back to watch the creature. While his focus was pulled, I very carefully drew an arrow from his quiver, holding it so still that it didn’t make a sound. Once I had it ready, I moved quickly, snatching the bow from Ambrose’s grip. I wouldn’t have been able to do it, had he not been so awed by the stag – of that I had no illusions. As it was, I barely got the shot loose before he lurched for it. His fist connected with my shoulder just as the arrow sailed through the air and landed in the beast’s neck. I gasped, but it was nothing like the sound the stag made – it screamed in pain and crashed heavily to the ground. Blood stained its white pelt, and for a second the colours reminded me all too vividly of Migliori.

The rage in Ambrose’s eyes stunned me. We stared at each other for a long moment and I realised that what I’d thought was silly superstition was in fact something much deeper for this man.

‘If anyone is punished,’ I offered softly, ‘it will be me.’

‘You think I care about the punishment?’ he snapped, shaking his head and starting the climb to the ground. He’d taken the rope from our wrists and used it to scale the tree, knowing I couldn’t hope to escape him when he was awake.

I worked myself down this rope, arms like jelly by the time I reached the forest floor. Ambrose was standing over the carcass, and he didn’t look at me as I approached. ‘I’ll not have any part in this,’ he said simply, and then vanished into the trees.

Standing over the dead beast and peering at the contours of its body, I was confronted with the sheer size of it. I’d never skinned an animal myself, but I’d seen it done enough times to know how it worked. Taking a breath, I forced myself to get started. The first step was to roll the beast onto its back, which was struggle enough. I took a knife and cut from the genitals up to the sternum and let the guts fall out, helping them by cutting away the fat that held them. I carefully pulled out all the organs, trying not to puncture the bladder. Once they were all out, I had to start skinning it.

I wiped my sweating forehead and sat back on my haunches. A movement in the corner of my eye alerted me to the fact that Ambrose was standing a distance away, silently watching my efforts. When I met his eyes for a brief moment, he was expressionless – it made me strangely ashamed of what I was doing, but I clenched my teeth and got back to work.

I cut around the stag’s neck and then pulled the hide down hard with both hands. Some of the flesh started pulling away with it, so I had to cut the skin clear before I could continue to pull it off. Then I cut the meat from the carcass, piling it up carefully. There was no way we could eat our way through an animal this size in one go, and I wasn’t sure how to store the meat so that it wouldn’t go off, but I was so exhausted by now that I hardly cared. I’d completely lost my appetite – I could have been dying of starvation and I still wouldn’t have wanted to eat. I was covered in blood and guts, and the smell that had permeated my nostrils was making me nauseous.

‘Get in the water,’ Ambrose ordered abruptly.

Dark had fallen while I worked, so I shed my outer layers of clothing, leaving my undershirt and shorts on. I didn’t care anymore if I didn’t appear bulky enough for a boy, because as I sank into the cooling water and closed my eyes I felt some of the gruesomeness wash away. I scrubbed my skin until I’d cleaned off all the blood, then floated on my back staring up at the stars. It didn’t bother me that everything was so unfamiliar – everything in Kaya had hurt to look upon. Here I could pretend I really was Avery, just a boy with no past, and no pain – someone whole and real. In fact, it was wonderful not to have to be Ava anymore – she started fading from my skin, even as I lay there. I thought of Migliori and how it would feel to ride him up there amidst the stars. I imagined flying so high that I could brush my fingertips over the edges of them, imagined that they felt like fire and ice to the touch.

Ambrose started to sing softly. At first it was just humming, and I looked up to realise that he was cooking the meat. I wasn’t sure what I felt about that; it confused me. Soon there were words in his deep baritone voice – a beautiful voice – drifting over the water to where I lay.

Snow falls in the north, where beasts lie in wait, their bones growing strong like ice, their blood hard as slate.

I closed my eyes, almost able to feel the cold of the snow in his song.

Follow the sea as it flees its way south, south to the silver bays of teeth and grief. Calm water, rocky coast, and blood running veins in the distance.

I shivered, opening my eyes and swallowing. On he sang, and suddenly I wished he would stop.

After forest of deepest green sit rocks of all shapes, and a drop so bold it makes the heart break. Towers sparkle high in the sky, the only thing left are the countless ways to die. When she leapt from the top they say she never found her way to the sea. But her memory will forever be what makes love flee.

I tried to take a breath but it got stuck in my chest. I felt unimaginably sad, because I was here with a man who was singing of the towers of Limontae – the towers of my home, where my fiancé had studied for most of his life. And in Ambrose’s voice, for the first time since I’d met him, was something soft and gentle, and I wasn’t sure if he even realised it was there.

‘Food’s ready,’ he called.

The absence of music in the warm night was strange and empty and even sadder than the song. Slowly I waded from the water, trying to cover how the thin fabric clung to my figure, glad that it was growing darker with every moment. I huddled next to the fire, shivering with sudden cold.

Ambrose threw me his shirt. ‘Dry off with that.’

As he cut the meat, I found myself watching him, comparing him to Avery – which was stupid and nonsensical. Ambrose handed me the food, and I ate without taste. He ate none of it, sitting quiet and still.

‘Do you know what that song is about?’ I asked softly, my voice scratchy.

‘Sure,’ he murmured.

‘Then why do you sing it?’

He looked at me.

‘That’s a song about Kaya. You shouldn’t be singing about Kaya. How could you possibly?’

Ambrose sighed. ‘I’m tired, Avery.’

‘How could you possibly sing a song about Kaya?’ I pressed. ‘A song about the sadness and the love in those towers by the sea? Those towers aren’t yours.’

‘The song is about the world,’ he said softly. ‘The ice caps of Pirenti, where the berserkers live. The oyster farms along the coast where I live. And Kaya in the south. It was written so long ago that maybe the world was a different place. I sing it because I like to think of a time like that, and because it’s beautiful.’

I felt an aching in my chest. ‘You know nothing about beauty.’

‘And why is that?’

‘Because you’re a monster, and a barbarian – all you understand is bloody slaughter.’

His eyes flashed in the firelight but he didn’t say anything. A kind of wild fury bloomed in my heart. My eyes scanned the ground for a weapon, anything I could use. I had to hurt him. I had to escape. Why was I going along with this situation? Why was I letting him take me to prison? For Gods’ sakes, I was behaving like the Pirenti women – cowed into obedience and constantly fearful.

Ambrose had already packed away the knives, so all I could see was the fire, and the hot coals sitting within it. A kind of savage recklessness possessed my body – amazing what desperate hate could make you do. I moved into a crouch that took me forward to the edge of the fire, and I plucked the largest coal from it.

‘Ave—!’

I flipped over the fire, springing off my back foot and twisting to land as close to Ambrose as possible. Then I jammed the coal into the nearest part of his body, which happened to be his bare calf. He grunted in surprise, but I held that coal there, pressing it as hard as I could, and it occurred to me slowly that it might be burning a hole through my hand. I didn’t feel it – I didn’t feel anything. And what was truly strange was that Ambrose didn’t try to stop me – he just sat there as I burnt his leg. After a few long moments I dropped the coal and started running. I didn’t know in which direction to head, but I was quick. Pirenti men, as a rule, weren’t particularly fast because of their bulk, so I was pretty sure I could outrun Ambrose, especially now that his leg was burnt to a crisp. I lowered my head and pressed myself into a sprint.

I got about a hundred meters before the brute caught me. I heard his heavy footsteps pounding behind me and try as I might, I couldn’t open any distance between us – the enormous, lumbering fool was fast. He grabbed me by the neck and wrenched me to the ground, pinning me roughly. My head spun as it cracked into the hard earth, but I didn’t give in to it. Letting my training take over, I instinctively jammed my knee into his groin. His hold loosened slightly and I jabbed him twice in the face with my fist. As I struggled to my feet, he stood slowly, as if it cost him nothing, as if he wasn’t the slightest bit rattled by my blows. We faced each other.

‘Do you have any idea what you’re doing?’ he asked, and I realised abruptly that he was enjoying this – there was a light in his eyes, and it danced across his gaze. It infuriated me.

I darted forward, sending a blow towards his chest. He blocked it easily, and continued to block all of my hits. I swung out with my leg, wanting to sweep him off his feet, but my kick didn’t even budge him. He just took it all without concern. What in the world? Ambrose grinned at my expression, so I did the only thing I could think of – I kicked the burn on his calf, hard. That finally got a reaction from him, a sharp and gratifying grunt of pain. Losing patience, he sent a punch into my sternum that knocked all the air from me. I flew off my feet and landed on my back, gasping breathlessly. Spots danced before my eyes, and then him – the brute, bending over me.

‘Don’t you get it yet?’ he asked calmly.

With a last bit of effort, I spat in his face. Again. But this time I didn’t get to enjoy his reaction, because I passed out.

When I woke it took me a few minutes to figure out that I was tied to a tree. The fire danced blurrily before me, a golden orange ball of light licking at Ambrose’s face. He was humming again, something different this time, something lighter. I swallowed against the pain. I’d acquired a veritable list of ailments by this point – my ribs ached from where he’d kicked me last night, my chest felt like it had been cracked open from that one punch, I had a pounding headache, my arm still stung from where he’d shot me with an arrow, and now my hand was damn near killing me from the pain of my own idiocy. What had possessed me to pick up a hot coal and think it would do more damage to him than it would to me?

Ambrose spoke without even glancing my way. ‘If I could somehow relive the moment when you picked up the coal, I would. I’d relive it over and over again, just to see your face.’ He started to laugh.

I could have killed him. Oh, how I wanted to.

‘You’re a complete lunatic – you know that, right?’ he chuckled.

I struggled against the rope. It was tied around my shoulders, chest, arms and stomach, so no matter how hard I pulled against it, it just dug further into my flesh. ‘Untie me!’ I yelled.

‘Now, now,’ he murmured, ‘There’s no need to get pissy.’

‘I hope you choke on that smugness and die in your sleep.’

‘You have anger issues, Ave.’

We sat in silence. I was uncomfortable and sore, but I didn’t want him to know it, so I clamped my mouth shut and stared into the dark forest. I needed to come up with some other way of escaping, since I clearly couldn’t fight my way out or run away. I wondered if there was some way I could trick him into letting his guard down, or perhaps I’d have to wait until he was asleep.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ Ambrose asked suddenly.

I blinked and looked over at him. He was staring at me from the other side of the fire.

‘I’m tied to a tree.’

‘No, Avery,’ he said slowly, something different in his voice. ‘I’m going to ask you something, and if you don’t answer, I’ll never ask again. What’s wrong with your soul?’

I froze.

‘From the first moment I saw you, I knew there was something wrong with you. I’ve heard myths about men who’ve had half of themselves torn away. Tell me why you hurt with each breath, and why you can’t smile. Tell me what it is that makes you so fearless.’

I closed my eyes. It hurt, that he could see me so easily – he could see everything. I drew breath into my lungs. I’d never spoken about this. For a few seconds I was determined to ignore him, or lie, then it occurred to me that I might be able to hurt him with the truth.

‘You know of the bond between lovers from Kaya?’ I asked.

‘Of course.’ He blinked, something kindling in his eyes.

‘I … I was bonded to a m— a girl called Ava. No Pirenti man or woman could ever imagine what the bond feels like – you see your other half, and you come to understand why it is that you’re alive in this world. All that you are is for them.’

My hands seemed to be shaking by my sides and I quickly clenched them together.

‘She died, didn’t she?’ Ambrose asked softly.

I nodded. I hadn’t cried, not once, and I wouldn’t now. There was something in his voice, though, that made everything harder – something that shouldn’t be there. He was just a brute from Pirenti – a big, sexist pig who didn’t understand about love. He had beaten me and tied me to a tree, and laughed at my discomfort. So why, then, could I hear something so painfully clear in his voice? Why was this the first time I’d felt like crying, when my own family hadn’t been able to move me even close to tears?

‘And half your soul died with her.’ He paused, frowning. ‘I thought Kayans died in pairs.’

‘We do – we cannot live without our other halves. At least, we shouldn’t be able to. No one ever has before.’

‘How long does it take? For you to die?’

I shrugged. ‘The longest I’ve ever heard of someone surviving alone was a month. But most kill themselves before they get to that point. It’s … unnatural not to.’

‘How long ago did Ava die?’

‘Two years.’

Ambrose frowned, confused.

‘I just … didn’t die,’ I told him miserably. ‘I don’t know why. I was so numb, so utterly destroyed that I wasn’t able to do anything, let alone commit suicide. The only thing I could think of was that there must be some reason for me to be alive …’

‘Assassinating your enemy’s queen? Why?’

‘Because, Ambrose,’ I said softly, meeting his eyes, ‘she was the one who killed my mate.’

He breathed out, closing his eyes. ‘Oh, shit.’

‘We were on a mission with a team of soldiers. We had three warders to get us inside the palace, but when Ava tried to kill the Queen, she was caught and murdered on the spot.’

Ambrose cracked his knuckles uncomfortably. ‘I think I remember that attack – I was there. I didn’t know a woman was killed, I thought it was just the man – the black-haired man.’

I froze, my breath catching painfully in my throat. He had seen Avery, watched him die just as I had. I didn’t know what to say, was too heartsore to try to cover the lie.

‘Can’t you move on?’

I laughed bitterly. Not a real laugh, more a kind of hacking cough. ‘You don’t understand, and that isn’t your fault – it’s impossible for you to comprehend. But trust me when I say there’ll be no moving on.’

‘Okay, but why could you not have a life? There are plenty of widowers in my country.’

‘What life?’ I asked, clenching the grass beneath my hands. ‘I can’t smile, I can’t laugh – I have no concept of pleasure or desire. I hate how sick and weak I am. I barely sleep. Sometimes I feel like my teeth and skin are aching, aching like they need to get free, break from me. My own family cast me out. I’m a freak of nature. Everyone I ever knew considers me an abomination. They don’t even treat me like a human being anymore. I have nothing left, Ambrose. Nothing except the drive for vengeance.’

He didn’t speak for a while, then he folded his arms, his glare heavy. ‘You call my people brutal, but I’ve never heard of anything so cruel.’

I didn’t know how to respond to that. I felt embarrassed at having blurted out my sob-story to him. I shifted against the ropes and flinched at the pain in my ribs – it felt like a couple might be broken. The wound in my arm was throbbing with heat. Something cold dripped against my face, and I looked up, realising that it was starting to rain. Huge, fat drops splattered down, landing in my eyes and on my lips. I licked at them, noticing belatedly how thirsty I was.

‘Gods damn it,’ Ambrose muttered, casting a look up at the sky. The stars were obscured by clouds now – heavy, black things that had stolen all the light from the world.

‘Looks like we’re in for a wet night,’ I said. I frowned, confused by how my words had come out all slurred. My head was pounding even more, and I suddenly felt really hot, like my skin might be on fire.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ Ambrose asked sharply.

‘I don’t … nothing – I’m not sure.’

He squatted in front of me and placed a large, extremely cold hand against my forehead. I sighed with pleasure at the coolness of it.

‘You’re burning up. Do you have any wounds?’

I would have laughed, if I could. ‘Plenty.’

‘Any cuts?’

‘My arm.’

Ambrose pushed the ropes aside and then tore the sleeve of my tunic off. I felt his fingers prod the aching wound. ‘It’s infected. Why didn’t you tell me about this?’

My arm was gouged open and still oozing dark, puss-filled blood. ‘Because you’re escorting me to prison, and I assumed you probably wouldn’t care much if I got scraped up on the way.’

He started to untie me.

Now I’ll escape, I thought.

Ambrose laughed, and I realised I must have said it out loud. ‘You could try, but I doubt you’ll get far, unable to stand.’

He was correct. My legs wobbled beneath me and the Pirenti pig scooped me up, carrying me straight into the lake.

‘What are you doing?’ I groaned. ‘Let me go.’

‘Shut up for a minute, will you? I have to get your temperature down before I deal with the wound.’

‘Why?’

‘Why what?’

‘Why deal with the wound? Why not just leave me here to die?’

‘We’ve been over this,’ he sighed. ‘The punishment you were handed by my queen was not death. So I’m taking you to prison – alive.’ He reached up to my cap, which was still miraculously secured with pins.

‘Don’t!’ I gasped.

‘What?’

‘Don’t take my cap off – promise. Promise you won’t take it off – promise.’

‘Fine, you freak. Just relax.’

My mind started to float away as a feverish sleep took hold, but something moved against my skin – something … strange. It took a moment for the sting to come, and with it arrived a pain so sharp I jerked awake and screamed.

My arm! My arm was on fire – it was being hacked off, torn apart with razors. There was poison running through my veins and I couldn’t stop screaming.

‘Avery!’ I heard, deep and clear. ‘Listen to me,’ this voice said. ‘I need you to stay calm. There’s a sea wasp wrapped around your arm, and I have to get it off, so you need to stay still.’

The absurdity of this made me giggle, mad, sick and delirious. It was the first time I’d laughed since his death. How funny that all I had left was this twisted, dying giggle – the laugh of a woman who was in the process of losing her mind.

I seemed to be out of the water now, but there were drops falling on my face, and I tried to focus on these instead of the agony in my arm. It hurt so badly – such an angry pain, a new, ferocious kind of torture. A set of pale blue eyes floated above me, concerned and focused, but I couldn’t remember who they belonged to. It seemed hilarious that I’d been in the water to help my fever, but that healing effort had caused me to be stung. How pathetic, to die from a sea wasp sting – how amusing.

‘You’re not dying,’ a voice said gruffly.

‘Of course I am,’ I sighed. Whoever the voice belonged to was either very stupid, or very blind.

Roselyn

Thorne and I lived in a small wing of the fortress that we had to ourselves. In our dining room, above the fireplace, there was a painting of him and his brother, made several years ago. I constantly found myself staring at the picture – something about it fascinated me. The brothers had their arms around each other and were grinning as they stood on the bloodied battlefield of one of their victories. Dead Kayans were strewn on the ground around them. I always wondered if it was a real likeness – whether the painter had actually been there at that very moment, or whether he had simply draw it from his imagination. But if he had imagined it, how could he possibly have captured that look in Ambrose’s eyes – the one that seemed to describe two entirely different feelings at the same time? That was an expression Ambrose only wore when he was with his brother – which meant that the brothers must have really stood in that field, grinning while surrounded by death, and such a thing had always been unfathomable to me. I wish to know what they are thinking. I wish to know if it is real or not.

‘Why do you constantly stare at that bloody thing?’ Thorne barked, striding into the room, clearly in a foul mood. He’d shoved me into our chambers this morning after my miserable failure with Vincent, and hadn’t returned until now. I wanted to explain to him what had happened to me to make me fear water so, but the words wouldn’t come. If I let them come, the memories would follow, and the tremulous hold I kept on my sanity relied on my ability to keep those memories out.

‘I’m about ready to get rid of it.’

‘No, please!’ I exclaimed. ‘Forgive me. I simply wondered …’ I’d never asked him before, and it occurred to me belatedly that this was a very easy way to grant myself a wish. ‘Did that really happen?’

‘Of course.’

‘Then you were really standing there together in the middle of that battlefield?’

‘Yes, Rose,’ he sighed.

‘Then why were you smiling?’

‘Because we won, obviously. Why else would we be smiling?’

I nodded quickly, dropping my eyes. It seemed to me that there were very different expressions on the two boys’ faces. I peered at the painting again. Sometimes having it here in my home made me feel like Ambrose was close by, like he could actually be standing next to me. I wished he were.

‘Was that one of the days Ambrose killed a warder?’ I asked impulsively.

Thorne frowned and moved to stand next to me, staring up at the painting. ‘Actually, I think it was. Why?’

‘He seems sad.’

Thorne glanced at me as if I was crazy. He searched his brother’s face, clearly trying to find the sadness within the smile. ‘He seems happy,’ Thorne said finally, folding his arms and daring me to argue with him. ‘Why would he be sad?’

I shrugged. He observed me more closely and I started to feel self-conscious. ‘Is that who you gaze at when you stand here all the time?’ he asked softly, slowly. I could sense the atmosphere of the room change, but I didn’t know why. ‘Do you stand here staring at Ambrose?’

I didn’t know what to say, but I could see his temper rising. ‘Answer me, Roselyn!’ he snarled suddenly.

‘Yes. Sometimes I do. I find his expression … interesting.’

‘You stare at him like a dog in heat!’ Thorne hissed. ‘I’ve always thought you must be looking at me that way, but now I find out it’s him?’ He grabbed me by the collar of my shirt and shook me. It became clear to me that a whole lot of things were clicking together in his mind, building to create something huge.

‘It’s so obvious! You stare at him like you stare at the damn oyster farms. Have you—? Oh, Sword.’ He broke off, letting go of me and pacing the room. He looked tormented, ravaged – his hands were shaking with fury.

I didn’t know what to do – I was stunned by the suddenness of this, by how quickly this idea had taken hold of him. I feared the beast in its cage, could feel it roaring to get out. ‘Thorne,’ I tried, ‘that’s not right.’

‘It’s always been like that between the two of you, hasn’t it? You’re obsessed with him – you always talk about him. I’ve been so blind.’ He advanced on me and I cringed in fright. ‘Have you been with him?’

‘No!’ I whispered, horrified. ‘Of course not!’

‘I don’t believe you.’

Things were starting to unravel – I could feel the carefully defined lines of my life changing shape. I started quickly making wishes. I wish the painting didn’t exist. I wish Thorne had gone hunting this afternoon. I wish for someone to come in and interrupt us. I wish for him to believe me. I wish I were somewhere different. I wish I were someone different.

The wishes weren’t working, because none of them were coming true – instead of calming me, they only unsettled me further. Breathing heavily, I began counting the floor tiles.

‘Look at me!’ Thorne snarled.

But I couldn’t – if I did I would stop counting, and if I stopped counting … Well, I didn’t know what would happen, but it would be something terrible. He grabbed my chin and forced my face up towards his. I was stunned to realise that there were tears in his eyes. ‘You can’t escape this,’ he told me. ‘You can’t just disappear and hope this will too. Be present and tell me the truth – how do you feel about my brother?’

I wish Thorne wasn’t crying. I wish I was invisible. I wish he loved me.

‘Roselyn – focus! Tell me the answer!’

‘I … I’m not sure what the answer is,’ I told him desperately.

‘Try to think,’ he coaxed me urgently. ‘Focus on the question and express it in words.’

I did as he said and imagined Ambrose – his beautiful, pale eyes as they looked at me without … and then I had the answer. ‘He’s the only one in the world who doesn’t pity me,’ I told my husband. ‘He doesn’t treat me like a child, or a fool. He doesn’t get angry with me.’

Thorne was frozen still, staring inside me. I’d never seen him like this – I thought that maybe I’d broken him somehow, by telling him the truth.

‘How do you feel about him, Rose?’

He was painfully close to my most secret wish. The wish I’d vowed never to tell anyone: I wish I was married to Ambrose. I shut my mouth and closed my eyes.

‘Answer me!’ he screamed, and then he grabbed me by the throat and lifted me off the ground like a rag doll. I didn’t see it coming, and it shocked me as only severe pain could. Agony sheathed into my neck and head, making me faint. My breathing was cut off and I started to choke – tears streamed from my eyes. Even now, so overcome with anger, Thorne was careful not to draw blood.

He let go of me abruptly, dropping me to the ground, and started throwing things around the room – smashing plates, glasses and chairs – screaming all the while about my treachery.

I hadn’t told him my wish, and yet he seemed to know. What he didn’t realise – what I was unable to explain to him – was that even though my most secret wish involved Ambrose, my biggest, most important wish was completely different – I wish my husband loved me.

Thorne

I could taste the bitterness in my mouth. The filthy stench of betrayal permeated my nostrils, and those together made me feel like retching. Roselyn was huddled on the ground, covered in bruises – weak from how badly I’d choked her. I could see that she was shaking, but my eyes were veiled with a sheen of fury. I couldn’t comprehend that her shaking meant she was truly hurt, or that she needed a physician – I could only understand that she had taken my generosity and my kindness and sullied them both with her whorish desires. For a moment, I wanted to kill her, and what’s more, I wanted to kill my brother – my beloved Ambrose. I could see them together, his hands all over her, making her cry with pleasure … a wave of fury unleashed itself upon me and I screamed pure torture. She had humiliated me again, but this was a thousand times worse than ever before.

I stormed from our wing of the fortress and pounded up the stairs. ‘I want her dead!’ I snarled.

My mother looked up from stroking the fully grown male wolf at her feet and stared at me. The wolf growled in the back of its throat and its hackles rose. ‘Shhhh.’ She calmed it until it sank back onto its haunches. Vincent was there, standing in the shadows as he always was. He eyed me even more closely than the wolf.

‘Truly?’ she asked me.

‘Yes.’

‘Why now?’

‘My reasons are my own. I just want it done.’

‘Fine – I’ll need a reason to give the people, though.’

‘Tell them she will die for treason and adultery, then.’ I could feel the words flooding from my mouth, propelled forth by my hot, fevered blood, and I didn’t seem to be able to stop them. Some far, distant part of me knew I should, but right now the rage was all-consuming.

Ma nodded slowly. ‘We’ll wait for the summer solstice and do it then. An execution of this nature needs to be public.’

‘I’ll tell her myself when the time is right.’

The Queen peered at me, then shrugged. ‘It’s up to your discretion.’

‘When will Ambrose return?’

‘He’s been gone a week, so I wouldn’t expect him back for another three.’

Not even in time for the solstice, which was two weeks away. My mouth felt dry. I imagined what my brother would do when he found out I’d killed his lover without even waiting for him to return. A vicious streak of malice swept through me – it would serve him right. It would feel good to watch him suffer. He’d always thought he was too good for this place, and now he’d gone and stolen the one thing that belonged to me – the one thing that was my very own.

I pounded back down the stairs, all the way to the dungeons. There would be no one in the training yard at this time of night, but there were rows and rows of cells full of criminals down here in the bowels of the earth. I searched until I saw a man big enough to give me a proper fight. I definitely wanted a Pirenti – there would be no point in fighting a Kayan, it would just be like beating a woman and I had my very own wife waiting in my room if I wanted to do that. Storming into the cell, I began to lay into the man, punching him over and over again. My beast wanted free, and the bars of the cage that held him at bay were growing very weak.

‘Fight back!’ I yelled at the prisoner, so he swung at me, hitting me in the jaw. It was deeply satisfying – I revelled in the pain. We fought a while longer, scuffling and hitting and kicking. When I was done, I spat out a mouthful of blood, patted the woozy, semi-conscious man on the shoulder, and locked his cell once more. The other prisoners were watching on in stupefaction but I ignored them and dragged myself back to my room. Reaching around blindly in the darkness, I poured myself a jug of ale and downed it, then stumbled to light some lamps.

The room blinked into life, the dim lighting casting long shadows over everything. I rubbed my eyes wearily, and then I spotted her. In my delirium of violence I’d completely forgotten about the state in which I’d left Roselyn. She was curled up in our bed, brown eyes unblinking as she stared at me, an ugly purple bruise around her throat. It made me sick, that bruise. We stared at each other for an interminable amount of time. My brain was fuzzy – all the rage had been doused by the fight, and had been replaced with something I didn’t know how to name.

‘What happened to you?’ she asked softly, her voice cracking, dry and raspy as if she’d never used it before.

‘You,’ I muttered, glaring into her eyes. ‘You happened to me.’

‘I did all of that?’ she asked, confused.

Roselyn climbed stiffly out of bed to get the aid hamper. She looked at me questioningly, so I nodded and sat down at a table, offering her my bloody hand. She took it gently and began to wash it, her touch gentle and calming. I couldn’t bear to look at her.

‘Thorne,’ she whispered. ‘I didn’t … he never touched me, and I never touched him, and neither of us ever wanted to.’

I closed my eyes.

‘Is that what you’re angry about?’ she asked.

It had been – I’d been obsessing over it. I’d thought it would drive me mad, until this very moment, when she dispelled my fears. I believed her, but what was strange was that I didn’t feel any better. If anything I felt worse.

‘Is it?’

‘No,’ I muttered, surprising myself. ‘I thought it was, but …’

With everything gone from me, all the anger and the images in my mind, I was left with only one thought to face. I’d poured every ounce of my patience into caring for this woman. Every ounce of kindness and tenderness I possessed had gone into her, and it still wasn’t enough – she still wanted someone else. I was amazed by how much that hurt. The truth, the honest truth was that since I’d met Roselyn, not once had I looked at another woman, but she’d been looking elsewhere all along. And the knowledge was like to destroy me.

Chapter 5

Ambrose

When the rain started to fall more heavily, I knew I had to get Avery under shelter of some description. He was lying on the ground at my feet, delirious and only semi-conscious, and it was plain that he was dying. Peering around, I tried to figure out which way to start searching. The waterfall gushed with the rain, and it occurred to me that there might be caves behind it.

I grabbed the pack with our meagre belongings and slung it over my back, then lifted Avery back into the water. His teeth were chattering loudly, and his lips were blue. I wasn’t sure if it was the poison from the sea wasp that was affecting him, or the infection in his arm. Probably both – they couldn’t have been a particularly good combination, that was for sure.

Swimming with him propped over my shoulder, I brought us under the waterfall and found what I’d been hoping for – a small cave. It was damp and mouldy, but as I climbed out of the water and followed the rock walls, I saw that it actually opened up into a much larger space, which was perfectly dry.

I gently placed Avery on the ground, where he thrashed feverishly. Taking a knife from the pack, I headed back out into the water and swam across to the edge of the pool. The storm was getting bad. I needed to find a particular tree and scrape some bark from it. I’d seen the tree when we’d first arrived on the island, so I knew I had to backtrack towards the beach. Finding my way in the dark was no easy feat – fallen branches and vines tripped me constantly, and I was shivering from the cold in my bones. Eventually I found the tree I’d been searching for, and cut as much bark from it as I could carry. It took me a couple of hours of sprinting to make it back to the waterfall, and I had to swim across with the bark held aloft so it wouldn’t get even wetter than it already was. The whole mission felt foolish, frankly, but I wasn’t stopping to think.

Avery’s condition had deteriorated while I was away – he had stopped thrashing and was lying very still, his breathing shallow. I set about making a fire and building it as hot as I could. Once the flames were as high as possible, I placed the precious bark close enough for the heat to make its way slowly into the wood. While the bark dried, I tended to Avery’s arm wound, washing it thoroughly and wrapping it in a tight bandage. I padded up his burnt hand as gently as I could, knowing this was likely to be the hardest wound to heal.

‘Why did you do this to yourself, you witless kid?’ I sighed. I kept another bandage over his forehead, but had to soak it through every few minutes as the heat from his body stole the coolness from it.

Sometime in the middle of the night, I started to burn the pieces of bark. I had to do it slowly, because it was only with the ash that I was able to make a paste to smother over the sting on Avery’s arm. I packed the wound heavily, lathering his skin, smoothing the paste all around his slender forearm. Then I fed him water and sat back. There was nothing else I could do. If the paste worked, it could take days or hours and I had no way to know which. Of course, it might also not do a thing, which would mean I’d have to sit here and watch him die.

While I waited I couldn’t help thinking about the story Avery had told – it mystified me. It was perfectly clear in my mind, because as he’d spoken I’d felt, just for a moment, like I was no longer myself – like I’d become another man, capable of emotions I’d never believed in. It was probably the most surreal moment of my life – I’d never imagined, not for one second, that Avery was the way he was because of a girl – broken because of love.

I’d never been close to a woman before, never wanted to bother with them. They didn’t understand the things that concerned me, so why waste time on them? Avery obviously had, and look what it had done to him. I sat back against the rock and watched the flickering flames of the fire. The only women I knew were Roselyn and my ma, and neither of them inspired much faith in the female sex.

Although, I had to admit, there had been times when I had seen Roselyn, seen her delicate beauty, and I’d wanted it – wanted her. More than once I had cursed Thorne for being so blind.

‘Not all of Pirenti is as ugly as you believe,’ I told Avery softly. He stirred a little, but didn’t open his eyes. ‘There’s beauty there, too, if you look for it. My brother took me into the ice caps once, when we were children. They’re glorious – such a pure white they can blind you. A dazzling landscape of ice as far as you can see, run through with blue veins, tunnels and caverns that drop away into the heart of the world, so deep you’d never find your way out of one. In the distance, right up in the north, is the mountain, looming higher than any man could ever climb, and everything that lies in its shadow is testament to its power. My brother, who hardly spoke when he was a child, told me once that there was nothing more beautiful in the whole world than that place of death, where only the hardest of men survive, and come out even harder. He said it was his destiny to live there, under the mountain with the beasts, and that if he could, he’d take me with him, and keep me there forever. But I was too small, so he had walked off into the ice alone, and I had watched him get smaller and smaller. The day he returned, years later, he was bigger than any man I’d ever seen, and harder than all of them put together.’

I didn’t know why I was saying these things, why I was talking about my brother to a sleeping Kayan boy. Thorne hated Kayans with a rage darker than the blackest night sky – a ferocity I had never been able to comprehend. I didn’t know what had happened to him under that mountain, but it had crystallised him – and brought him back from the tempestuous, silent childhood he’d fallen into. I’d watched Thorne through all the stages of his life, and I’d known, on that day of his return, that he would make a mighty king one day. But I had feared the cruelty in his eyes, and I worried it would consume him, which was strange, because cruelty was never a quality he’d had as a child.

‘What about a hard woman?’ Avery asked softly. ‘Could a hard woman survive up there?’

I blinked, slightly embarrassed that he’d been conscious for my rant. ‘She’d have to be very strong.’

‘Yes,’ he murmured, then seemed to fall back to sleep.

I took this as a good sign, and lay down to sleep too. I was exhausted, but I hadn’t wanted to sleep until I was sure Avery would wake. As long as I could hear him breathe, I knew he wasn’t dead. And it was funny, but the thought of Avery dying in this cave made me feel very lonely.

Ava

The long grass is scratchy under my bare feet, the sun warm on my skin. The brightness of the sparkling towers in the distance hurts my eyes, so I look instead to the cliff below me – the dizzying drop to the crashing sea – and I think about what it would be like to live in the side of the cliff, as so many in Limontae do.

‘You don’t have to move here,’ he says, lips warm against my ear. I run my fingers along the sinews of his slim arm, tracing the outline of the muscles. ‘I’ll come back to Orion with you.’

His smell is always the same – spices, cinnamon and boy-sweat. I tilt my face towards his, smiling as I feel his lips against the corner of my mouth. ‘Your studies are here. You won’t be finished for years.’

‘Who cares?’

‘I do. I want you strong and fast and clever.’

‘As opposed to how I am now?’ he grins. I close my eyes, resting my cheek against his and feeling our hearts beat the same rhythm.

‘I think I could come to love this cliff,’ I murmur sleepily. ‘As you do.’

His hands move to my hair, threading through it, and then move down over my body to slip inside my clothes.

‘Naughty,’ I chide lazily.

He laughs in my ear and then his hands make me gasp aloud, right here on the hill, where anyone could walk past. My pulse picks up speed, excited by the danger of what we are doing. I roll him over and straddle him, and he glances warily around before allowing himself to relax into me—

Pain throbbed in my arm – pain that hadn’t been there on the cliff. There was suddenly no longer any sun on my skin, or grass under my feet. What in Gods’ names was going on? I felt around for Avery, wondering where he’d disappeared to, wondering why I felt so abruptly cold and sore.

‘Avery?’ I asked softly, my mouth dry and furry.

‘Still delirious, kid,’ a voice said, a voice much deeper than Avery’s. I opened my tired eyes and saw Ambrose. A wave of shock went through me as it all came flooding back – all the truths. I squeezed my eyes shut again, unable to bear the pain. My heart beat slowly in my chest, as if it didn’t care enough to beat properly.

‘No,’ I said finally. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Drink this.’ He held a canteen of water to my lips and I felt better as it made its way through my body.

‘Where are we?’

‘A cave.’

I looked down at my arm. There was a thick grey paste all over it, but surprisingly the pain was much less. ‘How long have we been here?’

‘About a day. You’ve been completely out of it – mumbling weird stuff.’

Uh oh.

‘Do you remember any of the last twenty-four hours?’

I thought back, stretching my hazy mind. I remembered being tied to a tree, and the rain, and then being stung … but nothing after that, except a story. ‘Did you tell me about your brother in the ice? Or did I dream that?’

He rolled his eyes. ‘Unfortunately that little ramble was real.’ Ambrose reached out to check the bandage around my arm, and then the one around my hand, which was definitely the most painful of my wounds. It throbbed constantly, which I thought was rather apt as a remainder of my own stupidity.

‘How are your ribs?’ he asked softly. I met his eyes, unsure what I’d find, but there was no mockery, no smugness.

‘Fine,’ I told him. ‘It was a pathetic kick.’

A slow smile spread across his face, and he actually reached out to ruffle my hair. I recoiled away – both because it was such an intimate gesture and because I was afraid he would let loose the pins that held my long hair.

Ambrose shot me a weird look, grunted and stood up. ‘We need to get moving.’

‘Has the storm passed?’

‘Nope, it’s still pretty bad.’

Great. That meant plodding through the wilderness, soaked to the bone, with nothing to eat and no idea which way to go.

‘Can you walk yet?’

I hauled myself to my feet, testing my muscles. Pretty much every part of me hurt like a bitch, but I nodded. ‘I’ll be fine.’ I had to think of some way to escape, regardless of pain.

Ambrose started packing up his bits and pieces. I noticed the pot he’d used to make the paste that was around my arm. He was packing it away carefully, as if the contents it held were precious.

‘What is this stuff?’

‘Antiseptic from the bark of a tree.’

‘How did you know how to make it?’ I asked.

‘My sister-in-law,’ he shrugged. ‘She’s good with herbs and medicine and stuff.’

It suddenly occurred to me that he must have gone out into the storm to gather the bark with which he’d made the paste. And then he’d sat up all night, tending to my wounds, changing the bandage on my forehead, and telling me stories. I swallowed, looking away from his hard face under the flicker of the firelight. None of that made any sense to me, so I couldn’t afford to think about it.

Thunder was cracking loudly, and it sounded alarmingly close. A burst of lightning lit up the water gushing past the entrance and a moment later I felt the ground shake. Ambrose tried to reach the mouth of the cave, but was thrown to his knees – I only caught a glimpse of it because I was slammed against the wall. Rock scraped the infected wound on my arm and I yelped. A deafening rumble took over and rocks started to fall from the roof. One of them grazed my skull, and it felt big enough to have done serious damage if it had landed properly. I curled myself into a ball, trying to shield my head. When the shaking finally stopped and the dust had settled, everything was black – the fire had been doused and I couldn’t see a thing.

‘Still alive, Ave?’

‘Yep. You?’

‘Yep.’

I listened as Ambrose hauled himself up and moved to inspect the mouth of the cave. ‘It’s totally blocked off,’ he grunted. ‘Storm must have caused an avalanche on the mountain.’

I climbed to my feet and gingerly brushed myself off. After making my way carefully to where the fire had been, I crouched down and peered through the darkness, catching sight of a few embers still burning. After searching blindly for some kind of stick, I gave up and started wandering further into the cave. I couldn’t see more than an inch in front of my face, but I held my unburnt hand out and explored slowly. After a few minutes, my feet tripped over something that moved and then clacked against the rock. Feeling the ground, my fingers slid around something smooth and dry. It felt like a stick, so I picked it up and made my way back to the fire. I wrapped Ambrose’s discarded shirt around the end of it and lit it on the fire.

Ambrose had been attacking the rocks, but the torch illuminated the fact that he’d made no progress whatsoever. ‘Don’t want to cave the roof in any more than it is,’ he grunted.

I couldn’t help glancing down at his calf – the burn was bright red and blistering awfully. In fact his whole leg was swollen and I forced my eyes away, telling myself not to feel guilty – he deserved everything he got.

‘Looks like it’s cave exploring for us.’ He turned around, saw the torch and arched his eyebrows. ‘But we might not be the only ones down here.’

I followed his gaze to the torch in my hands and dropped it in shock. ‘Gross!’ It was a human leg bone.

Ambrose laughed and bent to pick up the torch before it went out. ‘This from the boy who just skinned a stag on his own without blinking.’

I blushed pink and turned away, knowing the colour would make me appear more feminine than I could afford. ‘Give it to me. I’ll lead,’ I snapped.

‘Slow down, you maniac.’ He grabbed my arm and deftly attached the rope to both our wrists once more.

‘Are you serious?’ I hissed. ‘It’s not as though I can escape you in here!’

‘I wouldn’t put anything past you, Avery,’ he said cheerfully, then tugged me forward.

‘Why are you in such a good mood?’

‘I’ve come to a good place.’

‘A dark cave?’

‘Mentally,’ he clarified with a grin. ‘I’m alive, I get a break from my crazy family, and I get to see a little more of my country. The only irritating thing about this trip is you, Ave, but it turns out your funny little temper tantrums amuse me.’

My mouth fell open. ‘I’m not remotely surprised that no one’s been able to stand you long enough to marry you.’

‘What makes you think I’m unmarried?’

That stopped me short. I opened my mouth but nothing came out. ‘Frankly, if you are married I feel very, very sorry for the poor girl.’

This made him laugh again – it was a deep rumble, an unnerving thing.

We walked through caves, moving deeper and deeper under the mountain. In places the openings grew very narrow, and we had to walk in single file, but often we could plod alongside each other, always careful about where we placed our feet. Once or twice we had to wade through pools of water up to our waists, but it never got so deep that we had to swim. That was, until we’d been walking for what felt like days and the narrow walkway opened up into a massive cavern. The top of the space was so high we could barely see it, and long, glistening stalactites dripped gently into the seemingly endless lake below.

‘We’ll have to swim fast so we don’t get too cold,’ I said.

‘Give me the torch.’

‘No way. I’ll take it.’

‘You’re not strong enough.’

‘I’m Kayan, you idiot. I was born in the water.’

‘You’re also injured and weak – you nearly died last night.’

We argued for a while longer until I pushed him out of the way and jumped into the water, holding the torch aloft.

‘Brat,’ I heard him mutter, but then the rope between us pulled taut and he was tugged face first into the freezing cold lake. Ambrose spluttered as he kicked to the surface, shooting me a glare and striking out towards the opposite side.

‘Wrong way, ass,’ I called, heading to the right.

‘There’s a huge cave just over there – I can see it!’

‘But there’s water trickling down the sides over here, and it has to come from somewhere – we should follow it.’

‘Avery, I swear to Gods, if you’re just doing this to annoy me—’

I swam against the rope, and he tugged it for a moment – making a point of how much stronger he was – then gave in and followed. We swam across to the rocks and explored the crevices, none of which were big enough to fit through. There was a ledge about ten feet up, though, and it looked like it led to a tunnel.

‘That’s it. That’s where we need to get to.’

Ambrose was sceptical, eyes searching the rocks. ‘I could probably boost you up there, but you’d never be able to pull me up after you.’

‘Could you climb up first and then pull me after?’

His brow furrowed as he considered, running his fingers over the fissures in the rock. ‘Let’s see.’ He started to climb, slipping and sliding, the muscles in his arms and legs tense. Because of how hard the slippery rock face was to grip, he had to move fast, using his momentum to swing him upwards and to the side. I watched closely, telling myself over and over not to be impressed. He was a Pirenti soldier, so of course he would be good at physical things. It didn’t mean he was a good person and it didn’t mean I should respect him.

Ambrose scrambled into the tunnel. ‘It slopes up!’ He reached down and started hauling me after him. The rope was tied around my wrist, and it felt like he was about to pull my arm out of its socket. When I scrambled onto the ledge, the pain was so bad that I realised he actually had pulled it out of the socket.

‘Good Gods,’ Ambrose snapped. ‘How many more injuries are you going to have?’

‘You keep giving them to me!’ I exclaimed.

Without warning, he grabbed my arm and crunched it back into my shoulder. I gave a short scream, then clamped my mouth shut and tried to breathe through the dizzying pain. I prided myself on being tough, but the truth was I was starting to reach the end of my tether. I wasn’t sure how many more injuries I could survive. Closing my eyes, I slumped to the ground and leant my head against the wall. Beads of sweat trickled into my eyes. Ambrose must have sensed that I needed a moment because he didn’t say anything, just let me sit.

After a while he murmured, ‘A dislocated joint is one of the most painful injuries you can have.’

I looked up at him. He was leaning casually against the opposite wall, waving the torch in idle patterns, watching the flames in the darkness. That torch was not going to last much longer – we’d already burnt through several items of clothing. We had limited hours of light left, but he was just standing there, waiting for me.

‘What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had?’ I found myself asking.

‘Hmm. I lost two toes on my left foot – that hurt. Got stabbed in the back, literally. See this scar on my eyebrow? I nearly lost the whole eye from that knife. Uh, what else … had a broken cheekbone, several fractured wrists – my right wrist is weaker than the left – many, many broken limbs over the years. Had my guts slashed open once. Lots of burns. Punctured lungs, cracked ribs, dislocated knees … I dunno – I could go on forever.’

I stared at him, horrified. ‘Damn – that’s a lot of injuries.’

‘I’ve been in a lot of fights.’

‘Why?’

‘Why what?’

‘Why have you been in so many fights?’

He frowned, meeting my eyes. It was almost as if he didn’t understand the question. ‘Because I’m strong. Which means that men challenge me. Which means I have to fight them.’

‘And does that mean you kill them?’ I asked.

‘Most of the time,’ he answered calmly. ‘If I didn’t, I’d be dead.’

‘And why would the world be a poorer place if you were dead, Ambrose?’

His mouth opened but nothing came out. He looked away. ‘What’s poor or rich got to do with anything?’

‘Shouldn’t we all try to make the world a richer place?’

‘Maybe. Or maybe all we should be trying to do is keep this forsaken place from destroying itself.’

‘By fighting wars? How many have you fought?’

‘There is only one war.’

‘How many battles, then?’

‘Fifty-four.’

I was so stunned that I froze, instantly forgetting about the pain in my shoulder, my hand and my arm. ‘Are you joking?’

‘I’ve been fighting since I was fourteen. And the one thing our countries have in common is their need for blood. That makes fifty-four battles in eleven years.’

‘And you?’ I demanded. ‘Have you a need for blood?’

He spun the torch around and around in a wheel of flame. ‘I suppose I’m expected to.’

‘But do you?’ I pressed, unsure why I needed the answer so badly.

Ambrose smiled, but in the eerie light it appeared more like a grimace. ‘I’ve always been the disappointment of my family.’

And before I could work out what that meant, he strode off into the darkness, tugging gently at me to follow.

Thorne

Roselyn was sitting with her legs over the edge of the northern battlements when I found her. I’d taken one glimpse of our room, seen her absence and her fur hanging in the closet and I’d known where she’d be. I never failed to marvel at how she could sit like that with no railing or safety net, just dangling over the edge of a three-hundred-foot drop. Everything scared her except things that were actually scary.

I reached her side and draped the heavy fur cloak around her underdressed shoulders. She started in shock, her mind miles away, then flinched when she saw me.

‘I’m sorry.’

She wasn’t supposed to be on the roof. I worried she’d fall off one of these days. But I couldn’t be bothered to chastise her; I was in a strange mood. As a child I had been intimately acquainted with melancholy. As a man I didn’t allow myself the luxury of it. But today, there was something sad tugging at my edges, something weak.

I put my hand on her arm so she’d stay put, then swung myself onto the battlement next to her. ‘How long have you been here?’

‘I’m not certain – hours, perhaps.’

‘Aren’t you cold?’ A stupid question – her lips were blue, but she hadn’t noticed. She didn’t know how to respond, and I sighed, putting my arm around her and trying to rub some warmth into her tiny frame.

‘Do you think about him when we’re in bed together?’ I asked her softly. I didn’t even mean to – it just slipped out.

Rose went as still as a statue, like a creature that knows it’s been spotted by a predator and can’t bear to move.

‘Do you wish I were him?’

‘No. Never.’

‘He’s always been so much smarter than me,’ I said, and a funny thing happened then. I realised I was too tired for rage. I couldn’t hate my brother anymore; I loved him too much. Instead of bitterness, the sentence held pride. My beast crooned.

Rose saw this and knew she didn’t have to say anything. We stared out at the view together. Beyond the treetops was the ocean – a great stretch of grey under grey. The sky hadn’t yet found its sun since the enormous storm that had raged for days. Everything was bleak, and the cold that had crept into the air was so frigid it made even me feel lost. And I was a man who had lived in the frozen wild of the north.

‘You make them laugh at me,’ I said.

She swallowed and nodded.

‘They think me a fool for choosing you.’

‘Yes.’

‘You try very hard, don’t you?’

‘Yes.’

I closed my eyes. Her voice was soft and rich and perfect. Sometimes she seemed like the wisest woman in the world, but then she would get lost in our very own wing of the fortress, and I’d know there was something wrong with her mind.

‘Did your father despair of you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you love him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did he hurt you?’

‘Yes.’

I swallowed. ‘You loved a person who hurt you.’

Roselyn used a hand stiff with cold to brush her hair off her forehead. I watched her profile, the beauty of her face as she gazed out to sea. ‘It’s simple, being hurt. But it’s complicated, loving someone.’

I tightened my arm around her, thinking that maybe I understood, and maybe I didn’t. ‘If you could choose between Ambrose and me, who would you pick?’

‘Thorne,’ she whispered, ‘I wish you wouldn’t ask me such things.’

‘Why?’ I demanded. ‘Because you don’t want me to know the answer?’

She shook her head helplessly, but I felt abruptly unmoored. I swung myself back onto the roof and paced towards the stairs.

‘Thorne, please!’

I spun around. ‘You are a sorceress, my wife,’ I spat. ‘A cruel, wicked sorceress, come to confuse me and steal my sanity.’

Tears spilled over her porcelain cheeks.

‘I want you to beg,’ I whispered. ‘Beg for my forgiveness.’

Rose closed her eyes, and I watched more tears slip beneath her lashes. ‘I’ll do whatever you want.’

‘On your knees.’

A sigh left her – a weary thing – and she sank to her knees. ‘Forgive me,’ she said. ‘Thorne. I beg you.’

I shook my head, feeling disgusted and embarrassed. ‘Get up. Gods, just get up.’

She didn’t get up, so I crossed to her and pulled her to her feet. ‘You’re driving me insane, Roselyn. You’re nothing. I don’t understand how you have so much power over me.’

‘I’ve not done anything,’ Rose said, looking up into my eyes. Tendrils of her red hair blew into her face, so I pushed them aside with unsteady hands. ‘You imagine so much, my love, and all I can think to assume is that you are unsure of your hold over me.’

I swallowed, dropping my hands and stepping back.

‘I thought I had told you enough in the beginning, in those first years of our marriage, but it seems you’ve forgotten,’ my wife said. She stepped closer, then stopped, wretched and hopeless, but when she spoke, her voice was clear. ‘I belong to you. Forever. I don’t know what else I can say.’

I met her big brown eyes and felt myself slip into them – but that was a dangerous path for a man who shouldn’t need a woman, so I wrenched myself away from the depth of her gaze and stormed to the stairs.

‘People think you’re arrogant,’ I heard her say softly. ‘But you’re the opposite.’

I paused, feeling furious. ‘Get inside before you die of a chill, you stupid, impossible woman.’

Roselyn

Stupid, impossible woman.

I stepped up onto the edge of the battlement. It was windy, very windy. A single gust could sweep me off, over the edge, all the way to the ground. I dropped the fur cloak behind me and I stood the edge, dressed only in the white shift I’d worn to bed the night before. The air bit into my skin and deep into my bones. I imagined falling, and I didn’t make any wishes.

I wondered if it was possible for a woman to love a man so much that she became lost within that love. If you loved as large as the sea, as inexplicably, then how could you not drown? I wondered how much longer I could love a monster and still be the same woman. If he couldn’t see himself, was it possible that he’d ever see me?

Not a single person in this realm saw me, and I thought I could feel myself disappearing. As I watched the water so far in the distance, I was unsure which way I should step.

And then I heard him. ‘Rose! Don’t!’

I turned.

‘What are you doing?’ Thorne yelled. ‘Get down!’

He’d come back.

‘I wasn’t going to jump,’ I tried to tell him as he crossed the roof, but when I stepped down my foot slipped and I felt myself tilt backwards. He was fast then – faster than I’d ever seen a human be. I was falling backwards, scrabbling for a hold, but before I was lost he had reached the balcony and caught hold of my outstretched hand. In less than a moment, he’d hoisted me back onto the roof, as though I weighed nothing in his enormous arms. My gasp of shock tore free as he pulled me against his chest, holding me so tightly it squeezed the air from my lungs.

‘What did you do?’ he exclaimed savagely.

I didn’t know how to explain that I hadn’t meant to jump, that the truth was simple: I’d never jump while Thorne was in my life. But I didn’t know how to tell him, so I stayed quiet. And in that moment, I realised that the answer was easy – if he came for me, again and again, it might be enough to keep me from disappearing. It might be enough, one day, to help me forget about my father and the water.

Chapter 6

Ava

The torch flickered out eventually, and we walked on in darkness. Ambrose led the way, and I was too tired to argue. When I fell behind, he tugged the rope to make sure I kept moving. I don’t think he had any idea which way we were headed, but as he walked, every step of the way, no matter how dark it got, he sang. Sometimes he sang soft, sad songs, and other times he sang loud, bawdy alehouse jigs. He sang about beauty and about sorrow, about sports and cities and fighting, all in a voice so beautiful it astonished me. But it occurred to me, after what felt like days, that there was one thing he never sang about.

‘Ambrose,’ I interrupted wearily at one point. ‘Don’t you know any songs about love?’ Immediately, I could have bitten my own tongue off. Stupid, stupid, stupid self-flagellation. Didn’t everything hurt enough without songs of love? But pieces of me remained from before, and occasionally they reared their heads and tried to remind me of what I’d once been – of how whimsical I’d been as a child, how desperate for love. But I thought of Avery and those pieces sank back down, cowed and sheepish and embarrassed.

‘Love?’ Ambrose asked. ‘Why would I sing of love?’

Why indeed. I didn’t reply, because I agreed with him. No answers remained – they were hiding in shame.

We walked in silence for a while, and then I heard Ambrose say, ‘Not everything in the world is about love, Avery. People in Kaya are fixated on all the wrong things.’

But he didn’t understand. I wanted, somehow, to show him the truth, to explain it to him, but I didn’t know how, so I kept walking, thinking that sometimes he seemed very young.

As if reading my thoughts, he admitted softly, ‘I don’t know any.’

‘What did your ma teach you when you were a child?’

‘She taught me how to kill.’

I felt cold, and I didn’t want to talk anymore. Nor did I want to sing. I wanted no music, no sound – no remembrance of the shitty world we lived in. For the first time, I felt truly sorry for Ambrose.

‘You could sing one,’ he suggested.

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘I have a terrible voice.’

‘Oh, come on—’

‘No.’

He closed his mouth with a snap of teeth. A few minutes later he hissed out a breath of surprise.

‘What?’

‘Stop,’ he ordered. ‘There’s a drop here.’

I reached my hands out and walked until I touched his warm back. Glad to have found him in the dark, I didn’t immediately remember to move my hands away.

‘Drop something in and we’ll see how long it takes to land,’ I suggested.

He didn’t move, and I wondered what the hold-up was until I realised I still had my hands on his back. Quickly I jerked them away.

I heard him kneel and run his hands along the ground, searching for a rock. ‘Okay, I’m dropping it now.’

The splash came four seconds later.

‘Not too bad,’ I commented.

‘More water,’ he groaned. ‘And this time we can’t see shit.’

‘Let’s get it over with.’

We dropped into the water below and it was even colder than the last pool – it stole the breath from my lungs and I kicked to the surface, gasping with horror.

‘Holy Sword!’ Ambrose roared, his voice echoing enough to tell me we were in another cavern. ‘It’s freezing!’

We swam as fast as we could, searching for another ledge, another tunnel, but we kept getting completely disoriented in the darkness.

‘Untie the rope, Ambrose,’ I said eventually.

‘Why? So you can escape?’

I clicked my tongue. ‘Are you insane? Where in the world would I escape to? I just want to dive down a bit and see if I can spot anything.’

‘What are you going to spot underwater in the pitch black?’

‘If I were to guess, I’d say there are probably luminous eels further down. They love still water like this – it’s the perfect spot.’

I heard Ambrose sigh and start to hack through the elaborate knots he’d made around my wrist. As soon as I was free, I took a huge breath and dived as hard as I could, kicking powerfully. I was stronger in water than I was on land – my father was a fisherman, after all. Down and down I went, with no idea where I was going or in which direction I should swim. Eventually I found what I’d been hoping for – half a dozen bright green eels attached to the rock wall of the cave. Grabbing one around the head so it couldn’t bite me, I surged back up to the surface and held it out for Ambrose to see.

‘Sword,’ he breathed. ‘You did it!’

‘I’ll try not to be offended by how surprised you sound. Wait here while I scout.’ I left him and dived again, holding the slippery, wriggling creature in my good hand. It didn’t take me long to figure out the problem, and I resurfaced.

‘Okay, there’s a tunnel, but it’s underwater. I’m going to have to swim through it to see how long it is, and then I’ll come back for you.’

He eyed me carefully in the eerie green glow, then shook his head. ‘No. I’ll go.’

‘If this is because you don’t trust me to come back for you—’

‘That’s not it,’ he said. ‘You’re sick, Avery. You’ve got more injuries than I can count. You’re half dead from the stupid bond. You won’t make it far.’

‘I— I’m a stronger swimmer than you are.’

‘Yeah, maybe,’ he snapped suddenly, losing his temper. ‘Maybe you used to be, but it makes no difference anymore. Give me the eel and for once in your damn life stop arguing.’

I stared at him, then handed over the eel. I’d been told, numerous times, that I was a woman who didn’t know how to pick her battles. ‘Take a very deep breath, hold it for a second, and then draw more air into your lungs – it’ll stretch your capacity.’

He smiled and said, ‘If I don’t come back, it’s because I’ve drowned.’

‘Yes, thank you – I could have gathered that.’

This made his smile widen. ‘Fine, smartass. If I don’t come back, it’s because I’ve left you here to die alone. It’s been a pleasure, Avery of Kaya. So long.’

Then he vanished under the water, taking the light with him.

I floated, knowing I should find my way to the edge and hop out, lest my temperature drop too far, but for some reason I couldn’t bring myself to leave him alone in the water – stupid as that was. I flipped onto my back and peered into the black space before me, imagining travelling up and out of this cave, this mountain, this island. I longed for Migliori, imagined riding him out of this pit of despair. If I imagined escaping here with Ambrose, it simply meant we were closer to the prison. I didn’t know which torture was worse, but I suspected being trapped underground with a Pirenti soldier wasn’t quite as bad as being imprisoned with dozens of them, especially when the single soldier grew kinder and more confusing with every passing day.

Just as I was starting to believe that Ambrose really had drowned, he burst back through the water and heaved in ragged breaths of air. ‘I found an air pocket,’ he gasped. ‘But it’s far, Ave. Really bloody far. I don’t know if …’

If you’ll make it, were the words he didn’t say. I licked my lips, wanting to argue, to tell him he was being an arrogant ass again, and that I could do anything he could, but the truth was like a searing hot blade against my skin, forcing me to face it. I was weak and sick and tired, and in that first dive I’d realised how depleted my lung capacity was.

I met Ambrose’s eyes and gave him his words back. ‘Let’s see.’

He nodded, and in his pale gaze was something I hadn’t expected – regret. ‘Yeah, all right. Ready, then?’

‘Yes.’

We took some deep breaths, I tried to stretch my lungs as far as I could, and then we dived. Once upon a time I had been a strong swimmer, but now I grew weak so quickly that I was simply a hindrance to Ambrose’s long, powerful strokes. I hated it, hated myself, hated this cave and this water – and for the very first time I hated the bond that had destroyed me in such a way. We swam on and on until my lungs were burning and my body was tingling. I wasn’t going to make it – unless the end was in the next few feet I was going to drown, and Ambrose was going to have to yank my bloated, dead corpse into the tiny air pocket.

‘Just push through the pain,’ he tells me. ‘You decide where your limit is.’

‘You’ve been training for years!’ I protest. ‘You might be able to push through the pain, but I can’t!’

‘Ava, you’re stronger than this privileged little girl you behave as. You’re stronger than the fragile thing your parents believe you to be.’

‘I don’t know what I am, but it’s not strong,’ I mutter.

‘I know what you are,’ he says simply, ‘because I’m your mate. So do as I tell you.’

I blinked the memory away, and focused again on my surrounds, on keeping my feet kicking as hard as they could. I wasn’t strong back then, all those years ago when first we’d met – I’d been a spoilt child, soft and pampered. But I’d made myself hard for him, for Avery, and when he was gone I had become even harder – the hardest woman in the world. I could do this – I could keep swimming.

I followed the green light ahead and the strong male body as it kicked its way forward. Ambrose started to blur, his edges bleeding into the dark depths around him. A regret, that I wouldn’t reach the surface with this strange Pirenti man. I wanted to see his smile again, hear that laugh of his, which was odd – perhaps the lack of air.

Just when I knew I couldn’t go any further, Ambrose turned and swam back to my side, and with his free hand he drew my face to his. Lips pressed against mine, he blew air into my mouth and down into my lungs, and I felt a burst of life shooting through my veins, shaking me awake. He was about to blow another breath when I pushed him away and shook my head, motioning him forward. He struck out again, and I followed, strong and determined.

At long last we burst into the air pocket, which was so small we could barely fit beside each other. Spots danced before my eyes and I leant against the rocks, breathing heavily.

‘Wow,’ Ambrose finally muttered. ‘You’re a good kisser, Ave.’

I shot him a glare of such loathing that he burst out laughing, yet again. I’d wanted to hear that laugh, but now it grated on me and made me hate him. I didn’t know what to do or say in the face of what he’d done for me – my discomfort made me hot. ‘You don’t take anything seriously, do you?’ I snapped.

‘Why in the world would I, when it’s so much more fun to be morose and depressing like you?’ he drawled. ‘Don’t worry, kid. I don’t make a habit of kissing seventeen-year-old boys, so you’re safe.’

‘If that’s what you think a kiss is, then I feel sorry for you,’ I muttered. ‘Let’s just go.’

‘Shouldn’t I scout ahead?’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t care anymore – if it’s too far, it’s too far. Let’s just try.’

‘I hate caves,’ he burst out suddenly. ‘And being underwater. Have I ever told you that?’

‘No. You’ve hardly told me anything.’

‘Well, then if we make it to another air pocket, I promise I’ll tell you every titbit of information about me that I can think of.’

‘I’d probably be more motivated if you promised not to.’

‘I’ll bet you were a comedian in your first life.’ Ambrose took a massive breath and dived again, and I quickly followed suit.

The tunnel seemed to be curving upwards, which was a good sign. We made it to three more air pockets before the final leg, which pushed me so hard that I thought I was going to die, and Ambrose had to breathe into my mouth again before we finally made it into a cave shrouded with light. The mouth of this cave opened up into the ocean, and Ambrose crowed in triumph while I sagged in exhaustion.

I realised as we swam out and around the curve of the coast, climbing onto the rocky beach under a pale sun, that this was a man who had saved my life several times, who sang beautiful songs about Kaya, and who told stories of how he missed his older brother. This was a man who laughed during any occasion, even in the darkest part of the world, even when he was about to die. A man who gave me the very air from his lungs, even though I was a prisoner who had tried to assassinate his queen.

As I pulled myself onto the warm rocks and lay in the sun, letting my body finally remember what warmth meant, I felt closer to tears than I had in two years, because when I had said to him ‘you don’t take anything seriously’ I had simply been repeating words that weren’t my own.

‘I’m trying to study, Ava – I can’t go out.’

I run my hands through his long black hair and kiss a line along his spine. ‘You can study me, if you’d like.’

‘You don’t take anything seriously, do you?’

‘Why should I?’

Once upon a time, I’d thought that everything in the world was a game, a joke, a stage.

I looked at Ambrose as he lay beside me and I wasn’t so sure about the difference anymore. But I was certain of one thing: if life was a joke, then it was being played on me.

Ambrose

‘We’re on the eastern coast,’ I told Avery. ‘If we follow it around, we should eventually come to the prison in the north.’

‘Goodie.’

I watched him, lying with his face tilted up to the sun, and even with his eyes closed I could tell he was rolling them at me. I grinned. I’d not once seen him smile, had never heard him laugh. I knew now that he couldn’t. That alone struck me as the saddest thing I’d ever come across – a funny guy like Avery should be able to laugh.

‘I have no idea how far it is, but I’d say it’s a pretty long way.’ I rummaged through the pack, hoping against hope that I’d sealed one of the pots properly. Miraculously, the ash paste was still intact, and I took Avery’s arm and started to smother a new layer on.

‘Do you think they’ll reward you for getting me there?’ Avery asked, his sour expression turned away from my healing efforts. ‘Regale you with the medals of a hero? A struggling warrior who made it through the unforgiving jungle with a prisoner in tow, all to exact justice in the world?’

‘Probably.’

Avery clicked his tongue in irritation. ‘How noble. Your plight will be one of legend.’

I finished with the wrap, but for an odd second, I felt the strong pulse of his blood under my fingertips. I glanced up at his face, but he was gazing at the wild waves. Tiny droplets of sea spray sat in his long, black eyelashes and on his dry, cracked lips.

He stood abruptly, wrenching his arm from my hold. He wobbled once – still weak from everything he’d been through – but his expression didn’t waver. ‘We’d better rush towards those medals then.’ He strode forward, his dark cap hiding his golden hair. I really was curious about what was under that hat – it never came off, not even when we were underwater. Maybe he was going bald – I smiled at the thought.

We walked slowly along the rocky beach. There was a whimsical feeling in the air, surrounded as we were by mist, waves crashing in our ears. The grey sky reached out in every direction, not a blade of sunlight to be seen, and the emptiness was eerie. It felt almost otherworldly, like we were the only two people left alive. I found myself watching Avery as he walked, intrigued by the way his body moved. It was so … elegant. Graceful in a way that was familiar, though I couldn’t figure out why. I wanted, for the first time in my life, to go to Kaya and see the way they lived. I wanted to see the difference between men and women, wanted to see the way they interacted with each other, to understand how this boy could get a woman to be attracted to him. Didn’t Kayan women want their men strong? I knew as soon as I had the thought that it was unworthy – Avery was strong. I thought about how he’d skinned the stag on his own, gritting his teeth and struggling with the horrendous task. Thought about how he’d rowed all night in the dinghy. How he’d taken all my violence silently, and always fought back – would never stop fighting back, no matter how outmatched he was.

A thought came to me abruptly, unexpectedly – Avery might not be as physically strong as a Pirenti soldier, but he had a strength of spirit I’d never seen before. Somehow, I thought, this realisation is going to change my life. What a thing to think as I plodded along under the infinite grey sky.

Avery threw me an annoyed glance over his shoulder and slowed. ‘I don’t like you walking behind me.’

Which meant he wanted to talk. ‘So what did you do before you met your girl, Ave?’

‘I was a soldier,’ he said.

I stared at him. ‘Are you kidding?’

He shot me a look. ‘People of any sex or size can be warriors in Kaya. With good training and a weapon you can do as much damage as the next person.’

‘You’re a child.’

He shrugged. ‘You’ve killed so many of us that we have to start young these days.’

An ugly sentence; an even uglier truth. And not the day for me to think upon it.

As for the female soldiers – it had always made me sick to think of how vulnerable the women in the Kayan ranks were. ‘Don’t you think it’s cruel to send women into battle against men?’

Avery sighed. ‘Ambrose,’ he said slowly, pointedly, like I was a child in need of educating, ‘there are many different kinds of prejudice. Treating a woman as if she could break at the slightest challenge is as bad as abusing her. I’ve seen women who are deadlier than even your berserkers.’

I raised a sceptical eyebrow. Berserkers were beasts – huge men born and raised in the icecaps of Pirenti to have an unnatural lust for blood, and a rage that overtook them in the heat of battle. I’d once seen a berserker who’d been shot with fourteen arrows and was so overcome with battle fury that he didn’t even notice. I had more reason than most to understand how dangerous such men were and I didn’t believe a woman could be that deadly – but I understood Avery’s point.

‘They’d never be quite so obvious,’ Avery added more softly, a glint to his eye, ‘but their ferocity can be infinitely more devious.’

My mouth quirked up at the side. ‘I think I’d like to meet one of these women of yours. They sound too good to be true.’

What I received for that was not quite a smile, but almost, almost. The edges of his mouth and eyes relaxed, making him look just as beautiful as when I’d first seen his unconscious face. I wanted desperately to meet this Ava – I could imagine how she lit him up from the inside, and if she was anything like the women he’d described she’d be a fearsome thing to behold.

‘In any case, I was a soldier,’ he continued, walking forward again, ‘although I was a fisherman once upon a time. I didn’t really think I could be anything else. In my village you fish, or you leave. And I didn’t want to leave, so …’

‘You fished.’

‘I did.’

‘What made you want to fight, in the end?’

‘Ava. She was studying at the towers, and it was either move there to be with her or go mad with longing. So I followed her and I became a soldier too, and along the way I discovered it was a cause I actually believed in – which is why I was attacking your queen in the first place.’

‘You got pretty close, if I remember correctly. It had taken Ma a long time to recover from that knife to her guts.’

‘Not close enough.’

‘You don’t feel any remorse, do you? Not even now.’

‘I only feel remorse for not being strong enough to get the job done.’

Was he trying to offend me? I didn’t blabber on about killing the people from his country! ‘You’re really annoying sometimes, Ave.’

‘Only sometimes?’

I considered. ‘Most of the time.’

He looked into my eyes, and I thought I saw something there, something strange and unexpected.

‘So you lived for fighting,’ I said. ‘You loved being a soldier. Tell me then, how does that make you different from any man in Pirenti?’

‘I didn’t enjoy hurting people,’ he snapped.

It seemed quite clear to me what he wasn’t saying. ‘And now?’

Avery blinked, his purple eyes shifting to a light shade of yellow that glowed in the dull grey light. It was spectacular, to see a pair of eyes change colour – and quite incomprehensible. He answered me. ‘Now I do.’

I shook my head. ‘At least that girl didn’t take your ability to lie when she died.’

His head whipped around and his eyes went from yellow to scarlet.

That was when I heard it – a very soft whisper of sound drifting through the mist. It was a low, deadly growl. I froze, pulling Avery to a jerking halt. He looked at me questioningly but I held a hand up for him to be silent. I drew my sword as quietly as I could, and peered around but I may as well have been blind, for all I could make out in the mist.

A soft sound came from behind, and then they attacked. My first glimpse of our enemy was as a creature leapt at me, a loud snarl erupting from its mouth. It was a wildcat, and there was more than one. The first mighty cat slammed into me, knocking me to the ground, where it instantly began tearing at my arm. I grunted and struggled with its heavy weight before managing to roll it off me. My sword was lightning fast, because in the back of my mind, every second, was the knowledge that Avery had no weapon with which to defend himself. I stabbed the savage cat between its ribs and left it to die. Turning quickly, I saw that three other animals surrounded Avery.

Sensing my approach, two of them turned towards me, leaving the third with Avery. The cats circled around to either side of me, starved and desperate for meat. Not waiting for them to attack, I feinted forward and sliced through the neck of the wildcat to my right. In the same moment the cat on my left jumped onto my back and raked its claws through my skin. The pain was sharp and immediate, but I ignored it and used the beast’s own momentum to fling it forward over my head. I jabbed with my sword again and cut open its chest as it fell, killing it instantly.

Avery was trapped in the stare of the last cat. It was the biggest, the leader of the pack. Neither was moving. I watched, transfixed, unsure what was happening, and as I stared at them, I saw Avery move towards the animal.

‘Don’t—’ I started to warn, but he hissed at me to be quiet, never taking his eyes from the yellow gaze of his opponent. He moved right up to it, heedless of the danger, and after what seemed an age, frozen in silent communication, Avery reached out with his palm and forced the cat onto its back. It gave a high, keening snarl that echoed off the rocks around us. Avery hissed at it, a feral, animal sound that stunned me and frightened the cat – it was gone in an instant, sprinting away without a backward glance.

I stared at Avery, who turned and fixed his purple eyes on the mess around me. ‘How did you do that?’

‘You didn’t have to kill them,’ he said softly, sea-green eyes darting frantically to the dead bodies. At that moment he seemed more broken than ever. I didn’t know what to say. I looked down at the three dead animals and felt a wave of regret. Just as after I’d seen the white stag killed, I felt brutal and hateful for having taken more life.

‘They attacked us,’ I said, forcing the regret out of my tone. Where had my hardness gone? I’d been one of the toughest, cruellest men of Pirenti, and now here I stood ready to cry like a baby over a couple of dead cats. ‘Let’s go,’ I snapped, striding forward angrily.

We didn’t say anything more until nightfall.

‘We should make camp,’ he told me.

‘We’ll make camp when I say so!’ I spat. The two of us trudged along the rocks, barely able to see our way in the darkness. I knew I was being stupid and stubborn, but it seemed that if I stopped moving, even for a moment, everything I was blocking out would catch up to me.

‘Stop!’ he ordered about an hour later. I swung around, ready to hit him for disobeying me, but the anger died as soon as I saw the expression in his eyes. ‘You’re bleeding, Ambrose.’

I glanced down but didn’t see any blood. Then it hit me at once – the pain I’d been so careful to ignore – my back. I instantly felt dizzy, and I sank to the ground. Avery moved around behind me to lift my shirt over my head. He took the canteen of water and began to wash the blood from my wounds. I was faintly surprised at how gentle and slender his fingers were against my skin, but I still groaned in pain as he pulled the bits of my shirt from the wounds.

‘You don’t have to pretend you liked what happened before,’ he said softly.

‘Liked what?’

‘Killing the animals. It doesn’t make you weak to value life.’

‘I value my own life,’ I spoke, as I’d been taught.

‘Is there a life you would give your own for?’ he asked me. ‘Any life?’

I closed my eyes. ‘Of course.’

‘Who?’

‘My brother. His wife.’

‘That’s two. I think that might be more than most people would. You believe a harsher truth about yourself than you should, Ambrose.’

‘You’re a child,’ I murmured. ‘A Kayan child. You don’t know anything about my truths.’

‘Then tell me. What do you wish for?’

I wasn’t sure if he was simply trying to keep me distracted from the pain, or if he really wanted to know. There was something gentler about him tonight – something I hadn’t seen in him before now.

‘I wish for an answer,’ I said softly. I wished for a why. I wanted to know the truth to the question that plagued every moment of my waking life – an answer to why my father was in the crypt.

‘To what?’ he asked.

I swallowed, shaking my head. ‘Forget that.’

‘Why—’

‘I wish to escape my family,’ I admitted out loud, for the first time in my life. But it was more complicated than that – nothing was as simple as those words. Pain sheathed itself in my chest – longing for my brother, heartbreak at what had happened to us, at how we had been divided. I didn’t want to leave Thorne, but I also didn’t want ceaseless slaughter in my life.

‘Is there a way to do that?’ Avery asked.

‘Of course not. I’m a man of Pirenti – I love my country, and even if I did not, there is nowhere else in this world for me.’ A sneer curled my lip. ‘You think I could go south to Kaya, to where the men are soft like women and they spend their time singing of love?’ I shook my head. ‘I’ve played nice, Ave, but I’m not that nice. There are more important things in life.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like surviving. Like providing for your children. Like making sure your family is safe.’

Avery didn’t speak for a moment. ‘Children and family – what are they, but not beloved?’

I clenched my jaw. ‘Stop it. You enjoy twisting my words, but I’m too tired.’

‘Have you ever been in love, Ambrose?’ he asked me.

‘I don’t want to talk about this anymore.’

‘Answer me, or I’ll jab my fingers into these wounds.’

‘No, I haven’t,’ I told him through gritted teeth. ‘Love is rare in Pirenti – or at least your idea of what love is. It’s not necessary.’

‘Have you shared intimacy with a woman?’

‘Do you mean sex?’

‘No, I mean intimacy.’

I stilled, my muscles relaxing. ‘I’ve never had time for it. I’ve never … wanted it.’ Honestly – I wasn’t even sure what it was. ‘Why would I need it?’

His fingers stopped against my back, and I could make out each of the ten points where the tips touched my skin. I could feel the heat coming off them, soaking into me, and it made my heart beat a little faster.

‘Because without it life is lonely,’ he said simply.

I swallowed. It had never occurred to me that loneliness was an affliction – at least, not one worth concerning myself about. ‘Life is lonely anyway.’

‘It’s a shame, Ambrose,’ he murmured. ‘A man like you could offer a woman something important, if you could see her for what she really is.’

‘And what is a woman, really? What am I so blind to?’

He was still touching my back as he answered me, his face close to my shoulder. I could feel his breath against the back of my neck. ‘A woman’s beauty is in her strength and her passion. Think of her form, the sensuality of a woman’s body – it’s not a vessel for you to steal your own pleasure from – it’s capable of awakening passion for the both of you. Sharing intimacy with a woman and allowing her to feel pleasure will satisfy you in a way you’ve never imagined. Trust me on that.’

Avery then wrapped a bandage around my torso and set about lighting a fire to keep us warm, completely unaware of the riot he’d started in my heart.

‘You love your brother and his wife,’ he shrugged as he worked. ‘You would give your life for theirs, and yet you don’t see this as an act of love. You are one of the most romantic men I have ever met, Ambrose. You can be generous and kind, when you are not forcing yourself to be otherwise, and I think one day you will find a very passionate love, and it will make you understand the futility of denying it.’

I stared at him, and even though his words were stupid and sickening, a distant, treacherous part of me thought they contained the best news anyone had ever imparted to me.

Ava

As I lay ready to sleep, I thought of Avery and the way he’d taught me everything I’d just explained to Ambrose. I remembered the way he used to touch me, the way he’d treated me like a rare gem, a treasure that only he could unlock, a gift, the perfect gift. I thought of the way we’d shared everything; I imagined him above me, whispering things in my ear, moving his hands over my body.

And then, for the first time in my life, a strange, terrifying, horrible thing happened. The man atop me slowly transformed, without me realising it at first, from the small, lithe, gentle man I’d known most of my life, into the dark stranger who lay next to me. Instead of the slender hands I knew so well, I started to imagine big, callused hands moving over my skin, touching me in places they shouldn’t, in ways I’d never been touched, not even by Avery. The strength and physicality of him called to my blood, stirring thoughts that should never have been possible. The strength and size of his hands moved between my legs and I had to clamp my mouth shut to stop myself from making any noise. The sound of his breathing seemed to suddenly come from some place over my body, against my body, the feel of his muscles setting my own to riot. My breathing quickened, and I couldn’t rid him from my mind, from my body – I even felt like I could taste the saltiness of his skin against my tongue, felt like I could feel his heartbeat pressed against the skin of my chest. Clenching my teeth, I tried to rid him from me, but couldn’t.

And so, for the first time since my mate had been murdered, I began, very softly, to weep. I knew my eyes had turned to black – I felt them. It was the colour of deepest betrayal, of shame, of agony and desire.

Through the darkness my soft weeping reached his ears, and then Ambrose reached for my hand, holding it gently in the night, and the feel of it hurt in a way I couldn’t bear and also couldn’t bear to let go of.

Chapter 7

Roselyn

Silk under fingertips was one of my favourite sensations.

‘Back again, Lady Roselyn?’ the shopkeeper sighed, rolling his eyes as I entered the shop. As soon as he saw who was behind me, however, his shoulders straightened and the expression of distaste on his face vanished. ‘Your Majesty,’ he bowed low.

Thorne didn’t even look at him. ‘Get her what she wants,’ he muttered, turning to peer out the front window into the cobbled street. From the way he was staring you’d think he was on the lookout for an enemy attack on the material shop.

‘Of course, Your Majesty, whatever you wish is yours.’

‘I’ve got no wish for this rubbish,’ he snapped. ‘I told you – see to my wife.’

I gravitated towards the swathes of cloth, letting the shopkeeper’s prattle fade from my mind. He was rude to me when I came alone, but that was all right – everyone was. In front of Thorne he was positively obsessive.

Vermillion slid beneath my hands, then azure, peach and mint. I touched crimson, coral and ivory, found lace in every shade of cream, and ribbons embroidered with the finest detail. A beautiful deep purple caught my gaze and it reminded me, obscurely, of the Kayan boy’s eyes.

I glanced at my husband and saw him inspecting the hilt of his axe with focused concentration. I couldn’t for one second imagine what was going on in his mind.

He glanced up and caught my eyes. ‘Are you shopping or staring at me?’

I quickly went back to the silks and chose a few for my sewing, including a blue that would make a lovely tunic for Thorne and match his eyes. He’d probably never wear it, since he only ever wore functional clothing, but I would make it for him anyhow.

‘This,’ he grunted and I realised he’d moved to my side. He was pointing at a brilliant green material, trimmed with gold thread. ‘This would be good on you.’ And then he swept out into the sunshine.

I told the mean man to wrap my choices and deliver them to our rooms, then followed Thorne outside. He led the way along the street, past the staring eyes – no matter where he went, he was always the focus of people’s fascination. Aside from being one of the biggest men in the world, there was something very beautiful about the elder prince. Unlike his younger brother, who was handsome and charismatic, Thorne had a kind of … difficulty to his presence. It made it very hard to look away from him. It was as though death and fury and ice walked each step with him. The folk who lived in the fortress were alternately terrified and awed by him – if he caught them staring there was no telling what he’d do.

A soldier crossed the street to our side and Thorne glanced at him. ‘Garth. South patrols?’

‘Nothing to report, Your Majesty – the forest is clear.’

Thorne nodded once. ‘Be gone, then. I’m with my wife.’

Garth observed me coldly, his lip curling slightly before he strode off. Thorne led me to a small shop and opened the door for me, causing the bell to jingle softly. I looked at him, surprised.

‘You need more, don’t you?’ he asked.

I swallowed, nodding. The shop belonged to an apothecary, and was full to the brim with various medicinal herbs and plants. Thorne must have checked my supply before we left this morning.

He moved up behind me and peered over my shoulder into the cabinets. His presence was big and warm, and I closed my eyes just for a second, enjoying his closeness. ‘What’s all this?’

‘Agrimony,’ I pointed out, ‘for the liver and kidneys. Black cohosh, for spasms and convulsions. Ginger root to strengthen the lungs. This one here is prickly ash bark, used to treat paralysis of the tongue and mouth.’

‘We should use it on that idiot shopkeeper who wouldn’t shut up,’ he murmured.

I smiled over my shoulder. ‘This would make him even chattier.’

Thorne met my eyes and grinned. ‘Holy Sword, I take it back.’ His hand moved to my neck, where it rested beneath my messy hair. ‘What could we give him that would teach him a lesson?’

‘A lesson in what?’

‘In respect.’

I blinked, confused.

‘Don’t you notice how rude people are to you?’ he asked me seriously, his eyes studying my face.

I flushed. ‘I notice. I just didn’t think you did.’

Thorne’s hand tightened slightly on the back of my neck, then moved around to rest against my jaw. ‘I notice,’ he murmured. ‘I wanted to hurt him.’

I swallowed. ‘If you hurt every man or woman who is rude to me, there will be no healthy people left in the world.’

Thorne stared at me, and then he smiled and shook his head in exasperation. ‘Gods, girl,’ he sighed, leaning his forehead against mine. ‘What am I going to do with you?’

I didn’t reply, lost in the pleasure of his smile – so rare it was like a precious treasure. When Thorne pulled away, I noticed that there was a cluster of teenagers crowded in behind the apothecary, presumably his children. They were all staring at Thorne and me with wide eyes.

I self-consciously ordered the herbs I needed.

The youngest child, who could only have been about twelve, stood behind the counter and peered at me. ‘You’re very beautiful, Lady Roselyn,’ she murmured.

I stared at her, so surprised I couldn’t think how to respond. Thorne guided me out of the shop and pulled my cloak tighter around me. ‘At least that’s one person I won’t have to harm,’ he muttered wryly. I couldn’t help it – I started laughing.

Thorne watched my mirth in bemusement, then rolled his eyes and started leading me back towards the main building. Within the fortress there were several long streets dedicated to the sale of wares. These streets, along with the residential areas and the main fortress building, were all guarded by a huge stone wall, too high to ever be breached. At the far end of the enclosure was the massive training yard where tournaments and festivals were held – that was where we’d watch the summer solstice in a week’s time.

Thorne stopped at a stall and bought us both caramel pears on sticks. I licked mine greedily – I loved the taste of it more than any other food. The treats started to drip onto our hands as we walked, forcing us to eat quickly. Thorne glanced at me and grinned, then shocked me by leaning in and licking my chin.

‘Mmm.’

I giggled and pulled away, making him laugh.

‘That ash bark stuff,’ Thorne said suddenly, pulling my thoughts back. ‘I could have used some of that when I was a kid.’ His face was tense. ‘I didn’t speak a word for several years.’

My mouth opened in surprise. ‘You didn’t?’

He shook his head.

‘Was it a physical ailment?’

‘No.’

‘Then why?’

‘No idea. I just … I was a weird kid.’

‘Were you sad?’

Thorne looked at me sharply – I could see he was about to deny it, but he stopped himself short. Eventually he just said, ‘What’s there to be sad about?’

I couldn’t even count the endless possible responses to this, so I stayed silent and finished my pear. We didn’t usually talk much when we went shopping together, but my husband seemed to be in a strange mood today. In fact, he’d been strange since the night with the painting and the incident on the roof. He’d been quiet and watchful, which was normal, but over the last couple of days he had been staying especially close to me. I didn’t know if it was because he didn’t trust me, or if he thought I needed extra protection, or … I shook my head to banish the thought. I couldn’t entertain the notion that he was spending more time with me simply because he wanted to be close to me – it was too silly.

‘Your ma taught you all this stuff about medicine, right?’

I nodded.

‘And then you watched her die,’ he said softly. ‘Did you try to save her with these herbs?’

‘Of course.’

‘But none of it worked.’

‘No. She was very sick.’

‘Why do you keep so much of this stuff in our home?’

‘It’s for … it’s just in case.’

Thorne stopped in the middle of the street. ‘In case I hurt you?’

I blinked. ‘No – in case you get hurt or sick in one of your fights.’ He had so many, I was sure that one day he’d be brought home in a thousand pieces and no medicine in the world would be enough to put him back together. It was another secret fear – one of my greatest worries.

‘Do you use them on the people in the fortress?’

‘If they need them.’

‘People come to you, though, don’t they?’ he pressed, expression unreadable.

‘Yes, they come to me when they feel unwell, or have an ailment. I try my best to help them.’

‘Do you use the herbs on yourself?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘Is that why you haven’t fallen pregnant?’

I froze. ‘What?’

‘Do you take herbs to stop us conceiving a child?’

I felt the ground beneath me start to shake. A very great pain made its way through my body. ‘How could you … how could you ever think that?’

‘We’ve been married five years, Rose, but no children.’

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying not to cry. ‘There is nothing I could ever want more than to have your child,’ I whispered. ‘I can hardly bear the longing.’

‘All right,’ he said quickly, taking my shoulders in a grip that hurt. ‘Good then, that’s fine. Just don’t make a scene.’

People were staring, I could tell, but I felt so lost and I didn’t seem to be able to stop myself from crying. Did he see nothing, know no parts of me?

‘Rose, stop,’ Thorne snapped. He turned to the onlookers and snarled, ‘Get moving!’

People scattered in a hurry, bowing their heads to the Prince.

Thorne clicked his tongue, and gone was the man who had bought me a pear and licked its juice from my chin. ‘I’ve had enough of this. Is everything too much for you? Why must you always cry?’

Always cry? I never cried! I never allowed myself to because I knew how he hated it.

‘What is it that makes you so impossibly frightened?’

There was no answer that I could speak aloud – not without deepest shame.

‘You!’ Thorne barked. ‘Take my wife back to her rooms.’ Before I knew it, he was handing me over to a group of women and then striding away without a backwards glance. I wiped my eyes and looked at the ladies. There were three of them, all about my age, and they were staring at me in complete disgust.

‘Crying in front of the Prince,’ one of them hissed.

‘It’s pathetic.’

‘You’re an embarrassment. He should have married someone who knew how to behave instead of a half-wit he clearly can’t stand to be seen with.’

‘Come.’ One of them grabbed my arm with sharp nails and dragged me back towards the main building.

I went along with them for a few minutes, and then something strange happened. Pretending I couldn’t even hear them, one of the girls said, ‘I knew the rumours had to be true, but I didn’t think she’d be this much of a joke.’

And I just … stopped. I stopped walking, stopped crying, and when they turned in irritation, I glared into each of their faces. ‘I am strange. I know that. I am different, and you seem to find this shameful. But I at least I am not cruel. I have never used words to hurt anyone like you are doing now. I feel ashamed of you, ashamed to call you Pirenti women and kin of mine.’

The three women looked utterly mortified, as though they’d been slapped across the face by the Prince himself. I turned and walked away from them as quickly as I could.

‘Ye’re not to leave, girl,’ he snapped. ‘What about that do ye not understand?’

‘I just want to walk by the sea,’ I whispered. Why wouldn’t they let me do that?

‘In the name o’ the Holy Sword,’ the burly soldier muttered to his companion. ‘She’s as daft as they say. Listen to me. Yer own husband has given strict orders never to let ye out o’ the fortress.’

I closed my eyes. My momentary gumption had vanished and now I just felt stupid. The soldiers on top of the wall weren’t going to let me out. Just as I was turning to leave, an odd sound hailed my ears. It was like a dull string on a lute had been plucked, followed by a wet thunk. I turned just as the soldier from the wall fell to the ground at my side with a sickening squelch. I froze; even my heartbeat stopped. There was an arrow through his throat, and dark blood bubbling from the wound.

My first thought was that I needed a compress, and my sewing kit, but then the bubbles ceased along with his breath, and I saw his eyes go glassy. I gazed upwards – there were several large flying creatures in the air immediately above the fortress, swooping low over the wall. Shouts went up from the soldiers, but even as they rallied themselves and raised their weapons I watched two more felled by arrows from the sky. It took me a moment to realise that the attackers were Kayan soldiers atop pegasi. I jerked backwards in shock, not knowing what to do. I could run – it would be wise. Fear urged me to do so, but there were wounded men on the ground by my feet – if I left them here they would certainly die.

As arrows flew overhead and men screamed, I sank to my knees in the blood-soaked earth by the side of a second fallen man. He had an arrow through his shoulder, and was very pale. Quickly snapping the quill from the end of the shaft, I met his eyes. ‘I am very sorry, my lord, but I will have to push it through, if you think you can bear it.’

He gritted his teeth. ‘If I can bear it?’ A strange grin crossed his face. ‘Aye – I can bear it. Do your worst, there’s a good girl.’

It took all my strength to jam that arrow through his flesh and muscle and out the other side. He gave a roar of pain and thrashed so much that he whacked me in the elbow, which made my eyes water. As I pressed my hands over both sides of the wound, I looked around for something with which to bind it. Before I had the chance, though, a snowy white pegasis with violet wingtips landed right beside me. It was magnificent, and much larger than any horse I had ever beheld. Everything in me screamed out to run, flee, hide – but I couldn’t take my hands from the man’s wound, lest he bleed to death.

A woman climbed from the pegasis, and she looked like a wild thing. Her blond hair was matted and thick, her skin covered in dirt and blood, and she had bright red eyes – demon eyes.

‘Come with me, child,’ she ordered calmly.

I glanced around. There were about half a dozen dead or wounded Pirenti men scattered over the hard earth. I could see three pegasi still circling through the air, and I could hear the alarm bell tolling loudly. More soldiers would be here soon – Thorne would be here soon. I didn’t think any of that was going to make a difference – this woman had a steely look in her eyes, an expression I had seen many times before in my husband’s gaze. She was going to take me no matter what.

‘Let me bind his wound first,’ I said, my voice breaking.

‘Bind his wound?’

‘Please, I cannot leave him like this. I must bind the wound, and then I will come.’

She stared at my face, this Kayan, and then she smiled with disbelief and shook her head incredulously. ‘Bind his wound,’ she muttered, striding over to another soldier and ripping heavy strips of tunic from his dead chest.

My hands trembled as I took them from her and started to wrap them tightly around the soldier’s wounds. He opened his eyes suddenly – he must have been passed out. ‘Filthy Kayan whore,’ he snarled.

The woman wore no expression, but her eyes shifted, quite simply, to white. Fear exploded in my chest and I looked away from her, focusing on my task. As soon as I was done, I felt small, strong hands take me by the waist and lift me onto the back of the enormous flying horse. And then quite suddenly, amidst death and blood and eyes that turned white, I was high in the air as I had always wished to be, and there was nothing left but sky and the deep, countable rhythm of mighty wing-beats.

Ava

The mist had lessened by midday of the following day. Gulls careened through the sky, and a mighty sea bird dived low to pluck a fish from the water as I watched. It gave me a shiver of longing for my home by the ocean, the home I would never see again. Orion was a small fishing village, close to the capital of Limontae – city of the glistening glass towers, of learning and knowledge, beauty and magic. I’d been attending the academy in Limontae up until Gidion had taken us on the mission to kill the Barbarian Queen. Now everything I’d learnt there – every beautiful fact about art, culture, business and combat – all tasted like ash in my mouth. Lost was beauty when all that remained was hate.

As we walked, I began again to plan my escape. I no longer had such a burning desire to hurt Ambrose, so it would be preferable if I could find some way to slip free without him noticing. The problem then became how I would get off this island.

It grew very hot under the sun. I needed to wash the sweat from my body, but didn’t know how – the cloth I’d wrapped around my chest to flatten my breasts was getting filthy but I couldn’t wash it properly unless I took it off, and then I’d have nothing to hide my engagement ring in. Wracking my brain for some sort of excuse, I wasn’t watching where I was walking and tripped on a stray bit of driftwood. Ambrose reached out and grabbed my arm to stop me from landing flat on my face, rolling his eyes as he did so. I wished that just once I could save him from something embarrassing.

‘I want to swim,’ I told him.

He gazed into the sky, shielding his eyes against the sun. ‘It’s going to rain soon.’

‘The sky is blue!’

He shrugged. ‘The birds tell you. They’re all flying inland away from an approaching storm. I’ll wager by this evening it will be pouring again.’

‘So what then – you’re too frightened to swim?’

He shot me a look. ‘I’m not quite as dumb as I seem, Avery. You can’t bait me into doing what you want.’

I shrugged. ‘So are you too frightened to swim or not?’

He met my eyes and I realised something very strange: Ambrose could read me – perfectly.

‘A swim sounds great,’ he smiled. ‘The salt water will be good for our wounds.’ He shed his clothes. I meant to follow, but instead found myself watching him as he waded into the sea, yelling about the cold and shivering as each wave slapped into his body. Strange marks ran down the length of his spine – I had noticed them the night before, when I’d cleaned his claw wounds. They were almost like tattoos, but red instead of black, which made me think they must be scars.

‘Come on, Ave – this was your bloody idea!’ he shouted. ‘I’m not going in if you don’t!’

A wave crashed into his back and he howled in shock, then turned and flung himself under. He emerged, screaming curses and jumping around like a mad person, trying to warm up.

In that moment, he was young and wild and alive. He was laughing and howling, immersed equally in pleasure and pain.

And watching him, I smiled. I smiled. A girl who had been stripped of the ability. An impossible smile. A real smile, the first in years.

Ambrose

The water was icy cold – knives-all-over-my-body cold. I surfaced amidst the shock, my heart and soul wide open to the vastness of the sea I’d just entered, and turned to see Avery smile at me.

He smiled. And as I looked at the naked beauty of the expression, I fell in love with him.

It was that simple, that complicated.

Chapter 8

Ava

I started running. Faster than I’d ever run. My feet ignored the unsteady ground and pumped me forward. The wind threatened to loosen my cap but I kept going, uncaring. There was a kind of terror inside me, a growing, moving thing that threatened to overwhelm me if I stopped. He caught up to me, as he always did, and he grabbed hold of me, causing us both to lose balance as we ran. I slammed into the hard ground beneath me, and for a moment I was senseless, thoughtless, emotionless. It was bliss.

Then his body was on top of mine, shaking me by the shoulders, looking deep into my eyes – eyes that had turned to pale, pale blue. The same blue as his blue, that beautiful, disturbing shade.

Holy Gods. My eyes had found his colour.

‘What are you doing?’ he breathed. He was soaking wet, and drenching me with his closeness.

‘Please,’ I whispered, unshed tears blurring my vision. ‘Let me go.’

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked urgently, his voice breaking.

He was so heavy atop me, just as heavy as I’d imagined, his big arms gripping me in the iron grip that had both saved my life and threatened it

‘I shouldn’t be able to smile,’ I told him, the words seeping out of me as if escaping through a crack. ‘It’s part of the curse. It’s impossible.’

He began to understand – I saw it in his face. Slowly he stood and drew me to my feet. There was a whole world of emotion chasing its way through his eyes, and it came to me how foolish I’d been. I’d thought him a brute – a shallow, stupid brute without access to anything deeper.

But he’d sung to me, hadn’t he? He’d sung for hours and hours and hours. I should have known.

‘Impossible,’ he murmured, ‘and yet you did it. I saw you. What does that mean?’

‘I don’t know,’ I told him. ‘It’s why I was running.’

There was a loud clap of thunder and it started raining. We stared at each other as the sky fell down around us. And that’s when they came.

Ambrose

They emerged through the sheet of rain like a silent army of death. It took me a moment to blink away the heartache of what I’d just realised in order to see that they were Kayans – about thirty of them – which didn’t make any sense.

Men and women, all armed to the teeth. They were quick – they surrounded us almost instantly, moving like a contingent of my own army, not needing any orders to know what to do. I gripped Avery’s wrist tightly and looked at each of the soldiers, trying to understand what they wanted. I realised with a chill in my bones that they all had marked faces – ugly brands on their cheeks. The brands were the shape of a small, howling wolf – my royal sigil.

The Kayans drew their swords. My own weapons were lying in a pile with my clothes about a hundred feet behind us.

‘Who are you?’ I asked. They were all at least a head shorter than me, and not one of them immediately stood out as a leader.

‘That depends,’ said a woman, ‘on who you are.’ Her skin was very tanned, her hair very blond – a woman undoubtedly of the sea. But where in the world had she come from? Where had any of them come from? This was a Pirenti isle – our prison was here, and it was supposed to be otherwise uninhabited.

‘My name’s Avery,’ Ave spoke up. ‘I’m Kayan.’

‘We’re aware of that, boy,’ the woman said. ‘What I don’t understand is why you’re travelling with a Pirenti pig.’

Avery and I stared at each other. It was pretty obvious that I’d be slain where I stood if they found out I was holding Avery captive and taking him to prison. I guessed this was the end then. I’d had a pretty good run – I’d even managed to feel something for another human being before I died, which was not something I’d ever expected.

And then Avery said, ‘We’re friends. Ambrose has helped me survive and cross the isle.’

I blinked and stared at him. Whatever I’d been expecting, it wasn’t that. A part of me – a secret, hidden part – started to make plans without my permission. It started to dream and wish, just as Roselyn did.

‘How did you come to be here, and what are you doing?’ the woman asked crisply. Her voice was cold and sharp, and made me think of what Avery had said about women being more devious than men.

‘We were shipwrecked,’ Ave told her. ‘We thought we had landed on the Pirenti prison isle, so we were trying to reach the prison in order to find a boat to take us back to Kaya.’

‘And you thought the prison guards would hand over a boat to a Kayan and a traitor?’ the woman asked, laughing loudly.

‘They’d hand me anything I asked,’ I said softly, meeting her eyes. Hers were brown, but as she looked at me they morphed quickly into a yellowish, hazel shade.

‘Oh? And why would that be?’

A thought rose to the surface of my mind, something I had yet to address. It was easy enough to assume that Avery knew – easy enough to assume I had simply forgotten to tell him. But the truth was simple: I’d been keeping my identity a secret on purpose.

‘Because I’m the second Prince of Pirenti,’ I said, looking straight at Avery.

Ava

Whatever guilt I’d felt before, whatever shame I’d known, it was a drop of sand in the beach of agony I now stood on. He stared at me with that unreadable expression of his, as though what he had just said was not life changing – as if it was just a trifle of information he’d forgotten to mention, when in fact I’d been chummy with the Godsdamned prince of the people who’d killed my bondmate! I’d smiled at him!

I felt so sick I thought I might vomit. I could have killed him right then and there. My blood started to boil, and I looked around for a weapon of some kind. My eyes were shining bright red – there wasn’t enough red in the world to encompass my fury.

‘Easy,’ he said very softly, only loud enough for me to hear.

The Kayan woman spoke into the shocked silence around us. ‘And what benefit do you imagine will come of admitting to that?’

‘No benefit,’ Ambrose said, relaxed, his pale eyes flinty. ‘It is only the truth you asked for. Avery and I are friends. We were shipwrecked together, have survived together – I wanted to see him home to his people. We Pirenti are not all as savage as you seem to think.’

It all seemed to fit, now that I thought about it – his ease within the palace and his familiarity before the Queen, not to mention having the same eyes as his mother. The command in his voice when on the boat and the way all the sailors had deferred to him with such reverence; indeed, the whole mission itself – escorting a captive to a far-off prison definitely had the reek of a mother’s punishment to her bratty child. I was an idiot not to have figured it out earlier. And now that I thought about it, I’d even known from my lessons that the younger Prince of Pirenti was called Ambrose. And yet I had not for one moment put these things together. I was a complete and utter fool.

‘Savage or not,’ the woman said, ‘you are bound for death.’

Through my anger an alarm bell sounded – I had a choice to make. I could let Ambrose die now at the hands of these Kayan warriors. The prince of my enemies would be gone, and I could make my way back to Pirenti to finish this nightmare. It would be the easiest thing in the world and I’d be free again.

But then what happened to the man who had tended my wounds and told me stories and breathed for me when I couldn’t? Where did he go, when the prince died?

‘Kill someone because of the country they come from,’ I said softly, changing my life forever, ‘and you are as bad as the savages you hate.’

The woman looked at me. Her yellow eyes seemed to see right inside of me, probing, searching for the lie. ‘Easy words.’

‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘Very easy, as your choice should be.’

‘How would you suggest we proceed, Avery of Kaya?’

I frowned, folding my arms. ‘Give us shelter and supplies, and a way to get home.’

‘Why would we do that?’

‘Because I’m one of you, and Ambrose is with me.’

If Ambrose lived, he would find a way to take me to prison, of that I was sure, but here I stood, willing this into certainty. There was a lunatic woman inside my body, and she spoke and thought and breathed in all the wrong ways. She was stronger than my hate and my anger – I had no idea where she’d come from. Her mouth stayed shut, and her eyes stayed locked on the woman in front of me, waiting for an answer.

‘You want us to give the Prince of Pirenti a boat on which to sail home to his Barbarian Queen?’ she asked slowly. ‘Are you a traitor, or have you just lost your mind?’

I thought quickly. ‘Offer us shelter, under the vow that Ambrose will not harm a soul. When I have recovered I will take the boat, and you may keep the prince to ransom. He’ll fetch a pretty price, I have no doubt.’

‘Perhaps we should keep you both to ransom.’

I met her eyes. ‘Perhaps you should. But I am Kayan, and my mission is for the Kayan people. You must decide how much evil you can live with committing.’

She rubbed her chin slowly, glancing at each of us. No one else had moved.

‘All right,’ she said finally. ‘If you say he is safe for the moment, and means us no harm, then there is no reason to doubt him. But if he misbehaves in any way while he is our captive, you are responsible, Avery, and will be punished alongside him. You may both stay in our village until you are ready to leave for Kaya, but once you have left, the prince is fair game, and will not be kept safe by us. Call it an uneasy, temporary truce.’

‘Thank you,’ I said. I was secretly stunned to have won this freedom, and confused at why I had fought for it. Before meeting Ambrose, I would never have agreed to harbour anyone from Pirenti. I would have disposed of him without a care. Although, thinking back to the girl I’d been before Avery died, that probably wasn’t true – I hadn’t known the same kind of hate back then, and hadn’t been so untrusting.

One of the soldiers went to retrieve our belongings and then the whole group began to march. I didn’t know where we were going, nor how long it would take, but I knew that I never wanted to look at Ambrose again for as long as I lived.

Thorne

I was in the armoury when they told me. Five dead, one wounded. And my wife. My wife.

Garth at least had the grace to look frightened. Six men stood behind him – his patrol group.

I felt dizzy. ‘You reported this morning. You said the forest was empty, and now an hour later you tell me that five of my wall soldiers are dead, and my wife has been stolen.’

They said nothing. Garth dropped his eyes to the ground.

‘Look at me,’ I whispered. I could feel the earth trembling beneath my feet. He found my gaze and I saw the knowledge in his eyes – the terror. I stepped forward and snapped his neck.

He fell to the ground like a rag doll, soundless. The six men behind him bristled with the complicated awareness of what I had done – these men loved me, just as they feared me. I could smell it.

‘Step forward,’ I told Garth’s second.

He did so, eyes wary.

‘Report. Thoroughly.’

‘Several civilian witnesses at the wall, plus the wounded soldier, all reported the same thing – Lady Roselyn was trying to leave the fortress when four Kayans on pegasi approached and took out three of the guards in quick succession. The fourth guard sounded the alarm and, with the fifth and sixth, attempted to fire at the attackers. They were outmatched from their lower position. Lady Roselyn, meanwhile, was tending to the wounded survivor – Gwynedd – who had an arrow through his shoulder. The three remaining guards were killed. A Kayan landed, intending to abduct Lady Roselyn, but she refused to go until she had bound Gwynedd’s wound. He is alive now thanks to that treatment and wanted it to be known that he feels greatly indebted to the lady’s courage. The Kayan woman then forced Lady Roselyn onto her pegasis, and the four attackers retreated, but left this note.’

I read the parchment. The Princess for the Kayan prisoner, Avery. Dawn tomorrow, at the border.

‘How in Gods’ names did this happen?’ I snarled.

Nobody answered; I didn’t expect them to. I wanted to kill them all, every one of them. I wanted to burn the world down.

I stormed through the fortress to my mother’s rooms on the top floor, shoving the note into her face. The Queen read it from her desk, then started laughing. The wolf by her feet stood up and growled, hackles raised. I felt sick and overawed by the strangeness of the woman and her animal. For the first time in my life, my rage was so unwieldy that I wanted to inflict harm upon her.

‘How wonderful.’

I schooled myself to calm down, but I was losing control very quickly. Roselyn wouldn’t survive being kidnapped – she was too fragile.

‘There will be blood for this,’ I breathed.

‘Come now, Thorne,’ Ma sighed, modifying her tone. ‘You wished her dead.’

‘You don’t wish to trade her?’

‘Are you daft?’ she snapped, losing her sense of humour. ‘Of course I don’t wish to trade her! We obviously have someone they want. I’m not giving the boy up for some stupid slut I was going to kill anyway.’

‘She is my wife!’ I snapped. ‘If I want her dead, then I’ll damn well do it myself. I’ll not let some filthy Kayans take that pleasure from me.’

‘Then hunt them down and make them pay,’ she said simply.

I met her eyes for a moment, and then bowed my head. ‘As you wish, Your Highness.’

She smiled coldly. ‘This is all as you wish, my darling. Do not pretend you aren’t the one out for blood.’

I turned with the words in my mind, letting them seep into my skin. She was right, I was out for blood – oceans of it. My beast knew it, and nothing would be able to stop him tonight.

Ambrose

What we found upon arriving at our destination was nothing short of miraculous – the secret Kayan village covered the eastern side of the mountain, and it was a hidden paradise. I couldn’t believe my eyes. At the bottom were the docks for the fishermen, which stretched out over the rocky beach, with jetties that reached right out into the ocean. Behind those were beautiful marble houses perched on precarious crags at breathtaking angles, all the way up to the highest peaks of the mountain. At first thought, I couldn’t work out how anyone got to the higher buildings, but then realised that there were large stone steps carved into the side of the mountain.

‘Where does all the marble come from?’ I asked, unable to tear my eyes from the sight. The buildings were made of both white and black marble and they glinted in the sun.

‘There is a quarry further into the island,’ the woman – whose name we’d learnt was Marla – said coldly. She spoke everything coldly to me, which I supposed was fair enough – I was still just surprised I wasn’t dead.

At the furthest side of the village there was a mighty waterfall that fell from the very top of the mountain and then disappeared into a river that ran straight out to sea. There were flying creatures diving through the air, and it wasn’t until we drew much closer that I realised they were pegasi.

Avery was taking it all in, his expression guarded. I wondered if his home had looked anything like this – I’d only been to southern Kaya and that had been to fight in battles, not to notice the scenery. I had heard of Limontae, though – everyone had. City of sparkling towers and the people who lived in the cliff face. I could imagine it must have been the inspiration for this town.

We reached the wharfs at the bottom and began the slow ascent up the mountain steps, flanked only by Marla and one other guard. The other soldiers all melted away to their respective houses, I supposed, or back to the jungle to continue their patrol.

‘How have you all come to be here?’ I asked Marla.

‘We are escaped prisoners,’ she told me flatly.

I blinked, my mind working quickly to figure out what this meant. One simple thing: I was never going to leave this place alive.

‘Your guards have never thought to explore the island any further than the prison, believing it to be impenetrable, and they’ve never reported the escaped prisoners, thinking them to have perished. The Kayans here have managed to salvage a life, albeit a lonely one.’

‘The prison must be really secure,’ Avery commented wryly.

I glanced at Avery, wondering what he thought about his new-found power over me. How the tables had turned. The situation was so bizarre, I could almost find it funny – the last thing I’d ever expected to find on the prison isle of Pirenti was a stronghold of Kayans.

Marla led the way up the steps, so I spent the climb watching her from behind, considering what Avery had said to me last night about a woman’s beauty. This woman was definitely strong. She was unlike any woman I’d ever come across. But she wasn’t beautiful – not to me. Her strength was harsh and unforgiving. Plus, she had a more manly face than Avery himself did. It struck me, once again, how similar men and women from Kaya were.

Avery still hadn’t looked at me since he’d found out who I was, which was hurting me in a way I’d never imagined possible. I hated him for it a little bit.

Finally we reached the top, and for the first time since we began climbing I turned and took in the view – it was dizzyingly spectacular. I felt like I stood at the top of the world, like I could see everything from this height. The ocean stretched out forever, magnificent and sparkling in the sunlight. The village lay below us, and I now stood level with where the pegasi were swooping by. I watched them for a moment, wondering why they seemed so different to all the ones I’d seen before. It came to me that they must be wild, unbound to the people who lived in the village, for whatever reason.

I watched Avery’s face as he took in the view. It was very pale, very sad. His breathing was shallow, and at first I assumed he was puffed from the journey, but when he collapsed to the ground, something in my chest tightened. At that moment I knew – I’d known it from that first moment I’d watched him in the sky, as he’d brokenly flown a pegasis without any fear. I sank down beside Avery, trying to shake him awake. He made a soft sighing sound that was both deeply exhausted and achingly fragile.

‘What’s wrong with him?’ Marla asked quickly, kneeling on his other side.

‘How would I know?’ I barked. ‘He collapsed.’

Several people emerged from the building to crowd around us. Amongst them was an old man who knelt beside Avery and held his hand, checking the pulse. ‘Has this happened before?’ the man asked me.

‘Well he’s— I mean, he’s had a lot of injuries …’

The old man sat back on his haunches, a shadow passing over his face. When he looked at me, it was with pity and tenderness – all emotions I’d never expected to receive from a Kayan. ‘He’s a half-walker. A shadow man.’ The people around us made sounds of sorrow and began to move away, leaving Marla and I alone with the old man.

‘What?’ I whispered, not understanding.

‘He only has half a soul,’ the man explained patiently. ‘His bondmate died.’

My breath left me in a rush and I closed my eyes. ‘I thought he wasn’t going to be affected since it happened so long ago.’

‘It is inescapable. Eventually, the binding takes us all.’

Chapter 9

Roselyn

One of my kidnappers was a lanky man with scars all over his face and long sandy brown hair. His name was Gidion and he looked to be in his thirties. There were two younger men – barely more than teenagers – with short hair the colour of spun gold. They didn’t tell me their names; they were handsome and quiet. But the last of my captors was the one who held my attention, because she was a woman, and everything I knew told me she shouldn’t be the one in charge.

When her eyes shifted to lime green she told me her name was Sharra. She said that no one wanted to hurt me – they were simply using me to trade for a friend. But in my mind were the five men they had slaughtered – huge, Pirenti soldiers who were not supposed to be easy to kill. Whoever these people were, they were dangerous and violent. They flew me on that glorious pegasis to a hut in the forest – a small wooden shack with nothing inside but a straw palette and a table without chairs.

‘Where are we?’ I asked, not expecting an answer.

‘We passed the border not long ago.’

‘We’re in Kaya?’

At the fear in my voice, Gidion glanced up sharply. ‘It’s all right. You’re safe.’

Which was a lie – Kaya was full of monsters and demons that wanted nothing but the blood of Pirenti folk. I followed the others into the cabin and allowed them to sit me on the palette. The two younger boys stayed outside, while Sharra and Gidion stood in the middle of the hut and watched me.

‘Who is the friend you wish to trade me for?’ I asked eventually, unable to bear the silence.

They said nothing, but their eyes sharpened.

I frowned, looking between them. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Nothing,’ Sharra answered. ‘Don’t be frightened. You’ll be home soon.’

Don’t be frightened?

‘Have you eaten, Roselyn?’ she asked, strangely gentle.

Dripping caramel all over our hands, his tongue on my chin. ‘Yes.’

‘Good. Let me know when you get hungry or thirsty, or if you need to relieve yourself.’

I couldn’t help but imagine what would happen when my husband learnt of this. I shuddered – Thorne had been born to destroy things.

Then again, it was quite possible that Thorne resented me enough not to go to the trouble.

‘Is this some sort of trick?’ I asked. ‘Do you plan to kill me?’

‘No,’ Gidion shook his head. ‘We know how life is in Pirenti. You are not your husband, or your queen. You’re barely more than a child.’

‘I’m twenty-one years old.’

‘Yes,’ Sharra murmured. ‘And when did he marry you? How old were you then?’

I’d been sixteen. Sometimes I look at you and think you’re still just a child, and then other times I think you must be the oldest woman in the world. He’d said that to me in the first month of our marriage. He’d stopped being fascinated by me not long after that.

‘If you wish to use me to harm my husband,’ I said flatly, ‘I will never let you.’

‘No, not that either. Like I said,’ Sharra explained patiently, ‘we just want to trade you.’

‘Who is your friend?’ I asked again.

They exchanged a glance. ‘She disguises herself as a boy,’ Gidion murmured. ‘Calls herself Avery.’

I tried to remember the name, but couldn’t.

‘She would have looked like a small, blond Kayan boy. She might have been captured or … killed …’

And then it struck me. ‘There was a boy in our dungeons. He was caught by Ambrose and taken to the isle. He had strange purple eyes.’

Gidion made a sound, a kind of gasp, then rested his head in his hands. ‘No,’ he whispered. ‘What has she done to herself?’

I stared at his slender hands – they had ugly, knobbly knuckles, but they were trembling in a way that was not ugly at all.

‘You love this person,’ I stated.

Gidion lowered his hands and levelled me with a gaze that seemed far more honest than his earlier politeness.

‘Not even a thousand wishes could bring him back from where he’s been taken,’ I said. ‘The prison isle is the nightmare of this world.’

The Kayan man shook his head very slowly, disbelief colouring his eyes cobalt. ‘You’re supposed to be stupid. That’s what everyone says.’

I didn’t know what to say; I felt ashamed. ‘You have nothing to trade for,’ I muttered, looking away. ‘You don’t need me.’

‘We’d only have nothing to trade if she was dead. We can still get her back from the isle,’ Sharra said, mostly to Gidion.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Maybe it could have been possible in another life, another world. But in this life, the prince took the boy himself, and there’s naught under the eyes of the Gods that can stop Ambrose from finishing what he starts.’

Gidion and Sharra both stared at me, and then Gidion said, very simply, ‘You don’t know Ava of Orion.’

I was about to reply when the reality of what they were saying hit me. I felt myself freeze in shock. If they were telling the truth, then that boy who’d been so cruel and brave in the dungeons had been a woman! No – it was impossible. Women weren’t made like that. Weren’t forged from iron like men.

I sat quietly, allowing myself to make wishes. I savoured my last few moments of life and freedom before I told them the truth that might very well condemn me to death. ‘Your plan isn’t going to work,’ I spoke softly and felt both sets of eyes focus on me.

‘Why is that, Roselyn?’

‘Because they won’t care that you have me. They won’t trade a single thing for me.’

‘Who won’t?’

‘Any of them. The Queen hates me, and my husband …’ I swallowed, closing my eyes a moment before meeting Sharra’s pale green gaze. ‘My husband doesn’t love me at all.’

As the moon rose outside the window, we lay down to rest. They gave me the palette, saying they would sleep on the floor. The boys outside would be on watch duty, so if I tried to escape, I wouldn’t get beyond them.

I wouldn’t try to escape. I wasn’t capable of such things. For six brief seconds I contemplated it, and then my mind was off somewhere different, somewhere between the clarity of numbers. Hours passed and I couldn’t sleep. I’d already counted the wooden slats in the roof, and then all of the nails in the wall next to me. Too many of my wishes weren’t coming true. It was throwing everything out of kilter. I wish for a pegasis of my own, one I can ride forever and never land. I wish I could live in the sky.

‘What are you counting, Roselyn?’ Sharra whispered.

I rolled over, looking at where she lay on the floor next to my palette. ‘Nothing.’

‘Can’t sleep?’

‘I don’t sleep well without my husband.’

‘The husband who doesn’t love you?’ She propped herself on her elbow. Her eyes were the most amazing, unnatural shade I’d ever seen. They didn’t make sense, eyes like those. I wanted to understand how they worked, but didn’t dare ask.

‘We sent the message. If they are not at the border at dawn for the trade, we’ll let you go.’

I studied her face in the shaft of moonlight. I didn’t believe her, not for one second.

‘Roselyn, in Kaya we don’t steal innocent women and slaughter them. We fight our wars in self-defence.’

I’d never thought much about the wars Thorne fought. I considered violence and brutality a natural part of the world, but one that I already experienced enough of at home without seeking out more information. It had never occurred to me that my people might have instigated the violence – that this fighting could be our fault. Or that there were places in the world where brutality wasn’t an everyday occurrence. A sudden, new wish came to me: I wish I was from somewhere other than Pirenti. Too many wishes that couldn’t come true – I had to stop.

‘Why are you married to a man who doesn’t love you?’ Sharra asked me softly. Gidion was snoring gently on her other side.

Secretly, I thought the question was the stupidest I’d ever heard. Did she know naught of the world? How offensively entitled she seemed.

‘I didn’t choose to marry him. Nor did I choose for him to be disappointed in me.’

‘But … can’t you leave him?’

I stared at her. ‘Leave him? Leave him how?’

‘Break the marriage and leave the fortress.’

I squinted through the darkness, trying to see if she was making fun of me. ‘You do not simply break a marriage to a Pirenti man, let alone the Prince himself. You do not leave the slaughterman of the north, unless you wish to be hunted down and carved into a thousand pieces.’

Sharra’s mouth fell open. Her eyes shifted to a sickly yellow that reminded me of fear. ‘That’s awful.’

‘He is my husband,’ I reiterated slowly. ‘I belong to him. I am privileged.’

She shook her head. ‘Roselyn, it shouldn’t be like that. Does he hurt you?’

He hurts me less than everyone else.

‘Is that why you have those bruises around your neck?’

‘Stop,’ I murmured. ‘Please.’

‘Life shouldn’t be like that,’ Sharra went on. ‘It’s wrong. Men don’t treat women like that in Kaya.’

‘I was not born in Kaya,’ I told her simply. ‘I was born into another life. In the north it is cold.’

She didn’t reply to that.

A world had opened up between us, and I knew all of my previous wishes had been foolish. Something compelled me to ask, though, ‘Are you and Gidion married?’

‘No, we’re bonded,’ she replied. ‘We’re supposed to be married next season but with Ava gone … I don’t know anymore.’ Deep regret twisted her mouth. ‘We should never have let her leave. Or let her be treated so poorly. It’s just that it was … it was such a shock, losing him. Ava was such a bright thing, once. And now it sounds as though we’ll be too late to help her, and I …’

I didn’t know what Sharra was talking about, but Ava must have been the boy-girl’s name. She made more sense to me, with a different name. She was a woman who’d been beaten and caged, and thinking about her like that made it very hard for me to continue to hate her. ‘Bonded. Isn’t that what kills you all?’

‘If one of us dies, the other does too.’

‘An ugly fate.’

‘No,’ she murmured. ‘It’s perfect. Why would I want to live without Gidion?’

I opened my mouth but nothing came out – the truth of her statement came to me all at once. I wish I could bond with someone. No. I took the wish back and made another. I wish I could bond with Thorne. Then maybe he’d love me the way I loved him. I thought of the freedom a woman would have if her husband loved her with the same need with which she loved him.

‘You should think about coming back with us, Roselyn,’ Sharra yawned. ‘To live in Kaya.’

I blinked and stopped counting partway through a row of nails. For a moment, there were no wishes and no numbers inside me. There was only one thing. And he arrived at the hut moments later.

Ava

I woke to the setting sun shining through my window. Ambrose was silhouetted against it, tall and broad.

‘What happened?’ I asked, sitting up. I felt tired and sore.

‘You collapsed,’ he said, not turning. ‘They said you’re fading.’

‘Who said that?’

‘Some old guy.’

‘And you always listen to old guys?’

‘Usually.’

I breathed out heavily. ‘Right. Well it’s happened before. I always recover.’

‘Then you’re not dying?’ He turned to me. I couldn’t see his face with the sun shining so brilliantly behind him. It was throwing a warm light over the whole room.

‘I don’t know.’ Then I remembered who he was and a loathing so powerful stole over me. ‘You said you were there,’ I murmured. ‘when she was murdered. You were there, and you were a prince, but you did nothing. You just watched as your mother killed my mate.’

Ambrose’s gaze was dark. ‘Yes.’

‘That brother you miss so terribly is the slaughterman of Pirenti, the most loathed man in the world,’ I spat. I felt dizzy with hatred and frustration. I’d never felt so weak, so staggeringly impotent. I wanted revenge, but it was like trying to catch hold of air.

‘You’re monsters, all three of you,’ I hissed.

Ambrose folded his big arms over his big chest. It made so much sense to me now, his size and strength. When they challenged him for his crown, he killed them all. He had to, had to make sure he was able to. I’d heard the stories about the two princes. No one tried to challenge them anymore – they were too savage, too impossible. It was the quickest way to dig your own grave.

‘Calm down,’ the prince ordered flatly. ‘You’ll pass out again.’

A gasp of fury left me and I flung myself out of bed. I hit him in the chest as hard as I could. He didn’t block me. He stood still, so I hit him again and again. I went for his ribs and his lungs, wanting to steal the breath from him, and then I hit him in the face, harder than I’d ever hit anyone before. His head snapped back, but I punched him again. I punched him until my arm ached and I couldn’t breathe from exhaustion. There was so much sorrow in me, deep in my guts. It hurt and it screamed and it made me want to bleed.

Finally he grabbed me by the arms and held me still while I struggled wearily. ‘I hate you – you disgusting, evil man.’

‘I know,’ he growled. ‘I know, Avery, but stop – you’ll hurt yourself.’

I sagged, wrenching myself out of his clutches and stumbling to the end of the bed. When I looked at him my eyes turned white, and I put all of that hatred into my voice. ‘I would rather you had let me die than owe you the debt of my life.’

Ambrose looked dangerous; something in him was coming alive at the sight of my eyes shedding all colour. This was how the warders he had murdered would undoubtedly have looked at him. This gaze was what he had been born to fight. But all he said was, ‘You owe me nothing.’

‘I hate you but I owe you everything. Where am I supposed to go from there? What am I supposed to do?’

‘I don’t know, but calm down, would you?’ he snapped. ‘You’re acting like a brat.’

‘I hate you.’

‘I know that – we’ve covered it. Don’t you think I’d like to go back and save the girl, if it would make you happy?’

I was unable to look at him. There was a huge purple bruise forming around his left eye, and a cut had opened up along his cheek.

‘I can’t change shit,’ he snapped. ‘I can’t change the fact that my mother is a monster, and she was so cruel to Thorne that she turned him into a beast. I can’t change how she enjoys hurting people and wants us to be the same.’

I stared at him, feeling oddly deflated. ‘And what of you?’

‘What about me?’

‘What did she do to you?’

‘Nothing – she ignored me. I didn’t exist to the Queen until I was fourteen and she realised I had the potential to become a soldier. I was a small kid until then – the runt of the family.’

‘The runt?’ It was difficult to believe, until I remembered the man in the dungeons who was supposedly his brother – a truly monstrous man.

‘When she realised, she sent me to the army barracks in Vjort for some northern punishment.’

‘What’s northern punishment?’

‘At sixteen all men from Pirenti are sent to the barracks up north for hazing.’

‘But you were—?’

‘Fourteen. That’s not the point.’

‘What’s hazing?’

‘Hazing is being tied to a tree, naked in the snow, and being left there for days. It’s being burnt in your sleep with brands. It’s being denied rations and having your weapons blunted and your armour stolen, and being set loose with the wolves. It’s anything and everything you can think of to torture a person, and they didn’t go easy on me because I was the Prince – my mother made sure of that.’

I felt queasy, imagining him as a little boy sent into that kind of nightmare. The scars along the length of his spine made sense now. ‘How did you survive it? How could anyone?’

Ambrose shrugged. ‘None of it bothered me much. It’s just hazing – so it has been for an age and so will it exist long after I’m gone from this world.’

‘It’s torture, Ambrose. It bothers everyone.’

He met my eyes. ‘I spent a childhood instinctively learning what people fear – I can smell it. And those men who hazed me – all the people who have ever hurt me – they reek of terror when they draw near. It distracts from the pain when you know your attackers’ true feelings.’

I swallowed. ‘Why did they fear you so much?’

He looked at me, then, and didn’t say a word, but there was a glint in his eyes that made me cold inside. It was obvious – very, very obvious, why people would fear him.

I slumped back onto the bed and stared at the ceiling. ‘How do you stand living in such a country?’

‘It’s so easy for you to judge, isn’t it, Avery?’

‘Yes.’

I heard him sigh. ‘You’ve got no bloody clue. Things are more complicated than good and bad. Don’t you think there’s value in being able to protect yourself and your family? In being able to fight and win wars?’

‘But what are you fighting and winning for? There’s no reason to any of it.’

He crossed the room and idly knocked his knuckles against the wall, as though a fist was all he could make with his hands. ‘We fight so we don’t die. It’s that simple, and it will always be that simple.’

‘You’re a simplistic fool.’

‘Maybe so, but I know what I love and what I hate. That can be enough.’

‘It’s not enough for me.’

‘Because you want to prod and poke and control everything. You’d love to change the world so that everyone is the same as you.’

‘Bullshit!’ I protested. ‘I don’t want to change anyone!’

‘You’re constantly trying to change me.’

I opened my mouth to argue but nothing came out. I stared at him, and suddenly I was laughing. ‘But you need to be changed.’

After a moment he cracked a smile. ‘That’s the first time I’ve heard you laugh, pretty boy.’

‘Don’t get used to it, pig.’

‘Don’t they teach you manners in Kaya, Avery?’

I rolled my eyes, sick of him. ‘Leave me alone.’

‘Fine.’ He strode towards the door. That seemed to be the nature of our relationship – vacillating between moments of amused camaraderie and savage fighting. It was exhausting.

‘Ambrose,’ I said suddenly, unsure what was about to pop out of my mouth but sure I would rather fight with him than be alone. ‘You’re embarrassed by your mother, aren’t you?’

He stopped at the door and whirled around.

‘You’re embarrassed to be from Pirenti. You’re embarrassed of what you can’t control.’

‘Don’t you dare tell me what I feel, you arrogant little shit,’ he snarled. He was across the room in several long strides, towering over me. ‘I pity you, Avery. You truly believe you know everything.’

I didn’t respond because I didn’t have a clue what to say. He turned away, his jaw clenched – apparently I had hit a nerve.

‘Why did you save me back there?’ he asked abruptly, his tone clipped and furious. ‘I’m taking you to prison.’

I took a deep breath. Something about his words just then hurt me more than anything else since I had woken. For some naïve reason, I had thought that he might not want me to go to prison anymore, but this was all the reminder I needed that Ambrose was the Prince of Pirenti. He was endowed with the task of delivering me to prison, and about that he was single-minded. I was nothing to him but a job.

‘I know that,’ I bit out.

‘Then why?’

‘Because … it’s because Ave— Ava always said it was better to have mercy than blood on your hands.’

‘That’s a lie,’ he said. ‘You’re so full of hate you wouldn’t think twice about murdering anyone from Pirenti.’

I licked my lips and forced myself to nod. ‘That’s true.’

‘Except me.’

I found his face sharply.

‘You want to hate me. You desperately wish you could, but you don’t.’

I felt my broken heart start to beat fast and heavy. He didn’t move, so I rose from the bed and walked towards him. We both stood in the spill of the orange light as the sun sank steadily lower. ‘When my eyes turn white, it means there is hate in my heart, and there’s no tricking the eyes.’

His pale blue gaze flashed with something unrecognisable, and for a moment – one tiny moment in time – I thought I saw a fleck of gold in it, but then it was gone, and I knew my mind was playing tricks on me. That was impossible – more impossible, even, than me being able to smile.

‘Your eyes aren’t white now,’ Ambrose murmured. ‘They’re bright purple.’

My anger sank away. I was like shattered glass spilling its contents all over the floor. ‘I want to kill your mother. You want to take me to prison. We’re an unstoppable force and an immovable object. Do you know what that’s called?’

Ambrose smiled slowly, and for the first time I noticed how beautiful his smile was. It made his eyes all glittery like shards of crystal. ‘Fun,’ he answered.

I stared at him in the fading sunlight, feeling my eyes change colour. For the first time in my life, I didn’t know which colour they were turning to. My answer was just as simple: it was called death. And there in lay the difference between us.

Marla entered the room and gave us a quick once over. ‘You’re out of bed.’

‘It seems so.’ I didn’t like this woman. She had an air of disdain about her.

‘You are required in your room, pig,’ she said to Ambrose. She’d called him the exact same thing I just had, but I almost hated her for it.

He blinked and then grinned, finding this hilarious. ‘And what would that be for, sweetheart?’

Marla shifted to the side so that we could see the two armed men flanking her.

‘Ah, I see,’ Ambrose murmured. He shot me a look, shrugged and then strode from the room.

‘Someone will be in to help you wash and dress, sire,’ Marla told me before shutting the door behind her. I distinctly heard the sound of a lock being turned.

Well then, I probably should have assumed that ‘guest’ actually meant ‘prisoner’ – it was rather obvious in hindsight.

Several young boys entered with a big tub and then set about filling it with hot water, carried in one bucket at a time. I nearly wet myself with anticipation, watching the steam rise off the water. After they’d gone I stripped off all of my clothes for the first time in what felt an age, dumping the filthy pile in the corner. I unravelled the cloth around my chest and carefully plucked the pins from my hair, letting the long locks fall around me. My poor hair – it was full of dirt and grease and needed a very good wash. But at least it was still my hair, the one thing I’d ever really liked about myself.

With a prickling sensation along my spine, I steeled myself and moved before the mirror. Two years was a long time to pretend, a long time to remember. I didn’t know what I’d see, what to expect. I drew a deep breath and opened my eyes. A woman stood before me, a strange one. She was a different shape to the girl I remembered – her breasts fuller, her legs longer. She was thinner – I could see her ribs under her skin, scraping to get out. Her hair had grown all the way to her hips, but it was dark with all the dirt it held. Strangest of all was the expression this woman wore. It was distant and unimaginably cold, like it belonged to a creature made of hatred and fury. She looked old and weary and haunted. She was a monster, something completely other. I tried to find myself in her, but even when I stepped right up close to the glass and peered into those purple eyes, I couldn’t recognise a single thing about her. She was abstractly beautiful, as I had always wished to be, but I now found her ugly, understanding as I did now that real beauty simply came from happiness.

There was a sound behind me and I whirled to face my intruder. A girl about my age, with short dark hair. She had the same awful burn mark on her face in the shape of a wolf.

We stared at each other for a long moment, and then she remembered to drop her eyes. ‘Forgive me, my lady,’ she blurted, closing the door she had just entered. ‘I came to bring you a change of clothes, but now I see you may need a different set.’

‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘You mustn’t tell anyone I’m a woman. My travel companion especially cannot know.’

The girl nodded. ‘Of course, my lady – I won’t tell a soul.’ She smiled. Her eyes were green, and she was quite pretty. ‘Hop in the bath,’ she coached. ‘I’ll help you wash that beautiful hair of yours before it is tied back under your cap – even if it is a crime to hide it away.’

Climbing into the water was bliss. It was so hot it scalded every inch of my skin, but I didn’t care, because I felt clean for the first time in months. In years, actually.

‘I’m Hannah,’ the girl said as she gently combed out the tangles in my hair and then set about washing what was left with a lavender-smelling soap. I smiled wryly as I realised it was very similar to the soap I used at home. I sank back against the tub and closed my eyes at the feel of her fingers in my hair. How funny, how stupid, that I still couldn’t cut my hair. It remembered things I couldn’t bear to.

‘Avery.’

She smiled. ‘How odd this is. Why do you do it?’

I didn’t reply.

Hannah set about wiping clean my filthy body. ‘Oh, my lady!’ she exclaimed when she came to my bruised ribs. ‘You’re black and blue! How did this happen?’

‘I’ve got so many injuries I can’t even remember how I got them all.’ An expression across a fire; a boot slamming into my body; pale, angry eyes – stories I’d never expected to collect.

‘You will need these injuries tended to. This arm looks nasty, as does your poor hand.’

I didn’t bother explaining that I would probably be dead before the injuries could do me any real harm.

‘Climb out and I’ll dress you. Are you sure you want to wear these ugly men’s clothes?’

‘I’ve no need for pretty attire.’

‘But … why? Don’t you want to feel pretty?’

‘What for?’

‘Well … I don’t know. So men will find you pretty?’

My eyebrows arched. ‘I take it you haven’t bonded yet?’

‘No,’ she sighed. ‘and I’ll probably never meet my bondmate stuck here.’

‘You don’t like it here?’

Hannah shrugged. ‘I worry that my mate is in Kaya waiting for me and I’ll never get there.’

I shook my head. ‘You will find each other.’ For a long moment we said nothing until finally I murmured, ‘Prettiness means nothing in real life.’

The sad truth was that Hannah reminded me of myself when I was younger. I’d been romantic and whimsical, and though I’d never really cared about bonding, I had certainly wanted to attract men. I hoped very dully that she would grow out of wanting to impress the opposite sex. Then I thought that perhaps that sentiment came from my dead soul and that girls like Hannah should be able to enjoy such trivialities in their lives. I couldn’t figure out a balanced perspective on the matter. It all seemed too stupid for words.

‘How did you meet your mate?’ Hannah asked, her eyes shifting to a lighter green. It was an unsettling colour and spoke of wariness, or foreboding.

I walked away, not wanting to be touched. Looking down at my hands, I licked my dry lips. ‘I’d taken my da’s boat out for the first time on my own.’ Why was I telling her this? Why do it to myself? ‘He’d sworn til his face went red that I wasn’t allowed to sail it by myself for at least another five years, so I stole it. I was fifteen. A northerly wind swept in and blew me off course and I had no idea what to do. I was blown south along the coast until I reached a small cove. I was crying by that point, like a complete coward, but he saw me from the shore and rowed his own boat out to meet me. I had my head in my hands, sobbing, and when I felt the boat rock I looked up to see a young man step into it, a man with black hair like I’d never seen before. He looked down at me, and he smiled, and both our eyes turned to gold.’

Another life, another world – remembering was like ice in my veins.

Hannah sighed wistfully, and to my horror, her eyes filled with tears. ‘It’s … it’s so awful.’

I shrugged and started dressing in several layers to make myself bulkier. Hannah watched as I pinned my hair up. It occurred to me that this was a rather pointless effort if I wasn’t going to be allowed out of this room.

‘What are the rules here?’ I asked, straightening from my bootlaces.

‘Rules, my lady?’

‘Can I leave the room?’

She blushed bright red. ‘I was instructed to explain that you have been given limited activity time.’

‘Activity time?’

‘You may venture outside only during daylight hours, but you are to be supervised at all times.’

I sighed. ‘And Ambrose?’

‘He cannot leave his room at all.’

‘Where is he?’

She hesitated, unsure. ‘The floor above you, one room to the right.’

‘Thank you. You can go now, but have my food sent up to his room, please.’

‘I don’t think—’

‘That’s all thank you, Hannah.’

Hannah bowed and retreated in a hurry. Outside on the balcony, I peered up at the floor above. The walls of the building were completely covered in vines, so I didn’t have too much trouble swinging myself up onto the next floor and shimmying across to Ambrose’s room. I felt slightly woozy as I hauled myself up over the railing and onto his balcony though. After briefly squeezing my eyes shut to dispel the dizziness, I saw Ambrose lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling.

I tapped on the glass window and he smiled very slightly. The muscles in his torso stretched as he jumped up to unlock the window, and I tried not to look at him as I climbed in. ‘Why don’t you ever wear shirts anymore?’

‘Because I used part of my shirt as bandages for you, and burnt the rest for light in the tunnels.’

Right – obviously. ‘I just came to tell you that they’re not going to let you out of this room, and there’s nothing I can do about it. So when I leave, you’re on your own.’

‘Oh, lovely. You’re in another pleasant mood.’

The lock on the door clicked and a guard pushed two trays of food into the room.

‘You told them you’d eat here?’ Ambrose asked.

‘I’m not eating here. I sent my food for you.’

He stared at me. ‘Why?’

I crossed and pulled the covers off the two bowls. One had a delicious smelling vegetable stew, the other contained a tiny serving of what I could only imagine was a tasteless gruel. ‘That’s why,’ I muttered. ‘I’m not hungry – you can have mine.’

Ambrose shook his head, still watching my face with unnerving sharpness. ‘You need to eat, Ave. I won’t have your food.’

‘I can’t taste it,’ I snapped. ‘What I eat makes no difference to me. I’ll have some of the gruel, if it will make you happy, but there’s no sense in me eating the stew when you could enjoy it.’

There was a flagon of dark red wine with the bowls. ‘Sit down,’ Ambrose ordered me, lifting the stew and the wine. ‘Outside on the balcony.’

‘I’m not staying.’

‘Just do it, would you?’

I frowned and went to sit on the cool marble of the balcony. It was weird, having everything made out of such expensive stone. It seemed excessive. But then again, if marble was all that was available, it lost its value pretty quickly.

The sky had slid to a deep, inky purple, and the moon was bigger than I’d ever seen it. It held a faint red sheen, and I knew that if we went to Pirenti it would be a rich scarlet shade, like blood – like it had been the night Avery died.

Ambrose plonked himself down with his back against the glass and placed the bowl of stew between us. As he busied himself pouring wine, I took the opportunity to look at him properly for the first time tonight. He was suddenly – bizarrely – handsome. It was amazing what a good wash did for a man. His skin was clean and smooth, and he even smelt nice. His eyes under the strong brow glowed more brightly in the light of the night sky.

‘Do you know how I first learnt that you existed?’ he asked abruptly. ‘I smelt that lavender soap you’re wearing. Honestly, Ave – are you trying to seem like a girl?’

I couldn’t help it – I burst into laughter. He grinned at me, and for a moment our eyes met. ‘Come on,’ he sighed. ‘I’m hungry.’

‘So eat.’

Ambrose shook his head. ‘I love food,’ he said bluntly. ‘It’s one of the simplest pleasures there is and tonight you’re going to learn that.’

‘Ambrose, I have eaten food before. Twenty years’ worth—’

His eyes snapped to mine and I froze. I felt my heart pick up speed as we stared at each other for an impossibly long moment. He’d heard it – he knew exactly how I’d slipped up – but when he continued he said nothing about my age. ‘You haven’t eaten food until you’ve eaten it like I do.’

I breathed out, heart slowing back to its normal rhythm.

‘I won’t be able to taste it,’ I repeated loudly.

‘That’s bullshit – you’re just not trying.’

My mouth fell open. ‘Your arrogance and presumption never cease to astound me.’

‘Whatever,’ he rolled his eyes. ‘Tonight, I only eat what you eat. So take a bite, please, because I’m starving.’

I didn’t have a clue what game he was playing. ‘It’s no concern of mine if you go hungry – I’m leaving.’ I stood up and reached for the railing.

‘You’re lying.’

‘I’m not.’

‘For starters, you wouldn’t have sent your food up for me if you didn’t care. But more telling is the way your eyes go dark blue when you lie – you’re an open book to me, Avery.’

I stopped with one leg over the railing. He smiled smugly and I hated the bastard.

‘Just sit down and take a bite.’

Jaw clenched, I did so. The stew was very bland and I enjoyed telling him so, but he only took a mouthful when I did, so I found myself eating more than I would have, forcing the bites down. Oddly enough, I actually didn’t enjoy the thought of Ambrose going hungry. I was sure he was used to eating enough to feed a small country.

‘Can you taste the salt?’ he asked softly.

I held a piece of the meat in my mouth, sucked on it, and shook my head.

‘What about the spices?’

I skewered a big piece of potato and chewed it carefully, rolling it around in my mouth. Something sharp hinted at the edge of my taste buds but I couldn’t catch hold of it.

‘Close your eyes,’ he ordered gently.

I glared sharply at him, nervous. Then did as he’d said. I felt strange and vulnerable as I urged my tongue to find flavour in the food.

‘There’s sage and rosemary in the sauce,’ Ambrose murmured. ‘It’s there when you swallow.’

I swallowed – and there it was. A hit of heavy scent, filling my mouth and nose. My eyes flew open to find his, and I gasped.

Ambrose straightened at the expression on my face, then very slowly his mouth creased into a wide grin. As though he was proud of me. ‘There it is. Your eyes are bright green.’

I closed them again, feeling close to tears. My heart thumped heavily – woozily. There was so much precious flavour in my mouth – I hadn’t tasted anything in years. My face in my hands, I felt a warm palm against my spine moving up and down comfortingly. It was a big, rough hand, callused and dry, but very tender.

‘Funny, isn’t it?’ he murmured, voice scratchy. ‘It’s almost as if you’re still alive.’

Alone in my room, I curled into a ball and cried.

If you were here I’d run my tongue along your skin and taste you, and I’d say I’m sorry for the piece of life I remembered without you, and how for a moment upstairs I forgot the shape of your hand against my back and the look on your face when you ate something you liked. I’d tell you how hopeless I feel, how very sad. I’d kiss you, because I never kissed you enough. I never had enough of you at all. I never got the years we spoke of, the life we planned. I never had the children we were supposed to, the family you promised me. I never got enough of your laughter.

Ambrose

When I stood on the balcony, I could hear him crying in the room below. It took every piece of strength I had not to climb down there and hold him.

Chapter 10

Thorne

The beast was clawing its way out. I had a clumsy hold on him, but my fingers were slipping. Truth was, my fingers didn’t want to hold him – they wanted him free as much as he did. Soon, I told him. Soon.

It was because of him that I had five Marks over my heart – an impossible number, an unrivalled number. The closest anyone had ever come to matching my Marks was my brother, with two.

They said I was the most feared man in my country, the most feared man in the world. I’d have had trouble believing that if I could not smell the truth of it in every corner. Every look, every stare, every glance my way reeked of terror. My beast took a deep pleasure in it, was proud as he stalked his cage. Shame only came, funnily enough, when I was around my brother and his clear eyes saw what no one else did – that I barely held control anymore. The cage I’d built grew weaker and weaker, and soon I would be the one inside it.

Now, as Iran steadily through the forest, there was no cage, no iron holding him at bay – he was readying himself, and so was I. Nothing mattered, nothing but the trail I was following, and the scent of her on the wind.

I’d come alone, because a wild, unhindered sense of fury was sweeping itself through me at the thought of Kayans stealing my wife to use for their own purposes. My blood was starting to quicken in my veins and all my senses were coming alive, making me stronger, faster, infinitely more bloodthirsty, and if any of my men happened to get in my way …

What I would do to these Kayans … My hands were shaking with longing: the reek of fear that sharp cutting sound when a scream erupted the dullness of cracking bones that wet squelch of splashing blood the smell of blood so full and heavy and addictive more familiar to me than anything else in this life I couldn’t think I could barely breathe with the need and loathing and excitement— Focus.

They’d flown their abominations through the sky, but they’d stayed low enough that I could smell the path they’d followed. There was a battleaxe on my back, but I wanted to use my hands. I could feel them already – feel them waiting, unaware of what they had unleashed. The smells started to get sharper, creating images in my mind – forming a path to where she was. Her counting was in my head, that voice of hers over and over like a mantra that kept me sane, kept me human, kept me here in the forest when I wanted to be away with the beast. She counted as I hunted. She was always counting in my head.

I ran for hours through darkness and at last came to a tiny wooden hut on the border with Kaya. Did they think I would not cross to her? Did they think I wouldn’t follow her to any corner of the earth and tear it down to have her back?

There were two boys standing guard – children. They heard my approach, but only because I wanted them to.

‘Who goes?’ one of them called, holding his spear uneasily.

He died very badly, my fist crushing his chest with a blow. The other screamed and jabbed with his weapon, but I swatted him into a tree and heard his skull crack. The flying horses were grazing, and I spent a precious moment spilling their blood over their perfect pelts. There wasn’t time enough to enjoy it further because I could smell the three of them inside, and they called to the raging beast inside me.

The door splintered under my hammering fist and fell to the ground, and as I moved, my beast hammered his way free of the cage – beyond delight, beyond joy, beyond fury. Three people leapt to their feet, waves of their thick, warm terror washing onto me. It filled my nose and made my mouth water; I wasn’t human anymore.

‘Thorne!’ Rose cried, her eyes wide, but I barely recognised her. My thoughts scattered, broke and faded – everything left except the beast.

Roselyn

I saw it immediately. As soon as my husband appeared, huge in the wooden doorway of the small hut, I knew he’d gone berserker. There were signs that I’d come to recognise over the years – signs that warned me – and if I caught them early enough, I usually had a hope of calming him down. One glance at him now told me it was too late for any of that, far too late. Thorne was gone; the monster had come for me.

His eyes were crazed and bloodshot, darting between the three of us. His breathing was hot, heavy and laboured, his hands shaking with the force pumping through him.

Terror struck me. There was nothing anyone could do to stop him now. All we could hope was to get out of the way, and that was a feeble hope. Sharra and Gidion both drew their swords.

‘No!’ I hissed desperately, urgently. ‘You must not fight him. Try to run.’

‘Is he … is he a berserker?’ Gidion whispered, horror-struck. That’s when Thorne attacked – a strangled roar of fury escaped him and he charged into the room, swinging his mighty fist, and crushing the wooden table into splinters. The three of us scrambled out of the way. I huddled behind the palette, looking to see if I could reach the front door. Gidion and Sharra were on their feet, darting left and right, trying to get around behind Thorne, but he struck, lightning fast, and hit Gidion on the shoulder. A cry escaped the man’s lips – I knew a blow like that would have shattered his bone.

‘Thorne!’ I screamed again. ‘Stop!’ It was useless – he probably couldn’t even hear me – but he’d backed Sharra up against the wall and was about to kill her. Gidion, using his good arm, stabbed his sword into Thorne’s side, but my husband gave no sign that he had even felt it. For some reason, the memory of the Kayan girl in the dungeon sprang unbidden to my mind. It propelled me off the ground and pushed me in front of Sharra, where I shielded her with my body.

I stared up at Thorne, into his wild eyes, and I didn’t blink, even though fear was like hot tar through my veins. ‘Thorne,’ I said. A low snarl left his mouth, causing my heart to lurch. It always amazed me how very like an animal he became in these moments – how far removed the man became. ‘Thorne, listen to me. It’s me, Roselyn. I’m your wife. You must calm down. Breathe. Breathe for me. Be present.’

He stared at me, not understanding. He grunted angrily and made as if to swat me out of the way, but I stepped closer, resting my hands on his chest.

‘Roselyn – don’t!’ Sharra hissed from behind me, but I ignored her, looking only at my husband.

‘It’s me,’ I told him, not blinking. He stared back at me. ‘Breathe, Thorne. Breathe slowly, and calm yourself. This isn’t you – you know it isn’t. There’s nothing to be angry about. I’m your wife and I’m here with you, and I need you to calm down. I need you to be present in your body. It is yours.’

As he stared at me, I could see him starting to come back. To Gidion, I muttered, ‘He has your scent now. Leave and don’t ever come back, or he’ll find you.’

Sharra slowly began to edge out from behind me and I reached up to hold Thorne’s face, forcing him to continue staring into my eyes.

‘I don’t want to leave you!’ Sharra whispered.

‘I’m fine,’ I told her. ‘He won’t hurt me.’ Which was untrue. I didn’t know if he would hurt me – the beast could turn on a breath.

Finally, Sharra and Gidion were gone from the hut, and I stood alone and trapped with a berserker. At that point I couldn’t help the fear overtaking me. I started to count under my breath as I stared into his eyes. Over and over and over again, numbers as fast as I could say them.

Slowly, Thorne started to blink, eyes shuddering, the numbers sinking into his skin and drawing him out. I saw a real expression enter his eyes – confused, haunted and … sweet.

‘Rose,’ he breathed heavily. His hands moved up to cover mine where they still rested on his cheeks. I couldn’t stop counting – it was the only thing that was keeping me from thinking about what could have happened here. ‘Rose,’ he said again, closing his eyes. He was still shaking, but now it was with exhaustion.

Slumping onto the palette, he pulled me with him and wrapped his huge body around me, then passed out in weariness. I lay there, crushed by the enormous weight of him, and also by the weight of pity. The world felt drenched in so much fear – fear of my husband. Perhaps the only person who did not fear Thorne was his mother. I couldn’t imagine what that must feel like for him, couldn’t imagine how he ever found himself when he was under constant attack from his dark half. Sometimes his hands trembled at night and I knew he was holding the cage shut, holding it with all his will. What happened when he wasn’t strong enough anymore?

Hours later, I hadn’t slept a wink. It was broad daylight and I was hot and uncomfortable with Thorne and his heavy animal skins draped over me. I dared not move to wake him – I was too frightened of what I’d be met with. Instead I counted his snores and made wishes – lots of them.

Finally he stirred, groaning and rubbing his eyes. He blinked and focused in on me, and then the hut around him. Sitting up, he exclaimed, ‘You let them get away! You helped them get away!’

I felt tired then, too tired to try to defend myself – let him be angry. Let him punish me.

‘Why, Rose?’

‘Because they were kind to me. They didn’t hurt me.’

He shook his head in exasperation. ‘They’re Kayan, and they stole you from the fortress – from me.’

I didn’t reply. Instead I asked, ‘Why do you hate them so?’

His eyes narrowed. ‘They are our enemy.’

‘Yes, but where has your loathing come from? I have never met anyone else who hates Kayans so much – who wants to destroy them so much.’

‘It’s my job to hate them more than anyone else.’

I sighed, knowing I wouldn’t get a better answer. Ambrose had told me once that his brother hadn’t truly hated Kayans until the day he came back from under the mountain, but I had always been too scared to ask Thorne about those days. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what had happened in the berserker ice caps.

‘It isn’t good for you to let yourself change,’ I said.

‘I couldn’t help it,’ he growled.

‘You can always control it when you feel it starting.’

He met my eyes. ‘This time I couldn’t.’

‘Did you smell blood?’

‘No.’ He stared at the floor. ‘I thought of them hurting you and I couldn’t control myself.’

The next words that left my mouth seemed to come from nowhere, and surprised us both. ‘But you hurt me all the time.’

He blinked slowly, confused. ‘I’m your husband.’

‘So shouldn’t you protect me from harm?’

‘Rose,’ he snapped, ‘I’m teaching you.’

‘I’m not a child.’

‘You act like one,’ he snarled, standing and storming from the cabin. ‘Come!’ he shouted back at me.

I did as I was told.

Thorne

I strode out into the sunshine and stopped dead, my anger vanishing. ‘Rose!’ I grunted. ‘Stop!’

She froze inside the door to the cabin, wary.

‘Close your eyes,’ I ordered, trying to sound reassuring, but probably sounding threatening instead.

Roselyn licked her lips and then slowly did as she was told. I reached for her hand and led her out of the cabin onto the grass. I wondered if she would smell it – in my nose it was rank and impossible to ignore. I prayed to the Sword that she would keep her eyes closed until I could get her away, but after a few steps her ankle twisted and she crumpled with a moan of horror. Her eyes, I saw, were locked on the slaughtered pegasi, and how their blood and feathers were splashed over the clearing. Roselyn’s face went so white I thought she might throw up, but she simply started to weep.

I felt ancient, broken and sick as I lifted her into my arms and carried her away from the carnage I had caused.

Ava

I hadn’t been awake long before there was a knock on my door. Panicked, I hastily tried to shove my hair under my cap, but a soft voice called from outside, ‘It’s Hannah, my lady.’ I sighed and ushered her inside. The girl smiled tightly at me but didn’t meet my eyes. I supposed that sending my meal to Ambrose last night must have caused problems for her romantic vision of me.

I started combing my hair, but she moved forward and took the brush from me, setting herself to the arduous task.

‘It’s such beautiful hair, my lady,’ she told me.

‘Call me Avery,’ I told her. ‘I’m not a lady anymore.’

‘But you are!’ she exclaimed. ‘You are a very beautiful woman, and it seems to me like the deepest betrayal of our sex to hide yourself the way you do. How is he to think differently of us if you act like being a woman is something to be ashamed of?’

‘Ambrose?’

She nodded, flushing. Her deft fingers finished pinning the hair into its bun and then dropped lifelessly.

I sighed. ‘That will be all, thank you, Hannah.’

‘Yes, my lady.’ She reached out and brushed a stray lock of my hair into the bun, her fingers lingering on my face. The touch was intimate, and I found myself leaning away from it, unsure what it meant. I was so out of touch with the world and its interactions, with matters even remotely like these, that I found myself completely lost as to why she would be touching me this way.

Hannah saw me flinch, and quickly vanished from the room.

When I was alone, I moved once again to stand in front of the mirror, feeling shaken. A part of me wanted to call her back – wasn’t this what I wanted from my new identity? A chance to absent myself completely from the idea of Ava and become a boy in every way? The thought of doing so was so seductive and yet repulsive at the same time – I felt my cheeks flush with confusion.

‘You look even younger when you blush like that,’ a voice said from the balcony, and I yelped in shock. Ambrose was leaning against the window.

‘Clearly they’re not watching you very closely,’ I muttered.

His expression was guarded as he walked in and sat on the bed. ‘What were you thinking about?’

‘That’s none of your business.’

‘Was it Ava?’ he pressed. ‘You had this expression on your face – sort of like desire, but … flatter.’

I frowned, trying to read his voice. Was it anger? Resentment? There was something hard about him. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing. I just want to know if you were thinking about your dead girlfriend or not.’

I stared at him, struck by the cruelty in his voice. ‘Of course I was. Does that offend you?’

He shrugged disdainfully. ‘Why would it?’

‘I don’t know!’ I snapped, exasperated. ‘Why are you angry?’

Ambrose sighed, shaking his head. ‘I’m not.’ He was silent for a moment. ‘Avery, in Kaya, are there people who …’

‘Who what?’

‘Are there men who … enjoy the company of other men?’

‘Huh? What are you talking about?’

‘Sexually.’

I stared at him, confused. ‘Of course there are. Why?’

‘Do they bond with each other?’

‘Some do. It’s not as common, but the bond listens to your preferences and mates you with whoever you’re suited to, regardless of gender. Why, Ambrose?’

He shrugged.

This turn in the conversation made me think of Hannah. Even though I might be blind to certain feelings, I was fairly sure she had to be interested in women after the way she’d just touched me. On the other hand, maybe she was only attracted to me when I was dressed as a boy … It was all too difficult.

‘Have you ever been attracted to another man?’ Ambrose asked me. His voice was completely emotionless.

This was dangerous territory for me. I struggled with how honest to be and decided to flip the question and pretend he’d asked me if I’d ever been attracted to other women. ‘I don’t think so, but then again, I was young when I bonded, so I’ve never had much thought for other people – women or men.’

I watched as he thought about this, nodding to himself. Then he met my gaze, a funny look on his face.

‘Are you okay?’ I asked him. ‘You look kind of strange.’

Ambrose

Kind of strange was the understatement of the century. For the first time in my life, I was imagining what it would be like to kiss a boy – couldn’t get the Godsdamned thought out of my head. It kept running around and around in my mind as I looked at him, standing there all confused and innocent.

If a man in my position were rumoured to chase after boys, he’d lose all respect, all the power he commanded. He’d be considered weak. And if he let the rumours spread without culling them immediately, he would be sure to wind up dead within a night or two. But in this moment it occurred to me for the first time that perhaps it didn’t matter whether you seemed weak. Strength wasn’t in someone’s perception of you – it was in your actions. All I had to do was look at Avery to know this to be true.

‘I’m fine,’ I managed to reply, but my voice sounded strangled even to my own ears.

He looked strangely beautiful to me this morning, with the sound of his weeping from the night before still echoing in my ears. What did he think of when he thought of her?

‘Did something happen, Ambrose?’ he asked. ‘You look upset.’

I could almost taste the words, they had so much sudden meaning to me. I laughed, but it sounded weird even to my ears. I clenched my fists by my sides, telling myself to keep it together. I found myself picturing what it would be like to run my fingers along his neck, and the very idea of it made the tips of my fingers tingle. All these thoughts were ridiculous and could come to nothing, for so many reasons, not least of which was that Avery liked women. Or liked one particular woman – and it didn’t matter at all that she was dead.

I stood abruptly, feeling confused and very removed from myself. Holy Sword, what would Thorne think if he knew what I was imagining? It made me queasy to think of his reaction.

‘What?’ he pressed.

‘Nothing!’ I snapped. ‘Shit.’

‘Then why are you in my bedroom?’

‘That’s a damn good question,’ I muttered and stormed for the balcony before I did something I’d regret forever.

He moved to block my path, and as I tried to brush past him he grabbed hold of my arm. ‘Ambrose—!’

‘Don’t touch me!’ I hissed, pulling away from him quickly.

‘Whoa, okay – calm down,’ Avery said slowly, his eyebrows arched. ‘Now who’s tightly wound?’

‘I just … I’m tired.’

There was silence between us, and then, ‘I know,’ he said very quietly, his voice different to how I’d known it to be – softer, and filled with something so knowing, so aware, that I— ‘I know you are, Ambrose. You’re allowed to be. You carry a great deal.’

I swallowed, overwhelmed. That was the first time he’d ever spoken to me with anything resembling tenderness. There it was, clear in his voice as though he was a real friend – someone who actually knew me and cared about me. The world, I realised, did not carry many moments like these. Soft moments. Or, my world didn’t. I’d never had parents to speak to me kindly. My brother was a monster half the time. No one had ever made me feel taken care of like Avery had with those few, simple words.

That’s when I knew I didn’t care anymore if he was a boy – not in the slightest. I wanted to be around him, be with him, in every way and all the time.

‘See you around, pretty boy,’ I said, reaching out to touch his shoulder once, very briefly. Then I left him alone because I knew he needed to be, and I wanted to give him all that he needed.

Ava

I stared after Ambrose for quite a while after he left, feeling worried about him, which was a strange sensation. It had been a long time since I’d worried about anyone other than myself. They didn’t let me out for any ‘daylight privileges’, so I sat on the balcony for most of the day, wanting to tear my hair out with boredom and trying to make plans. I had to think about how to get off this island, and then how to approach another attack on the fortress. I had failed at it twice before, so this time I clearly needed to come up with something different.

‘Are you as bored as I am?’ a deep voice drifted down to me.

I smiled. ‘More.’

‘Not possible – I’ve been counting the cracks in the marble for two hours.’

‘How many are there?’

‘One hundred and twelve. This place is pretty run down.’

My smile widened. I could just imagine him up there with his nose pressed to the floor, searching all afternoon, counting under his breath. ‘Didn’t they give you any books?’

‘No – did you get books?’

‘Plenty, but I can’t focus long enough to read any of them.’

‘That’s an outrage. Bring some up for me.’

‘Why should I do that?’

‘Because under that surly, shitty front, you’re actually a very sweet person, Avery.’

I grabbed a few books, then swung up onto his balcony. ‘I am not sweet.’

Ambrose smiled. ‘You are – you just don’t know it yet.’

A blush threatened to creep into my cheeks so I glanced away. He took the books from my hands and flicked through them, making funny little noises as he flipped past the pages and read small bits. I watched his face as his eyes narrowed in concentration, absently biting his bottom lip.

‘They’re all about Kaya,’ I said.

He grunted.

‘Probably very distasteful to you.’

As he belatedly processed my words, he looked up at me. ‘Not at all.’

‘Doesn’t it make you uncomfortable to read about people you’ve set your life to killing?’

Ambrose met my eyes. ‘Don’t take us back to that place. You know me better than that.’

‘Do I really? Then tell me – what is it that you’ve set your life to?’

‘Nothing. Why must I—?’

‘Because you are a prince. You have the power to make change and you waste it.’

He smiled coldly. ‘And what power do you think I have from inside this prison?’

‘You and I both know that these walls won’t hold you for long, Ambrose. You’re a lot stronger than all this cracked marble.’

‘What exactly are you saying, Avery? What change do you believe the second prince can make, when he is nothing compared to his mother and brother?’

‘Nothing?’ My mouth fell open. ‘Gods, Ambrose, don’t you know that you are—’

The door to his room unlocked and Hannah entered with a tray of food. She stopped when she saw me, her eyes widening worriedly. ‘You shouldn’t be here!’

‘It’s all right, Hannah,’ I said curtly, wanting her gone.

‘You can’t be here,’ Hannah said more firmly. ‘I’ll have to notify the guards.’

Before I could intervene, Ambrose strode over to her, grabbed her by the throat, pushed her gently against the wall and murmured, ‘Keep your mouth shut, girl, or I’ll slam that pretty face of yours into your precious marble walls, and then we’ll see who’ll want to bond with you.’

Hannah went white with shock and Ambrose shoved her towards the door. Once she’d stumbled out, he turned back to me, expressionless and unbothered. I froze. Something inside me hardened – changed. It was one thing to treat me like dirt – I was a criminal in his eyes and deserved punishment, besides which, I antagonised the crap out of him and could take anything he doled out. But to viciously frighten an innocent person like Hannah? My skin crawled.

‘Avery,’ he started, then faltered at the thunderous expression on my face.

‘How dare you?’ I hissed. ‘How could you speak to someone like that?’

‘Avery,’ he snapped, eyeing me irritably. ‘Did you want her to tell the guards? I’m sure they’d make it pleasant for us once they knew how easily we can get in and out of our rooms.’

‘You’re a cruel, arrogant pig, and I’m disgusted by you.’

His eyes shone furiously. ‘They were just words! I barely touched her!’

‘I know you. They weren’t just words – you wanted to hurt her.’

‘Oh, for Gods’ sakes,’ he snarled suddenly. ‘She’s just a girl. Why do you care?’

‘Just a girl?’

I felt suddenly as though I had found my footing after years of treading water. Hannah’s words vibrated through my mind: It seems to me the deepest betrayal of our sex to hide yourself the way you do.

I looked into his beautiful, pale eyes and I said softly, ‘Can’t you see me, Ambrose? Open your eyes and look – really look at me.’

He frowned, staring. He didn’t understand – he was completely blinded.

So, with Hannah’s words in mind, I reached up and began to undo the pins in my hair. My hands were shaking and I fumbled, but soon my thick blond locks had fallen down around my face, all the way to the small of my back.

Ambrose was stunned. He watched, transfixed, confused, still oblivious.

Drawing the deepest breath I could, I undid the buttons of my nightshirt and dropped it to the ground. Then I unwound the cloth from my chest until it too was gone, and I stood completely naked in front of a man from Pirenti.

Ambrose

There was a woman standing before me. She had appeared out of nowhere and torn me asunder. The boy in the room was transformed before my very eyes, and I felt myself changed forever.

‘My name is Ava,’ the stranger in the room said; I couldn’t breathe.

I thought for a brief moment that I was hallucinating, but I kept blinking and she kept being a woman. But this was supposed to be my pretty boy, my friend and companion – the boy I’d respected and understood more than anyone else in the world. The boy who’d rowed all night and skinned a stag on his own. The boy who never backed down, never gave up, the boy … the boy I’d beaten. This didn’t make any sense – it didn’t make sense. I felt queasy, because there it was – the huge dark bruise that covered her ribs – physical proof of my blind, dumb violence.

Gods, I was as bad as my brother.

I closed my eyes, swallowing the bile in my throat, then forced them open to try to see her, just as she’d asked me to. Her golden hair was thick and lovely, and hung like a halo around her. My eyes travelled over her long, slender neck, her fine shoulders, the small, round breasts, the slim waist and curved hips. She was too skinny, but she was strong, too. Her muscles were hard and toned – I could see the lines of them perfectly. She was more beautiful than any girl I’d ever seen. And her face … it now seemed deeply, horribly obvious. The prettiness, the fine bone structure and full lips – the incredible depth to those purple eyes. It was a depth I’d thought was unique to Avery because I’d never seen it in another man’s eyes. Now I realised the depth came from the simple fact that she was a woman and she knew true things about the world.

Desire kicked me in the guts, ravaging its way through my entire body. I sat down heavily on the bed, unable to tear my eyes from her. I wanted this woman so much I thought I might die. I’d never understood lust – real, debilitating lust – until this moment.

‘Just a girl,’ she said, and her voice sounded different – sweeter. The deception hit me full force and I felt like a child. ‘Do you want to bully me, too? Threaten to smash my face in? Is that what I deserve for being this?’

I shook my head, letting it drop into my hands. ‘Shit,’ I whispered, over and over again. ‘How could you?’

She didn’t appear remorseful in any way, instead she wore an expression I’d come to know well – she was cold and unforgiving. How fierce she seemed, this woman. ‘I didn’t want to be underestimated,’ she told me calmly. She’d got hold of her temper, but there was still so much rage in her – I could see it in the red tinge to her eyes.

‘It was all a lie then?’ I asked, standing and reining my heart back into my chest. ‘You’ve been deceiving me this whole time.’

‘I fail to understand how you could be surprised by this,’ she said coldly. ‘Think back to the man you were when first we met. You would have raped and beaten a criminal girl from Kaya and not thought twice about it.’

‘I’ve never raped a woman in my life,’ I growled. ‘You know that.’

She tilted her head slightly, scrutinising me, as if making up her mind about the truth of my words. And Gods, how I wished that her answer didn’t matter so much, but it did. It mattered more than anything.

‘I’m not sure what I know about you,’ she murmured. ‘You’re complicated and difficult – too much so for me to understand.’

My mouth fell open. ‘Me? How can you use those words when you are as impossible as those caves we found our way through? You’re a nightmare!’

She licked her lips; my eyes locked onto her tongue. ‘You save guilty lives and threaten innocent ones.’

I closed my eyes, sick with shame. I couldn’t bear this, couldn’t bear her eyes on me, knowing how I’d thought of her all this time. Sword, she must have delighted in my idiocy – so many days and nights spent in deception. I’d thought, throughout each one, that I was the one who’d held the power, but I’d been terribly wrong.

‘How you must have laughed,’ I murmured.

She frowned, a line forming between her eyebrows.

‘Deceiving the idiot brute from Pirenti. When I told you my secrets, did you store them away for later? To regale your people with?’

She – I couldn’t even bring myself to think her name – she shook her head. That long, long hair rustled. Desire humiliated me.

‘You were my best friend,’ I murmured, my voice cracking. ‘Gods, what a fool.’

‘Ambrose,’ she tried, stepping towards me.

‘Put your clothes on and get out.’

She was breathing fast – I could see the rise and fall of her chest before I turned quickly away. She started to dress, doing up the buttons on her shirt. ‘Ambrose, it’s not like that. I would never—’

‘Get out of my room!’ I snarled. ‘Lying whore. I can’t stand to look at you.’

The blood left her face; her lips were bone white. I saw the purple of her eyes shift to a strange silver colour that made everything about her seem colourless.

And then she was gone, and I felt colourless too. I started to climb.

Ava

My hands wouldn’t stop shaking – I could barely get the buttons done up and then I nearly fell from the vines several times. I paced my room over and over, unable to sit, clueless as to how that scene had moved from my rage to his within the blink of an eye. I’d known he would react badly to me being a woman, but I’d never imagined that kind of betrayal in his eyes. Gods, I’d never imagined he would appear so broken.

Lying whore. I felt sick, the words running around in my head. A soft cry of frustration left my mouth and I punched my fist straight into the mirror, shattering it. A spider web of cracks splintered through the glass, pieces of which stuck in my knuckles. A gasp sprang from my chest and I stumbled back, staring at my bloodied fist.

That was when the shouting started. From outside the building, I could hear people yelling and screaming. My pack had been gone since he’d tackled me off Migliori, so I didn’t have my tools anymore. I scrabbled through the dresser with my uninjured hand, searching for something I could use. All the damn pins from my hair were still up on Ambrose’s floor, and I certainly wasn’t going up there again. I found a few hair tools in my drawer and used them to jiggle the lock on the door – twisting and turning and prodding as Gidion had taught me. It was damn hard with only one properly functioning hand, but eventually the door clicked open and I was free. People were running through the hallway, but they ignored me. I followed the stream of them outside onto the grand marble staircase. A crowd of onlookers were pointing worriedly at something and as I spun around to see what it was, my heart did a funny little skip in my chest.

Ambrose was climbing the face of the building, his huge body swinging its way up with alarming agility. My first thought was that he was going to fall and kill himself – and those watching didn’t seem to care at all that he was in peril. They only cared that there was an enormous Pirenti soldier free in their island sanctuary.

Marla was a few feet to the left, watching furiously. She barked an order to the guards who’d arrived, telling them to ready their bows.

‘Wait!’ I crossed to her side. ‘I can get him down – there’s no need to shoot.’

‘Who are you?’ she snapped.

I realised I’d forgotten to pin up my hair. ‘Avery,’ I told her shortly. ‘I came here with him.’

Marla looked at me properly, her eyes widening. ‘What in Gods’ names? You’re a woman?’

‘I can bring him down.’

‘So do it! He’s terrifying them.’

‘I’ll get him down if you agree to one thing for me.’

Her eyes hardened to dark brown.

‘I want him allowed to leave his room for a few hours a day – daylight privileges. I’ll watch him the whole time – he won’t leave my side. You can post guards with us too.’

‘You want that monster allowed out?’ she exclaimed. ‘You’re out of your mind. I’d rather shoot him now.’

‘I can control him,’ I snapped. ‘I can get him back, and make him behave. If you shoot him you won’t have any leverage. I don’t think the Emperor will take kindly to you killing a prince of Pirenti without notifying him first.’

Her gaze sharpened. ‘You’re a shifty one. What could you possibly know about the Emperor?’

‘More than you’d think,’ I muttered flatly.

‘Very well, do as you will. Get him down and I’ll see what I can organise.’

‘Is there inside access to the roof?’

‘Do you think we’d all be standing here gawking if there was?’

I walked to the building, letting my eyes travel over the surface of the walls. I felt like pretty much the stupidest woman in the world at this point – I’d just smashed up my hand, then claimed that I could climb several hundred feet of smooth marble and ‘control’ an angry Pirenti prince. Okay, I just had to focus. I had no idea what Ambrose was doing up there, but I didn’t want him to get shot. As soon as I started climbing, the pain grew bad. The glass shards were still embedded in my hand and every time I used it they sliced a little further into my flesh, but I needed to get to the top of this building. At the sight of him something hurt inside my chest and I didn’t know why.

I was able to use the vines for most of the climb, which was straightforward enough, but when the vines ended I had to try and find cracks in the marble. My recently injured hand slipped a few times, causing me to crack my elbows and knees against the hard rock face in my scrabble for a hold.

‘What in Gods’ names are you doing?’ Ambrose shouted down. He’d made it to the roof and now I was the one in danger of falling – of course.

I couldn’t answer – I needed all my concentration for this stupid climb.

‘Your left hand goes there,’ Ambrose ordered, pointing to a fissure a long way to the left.

‘Too far.’

‘It’s not. Put your left foot there and push off hard.’

‘I’m half your size – I don’t have the reach.’

‘It’s the only way up,’ he snapped. ‘Concentrate and do it.’

I closed my eyes and took several deep breaths. There was no fear, of course, but there was a strange kind of tightening around my heart, making it hard to breathe. Lying whore. My jaw clenched and I tried to push the words away. They ached – not because I cared about being called names, but because it was Ambrose who’d said them.

I licked my lips and pushed off, stretching myself as far as I could and using the muscles in my legs to gain enough leverage. My left hand caught the fissure, slipped, jerked for a hold and pulled against my shoulder. A groan escaped me as I hung on for life, trying to find a foothold. I managed to get my toe into a crack and push myself up far enough that Ambrose could grab my bloodied hand and pull me onto the roof. I screamed as his palm crushed the glass further into my knuckles, then curled into a ball around my agonised fist.

‘What is wrong with you?’ he roared, pacing around me like a furious, caged beast.

My head spun as I breathed through the pain.

‘Ava,’ he barked. It was the first time he’d ever used my name, and something inside me started to very slowly unfreeze. Against my will, the world began to shift on its axis. Ambrose crouched before me, and as I opened my eyes all I could see were his blue ones. ‘What happened?’

‘You climbed onto the roof, so I followed,’ I replied.

‘Your hand.’

‘I punched a mirror.’

‘Why?’

‘Why did you come up here?’

We stared at each other. He lifted me slowly into a sitting position, where I cradled my hand against my chest.

‘They were going to shoot you,’ I murmured.

‘So you said you’d get me down?’

I nodded. ‘Why did you come up here?’

‘To see if I could spot the prison. I needed to understand the space. I couldn’t breathe not knowing where I was.’

His face was tense, his eyes shadowed. ‘And can you see it?’ I asked.

‘No, I can’t see a damn thing except sea. Endless sea.’

I closed my eyes. The truth built inside me and started to come forth. ‘I didn’t lie to be cruel,’ I murmured. ‘I lied to protect myself. And because … because it was easier to be him than to be me. When I used his name and his skin it didn’t feel like he was so far away.’

He rubbed his eyes, pacing away from me. I used the moment of silence to turn and look around at where we were. The view was dizzying, as if we stood alone at the top of the world. The sea went out to meet the sky, blue on blue. To the left was the top of the mighty waterfall, and flying through the air were dozens of wild pegasi, swooping and whinnying with delight. I watched them for a long moment, thinking of Migliori. Above us the deep grey of storm clouds drew nearer.

‘Marla said she’d organise daylight privileges for you. I can take you down to the wharf.’

Ambrose smiled cruelly. ‘Like a dog on a leash? Don’t they have any idea? I could tear this whole place to the ground using only my hands.’

I swallowed, unable to take my eyes from him. He paced, every inch of him vibrating with a kind of enraged energy. In this mood he was a very dangerous man. ‘Don’t give them a reason to kill you.’

He turned eyes of the palest blue to me, eyes that had in one moment gone dead. ‘No one kills me. They try and they fail.’

I felt cold, the bite of the wind reaching my bare arms.

Ambrose crouched in front of me, his expression glowing like that of a wild animal. ‘Men of Pirenti are forged in iron, like the Holy Sword itself.’

‘What about the women of Pirenti?’

‘They give life. They come from the earth and they go back to the earth when the breath is gone from their bodies.’

I shivered. ‘In Kaya we send our dead back to the sea,’ I murmured very softly, still gazing into his eyes. ‘That’s where I want to go.’ I took a breath, and felt the ache around my heart tighten. ‘That’s where I want you to send me.’

He jerked backwards, shocked. ‘Me?’

‘You.’

‘I can’t do that.’

I reached for his hand and gripped it tightly. ‘You’re my best friend, you idiot. Who else could do it?’

He closed his eyes, and my hand, without my permission, found its way to his cheek. He leant into the touch, exhausted. ‘Ava …’

‘I keep asking myself why this happened,’ I told him softly. ‘How you and I could have possibly ended up here, together. I think I’m supposed to help you realise.’

‘Realise what?’

‘The man you will be.’

He opened his eyes. Mine shifted to navy, and something else – another colour. Another colour I couldn’t feel, couldn’t bear to.

Ambrose

As carefully as I could, I started to pull the glass from her hand. ‘Relax it,’ I ordered, tapping her wrist.

Clenching her jaw instead, she managed to un-fist her hand and turn her face towards the ocean. Long tendrils of her blond hair blew into my face, and I felt a fat raindrop land on my neck. She didn’t make a sound as I dug the glass out, trying to get to all the little pieces before wrapping a piece of her sleeve around the hand and tying it tightly. ‘You won’t be able to climb back down now.’

Ava didn’t say anything. She hadn’t said a word since the man you will be. I had absolutely no idea what that meant, no idea who that man was supposed to be. I did get the feeling he would be better than whatever I was now. Whoever he was, this woman wanted him to bury her at sea when she died. And standing on this roof, I knew it was the most important thing anyone had ever asked me.

‘I’m trying, Ava,’ I said, still holding her wrapped hand in my lap.

She lifted her eyes to me. The purple shone so bright under the darkening sky – that purple made me into a new version of myself. I said, because it mattered, ‘You asked me if I could see you. I would ask you the same question.’

Ava frowned, eyes searching me. Small flecks of gold had appeared within them, dancing like flames.

‘I’m an imperfect person,’ I muttered, ‘and I’m very different to you or anyone else you know. But I’m trying – I’m trying for you.’

Ava blinked and removed her hand from mine. ‘What?’

‘You said I need to change. Well, Sword, if that’s what you want, then I’ll try.’

‘Why?’ she demanded, abruptly horrified. I think she knew what was coming, she must have – it was written over every inch of her body, the way a person gets when they know they’re about to be attacked.

I smiled hopelessly, unable to think of any more excuses not to tell her. I’d been born twenty-five years ago, and I’d lived twenty-five years of bleakness. I’d never thought there would be anything different, anything more. But now there was this – now there was her. Whose smile might be the death of me, the life of me.

So I said, ‘Because I love you.’ Stupid – I felt so stupid, saying that out loud, but I couldn’t have avoided it, now that she was in my life.

The silence stretched out around us. I saw her eyes change colour a hundred times, a thousand, so fast I couldn’t keep up.

Ava drew a breath. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

I shrugged, letting her see the truth.

‘You don’t,’ she stammered. ‘You couldn’t possibly. You’re just seeing me as a woman for the first time, and you desire me. That’s not love.’

‘Sword, yes, I desire you,’ I said softly, voice a rough growl. Her eyes turned black. ‘I want you so badly I can barely see straight. But that’s not it – I mean, it’s not everything.’

Carefully, with a hand trembling ever so slightly, I reached out and touched her cheek. She flinched like prey, then stilled. I let my fingers trace her lips, all the delicate, soft lines of them. I wanted to keep touching them for every second of the rest of my life. I wanted to kiss them until they bled, until neither of us could breathe. I wanted a life that was not my own, one I’d never be entitled to because I came from a damaged, violent country.

It hit me then – who was I to love a creature like this? I didn’t deserve her, and there was no lifetime in which I ever could. She loved a man I now remembered – a man with black hair, who had stood straight at his death and died for his country. A man who had known the line between right and wrong. And here I sat, a complicated mess of compromised beliefs and stretched morals. All I had left, all I possessed, was this one stupid truth.

‘I loved you when you were a man, and I love you as a woman. I see you as you are, Ave – broken into pieces and suffocating – and I love all the pieces of you, no matter how small they’ve shattered, nor how far they’ve been scattered.’

I stopped talking with a breath of incredulous laughter. I sounded like a lunatic, an imbecile. I’d never wanted to say anything like that in my whole life. I’d barely known words like those existed. Did she have any damn idea how absurd this was for me, how impossible? Looking at her, I think she did realise, but she was who she was, and all the reasons I loved her were still there. I saw it in her face, her eyes – the way she pulled away from me. She was supposed to have no fear, and yet in that moment I believe she feared what I was doing to her.

‘Don’t,’ she said, her eyes wide. They’d gone a strange shade now – a deep, beautiful russet, flecked through with gold. ‘Don’t love me, Ambrose – it’s such a waste.’

My other hand moved to hold her face between both of mine. I didn’t know how to explain. I had tried and failed.

She stood and moved out of my reach. ‘It’s the nature of the bond. I can’t love another person. Nor do I want to – I’m loyal to Avery.’

A sudden sickness made its way into my guts – a belated realisation. ‘You used his name?’ I whispered, so startled I almost wanted to vomit. She’d said it earlier but I hadn’t even noticed.

‘What other name would I choose?’

I closed my eyes. I felt like the greatest fool in all the world, humiliated to my very core. I’d managed to fall in love with the identity of the man I envied most.

‘The bond is a curse, a cruel one,’ Ava said. ‘I will die once I’ve finished what I started, and then what will you have but a memory?’

I felt empty. I understood how Ava felt, to have lost someone she loved. It was like she’d been pulled physically from my grip, though really she had never been there to begin with.

‘You were born to love someone, Ambrose,’ she told me. ‘You have so much to offer – so much you don’t realise about yourself. I’m just not that person. I’m a ghost.’

I stood and faced her. The rain began to fall. So much rain here, so many storms.

‘I didn’t tell you so that I could have you,’ I said. ‘I’d never presume to deserve you. I told you so that you’d be sure.’

I watched her swallow – my eyes followed the movement of her throat and the pulse beating in her neck. ‘Sure of what?’

‘That I’ll do as you asked. If you’re gone before I am, I’ll send your body back to the sea. I’ll do that for you.’

Ava closed her eyes and I saw a tear slide from beneath one of the lashes. ‘Thank you.’

I smiled gently. ‘Come on. We’ll have to face them at some point. Climb onto my back.’

Wordlessly, she did as I said, and I slowly lowered us down the wall, now slippery with rain. ‘I won’t let us fall,’ I promised over my shoulder.

‘I know that,’ Ava replied. ‘I’ve always known that.’

Chapter 11

Thorne

It took us a long time to get home from the hut on the border – we were both exhausted. As we plodded along in silence I couldn’t forget the sound she’d made upon seeing the dead animals. There was so much fear and violence beyond the tiny life she knew, and I’d always been careful not to let her near any of it. But that, that had been too much for her, and I could feel her retreating inside her head. I sighed, confused.

As we walked, I thought about the way she’d stood before me and reached out to touch me – a feat she had known would most likely be deadly and yet had done anyway. Part of me was screaming that it was a kind of treason to protect Kayans in such a way, and to let them escape, but I couldn’t bring myself to see it that way – the bravery of her actions seemed too noble to be punished.

And then there was the simple story of how she had saved a man’s life when Kayans had first attacked the fortress. It made no sense to me, to the kind of fear I knew she possessed.

Roselyn stared into the sky as we walked, lips moving silently.

‘What are you counting?’

She flushed and quickly glanced down. ‘Birds.’

‘How many have you seen?’

‘Twelve red-breasted finches, four swallows, a pelican, and a blue woodpecker. Thirty-six wings and thirty-six eyes.’

I looked at her, impressed. ‘You know a lot about birds.’

She shrugged bleakly. ‘My mother loved them. She knew every bird’s name and all of their habits. I only saw the pelican here because we’re close to the sea.’

‘Your mother,’ I murmured. ‘The one who knew about medicine, too. She sounds … special.’

Roselyn bit her lip and turned away. Her mother had died two years ago. I remembered those days with aching clarity, because I’d spent them alone in our rooms while Rose had been out trying to save her ma. When she’d come back, she’d been like a shadow. I’d tried to hold her, to talk to her, but I wasn’t good with things like that, and the pain of it had hurt, so I’d had to leave it – leave her, and go north into the ice.

We kept walking. I spotted a small, brown bird and pointed it out. ‘There’s one!’

‘That’s thirteen finches. They’re the most common in the forest.’ As she spoke she smiled, and it was so real, so unhindered that it lit up her eyes in a way I hadn’t seen in years. I knew she’d come back from the horror of what she’d seen this morning.

And in that moment I felt a stab in the guts, because there was only one week until the solstice.

Back at the fortress that evening, I was called upon to attend my mother in the execution room. I knew exactly what it meant, what it always meant.

‘Why must I be the one to do this?’ I asked her as I arrived.

She blinked in surprise at my words. ‘Because you are the prince. You and I do this together – it’s family tradition.’

‘Can we not just send them to the prison isle?’

‘I had not thought their crimes merited such punishment,’ Ma said thoughtfully. ‘That fate has only ever been for Kayans and army deserters. But if you disagree, my son, then …’

‘No,’ I said quickly, no idea what had come over me. It wasn’t right to send these people to be tortured when I could end their lives quickly.

She peered at me a moment. ‘You are the slaughterman of Pirenti. Do your job without constantly disappointing me.’

Embarrassment struck, and a desperate need to please her, to show her that I could be the man she longed for me to be. ‘Of course.’

In truth, the executions had never bothered me before. In the past I’d enjoyed them – enjoyed the way they seemed to delight my mother. But now … I didn’t know what had changed, but something had. Maybe it was the fact that Ambrose was gone – he was usually the one to put up a fight, and his blatant disloyalty had always offended me. Now, I seemed to be taking on his role.

It was odd and unnerving, but all of these squeamish feelings had started the night I’d learnt that Rose was in love with my brother. My little brother, who never did any of the slaughtering. Who was as gentle as a Pirenti man could be without getting murdered for it – who was kinder to her than anyone else in the fortress. I clenched my fists, stretched my muscles, and willed myself not to think about it. Not now.

My ma handed me the knife, and the prisoners were led forward. The sun was sinking and I could see it through the mighty back window. For some reason, my mind wandered back to an evening very much like this one a couple of years ago – the night Ma had been stabbed. The Kayans had escaped out that back window – those we hadn’t killed. I’d wanted to have it blocked off in case a future attack ensued and they used it again – it was clearly a weak spot. But Ambrose had fought tooth and nail to keep it open. Just because there is ugliness, it doesn’t mean we should forget about beauty.

Did Rose love him because of those words? And all the other words that came from some place inside him that had managed to salvage poetry in a blood-drenched world? Looking out to the sky, I was irrationally glad that window was still there – glad I could at least breathe fresh air while I did this.

I thought of the black-haired man from that night years ago, as I often did. He spent a lot of time with me now, because he’d come here, into the very heart of our strength, and he’d attempted to kill our queen. He’d come very, very close – closer than anyone ever had. In the end, he’d died on this stone floor, just as they all did. But sometimes when I couldn’t sleep at night I thought back to him, to that young man, and I was stunned anew by his valour. The bravery of such a mission and the way he’d died, with shoulders straight and eyes focused. It was so strange to me, to think of a Kayan that way. Never before had I considered them to be brave, or worthy of anything at all. His eyes – they haunted me sometimes – had turned gold in the end. It confused me, kept me up at night. I wished I knew his name, which was stupid.

Pulling myself back to the room, I glared down at the row of Kayan prisoners before me. There were people crowded around – mainly my own soldiers, come to watch. And at the very back I caught a glimpse of Roselyn’s red hair. Here again where she wasn’t supposed to be. Again she’d forgotten. I couldn’t let her distract me, couldn’t let her inside my head right now. I drew a breath and focused on my task.

My ma grinned at me, and then went to work. She slit the first man’s throat with ease. The smell of his blood filled my nostrils and I felt the usual excitement unfurl in the base of my stomach. As I executed our prisoners with my mother, hands shaking with the need of it, a thought occurred to me for the first time in my life. She makes me do this because she knows how the blood affects me. She knows it is the only way to control me – to unleash the beast inside me and use it as she wills. She’s been doing this since I was a child – cultivating my bloodlust. It was like a shock to my system, realising all of this at once. And yet I could do nothing – I was trapped within the prison of my heritage, trapped within the need for violence I could never escape. There was too much blood around me to stop what I was doing, so I simply continued to kill.

And that was when I realised that I wasn’t the strongest man in the world after all. I was the weakest.

Ambrose

When she focused really hard, she got this little crease in her forehead, and she bit her lip every time she thought something wouldn’t work. Also, she had a habit of humming under her breath. All these little things I was starting to notice made me realise how good an actress Ava really was. As Avery, she’d managed to refrain from her usual mannerisms, and had taken on a completely different persona. But now, here, under the infinite blue sky and atop the endless green sea, she was transforming back into the woman she’d once been.

The two of us had borrowed some fishing spears from one of the fishermen sitting on the edge of the wharf, and then we’d made our way a little further down to where it was less crowded. My guards – four of them – were lined up on the wharf behind us while we stood thigh-deep in the cool water, scanning for carp. I hadn’t had a clue what one looked like until Ava had stabbed a big grey fish on the end of her spear faster than I could blink. Now we had a small pile on the rocks behind us, all of which had been caught by her. I’d missed about thirty in a row.

‘I’m sick of this rubbish,’ I announced sulkily.

Ava laughed, a trickle of sound. ‘You’ve got no patience. Let me guess – you’ve always been instantly good at everything you tried?’

I flashed her a crooked grin. ‘Of course.’

‘Well some things require effort and discipline, Your Majesty. Keep trying and you’ll get something eventually.’

I rolled my eyes and had another stab, this time missing the fish by a hair’s breadth. I clicked my tongue in frustration.

Ava waded over to me. Startling me, she grabbed my spear hand and repositioned it above my head. ‘Relax your shoulder,’ she murmured. Her hands forced both my bare shoulders down, so that my back wasn’t so tense. Then she covered my spear hand with her unbandaged one and waited for a fish. ‘Let your arm go limp. I’ll show you how it should feel.’

We waited, frozen still. I was sure she could hear my heart pounding – it sounded so loud in my ears. All my nerve endings seemed attuned to where she stood behind me, and the heat coming from her body. Without warning, my mind went straight to the night she’d washed the wounds on my back, and the way she’d touched me. A woman’s beauty is in her strength, and her passion. Gods, I should have known. All those little clues kept coming back to hit me and make me feel humiliated all over again. Honestly – how dumb did you have to be to not recognise what gender someone was?

Ava’s arm moved lightning quick, jabbing downwards into the space the fish had just swum into. Grinning, she held up the wriggling prize, our hands still entwined on the spear.

‘See? Jab faster and stronger. You’ve got the muscles, so use them. Don’t think about it, just act.’

I glanced over my shoulder and she must have realised how close we were standing as she quickly moved away and went back to scanning the water. I watched her blond hair glistening in the sun, and her strong, tanned arms taught with muscles. She belonged to the water, I now saw. I’d never known a woman to be so strong, so capable. I was surprised to find it a massive turn-on.

‘What are you smirking about?’ she asked me.

‘Nothing.’

‘Well don’t watch me – watch the water.’

‘Yes, ma’am. How old are you really?’

‘Twenty.’

‘And Avery? How old was he when he—?’

‘He was five years older than me.’

I didn’t ask any more questions after hearing the pain in her voice.

The next time I struck out for a fish, I tried to anticipate where it was swimming and focused on letting my instincts guide my arm. ‘Yes!’ I shouted, holding up the fish. ‘Woo! Who’s the master now?’

She rolled her eyes, but I saw a smile curve the corners of her mouth. ‘That’s one to my ten.’

The catch renewed my fervour for fishing, and I decided that maybe I did like it after all. I changed my mind after an hour without another catch. ‘Can we go in yet? I’m getting burnt.’ My skin wasn’t as used to the sun as hers was – it was paler, and probably much redder after today. Ava came back from her thoughts as if realising I was still there, and I wondered, not for the first time, where her mind had been. I could certainly guess.

Ava

We ate lunch in Ambrose’s room. He was only allowed outside for six hours in every twenty-four, so we were going to save the last two for a visit to the warder’s temple this evening. Ambrose got to the plates first, and lifted the lids to find various cheeses, fruits and what appeared to be quince paste.

‘Excellent,’ he grinned. ‘This will be perfect for lesson number two.’

‘Lesson two?’

‘In food appreciation.’

‘No way – the stew was enough appreciation for me.’ I didn’t want another breakdown, given how prone to fits of self-indulgence I seemed to be lately.

‘Cheese is my favourite food.’

‘Everything is your favourite food.’

‘Come on – let me show you,’ he implored.

I hesitated.

‘Take that piece of cheese there,’ he instructed.

I brushed my hair behind my ear and picked it up.

‘Now put it in your mouth.’

I shot him a look. ‘Right, thanks for that.’

He watched as I put the piece in my mouth.

‘What now?’ I asked around the food.

Ambrose laughed. ‘Now you chew, loser.’

I couldn’t help but laugh too. ‘Oh.’

‘Wait,’ he added. ‘Slow down. Keep the piece in your mouth and let it sit on your tongue – don’t swallow it too fast.’

I stopped chewing.

‘Suck it a little bit. Feel how it melts? Taste how its flavour intensifies after a few moments?’

The cheese started to melt just as he’d said, and as it did it burst to life in my mouth. My eyes widened, stunned by the incredible power of taste. I love all the pieces of you. Dear Gods, I couldn’t think about that. I couldn’t stand to have those words anywhere near me – they were monstrous. I squeezed my eyes shut and swallowed.

Ambrose grinned. ‘I knew you could still taste. You were just being stubborn. Try this one next.’ He passed me a slice of crumbly cheese, darker in colour. ‘Chew it slowly.’

It had a sharp bite to it that was completely different to the smoothness of the last mouthful.

‘Good, right? Can you taste the saltiness?’

I nodded reluctantly. It occurred to me that he was watching my mouth very closely, his eyes resting intimately on my lips. I felt instantly uncomfortable, and my heart started speeding up. I’d never presume to deserve you. I swallowed too quickly, and the lump of cheese hurt my throat. Grabbing another piece, I stuffed it in my mouth.

‘You haven’t forgotten about the simplest pleasures. You just needed reminding.’

‘By you?’ I scoffed, bits of cheese spraying from my lips.

‘I know the things that you like,’ he told me simply. And then he said, in a different voice, ‘I know exactly how to make your cheeks flush with pleasure like that.’

I stopped. He stared at me, unperturbed. I swallowed too fast again, the massive lump making its way painfully down my throat. ‘Don’t be stupid. I can’t feel pleasure, Ambrose, or anything like it.’

His eyes moved to my throat. ‘I can see your pulse fluttering under your skin, and your pupils are dilated slightly. Your fist is clenched so tightly your knuckles are white. If I were to guess, I’d say your body is starting to get very warm, very quickly.’

I moved away from him but came up against the wall, my heart thumping in disbelief. What was he doing?

‘If I ran my tongue over your jaw just now, down your neck, over your collar bone, around the curve of your breast to your nipple, I know exactly what would happen to you.’

Holy shit. I dared not move, speak, even breathe. My thoughts were scattered and nonsensical. Ambrose didn’t move any closer, but the way he was gazing at me, the tone of his voice – it was as though he was caressing my whole body.

‘You’d gasp at first,’ he murmured very softly, his eyes dropping to my legs, my thighs, the space between them. ‘Then you’d close your mouth quickly, embarrassed at the sound, but soon you’d forget about embarrassment because your breathing would be quickening sharply, making your heart thump and your skin tingle. You’d moan, like you couldn’t believe what your body was doing to you, how it was betraying you. Then you wouldn’t care about even that – you’d be gone, lost. That’s when I’d take you.’

‘Stop,’ I managed to rasp.

So he stopped. He sat there and watched me calmly, with no expression at all. But his eyes were watching mine now, and I knew that I’d be giving everything away, that the colour of my gaze could never lie.

I stood and turned my back on him. ‘We’re going to the temple right now.’

‘I haven’t finished eating—’

‘Now.’

Ambrose

All right, yes – it was a dirty trick. A very dirty trick. But I’d had a burning question inside me, and now I had my answer. Ava of Orion was not a ghost. She was very far from it. Regardless of how wrong it was, all the threads of my life now came down to a very simple fact: I had to have her.

At the very top of the mountain, just beyond the building where we were lodged, was a large marble temple. It had no walls, just a floor and a roof that sat atop marble pillars. Kayans didn’t even worship their Gods like they worshipped their warders.

He was standing in the very middle of the space, his hands extended, moving a dozen round stones through the air around him without touching a single one. The air seemed to throb and move with his breath. It held the stones aloft and he glided them where he willed. His long blond dreadlocks floated around his head, his eyes were wide and completely white, and his skin was a bright, translucent shade of blue. I felt my own skin crawl just looking at him.

I had been raised, like all children in Pirenti, to fear and loathe the Kayan warders. They’d haunted my nightmares and crept through the shadows of my imagination throughout my childhood. Tales of their destruction and power were legendary. They were nigh on impossible to kill, so if a man were ever to succeed in destroying one, he received a tattoo over his heart to symbolise the honour and power of his achievement.

Ava and I hadn’t brought up my own Marks since that initial night when she’d seen them and hated me for them. For the first time, I wondered if it was such an honour to carry the evidence of the blood on your hands with you wherever you went. It was a bit like being branded a murderer.

We stood at the edge of the temple and waited. After a moment the stones in the air went still, and the warder turned his white eyes towards us.

‘Ava,’ he murmured softly, his voice cold and thin. ‘What are you doing with this creature?’

Ava stiffened beside me, but all I could do was stare at him, at this man who was more powerful by far than any person I’d come across, save the two others of his kind that I’d killed. Instinct told me to draw my sword. The very core of me yearned to destroy this monstrosity – he was unnatural and the kind of harm he could cause with the flick of a wrist was too dangerous. Instead I fought the urge, fought it with everything I had, simply because of the girl standing next to me.

The warder’s mouth curled into a cruel smile. ‘Go ahead, Prince – try your very best to swallow that vileness inside you. It won’t change what you are.’

‘And what’s that?’ I asked through gritted teeth, my eyes gaining a certain familiar coldness of their own. This depth of anger was what preceded my worst violence.

‘A barbarian killer,’ he said. He moved his left hand and I felt my shirt tear away from my body. He pointed straight at the black Marks over my heart. ‘Ambrose. You have a strong body and a strong heart, but your mind is very weak. The weight of your past crushes it, and you will never be strong enough to withstand that.’

I stood frozen, naked. The ground was shifting and swaying, because there, at the edge of my mind, was the memory I had forbidden myself to ever relive, the one I locked away like the monstrosity it was. The very worst day of my life. The beginning and end of who I was. Ava could not see me like this; I’d burn the world down first.

Taking hold of my anger like a thick blanket between my fingertips, I used it as a shield over my soul. I started to walk. I could feel the adrenalin coursing through my veins, empowering my muscles, heightening my strength. My hand didn’t go to my sword – not yet. Instead, I turned my eyes to what I knew would soon come.

Sensing my attack, the warder sent his stones flying straight at my head. I ducked low, dodging each one with several quick sidesteps, still advancing. As the last stone whizzed by my head, I leapt into the air, drawing my sword in one motion and slashing it towards the warder’s neck. He lifted his hand to fend me off and sent a burst of air at me, but I was expecting it. He was strong – very strong – but I’d fought his kind before, I’d trained for it, day after day – it was my job. I pulled myself out of my jump by tucking my knees under my chin and flipping to the ground, narrowly avoiding a gust that would have sent me slamming painfully into the marble floor. My arm whipped out as I landed, slashing my sword towards the back of his ankle.

He didn’t make a sound, though he stumbled to avoid the cut. I was on my feet and about to turn for another attack, but wasn’t quick enough to duck the second blow he sent towards me. It pummelled straight into my chest and sent me flying through the air. I landing heavily against a pillar and felt the marble crack into my spine. All the wind was knocked out of me as I crumbled to the floor, but it wasn’t going to be enough to stop me. Letting out a loud snarl of fury, I dragged myself to my feet and reached for my sword once more. The warder lifted his hands for another burst of power, but before either of us could move any further, there was a command from the door.

‘Stop!’ Ava screamed. She was standing framed by two of the pillars, the mighty view exploding behind her, and her eyes had gone completely white, just like the warder’s. Her brilliant golden hair seemed to be floating around her and for a moment she looked like some sort of goddess. She’d flung her hands out towards us and suddenly I couldn’t move – I was frozen, as though my limbs had locked. Then her eyes changed back to violet, her hands dropped to her sides, and I felt my body return to normal.

Both the warder and I stared at her.

‘Get out of here, Ambrose,’ Ava demanded, her eyes flashing angrily. I cast a hard look at the warder. He didn’t return it, too busy staring at Ava. I strode from the temple, sheathing my sword as I went, shaking with pent-up energy.

‘You won’t be able to run from what you did forever,’ his voice followed me out into the sunshine. ‘I see you.’ The words were like another of his blows; I stumbled on the path and started to run.

Pounding down the steps, I flung myself sideways into the jungle, losing my guards and winding up at the very edge of the cliff. The flying horses careened through the air and I wanted, desperately, to be atop one, soaring away from this cursed island and all its devils. I wanted to be simple, ignorant – blissfully unaware and full of hatred for these Kayan freaks like I’d been for the first twenty-five years of my life. Instead, I was trapped here with the growing knowledge that I was changing into something complicated, and that change was making the memory – the one memory that mattered – more powerful than it had ever been.

Ava

I would deny it until the day I died, but deep down, I’d never been more thrilled than when I watched Ambrose soar through the air and strike the warder with such deadliness. It was unfathomable. I’d seen warriors before, seen soldiers training and fighting, but I’d never seen anyone move the way Ambrose had just done. He was a blur – graceful and swift as any warder, which was supposed to be impossible. But so many things these days were being proved achievable, even when they shouldn’t have been – and they all seemed tied to this Pirenti man.

My momentary astonishment vanished, however, with the overwhelming sense of horror at what was unfolding before me, and before I knew it I was screaming out for them to stop, and sending each ounce of my will into forcing them apart. My eyes changed colour, and I felt every inch of my skin tingle. Just for a moment it felt like I was underwater, then I blinked the sensation away and looked at the two men before me. What I saw in Ambrose’s eyes nearly undid me, because I didn’t understand it, nor the way it ground into my bones. But then he was gone from the temple, and I stood alone with the warder.

‘I’m sorry,’ I told him, my voice dry. ‘I had no idea he would …’

‘I told you – he’s weak.’

What I’d just seen seemed anything but weak to me, but I kept my mouth shut.

‘You, on the other hand, are the opposite.’ When I looked into the warder’s milky eyes, I felt them stare inside me – to everything I was and could be, everything I’d seen and done, every single thing that made me who I was. Just as all of his kind, he was judging my energy as a whole. ‘What you just did,’ he said to me, ‘was the beginnings of high level soul magic.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘You’re a warder, Ava. Or you could have been if you’d been trained properly.’

I stared at him. ‘No I’m not. I’m no one. My parents were fishermen. I couldn’t possibly …’

He shrugged. ‘You must have the blood in your ancestry. If you’d been trained as an infant, you could have been very powerful, but now …’

‘Now it’s too late?’ I murmured. ‘Why?’

‘Because you only have half a soul,’ he told me calmly as if it was obvious, and I closed my mouth with a snap.

‘The path you have chosen is a worthy ending for a woman as strong as you.’

My eyes dropped to the ground and I felt them prickle as the next words left my lips. ‘Do you know … do you know why I’m still alive? Why I didn’t die?’

I looked up to see an expression of confusion pass his face. ‘No. I cannot see. It’s meant to be impossible. I feel the power of your bond – all bonds – and it is inescapable. You should be dead, Ava. You’re unnatural.’ He was emotionless as he said it, as he always was and would be.

‘Hold still,’ he ordered me, and then, with a motion of his hand, he sent a sensation through me that was so strange it stole the breath from my lungs. Every inch of my skin tingled with a kind of pleasure pain, and suddenly all my injuries – every single one – was gone. The absence of pain was an abrupt shock to my body, such disbelief, wonder and bone-deep relief that I almost sagged to the ground. Instead of exhaustion, I now felt completely rejuvenated, and I realised just how much pain I’d been ignoring over the last few days.

‘That energy won’t last long – you remain a half-walker,’ he warned. ‘But your injuries are healed.’

‘Thank you,’ I managed to utter.

‘You are welcome.’

‘Why don’t you heal the others? Their faces.’

‘They wear the marks of their torture to remind them of their strength. Go now.’

I turned to leave, pausing only to tell him, ‘You’re wrong about Ambrose. He’s not weak. He’s just young and frightened, but he’ll prove himself.’

‘Don’t trust him, Ava,’ the warder warned. ‘He is a murderer to his very core, and he will fail you. Ask him to tell you the truth. Ask him and you will see.’

I followed Ambrose’s heavy, destructive footsteps where they passed through the jungle and emerged on the edge of the mountain cliff. His back was to me, and I saw him now with fresh eyes. The broadness of his shoulders and the ridges of muscle down his back and arms made a different kind of sense now that I knew what he could do with them. He was shivering with adrenalin – ready to burst, ready to fight.

Ambrose had killed two warders with those big hands of his, which was the worst kind of crime anyone could commit. Yet now, I thought, horrifying myself with the realisation, I wanted those hands to touch me.

‘You can’t do that,’ I said.

He didn’t turn. He didn’t move a muscle, making me realise he’d known I was watching him all along.

‘You can’t just attack people.’

‘I tried not to,’ he murmured, his voice flat. ‘I can’t help it. Hating those things is wired in my blood – it’s instinctive.’

‘And wrong.’

‘Do you know how many of my people I’ve watched them kill?’ He turned to face me, eyes flashing dangerously. All the pent-up energy of his attack was still simmering below the surface, and I knew he was spoiling for a fight. The violence in him was like a living, thriving thing. What was worse was that I was responding to it in a primal, instinctive way. My own blood started to quicken, and I felt my eyes darken.

‘Do you know how many of mine I’ve watched them save?’ I countered.

A snarl erupted from his throat and before I knew it he’d advanced on me and forced me back against the rock wall. ‘Ava, you’re driving me mad!’ he growled, his breath hot on my face, his huge frame looming over me.

‘As you are me,’ I murmured truthfully. His eyes searched mine desperately, and Gods they were beautiful. I didn’t often let myself admit it, but they were the strangest, loveliest eyes I’d ever seen – simple and complicated at the same time.

‘What does black mean?’ he asked softly. There was barely any space between our bodies.

‘Guilt and shame,’ I told him, willing my voice steady.

His finger moved to trace my jaw line. ‘And?’ he prompted, knowing.

‘And …’ I swallowed, closing my eyes for a moment, ‘desire.’

He breathed out, sinking down to press himself along the length of me. My heart was beating so fast I thought it might give out. Ambrose tilted his head and pressed his lips, feather soft, against my neck. I shivered. Alarm bells screamed in my mind, but I ignored them, wanting him as desperately as I’d ever wanted anything. And wanting – simply wanting – was an exquisite pleasure I rarely experienced anymore. I started to ache, ache to have him touch me.

His hand ran over my shoulder, then lightly, lightly brushed my breast, coming to stop on my waist. He drew me closer, kissing my neck and jaw.

‘You’re destroying me,’ he whispered into my ear. I closed my eyes, and my own hands went hesitantly to his hair. It was short and spiky, and the feel of it under my fingertips was thrilling. I’d wanted to run my hands over his hair a million times. I took his jaw and moved his face so that I could look straight into his eyes.

I’d only ever kissed one man in my life, and I’d never wanted to kiss another. Not once, until now. Until this moment, wanting Ambrose’s lips on my own. I didn’t know how to ignore him anymore, ignore what I wanted from him. It had snuck up on me, and I didn’t know where it had come from, or why it was here – but it was clear. Just as my body had allowed me to experience taste again, it now seemed convinced that it was time I experienced desire. He saw it, saw my eyes go to his mouth, so he leant down and he did exactly what I wanted. The kiss was slow and startling – my mouth opened under his and the kiss grew deeper, more intense. His tongue brushed mine, one of his hands was in my hair, the other pressing the small of my back into his body. A sigh left me and it made him groan with desire. He tasted delicious; I could feel every nerve ending in my tongue as it explored him.

When he pulled away my lips tingled and felt his absence too keenly. ‘Ambrose …’ I whispered.

He brushed my hair behind my ear, and then he asked, changing the world, ‘What does gold mean?’

‘What?’

‘What does it mean when your eyes go gold?’

I stared at him, feeling my whole body freeze in shock. All the desire fled me, leaving me sick. He dropped his hands to his sides. ‘Ava, what?’

And that’s when I saw the gold in his eyes too – just a flicker of it, a glow passing through the pale blue gaze. Impossible. I brushed past him and ran as fast as I could, not knowing if I’d ever be able to stop.

Chapter 12

Roselyn

I found Thorne in our washroom, scrubbing furiously at his hands. There was a crazed expression in his eyes and it frightened me. I went to his side and took the scrubbing brush from his hands, and he started at my presence. After a moment his shoulders sagged and he allowed himself be led to the bathtub. He was covered from head to toe in blood, and he was shaking.

I undressed him, pulling his shirt over his head and then letting his breeches fall to the floor. I’d had the bath filled already so I moved him straight into the scalding hot water. As quickly as I could, I scrubbed all the blood from his skin, lathering him up with soap and working until his skin was pink and clean.

‘There,’ I murmured, resting my hands briefly on his shoulders. He usually liked to be alone while he bathed, so I stood to leave, but he took hold of my hand and stopped me.

‘Rose,’ he murmured, almost panicked. ‘Stay.’

Startled, I hesitated a moment, then sat on a stool beside him.

‘Do you know why I don’t allow you up there, in that room?’ he asked. I drew in a breath, certain that I was to be punished again.

‘I’m sorry,’ I tried quickly but he shook his head.

‘Do you know why?’

‘No.’

‘It’s to protect you from what’s in there. What happens in there.’ He stared at me, and I couldn’t read what was in his eyes. ‘I’m a monster,’ he said softly, eerily. ‘And the truth is I’ve never wanted you to see me like that.’

My mouth fell open slightly. I didn’t know what to say.

‘Did you see how many people I killed tonight?’ he whispered. ‘So many – and I enjoyed it. But I don’t think … I don’t think it was right, was it?’

I felt my heart stop. He asked my opinions on lots of things, but never this. Never anything to do with this. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t think it was.’

Thorne closed his eyes and sank into the tub, resting his head against the side. ‘She wants me to be like this. She can use me when I’m like this.’

For a moment I actually thought that this had to be a dream, because it couldn’t possibly be real. Thorne, the most painfully loyal man in the world, was speaking against his ma – the very person his life revolved around, the one person he’d been born needing to please. Everything that he was, he’d become because he was so desperately afraid of disappointing his queen.

‘Did you know I was a monster?’ he asked, opening his eyes. I didn’t say anything, so he nodded slightly. ‘Of course you did.’

‘No.’

‘Don’t lie, Rose.’

‘I’m not. I barely know how. You hate the worst parts of yourself so much more than you could ever hate another human being. And that’s not monstrous at all, Thorne.’

He swallowed. ‘Did you know she was making me like this?’

I frowned, confused by the question. ‘Yes, of course. She tries to make everyone like her. It is how she rules. Cruelty and violence and fear. You are her greatest weapon, Thorne. The strongest, fiercest weapon she could ever find, and you happen to have berserker blood in you.’

He blinked, sitting up a little. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I … it is only a guess. I know nothing for sure …’

‘Tell me what you think.’

‘I think she bred with a berserker to create a weapon she would be able to manipulate.’

He stared at me, his beautiful blue eyes shadowed, the truth of it dawning on him. ‘Why have you never spoken to me of this before?’

‘I did not think it would be of interest to you.’

Thorne closed his mouth with a snap. He passed a shaking hand over his eyes. He seemed to think about what I’d said for a very long time. ‘What does it matter?’ he asked eventually, and now he was hollow. The empty anger was back in his bones. ‘It makes no difference why I am what I am. I’m hers to do with as she wills. She is the Queen, I am her weapon. I’ve always accepted it – why should anything change now?’

‘You don’t feel … cheated?’ I asked, my voice barely more than a whisper.

‘It’s not my place to feel anything,’ he answered, and I felt the bright spark of hope instantly flicker out.

At least, that’s what I thought. Until he reached out and pulled me gently, tenderly and fully clothed into the tub with him. I gasped as the water hit me, panic exploding in my chest. But his hands were moving quickly, undressing me and dropping the sopping wet clothes onto the floor, and every second that my body lay against his was a second in which I forgot to fear the water. He gathered me into the circle of his arms, and he kissed me on the lips, and I was so surprised and thrilled that I forgot to breathe and forgot to panic and forgot to be afraid. If he wanted me, it was usually at night when we were in bed, and it was without kissing. He very rarely kissed me, except to make a point of it.

But now, now he kissed me like his lungs were broken, like if he stopped he’d die, and I felt as though maybe, just for the shortest of moments as our lips touched, maybe I was finally being allowed inside him, just as he inhabited me. As though maybe he was giving me a glimpse of himself, of the Thorne that lay beneath.

It filled me up, and I knew I’d be able to live off this one moment for a very long time. Unable to help myself, I reached out and held him, running my fingers over his short hair. There was something I needed to tell him. If he could understand this one thing, I truly believed he would be okay, and it didn’t matter if he got angry and punished me for saying it. It didn’t matter if this perfect moment was ruined, because it mattered, this one thing I had to say. It mattered the most of all.

‘Thorne,’ I said, looking deep into his eyes. His hands cupped my face and he waited. ‘You deserve a life you shape for yourself.’

And as he stared back at me, I started to understand that maybe things would be okay for us, one day. He didn’t punish me, or get angry – he simply stroked my cheek with his thumb, and then kissed me again.

Thorne

My sleep was feverish that night. I tossed and turned, unable to calm down, my body wracked with a sense of desperation. I felt trapped and contained in ways I’d never known. At one point, very late, when poor Roselyn had finally managed to drift off to sleep, I sat bolt upright, my skin crawling. There in the corner of the room, wreathed in shadows, skin glowing with a sickly pallor, was a man. I felt my heart slam out of beat, sending a wave of shock through me. I knew this man – knew him very well. It was the black-haired Kayan, and his eyes glowed golden in the darkness as they looked right inside of me. I’d never known fear, until I saw his ghost in my bedchamber.

‘A prince at the top of the world has a very long way to fall,’ he told me softly. He had a kind face, a gentle face. Even as he stood there in the darkness, he didn’t seem angry with me – he seemed concerned. ‘Every time you hurt someone, Thorne, you fall a little further.’

I took a breath and shook my head. ‘I cement my power by proving my strength.’

‘You’re very foolish,’ he said sadly. ‘Listen to me, or your chance at redemption will fade.’

I closed my eyes, willing him to disappear. He didn’t. He walked a few steps closer, his shoulders square as they’d been before I’d helped kill him. I’d never seen a Kayan with such black hair.

‘Blood may be easy to wash from your skin,’ he said clearly, heavily, ‘but it stains your soul, Prince Thorne.’

And then he was gone.

Ambrose

I didn’t sleep a wink. She was under my skin. It was real, all of a sudden. She’d never wanted me back until today. She’d been so remote, so full of anger and hate, until now, until this new side of her. Could I be enough for what I’d awakened? It seemed impossible, given all of my failings. It also seemed impossible not to try.

I rose with the sun, unable to stand her closeness any longer. I climbed over my balcony and swung down onto hers. She was sitting inside the window, wrapped in the linen from her bed. I stopped, staring. Her hair was tousled and her golden skin glowed under the sun’s rays. She looked unspeakably sexy – and healthier than she had in all the time I’d known her, her body rid of all the marks of my violence.

‘Open the window,’ I told her.

Mutely, she shook her head.

‘Ava,’ I snapped, ‘stop this – we have to talk.’

‘Go away.’

‘I can’t stand it anymore,’ I told her through the glass. ‘You’ve a beating heart in your chest, and it’s strong. Don’t you understand? It’s not ruined – you’re not ruined. Do you know how I know?’

She didn’t say anything, but I could see the flecks of gold in her eyes, and wanted desperately to know what they meant. ‘I know because I can feel the rhythm of it beating in my own chest,’ I told her. I closed my eyes, running my hands over my head and groaning. ‘Gods, I don’t know how I can feel it, and it’s freaking me out, but I know I can.’

I didn’t know what to say after that. She wasn’t responding, she was just so still.

‘Open the damn window before I smash it in.’

Finally after what felt an age she unlocked the window and murmured, very simply, ‘Gold is the bond colour.’

And just like that, my life – my whole world – changed. Everything I knew changed, because I understood all at once that I had fallen in love with and become bonded to a Kayan woman. Our lives were irreversibly entwined for all the days and hours and minutes we had left. I would die when she died.

Which meant that there was no way for my brother to love me anymore. No way for me to return to the life I’d once had. It was all over now. Everything I’d ever known.

‘I don’t want this, Ambrose,’ she said bluntly. ‘I can’t have it. Bonding twice is … it’s sick – it’s an abomination. Once hurt enough, but twice … it’s a betrayal. An ending.’

‘No,’ I growled, overwhelmed and terrified. ‘It’s a beginning. You’re just too set on killing yourself to admit it.’ I paced the room. ‘I’ve always thought you were courageous, Ave, but you know what? You’re the worst kind of coward.’

‘Stop, Ambrose!’ she snapped, rising to her feet in a flurry of anger. ‘You’ve got no idea what you’re talking about! Get out of my room and leave me be!’

‘Don’t be an idiot,’ I barked. ‘You’ve made my eyes change colour and you expect me to leave you be?’

‘Do you enjoy torturing me?’ she yelled. ‘You think you love me, but you have no idea what love is.’

‘That’s bullshit,’ I snarled. ‘You walk around with this idyllic idea of the perfect relationship, where everything is happy and easy, but that isn’t real! It’s just a suit of armour that you wear and you refuse to take it off. Don’t you feel this?’ I strode towards her and took her by the arms, shaking her a little. ‘I know you do. It’s messy and yes – it hurts – but it’s real. There’s no running away from it.’

She opened her mouth to argue, but I kissed her – angrily, roughly – and I knew it would hurt her, but I didn’t care because I wanted her to hurt as much as I did. She bristled, all fire and rage, and then she spat in my face, just as she had when first we met. I stared at her and could almost have laughed if I hadn’t been so furious.

‘Go ahead,’ she hissed. ‘Hit me. I know you want to.’

My hands shook as I gripped her arms and shoved her to the bed. I climbed on top of her, pinning her down, feeling both our hearts race. The sensation of two beats in my chest was dizzying. She put her hands on my shoulders as if to hold me off, but I realised she was clutching onto me. There was only a thin sheet of linen between her naked body and me, and the realisation was like to set me on fire.

I leant towards her again, our eyes locked in a silent battle. She struggled, but I took both her wrists in one hand and held them above her head, then I placed my other hand over her neck. She was breathing quickly, her eyes wide and changing between black and gold, over and over like they couldn’t hold to one colour. I leant my lips down to her jaw, felt her trembling beneath me.

‘Feel that?’ I whispered, laying my hand over her beating heart so the rhythm of it played into my palm. ‘That’s one strong heartbeat, kid. You’re alive and you want me. And, Ava, it’s allowed – you’re allowed to want me.’

She wriggled harder, trying to get one of her knees into my groin, but I held her still, allowing a slow smile to come to my lips. ‘Admit it, Ave. Admit you want me.’

‘Never,’ she snarled. One of her hands came free and she hit me hard across the cheek. I grabbed her and held her even harder, a breath of laughter escaping my lips. We stared at each other, unable to look away, and then I saw a very faint curve to her lips. I couldn’t stand it anymore – I had to kiss her. She struggled one last time, but once my lips found hers her whole body melted into softness, and her mouth lost all its hard edges. She kissed me back, hungry and desperate, and then she rolled me onto my back, pinning me down exactly as I had just done to her.

‘Even now, you’re still fighting me,’ I grinned. She smiled carelessly, something wild and untamed in her.

‘Sweetheart,’ she murmured, her breath hot on my lips, sending shivers of desire through my whole body, ‘You just think I’m fighting, but I’ve already won.’ And then she bit my lip, drawing blood. I laughed as she began to undress me.

Ava

His hands were burning me. My skin sizzled to the touch, so hot, everything inside me was way too hot. Dizzy, I stumbled out of the bed and pressed my palms and face flat against the cool glass of the window – it was like ice against my skin, impossibly sharp. I felt him move behind me – I could feel the very way he took up a room, inhabited every inch of space. His bare chest was like fire against my back, his lips felt like they were shattering bones as they ducked to my neck. My ragged breaths made condensation on the window as he moved his big, rough hands around to trace my shoulders and breasts and stomach. And when he leant around to find my mouth with his, the taste of him, the feel of him, it was all too much, too much sensation and feeling and pleasure, and I didn’t think my body would be able to handle it.

‘Ambrose,’ I gasped desperately.

My pulse was a racing pegasis, heavy hoof-beats and fluttering wings. I could feel him trembling behind me, could feel what I was doing to him, to his body and his heartbeat – the same as he was doing to mine. His fingers slipped down until they were stroking me and moving inside me, and my head spun, heat spreading. Colours burst to life in my mind, spreading my veins and my bones. His touch was blue and red and lightning silver. It was so sharp and so smooth I felt cracked from the inside and pulled in every single direction.

‘I have to …’ he groaned, his mouth hot against my ear. ‘Ava. I have to have you –now.’

I was lifted off the floor and twisted in his arms like I was a toy, a doll, so small and light I would float out of this room and fly away if he was not anchoring me with the heat and strength of his body. His chest was beneath my lips; he tasted salty and rough and sweet, and my fingernails were digging into the skin of his shoulders. I could feel his teeth nipping at my ear and my neck and then I was being pressed against the dresser and my legs lifted and went around his hips.

With trembling fingers, I traced his lips and found his eyes. He looked feverish, dazed, utterly out of control. It caused something to lurch in my chest – something skipped and hammered and tightened.

I gasped and felt his hands clench desperately. His mouth ducked down to my breast, taking the nipple between his teeth. I jerked against him in surprise, but he was already moving down, mouth gliding over my stomach and hands holding me too tight and tongue slipping inside me. Sounds left me in ragged gasps, and my body arched against the sensation, moving to a will of its own.

‘Ambrose, I—’ It was too much. But he kept going, and the feel of it built inside me, growing hot and sharp and making every part of me ache to have him deeper. With my hands in his hair, I yanked his head up. ‘Now,’ I demanded and he kissed me on the mouth, hard and fast and I couldn’t breathe – I was liquid in his hands, I’d do anything or be anything for him. I only breathed for him, and his hands on my thighs, and I couldn’t help but moan as he pressed himself inside me, moving deep, holding me so tight, eyes searching and finding all the pieces of me I thought were lost.

I covered his mouth with mine, head spinning – his lips and his tongue and his teeth. I couldn’t get enough of him, couldn’t get enough. ‘More,’ I whispered, and he moved deeper and harder and faster and everything else was lost and I was drowning in an ocean of him but it still wasn’t enough.

‘Ava,’ he uttered, his shaking hands holding my face. I looked at him and was shocked to see that his eyes were completely, blazingly, impossibly gold. I’d never seen eyes so gold, never imagined there could be a shade this colour in the world. I felt the atmosphere change, felt everything change. This was his I love you. This was a thousand I love yous. It was his forever and it was more gold than I had ever known, more of every colour, more than I would ever know what to do with.

I held his eyes with as much strength as I could manage as I felt my body shatter into a thousand pieces, bursting and exploding and filling with light. It was life bursting back into my soul. It was life and pleasure and touch and so much need I realised I truly had been dying, I had been wasting and now I could breathe because his lungs were working twice as hard, and they were giving me air, just as his heart was beating strong enough for the both of us. It was the beginning of something I didn’t know how I would ever face, or if I’d ever be ready for. The beginning of something that marked the greatest betrayal a Kayan man or woman had ever committed.

But who in this world had ever loved the way Ambrose of Pirenti did? Who had ever loved with such fire? Such courage?

Ambrose held me very tightly, and I could feel that his heart wasn’t slowing, just as mine wasn’t either. Searching my face with eyes blue once more, he said, in a voice broken under a great weight and shocked by what had passed between us, ‘You’re going to destroy me, Ava of Orion.’

My hands found his face and I whispered, ‘I’m here. I’m right here, and I’m staying.’

Closing his eyes, he rested his forehead against mine and breathed me in, and he held me while he whispered things in my ear, secret and nonsensical things, savage and perfect and frightened things, and all the while I did – I stayed with him, I stayed and stayed and stayed, but deep inside me was a dark place that didn’t know how long I would ever be able to stay.

We spent the night with words and touches. He said words like here? And like this? And other times he said no, let me show you, or this way, sweetheart, or tell me when, so that I would always be talking and telling him how I felt, and so that I would never disappear into guilt, as he somehow instinctively knew I might.

Slowly, under his touches, I felt my half-walker body find its way to whole. I gasped and trembled in a way I never had before, not even with Avery, and my ghost heart found a way to start beating again.

He was everything I’d thought he could never be – sweet and tender. And when he whispered, I adore you, I gave him all of myself, just for the night.

Ambrose

As the sun sank again and the moon rose into the sky, she lay in my arms, her fingers gently tracing the Marks over my heart. Her eyes were purple as she stared at them, and she was biting her lip. I looked down at her fingers on my tattoos.

‘Regret is a dangerous thing,’ I murmured.

She met my eyes, moved her fingers to touch my lips, and then traced them along the line of my scar. ‘Ambrose,’ she murmured.

‘Mm?’

‘Would you still … desire me if I wanted to be a boy again?’

I thought of the last hours from within the stunned, dreamlike haze I’d been in all night. It didn’t make sense, what she’d done to me. It was too big, too impossible, for a man who’d been contained in a very small box for his entire life. But the vulnerability in that question, in her face and voice and eyes, made me think of the night in the jungle when I’d held her hand as she wept. ‘You know,’ I said softly, ‘I kind of miss Avery. Tell him he can join me again whenever he feels like it.’

The purple of her eyes paled into a beautiful, clear lilac as she smiled. ‘You said before that I wear armour, and that I’m never going to take it off. But, Ambrose, if you asked, I’d take it off for you.’

I breathed out, feeling too many things at once. She was seriously starting to undo me. ‘I know,’ I said, ‘but, Ava, girl, what you need to understand about me is that I’d never ask.’

She nodded, smiling that same smile that had first made me fall in love with her. ‘I do. I think that’s why my eyes turn gold when I look at you.’

Later, much later, I found my voice again. ‘I told you, Ave. I told you that you could be sweet.’

A day and a night we stayed in bed together. We barely slept, instead spending every waking hour talking or making love. When she finally drifted off, I spent hours staring at the ceiling and trying to work out what I was going to do. We’d changed things, the two of us. And now we seemed to have backed ourselves into a corner with no way out except by breaking something. I had choices to make. Big ones.

In the early hours of the next morning Ava stirred slightly. ‘Avery?’ she murmured drowsily, reaching for me in the darkness. It made my heart clench with a simple pain.

‘No,’ I murmured heavily. ‘It’s Ambrose.’

She blinked, and I saw the grief explode, a tidal wave of it. She took a shuddering breath and then burst into violent tears.

‘It’s okay,’ I tried quickly, reaching for her, but she shivered and shook her head, overcome with the kind of grief that killed you. ‘What have I done?’ she sobbed, over and over again.

I didn’t know what to say, what to do. All the pieces of her that I’d thought were rebuilding had shattered apart once more and spread to the ends of the world. She was devastated, and I’d been so arrogant to think I could save her. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t keep her here with me – I wasn’t enough for that.

I wrapped my arms around her and squeezed as tightly as I could while she unravelled, wracked by violent, painful sobs and whispering his name like a mantra that destroyed me.

Chapter 13

Ava

My first thought, upon feeling his body next to mine, was that Avery’s death had all been a horrible dream, and that he’d been next to me all along. The devastation of realising that this was not so was intense. What came after, however, shocked me even more – it was a kind of overwhelming relief. Those were Ambrose’s arms wrapped around me. It was his breathing I could feel against my body, his heartbeat I could make out, pounding in my ears, and he was every bit a part of me as Avery had been. I rolled over to look at his face – as calm and vulnerable in sleep as it never was when awake. He looked very young. His face was somehow so unfamiliar and yet I had every one of his features committed to heart – the knowledge of which was like a battleaxe smashing through my chest. It seemed impossible that my body could hold all of these feelings without collapsing from the weight of them. This was not the experience of someone who was dying. These were not the feelings of a ghost.

I slowly untangled myself from his large, warm body and the hands that held me. He made a noise and reached for me, then fell back asleep when his hands found my pillow. I stood next to the bed, staring at him. I wanted to climb back in, to wake him and kiss him and have him hold me like he’d done all night and all the day before. Instead, I focused only on the living, breathing guilt in my stomach – on the word in my mind and heart that wouldn’t stop repeating: Run. Run, run, run.

I quickly bound up my hair and pulled on the stupid linen dress I felt stupid in. Casting a last look at Ambrose, I snuck out of the room and pressed myself hard and fast down a path I hadn’t explored before. My quick, bare feet pounded over the grass as I drew deeper into the jungle. I didn’t know where I was going, but I knew I needed sun and air and movement. It was very early in the morning and I didn’t want to think about the lunacy of the night before. I couldn’t. I just wanted to run.

After about twenty minutes I came to an opening in the canopy of trees and emerged to find myself in a grassy clearing, panting hard. Dizzy, I sank to my knees and almost burst into tears. What was I doing?

With clear sky above and a stretch of empty grass, I longed for Migliori, but knew he was too far away to feel me through the bond, so I sank onto my back and moved my hands through the grass, feeling the sensations against my skin and finding pictures in the early morning clouds. The sun had not yet risen completely, so it was still chilly; I felt hyper aware of the air against my skin.

I must have drifted to sleep, because some time later, with the sun much higher in the sky, I opened my eyes to hear a deep voice. ‘Hello, pretty boy.’

He was standing above me, blotting out the sky. He was blotting out everything, as always.

I sat up, blinking blearily.

‘You ran,’ he muttered. He sprawled onto the ground next to me and we stared up at the clouds.

‘I don’t run.’

He snorted. ‘Right.’

I flushed and dropped my eyes to the ground. ‘I didn’t go far.’ But I could feel his gaze on me, and I knew he understood exactly what I hadn’t said. I didn’t go far because I’m trapped on this island and I don’t know where else to go.

Give me wings. Please, just two of them.

‘How do you feel?’ he grunted.

‘Fine. You?’

‘Fine.’ There was silence for a moment, until he sat up and stared down at me. ‘What’s going on?’

I didn’t reply, but I could feel my answer building.

‘Tell me the truth – do you regret what happened?’ he asked.

I couldn’t get any words out.

He sighed angrily. ‘Answer me, Ava.’

The guilt that had been flooding my veins since I’d woken made the response easy. ‘Yes, all right?’ I told him softly. ‘Yes.’

I’d never seen him so hurt – so vulnerable. It was strange on such strong, angular features. I took a deep breath and stood up. He stood too, and it felt oddly formal, facing each other like this. ‘You don’t understand,’ I told him as clearly as I could. ‘It will never lessen, how I feel for him. It will never fade. I’ll never grow tired of him.’

‘I know that.’

I met his eyes. ‘No, you don’t. You will always come second. You will never be my choice. If he walked through those trees right now, I would give you up.’

I watched him close his eyes. ‘How cruel you are, my love.’

I nodded. I was cruel. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to push him so hard that he wouldn’t follow me, he’d never follow me anywhere again, because I couldn’t have his eyes on me or his skin against mine and still do what I had to do. I couldn’t have Ambrose, and still avenge Avery. There wasn’t enough space in my heart for both.

Ambrose walked to me, six foot six of muscle. He encircled my hips and lifted me to the grass beneath him, then took hold of my ankles, and his hands moved up my legs. He lifted the dress, pulling it up over my hips, over my shoulders and my head. He pressed his lips against my collarbone, my breasts, my stomach, along the whole length of me. He kissed my skin, touched my body. He cried; I felt the tears on my legs. He made love to me, right there on the grass.

Afterwards, he got up, walked to the other side of the clearing and sat down. I watched him, embarrassed and confused as I pulled my clothes back on. I’d hurt him; I kept hurting him. I didn’t know how to stop except by getting away from here.

Biting my lip, I approached. ‘You knew all along, Ambrose. You knew it would be this way.’

‘What?’ he snapped. ‘That I’d always come second to a dead man?’

I nodded mutely.

‘You tell me I’m insensitive,’ Ambrose said, ‘but you’re a million times worse.’

I blinked, staring at him. ‘Of course I am. I’ve got half a soul.’

He shook his head. ‘And what a glorious excuse that one is. I’d give anything to see what you were like before he ruined you.’

I turned away quickly, and after a moment heard him sigh. The sun peeked its way through the trees, turning the tips of every blade of grass golden.

‘I have a question,’ I said after a while, needing to change the subject. ‘You and your brother – are you close?’

His eyes were hooded. ‘We used to be. Very close.’

‘And now?’

‘I don’t know. Since when do you care about my life?’

I swallowed.

Ambrose didn’t reply for a long time, then finally muttered. ‘We’re different, that’s all. I can’t fault him for being loyal. It’s just … not really my thing – to not question things. And he doesn’t like that about me.’

I thought about Thorne, the giant man I’d seen only very briefly in the dungeon. I’d always thought Ambrose was an intimidating sort of man, but compared to his older brother, he might as well have been a fluffy kitten. Thorne had tattoos all over his arms, and I wondered, now, if any of them were Marks.

‘What of his wife?’

‘What about her?’ Ambrose asked.

‘He threw her in the dungeon next to me, after he hit her.’

‘What’s your question?’

‘Well, I guess I just want to know if she’s … okay.’

Ambrose hesitated a moment, then sighed and slumped back onto the ground. For a while he just lay there, eyes closed, and I had no idea if he meant to answer me or not. Then I realised that he was thinking about her – about the girl with the red hair and the bottomless eyes.

‘Roselyn is … strange,’ he murmured finally.

I remembered the way she’d counted non-stop instead of sleeping. I remembered the way all the life behind her eyes seemed to vanish when her body no longer interested her.

‘People think she’s stupid, but she’s not. Thorne’s the only one who understands that.’

‘And you.’

He opened his eyes. ‘And me.’

‘She’s very beautiful.’

‘Mm. It’s why he married her in the first place, but sometimes it just reveal show unbearably detached she is.’

Something about Roselyn had touched me, something about the soft fragility of her. ‘How do you mean?’

Ambrose shrugged. ‘She forgets simple things. She can’t focus her attention for more than a second. Sometimes you look at her and you catch your breath, because you know she’s somewhere else entirely and that it’s somewhere very far away. She disappears to that place all the time.’

‘Counting.’

‘And wishing.’

‘For a way out?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t think she knows there is one.’

‘Is there?’

Slowly he shook his head. ‘Not with a husband like hers. He’d hunt the world for her, and wouldn’t give up until he died.’ Ambrose seemed to shiver a little as he thought about his brother. ‘He has berserker blood in him.’

The words made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. ‘What does that mean?’

‘Real berserkers are like animals. They don’t have much intelligence, but their size and strength and battle-rage is unfathomable. Thorne has aspects of their fury and bloodlust, but he has a sharp mind too. It makes him a very dangerous man – one who cannot give up on the hunt, once he has a scent in his nose. I’ve seen him do things that no man should ever see.’

I felt a sick kind of pity for the poor girl. I could imagine what Ambrose meant – the hard-edged cruelty in Thorne’s eyes had been bewildering. ‘He’s a monster,’ I muttered.

‘Don’t,’ Ambrose said suddenly, sitting up. ‘Don’t speak of my brother. I love him. He’s just from a different world to you, Ava. He understands what he’s been taught. He has so much strength – sometimes it takes my breath away – and his patience? I don’t think there’s another man in our whole country who could deal with Roselyn the way he does.’

‘By beating her and putting her in prison?’

He frowned angrily. ‘By understanding her.’

I folded my arms over my chest. ‘She deserves more than that.’

‘Maybe so,’ he murmured, ‘but it’s a start in a country where nobody else would even try. Maybe you should think about things like that before you judge us all.’

‘And maybe if you didn’t forgive so many things so easily, we would live in a better world.’

We stared at each other. I thought about the story he’d told me of the little boy who’d walked into the ice caps alone, and I thought about how Ambrose had explained the cruelty in their family, the way their mother had abused Thorne his whole life, turning him into a beast who would kill for her.

I asked, ‘What was the warder talking about, Ambrose? A secret in your past that you’ve been running from.’

I watched him stiffen.

‘Please tell me.’

‘That is not something I will ever speak to you of. Don’t ask me again.’

I blinked, falling silent at the tone in his voice. We watched the clouds for a long time. I wondered if it would ever get easier between us, or if it would always be this strained. There was such a vast gap between us – an ocean of difference.

Eventually I climbed to my feet. I wanted to cast this shadow from us, because within it everything hurt. ‘Get up. I want you to teach me how to fight like a man.’

He looked up at me, seeming to deliberate on which mood he was going to indulge in. I could see it going either way. ‘No point.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because you’re not a man.’

I frowned, kicking the grass moodily.

‘But I’ll teach you how to fight like a woman,’ he said.

‘I already know how to fight like a woman.’

‘Not really, or else you would have done more than slap me.’

He threw a punch at me and I only just managed to dodge out of the way. ‘Ambrose!’

He grinned and threw another. This time I blocked it and threw my own. Ambrose grabbed my arm and pulled me into a headlock, laughing. Enraged, I jabbed out with my elbow and caught him in the groin. He howled in pain and sank onto the grass.

‘Is that fighting like a woman?’ I asked, smiling smugly.

‘That’s fighting like a rat!’

‘Don’t be such a baby.’

He straightened and walked towards me, reaching out.

I pulled away, heart racing. ‘Don’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘I can’t … I don’t want you to touch me.’

‘Just now? Or ever?’

‘You don’t understand—’ I tried to explain, but he interrupted me, bursting with anger.

‘That’s bullshit! If you say that to me one more time I’m going to lose it! I do understand the bond! You know I do!’

We stared at each other. Every moment I spent with him I felt like I lost a small piece of my control.

‘Come on,’ I muttered. ‘I want you to help me with something.’

When we returned to my room, I sat in front of the mirror and handed him a pair of scissors.

‘What are these for?’

‘I want you to cut off my hair.’

Ambrose stared at me in the reflection. ‘Why?’

‘I don’t want to be Ava anymore.’

Again he asked, ‘Why?’

‘It hurts too much.’

‘That’s lazy,’ he said softly. ‘You can’t just shed your hair and expect to be someone else. The world has never been so simple.’

I stood up angrily. ‘You just want me to be attractive!’

‘Oh for Gods’ sakes,’ he growled. ‘I couldn’t care less about your bloody hair! I’ll shave the whole lot off if you truly want me to, but you don’t – you just want to run.’

‘I have to hold onto Avery for as long as I can.’

He stared at me, time slowing, stretching. ‘But what about me?’ he murmured. ‘I’m the one who’s still alive. I didn’t leave you and I never would. Can’t you see that?’

‘Ambrose—’

He met my eyes. ‘When you first looked at Avery, you bonded with him. It was easy and it was simple, and it was beyond any choice you could make. But when you and I first met, we hated each other. It was slow and it was impossible, and it happened against both our wills, despite everything that was put in its way. It was like we clawed at love with every ounce of our strength, like we held our breaths for it until no air existed in the world.’ He paused, and his eyes reached inside me. ‘So tell me – which do you think more real? Something you didn’t even choose, or something you had to fight for?’

I felt unsteady on my feet. Too many dangerous things unfreezing inside me.

‘Don’t choose a memory over a flesh-and-blood man who loves you to oblivion and back,’ Ambrose implored finally, sounding tired. ‘Don’t cut your hair. You’ll never heal if you never face yourself.’

I took a shuddering breath to argue, then found that I couldn’t. I didn’t want to hurt him anymore; I never wanted him to be hurt again. But I knew exactly what I had to do.

Ambrose

That night we went down to the seashore. As the sun sank we escaped our guards and hid far from any other people, staring into the water until she worked up her courage. Slowly, as if in a dream, she pulled her engagement ring from her finger, her hands shaking. Then she sank to her knees, clasping it tightly in both hands.

She whispered something so softly I could barely hear it – I will love you for all the days of this world. Then she kissed the ring, and threw it with her strong arm right out into the water.

I said to her, ‘Let’s go back and finish what you started.’

‘You’ll help me?’ she asked, stunned.

The answer was easy. Now that eyes changed to gold and two hearts beat in my chest. ‘Of course.’

It was funny, then, what came into my mind. On the eve of betraying my country, and pledging to help to kill my mother; on the cusp of finding this girl next to me and a new path to my life; in that moment there was only one thing in my mind and my heart.

My brother.

Chapter 14

Thorne

‘There’s going to be a change of plans,’ I told my mother. ‘I don’t want Roselyn killed.’

‘Why?’ she asked me, her eyes narrowing.

‘It’s unnecessary,’ I shrugged. ‘I overreacted.’

The Queen stared at me a long moment, and then slowly shook her head. ‘No.’

I blinked. ‘What do you mean “no”?’

Her eyebrows arched. ‘You don’t understand? It seems I’ve overestimated you – somehow.’

‘Ma,’ I snapped.

‘You made the choice. I made arrangements. It cannot be undone – it will not be.’

‘Execute someone else!’ I tried, something strange in my voice. It might have been desperation – I was unsure because I’d never felt it before.

‘We’ve already killed all the prisoners. The dungeon is empty.’

‘Then I’ll go out and find someone.’

She smiled, her teeth glittering in the dim light of her room. ‘What a savage you are, my boy,’ she murmured, and I felt myself go still. ‘I’m proud.’

I felt a deep discomfort steal over me. I was so tired – the Kayan man had been joining me in my bedchamber every night.

‘Did you … did you mate with a berserker to create me?’ I asked.

Ma blinked. ‘Of course.’

So Rose had got it right after all. To be honest, I hadn’t doubted her for a second. She had a sixth sense for detecting lies. I, on the other hand, never had a clue if someone was lying to me. I had trouble reading beyond what they said.

‘That’s sick,’ I said softly, holding Eloise’s eyes.

A flash of anger passed through her. ‘Why?’

I didn’t know why.

‘Is it any sicker than what the filthy Kayans do to each other?’

‘I don’t wish to talk about the Kayans right now—’

‘They murder the people they love,’ she hissed, rising to her feet. ‘The bond? It’s vile. They send people to war against us and get twice as many killed.’

She was right. I hated it. Hated the idea of the bond so much that when I thought about it I sometimes found it hard to breathe. The simple understanding I had of it was this: if I was bonded to Roselyn as all of the Kayans were to their partners, her life would always be in as much danger as mine, and such a thing was unforgivably cruel. Every time I was challenged for my throne, every time I went into battle, every time my life was threatened, so too would hers be. The thought made me sick. The warder who had made the binding between couples back when the world was young was a man who deserved to be scoured from the earth’s memory, and when I ruled over Kaya, I would find some way to erase the bond and its destruction.

A sound returned me to my mother’s study and I realised she had successfully distracted me from the reason I was here.

‘Are you going to kill Roselyn or not?’ I forced out.

‘I already told you,’ she snapped. ‘It’s done. You cannot unmake a decision like that. You must bear the weight of it.’

I closed my eyes. Felt bile rise in my throat, then forced it back down, along with the emotions that were rising with it. As I turned and swept from the room there was a sense of chaos inside me. The chaos built, and I started to feel the signs of an attack coming upon me. Get a hold of yourself. I had to find Rose – she’d calm me down.

She wasn’t in our room. A terrified servant told me she’d gone down to the common area.

‘Why in the name of the Sword has she gone there?’ I snarled.

The girl shook her head, trembling from head to toe. ‘I don’t know, Your Majesty. She was wandering this way and that – one of her phantom moods had taken hold of her.’

I swore in fury, then turned and ran down the stairs. Rose knew she couldn’t go to the common area! Eight sets of steps took me down into the front hall. This was where the soldiers ate their meals and spent their evenings gambling and wrestling and enjoying themselves. It was a hive of activity – of loud, snarling, violent fun.

I stopped at the base of the stairs and looked around. A few of the men closest to me saluted, but I ignored them, scanning the hall.

‘She’s over there, sire,’ a man told me, gesturing to the far side.

Storming through the crowds of soldiers and scattering them out of the way, I came to a small commotion in the corner. Six men surrounded Roselyn, and they were pushing her between them, taking it in turns to grope her. Well – fair enough. She’d wandered mindlessly into the lion’s den, knowing full well that it wasn’t safe for her to be here. What did she expect?

Then all rational thought vanished as a wave of tremendous anger pummelled into me. A roar left my mouth, and everyone in the hall turned in alarm. I didn’t wait for them to stop – I charged into the circle. The man who was clutching Rose by the hair blinked in surprise, but had no time for anything else. He was a big man – one of the captains of my army. That didn’t matter. I lifted him into the air as if he weighed nothing and brought him down onto the ground, smashing his spine into pieces on the floor. He didn’t make a sound, but the others did.

‘Forgive us, sire!’ one of the men bellowed hastily, but I turned to him and dealt him a mighty blow to the head, crushing his skull. My breathing was coming in ragged gasps. I’d never be able to stop. The soldiers were scattering out of the way, but I wasn’t done. I grabbed one by the shoulders and flung him into the wall. He’d wake up with some broken bones, but at least he’d wake up.

‘How dare you?’ I raged, fury engulfing me. I’d cornered three of them against the wall, and they winced at the danger in my voice. I could barely see anything except red.

‘We’re sorry!’ one of them said.

‘You’re sorry?’ I snarled. ‘Sorry? What care have I for your regrets? No one touches my wife but me. Do. You. Understand?’

They nodded quickly. Every man in the hall had crowded in to see what was happening, and some of them watched with grins on their faces. Others looked wary of me – they were the smart ones. At this point, I would gladly have slaughtered the whole damn lot of them. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Roselyn huddled on the floor, eyes tightly closed, her lips moving soundlessly.

‘If it happens again,’ I said softly, ‘I’ll kill you all, and I’ll enjoy it. Understood?’ They nodded once more. I clenched my jaw, trying to get a hold of myself. The bars of the cage were perilously close to giving way. I grabbed Roselyn’s arm and pulled her to her feet, then marched her out of there, calling over my shoulder, ‘Bury the dead yourselves – I don’t want the servants doing it.’

I walked her straight to the dungeons. ‘You know why you’re here.’ I flung her into the cold stone room. There was no one else in here anymore. I’d killed them all. She was alone, and as I stood there her big brown eyes gazed up at me, seeing right into me, understanding me better than I understood myself.

Breathing out, I rested my head on the bars. ‘Why’d you go down there, Rose?’

She didn’t say anything.

‘You can’t do that – just wander anywhere you like. It’s dangerous. They could have hurt you very badly.’

‘Why?’ she asked.

‘Because you’re a woman and you’re beautiful, and they lust after you. If you walk right into their hands, then you can expect them to do nothing less.’

She thought about that for a moment, eyes resting on the ground. Then she smiled, a dry quirk of the lips that held no humour at all. ‘I thought humans were different to animals.’

I thought of my mother, mating with a man in order to breed a loveless weapon. I thought of the way my men had treated my wife. I thought of the beast inside me.

‘So did I,’ I told Rose, ‘but I think we were both wrong.’

I lay alone in my bed, hating every second of it – it felt wrong without her. And that’s when it hit me – this was what it would be like every night when she was dead. Roselyn wasn’t the stupid one – I was. I felt drenched in my own fear and knew my response today hadn’t been about anger. It had been about the terror of seeing her harmed.

I’d lived my life for one thing – my country. My queen and my people and my land were what mattered. I’d always been exactly what they needed me to be. So what happened when I was no longer that man? Women were supposed to mean nothing. And yet one had made me hard, another had made me soft. They controlled me, the two of them, and a part of me hated them for it. The other part knew it was useless to fight. I was changed, somehow, and I was no longer good enough to belong here.

‘You’re almost there,’ the Kayan man said, appearing next to my bed again. I closed my eyes, trying to ignore him. In the end, though, I was too curious.

‘Almost where?’

‘You almost have it. You’re right, you don’t belong here – but it’s not because you aren’t good enough. She’s the one who isn’t good enough.’

‘Who?’

He gave me a steady look.

‘My ma,’ I breathed out. ‘There’s nothing I can do about that.’

‘Of course there is. You’re one of the deadliest men in the world. You just use your deadliness for all the wrong things.’

‘Why are you here?’ I whispered tiredly. ‘Haunting me?’

‘You know the answer to that.’

‘Because I killed you?’

He tilted his head slightly. ‘Thorne,’ he murmured slowly, ‘you know why I’m here.’

‘I’m … changing, aren’t I?’ I whispered. ‘Beginning to understand.’

He nodded, peering at me in the darkness. ‘Understand what?’ he prompted.

‘How much of a monster I am.’ Ignorance was definitely a lot easier. Knowing how depraved you were did nothing but tear you apart even more.

‘But it also gives you a chance,’ the man said, responding to my unspoken thought.

‘How do I make you go away?’ I asked him through clenched teeth.

He shrugged. ‘You know the answer to that too.’

A word he’d said to me on the first night he’d visited me rose to the surface of my mind. It was a frightening word. One that seemed impossible, indefinable, unreachable. ‘Redemption,’ I murmured.

My ghost nodded. ‘Redemption.’

Roselyn

Knowledge was frightening. Realisations were frightening. Change was the most frightening thing of all. As I lay in my cell, fingering the cracks in the floor, imagining how my very own pegasis would look to distract myself from the reality of what had just happened, thoughts kept popping into my head, and I didn’t much like them at all. What they all led to was one simple fact – I was trapped here, in a place where I didn’t belong.

I wished I were still blissfully unaware, as I had been my whole life. It didn’t make sense to know such a thing, when there was naught I could do about it. It only tore me apart, very slowly. Because with it came another thought – a question, really – if I did have a way to escape, would I take it, knowing I’d never see Thorne again?

Sometime late into the night, I heard footsteps descend the steps into the dungeon. Whoever it was came to stand outside my cell, but it was so dark I couldn’t make them out. Then a scent reached me – the stench of blood – and I knew who it had to be. Terror struck me, in the way it only did when I was in the presence of this woman.

‘Roselyn,’ the Queen said, her voice high and cold.

I couldn’t speak. I should have addressed her, but I couldn’t. A shadow moved behind her, and I realised she wasn’t alone – of course she wasn’t alone. Vincent was with her, as always, and he smiled at me from behind her, his eyes twinkling with a sick kind of desire. There was only one person more frightening than the Queen, and that was her personal bodyguard.

‘Don’t fear, my darling,’ she murmured, and each word was like a knife slicing inside me, soft and slithering and deadly. ‘This will all be over soon enough.’ She paused. ‘Tell me, do you love my son?’

My voice broke. ‘Of course.’

‘Which one?’

I blinked, stuttering, ‘Thorne.’

‘Then why are you so cruel to him?’

‘I … I don’t …’

‘You humiliate him,’ she said simply. ‘You’re an embarrassment to our name. A girl like you – helpless – sitting by the side of the most powerful man in the country?’

There seemed to be something in my throat that was making it hard to breathe, hard to speak. But her words – those last words – confused me. ‘I thought … I thought we were supposed to be helpless at the side of our husbands. I thought that’s how you wanted us.’

She moved so that a shaft of moonlight glanced across her face and I could make out her expression. ‘Perhaps I’ve misjudged you. Maybe this stupidity of yours is all an act, and really you’re a snake, slithering its way into my family, preparing to strike.’

My mouth opened, but it took a moment for words to come. ‘You must not have believed me when I said I loved your son.’

‘I must not have,’ she agreed calmly. Then she shrugged, smiling slightly. ‘Well, either you’re stupid, or you’re acting like you are, but whatever the case, it matters not in the end. It will all be over soon enough. The solstice is in five days’ time.’ And then she left, whistling softly as she climbed the stairs and disappeared. Vincent stayed a moment longer, and the cold touch of fear was so severe that I almost lost my mind. Water gushed in my ears, waves crashed and threatened to pull me under. He grinned, his teeth sharp and deadly. And then he slipped soundlessly from the dungeon and I was dry again.

I sagged in relief, shivering in the cold. Using what little strength I possessed, I pushed the memories out, finding inspiration in my husband’s iron cage and making the bars in my own mind strong enough to forget.

Some time later I heard more footsteps and braced myself for the Queen’s return – perhaps she wished to torture me further. Instead I was met with the heavy boots of my husband. Thorne opened the bars and slipped into the cell. He was holding a huge pelt of animal fur, and he draped it over us both as he sank to the ground next to me. I didn’t understand, but the simple act, and the closeness of him were suddenly too much. Tears spilled out of my eyes and I covered my face with my hands, knowing he didn’t like me to cry in front of him.

He didn’t get angry, or leave. He put his arm around me and drew me into the crook of his side, one hand in my hair. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered. ‘I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how else to be.’

I looked up into his face, into his deep blue eyes. One tear spilt onto his cheek, and something possessed me to lean up and kiss it away. I tasted the salt of it on my lips. We were in a new world, a new world that lay within that single tear. He’d taken my hand and led me into it, and it was so bright that it hurt my eyes. In this new world, you told the truth – all of it. Even the truths you’d kept hidden from yourself.

‘I’ve spent my whole life wanting,’ I told him. ‘Just wanting. I want everything. I want too much. And I think, maybe … it’s leading me away from here.’

He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against mine, drawing his hand around to rest against my cheek. ‘You want everything,’ he muttered, ‘and yet I’ve given you nothing.’

I felt tears trickle all the way down over my chin and onto my neck.

‘I’ve made a mistake,’ he said, his voice deep and rough. ‘And now we have to leave.’

A sound escaped my mouth and I pulled back. ‘What?’

‘We have to leave here, Rose. I did something so foolish, and the only way to escape it is to leave this fortress.’

‘Where will we go?’ I whispered, barely daring to believe. This was something I’d never let myself hope for – to escape with Thorne.

‘South along the shore,’ he said, his eyes moving out of focus as he thought about his plan. ‘We’ll follow the oyster farms and then cut inland until we get to the other side of Pirenti. We can find somewhere to live far enough away that she won’t be able to reach us.’

I blinked very quickly. ‘Am I dreaming, Thorne?’

Suddenly he smiled, the rare smile. He was so handsome.

A new world. Where you told the truth. Where you were brave. ‘I love you,’ I told my husband for the very first time.

Slowly he nodded. ‘I know. I know that now, finally.’

Ava

After I threw my ring into the ocean, and a piece of myself with it, we went to bed. Ambrose believed we would be leaving the next morning, but I had a different plan. I didn’t sleep a single second that night. I rose while the moon was high and sat at the dressing table. Casting a look over my shoulder at his sleeping form, I felt my eyes change to gold, and knew I was doing the right thing.

I reached for a piece of parchment and a quill, and began to write.

You and I were not forged to love one another. That was a mistake.

Please don’t follow me.

A.

Ambrose

I awoke to find Ava gone and only that note in her place. I had no words and no thoughts and nothing left inside me. She hadn’t stayed, after all.

Ava

The guards saw me and let me pass. They were watching for a teenage boy, and tonight I had left my hair loose. I hiked through the jungle, keeping the water at my side. They had no vessels here, but there would be ships at the prison.

By midday, that’s where I found myself. Crouched in a thick copse of bushes on top of the hill, I peered down at the mighty stone building. It was perched on the edge of a cliff, the drop from which was enormous.

A ship was docked and currently unloading two prisoners. At least a dozen Pirenti guards lined the path to the prison, mighty axes slung over their backs. I watched the pair of smaller figures led past them, spat on and kicked as they stumbled their way into the stone fortress.

If I could sneak past those guards I’d be able to stowaway on the ship. It might prove difficult staying hidden and feeding myself on the journey back – it was supposed to be several weeks before docking in Pirenti – but there was nothing left to do but try, no other way to get off this island.

Don’t choose a memory over a flesh-and-blood man who loves you to oblivion and back.

Closing my eyes, I forced his voice from my head. He had no right to speak words like those. Even now, even with my certainty, there was still a person inside me clawing to turn back, to find him, screaming her fury at being dragged away from him, when all she wanted was his skin and his voice and his eyes for however many minutes were left in the world.

Keeping low, I crept down through the long grass, eyes peeled for the guards and their patrol routes. Most had gone inside now, but a few milled about, restocking the ship and readying it for the journey home.

I waited for a gap in their work, then slipped silently into the water. It was icy cold, and salt infused every inch of my body. The waves were rough, and they buffeted me back against the hard shore several times before I got enough purchase to strike out for the ship. Fingers finding the wood, I searched around for the anchor rope I’d been aiming for. Finding it, I surfaced, keeping only my eyes and nose above the water, watching for the guards. If I’d been doing this properly, I would have waited in the hills for several days, watching the patrol routes, taking note of the guards’ patterns to make sure I had a safe path onto the ship. But I didn’t have the time – I had no idea when the ship would depart, and I couldn’t risk missing it. So my approach was rushed and careless.

I snuck onto the deck, keeping low and alert, and I ran straight into a cluster of Pirenti guards.

‘Ye’ve got tae be jokin’,’ one of the men said softly, grinning in disbelief. He had tattoos all over his face. ‘Must a been sent ’ere by the Gods ’emselves, a Kayan whore for our amusement.’

‘Where did you come from, girl?’ another asked me, his eyes dark and serious, unlike his delighted companion’s.

I straightened, readying myself. This was bad – very, very bad. I had three options. I could turn and dive back into the water and swim for my life. I could let myself be captured, as I inevitably would be. Or I could fight them, and try to kill at least one before I died.

‘Don’t do anything stupid,’ the dark-eyed man ordered me, sensing my restless aggression. ‘Answer me – where did you come from?’

I said nothing. There were four of them. They all had weapons, but none were drawn. I had nothing but a knife in my boot and a belt looped around my waist.

Face Tattoos stepped forward a few paces, still smiling. ‘Mayhap she’s a Scrap come back fer more.’

Dark Eyes shook his head, watching me closely. ‘This one’s never been here before. Her skin’s unscarred.’

I swallowed, preparing myself.

‘Take her to a cell.’

Face Tattoos advanced happily. He would not be happy for long – my promise to him. Rage came – it took me in its hands and cleared my head of everything. It moved inside my lungs and my veins and my bones and my muscles. It made me strong. He reached for me; he was slow and stupid and he underestimated me. I would only have this advantage with the first man, so I had to use it quickly. Ducking low, I slid beneath his hands, reaching for my knife and twisting in the same moment to slash up through the thick artery in his fat thigh. A bright spurt of blood flew through the air and splattered over the wood. A scream left his mouth, higher than I would have expected from someone of his size. But then again, size had absolutely no bearing on how you handled pain, nor how you faced fear.

I didn’t wait to see his reaction – the wound was so deep that he’d bleed out quickly. I kept moving through my slide, launching myself to my feet and spinning into a heavy kick that took the second guard in the side of the head. He went down, and I used his falling momentum to help me slash through his throat.

The other two were moving now, coming up behind me. I felt a blow to the head as I turned to face them, but tilted in time to take some of the weight from it. Dark Eyes was clearly in charge and in Pirenti that meant he was the strongest fighter. He had drawn his axe. It was a massive thing, so heavy I doubted I’d even be able to lift it. The other guard was still stupid enough to attack me with his meaty fists. To his credit, if one of those fists connected properly with my head, I’d be out cold, or dead, but I wouldn’t let him get near me with those things. Dodging a huge swing from the axe, I jabbed forward, going for the other guy’s stomach, the vulnerable spot between the ribs – jabbing once, twice, so fast he couldn’t manage to avoid the third stab. It got him in the guts, and I went in for two more jabs, tearing the wound right open. Unfortunately the axe was still coming at me as I finished off the third guy. It sliced through a thin piece of the flesh in my shoulder and caused me to stumble sideways. I managed to regain my balance in time to turn and see the huge wooden hilt of the axe coming straight at my head.

Chapter 15

Ambrose

With the Godsdamned note clenched in my fist, I kicked the door down. I had no idea how much of a head start she had on me, but I would find her before she reached my ma, that much I vowed. Ava didn’t know what she was going after – killing the Queen meant going through Thorne, and that was impossible.

The guards in the hall turned in alarm to see the door hit the ground, locks broken and useless. They raised their spears towards me, reeking of terror.

‘Easy,’ I told them carefully. ‘I’ve no desire to hurt you, but I must leave here.’

One of them sprinted away to inform Marla and the warder, but the other stayed put, spear tip touching my chest, trembling slightly with his hands. He was barely more than a child, his eyes shifting between yellow and blue, over and over again.

Holding those eyes, I reached up for the spear, moving very slowly. With one hand, I snapped the metal end off and dropped it to the ground. ‘Out of my way, lad,’ I ordered softly. As frightened as he was, he didn’t move, this Kayan kid. Too many ways in the world for me to be wrong – too many things I was understanding too late. I smiled at him, humbled by his courage, and then I pushed past and strode down the hall.

I knew something then, deep in my guts – this war between Pirenti and Kaya was over. It had to be. I’d die to make it so.

But first my girl. Find my girl.

The warder was waiting for me at the top of the marble steps, the sea stretching out behind him. I met his white eyes.

‘You know what’s in my heart,’ I said. ‘I have to stop her before she gets herself killed.’

‘You’ve got no faith in her.’

‘Bullshit,’ I snarled. ‘I love that girl more than anyone in this world does.’

‘That’s not what I said.’

I clenched my fists, feeling the familiar way they throbbed when violence was upon me.

‘You don’t think she can do it.’

‘No one can do it,’ I said flatly.

And then he said, ‘You could.’ A smile, an empty thing. ‘But you’re too cowardly.’

I stared at him, the words all too clear in my ears.

‘I cannot let you leave,’ the warder added.

My mind shifted into focus mode. Many years ago my brother had taught me a trick, and it had turned out to be the most important lesson I’d ever learn. A warder’s power came from the fact that they sensed things on a different level. They could reach their awareness out and behold everything that you were and would be, and thus understand the very nature of your actions. If you could shut out their awareness, however, they held no power over your mind. It had sounded impossible when Thorne first explained this, but it wasn’t. There were two Marks over my heart, and they were there because of Thorne. I was alive because of Thorne, more than twice, more times than I could count.

I moulded my mind into the sphere of emptiness that my brother had taught me. He and I had practised this so many times over the years that it was simple now. My body started to move on its own, instinctively. My head was a white space – another space. For these precious moments, it had nothing to do with how I moved – the warder would never be able to reach me with it.

He moved his hands and I knew he’d sent a command into my mind for me to freeze. I felt nothing. Marla appeared between us like an apparition, sword drawn. She was nothing – disarmed with a simple twist of her wrist. I was moving towards the warder again. More commands flew at me, but my mind was empty and impenetrable. The hours and hours of repetitive training Thorne had made me endure had taken over.

I sprinted straight towards the warder, ducking and avoiding all the power bursting from him, and then I leapt through the air, flipping to land behind him. I grabbed him by the neck and tightened my grip sharply.

‘Don’t move,’ I growled. ‘Don’t even think about moving, or I’ll snap your neck.’

The warder froze, bristling with fury and confusion.

‘All it takes to defeat a monster like you is strength of mind,’ I informed him with a cold smile. ‘Now let me go or you die, along with a great deal of the people on this mountain.’

He didn’t say anything, nor did he move. Marla was staring at us, looking very frightened. ‘Let him go,’ she tried to order, shakily.

‘If you agree to let me leave,’ I said.

‘So you can tell your Queen we’re here?’ Marla exclaimed. ‘You leave and we’re all dead.’

‘Tell her,’ I ordered the warder, tightening my hold painfully.

He turned to Marla. ‘This man will not speak of us. I can see it.’

Marla’s mouth fell open. I didn’t have time to explain. As I let go of the warder I started to sprint down the steps, hundreds and hundreds of them.

I was halfway up the beach when I realised something.

I could feel it – a tingling. A very faint caress inside my skin. My footsteps faltered and I spun around, peering along the length of the rocky cove. No one had followed me from the marble village. There was not a soul in sight.

I turned to continue, but the caress became a pull – a gentle tug that made me gasp in shock. What was it? Spinning wildly, I still couldn’t see anything, and my heart was starting to pound, unnerved by the surreal sensation. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, and I felt the tingle start to move over every inch of my skin. Whatever it was, it was drawing nearer. Approaching with a rhythm very much like the swell and fall of waves, closer and closer, up and down, in and out.

I closed my eyes, focusing on the … touch. Something was touching me – on the inside.

And then.

And then I knew. Just like that – a breath of air, a moment of deepest clarity. I opened my eyes and turned to where I knew he would be, and as I waited for him I could barely breathe with the force of love pounding through me, love with every one of his wing-beats.

Ava

I came to in a cell. Again. But this time the man standing over me was not Ambrose. This time I was naked and tied to the wall. And this time I knew what was going to happen to me.

I’d known, even years ago, that if ever I was to enter Pirenti, I would have to dress as a man, or be raped. I had made a decision based on this reality, and yet I had never once allowed myself to imagine what it would feel like to look into the eyes of a man who wanted to harm me so deeply. A man like the one who was, at this moment, preparing himself to torture me in the worst possible way.

‘We kill Kayans for nothing,’ he told me. ‘Because we like to. So can you imagine what we do to Kayans who murder three of our soldiers.’

I didn’t speak. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

He was heating a brand in a small iron oven as he spoke to me. I could feel the heat of it from where I hung. ‘You have no fear in your eyes,’ he said. ‘I will find it for you, your fear, and bring it to this room.’

I smiled. He could try.

In our first session he burnt my body, focusing most of his attention on my breasts. He liked that I was a woman, and he wanted to ruin the parts of me that made me one. The brand he used to torture me was ironic in so many ways – it was the house sigil of the Barbarian Queen, the woman who had killed my mate. The house sigil of her elder son, the slaughterman of Pirenti. The house sigil of her younger son.

A small outline of a howling wolf, burnt into my body, over and over again.

His name was Corrin. He was the prison master. He didn’t usually do any of the torturing himself, but for me he’d made an exception. All of this he told me as he burnt me. He remained expressionless throughout – always so expressionless. After a few hours he stopped to let me rest. He informed me that he’d be back after he’d eaten, and we’d resume. I told him I’d look forward to it, but really, I’d never wanted to die so much in my life. The pain was everything. It eclipsed even Avery.

The cells had no walls – they were divided only by iron bars. Through them I could see other prisoners, rows and rows of them. They were all men, and they were all staring at my naked body, tied to the wall and burnt to pieces.

It came to me slowly that some of them were jeering or whistling or shouting things at me. But there was an older man in the cell next to mine who said nothing and stared not at my body but at my eyes. My gaze found his, through the yellow of sunset, and I saw it turn purple to match mine.

I nearly started weeping, so profound was the moment of connection.

‘What’s your name, sweetheart?’ he asked me softly.

And it was such a simple question, such a beautiful one, that I decided to tell him the truth. ‘Ava. My name is Ava. I’m a woman.’

His head tilted slightly, trying to see if maybe I’d lost my mind during the last few hours. ‘I’m Saverio. You can call me Sav. I’m a man.’

My dry, cracked lips broke into a smile. ‘Yes, you are.’

‘I heard him say that you killed three guards.’

There were others listening now – most prisoners had stopped making any noise, too curious to miss hearing our conversation. The heavy slap of waves against stone drifted through the windows, all unbarred. My eyes moved to the orange light of sunset beyond those windows. ‘Can you not climb out?’ I rasped.

‘Some have tried. They’ve all dropped straight to their deaths, smashed against the rocks by the waves.’

Sav was white haired and very malnourished. There were countless scars all over his body, gouged into his flesh – proof of the years he had spent here. The wolf had bitten its mark in his cheek, too, just like all the Kayans in the marble town.

‘I know people have escaped,’ I told him. ‘I’ve met some.’

Sav looked at me sadly. ‘They didn’t escape, sweetheart. They were Scraps – put out into the wilderness by the pigs, so ruined by torture that they couldn’t possibly survive.’

I closed my eyes, feeling woozy. Every breath I took stretched the skin on my chest agonisingly. ‘They survived,’ I whispered, too softly for anyone to hear.

‘You’re strong,’ Saverio told me.

I gave a choking laugh; I could taste blood in my mouth. ‘What makes you think that?’

‘You haven’t screamed.’

Hadn’t I?

‘But you will. Even the strongest scream in the end. You’ll scream your throat raw, and you’ll tear your own skin off.’

Was this meant to make me feel better?

‘What you must do is find a talisman,’ he told me. ‘Find something you love deep in your heart, and hold onto it so tightly that he can’t reach it, even when he does his worst – even when he ruins every other part of you.’

I looked down at my body. There were pink, puffy burns all over it, some of which oozed pus, some of which had gone black and yellow. Little red wolves over every inch of my skin.

‘I’ve already let go of everything I love,’ I answered.

After the second round of torture, which he finished by branding my face, Corrin untied me and left me free on the ground. The face brand made me feel strangely like I was part of a club, a survivor’s club, but I didn’t know how long I would be part of this club. I was too pathetic to be able to do anything, so I lay quietly and listened to the waves.

It came to me quite simply, sometime after nightfall. An idea. It was because I was thinking of the last night I’d spent in a dungeon cell, trying to sleep beside a woman who could not stop counting.

And so it came to be that Roselyn of Pirenti was going to help me get free of this prison.

Ambrose

I was quite certain the damn pegasis was enjoying my terror. Every time he turned, he swooped so low that I nearly fell, then righted himself at the last minute and whinnied his amusement at my cursing. If I weren’t so freaked out, I’d take pleasure in his enjoyment, because I could feel a measure of it in my own chest, just as I could feel his bond with Ava. A burning bright thing that would lead us to her.

Stroking his soft mane, I talked to him gently as we flew, sensing that my voice kept him calm and easy. He had flown an incredibly long way to find me, and he had been terribly weary by the time he reached the beach, so we’d been resting all afternoon. I’d found him fresh water and plenty of grass to eat, and we’d sat in the jungle and chatted.

In the backs of our minds, the fronts of our hearts, she was always there, waiting, making it nearly impossible to sit still. We both knew what was at stake – Migliori was as desperate as I was to find her – but he was likely to fly himself to death if I did not force him to rest a while.

As the sun began to sink, we set off, tracking the soul scent she’d left behind for Migliori to follow. I couldn’t understand it like he seemed to – all I was aware of was a faint trail of Ava. It was much easier for him to follow than it would have been for me. I was lost pretty much as soon as we set off, but he flew on into the night, his wing-beats steady and powerful.

When he brought me, at last, to the prison, I knew a moment of deepest dread, because a part of me had always known she would end up here, one way or another – it was my deepest nightmare come to life. I had done this. I had condemned my own bondmate to the worst torture the world could imagine, and I had doggedly brought her here, stubborn and stupid and unforgivable.

Ava

Every seventh wave was big enough to carry an object away from the rocks instead of straight back into them. I’d been counting all night, and that was what I had discovered.

All I needed to find now was the strength to throw myself from the window and swim as hard as I’d ever done. Only problem was that I could barely move an inch of my body.

‘The seventh wave,’ I mumbled incoherently.

‘What’s that, sweetheart?’ I heard Saverio ask from our adjoining bars.

‘Every seventh wave,’ I tried to tell him. He needed to know so that he could get free too, but my mouth was swollen so badly I couldn’t speak properly. Dragging myself into a sitting position, I opened my swollen eyes blearily. ‘Jump on the seventh wave.’

He looked at me pityingly, sure I was rambling. ‘You just go to sleep there, girl. You’ll feel better with some rest.’

Clutching onto the grooves in the stone wall, I painstakingly hauled myself to my feet. I was shaking terribly and pain was sheathing through every inch of me.

‘Don’t try to move, Ava,’ Sav bid me, ‘you’ll make it worse.’

A few of the other prisoners started jeering again, once they saw me rising. There were just as many Pirenti men here as Kayans, which I might have found interesting had I not been in such agony.

‘Just lie down!’ he tried again, but I wasn’t listening – I was focused completely on the waves.

I heard the sound of an enormous one crashing against the rocks below, and I started to count, dragging myself up towards the window, clutching with fingers that were bled raw and missing nails. I couldn’t see much, as my eyes were swollen almost closed, but I could hear the ocean, and I could smell it so intensely I thought for a moment that I might be hallucinating. Trembling like a leaf in a hurricane, I hauled myself up, moaning in weary, debilitating pain. My weak, weak arms were so sore, but I pushed them, forced them – I forced myself as I had never done before, through blind despair and a sorrow so deep it turned my bones to dust.

Sav had been right – I was screaming now as I climbed that tiny length of wall, pulling myself up onto the ledge and gripping the rough surface. But I had a talisman – someone I loved very, very much – and I held onto him so tightly while I climbed that his image in my mind became bigger than the pain. Making it onto that window was the greatest triumph of my life. I swayed in woozy, delirious joy – counting, counting, counting.

‘You’ll be smashed to death!’ Sav shouted at me.

I couldn’t manage any more than a shake of my head, before I heard a loud bang from the far end of the cells.

‘That’s Corrin!’ Sav hissed. ‘Get down!’

Shit. I couldn’t jump yet – the waves were only up to number two. The banging drew closer as the prisoners hammered on their bars to note Corrin’s progress through the passageway. As the sound grew and grew – drawing nearer with every passing moment – I listened only to the waves, praying for them to hurry.

Three … four … The lock on my cell clicked loose, and then the bars swung open behind me.

‘Coward,’ Corrin spat at me. ‘Didn’t even last a day.’

Five … He moved towards me, his boots clumping loudly over the flagstones, almost drowned out by the screams and hisses of the prisoners. They were watching the spectacle closely to see whether I’d choose to jump to my death now or remain to endure more torture.

Fuck – come on.

Corrin reached me just as the sixth wave crashed, and I knew I had to jump. His hand on my arm felt almost as painful as the damned brand had been, and I was so weak I could barely manage to shrug him off. In a moment of divine intervention – or perhaps just plain, old stubbornness – I clenched my teeth and swung my elbow, clocking him in the nose hard enough to snap his head backwards in surprise. It gave me the moment I needed to I hurl myself out the window – down, down, down into the wildly violent sea below.

Ambrose

Inside the prison, no one seemed to have a clue who I was talking about. None of the guards recognised me, so I wasted time showing them my tattoo, but after bowing in shocked fear and obeisance, they were still unable to tell me if there’d been anyone brought in today.

Something was raging upstairs – it almost sounded like a riot. I bypassed the protesting guards and sprinted up the stone spiral steps, my legs taking them three at a time, my heart thumping in my chest. Where is she where is she where is she where is she—

I arrived at a sight that made my stomach curl – rows and rows of tiny cells holding starving and tortured prisoners, so weak and wounded that they were wasting away. The stench was Gods-awful, the worst damn thing I’d ever smelt in my life. Human waste, rot and dying flesh hit me in the face and nearly made me gag.

I stormed down the corridor – past shouting and wailing prisoners who were worked up into some kind of frenzy – until I came to the cell at the very end. Its door was wide open, and inside was a very large Pirenti man. He turned from the window to look at me expressionlessly.

‘What in the name of the Sword is going on here?’ I barked.

His eyes flashed – he didn’t like me. ‘Remove yourself from my prison cell, or I’ll lock you in it permanently.’

And by Gods, I was spoiling for a fight. This man was very, very close to dying.

‘You’re the prison master?’ I snapped, somehow managing to hold onto the edges of my temper.

‘Who I am is of no concern to you, except as the man who will make you very uncomfortable if you don’t report yourself and your presence on my isle.’

‘Your isle?’ I didn’t have time for this. I couldn’t see her anywhere – I couldn’t feel her. Very slowly I said, ‘This isle, this prison, every one of these prisoners, and you – all belong to me.’

His lip curled and I could see he wanted to fight me just as much as I wanted to fight him.

‘Answer me carefully,’ I went on, just as softly. ‘I’m looking for a woman. Have there been any in this prison, captured today or last night?’

He stared at me, unperturbed by the danger in my tone. ‘The last woman in this prison died months ago.’

My heart lurched in relief so profound it coloured my vision white for a single long second, but I didn’t let it show – I continued to watch the man’s eyes. ‘And the other guards will second that?’

‘You question my honour now?’ he asked furiously. ‘You will be very badly punished for this disrespect.’ The man drew a whistle from his lips and gave it a sharp blast. Before long other guards were crowding into the corridor, and the prisoners finally fell blessedly silent, enthralled. I was going to enjoy this.

‘State your name for the record,’ the prison master ordered crisply with a smile.

I met his dark eyes and gave him a grin of my own – a wolfish thing, dark and crooked like my dark and crooked heart. ‘My name is Prince Ambrose of Pirenti, son of the Queen of our nation, second in line for the royal throne. If you wish to challenge me, you had best make a formal statement before these witnesses, and then you may proceed with whatever punishment you’re able to bestow.’

There was dead silence in the prison – every man there stared at me while I stared at the prison master. His face went white as parchment, his lips the colour of bone. I had never seen humiliation so deep, never experienced the way it sucked the air from the world. There were at least a dozen guards and many more prisoners who had just witnessed his unmanning. If he did not fight me now, the prison master was as good as dead anyway – someone here would challenge his authority, as any fear or respect he might have maintained was now gone.

‘I … I didn’t know …’ he tried.

‘And nor did you ask,’ I murmured. ‘A great mistake, as it has turned out. What’s your name?’

‘Corrin.’

‘What’s it to be then, Corrin?’

‘I …’ he swallowed. ‘I have no need of your throne, Your Highness.’

‘That’s very true, but you don’t have any need of your position here either. Perhaps a stay in this cell would suit you best.’

His eyes widened in horror.

‘You might avoid this fate if you tell me the truth,’ I snarled. ‘Have you seen a woman, possibly dressed as a young boy? She would have come through here today or last night. I need you to think carefully – it’s important to me that I find her.’

Corrin stared at me, and the silence was sharp. ‘No,’ he said eventually. ‘We only had two new prisoners through here today, and they were men – both deserters off the ship from Pirenti.’

‘And the ship they arrived on – has it departed?’

‘Yes, Your Highness. This evening.’

I nodded – Ava must have stowed away on it. I would have smiled at her resourcefulness had I not been too worried about how dangerous it would be for her on that ship.

I turned to glance at the prisoners, then looked back at Corrin. ‘This place is filthy. You and your men will clean it from top to bottom, and you’ll start treating these men with respect. I want fresh, clean water and food brought for them three times a day – to begin with.’

Corrin appeared just as horrified by this as by anything else I’d told him.

‘There is to be no torture or physical punishment of any kind,’ I added. ‘Things are about to change, boys. There’s no place for this kind of brutality in the Pirenti I shall build. I will be back in the coming months to make some serious adjustments to this place, and when I get back I expect all my orders to have been taken care of.’

Shooting the guards and their master a final, steely look, I turned on my heel and headed for the stairs.

Chapter 16

Ava

The slice of cold made its way beneath the fire of pain that hitting the water caused on my skin. I think I went under, I must have gone way under, because it suddenly got very dark, and there was—

—sand under my feet, warm, grainy and gentle against my bare skin. Your feet are next to mine, bigger and browner and you’re smiling at me with those very white teeth that all the girls in your class love you for, and you’re telling me I’m being paranoid, but I vow, quite simply, to kill anyone who touches you. You put your hands in my hair, like you always do – your hands were born to be amongst my blond locks, you have told me this a thousand times, a million, and every single time I have believed you—

—It was cold. Shit, Gods, there was so much damn pain I felt my sanity slipping, and even as I struggled I didn’t know if I was getting anywhere, or where I was aiming for—

—your skin is hot from being under the sun all afternoon. We have been here for hours, roasting and turning, roasting and turning. I want the sea but your arms are draped over me and I want them more—

—There was no air. That’s what became clear. It was a slap, a jerk, a tug back to reality, to the painful world of this sea I’d thrown myself into. I kicked, because if I didn’t kick I would die: that I knew, it was all I knew. Kick and swim and stretch, and try not to cry because you’re underwater and if you cry you might open your mouth and then you’ll drown. Hadn’t I wanted to drown? Hadn’t I wanted to die? How many nights had I lain in bed wishing I could slip away, just drift off to sleep and never wake? How many times had I longed for death? And now here I was, kicking and swimming even though it hurt more than anything I’d ever known – kicking for life, when life was a nightmare I was too weak to face.

Still. Up I went – up to the surface to gasp air into my weary lungs, to drift onto my back and let the angry sea take me where it willed. Because I had a talisman.

I will love you for all the days of this world.

Ambrose

My life nearly changed in that one moment. I had no idea, no warning. I’d started walking to the steps – away from the Gods-forsaken prison cells, from the prison master and his guards and his wretched prisoners – and one more moment would have changed everything.

I reached the first step and placed my foot on it, my mind already turned to the ship I had to catch – the ship I was sure she was on.

But then—

‘Your Majesty,’ a voice rasped behind me, into the silence I had left in my wake.

I paused and looked back to see who had spoken. I hadn’t expected it to be a prisoner, nor a Kayan one at that. He was old and small and frighteningly thin. I hesitated, not wanting to waste any more time in this place, knowing I had to hurry, but in the end I walked back towards him, through the guards, assuming he couldn’t raise his voice, sick as he was.

He had grey eyes, but as he stared up at me, they shifted – to violet. Ava’s violet – the exact colour. I froze.

‘There was a girl,’ he whispered very softly, tears in his eyes.

Before I could respond, the prison master lunged at him, grabbing him through the bars and shaking him. A grunt of furious disbelief left my mouth and I backhanded Corrin across the head so hard it sent him flying to the ground.

‘Open these bars!’ I snarled.

A guard rushed to do my bidding and I entered quickly, sinking to the man’s side. He was wheezing badly, hurt further by Corrin’s rough hands.

‘It’s all right,’ I said urgently, holding him by the shoulders. He was skin and bones – a skeleton with barely any life left. ‘You did the right thing, and you will be very well looked after. Just tell me about the girl. Where is she now?’

The poor man opened his eyes – they were still bright purple. Her purple. ‘She was hurt very badly. She couldn’t handle it anymore. She couldn’t take any more of the torture.’

I felt sick to my guts, my bones and my muscles. ‘Where is she?’

‘She was beautiful before he started – very young and beautiful. She didn’t scream. I’ve never seen a girl who didn’t scream. I only spoke because of what you did for us in here. What you did to the master.’

‘Where is she?’

‘She jumped, Your Majesty. She jumped.’

My vision went red. I stood and everything slowed right down – I could feel my heart beating slowly, my skin tingling slowly. I could see people staring at me, and the prison master getting up at warped speed – slow, slow, slow. The waves outside moved at a snail’s pace and I was the fastest object in the world as I moved towards him.

A mighty, strangled roar erupted from my chest, exploding into the building with such violence it made every man flinch in horror. I saw their fear because suddenly I could see everything – I could see the way Corrin turned towards me and how he grew still with terror. I saw the guards fleeing out of my way, and the prisoners gaping at me. I saw it all, but what I now knew with abstract clarity, was how Thorne had lived the twenty-eight years of his life: with a beast inside him, a monster. The very same creature that was suddenly tearing into my body and threatening to consume me.

I crossed the space and lifted the prison master, a man who was massive in his own rights. I tore his arm from its socket.

He stared at the missing limb for a long moment, and then he shrieked. This was a man who’d been sent here because he was tough and brutal and cruel, and he was now shrieking and blubbering before me. I wanted to burn the world down, I was so disgusted by it.

Dropping Corrin to the ground, I crouched low over his face. ‘How did you torture her?’ I snarled.

He shook his head, sobbing.

‘HOW?’

‘With iron and fire,’ he wept. ‘With your sigil on her body.’

I’d never known such— Holy Sword, I— I ripped away his other arm. I didn’t know what to do. I was adrift, my mind shifting perilously close to madness.

‘Your Majesty,’ a voice broke into my blood-soaked rage. I looked up, eyes barely able to focus. It was the old man in the cell next to us. ‘Her body. You should try to get to it before it’s gone.’

A moan left my mouth as the reality hit me. Yes. That’s what I should be doing – her body, her body, her body. I stood and ran from the prison, past the bewildered guards and the stunned prisoners. I sprinted down the steps and out onto the grassy hillside by the cliff. It was so dark I could barely see a thing – so Gods-damned dark. I ran up and down the hill, over the rocks, searching and searching in the blackness, my eyes peeled desperately for anything in the water, anything that might possibly be her, but there was nothing. Nothing.

I didn’t know what to do – I couldn’t think straight. Hadn’t she asked to be brought back to the sea? Hadn’t she wanted to end up here, in the water? But no – not yet. It was too soon. I had to see her once more before I let her go. Just once more.

Into the water – that’s where I would go. Into the water to search properly. It was wild and deadly as I waded into the freezing surf and I was slammed against the bank a few times before I got enough power in my strokes to take me out into the depths. I couldn’t see a thing and I was almost instantly frozen numb, but I had to keep searching. What had I left but this final search? What had I left but this place for us to die?

A sound cut through the crashing of the waves – the loud whinny of a horse. I looked up to see Migliori flying low over the water, panicked and screaming his dismay. I shouted at him to go back to land, worried he’d be hurt out here as it started to rain, but he kept making the awful, high-pitched screaming sound and flapping in circles. It took me a good few seconds to realise that he’d found her.

Following his circling, I spotted her blond hair in the surrounding darkness.

A great crack made its way through my heart. She was floating on her back when I made it to her and I pulled her into my arms and kissed her cold, cracked lips. Her body was in a very bad way – the bastard had ruined her. I couldn’t count the number of brands she’d been given – they seemed to cover almost every inch of her skin, and there was even one on her cheek. A wolf – my house sigil.

Just as I had truly given up, truly sagged under the weight of grief, Ava made a sound.

It was a cough, followed by a very faint whimper. I yelped in shock, a breathless, aching joy slamming into my organs. Making sure of my hold on her, I swam like a maniac towards the shore. We were thrown about, and I tried to protect her from the worst of the waves, but by the time I dragged her onto the rocks she was barely there. Barely a person anymore. Blue and shivering from the cold, breathing very irregularly, and burnt so badly her body was barely recognisable.

Migliori landed and pressed his nose to her neck, nuzzling gently and crying his despair. Now what? It came to me – where I had to take her. The only person I had ever met who knew how to deal with burns properly was my sister-in-law.

Roselyn

‘Have you ever tried to count the stars?’ he asked me as we walked together, looking up into the night sky.

‘I tried once,’ I murmured. ‘But it’s impossible.’

They seemed infinite as we stared. Not looking at where I was walking, I tripped and stumbled, but Thorne reached out and steadied me, glancing sideways. I was wreathed in fur to stave off the chill of the night air, and with my hood around my face, I knew it was hard for him to see me in the dark. Thorne’s head was bare, so I had no trouble watching how his discomfort grew the further we walked from the fortress. He was carrying all our belongings on his back, but he didn’t seem to have noticed the weight of it.

‘What did you do?’ I asked suddenly. ‘The mistake to make us leave?’

He stared straight ahead as he answered me. ‘I told my mother she could kill you on the night of the solstice.’

I stopped walking.

He turned back, spreading his hands wide. We stared at each other for what could have been minutes or hours – I wasn’t able to tell. There was something impossible about the moment. I knew we could come out of it on either side – we could survive it, or we could be broken forever.

‘I’d just found out you were in love with my brother.’

‘I’m not. I never was.’

He sighed tiredly. ‘Just admit it. You are a little bit.’

I stared at him.

‘Can we walk while you think? We need to cover some ground before the sun rises.’

I followed him, walking a few steps behind. ‘I don’t know if I do or not,’ I finally admitted.

‘Pick up the pace, Rose,’ he snapped. I hurried forward to walk beside him. There were twenty-three fireflies in the trees around us. A few moments later, we passed four more, and then another three. It occurred to me that I might be counting the same fireflies over and over, so I started counting my footsteps instead. I wish we could keep walking like this forever.

Before I knew it, we had emerged onto the seashore and I caught my breath. Fear and wonder vied for room in my chest – I loved it here as much as I feared it.

‘Can we live next to the ocean?’ I asked him without thinking.

He grunted in response, and I took it as a good sign.

As we walked along the rocky beach, I counted the waves crashing against the shore. They sounded very loud in my ears and my pulse began to keep time with them. The oyster farms glinted in the moonlight, and I loved them with a strange intensity. A fixation, as Thorne would call it.

He started leading me further out onto the rocks, and very soon it was slippery. Up ahead the ground met a large cliff that reached right up into the sky. The ocean crashed against the cliff and the rocks at the bottom disappeared underwater. We were walking straight towards that point. I swallowed my unease but stopped trying to keep pace with Thorne. I felt drops on my skin and looked up with trepidation to see that big dark clouds had started to roll in while we’d been walking.

‘Where are we going?’ I called, but he didn’t hear me over the sound of the waves.

‘Quickly now,’ Thorne returned to my side. I slipped on the rocks a few times, but he was holding onto me and didn’t let me fall. Soon the rain grew heavier, and it became harder to cover ground, but eventually we made it to the edge of the cliff.

I stared at Thorne in the darkness, unable to fathom what we were doing. Was he leading me out here to die?

‘We have to swim now, Rose,’ he told me over the sound of the rain and the waves.

‘I can’t—’

‘I know you can’t swim, but you can hold onto me. I shall swim for us both. I shall get us there – I promise you that.’

‘Thorne,’ I tried again, my voice chipped, ‘I can’t do it – I can’t do it, I can’t do it, I can’t do it—’

‘You can, Rose. All you have to do is trust me.’

He held out his hand and I took a deep breath. What a joke I was – a woman who wanted to live near the sea who had such an unnatural fear of water that she couldn’t even swim. I started counting as fast as I could, squeezing my eyes shut.

‘I can’t do it, I can’t do it, I can’t—’

‘Rose, look at me.’ His voice was so firm that I obeyed. He didn’t understand – he didn’t know that there was a monster inside me, freezing every piece of me, making it impossible to move. I couldn’t go any further into this water – I couldn’t.

‘I should never have made Vincent hurt you the way he did, but not because you aren’t strong enough to handle the fear. You are. You don’t have to be strong enough to face it on your own – no one does. You just have to be strong enough to believe that I will get us there, and strong enough to trust that I won’t let you go, not for a single second.’ He paused, moving close enough that I could taste his breath against my lips. The world emptied of every soul except the two of us. ‘Show me, my wife. Show me that strength.’

With an aching chest, I nodded once, teeth chattering with uncontrollable terror. He was right – I trusted him completely, and I could hold onto that. Thorne strapped the pack to his chest, making room to swing me onto his back. ‘Hold on tight,’ he said and I gripped him with all the strength in my body, all the strength that I would show him I possessed.

Thorne waded out into the rough water, ploughing through the crashing swell. The waves pummelled into him, threatening to sweep us back onto the jagged rocks, but he was so strong, so determined. When the water was up to his waist he struck out swimming, his strokes long and powerful. The waves swept over me, making it almost impossible to hold on, and I started to cry, my tears disappearing into the sea that surrounded me.

Everything was black – I couldn’t see anything ahead of us except the dark, broiling waves and buckets of torrential rain, but Thorne kept going, he kept swimming. I wondered if this power came from the berserker blood in him, or if he was really just this determined to save us.

Finally, after what seemed an age – after I’d counted well beyond a thousand, my heart stretched and twisted and wrung dry – we made it around the cliff, and the mouth of a huge cove opened up before us. I gave a sob of bone-deep relief. Thorne rode a wave right into the cove, up onto the flat rocks of the shore. In the darkness of the night and the storm, I could just make out the shape of a hut and the small boat moored nearby – the only safe way in and out of the cove.

I knew it was stupid, because we were safe now, but I couldn’t stop crying. I crawled from Thorne’s back and tried to help him further onto the rocks, away from the freezing water. A sob left me as I untied the pack from his chest and dragged it up to the cabin. He lay on the empty shore; he lay so still I couldn’t bear it. Poking my head inside, I saw that the hut was empty and abandoned – there wasn’t even any furniture.

‘Thorne!’ I called. Every part of me was in the word, that one word, his name.

A moment later I saw him stagger upright, breathing heavily, clearly exhausted. But he climbed to his feet and entered the wooden cabin alongside me. I should have known. I should have known no mere ocean could vanquish him.

With the door shut, the sound was muted, but it was very dark. A flash of lightning lit up the room, in which Thorne looked like a maniacal monster, drenched to the bone and staring at me as I wept. I didn’t know what he was thinking, or if I had angered him, but in the darkness he reached out and put his hands on my face, gentler than I had ever known him to be.

‘It’s all right, sweetheart.’

I still couldn’t stop crying, and I couldn’t count or wish to make the fear go away, because my mind was so full of crashing waves and drowning and disappearing into the darkness. He had lain there, slain. I had thought him gone, taken by water.

‘Roselyn,’ his deep voice struck inside me, bringing me to the room, making me present.

‘My father …’ I stuttered. ‘He hated me. Hated my counting. But I didn’t know how to stop, I could never stop …’

‘It’s all right. You don’t have to—’

‘I kept counting and counting and counting and he hated it – oh how he hated it.’

‘Rose—’

‘I couldn’t stop I couldn’t stop I couldn’t bear it and then he pushed me under, pushed me right under and held me there and I counted, I counted to make it pass, but he held me so long that my numbers ran out and the only thing left was the water the water the water—’ My words vanished; my breath vanished. The air had gone out of me and I felt as though any touch could shatter me.

Thorne was staring at me and there was something brand-new in his eyes, something brilliant, as though perhaps he finally understood. ‘Roselyn,’ he said firmly, moving his lips right near mine. ‘How many tattoos do I have?’

‘Thirty-eight,’ I stuttered.

‘Count them again now.’ He stripped off his shirt and pulled me to the floor. He sat with me in his lap.

‘I can’t,’ I sobbed, closing my eyes, but he shook me gently.

‘You can,’ he told me. ‘Do it, now.’ Then he started pointing each one out and I counted along with him. The tattoos were beautiful, and I’d always loved to count them – to run my fingers across them, exploring each one and imagining the stories behind them.

‘This one’s my favourite,’ I whispered when we reached the ink on his shoulder. My breathing was starting to calm down and there were only a few, silent tears still left in my eyes.

‘Why?’

The tattoo was an intricate design, not a real picture, but it had always reminded me of an oyster shell. It outlined the muscles in his shoulder perfectly.

‘It’s beautiful.’

‘You’re beautiful,’ he murmured, tilting my chin up so I could meet his eyes in the flashes of lightning, ‘and I love it when you count.’

I felt embarrassed and overwhelmed, so I looked down at his chest again. ‘You must be freezing.’

‘I’m not – I overheated swimming all that way.’

It was quiet in the cabin, except for the rain and thunder and the slap of the water against the rocks outside.

‘Are you cold?’ he asked me softly.

I shook my head.

‘Good.’ He reached out and ran his thumbs along my collarbones, then pushed my jacket off. He leant in and kissed my neck, running his hands down to my waist and drawing me against him. As soon as he did so, all thoughts but his proximity left my mind, and I no longer felt frightened. His smell was so tangibly him that it filled me up and made this wet, dank hut feel like home.

With hands gentler and more intense than I’d ever known them to be, he touched my body not as if I was a colt he’d broken and trained and now owned, but as if I was beautiful and strong and free – things I had never been made to feel. His mouth found mine, lips gentle and warm. ‘Rose,’ he whispered. My name had never sounded that way on his lips before.

My heart hammered against my ribcage, as, for the first time, my husband made love to me. He moved over me tenderly, making me gasp, making me shiver and tremble with surprise and delight, and then with a need so deep I was overwhelmed by it.

When it was over he held me tightly, keeping me warm with his body, and he whispered a secret to me, one I knew gave him pain. ‘This cabin once belonged to Ambrose’s father. My brother and I used to come here when we were kids. My happiest memories are here. I wanted to ask if you’d like to live here with me, Roselyn, provided that Ambrose doesn’t mind.’

I sat up and gazed down at his face. ‘Thorne …’ I couldn’t find any words, so instead I kissed him – because he was my husband, and I was allowed to kiss him anytime I wanted.

Ambrose

We rode for hours through the storm, no stopping while we were over the ocean. We just had to reach the coast of Pirenti, and then we could find somewhere to take shelter, but Migliori was getting dangerously tired. Ava lay in my lap. Sometimes she slept, other times she moaned in pain, but she didn’t ever really regain consciousness. I had a terrible suspicion that she never would, but I didn’t let myself think it.

It was very late at night when we saw the coastline. It did not take me long to realise that we were only about ten minutes from a place I knew. A shaft of disquiet rocked me in my seat. I hadn’t been to this place in many years – not since it had been cleared out. Not since my soul had been cleared out. But my own ghosts could not be the reason we got lost in this storm – it was a miracle we had made it this far, and I didn’t want Migliori harmed because of my past, so I angled him towards the cove. Towards the cabin.

Chapter 17

Roselyn

I had barely finished dressing again when there was a crash on the door, and someone burst inside, making me gasp in shock. A tall figure stood, carrying a heavy burden in his arms. Thorne was off the ground in a moment, closing in on the intruder.

‘Thorne?’

He stopped, stunned. ‘Ambrose?’ Thorne went to grab him in an embrace, but stopped when he realised what Ambrose was holding. ‘Who is that?’

‘This is my bondmate,’ Ambrose answered, very clearly, and pushed inside to lay a corpse on the ground.

There was a long moment of silence, in which I stared at my husband – the expression of bewilderment on his face was almost comical – but then Ambrose said, ‘Roselyn, I need you to help me – now.’

I blinked and felt a rush of warmth at having him here safe, but his tone was one of deep desperation. ‘What has happened?’

‘She was tortured. I didn’t get there in time …’ His voice cracked as he trailed off. I was alarmed to hear tears in his throat. ‘Please.’

I looked down at what I had assumed was a mangled corpse, but was in fact a young woman. She was soaking wet and naked, but more to the point, she was covered head to toe in deep, hideous burns. They were black and purple and yellow, pussy, blistering and shiny – some even cut to the bone. I’d never seen anything like it in my life.

‘My Gods – I don’t think …’

‘Please, Rose,’ he uttered again, and that was when I saw the truth: Ambrose was a broken man. He’d gone away young and cheeky, if troubled and thoughtful, but he’d come back ruined by whoever this girl was.

‘Thorne, get my kit,’ I ordered crisply, urgency taking over. ‘And pull every piece of clothing out of our bags. Rip it all into strips then lay them out for me, and get a fire going so you can dry the strips – they must not be wet.’

Thorne stared at me for exactly three seconds, and then he jumped into action, doing precisely as I’d told him to.

‘Ambrose, I need you to remove the alder ointment from the herb kit. It’s in a labelled jar.’

He skidded over to the kit that Thorne had removed and started riffling through it.

‘What is her name?’ I asked, looking at her face.

‘Ava,’ Ambrose replied.

I checked Ava’s pulse and breathing, making sure she was still with us. Then I set about cleaning the deeper wounds and inspecting them for infection. When Ambrose brought me the ointment, I applied it to each of the burns, careful not to pop any of the blisters. Whoever had tortured her had been very careful about not wounding her so badly that she would die. This meant that most of the burns had only reached the top two layers of skin, and could be healed over time. There were others, however, that had burned through her flesh so badly that I didn’t know if they would ever truly recover – they’d certainly leave terrible scars, even if they did. The one on her cheek was deep and had made half of her face swell up.

I glanced up at Ambrose worriedly.

‘Keep trying,’ was all he said, and so I did.

Thorne had got a fire going and managed to make sure all the bits of cloth were dry before I placed them over Ava’s skin, wrapping every inch of her body. She moaned a few times, but each time I got her to drink some herbal brew for pain relief and she fell back to sleep.

As the sun was rising I sat back on my haunches. ‘There’s nothing more I can do for her right now. We need to keep her warm and dry and full of fluids, and I’ll change the bandages as often as I can. Today you will both have to go into the forest and try to find me some supplies.’

After I’d sent them off to get what I needed, I slumped to the ground beside the blond girl. For the first time in hours, I looked at her face properly. It was hard to make out her features through all the swelling, but the clear side of her face seemed familiar to me. I had heard the name Ava somewhere before, but I couldn’t place it.

She stirred restlessly, hot with fever. I wet a cloth in the bucket Ambrose had managed to find and replaced the one on her forehead.

After a while she opened her eyes, and we gazed at each other. ‘How are you feeling?’ I asked softly.

And by some miracle, she smiled at me. ‘I have certainly felt better. How are you, Lady Roselyn?’

I blinked, shocked. ‘How do you know my name?’

‘We’ve met once before,’ she rasped. ‘I’m rather fond of your brother-in-law. Where is he?’

‘He’ll be back soon. But when – when did we meet?’

She smiled again, dreamily, something odd moving into her eyes. ‘You always said I didn’t know how to pick my battles, but I’ve been good lately. I’ve held my tongue a lot. You’d be proud of me.’

‘I … forgive me, I don’t understand.’

‘You always say it. I dream it.’ Ava closed her eyes, muttering under her breath, and I realised she was delirious. I stroked her beautiful hair, and I prayed.

Thorne

My chest hurt, because the man I loved best in the world had just become a stranger to me. We had left to get the supplies, climbing into the dinghy we hadn’t been in since we were children and rowing around the mouth of the cove to the forest. In silence we started trawling the trees and bushes, searching out the plants Rose had instructed us to find. Ambrose had said he knew what she meant, but I didn’t have a clue what we were seeking. The trees and the grass, the ocean and the rocks – they held memories, and there was no one left alive in this world who wanted to remember those memories.

After twenty minutes I stopped walking. ‘What happened?’

Ambrose glanced at me. ‘I can’t do this right now, Thorne. Not when she’s in there waiting for this stuff.’

‘I don’t even know who “she” is.’

He ploughed on, back bent to peer at the leaves of plants.

‘Brother, why did you call her your bondmate?’

‘She’s not my mate,’ he said softly, ‘not really. But if she were, would you hate me for it?’

I must have made a sound of disbelief, for he spread his hands.

‘You hate the bond so much – you hate the warders for creating it, and you hate the Kayans for submitting to it.’

‘But not you,’ I said softly. ‘I could never hate you.’

Our eyes locked, and then Ambrose sank to his knees in the brush, and I watched in astonishment as my little brother leant over and started to cry. In the life we lived a Pirenti man never wept. We had to be hard all the time – especially Ambrose and I. There could not be a moment when we stopped to let in the darkness, because they were circling, eternally, and if they saw a moment of weakness then they would all swoop to steal what little we had. We’d be destroyed.

Ambrose knew this. And so, standing in the forest and watching my boy cry, I understood something about the two of us. This man would not cry in front of anyone else – that was a fact – so I crossed the space and dropped to the ground behind him, pulling his back against my chest and holding him so tightly I thought his bones would break. They didn’t, they held strong, and he gripped me back, and I knew, whatever tragedy this was, it could be the end of my brother. And here – here – in a place that held Ambrose’s nightmares. The memories had chased him from that cabin years ago. Whoever the woman was, he couldn’t lose her in that place.

‘That girl is not dying,’ I said flatly when the worst of his shakes had passed. ‘Now get up and help me find whatever this stuff is. I cannot do it without you.’

Letting him go I stalked away, and I heard him climb to his feet to resume his search.

Roselyn

When they returned, Ava was still muttering deliriously. Ambrose took one look at her and his face twisted into a ghastly mask of pain. I watched him sink to the floor beside her, and pull her gently into his lap, careful of her poor, burnt body.

‘Hey, pretty boy,’ he murmured, stroking her forehead, twisting her hair in his fingers. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘She doesn’t know where she is,’ I told him. ‘She had a moment of lucidity, but then she went again. If you talk to her, it might help keep her calm.’

I rose to give them some privacy, but the cabin was only so big, and when Thorne and I sat exhaustedly by the wall, we could hear every word Ambrose said.

‘I wish you hadn’t left like that,’ he murmured. ‘Dashing off on your own all the time. I can’t protect you when you leave me behind.’ Ava sighed and I watched Ambrose smile gently. ‘I guess you never wanted anyone to protect you, huh? You never needed it – except this one stupid time, because of me. I took you to that cursed place. I dragged you to that isle and now it turns out I’ve ruined you more than even the bond did.’

My breath caught in my throat as all at once I realised who she was. ‘The boy he took to the prison,’ I whispered.

‘What?’ Thorne hadn’t taken his eyes from his brother for a second.

‘It was Ambrose’s punishment to take the boy to prison.’

‘That’s not a boy, Rose,’ he replied impatiently.

‘She was dressed as one. The Kayans who stole me wanted to trade for her. They told me her real name was Ava.’

Thorne stiffened in disbelief. ‘I saw that boy – it was a boy.’

‘Trust me, Thorne. It was Ava.’

We fell into silence because Ava’s soft voice had drifted into the cabin. ‘I missed you,’ she sighed.

‘Oh, sweetheart, I missed you too,’ Ambrose said with relief, kissing her lips. It was so strange watching him like this, when I’d always known him to be just as unaffectionate as Thorne.

‘I feel like you’ve been gone so long,’ she went on, ‘so long, my love. Remember that day the fish jumped into our boat? There were twelve of them and they all jumped straight in, and we just laughed and laughed until they started jumping back out and we realised we had to get them home quickly. I’ve been dreaming about that day.’

Ambrose frowned in confusion. ‘I don’t think …’

‘And when we got home, Da yelled at me for spending the whole day on the boat, but you snuck me out to your house and made love to me all night. I remember the whole night smelt of fish because neither of us had washed – it was horrible, but it was so funny that we kept laughing all night, even as we made love.’

She was rambling again, and I saw the moment Ambrose realised – it was like something in him shattered, and he closed his eyes.

‘I’ve been wanting to kiss you again, my love,’ she whispered. ‘We never had enough kisses. Tell me you love me, Avery, and then kiss me.’

My chest hurt, abruptly and strangely. I grabbed Thorne’s hand and held it tightly, because I didn’t understand quite what was happening but my instincts were alive with the tragedy of it, the hurt of it, the unfairness. I wanted it to stop. I wanted to take Ambrose away from here, away from this woman who loved another man, but I feared it would be as bad as what she was doing to him.

I waited to see what Ambrose would say. I thought I could imagine how he would handle it – how he would react, how he might try to explain – but I was wrong.

He said, very gently and with a voice full to the brim with adoration, ‘I love you, Ava of Orion. I am Avery, your mate, and I’m here with you, so you have to hold on for me.’ And then he kissed her, and I could see his tears sliding over her one unblemished cheek.

Ambrose

Sometime after the daylight had passed and it was night again, Thorne fed me. He’d been hunting, and he cooked the rabbits he’d caught on a spit outside. I couldn’t eat at first, but he forced me to. He didn’t ask me any more questions about Ava, and for that I was grateful. Rose kept up her constant vigil, changing poultices and ointments and washing bandages tirelessly. I’d never had so much affection for a person as I did for her while she tended to Ava.

It started raining again, just a grey drizzle this time, and Thorne made me go outside to stand in it for a while. He said it would make me feel better, but I did it because I couldn’t be bothered to argue with him. I didn’t ever want to argue with my brother again. The fight had finally gone out of me, but it didn’t feel good – it felt weak.

After drying myself off by the fire, I sat down next to Ava once more. It may have been a strange thing for a man to do, but I was compelled to comb her hair. The long strands had so much dirt in them that when I managed to brush them mostly clean they glowed golden – so pale they were almost white. ‘Sword, girl,’ I muttered, twining it through my fingers. ‘You keep managing to surprise me. How could I not have known what you are?’ I smiled, glancing down at her lips and thinking back to the first time I’d seen her.

But my eyes drifted to the walls of the hut, remembering things I didn’t want them to. There was where the painting of Thorne and I had hung. There was where the crib had sat. A rocking chair had been by the fire, and she’d sat in it to rock the baby and tell us stories. He’d not spent much time indoors – he’d been a wanderer, storming around outside, finding things to tinker with and jobs to be done. Mostly we’d been outside with him – following him like shadows, trying to be more silent than the other – but at nights we had been in here, warm against the chill, full of words and images and songs I had etched into the walls of my skin.

Thorne and Roselyn were outside collecting firewood, so I took the moment alone to lie down next to Ava, threading my fingers through her limp ones. ‘Do you remember all those songs I sang when we were in the tunnels?’ I asked her softy. ‘I know them because my da used to sing them. He had a better voice than I do – mine’s rougher. He had an amazingly clear tone and when he sang it was a miracle.’

My chest started to hurt. This wasn’t a good idea – speaking of him, remembering him – but the words tumbled from me unbidden.

‘He lived here, in this cabin with his wife and daughter. They were out here because he’d been banished. Thorne and I would sneak here every week. He loved Thorne just as he loved me.’

No. No – that was too much.

‘I could tell you about the times I went to Kaya, but they might hurt you.’ Her lips were very dry, so I leant down and wet them with my tongue, as if they were my own. ‘Rose said I should talk to you, but I don’t have any nice stories to tell you – no nice memories. They’re all … tainted by something or other.’

Sighing, I slumped onto my back and stared at the ceiling. ‘Ava, come on. Wake up now – I’ve had enough.’

Ava

Standing atop the sun dome of the first tower, I was able to look out at the ocean and imagine diving all that way – all that long way into the deep blue below. The other towers sparkled in the sunlight, sprawled along the edge of the coastline, exploding out of the crashing waves like pinnacles of glistening human progress. Until coming here, I’d never seen anything like the seven shining towers of Limontae, could never have imagined a likeness for their beauty.

‘The sun’s moving into place,’ a voice said from behind me, and I smiled as I turned. Avery had a green feather in his cap, and he wore that grin of his, that devil’s grin that seemed to say, I’ve a secret about you, but I’ll never let it pass these lips of mine.

‘Pretty soon you’ll start burning, if you stay up here.’

‘I don’t burn,’ I said, put out by the insult. ‘Where have you been?’

‘I was on my way,’ he said defensively, but in the blink of an eye, his tone changed completely, growing earnest. ‘I’m always, always on my way to you, Ava.’

‘I’ve needed you.’

‘I’m here now, petal.’ His black hair was shiny and smooth in the sunlight. His eyes were gold.

‘What should I do?’

He frowned, shaking his head. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Avery, I need help. I don’t know where I am.’

He continued to peer at me in an odd way. ‘You’re … in between. You have to choose.’

‘Choose what?’

‘Just … choose.’

My fists clenched in frustration. ‘Avery. I—’ I walked towards him, inhaling his scent, all the lines of his face I knew so well. My heart ached and ached with an aimless longing, an absence, a huge gaping hole. ‘What is this?’ I whispered, pleading.

‘It’s just …’ he shrugged, seeming sad for the first time. ‘I don’t know, petal. It’s just in between.’ And then he added, ‘I love you, if that helps. I love you taller than this tower and bigger than that ocean.’

I closed my eyes, wanting him, needing his touch, but unable for some reason to have him. I couldn’t feel his skin, but I could feel the heat from the looming sun, and the cool of the gentle breeze, and then—

‘Ava.’ A different voice – a deeper voice. My eyes flew open, and there he was. My Ambrose.

A gasp left me and I flung myself into his arms. He gripped me so tightly all my breath fled me, but I held on just as hard, desperate for some reason I couldn’t fathom.

‘Do you remember all those songs I sang when we were in the tunnels?’ he asked, his lips against my hair, his hands along the length of my spine.

‘Yes—’

‘I know them because my da used to sing them. He had a better voice than I do – mine’s rougher. He had an amazingly clear tone and when he sang it was a miracle.’

I pulled away and looked up into his face, astonished. ‘Your voice is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard. I love how rough it is.’

‘He lived here, in this cabin,’ Ambrose went on as if he hadn’t heard me, ‘with his wife and daughter. They were out here because he’d been banished. Thorne and I would sneak here every week. He loved Thorne just as he loved me.’

‘Cabin? What cabin, Ambrose?’ I stared into his eyes, trying to understand him, but all I could see was grief, and it dwarfed me. ‘Where is he now, your da?’ I asked urgently. He had never once spoken to me of his father, not that I could remember now.

‘I could tell you about the times I went to Kaya, but they might hurt you,’ he murmured.

‘What?’

‘Rose said I should talk to you, but I don’t have any nice stories to tell you. No nice memories. They’re all … tainted by something or other.’

‘What are you talking about, Ambrose?’ I was starting to panic. He wasn’t making any sense. ‘I don’t need you to tell me any stories – I need you to tell me what to do. I don’t know where I am!’

I started backing away from him. I didn’t like this, didn’t like being up here anymore. It was too hot, the sun was too harsh. Sweat beaded over my skin, and my heartbeat picked up speed.

‘Ambrose,’ I said again, pleading now.

And that’s when he looked at me properly. He saw straight into my eyes, and his gaze sharpened. ‘Ava?’

‘Yes, I’m—’

‘Ava! Sword, girl, you need to listen to me. I’ve worked it out.’

‘Worked what out?’

‘Remember what the warder told you? You have power.’

‘Dormant power,’ I stuttered.

‘A warder’s power. You can use that power to heal yourself.’

I shook my head. ‘Don’t be absurd …’

He didn’t listen to me, just stormed across the roof and took me by the arms, shaking me gently. ‘That’s it, love, concentrate. I’ll be here the whole time.’

‘What in Gods’ names are you talking about? I can’t heal myself! And why would I need to? I’m fine!’

But then he said, ‘If you don’t do this, you’re going to die, Ava. Do you understand? And I can’t handle that. I can’t even come close to handling that.’

Something tightened in my chest, like a fist around my heart. Reaching for his face, I cupped it tightly, rising onto my toes to be closer to him. ‘I’m fine, Ambrose,’ I told him firmly. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

‘Come on, Ava,’ he pleaded. ‘Please try.’

Why wouldn’t he listen? I felt dizzy with a strange disorientation, an aimless longing. It hurt me, to see him so upset. So I leant up and kissed his lips, holding him close, and as our mouths touched, a slice of bright light cut through my mind, through my body, the tower, the ocean, everything in the world, and it became so clear, so perfectly obvious.

My body was dying. I could feel every single inch of it, every tiny piece of broken, burnt skin – all the pain it was struggling through, the slow way it was giving up. And with my lips against his, I knew exactly how to stop it, how to fix the pain. I could cut it off, could reach out and smooth it away. I could become more than it.

‘Before I try,’ I said, ‘I have to tell you something.’

He stared at me, waiting.

‘Are you listening?’

No answer, just his stare.

‘Don’t forget – you mustn’t ever forget, okay?’ I swallowed and told him. ‘You’re my talisman, Ambrose of Pirenti.’

Ambrose

It only occurred to me as I was falling asleep beside her, dozing in and out of that strange state of half-consciousness. It came from the snippet of conversation with the warder I’d overheard back on the island. I jerked upright, blinking against the dim firelight, brain scrabbling to hold onto the threads of my sleepy thought. My heart started thumping.

‘Ava?’ I leant over her face, holding her shoulders and feeling the faint, tremulous bond between us, the one she would not allow or acknowledge. If I could hold onto it, if I could squeeze it so tight that she had to feel it, I might be able to get through to her. ‘Ava! Sword, girl, you need to listen to me. I’ve worked it out.’

Thorne and Rose entered the cabin, my brother’s footsteps so heavy they practically shook the floorboards of the house. I ignored them, focusing instead on Ava – willing her to hear me.

‘Remember what the warder told you? You have power.’

‘She what?’ Thorne demanded. He pointed a meaty finger at Ava. ‘That girl better not be a warder, Ambrose. If she is, I’ll tear her to fucking pieces.’

It took all my control to stop myself lunging at him in fury. My skin crawled with aggression, a nameless beast inside me. ‘You won’t lay a finger on her,’ I warned very softly.

Rose swallowed, placing a hand on her husband’s arm.

I turned back to Ava, and slowly – very, very slowly – I saw her breathing change rhythm. Roselyn sank to her knees and removed the bandage from Ava’s face, inspecting the wound. As we watched the deep gouges started to close up, skin and tissue knitting together once more.

A shout of disbelief left me and I rocked back on my haunches. ‘Holy Sword.’

The burn healed itself completely, so that there was only bright pink scar on Ava’s cheek. Rose started removing all the other bandages and inspecting each of the burns – they were all healing with varying speeds.

I felt ragged with relief, buoyed up with joy. Bounding to my feet I let out a roar of excitement, turning to my brother with a grin that split my face apart. He stared at me, clearly incensed by what was happening, but I saw the moment when my joy reached through to him, and he started to grin too. Before I knew it, he was grabbing me in a bear hug and lifting me off the ground, and then the three of us were dancing around Ava’s healing body.

Chapter 18

Thorne

I’d never seen my brother so happy – not since his father was alive – and yet every part of me was screaming that this girl, this abomination, had to die. She was healing herself, and that was black magic –warder magic. I’d kept quiet about her being Kayan, knowing she would die and that this nonsense would soon be over, but now she was alive and healthy, and my brother was under some spell of hers, convinced he was in love with a witch.

Something had to be done.

‘Rose,’ I said, pulling my wife out of earshot. ‘I want you to take Ambrose outside and help him collect water.’

‘Yes, of course,’ she replied softly. ‘When she has woken—’

‘No – now.’

Roselyn looked at me in confusion. ‘Surely he will want to see her wake? She is not far from it.’

‘I need you to find a way to take him outside and keep him there for a good few minutes. Do whatever you must. Do you understand me?’

She stared. ‘I … I find it difficult to lie …’

‘You don’t have to lie. Just tell him you need help getting water for the girl.’

She swallowed, nodded once, a jerk of her head – she wouldn’t meet my eyes.

On impulse, I grabbed her hand. ‘It’s all right,’ I promised her. ‘It will be all right very soon.’ But instead of reassuring her, it only made her more frightened. I could smell the spike of it on her skin and it stung me.

I watched her move to my brother and speak to him softly, outlining the speech with her hands. She wouldn’t meet his eyes, but Ambrose was so used to that from her that he didn’t realise anything was wrong. He hesitated, staring at the Kayan girl, but whatever Rose said convinced him and soon the two of them had swept outside into the wind.

There was a rake going at my insides, claws against flesh, teeth snapping bone – I wanted blood.

Approaching quietly, I knelt over the witch. She was sleeping peacefully now. Her skin was badly scarred but I knew the difference between old wounds and new. I reached for her neck; it was tiny, no more than a chicken’s neck in my hands. In that moment her eyes flew open.

I froze. They were such an incredibly fierce shade of violet – I had never seen its like, anywhere in this world. Nothing in my life had ever been so purple; it caused me to pause.

‘I know you,’ she rasped softly. Her eyes faded to the colour of snow. It was ugly and demonic – it reminded me of what she was.

My lip curled and I managed to find focus. My hands tightened.

‘I’ve seen that expression on your face once before,’ she whispered. It chilled me to my core.

‘We’ve never met,’ I told her.

‘I’ve watched you – and I’ve seen you in my dreams.’

I squeezed, watching her cheeks flush red. Her eyes stayed white and she stared at me, into me – into my Gods-damned soul. ‘I won’t have you destroy my brother with your magic.’

Roselyn

My hands wouldn’t stop shaking as I led Ambrose out onto the grey, windswept seashore. Salt water – I’d told him we needed salt water to wash her wounds and stave off infection, but the words felt like ash in my mouth.

Wind cut into my skin and whipped my hair into my eyes. Ambrose put his hand on my back to steady me and help me forward. It felt very strange to me. I had imagined his hands on my body many times over the years, but now I could think only of my husband, and what he had commanded me to do. Where did loyalty fit into the scheme of things? How much sin could I commit for the man I loved?

There was a beautiful young woman in there – a woman who had dressed as a man and stolen into our country. I had no idea why she had done such things, but there was something vast about the courage she must possess.

I stopped on the rocks and turned to look at Thorne’s brother – his younger, more handsome, more charming brother. Thorne was the feared; Ambrose was the beloved.

‘Forgive me,’ I said.

‘What, Rose?’ Ambrose shouted over the howling wind.

‘We must go back – right now.’ I turned and started running. Ambrose understood and overtook me. As he flung the door open, the orange firelight from within showed a clear, nightmarish view of Thorne knelt over Ava, his hands around her throat.

Ambrose let out a mighty roar and charged his brother, pummelling into him and crashing the two of them to the floor. I watched in horror as they grappled, wrestling wildly, blows heavier than any I’d ever taken.

Ava sat up, her hair wild, her eyes white. ‘STOP!’ she commanded, and there was an unnatural loudness to her voice, a chilling power that echoed and throbbed within the walls of the hut. There was magic in that word, and the brothers stopped, whether from shock or something else, I didn’t know. Standing slowly, unsteady on her thin legs, Ava’s hair began to float around her. She was like a goddess or a demon – something so far from anything I had ever known that she struck fear into my heart.

‘Stop,’ she said again, very softly.

‘Warder filth,’ Thorne spat. ‘I’ll destroy you.’

Ava’s mouth curled into a terrible grimace of loathing. ‘Nothing would give me more pleasure than tearing your skin from your bones, barbarian pig.’

I watched as Ambrose came to his senses and realised that Ava was more of a threat to his brother than he could ever be. ‘That’s enough,’ he said. ‘Both of you.’

‘Brother,’ Thorne snarled. ‘You must kill her. She’s warder blood. Kill her!’

‘Shut up, Thorne,’ Ambrose hissed.

‘Ambrose,’ Ava said, still staring at Thorne. There was a terrible note of pleading in her voice, of pain. ‘He killed—’

‘I know,’ Ambrose interjected firmly. ‘We will have this out, but not now. Now you’re barely standing.’

Ava’s hair fell to her sides and she swayed on her feet. Ambrose moved to catch her and help her sit, but she didn’t for one second take her white eyes from Thorne.

‘Ambrose,’ my husband said suddenly. ‘You will report. Now.’ He wasn’t an older brother speaking anymore – he was a commanding prince. ‘Who is this woman, why is she on Pirenti land, and what the Sword exempts her from being slaughtered where she lies right now?’

Ava snapped her teeth in a feral, savage way, and for a moment she seemed like an animal come in from the wild, not a girl. I wondered if the torture had done something to addle her mind – I had never come across a soul this strange.

Ambrose straightened and faced his brother. ‘I’ve a story for you, if you’re calm enough to listen.’

Thorne nodded stiffly.

‘When first I saw Ava I thought her a boy – she dressed as a man and called herself Avery – but on the sea journey to the prison we were shipwrecked.’

Ambrose went on to tell a tale I found myself disappearing into, of a man and a boy from enemy lands who had survived together on an island way out to sea. Of the journey through cold and wet caves, underwater and over sea, fighting beasts and injuries and everything they thought they knew about each other, ending finally at the prison he’d meant to take her to all along.

‘I want something different now,’ Ambrose finished. ‘I want a different Pirenti and a different life for you and me, brother.’

Thorne hadn’t moved a muscle. I couldn’t for one second predict how he might react to this, because under all the stories of survival was a deeply impossible love story. Finally he said, through gritted teeth, ‘Is she a warder, or isn’t she?’

Ambrose looked weary as he shook his head. ‘She is not. She has dormant powers that were never explored, and never can be.’ He took a step closer to Thorne. ‘Brother, I never, ever believed I could be capable of saying these words, but hear them now. If you mean to hurt Ava again, I will kill you, or die trying.’

And the promise was so steady, so true, that I saw it break Thorne’s heart. For the first time an expression of deepest pain moved through him, and then he was gone, disappearing into the fading light of the night outside.

Ava

Waking to a face so like Ambrose’s and yet so different was disturbing. It only took me a second to know it wasn’t him – to know this face was blunter, less handsome and more scarred. I recognised the man and felt my hatred for him come upon me like an inferno. Even once he was gone from the hut, my eyes stayed white.

‘Ava,’ Ambrose said, sinking to his knees before me. ‘Are you all right?’

I nodded, unable to speak through the fury.

‘I thought you would—’

‘You protected him,’ I snarled.

Ambrose blinked. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘and I will again. He’s my brother.’

‘He was the one— His hands— I watched him …’ My own hands were shaking, my voice trembling.

‘I know,’ Ambrose snapped, grabbing my face tightly. ‘I know, but I need to tell you something about Thorne.’

I swallowed, not wanting to hear it, not wanting to know anything that could diminish how deeply he deserved punishment for what he’d done.

‘I told you he is half berserker, yes?’

‘I don’t care what he is—’

‘I told you that, yes?’

I nodded reluctantly.

‘What that means for Thorne is that he literally has no control over his bloodlust. Often times when he is taken by the beast he has no memory of it after. Mother uses this against him. He slaughters for her because she knows how to trigger the beast. The part he played in Avery’s death was not a choice of his own—’

‘Oh, stop!’ I gasped. ‘Stop, Ambrose. How dare you?’

His mouth clicked shut.

A moan left my lips and I lowered my face into my hands, exhausted and sore and unable to bear that Ambrose might not understand the betrayal he’d just committed. ‘How could you say such a thing to me? You?’

‘Ava, I—’

‘I don’t care how weak your brother is, or how much of a puppet he is to your mother. I don’t care what made him hold Avery to the ground and watch with enjoyment as someone sheathed a knife thirteen times into his chest – thirteen times. Avery just lay there, Ambrose, and I could feel in my heart that he was worrying about me! Every time that knife cut him open, he worried for me.’ My voice broke then, somewhat hysterically.

Ambrose grabbed me and pulled me against his chest, holding me tight. I tried to push him away but my body was unbearably weak.

‘Listen, then,’ he said against my ear. ‘This might not make any difference to you – it has nothing to do with the quality or clarity of your grief, and I don’t mean it to diminish anything at all. I simply want to explain to you why my brother means so much to me, and why I could not bear it if he was hurt. More importantly, girl, this is a story about why he is not the monster he seems.’

‘I don’t … please, I can’t—’

‘Listen,’ Ambrose urged me. ‘Once upon a time, a berserker wanted my throne. That berserker was the biggest, cruellest man I have ever come across. He was the king of the beasts under the ice mountain. I was twelve at the time. A tiny, gangly kid with no muscle, no height and no skill in anything. The berserker – his name was Thelle – scared me near to death. I stank of my own terror, but because he had challenged me formally, I had to face him in the public arena.’

My heart was thumping very painfully, and my fingers had tightened around his arms.

‘Thelle would have killed me in moments – there is no illusion in my mind about it – but Thorne stepped into that arena and formally took the challenge upon himself, which he was permitted to do only because his throne sits higher than mine. He killed the king of the berserkers, a mighty beast of a man, when he was only fifteen himself. It was the most incredible thing anyone in the realm had seen – an impossible victory.’

And then Ambrose added, to end his story, ‘Thelle, the berserker king, happened to be Thorne’s father.’

My eyes fell shut; my heart ached.

I heard him murmur, ‘I owe him every breath in my body and I will fight for him until every single one is gone – unless you’re the one I must fight. Please do not ask me to prove that, because I will, but I don’t know what I will become after.’

Roselyn

I heard the story as Ambrose told it, every word, but I knew it better than that – I had been there, thirteen years ago. I was only eight years old when I watched the tall, skinny prince fight the monster from the ice. I had watched him move like light, like the flash of a flickering flame, too fast to even glimpse. The berserker had been bigger, stronger and far more skilled, but I had watched the boy wear down the older man, wear him down with nothing but sheer, heartbreaking determination. We had all watched together as the elder prince, a child, had fought on and on and on for hours, through blood and broken bones, and so many other injuries I lost count, until he finally, at very long last, found an opening in which to sheathe the berserker’s own knife into his heart.

We had all watched as the boy cut out the berserker’s heart and held it aloft, turning with eyes colder than ice to the stunned crowd to speak a few, sparse words. Challenge my brother and me, and you will die.

I had not known, until this very moment, that that monster had been the young prince’s father.

Drawing my fur around me, I plunged out into the wild night, searching for him in the glimpses of moonlight. I had to track my way around the pebbly coastline until I made out his distant silhouette, standing knee deep in the water. Warding off the fear, which had somehow become easier after last night’s slap of perspective, I waded out to him and placed my hands on his back. He stiffened for a moment, but just for one moment.

‘I hate her,’ he bit out.

I pressed my lips against the space between his shoulder blades.

‘How could he … how could he love a freak like that?’

Moving to stand beside him, I stared out at the black and grey sea. Thorne loved no one in the world like he loved his little brother. ‘He found something strange. It does not mean he loves you any less.’

Thorne breathed out slowly. ‘What have I become, that I cannot even kill a Kayan prisoner?’

‘A better man than you’ve ever been,’ I told him, meeting his eyes in the darkness. His expression was unreadable. ‘This would haunt you,’ I added softly. ‘Her life is not yours to take. And I would never be able to forgive you.’

He blinked. ‘Why?’

‘I won’t have any more violence in my life.’

Later, with Ambrose and Thorne both miraculously dozing near the fire, I moved to sit next to Ava. She was awake still, her back against the wall. Her gaze was unreadable but changed colours every so often.

‘How do you feel, Ava?’ I asked in a whisper.

‘Better,’ she said with a smile more generous than I’d expected. ‘Ambrose tells me I have you to thank for that.’

‘You healed yourself. I did naught.’

She shook her head, but seemed too tired or distracted to argue. There were deep shadows beneath her eyes, and the scars all over her body were impossible to ignore. Her good looks were forever ruined – the brands were ugly and commanded the eye.

‘I owe you a great deal, Roselyn,’ she murmured. ‘I’m glad we have the chance to speak. Ambrose has told me a lot about you.’

I flushed bright red and quickly stared down at the ground. I remembered with sharp clarity how I’d disliked her as a boy simply because of the way Ambrose had looked at him. But he’d seen the truth of this person before anyone else could even have imagined it.

‘Roselyn,’ she said softly, ‘What are you still doing married to that man?’

I didn’t know what to say.

‘You don’t deserve his cruelty,’ Ava told me gently. She reached out and ran a finger over the fading purple bruises around my neck. ‘Don’t you understand that?’

I shook my head. ‘What would you have me do?’

‘Leave him.’

‘You don’t leave the people you love,’ I told her simply.

She stopped, considering this. ‘But when they hurt you, Rose? No one is allowed to hurt you. Not ever.’

I didn’t know how to make her understand. ‘I know that. I agree. But have you ever been in love?’

Ava smiled brokenly. ‘Yes.’

‘And if that person hurt you, would you leave?’

She didn’t say anything.

‘The pain of his absence,’ I murmured, ‘would hurt me more than anything he could do to me.’

Ava looked down at her hands. It was difficult not to stare at the brand on her cheek. She was simple, just as my husband was – the two of them understood black and white, love and hate, pain and pleasure. They did not have the time or the patience for anything in between, anything … subtler.

‘If he loved you, he wouldn’t hurt you,’ she said stubbornly.

‘That may be true,’ I agreed softly. ‘But I can’t give up on him. Not yet. He’s never understood, my husband, but then again, neither have I. It seems to me that something is changing. We didn’t know the rules before. If I’d given up, we would never have come to this new place. He’s my husband,’ I paused, swallowing, ‘and he’s imperfect. I endure that. But you’ve seen none of the reasons I love him – none of the beauty or strength or courage he holds. You’ve had no reason to see those things, so I cannot blame you for not understanding. But you must trust me – he’s not the monster he seems.’

‘It shouldn’t have to be so hard,’ Ava whispered and she sounded so weary.

I shrugged a little helplessly. ‘We have no say, in this life, on how hard things will be. What we can control is how hard we fight. How long we endure. How strongly we love.’

Ava

They called her stupid. I’d heard it said a thousand times that she was vacant and slow and dim-witted, but sitting in the cabin next to this girl with the bruised skin and the bruised eyes, I’d never heard the truth spoken more clearly, or more bravely.

It was easy to love someone lovable – easy to love a man who was gentle and kind and understood everything. It was much harder, much more courageous, to love a man who was flawed and frightening and who didn’t understand. I’d thought I was brave for enduring Avery’s loss, but Roselyn was the bravest person I’d ever met, simply because she wasn’t afraid to love an impossible man and get hurt in the process.

I realised, for the first time in my life, that you could love someone – properly love them – without being bonded to them. And perhaps it meant more if you chose that love, without having it thrust upon you by fate.

Chapter 19

Thorne

I woke wanting my wife next to me. Lying on the hard wooden floorboards, I opened my eyes in time to see the Kayan woman touch her neck – it was intimate, like a family member or a friend might touch her – and I was dumbstruck by it, by the familiarity and closeness of it. What surprised me even more was the fact that it didn’t make me angry. Those were my bruises on her skin, the marks of my fingers, my anger, my jealousy. I should be the one comforting her, but I didn’t know how. I thought about this for what seemed an age. Thought about her desire for no more violence, and about where a creature like I could fit into a life like that.

In the middle of the night we were all awake again, moving through routines in a bizarre parody of a family – we stoked the fire, boiled water, cooked food. We did everything we could so that none of us would have to talk about the wounds between us.

At one point I saw Ambrose take a bowl of soup from Roselyn’s hands, and I saw the way his touch lingered against her skin, and the smile he gave her, and the look on my wife’s face. I saw these things, and even given what we’d been through – all the real problems we had to worry about – I felt everything inside me go black. I watched them both until I was sure they were on opposite sides of the room and fixated on other things, and then finally, I drew breath.

The relationship between my brother and wife was certainly not the only concern I had. Each time I looked at Ava I felt a dull nausea, but I had no idea why. Her words were seared into my brain. I dream of you. I had no idea who she was or how that could be true, but the truth in her voice was like a brand.

‘I told you my story, Thorne,’ Ambrose said once we’d eaten. ‘So tell me yours. What are you both doing out here?’

I looked at Rose. She didn’t even seem to be listening, lost in some thought of hers. ‘I ordered my wife to be executed,’ I said into the silence of the cabin. I was aware that some part of me did it as a challenge – as a dare. I wanted to fight and shout and hurt. I wanted them all to hate me as much as I hated myself.

‘What?’ The Kayan girl’s voice was flat, deadly.

I met her eyes. ‘I was a dumb, bullying Pirenti pig. Right? That’s what we all are, all the time.’

Her jaw clenched at my mockery. ‘You’ve given me no reason to think otherwise.’

‘What are you talking about, Thorne?’ Ambrose interjected.

I licked my lips – I felt annoyed at having to explain myself. I decided the fate of my wife – it was no one’s business but my own. Still staring at Ava, I said, ‘My little brother knows why I lost my temper.’

He frowned. ‘Why would I know?’

I felt the beast stir. ‘Don’t lie to me. It’s beneath you.’

‘Thorne, I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

I clenched my teeth and looked over at Rose. Her head was bent over her supplies and whispered numbers drifted from her lips; she had no idea that this conversation was happening, which was a good thing. I felt my heart constrict at the sight of her, so unaware, so distracted.

‘Tell me you’ve never touched her,’ I whispered, turning back to Ambrose.

His expression changed as he began to understand. We gazed at each other. ‘Thorne,’ he said, ‘I’ve never touched her.’

‘Have you wanted to?’

He breathed out, pained. ‘Does it matter?’

‘Yes!’ I snarled. ‘Of course it matters!’

He didn’t look away from me. ‘Then yes, I’ve wanted to – usually after you’ve roughed her up or thrown her in the dungeons. I’ve wanted to touch her then, to show her kindness. To help her see that she need not be frightened of everyone in the world. If that makes me weak, or soft, then so be it.’

Humiliation washed over me. I felt sick, and small and ugly. For the first time in my life, I felt worse than the beast I shared a soul with.

‘Weak?’ I uttered, a fist taking hold of my heart. I had never hurt so much, never in my whole life. ‘You’re worried about seeming weak? What the Sword do you think of me, Ambrose? That I actually care how you look more than I care about my wife’s honour, or the betrayal you’ve wanted to commit with her? If you’ve touched her, it will destroy me, not because it makes you weak or soft, but because you’ve touched something that belongs to me, when never in a million years would I wound you in the same way.’

Ambrose’s mouth fell open slightly and I saw the shadow of pain in his eyes. ‘Thorne, I’ve never touched her and I never would.’

‘Too late,’ I whispered. ‘Too fucking late.’

I threw myself at him, a snarl erupting from my mouth. Ambrose fought like no one I’d ever seen – he was faster than lightning and skilled beyond belief – but I was the slaughterman of Pirenti, the most dangerous man alive, the man who’d taught him everything he knew. I feinted left and then right, took the punch he sent into my stomach without feeling it, and had him pinned against the wall in four seconds.

He stared at me, his eyes calm, not bothering to struggle. ‘Stop,’ he said softly. ‘I will never fight you. I’d rather die.’

I felt everything leave me, every feeling I’d ever had, so that all I knew was weariness. I stood back and dropped my hands to my sides.

‘Do you love her?’

‘No,’ he told me firmly. ‘I never have. Not as more than a brother.’

I found that I was too tired to distrust him any longer, so I turned instead to look for my wife.

At the back of the cabin there were two bedrooms. I found her in the smaller of the two, standing by the window. Her fingers were pressed to the glass, and she was watching the wind move through the long grass on the hills beyond.

‘Did you hear any of that?’

After a moment she nodded.

‘Are you …’ I didn’t know how to do this. ‘Are you hurt?’

Her eyes looked black in this light. ‘You hurt me,’ she whispered, ‘so much.’

‘Why?’

‘How could you think that?’

‘Think what?’

‘That I could ever let him touch me? I have told you before – twice now – but you still don’t believe me. You had to ask him.’

‘I asked him because he’s my brother.’

‘I am your wife.’

We stared at each other. I had no idea what to say. I didn’t feel like I’d done anything wrong. Wasn’t she the one who had fallen in love with another?

‘When will you start listening to me?’ Rose asked.

I frowned.

‘When will you hear me?’

Shaking my head, I moved to her side. ‘Stop it, Rose.’ It was the wrong thing to say, but I didn’t know what else to do. She said I hurt her, but she’d hurt me so damn much that I could barely breathe. How could she think that I would forget? That I would ever stop thinking about the two of them together? I wouldn’t – I couldn’t.

‘You’re supposed to be mine.’

‘I am.’

Ambrose

Ava wouldn’t let me touch her, and she refused to look at me. I had broken something between us, something that might never be mended. I loved, irrevocably, the man who had killed her mate. There was no overcoming that, no moving on from it, just as there would be no healing of the brands on her body – not truly.

I saw her and was faced with the mark of the wolf – my mother’s mark, my brother’s. She would never be able to look in the mirror and see anything else.

‘You need to eat,’ I told her.

She ignored me.

‘How do you expect to be able to get into the fortress if you’re too weak to move?’

Her head whipped around and she stared at me.

I shrugged. ‘It’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’

‘I don’t want your help.’

‘You’ve got no choice in the matter.’

Her eyes went red with anger and she was about to say something when Thorne and Rose moved back into the room and sat by the fire. I didn’t fail to notice how Thorne and Ava watched each other every time they were in the same room. They were like predator and prey, though I didn’t know which was which.

‘All right?’ I asked my brother.

He blinked, glanced at me, then grunted his assent. In terms of a truce, that was the best I’d get from him.

‘Are you going to help us then?’ I asked him.

‘Help you what?’

I met his eyes. ‘Take the throne for you.’

Thorne bared his teeth silently, turning back to Ava.

‘Don’t look at her,’ I ordered. ‘Look at me. Answer me.’

My brother rose to his feet, fluidly like an animal. He started to pace the small hut. ‘The throne is no longer mine,’ he said, eyes dark in the flickering light. ‘I left. I am unworthy of it.’

‘Untrue.’ It was his wife who replied. Her hair was wild and her eyes full. ‘Once that might have been so, but now I think you are the only one who is both strong enough and human enough to be worthy of ruling a country like Pirenti.’ She paused and then said, ‘You are not your mother.’

They stared at each other. ‘You all expect me to betray our Queen?’ asked Thorne.

‘Your Queen is a monster,’ Ava said flatly. She was a burning flame of rage. Her eyes had gone very white – terrifyingly white – and I realised this was the colour of hatred.

I could feel her heart beating quickly. ‘Easy,’ I murmured to her. She swallowed, and turned away from us all.

‘Why do you hate her so?’ Thorne asked suddenly, and it hit me like a blow that he didn’t know. He didn’t understand what had happened, why Ava was the way she was.

There was a chilling quiet in the cabin then. Abruptly, I wanted to be away from here – far, far away from this moment.

Ava dragged her eyes up to Thorne’s. ‘She stole something from me. With your help.’

Thorne shook his head. ‘Speak plainly.’

Ava smiled, but it was the kind of grimace that pulled at her scarred skin, making her face ugly and malicious. ‘As you wish. You’ve probably forgotten the day a young man entered your fortress and climbed to the very top, to where your mother was slaughtering innocents. You’ve probably forgotten the moment this man stole into that beautiful room and was caught by you – by your boorish hands and your savage teeth. And you’ve probably forgotten how you held him down and watched as your mother stabbed him to death on the marble floor. I’m sure you’ve forgotten, because I’ve heard how common it is for you to murder Kayans. But I have not forgotten. No, Your Majesty, I have not.’

Thorne didn’t move. He’d stopped pacing and was so still it was as though he was made of stone. ‘The black-haired one?’ he rasped suddenly. ‘The boy who threw a knife into her side? The one with the golden eyes?’

Ava’s mouth dropped open and I saw her scarred hands start to tremble.

‘Who was he to you?’ Thorne asked loudly. When she didn’t answer, he shouted. ‘Who was he to you?’

‘My mate!’ Ava hissed. ‘He was my bondmate.’

A sound left Thorne then. It was a kind of hollow sigh, like something had escaped from his soul – a wounded, weary thing. I watched, stunned, as his shoulders sagged and his eyes closed.

‘You remember him?’ Ava whispered.

‘Yes,’ Thorne murmured. ‘I remember him.’

There was a long, long silence. I waited for him – we all did. At last he gazed straight at Ava and said, without any animosity or hatred, ‘I will help you kill my mother.’

Thorne

Here I sat with his widow, his other half – a girl whose eyes changed to white because of what my mother and I had done to her. I’d killed people, plenty of them. I was aware of that, but until now it had never occurred to me that I’d destroyed someone’s soul. I’d never seen the evidence of my destruction beyond the execution room. I’d condemned this girl to a half-life, a life of emptiness, and in doing so I’d condemned my brother to the agonising task of loving such emptiness.

I ruined everything I touched, and I had the ghost to prove it.

‘What was his name?’ I asked, and was dismayed to hear how my voice sounded. It was a whisper, the hint of a voice, the echo of one.

The Kayan woman glared at me again. Her eyes had been white since the moment I’d tried to strangle her, but now, as she stared back at me they shifted to that impossible shade of purple once more.

‘Avery,’ she told me.

I felt it take root inside me, a gift and a curse all at once.

Ambrose went to my pack and pulled out a flagon of wine and some cups. He passed one to each of us, and then held his aloft. ‘A toast,’ he murmured, his voice rough.

I thought Ava would refuse to drink with us, with me, but she simply turned to Ambrose and asked, ‘To what?’

He met the girl’s eyes, and he gazed at her in such a way that it made me embarrassed to witness it. ‘To Avery,’ he said, ‘the man who brought us all here.’

My eyes were drawn to where the Kayan man now appeared beside the fire, pale and ethereal as he always was. We looked at each other, he and I, and as I returned the gaze of his golden eyes, I raised my cup to him, and spoke a toast – a promise, deep inside my soul, where I knew he could hear it best. To redemption.

I thought I saw him smile then, and I felt my heart change rhythm as I drank that cup of wine, understanding, as I did so, that Avery’s ghost was the best part of me.

Chapter 20

Ava

What I loathed most was the pity in his eyes. Prince Thorne, slaughterman of Pirenti, did not get to pity me. That was not the way this world ought to work.

A plan was being formed. I didn’t talk, but listened to the brothers as they strategised. They were very clever, I realised quickly. I had known Ambrose was smart, but there was something about the way he interacted with his older brother that made me realise why Kaya had been on the losing end of a very long war. They knew each other – knew their people, their army and their realm – and they were cold and ruthless. They were more similar than I had realised. Seeing this changed things – it was a brand of knowledge like the ones on my body: I would never be able to love a man who was so much like the beast that had killed Avery. I wouldn’t allow myself to. I started closing doors in my heart.

In terms of the plan, it became clear to me that there was one main problem. The Barbarian Queen had six personal bodyguards who went everywhere with her, and they were not normal men.

‘Hold on,’ I interrupted as they were going through the particular talents of these six men. ‘Your kind use magic?’

‘It’s not magic,’ Thorne snapped bluntly.

I allowed myself a cold smirk. ‘As you wish.’

I saw the way this notion rattled him and it satisfied me, but then I looked at Ambrose and saw how sad he was these days, and all my satisfaction vanished.

‘Vincent has magic,’ Roselyn whispered suddenly. We turned to her, but she was lost in some distant thought. ‘Dark magic. Soul magic.’

‘It’s called warding,’ I supplied.

‘You’re a fool,’ Thorne snarled at me. ‘No Pirenti man or woman could ever be a warder. It’s unnatural.’

I shook my head. ‘Whatever. How do you expect to beat six of these guards with only the two of you?’

Instead of answering me, Ambrose and his brother smiled at each other, wearing identical, wolfish grins of anticipation.

‘We’ve wanted to fight Vincent and his gang our whole lives,’ Thorne growled softly, his blue eyes flashing to match the expression in his brother’s. They laughed, both of them, and I felt a chill run down my spine. I suddenly felt sorry for the poor bodyguards.

‘And the Queen?’ I prompted.

‘Is the property of the realm,’ Ambrose told me firmly. ‘You’ll not kill her. Thorne and I will execute her formally. Do you understand?’

Our eyes met. ‘Of course,’ I lied. He didn’t believe me, but it didn’t matter.

My own plan was forming in my mind: I would kill the Barbarian Queen, and then I would kill Thorne – of that much I was certain. All I had to do was wait for the right moment.

‘What is it that you think will happen when we’ve taken over?’ Thorne asked me.

I didn’t answer because I didn’t really know what he was asking me.

‘Do you think this war is just going to fall away? Do you think that everyone in the world will forget so many generations of bloodshed?’

‘Not forget,’ I said softly. ‘Never forget, but we can try to forgive, if you’ll let us.’

Thorne shook his head. ‘I won’t. I can’t.’

‘Why?’ Ambrose asked abruptly, loudly. ‘What happened to you up there, Thorne?’

He didn’t answer.

‘Up where?’ I asked.

‘In the ice caps, under the berserker mountain,’ Ambrose said. He turned back to his brother. ‘You returned and you were never the same.’

I thought the older prince wouldn’t answer, but when he did, he looked straight at me, disconcerting me with the directness of his stare. ‘My job was to torture warders,’ he said, his voice empty. I felt immediately repulsed. ‘I have a whole bag of tricks for withstanding their black magic. While I worked I learnt things that can never be unlearnt.’

From the horrified expressions on Ambrose and Rose’s faces, this was news to them, too.

‘Things like the real truth behind the bond.’

My heart lurched. ‘What truth?’

He was silent a long while before he finally spoke. ‘That a way to break the power of it exists. There is a spell – a piece of magic. A way to stop the people of Kaya from dying in pairs.’

I shook my head blindly. ‘No. You’re lying.’

‘This magic exists – it is hidden, but it exists – and yet none of your rulers, in all these long, long years, have ever tried to find this solution. They’ve never tried to save you. And so I’ve made it my mission to one day rule the Kayan nation, and find that damned spell so I can end this madness.’

My eyes found Ambrose. He looked as stricken as I. It was impossible to fathom the words Thorne was saying – I couldn’t find a way to make them seem real. Bluntly, stubbornly, I refused. ‘No. We would know. This could never have been kept a secret. I would know about it.’

‘How would you?’ Thorne scoffed.

‘Because Emperor Falco is my cousin!’ I hissed, then snapped my mouth shut in horror.

Oh, good Gods, I was an idiot.

There was silence in the hut.

‘You’re of noble birth?’ Ambrose asked me, sounding betrayed, though I don’t know why since he’d kept the exact same secret from me.

‘I was,’ I snapped. ‘It makes no difference anymore – I was cast out. All it means is that I would know if the magic to end the bond existed. Kaya would be torn apart by the knowledge, and utterly divided.’

Thorne didn’t say anything, but I could see the truth in his eyes. I could begin to see where his hatred came from, and if what he was saying was true, then I might even be able to carry a little of that hatred with him.

‘Then wouldn’t it stand to reason that the warders kept it a secret just so that would never happen?’ Rose asked softly into the silent hut, and I realised she was the smartest person in this room.

Ambrose

The next morning Ava was strong enough to walk from the hut. We all watched as she approached her pegasis. Migliori beat his wings wildly, rearing once and whinnying in sheer joy to see her. As I watched, Ava started to laugh, tilting her face up to his, rubbing his nose and whispering to him. I realised I had never once seen her this happy. Though that understanding hurt, it confirmed one thing in my mind – even if I had to sell my soul to the Gods themselves, I’d get Ava through this alive.

We hadn’t spoken anymore about Thorne’s claim – there was nothing we could do right now to prove it, and it made no difference to our plan – but I could see Ava was riddled with doubt, and I wished she would focus on the task at hand.

She rode her pegasis out of the bay, over the hills and into the forest beyond, while Thorne, Roselyn and I rowed the small boat around the mouth of the cove. I watched my father’s house disappear around the bend in the cliffs with an uneasy ache in my heart.

We found Ava waiting for us in the forest that surrounded the fortress.

‘Ready?’ she asked calmly.

All three of us nodded.

‘Farewell, then. I’ll see you on the other side, if we’re all still alive.’ And then, just like that, she turned and started leading Migliori into the trees.

My chest lurched painfully. ‘Hey, pretty boy!’ I shouted, somewhat panicked.

She paused and turned back, shielding her eyes against the sun.

I opened my mouth but nothing came out. She seemed to understand, for she raised her hand once, then turned and disappeared. I felt gutted by it, by her.

Thorne signalled for us to wait and then followed Ava into the forest. I frowned, instantly apprehensive – it wasn’t the best idea for the two of them to be alone together. I looked at Rose, but she was lost in a daydream and hadn’t noticed. It didn’t take long for Thorne to return, but when he did I couldn’t read his expression at all. We stepped into stride next to each other and walked towards the fortress.

‘I wish I were a better liar,’ Rose said softly, then blinked, realising she’d said it aloud.

Thorne glanced sideways at her. ‘No you don’t, darling.’ Then he added, ‘I like it when you say your wishes out loud.’

Rose looked surprised. ‘You know about my wishes?’

He smiled a little. ‘Of course.’

‘Silly,’ she muttered. ‘It’s just a silly habit.’

I watched Thorne watch Rose. He cracked the knuckles in his hand. ‘Do you know what a person who makes wishes has?’

She glanced sideways at her husband.

‘Hope,’ he told her. ‘And hoping is brave.’

Roselyn appeared utterly astonished. She swallowed, hesitated, then took her husband’s hand as they walked.

I couldn’t help but smile to myself. It was like I’d come home to a new brother – a new man. The boy I’d grown up with had returned, the one who’d taught me what life meant and how to survive a mother who hated her sons.

Inside the walls of the fortress it was chaos. Stalls were set up along the main street, selling all kinds of wares, and people milled about in crowds. It was pushy and rough. The men were hopped up on the prospect of the afternoon’s violence – restless, aggressive and more dangerous today than on any other day. Fights kept breaking out, but so far they seemed to be just scuffles.

Hoards of soldiers had travelled down from the army barracks at Vjort. These were the biggest men in the country – scarred and brutal giants covered in animal skins Women knew to stay indoors today. This was not a pleasant festival – it was violent; it was where men proved their strength and took what they thought they deserved.

Roselyn walked between Thorne and I, where no one would dream of disturbing her. The pushing and shoving was inevitable, though, and everywhere Thorne walked he battered people out of the way to make a path for his wife. Those who realised his identity scrambled to avoid his mighty shoves or sank low at his feet. I watched them, these soldiers, watched the way they feared and loved him equally.

They didn’t look at me with the same fear, of course – some of them believed that my smile and my kindness made me weaker – but most had heard enough stories or fought in enough battles beside me to know I was not to be underestimated. Unfortunately, that couldn’t be said for all of them.

A big man stepped in front of me, holding his axe towards my chest. ‘A challenge, Your Majesty!’

Thorne sighed and folded his arms. ‘Every damn solstice.’

I looked at the man. ‘You sure you want to die today? I’m busy, and not in the mood for killing.’

He snarled savagely. ‘I want your throne, and I always get what I want.’

‘Do it formally, then.’

‘I, Sergeant Hallas of Svaart, son of Mellos of Svaart, formally challenge Prince Ambrose, son of Queen Eloise of Pirenti, for his throne. Have I a witness?’

Nobody said anything, watching me nervously.

‘Fine then,’ Thorne grunted, bored and disinterested already. ‘Crown Prince Thorne as witness. Go ahead, fool.’ He turned Rose by the shoulder to face her away from the fight, then held her to stop her from peeking.

I undid the sheath at my waist and dumped my sword on the ground – he who was challenged wasn’t allowed a weapon when facing his foe. Not to start with, anyway.

A small circle formed in the crowd and Hallas stepped forward, raising his axe.

I nodded once and he attacked. It took me only moments to duck beneath the axe swing and slam my elbow into his forearm, shattering it and disarming him. I picked up his fallen axe, kicked his legs to drop him to his knees, then swung a mighty arc that sliced his head clean off.

I dropped the bloody axe on the cobblestones and nodded at my brother in the cool silence that followed. He nodded once in response, then led the way through the crowd towards the main building. As I turned to follow him, the spectators erupted in wild, raucous cheers. I frowned – violence like that only heightened their own battle-lust. The fortress was going to be a very dangerous place tonight. Not a good place for a woman, even one dressed as a boy.

Once inside, Rose went straight to her chambers while Thorne and I kept climbing to the top of the fortress. Our mother was standing at the huge window in the execution room. All six of her bodyguards were positioned around her. Vincent was at her elbow, as usual. Loathing pulsed through the vein in my neck.

‘Look who I found wandering the forest,’ Thorne announced.

‘Ambrose!’ Eloise exclaimed, spinning to face us. ‘What’s going on? How have you returned already?’

‘Our ship sank, so I rowed a dinghy out and around the oyster farms to reach the prison isle from the south. From there I made my way around the coast of the island to the prison. As waiting for a ship would delay me beyond my patience, I caught a wild pegasis and flew it back. Magic.’ I shrugged, my expression flat.

She eyed me closely. ‘I don’t like that word,’ she murmured, leaning down to stroke her wolf. She always did that when she wanted to intimidate people. I could have smiled – she was an open book.

‘We do not ride the pegasi like the Kayan witches. You will be punished for this. What of the prisoner?’ she asked calmly.

‘Perished with every other soul on the ship.’

She searched my face. I gave her nothing. I was probably the only person to ever look at her like this.

‘Convenient,’ she murmured finally.

‘The opposite, actually,’ I said mildly. ‘Have you ever had to survive in the wilderness with nothing to eat? Ever skinned a stag on your own, or caught a fish with an arrow? Fought off a wildcat? Climbed a mountain? Rowed for a day and a night?’ I smiled a little, a crooked quirk of my lips – all Ava’s feats.

‘That’s why you’re a prince of Pirenti, dear,’ she told me. ‘I’d expect nothing less from you. We’ll discuss your failure to finish your task at another time. For now, at least you’re in time for the solstice.’ She grinned wickedly. ‘We have a surprise for you, don’t we, Thorne?’

Thorne didn’t say anything.

‘I look forward to it,’ I murmured.

‘You’ll both be taking part, of course.’

I shook my head. ‘Not this year. We need to take stock of our men if we’re to plan a complete invasion of Kaya.’

Her ears seemed to prick up at that. ‘You want to invade Kaya? I thought you’d had enough of wars.’

I shrugged. ‘All I needed was to spend five minutes on a boat with a Kayan in order to remember how much I hate them.’

She smiled coldly. ‘Good.’

‘Come on, Thorne,’ I muttered, turning on my heel. ‘I need a good wrestle to relax me.’

I strode from the room, Thorne bringing up the rear. The bodyguards watched us closely as we left.

We didn’t go to wrestle – instead we went to the crypt. I didn’t need to say a word as I led the way there – my brother followed me silently, and then stood beside me as I gazed at my father’s tomb trying to remember the place in my heart where he’d once belonged.

‘Brother,’ Thorne said very softly into the silence, placing a large hand on my shoulder. ‘I have something to tell you. It’s very bad.’

Ava

I bid Migliori wait at the base of a tree, then I climbed right up into its branches to wait. Nightfall was still several hours away.

According to Ambrose, the festival – though I honestly didn’t know how they could call it that – would be taking place all afternoon. It consisted of various fights to the death, where the winners achieved fame and respect for their ability to kill. There would also be numerous fights with animals and dangerous obstacle courses, finishing, of course, with the execution of the prince’s wife. The whole thing was basically a massive bloodbath, and it made me sick to my stomach to sit here and imagine it.

My thoughts drifted back to the conversation I’d just had with Thorne, when he’d followed me into the forest and called for me to stop.

‘Why should I?’ I’d asked.

He shook his head, looking uncertain. It caught me off-guard, the expression of vulnerability that came into his face. ‘Your bondmate – Avery.’

No. I didn’t want to hear whatever this was. I was going to kill this man. I couldn’t listen to him speak about Avery.

But Thorne clenched his fists and looked resolutely into my eyes. ‘I apologise for my part in his death.’

No – no, no, no. Clearing my throat, I rasped, ‘Why?’

‘Why what?’

‘Why apologise?’

‘Because I regret his death.’

‘Why?’

Thorne stared at me very closely, and I was alarmed and dismayed to see a strange, distorted kind of softness come into his gaze, one that reminded me all too much of his brother.

‘Because he died with a straight spine, gold eyes, and a smile on his face,’ the prince told me bluntly. ‘Those are rare qualities in a man, which causes me to regret his death.’

I stepped back, barely managing not to stumble. He held my eyes, and I found myself unable to look away. I wanted to hurt him and watch him suffer.

‘And if he’d wept?’ I hissed. ‘If he’d begged? Would his death be worth less to you? Would it be less regrettable?’

‘Of course.’ No hesitation – he was black and white, this man. ‘Our souls hold the worth of our behaviour.’

I felt everything seep out of me, all the fury and aggression. For a moment I felt very, very sad. I let my gaze rest on him pointedly, and then I said, ‘Yes, I believe you are right.’

He blinked, and for the first time I saw Thorne grow uncomfortable. Even … embarrassed. ‘My Gods will judge my transgressions.’

I nodded slowly. ‘Do something for me.’

Thorne considered and then said, ‘Whatever you wish.’

There was a twisted bitterness inside me at this irony. It seemed wrong that I should ever need this man for anything, but there was no denying that in this moment, I had the power to make life better for someone I cared about.

‘Don’t ever hurt your wife again,’ I said. ‘She bears it because she loves you, but you will break her one day.’

He stared at me, his eyes flashing sharply. I recognised the pain in them, and with a terrible lurch of my heart I realised it was the pain I felt whenever I thought of how I’d lost Avery. Suddenly, it was clear to me – this man loved his wife more than anything else in the world. That knowledge, somehow, made my plan just a little bit harder.

A grunt left Thorne’s mouth, a sound of agony and fury combined. He had me pinned against the tree in less than a moment – his arms and body too strong for me to ever have a hope of escaping. I stayed very still as he ducked to my neck, breathing in my scent.

‘You smell of many things,’ he growled, his voice so low and rough that it sent shivers along my spine and made every hair on my body stand on end. ‘I can scent rage – it’s light and sharp. There’s guilt – a flood of it. It smells heavy and rank. Grief. Grief has no description that I can put words to. There’s love, here on your skin. But there’s no fear.’

As he described he continued to breathe, smelling me as deeply as he could, and it occurred to me with a kind of sick revulsion, a kind of sick excitement, that this was too intimate, far too intimate. My heart pounded and I needed to get away, but I felt frozen like an animal in torchlight, sure it’s been spotted by a predator.

His nose and lips brushed my skin as he explored my scent.

‘Desire has a very distinct aroma. I can taste it on you,’ he whispered. ‘Musky and sweet.’

I batted at him but my blows were ineffectual. My heart broke with the realisation that in all this time – after all my hard work and determination – I was still as vulnerable as any woman in the world to the brutality and strength of a violent man.

‘You understand,’ he said. ‘I know you do.’ One of his mighty hands moved around my throat, tilting my head back to expose the flesh of my neck. His face moved to stare into my eyes. ‘You know exactly how easy it would be for me to kill you in this moment.’

I swallowed; it hurt with his hand crushing my windpipe.

‘I want to,’ he murmured, eyes boring into mine. ‘I want to, but I won’t. Do you know why?’

I said nothing, let my eyes turn red with fury – except they didn’t go red. There was no fury in my heart, but there was something different, something much darker, much more foreign. I didn’t know what colour my eyes were.

‘I’ll tell you a secret, Ava,’ Thorne said. He was so close I could feel his breath on my lips. I was trembling uncontrollably. ‘I’m the most disciplined man in this whole forsaken world.’

A strangled cough of disbelief left me.

‘It’s true,’ he smiled savagely. ‘Because the truth is – I want to kill all the time. Every second of every day. All I want to do is shed blood. My instincts scream at me to do it – to stake my claim on the things I own and fight for my territory. I’m more animal than man, after all. Sometimes I allow my beast his reign, but so much of the time I fight him. I keep him locked up when I long to set him free, and do you know why I do that?’

My heart thumped so hard it hurt. I couldn’t bear this, couldn’t bear his eyes so close, his lips, his hands on my body.

‘Because of two people. The first is Ambrose. My brother is a far cleverer man than I will ever be. He’s a man too big for this country, for this world. He’s a man born into the wrong family – the wrong realm. He’s good.’

It was horrendous, how very close to tears I was as I listened, and I realised it was because his words were more heartfelt than almost any I had ever spoken.

‘The second is my wife,’ Prince Thorne murmured.

I closed my eyes, but he tightened his grip on my throat until I forced them open again.

‘She’s the reason I fight the beast. She’s the reason I’m even half human.’ He leant closer, so close I could taste him. ‘So don’t you dare tell me how to treat her. I know her better than you ever will. I know every heartbeat of her, every breath. I would rather have every bone in my body shattered than see her harmed. I will fight every day the Sword grants me for her safety, and I will never lay a finger on her from this moment on. Do you understand me?’

I nodded with shock as I saw that this was his promise. It was shrouded in threats – the only kind of promise that Prince Thorne of Pirenti made – but the truth of it was still there.

Thorne finally let me go and I sagged in relief. I couldn’t look at him; I felt humiliation like a brand, like the brands all over my body. The sound of his feet led him away from me, but he paused. ‘There’s no fear in your scent, Ava, even now. But lack of fear does not make one courageous, and my brother will need a woman braver than any, if he is to change these bloodied lands.’

When he was gone, I sank to my knees, bent over and vomited up the entire contents of my stomach. When the world had righted itself once more, I stared at where he’d disappeared into the trees, and I thought I understood him better than I’d ever understood anyone, including my mate.

It was about an hour before sunset when the men found me. Migliori alerted me to their presence, but I had no time to climb back down and escape, so I simply froze, hoping no one would think to look up into the trees. There were six very large, very menacing Pirenti soldiers marching through the forest towards the fortress. They were obviously on their way to the festival, and I cursed myself for not having hidden better. They stopped at the sight of the tracks left behind by the flying horse and drew their weapons, peering into the shrubbery.

‘Spread out,’ one of the men said in a low undertone. ‘He might still be around here somewhere. Search the trees, too.’

Clenching my teeth, I realised they’d have to find me sooner or later. Six was too many to fight on my own – two of the enormous pigs would have been a stretch for me – but I was a girl who no longer felt fear, and they were going to understand that before the end of this.

I waited until one of the soldiers walked beneath my tree, then flung myself on top of him. I heard his neck snap upon impact and we fell to the ground, me using his body to break my fall, only jarring my knee slightly. I quickly rolled off him and readied myself – the remaining five soldiers surrounded me in an instant.

‘It’s just a kid,’ one man sneered, his lip curling in anticipation. None of them had failed to notice their dead comrade on the ground behind me. I could feel their anger in waves – it was hot; sticky.

‘Capture him,’ the leader said. I met his gaze and I allowed myself a smile, just one. It disconcerted him, and that’s when I moved.

I might not have been as big or strong as any of these men, but I was fast. I ran towards one and at the last minute I feinted left to strike out with my sword, slashing the arm of the leader who stood beside him. He grunted in pain, but otherwise didn’t react. His own massive battleaxe was swinging at my head. I dropped to the ground, rolling under it and kicking out at his knee. I heard it snap and he screamed in pain. I had no time for satisfaction – I scrambled out of the way of another man’s sword and turned to face the men again, my back now safely facing a tree.

I started ducking and dodging, unable to make any attacks of my own against so many of them at once. I had to try and run – it was my only chance of survival – but as I blocked a jab to my stomach, I realised there were only three men in front of me. The fourth, who was a little smaller than the others, and obviously a lot smarter, had snuck around the back of the tree, and now came at me from the side.

His punch hit me in the shoulder and I gasped, stumbling into one of the other men, who grabbed my hands and held them both behind my back. The three in front of me advanced, leering, but I managed to strike out with my feet and kick one of them in the face. Blood and teeth splashed from his mouth and he groaned in pain.

A terrible panic found me – my body trembled with denial. It could not take any more pain – not after the prison. It curled in on itself and refused to allow my movements any freedom. Please, it said to me. Don’t let this happen again.

‘Don’t kill him!’ the leader, whose knee I’d broken, called from the ground a few steps away. ‘We’ll trade him for coin inside the fortress.’

One of the uninjured men stepped forward and punched me in the stomach. It winded me so badly that I thought I’d never breathe air again. Before I could even consider recovery, a different man punched me in the side of the head. That’s when I realised that Ambrose had held back about ninety per cent of his power every time he’d hit me or kicked me. These blows, from men twice my size, were mind-boggling. It made no sense to me – how I could survive such violence. Another part of me wanted to howl with glee at their pathetic attempt to harm me – didn’t they know what I’d been through? What I’d lived through? They could hit me as much as they liked and it wouldn’t be iron-hot brands against my skin and a leap into sea. It would not be the death of my bondmate, a blade thirteen times in his chest.

It took me a long time to work out that I was still conscious, and that they were carrying me through the forest. I went in and out of awareness, awakening once or twice to find myself being moved through the fortress. Sometimes I heard snatches of speech – ‘festival time … take him to the dungeons …’

‘Queen will be very pleased …’

‘… reimbursed …’

I had no idea what time it was when I finally woke properly, but I instantly realised I was in the dungeons. It was dark outside, and I could hear noises coming from beyond my window. A memory of waking in this dungeon with a splitting headache came to me – Ambrose’s face above me for the first time. Gods, how beautiful he’d been that day, standing beyond those bars, all pale amusement and distraction. I remembered spitting in his face and I almost smiled.

How I wished he were standing behind those bars right now, instead of my nightmare. The Barbarian Queen peered at me, her teeth sparkling in the moonlight. ‘Good evening.’

The sharp pain in my head consumed me for a moment, and I leant over and retched onto the stone floor. The second time I’d vomited here. I felt humiliation so bad it stopped meaning anything – I had no more pride left, no more dignity, and I doubted I’d ever have any again. I twisted around to stare up at her, unable to stand. Our eyes met; hers were a shade very much like Ambrose’s. Mine were white.

‘Do you know why I don’t let other women rule in this country?’ she asked me. ‘Why I don’t allow them any positions of power?’

I waited. Blood rushed in my ears. I felt dislocated from the stone floor beneath me.

Leave!

Not without you. Never without you.

‘It’s very simple,’ the Queen said, ‘and it’s not because I hate my own sex. It’s because women are too clever and too strong, which means they are too dangerous to have anywhere near me.’

My fingers unclenched. I tried to straighten my shoulders.

‘Women see things,’ she murmured. ‘They see truths and lies. Men, on the other hand, are infinitely easier to manipulate.’ She smiled like we were sharing a joke. I had a sinking, sick feeling in my gut.

‘I see you,’ she said very softly. ‘I saw you that very first day when my foolish son plucked you out of the sky. I see everything that you are, and I find it amusing, because you try so hard and yet still fail at everything.’

I couldn’t help it – my eyes dropped from hers. I felt so angry I thought it might burst through my skin and take up this whole dungeon cell.

‘I can’t even fathom why you might have come back. It seems to me foolish beyond any human behaviour I have yet encountered. Kayans, I have always experienced, behave with reason, where Pirenti are ruled by their passions.’

This seemed an incredibly simplistic perception to me. No wonder Pirenti were so Gods-damned black and white.

‘So tell me. Why are you here, girl? Again.’

‘Your “foolish” son understood straightaway. Which makes me wonder who the clever ones here are.’

She smiled. ‘I’m quite aware that you wish to kill me. But why?’

‘That you don’t understand,’ I said slowly, clearly, ‘that you have to ask, that you can’t remember, are three of the reasons you must die.’

‘Revenge?’ she pressed. ‘Have I killed one of your loved ones? Your father, maybe?’

What was the point, anymore, in hiding the truth? She should know – I’d always wanted her to know at some point. ‘My bondmate,’ I told her simply.

Whatever reaction I was expecting, it was not the one I got. The Queen seemed to freeze, stunned and speechless. My eyes narrowed as I took in her utter incredulity. It confused me – I’d never expected to rattle her.

‘That’s impossible,’ she whispered, dazed.

I wasn’t sure what to say. ‘If you’re unaware of your own violence then you’re even crazier than I thought.’

‘Not that I killed him,’ she snapped. ‘That you’re alive! How are you alive?’

‘I’m alive to kill you.’

‘No – it’s impossible,’ she repeated. And that’s when I saw it – her eyes, the same pale blue eyes she shared with her son, slid very subtly to a different shade. I might not have noticed had the moon not been shining straight onto them, but I saw it, and something akin to horror began to take shape inside me.

A woozy feeling stole into my head, making it hard to focus on her. The room spun. ‘You’re Kayan,’ I whispered.

Her eyes snapped to me, cold and deadly once more. ‘Excuse me?’

‘I saw your eyes change colour!’ Slowly I dragged myself to my feet and clutched onto the bars. She took a step back.

‘How long since your mate died?’ she asked, trying to distract me.

‘Two years.’

I could see her mind racing, trying to take it in. ‘And how do you feel?’

I frowned, staring at her.

‘Tell me!’ she snarled suddenly, startling me.

I licked my lips, cracked my knuckles. Was this bitch serious? ‘I feel peachy,’ I told her sweetly.

‘You’re a half-walker,’ she whispered. ‘A ghost. Everything is dimmed except for the anger.’ She closed her eyes as if she could taste the words.

And so I understood. I was unquestionably the only person in this world who could have come to this conclusion, who could have guessed the truth. It was easy to imagine how she’d hidden it all this time, being something that no one in the whole damn world would ever assume. If all you felt was pure, poisonous hatred, your eyes would remain the one colour.

‘I’m not the first person to survive a mate’s death, am I?’ I asked her softly.

The Queen of Pirenti opened her eyes and stared at me. They had a tinge of red to them now – it was a hint of the anger that must be suffocating her. ‘I told you women were too clever,’ she murmured.

I could see it all so clearly. One day, before I’d even been born, this woman had lost her mate, and she’d let the anger of it consume her – such an easy, easy thing to do. This was not good. I didn’t like the way these discoveries were rattling at the certainties I’d erected. It made things suddenly unclear.

‘Why come here?’ I asked. ‘To rule Pirenti?’

She looked out the window, seeming to deliberate for a long while before answering me. When she did, her voice was devoid of any emotion. ‘It was a Pirenti woman who killed my husband.’

She let that settle for a while, like the dust I kept kicking up with every shuffle of my feet.

‘Don’t you think it’s perfect? To punish every woman in this Godsforsaken country for the actions of one?’ She smiled crookedly, vacantly. ‘I hate it here – I hate everything about this frozen, colourless land. I married a king and it was so easy to kill him and start my reign. My rulings weren’t so different at first – Pirenti has always been a violent place – but never have women here been as frightened as they are now. Never have they loathed their husbands more, never have they struggled for their lives this much.’

I felt dizzy. Without meaning to I sank to the floor, resting my head in my hands. It was too much. A monster stood before me – more twisted than any I had ever come across – and the truth was simple: I was more like this woman than anyone else in the world.

‘Though I’ve started thinking of late,’ the Queen went on softly, almost as though she was alone, ‘that instead of making the Pirenti suffer, I’ve done these people a service – the greatest service anyone could offer. I’ve taken away their ability to love. Love destroys; it is the most dangerous thing of all.’

‘No one can take that away from people,’ I said. ‘Not even a queen.’

She smiled, an empty, ugly grimace. I hoped to the Gods that I didn’t look like that when I smiled. ‘Go out into the streets of this fortress. Peer through the windows of the houses. Place your ear at the door of a bedroom. All you’ll find is cruelty.’

My eyes grew hot; an ache began in my chest, such a heavy thing.

‘My son ordered his own wife to be executed,’ the Queen said. ‘Is that not the vilest thing you’ve ever heard?’

I squeezed my eyes shut and despaired at the tears sneaking beneath the lashes. ‘Then you’ve never let yourself feel anything for another human since? Not even—’ and here my voice broke, ‘not even your children?’

She peered at me blankly. ‘It’s impossible. I am a half-walker, as are you. There’s nothing left in me to give a child.’

The reality of children came to me all at once, for the first time in my life. Sitting in this dank cell, I tried to imagine giving birth to a child and not loving it. I tried to imagine watching one grow and not loving it. Watching that baby’s eyes change colour for the first time and not loving those eyes more than anything. I couldn’t.

I could never.

With that understanding a new set of hands took hold of my heart and squeezed very tightly, very painfully. These hands pulled me in another direction. My mind found Ambrose, and then a few moments later it found, with confusion, Thorne. No wonder these boys were the way they were.

‘It’s not impossible.’

She looked at me pityingly. ‘You would have understood one day.’

I swallowed. ‘I’ll tell you a secret, shall I?’ I caught and held her eyes. ‘I’ve fallen in love twice in my life. The second time was very recently. Weeks ago, days ago.’

The Queen stared at me unblinkingly for a long time. Her pale blue eyes darkened to navy. ‘I told you not to lie,’ she whispered. I barely heard her. ‘You’ll pay for this.’

Neither of us blinked as we gazed into each other’s eyes.

A sound came from behind her – footsteps descending the stairs. A figure appeared. A man who was smaller than most in Pirenti, normal in every other way, except for his eyes, which were unnaturally black.

‘Your Highness,’ he whispered, his voice hissing like a snake’s. Though he was addressing the Queen, he never took his eyes from me.

I felt cold, feeling that gaze – cold in a way I’d never known. This could only be one man – Vincent.

‘They are waiting for you. The finals are about to begin.’

She stared at me a moment longer, then seemed to get a hold of herself, her famous composure sweeping back over her features. ‘I look forward to our next meeting,’ she told me, all hard edges and glimmering malice once more. ‘I’ll leave you in this cell to contemplate impossibilities.’

The two of them left and I sat alone.

I thought of his life here. His life at fourteen, when his mother had sent him to be tortured in a northern barracks. I thought about when his brother had disappeared into the ice, leaving him alone to be challenged by men bigger and stronger than he. I thought of whatever he’d done to make Roselyn fall in love with him. I thought of when he’d taken me on that ship and he’d saved my life again and again, breathing air into my lungs when every rule he’d ever learnt told him that my death was something to rejoice in. I thought of his life now, of his heartbeat, which beat inside my chest with a rhythm far steadier than my own. I thought of his hands and his kisses and his touch. Of his eyes when they shifted to gold, and even when they didn’t, when they were a perfect, pale blue.

I’ll send your body back to the sea. I’ll do that for you.

And then I stopped thinking about Prince Ambrose of Pirenti, because he was destroying me.

It was an hour later when the full force of my captivity slammed into me like one of those soldier’s punches.

Roselyn.

Roselyn was about to be executed, and I wasn’t going to be there to rescue her.

Chapter 21

Ambrose

When I turned fourteen, my ma had never once called me by my name. I knew because I had been listening very closely and marking the things that she did call me. Never speaking to me, of course, but always about me. Runt, she would say, mostly. Sometimes it was just boy. But occasionally she would refer to me as the cub, and this was the one I never understood. Thorne refused to tell me the meaning of it when I asked him, so it came to be that I asked my father.

‘A cub is what the ancients used to call baby wolves,’ Rourke had told me. This label raked at my fourteen-year-old pride.

‘Baby?’

He looked sideways at me then, his grey eyes so different from mine, expression subtle as always. If there had been anyone in this world more like a wolf than Rourke of Araan was, I couldn’t have imagined such a person – not at fourteen, not now. Tall and lean and made entirely of wiry muscle, he made not one sound when he moved. He was more shadow than man, I had thought once.

‘When you show her the truth of yourself,’ he told me that day, ‘remember the words she speaks. They will help.’

I had been confused. ‘What truth?’

‘The truth of what you are, of what you will be.’

And bracing myself, I had asked, heart pounding, ‘And what is that, Da?’

My father had looked at me properly, and he’d smiled a very sly smile then. He simply replied, ‘A giant.’

It was a cold, cold winter’s day four months later when I killed him.

In the crypt, it felt colder than death. My hand on the stone of his tomb was near frozen. My brother stood behind me clasping my shoulder, and as he started to speak he pulled me back there, to the day of all days – the day that had changed me into the kind of man unable to bear the cold of his homeland.

The slaughter room was full and sparkling, prettier somehow with the snow falling outside the mighty window. I watched Thorne kill from beside Ma’s throne. Already twice my size at seventeen, he was a fearsome thing to behold, drenched as he was in red.

‘Cub,’ Ma said without looking my way. I hated the word, hated her, but was surprised that she’d actually spoken to me. ‘See how he uses his knife? Between the ribs?’

I watched, feeling numb to it all.

‘Let us pray that one day you have the strength to hold a blade like that. Though I won’t hold my breath.’

That was when Rourke of Araan, banished Prince of Pirenti, arrived at the slaughter room of the fortress.

Many years before, my ma had married King Rythe. When he proved infertile, she had slept with his brother, Rourke, in order to conceive me. The indiscretion had left Rourke banished by his own brother, and it had forever been a mystery why Rythe never executed him for treason. I understood, and Thorne did, too. It was something only brothers could understand – how fiercely they loved each other. In any case, King Rythe had died not long after, leaving Ma to rule alone, with her two sons by her side.

Thorne and I had been sneaking out to Rourke’s seaside cabin for as long as I could remember. He was my king, my god, my idol. He was everything I wished I could be, until this day, when he burst into the slaughter room and announced, ‘I challenge the second prince to his throne.’

Everything went quiet then. Silent, like the depths of the ocean, and just as airless. I was like to drown in my own heartbreak. I did not understand – could not even come close.

Thorne stepped forward, shocked, eyes crazed and unpredictable, but I shook my head at him and after a moment of silent pleading, his hands dropped to his sides, his huge knife clattering to the marble floor. I’d let him kill his own father for me – I would not make him kill mine, too.

I still hadn’t moved, hadn’t been able to, but Rourke walked right into the middle of the room where a space was being made for us. My eyes searched out his, terrified of what I might find there, full of disbelief and the notion that surely, surely, this had to be some kind of joke. My father stared back at me, eyes grey as always, but without their usual sly gaze or wolfish grin – there was only deadness. There was nothing at all behind his gaze, just a flat determination that I knew was going to be the end of one of us.

It occurred to me to lose. I could die here and now and not have to endure the aftermath. But in my veins there had always been a certain need, a craving for life, and perhaps even an understanding of my own fate. So I stepped forward, removed my weapons, and faced my father.

The Queen hadn’t said a word. She could stop this – a banished man had no right to challenge – but everyone there knew that this moment was beyond law. It was about honour and pride and worth. The ex-prince wanted his throne back, even if it meant killing his own son. And who in the world could ever stand against a will as strong as that?

I could, I realised suddenly. I could stand against it.

‘As you wish,’ I said softly, voice quivering.

He was so much bigger than me, so much faster, so much more skilled. I only survived because his first blow was such a mighty one. Lowering his head, Rourke charged me, connecting with my chest and pummelling the breath from my lungs. It threw us both back, way back, stumbling with the sheer force of his attack, until we flew straight through the window, entwined as if one.

Spinning through the air, we scrambled and struggled, and I managed to twist myself on top of him just as we hit the ground. A terrible sound exploded, a WHUFF of shattered earth and snow bursting up around us. My sight went for three seconds, then burst back along with the throbbing of my body. Broken bones and dislocated sockets made it almost impossible to move, but I did. I dragged myself up my father’s body until I was staring right into his face.

Blood trickled from Rourke’s mouth, ears and nose but he was conscious still. Reaching down, I pried his dagger from his belt and moved it painstakingly up to his throat.

Our eyes met.

‘Go ahead, cub,’ he murmured through the blood.

I blinked, more wounded by the word than the attack. ‘Don’t call me that.’

‘Own that title,’ he growled. ‘Own every title anyone ever gives you. Make it yours, and then they will never forget your true name.’

A building ache in my chest, like a sob I had to keep swallowing. ‘Why?’ I whispered. ‘Why did you do this? You’ve never wanted the throne back.’

He tried to say something but a gurgling cough was all that came out. It sounded like two words, but I couldn’t hear them properly. With a very small smile and a jerking nod, Rourke bid me proceed. There would be no more words.

With one hand on his forehead, almost a loving gesture, I cut my father’s throat and watched the life go from his dark eyes.

Hit by a tidal wave of grief, I fell sideways off his chest and onto my back. His arm was beneath me, almost as though he was holding me. Cold snuck inside, cold from the earth straight into my heart. The snow all around me was covered in blood. Above there were faces, dozens of them gazing out the window. My brother’s face was there, and my ma’s.

‘A prince of wolves you are indeed,’ she said, a voice drifting down to me through the falling snow. From then on she only ever called me Ambrose.

‘Why did he do it?’ Thorne asked me now, a tired urgency in his voice.

I shook my head – after all these years I still had no idea.

‘It didn’t make sense to me,’ my brother continued. ‘It rankled me. Why did he not draw his blade and attack you that way? Why tackle you out that window, where you’d both almost certainly die?’

I swallowed, but didn’t have the answer. I didn’t have any answers and I never had – that was what plagued me.

‘I couldn’t let it go.’

‘You and me both, brother,’ I murmured.

‘He loved you. You were his greatest joy.’

‘Don’t.’

‘I went hunting for an answer,’ Thorne said.

I jerked around to stare at him. ‘I don’t want to talk about this. You have to stop.’

‘Ambrose, listen. I know what happened.’

‘He lost his mind – wanted the throne. I killed him for it. It’s taken me years to come to terms with that – don’t dredge it all up again.’

‘Ambrose,’ Thorne said, looking into my eyes, ‘he didn’t do it.’

I stared.

‘Your father never challenged you. Not truly.’

‘What the Sword are you talking about?’

‘It was Ma.’

‘Thorne—’

‘Vincent.’

I froze. My mind started spinning, putting the pieces together. No. No, no, no, no, no. The earth seemed to have gone from beneath my feet.

‘Not drawing a weapon was the only way he knew how to fight the hold,’ Thorne said. ‘The only way he could try to protect you.’

I squeezed my eyes shut tight, willing myself back to that day. His eyes had been so dead, so unlike him, and his movements had been stiffer than usual. He hadn’t walked with that same sly grace. His words, right at the very end, before he’d died – they had sounded like I tried.

It fit. It all fit. A great moan left me, a terrible sound. Sinking to my knees, I curled in on myself.

‘She wanted him dead, and she wanted to see what you were capable of. Kill two birds with one stone.’ Thorne’s voice echoed off the walls of the crypt.

‘How long have you known?’ I whispered.

‘Since the month after. Eventually I went to her and she told me the truth.’

Betrayal struck, more painful than any of my injuries had ever been. I looked up at him. ‘You let me think, all these years, that my father wanted me dead. You let me question, over and over and over again. It plagued me, never being able to make any sense of it.’

‘I know,’ Thorne replied, pained. ‘I know, brother. She ordered me not to say a word. I obeyed.’

‘Is that all you do? All you can ever do?’

‘It was.’

I closed my eyes again, unable to see him.

‘We’ll kill her,’ he said softly, sinking to his haunches before me. ‘We’ll kill her together, brother.’

I shook my head. ‘Leave me be, Thorne.’

‘Ambrose—’

‘Leave.’

I heard Thorne hesitate, then leave me alone in the crypt Stiffly, I got up and climbed onto the stone coffin, lying with my back flat against the cold granite.

Staring at the roof, I ran my fingers over the edge of the stone. ‘You were more of a giant than I’ll ever be.’

The flame of a torch flickered and I watched the pattern of shadow it threw on the wall. As I lay there I allowed myself, for the first time in eleven years, to really remember my father, and how I had loved him. It was like being immersed in ice-cold water – it was a shock to the system, a sudden gasp of air when my lungs had died long ago. Memories flooded me, so many of them, hundreds of moments of life shared with this man – this strange, complicated, good man.

The truth hit me then: I should have known. I should not have been so quick to lose faith in the love he’d had for me.

‘She called me a prince of wolves,’ I murmured to him. ‘Those were the words she spoke. Before this day is out, I’ll show her what they really mean.’

Thorne

I’d been angry with Ambrose once, for something I myself had been guilty of. When he was eighteen years old, I’d caught him in his father’s crypt where he was never supposed to set foot, and I’d yelled at him, heartsore with my own guilt. I desperately needed for him to get over this pain. Why can’t you let it go? You’ve let him ruin your life!

Ambrose hadn’t said anything at all in response, and his silence had driven me to distraction. My hands had trembled with an aimless frustration, an inability to watch my brother break like this. I knew he spent his nights pacing his bedchamber, unable to sleep. I knew he couldn’t bear not knowing, couldn’t bear the disbelief of it all. Yet still I did not tell him the truth. Still I kept it secret, telling myself over and over that I had to obey my queen’s orders, because without order the savagery of our blood would leave the Pirenti nation descending into chaos.

I told myself, over and over, that she must have had a good reason to do it, to have Rourke of Araan killed by his son’s hand, but I could never find one.

And slowly the real truth started to dawn on me. The real reason I didn’t tell my brother what had happened that day, was because of what they called us. In the streets, in the towns, in every corner of Pirenti, they referred to us as the father killers. And some sick part of me wanted it to be true, wanted Ambrose to be just as brutal as me, just as guilty of patricide. I didn’t want to be alone with my sins. If we shared one, the greatest sin of all, he would never be able to leave me.

Now, it seemed very likely that I had lost him for good, which hurt, because I’d always loved him best of all.

Chapter 22

Roselyn

I sat by the window in our bedchamber all afternoon. I didn’t make any wishes, and I didn’t count. In my fear I had gone beyond those things. I was adrift, with nothing to hold onto except the thought of Thorne and Ava and Ambrose. What was startling, was that for some reason I felt alive – truly, wonderfully alive. I was part of something – the adventure I’d only ever wished for. The kind of life where I mattered, where people fought for me, where I might, at last, have a chance to fight for them too.

She sent only two guards to collect me. Really, they would have needed only one. The men’s expressions were angry and excited all at once as they took hold of me roughly. I was marched through the fortress, past all the staring eyes, and out into the courtyard. It was packed full of people – they crowded in around the training yard where we held the tournament, lined the walls, and hung out of all fourteen balconies that rose up high into the sky. People screamed in sick anticipation as I was led onto the wooden stage which had been erected earlier this morning, just for me. A guillotine sat before me glistening in the sunshine – also waiting for me, for my neck.

On the other side of the courtyard, the Queen sat in her throne on its raised plinth, eyes trained on me. She’d wanted this for a very long time. Her six bodyguards flanked her and I couldn’t help the nervous dread that wormed its way into my stomach at the sight of them. How could Thorne and Ambrose possibly hope to beat them? How could they ever hope to beat Vincent?

Searching around, I spotted them sitting together in the stands a short distance from their ma. There was only a small section of seats, and this was reserved for the highest ranking officers in the army.

Thorne’s blue eyes held mine and I felt the calm of his touch slide inside me – in a fight you wanted to be on Thorne’s side. Ambrose had his arms folded, and his face held the hard determination of someone who knew exactly what he was doing.

The herald beside the throne blew a short burst on his trumpet. ‘For crimes of treachery against the throne of Pirenti, Roselyn of Batth, wife of the first Prince of Pirenti, is to be punished with execution.’

Applause erupted. I don’t know if it was just my imagination, but it sounded very bedraggled to me. I looked around at the faces closest and it seemed to me then that they were tired. All day they’d watched people kill each other – listened to screams of pain, seen the spill of blood and the tearing of flesh – and now they were faced with a simple-minded, idiot girl as she was slaughtered for being nothing more than what she’d been born. They were tired. Somewhere along the way we’d become a weary, hopeless country.

My eyes were drawn to where Vincent stood next to the Queen. As his gaze took hold of mine, I felt his particular talent seep inside me, and all the fear I’d been swallowing swelled to consume me. Vincent’s brand of magic was a dark, poisonous thing. He could reach inside and touch the essence of a person’s fear, and then use that fear to control their will. It was coercion of the deepest, darkest kind – something no man or woman could fight against, for to fear was a human quality no one escaped.

Violent sobs of unnatural terror racked me. I had no control – I was suffocating in a nameless fear, a waking nightmare. Against all sense I started to move, slack-jawed and slow, to the guillotine. Vincent smiled as I obeyed his twisted control. In a trance, I bent my knees and rested my head in the groove. It was only a matter of time now, and they would pull the lever. I wondered what it felt like to have your head severed from your body. I wondered how long it would take for me to die. One second, two seconds, three seconds, four? Five, six, seven, eight. Nine, ten, eleven …

With a flick of my eyes – just about the only movement I was capable of – I searched the sky, only to find it empty. That’s when I knew that something was wrong.

Thorne

She was a delicate rose standing in the cold afternoon light, her hair very red, her skin a perfect, pale white. Even from here I could see the darkness in her eyes, and the way she held her face calm with nothing more than willpower. A biting wind blew her hair out behind her making her look like a wild thing – a forest creature, something not entirely human. Graceful and more dignified than the monster who reigned, my wife was more of a queen than any who had come before.

Then I saw Vincent take hold of Rose with his vile black magic, and her moment of grace ended – she became a terrified child, sobbing and weak and vulnerable for all to see. I very nearly roared aloud, fury charging through my chest like a herd of wild horses. It was a palpable thing, the power that flowed from Vincent’s limbs, and I had to concede that maybe Ava was right – it seemed a lot like the kind of power that came from a warder. Why, then, was I unable to withstand it like I could a warder’s soul magic?

‘Ready?’ I muttered to Ambrose. He hadn’t spoken a word to me since the tomb.

‘Not yet,’ he grunted coldly.

‘She’s walking to the guillotine!’ I hissed.

He glanced at me, saw the panic I tried to hide, and in a miracle of forgiveness only Ambrose was capable of, he put a hand on my arm to steady me. His eyes moved back towards the Queen and stayed there, watching. They were hawk eyes, sharp as the Holy Sword. So many times I’d caught him watching our mother like this and I’d been suspicious. So many times I’d wondered what in the world he was thinking, his gaze penetrating like nothing else could be. Now I thanked the Gods he’d watched her so closely – it was going to save our lives. Ambrose had his father’s understanding of subtleties, his father’s perceptivity. I had none of it, my own father having been a violent brute.

‘I take Vincent,’ my little brother said flatly.

I said, ‘Yes,’ but what I meant was if I need to step in, I will. My brother’s revenge was not so important that I would let him dig his own grave, and Vincent was a man I had been preparing to fight since the day I first learnt of his sick talent. I controlled the fear of my people, and only me. He would die today, and an old balance would be restored to Pirenti.

One more moment and then Ambrose gave a nod. ‘Now.’

With a deep sense of happiness, I drew my battleaxe.

My brother and I split up and moved to either side of Ma’s stage. The six bodyguards would divide in order to face the two of us. Vincent was distracted dealing with Rose, so it would be three and two. I had to make sure the group of three came after me.

The bodyguard closest was Lyle, which was unfortunate. His incredible hearing alerted him to my approach, and he turned towards me before I could attack. I swung my axe straight at his head. He ducked out of the way, but I felt my blade slice through his ear. A grunt left his mouth, but nothing more – he was too focused to give in to the pain. The smell of his blood reached my nose and I felt a tremor inside me, knowing the beast had woken – all I had to do was direct him. A far easier intention than it was an action.

Blayne spun to face me, too. There was no one alive who could beat this man in an arm wrestle – he had impossible, unnatural strength – so I had to work this a particular way.

I noticed angrily that the other three guards had turned to face Ambrose. I had to hurry up and deal with my two so I could go and help him. ‘Lyle,’ I warned, my voice a snarl, ‘don’t try to fight me – you won’t win.’

‘Probably not,’ he agreed, resigned as he saw the berserker in me, ‘but you always taught us to be brave, sire.’ He came at me, ducking under my axe and stabbing towards my kidneys. I spun out of the way of his blow, avoiding Blayne’s mighty fist, attacking from the other side. I threw a left-handed punch into the big man’s ribs, since I didn’t have my axe ready in time. I heard at least one of them break.

Blayne staggered sideways and I used his momentum to trip him to the ground. I could have finished it there by slashing his throat, but Lyle was swinging wildly at me, so I blocked the blows and angled him towards where his companion lay. Blayne was breathing laboriously – his broken rib must have punctured a lung. Lyle went to step sideways, but realised he’d trip over Blayne if he moved at all, and in his moment of distraction I swung my battleaxe and cut his head off.

Blayne grabbed hold of my ankle and pulled me to the ground, then rolled on top of me – exactly what I shouldn’t have let happen. His hands went around my throat and I instantly felt dizzy – one more second and he would crush my windpipe entirely. My axe was still in my hand, so I wrenched it up and cracked him on the head with the blunt edge. He blinked and loosened his hold enough for me to focus. I jabbed the handle of the axe at his face three times, quickly, breaking his cheekbone and eye socket with loud crunches. As his eyes lost focus, I hauled him off me, his body kicking up a pile of dust where he landed. The big man tried to get to his feet, but I stepped forward and slashed his throat.

Blayne and Lyle both lay dead on the ground beneath me. Shame hit me at how easy it had been – my best men, and neither of them could give me a proper fight. I spat on them and snarled, ‘Pathetic.’

My hands were shaking with pent-up battle fury. I wanted more blood, but I looked over and saw that my wife was still in the guillotine, waiting to be killed. Ava should have flown in to save her by now, but the girl was nowhere in sight. Fucking Kayans were good for nothing. I wanted to help my brother – that was the plan – but there was no way, in any lifetime, that I was going to endure the offence of leaving my wife publicly prepared for death like that. Nobody – nobody – touched Roselyn but me. The whole of Pirenti knew that; by the end of the day they would have the fact carved into their bones. And the terror she was feeling? Heads would roll for it – I’d slaughter the whole damn world to make her safe.

I turned towards Vincent, my lips curling into a smile. At long last I had an excuse.

Ambrose

I’d trained with all three of these men for most of my life. They were beatable on their own, but when they stood together like this … I had my doubts. Mallory had frightening, unnatural speed – you could hardly see him when he moved. Igor was the best swordsman in the country – his weapon was like an extension of his arm, slashing so fast and accurately that it was almost unavoidable. And Tren was the boxer no one had ever been able to beat.

I had always hated the six bodyguards for being so blindly loyal to the Queen. It made no sense, as their sole purpose in life was to protect her, but something about their devotion had always felt deeply wrong to me. It occurred to me that perhaps their devotion was not their own, but had been coerced into them. My ma’s long fingers had no end to their reach, not when she had Vincent’s power at her side.

The rest of the army would never fight their princes – they belonged to Thorne and I – and they watched from the walls of the courtyard, ready to assist me if, and only if, I called for help. That was the thing about honour – you never helped a stronger fighter unless he asked for it. I was not going to ask for it – not today. Not if it meant more lives were lost than necessary.

The three bodyguards attacked from different sides and I began to move, faster than I’d ever moved before. Both my swords were out, whirling sharply, blocking and slashing with hard-edged determination. There was one benefit to having them come from either side – I might be able to use them against each other. Igor came quickly, swinging his sword in a huge arc that nearly took my damn head off. Tren was on my other side, throwing jabs into my side. I allowed him to hit me – once, twice – and then, with my right foot, I flicked the dirt under my boot up into Igor’s eyes as he attacked again. I dropped to the ground and he baulked, unable to see that his sword was aimed straight for Tren’s head. He sliced into his friend, killing him instantly. I used that moment to kick Igor’s feet out from under him and watch him fall straight onto my blade. Sometimes it wasn’t such an advantage to fight with other men beside you, especially when they were just as likely to take the lead – things got confusing.

I turned and looked at Mallory, shooting him a grin. ‘All alone now, kid. You scared yet?’

He didn’t respond, nor did he give any sign that he was scared. Instead he started to sprint around me in circles, kicking up the dust beneath his feet, creating a mighty cloud through which it was impossible for me to see him. All he had to do now was strike me while I was blind. I closed my eyes, bending my knees and readying my swords as I listened. He was fast, but he was making a lot of noise – his footfalls might as well have been targets. His circle grew smaller, closing in around me. He whizzed past my right ear over and over, and I knew I only had one tiny chance to get him.

Feeling the rhythm of his speed, I aimed slightly ahead of him, waited until he reached my right side once more, and then struck. I leapt and spun at the same time, bringing my left sword down into his shoulder, and then my right straight into his neck. It didn’t quite sever his head, but it did the job. The incredible momentum that I’d intercepted jarred my arms badly, but as I wrenched my two swords free Mallory fell to the ground, still at last.

Looking down at the three men I’d just killed, it seemed a tremendous waste. Their talents had been unheard of, yet here they were, lives seeping harmlessly onto the ground. Then again, I didn’t have a special skill, and I’d just killed all three of them. Maybe they weren’t so incredible after all. I was sure that Thorne would agree with me that our first job in power would be to train better men.

As the dust settled I realised Ava was still not here, and Thorne had turned to face Vincent on his own. Desperation struck – Vincent was mine. Thorne had promised. The snake had clearly turned his attention from Roselyn and was now focused wholly on Thorne. Already my brother looked close to falling. He gripped his axe in two hands, limbs trembling, face red with the exertion of denying Vincent control of his limbs.

Fear was a funny thing. We never knew who Vincent would have a greater effect on – sometimes the strongest men crumbled hardest at his feet. It didn’t matter how brave you were – the more fear you had in your heart, no matter how deeply it was buried, the easier it was for Vincent to manipulate you.

And Thorne? Thorne was a god among men, stronger and cleverer and more ruthless than anyone I’d ever heard of. But in that heart of his was the terror of a boy who didn’t have a clue how to fight his dark half. In that heart was the fear of the beast he knew he would one day become. His knees buckled under Vincent’s power and I knew I only had seconds before my brother was dead.

I twirled my swords and approached Vincent from behind. He’d sense me – my own fear for Thorne would be like a beacon right now – but he couldn’t split his power between two people. I’d never been able to withstand his attacks as I could a warder’s – there was something heavier about his power, something more twisted than the purity of a warder’s soul magic. There wasn’t much to do except try at this point, though.

‘Is that the best you can do?’ Thorne managed to gasp. Vincent grinned.

I swung my swords at his back, but he sidestepped and turned his power on me. I felt my limbs freeze and my stomach turn to jelly. I tried to focus on emptying my mind, reaching for the detachment I knew was necessary, but all I could feel was the terror – terror like iron, cold, rusting iron sheathing itself in my heart. Somewhere inside me he found words, and I had no idea from where they’d come: You are my talisman repeating loudly in my ears, crashing like waves against rocks. I didn’t understand, and my heart felt squeezed to within an inch of my life.

I saw Eloise grab Roselyn by the hair and wrench her back into the guillotine, locking her in place. Thorne, now free of Vincent’s power, looked from his wife to me and back again.

‘Go!’ I told him. ‘I’ve got this!’

Thorne hesitated only a moment longer, then leapt off the plinth and charged towards his wife.

‘All alone now, kid,’ Vincent whispered. ‘Scared yet?’

My own words from a few moments before. Something had died inside this man, twisting him into a parody of a person. Even Ava, when first I’d met her and she’d been at her most hollow, even then she had never been this … absent.

‘Clever, Vin,’ I told him, forcing a smile to my face. ‘Very clever. But you’ve gotta do a lot worse to scare a Pirenti prince.’

Cold sliced inside me and I fell to my knees before him. He took control of me, and as if in a dream, I picked up my sword from the ground and moved it to rest over my heart.

You are a giant.

But that wasn’t true, was it? I was small, the smallest thing in this world, incapable of anything of worth. I would lose Thorne, and I would lose Ava, just as I had lost Da – by my own hand – and all because I wasn’t strong enough to face the evil that was my ma.

Searching the sky, I couldn’t see Ava, and I knew it must be my fault. It was all my fault, every broken piece of this.

Ava

There was a guard at the entrance to the dungeons. I knew it was my only chance at escape.

‘Hey!’ I called.

He looked at me. ‘What’s wrong, kid? Sick of that cell?’ He chuckled. I could have killed him just for that stupid chuckle.

‘I need a drink of water.’

‘Too bad.’

‘Please,’ I whispered. ‘I feel really sick.’

He raised an eyebrow, not impressed. ‘You get one cup of water a day, and that isn’t until the morning. So shut your damn mouth.’ He’d unwittingly walked a few steps closer to me.

I said something very softly under my breath.

‘What?’ he snapped angrily, moving up to the bars. ‘Speak up, imbecile.’

Ignoring all the pain in my body, I leapt up and grabbed his neck, pulling it straight into the bars. He was knocked out cold and slumped to the ground. Stupid Pirenti brutes.

Now all I had to do was get the keys from him. I could see the bulge of them in his pocket, but couldn’t reach them through the bars. Sighing in frustration I grabbed the edge of his pants and painstakingly dragged him towards me, my fingers aching. At last, I managed to reach the keys and let myself out.

He had an axe on him, too big for me to wield, so I stole his bow and arrows instead, even though this would probably be just as futile. Still dizzy from my beating, I struggled to sneak through the hallways. Lost, I began to despair – the dark stone corridors all looked the same to my addled mind.

A young female servant collided with me and stared. It was obvious I was Kayan. Our eyes met and I knew I had to stop her from running, but instead I just waited for her to leave. I didn’t have it in me to harm a servant, not an innocent one. Stumbling into the wall, I blinked to realise that I had been here before – I’d leant against this exact patch of wall.

Please don’t tell me I’ve fallen in love with a coward.

I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath. The last words we’d ever spoken to each other were here, right here.

Ava, girl, I can’t have you hurt.

And all I’d said, like the terrible brat I’d been, was, Whatever, Ave. Let’s go already.

Too many things to regret. I had to keep moving – for him, for Avery.

Tracking the hall back the same way I’d entered the fortress two years ago, I found the massive entrance chamber. With the festival taking place outside, the only people I came across were servants, and they did nothing to stall my progress. Finding my bearings, I remembered the hours I’d spent studying the map of this building and knew the only possible way I could go was up.

The floor pounded beneath my feet and two heartbeats thumped in my chest. I might already be too late. Finding my way there was taking too long, wasting far too much time. At last I found the balcony to the courtyard and emerged into a sea of roaring, screaming voices, a wave of frantically moving bodies pressing in against the railing, shoving each other, fighting, tearing and jeering in their excitement.

Good Gods. The air was stolen from my lungs in one moment, one breath. Ducking beneath legs and fists and enormous male bodies, I wound my way to the railing and peered over. Above, the sky was very black – the moon was barely there, a sliver, a memory of a moon – but the ground was brightly lit so that all could see the carnage.

Blood splattered the sand, turning it the terrible shade of rust. Bodies lay scattered everywhere – bodies that had all died badly, torn to pieces or left to bleed to death. A jostling elbow found my back, lancing pain up my spine, but I ignored it, because I had seen Roselyn. Her head was in a guillotine, and she wasn’t moving at all, she was just perched there, as serene as she’d ever been, right in the middle of the chaos.

There. There was the Barbarian Queen – her hand on the guillotine’s lever – and Thorne too, covered in blood, mighty axe sticky with it. They were both there on the sand, and here I stood, with a perfect bird’s eye view and no one to notice my bow and arrow. I could feel it; could taste it, my vengeance was so close.

But then – then I saw it. Ambrose on his knees, a sword tip to his heart. Fury struck. No. This was not a choice I was going to make. I refused for my revenge to cost this high a price. It was unjust, impossibly unjust.

Turning, I pushed through big, sweaty bodies as they grappled and fought for space, snarling like the beasts they were. I took blows to every part of my body, and was shoved against the wall so many times I lost count, but I had to get to a better vantage spot. Hoisting myself up onto the edge of the railing, I used a wooden pillar to steady me as I drew an arrow.

Two shots. I would only have time for two. One for the Queen, and one for the slaughterman. Thorne’s arrow would need to find his eye, because that was the only way to take him down. Afterwards, I’d be dead too. There were hundreds of screaming Pirenti soldiers at my back, and when they saw me execute their royalty, I’d be lucky to last two seconds.

‘Take him down!’ the Barbarian Queen was shrieking, motioning for the soldiers to do something about Thorne, who was bearing down on her. Some of the men looked confused, not knowing whether to obey the Queen or side with the princes. Most of them chose the princes, but there were about four who drew their bows and fired.

I watched as each of the four arrows sank into Thorne’s body, two in his chest, one in his thigh, another in his arm. Stupid – they had to get his head. He blinked, but there was something terrifying in his eyes – something beautiful as he stared at his wife and didn’t falter. He surged towards the Queen, ignoring the arrows, and I knew then that he’d never give up, not ever. He was going to take my revenge from me.

I stretched my bow taught, grimacing at the pain it caused. The weapon was too big. I didn’t have enough strength in my forearm to keep the arrow from wobbling. Fuck. Panic was in my heart, making it wobble like the arrow. If I didn’t finish this, nothing would matter. There’d be no justice, no vengeance – no point at all to me having survived for two years when I shouldn’t have.

I drew a breath and steadied myself, moving through the pain and banishing all the unsteadiness from my limbs. The bow stretched taught and deadly. I could do this. If I let this shot loose now, I could take him through the eye, and I could set my soul free. I could be with Avery again – follow him as I should have done long ago.

You weren’t the first, a voice whispered inside me, sudden like a weapon thundering through my body – a voice I knew very well. I would have wept, then, if I hadn’t been so frozen.

Ava, you weren’t the first. She was, and look how the loss has defined her. What will you become if you surrender to hatred? A creature I can no longer love? A woman I no longer recognise?

I shook my head desperately. You need to be avenged.

Not so.

You’re asking me to choose Ambrose instead of you, I told him.

I heard Avery’s memory whisper in my mind, No, petal. I ask you to choose your soul, over not having one at all.

I closed my eyes and time froze around me. It was the simplest decision, the hardest. I could have sat there on that railing forever, in between the two of them.

This was never about revenge, petal, he told me softly. You told the slaughterman yourself – all of this is simply about trying to find forgiveness.

Forgiveness? I choked. How could I possible forgive them?

And he answered, For me. You can forgive them for me, because I am not alive to do so.

So, in the end, there was only one way to move. I opened my golden eyes and turned towards Ambrose. Avery’s voice echoed in my mind, simple words.

Who has ever loved as boldly as he does?

Need rose up inside me – a sense of wanting so profound it shook me to the core. How foolish to ever think I could deny it. Swinging my taut arrow around, I let it loose and watched as it sailed straight towards Vincent’s heart. And watched, too, as he sidestepped to avoid it. His black eyes moved up and found me, and he smiled a slow, chilling smile.

As we gazed at each other, I saw him tighten his hold on Ambrose, and the prince started to lose his struggle. Ambrose’s hands shook and a look of despair filled him. His sword broke skin, blood spilling down his chest.

I didn’t think. I threw myself over the balcony, catching hold of it tightly and sliding as fast as I could down the side of the building. I skidded out of control, losing my footing and scraping down the stone. My fingers caught hold and I felt one of them break in an effort to hold my body. I didn’t pause, I kept climbing and falling but I knew I was moving too slowly, so I threw myself the rest of the way to the ground. I landed in an awkward roll that crunched my shoulder out of its socket, and then I was up and running, spots before my eyes, but he was there in the distance and I was running like I’d never run before. All of my desperation was building inside my chest like a great ball of fire that burned, burned, burned and burst free, speeding out of me and into Ambrose, knocking the sword flying free from his body.

I saw Vincent’s eyes sharpen as I ran towards him, and I watched as he turned the full extent of his power to me. I felt nothing – only the same cold touch I’d felt in the dungeon. His expression faltered as I ignored his efforts, then it turned to one of panic. I sensed him try harder, but I was upon him, sending my fist into his face. He received the punch, letting it rock him on his feet, then ducked low to attack me physically. Pain shot through me as he slammed me with a right-fisted blow to my abdomen. I had taken a very bad beating already today, and my poor body was not prepared for any more, which only meant I had to be faster than he was – had to end this quickly.

Dancing backwards, I dodged his next blow and threw my own, a fast jab to his ribs. I skidded to my knees and cracked my elbow into his sternum – I felt bones break. He fell to his back, but in the moment it took me to follow through and bear down on him, he drew a small knife from his sleeve and thrust it into my stomach.

A gasp left me, a strange, white, endless seeping of air from my lungs.

‘Ava!’ I heard Ambrose roar.

I stumbled back, pressing my hand to the wound and turning very slowly, dazed, to see him standing a few paces away, immobile. What was he doing? Why did he not come to me? Then it was obvious – Vincent was holding him frozen, making him watch as I died. I sank to my knees, staring at Ambrose.

‘Don’t,’ I heard him utter. ‘Don’t go.’

My eyes flickered – azure, lime, peach, scarlet, indigo, tangerine, steel, ebony, gold – unable to hold fast to one colour. Vincent moved before me. His broken eyes were soulless. ‘What are you?’ he asked me. I couldn’t speak. ‘You’re impossible. No one is fearless. No one.’

The sky was very black above, and there was no moon that I could see. I heard wing-beats at the edge of my vision.

I will send your body back to the sea.

He had said that, hadn’t he? Or was I simply imagining it? I couldn’t hold to the truth, couldn’t recall his face. It occurred to me that I did know one truth, just one. If I died here, he wouldn’t be able to take me to the sea, because he would be dead too. Just as I had denied it all this time, I now knew that the bond had captured us as undeniably as it caught all Kayans. Ambrose would die.

Which meant that I could not. Dragging my eyes from the inky night above to the monster before me, I felt the slow, sluggish rhythm of my heart pick up strength.

‘No,’ I said to him, just one word.

Vincent blinked, watching me closely. He smiled his twisted smile, and that’s when I moved. Through pain and despair, I struck the side of his head, causing him to trip and drop his knife. My wound tore but I held one hand against it, even when my knee went into his groin. I had him on his back and sagged on top of him. Blindly feeling around in the sand, I found the knife and brought it to his throat.

‘What are you?’ he asked again, a whisper this time.

‘I’m just a woman,’ I murmured, and then I began to cut.

‘No!’

My hand faltered, blood sliding over my fingers.

‘Ava – don’t,’ Ambrose ordered.

‘He should die,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ Ambrose agreed, ‘but not by your hand. I’ve a thing I must settle with the snake – his life belongs to me.’

I frowned, seeing the desperate rage in his eyes, and knew that this was a score he needed to settle himself. Turning the knife, I used the hilt to knock Vincent unconscious and heard Ambrose sag from his invisible prison. Moments later his hands were on me, lifting me away from the snake, pressing the wound in my gut. ‘What will you do with him?’ I asked softly.

I had never seen a gaze so terrible as the one Ambrose turned on Vincent’s body. ‘I have other plans for him.’ That was when I saw that there was something very wrong with him, with my Ambrose. There was a pull at the edges of his eyes, a tightening around his mouth, a kind of hollow ache behind his gaze.

‘What has happened?’ I asked.

His gaze moved to somewhere behind me and I remembered (how amusing!) that Thorne and the Queen were still there, still alive. ‘Kill her,’ I said. ‘You must kill her.’

He nodded once, bleakly, but when he looked at me his eyes held none of the love I had grown accustomed to. I reached for his hand, a weird, jerking motion. But Ambrose was already gone. And as I lay bleeding on the sand among so many other bodies, my tissue and muscles knitting themselves slowly back together, I didn’t know if he would ever come back.

Roselyn

As soon as the fear left me I felt control flood back and I started to rise from the guillotine. I’d barely moved when a hand slapped my cheek, fingernails raking into my skin and stinging painfully. A gasp of surprise left my mouth, and then a strangled scream as those same hands clutched at my hair and dragged me back into the stocks. This time, the bolt around my neck was secured and I couldn’t move at all.

The Queen squatted before me and her icy blue eyes stared straight into mine. ‘I’ve waited years for this moment,’ she said. ‘Will you count how many seconds it takes you to die?’

Fear like a fluttering raven in my breast.

That’s when his voice slammed into the two of us. ‘Let her out of there!’

She turned to face Thorne. He was drenched in blood, breathing like the beast would claw free at any moment. Some ancient, primal part of me responded to the sight of him like this, his eyes taken over by a force so wild it was undeniable. His axe glinted in the moonlight and I thought him terrifying and beautiful.

‘How could you do this to me?’ she asked him, looking for all the world like the picture of a mournful, betrayed mother.

He shook his head, blinking quickly, trying to regain his clarity of mind. ‘I only regret how long it has taken me.’

‘What is it that you are trying to achieve?’ she questioned him calmly. All around was a cacophony of screaming, fighting soldiers, but here in this small space it was very quiet. ‘You were never made for leadership, my son. You have never been more than a follower.’

‘I’m the first prince,’ he grunted.

‘And how I have wished, since the day he was born, that your brother had been my first.’

I steeled myself, heartache blooming inside me. I looked at my husband, expecting a terrible pain there at hearing the truth so nakedly put, but instead I saw him smile with an old, warm kind of pride. ‘As have I,’ he responded simply. ‘My brother is a far better man than me.’

‘And will you die for him?’ the Queen snapped.

Thorne replied, ‘A thousand times over.’

A look of panic crossed the Queen’s face, and I saw her realise the danger she was in. ‘Don’t come any closer!’ she screamed, grabbing hold of the blade’s lever. ‘I’ll kill her right now!’

My mind was racing – I didn’t know what to do, how to help him. I was trapped, yet again, by my own incapacity.

‘Kill her, Thorne,’ I told him. ‘Be done with it.’

Thorne stepped forward so that he was now at the base of the stage, staring up at the two of us.

‘I’ll do it!’ his ma screamed again, hysterical.

‘You let that lever go and I’ll tear you limb from limb,’ Thorne growled. ‘You know I will, and you know I’ll enjoy it, Ma.’

She laughed, her voice empty and mocking. ‘You won’t,’ she said. ‘You couldn’t possibly hurt your precious ma. You owe me everything, Thorne. Your whole life belongs to me. You love me, just as you love this country, and the way I rule it. You haven’t got the stomach to kill me.’

‘I do,’ he replied softly. ‘Because you made me this way.’

He threw his axe and I watched as it twirled through the air. The Queen watched it too, and she moved. I’d had no idea a woman her age would be able to move so fast, but she did. The axe clipped her shoulder, slicing off a chunk of flesh. She screamed out in pain, sinking to the ground. Thorne jumped onto the stand and undid the bolts that held me in place. I winced as I stumbled out of the guillotine and stared at where the Queen was grimacing on the ground.

‘You’ll pay for this,’ she whispered, glaring into her son’s face.

‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘But it will be the Gods who punish me. It will not be you.’

He reached for her neck with his huge hands, and I felt a gruesome chill take hold of me. I couldn’t let this happen – couldn’t let him strangle his ma to death. This would be an act he would never be able to redeem himself from.

Searching around for a way to stop him, I was saved the effort.

‘Thorne!’ came a voice from across the sand, and I glanced up to see the second prince running for his brother. Thorne wasn’t listening – when I turned back I saw he had finally gone berserker. Ambrose plummeted into him, tackling him from the stage. A great cloud of dust burst up around them as they landed heavily. It was so thick I could barely see them through it.

It quickly became less important to watch them, however, because the Queen was staggering towards me. Blood trickled consistently from her shoulder, but she was clutching a knife with as much ferocity as ever.

Searching desperately, I spotted my husband’s axe on the ground between us. I didn’t think – I simply lurched towards it. She reached out and kicked me in the face, but my hand clutched the handle of the axe and didn’t let go, even though blood spurted from my nose and I felt dizzy. I stumbled backwards, brandishing the weapon. It was so heavy I could barely lift it. Sweat breaking out on my forehead, I heaved it up, using its own weight and momentum to swing it towards Thorne’s evil ma.

‘No!’

I heard a shout from behind me and then something slammed into me, throwing me to the ground. The axe slipped, slicing into my hand. I screamed in pain, unable to comprehend what had happened. Was that Thorne who had done this? Had he shoved me to the ground to stop me killing the Queen? Confusion swept through me – I didn’t understand.

Tears of pain seeped from my eyes as I clutched my bleeding hand. Something very bad had happened. I didn’t want to look, but I could feel that something was amiss. Amidst all the blood, there was something missing – more than one thing. Swallowing the bile that rose into my mouth, I looked up.

Thorne was standing over me. My eyelids fluttered shut and back open again in time to see him turn towards the Queen. I didn’t see what happened after that, because my eyes found the space where the two missing fingers on my right hand should have been. Nausea overtook, and then the dark.

Ambrose

There was a storm building inside me. Years ago on a winter solstice it had let fall its first drops, and now, eleven years later, there was thunder and lightning ravaging its way through my body.

All I had cared about was the why – the missing pieces of the puzzle. They’d kept me up nights, stalking the fortress and pacing the forest, hunting for a reason that could end this terrible guilt in my chest. And now here she was, the reason, the missing piece, the why of it all. I should have known.

There was my brother, about to end it all, so I lowered my head and hammered him to the ground. The blood vessels in his eyes had burst, and I knew he had set his beast free.

Fighting him was like signing my own suicide note, but fight him I would, if I had to. A mighty fist found my chest and I flew back, stunned by the force of it, of him. A snarl left him as he rose to his feet, seven feet of strength.

‘Thorne,’ I said, searching out his red eyes and spreading my hands. Even though I knew he couldn’t hear me, knew he was a long way away from me right now, I tried to reach him anyway. ‘Brother.’

And as it turned out, all he had needed was that word, and the love he felt for his wife. He charged, but instead of crashing into me, Thorne flashed straight past, running for his wife as she faced the Queen on her own. I watched as if from underwater as he knocked her hand from the axe – watched as the blade slipped and sliced through flesh and bone, as the two fingers dropped silently onto the wooden stage.

Loathing built inside me and I drew my dagger.

Thorne took hold of our ma from behind, and then looked over at me. ‘Take it, if you want it,’ he said. ‘This won’t be something you’ll ever be able to forget though, Ambrose.’

I nodded, stepping forward and meeting my ma’s cold eyes. ‘I know that.’

We stared at each other. My heart was beating like a wild thing.

‘How did you get like this?’ I asked her, so softly she barely heard it. I wanted to understand.

‘I loved too much,’ she said, voice empty and flat.

I shook my head, knowing the answer to this better than I knew anything. ‘You did not love enough. We would have saved you, Thorne and I, but you weren’t brave enough to let us.’

Her face crumpled and she began to cry, as though at long last she was too weary to hold on and a great crack had ruptured her. I felt her tears in my own soul as I stepped forward and held her close, cradling her head in my hands. It was my brother I looked at as I sheathed my knife into our ma’s heart and felt the life go from her.

‘A prince of wolves,’ Thorne said softly.

I swallowed, stepping back. And heard, like a final ending to it all, the high, mournful howl of Ma’s wolf, standing atop the balcony, head raised to the moonless night.

Chapter 23

Thorne

Would she ever understand? Would she live long enough to have the chance to? There was one thing I’d learnt in this lifetime – blood can be washed from skin, but it stains the soul.

Even as my wife tossed and turned, feverish with blood loss and pain, I knew I’d done the right thing. I’d stopped her from committing the gravest mistake we can ever make as humans. From taking a life. She might never understand, but I would know, for the rest of my life, that I’d saved Roselyn’s soul from the fate I’d created for myself, and that mattered more than anything else. More than two missing fingers.

Ava

I found him standing in the dungeon, hands gripping the bars. Deep within the shadows of the cell sat Vincent, cross-legged and staring straight back at Ambrose. Both men had a strange, eerie look to them. Neither moved or even blinked.

‘Ambrose! What in Gods’ names are you doing here?’ I hastened to his side, chilled to the bone by such a weird sight. ‘He can manipulate you if you go too near.’

He didn’t bother replying, just kept his pale eyes trained on the black gaze of the snake in the cage.

‘How did you do it?’ he asked softly. It sounded like a voice that belonged to a ghost.

Vincent’s lips curled into a smile. ‘So you know, then. At long last.’

Ambrose’s knuckles were white from clenching so hard, but nothing else betrayed the disquiet that must have been raging inside him.

‘I used his fear,’ Vincent murmured. He had a strange accent, one I couldn’t immediately place, and a slight lisp. ‘Only one type of fear is strong enough to allow me to manipulate someone for such an extended period of time.’ He licked his lips, and I realised belatedly that the tension in the space was making my heart thump out of my chest. ‘Love.’

Ambrose started. ‘What?’

‘Fear comes when love comes – that’s a binding, unchangeable fact. Rourke of Araan loved his son as much as someone can possibly love his child. I touched the very edge of it, of that fear for you – for your life, the fear of losing you – and he was mine. It was the simplest thing.’

I watched as Ambrose closed his eyes, and realised he was barely keeping it together. A sick feeling made its way into my stomach.

‘So you used my father’s love for me to make him want to kill me?’ Ambrose asked, his voice hitching into a black, humourless laugh. ‘How clever of you.’

I sucked in a breath, and in that moment, Vincent’s eyes snapped to me, straight to me, and he saw the truth. I felt fear, an ocean of it – fear for Ambrose, the man I loved. For his life, his happiness, every tiny thing about his existence.

I backed away, but the snake did nothing, simply smiled. ‘Human after all.’

Ambrose wasn’t listening. He strode past us and out of the dungeon.

I waited a moment, against all my better judgement. ‘What did you do to him?’

Vincent licked his lips again. ‘I made him a prince of wolves. He just doesn’t know it.’

I didn’t know where to go. The fortress was massive, and it was strange beyond words to be walking freely through it. Thorne’s first announcement, after the horror of the tournament, was that I was not to be harmed by anyone in Pirenti while I stayed. I had been walking the walls of this haunted place for two days, and I was still mildly surprised to be alive. Wherever I looked, I was met with an angry face, or one filled with loathing.

My stomach ached every step of the way, but my healing power was a miracle I’d not soon take for granted. Up my feet led me, without my knowing why. I only realised that it was his tug that guided me to the slaughter room after spotting him there. Ambrose was silhouetted against the huge back window. It was strange in such a cold country to have a window without any glass, or even any curtains.

‘That was where I killed him, just down there,’ I heard his soft murmur.

I crossed silently to his side and looked out of that window. In the distance was the sea, glistening under starlight. Directly below was a large field of long, yellow grass. It was a long drop. I remembered falling it myself – remembered being caught by Migliori and swept home to Kaya, thinking that I’d left my beating, bloody heart lying on the floor of this room.

With that memory in mind, I turned and looked at the spot on the floor where he’d been stabbed to death. I walked slowly over to it and stood there, wondering if I’d be able to feel some kind of residue – the remains of his energy, of his life. Hoping that maybe I’d meet his ghost, here in the spot where he’d died. There was nothing here. Nothing but cold marble, and as I turned back to Ambrose, I realised something very, very important.

He had grief in his life, grief big like an ocean – and suddenly it mattered more to me than my own loss. I missed two dead men now – my mate, and Ambrose’s father.

I opened my mouth to tell him, to say, I love you – I choose you, but he spoke first.

‘I’ve had Migliori tended to. Now that you’re fully healed you’ll be wanting to leave in the morning, I imagine.’

His voice was dead – empty. It froze every word in my mouth.

Frightened, I crossed to the window and peered up at his face. ‘Tell me what happened,’ I bid him gently.

His throat moved as he swallowed. Distantly, coldly he started to speak. ‘He challenged me. It was so strange. He’d never wanted the throne, never wanted anything except to live in peace, away from Ma. But still I thought it was real. I didn’t know. I didn’t … I should have known he couldn’t have … I thought the worst of him and so I killed him, and then I thought the worst of him for eleven years after. Until two days ago.’

Guilt, like a tide pulling him out.

‘Vincent is a kind of warder,’ I said, and then didn’t have a clue why. Ambrose didn’t need any more hatred for Kayan people. I kept speaking, like a fool. He needed all the truth I had, even if it meant pain. ‘Your mother was Kayan. I don’t know where Vincent came from, but he must have once had the potential to be a high level warder. The Queen used him to craft for her the life she wanted. She … was a half-walker, as I am.’

Ambrose turned to me then, and I almost recoiled at the detachment in his eyes. ‘Ava,’ he said. ‘You must leave. I can’t think of you in the same space as my ma. You were right about half-walkers – they hurt people.’

I froze, feeling my heart crack in half. Gods, how could it be possible for me to still be heartbroken? Hadn’t I had enough of that? Shouldn’t my poor, bruised heart be able to protect itself by now?

I felt like a child, suddenly unmoored by the loss of everything it knows. I felt ruined for love of him, for Ambrose.

But I nodded. ‘As you wish.’

He turned and started to leave, saying over his shoulder, ‘I should check on Rose.’

I said, ‘Wait.’

I said wait, and if I hadn’t spoken, the world would be a different place. If I hadn’t said a word, he would have walked down the stairs to Roselyn’s room, and he would have been in time to change the fate of everyone in this country, but I said wait, and so he waited.

‘You’re a very good man, Ambrose, regardless of whatever title people bestow upon you,’ I said softly, ‘and no one has made you that but yourself.’

He studied my face, managed to find some depth of kindness inside him to give me a crooked smile. ‘I’ll miss you when you’re gone, pretty boy.’

I swallowed, nodded. I couldn’t begin to describe the way I would miss him. It made no sense to me, the idea of leaving. I would live here forever, in this waking nightmare, with hatred and resentment and not a single hint of warmth, if it meant I could be near this man, but I had been slow and stupid, and I had chosen a ghost over a flesh-and-blood human who loved me to oblivion and back. Now I had lost him, because in his heart was the way his father had died at the hands of a Kayan half-walker.

I was too late.

‘Can I come with you to check on Rose?’ I asked.

Ambrose nodded so we walked together down the steps. We walked so slowly – unforgivably slowly. We came to the door of her room and stopped beside each other – I supposed it was a kind of goodbye – and still we didn’t go into the room. If we had … if only we had gone straight inside …

But fate had something else in store for us, and for those on the other side of that door.

Thorne

By the time Rose woke, two days had passed, and I was standing by the window in our bedroom, staring out into the courtyard. All the bodies had been burnt and the blood had been cleaned from the plinth, but none of it was so easily scoured from our memories. My own wounds had begun to heal slowly – I’d been hit by four arrows, but I’d survived. I carried far too much berserker blood to let small wounds like those kill me.

‘Thorne,’ my wife murmured and I whirled to see her gazing groggily at me.

‘Rose. How are you feeling?’

Her eyes were haunted as she stared up at me. I hesitated, then sank onto the bed beside her. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘What happened?’ she asked. ‘What’s wrong with me?’

‘You fell on your axe and chopped two fingers from your hand.’ I paused, then amended, ‘I pushed you onto your axe. It was my fault.’

‘You – you saved her!’ she remembered. ‘Why, Thorne?’

‘I didn’t save her – I stopped you from killing her.’

‘But … why?’ Her skin was pale and clammy, and there were deep bags under her brown eyes.

How could I explain this? I wasn’t sure it was something you could understand unless you’d done the unthinkable and taken someone’s life. ‘You’re pure, Rose. Your soul is completely untarnished. It seems to me like a worthy trade – two fingers for salvation.’ I shook my head. ‘We all have a beast inside us. I won’t let yours rule you like mine does me.’

She sighed heavily and slumped back on the pillow. I called for the healer to bring her pain medicine, and then we sat. I wanted to reach out and touch her, but I wasn’t sure if she would like that.

‘Do you hate me?’ I asked.

‘Why would I hate you?’

‘For your fingers. For … everything.’

‘This was an accident,’ she told me, holding her heavily bandaged hand aloft. ‘And I don’t hate you for anything else. But …’ and here she swallowed, ‘if you ever hurt me again, I’ll leave you. I’m not your possession. I can give myself to you, but you cannot claim me for your own. Is that … do you understand?’

I felt shame and relief – oceans of both. I didn’t know how I would ever find my way out of the darkness, but if I had any hope at all, then it lay within this woman. Clearing my dry, rasping throat, I said, ‘Never – never – again.’

Roselyn met my eyes. She gave a small nod. ‘What’s happened? The Queen – is she dead?’

‘She’s dead.’

‘Then you are King?’

‘Yes.’ But I would never have been able to handle the last two days of chaos without Ambrose. ‘I’ve named my brother King as well.’

‘Two Kings? Is that allowed?’

I shrugged. ‘If I say it is, then it is. I can ban things too. Like violence.’

She smiled. ‘I’m proud of you.’

The healer entered and set a tray down on the bedside table. His movements were strangely stiff and jerky – enough to catch my eye.

‘Drink all of that, my lady,’ he mumbled, his voice strange.

‘What is it?’ I asked.

‘It will help her pain.’ He didn’t meet my gaze, simply hurried from the room.

I shrugged it off, assuming he was as nervous as most servants were around me. ‘Rose, Ambrose and I changed the rules to name you Queen.’

She stared at me. ‘I can’t be Queen.’

‘Why not?’

‘I wouldn’t know how.’

‘I have no idea how to be a king. We can figure it out together, can’t we?’

She frowned, looking into her lap.

A sudden panic struck me. ‘Please, Rose? I need you. I can’t do this without you.’

Roselyn looked up at me, and then she smiled, the prettiest, gentlest smile I’d ever seen. It made me weak at the knees, that smile and the innocence of it. She was like the sun, and I her moon.

‘Of course,’ she murmured. ‘I’ll try.’

I breathed deeply in relief, and as I did so I caught the unmistakable scent of people approaching along the corridor. Their scents weren’t yet close enough for me to identify, but I knew Rose and I didn’t have much time alone. I wanted to tell her something, wanted to somehow say thank you for her courage, but before I had the chance, she reached for the goblet on the tray and took the covering off. ‘I’m not exactly the type of person they’re going to listen to though, Thorne.’

‘I’ll make them listen,’ I promised – and then I smelt it. It was the warm, citrusy smell of prylene. Deadliest poison in the world. Hundreds of years ago when prylene had been discovered, the use of it had been out of control. It was deadly because it had a singular, unavoidable trait – once you smelt prylene, once the distinctive scent of it reached your nostrils, you were dead. There was something about the poison that clutched onto your mind, rendering you powerless to escape the addictive, seductive pull of it. Until the poison had been ingested by someone or something, you would do anything to drink that draught. You’d kill a thousand men to get to it. The banishment had been put in place hundreds of years ago – the poison was too dangerous to even exist. All the crops of its plant had been burned and a death penalty put in place for anyone found in possession of it.

To my knowledge, there had been three people in this world who could withstand the effects of prylene – my brother, my ma and myself. Since we’d been children, Ma had built within us an immunity – not to the poison itself, but to the smell of it. I could recognise it, but I was one of only two people alive who could walk away without drinking it.

I’d be safe – I’d been trained to ignore it – but Rose wouldn’t. I saw her face as the smell of the drink reached her. She went slack and dreamy-eyed, and lifted the goblet to her mouth.

I didn’t have time to think, only to act. I wrenched the cup from her hands. She made a wild, feral sound in the back of her throat and she came at me, reaching for the goblet, her eyes crazed with desire. Her fingernails raked through my skin; she wasn’t going to stop unless the poison was ingested. I took stock of my options, for one moment only. I could take this poison and give it to the two people who were standing outside our room – I could force them to drink it, and then Rose would be safe. But as I breathed deeply, scenting the people outside, I knew to whom the smells belonged. It was Ambrose and Ava.

And so – everything suddenly became very simple.

I downed the liquid in three big gulps.

Roselyn instantly blinked. She looked at me, at the cup in my hands. ‘What just happened? Was that … was that prylene?’ I supposed she recognised the smell because she knew things like that – knew herbs and medicines and poisons.

I nodded numbly. I had maybe ten minutes to live, if I was strong – which I was.

‘Oh,’ she whispered, horror-struck. ‘No! Oh no, oh Gods, oh my … why did you do that?’ Her eyes filled with tears and started to overflow. ‘No, no, no,’ she kept saying over and over again. ‘What can we do? What must I do?’

She stood up, trembling with terror. Dashing to the closet, she pulled forth her medicine kit and started tearing through it, muttering manically under her breath, naming herbs, what seemed like hundreds of them, barely able to breathe for her spoken inventory.

‘Rose,’ I murmured. I couldn’t move, or I would have gone to her. ‘Sweetheart, there’s nothing.’

‘There has to be something! There’s always something!’

‘Not for this. It’s all right.’

‘No it isn’t!’ she shouted suddenly, trembling as she stood to face me. Moonlight found her face, wet with tears and pale with shock. ‘It’s not all right,’ she added at a whisper.

‘Come here,’ I said sleepily. ‘I want you here.’

I watched as she walked slowly towards the bed, and when she reached the side she crumpled onto it, her face breaking in agony. ‘I would have died. I could have, for you. You should have let me drink it.’

I shook my head. ‘Don’t even say that.’

‘I’m no one – you’re a king. Why did you do it? Thorne, why?’

I frowned, the question hurting me. ‘Why must you even ask?’

‘Because I don’t know the answer,’ she whispered.

Somehow, in this moment I felt more wretched than I ever had in my life. Even Avery in all his terrifying splendour had not been able to crush me so perfectly as this woman’s simple question. How had I let her come to the point where she couldn’t even understand a simple act of love? How could it be that such enormous, life-changing feelings could go unnoticed by her?

‘Because, Rose,’ I murmured, looking into her bottomless eyes. ‘I love you.’

It seemed to take her a moment to understand what I’d said – a moment for the words to sink into her starved heart. ‘You do?’ she whispered.

‘Sweetheart,’ I sighed, gathering her into my arms. ‘You’re my life, my whole life. Everything I’ve learnt, everything I’ve become – it’s simply for the love of you. You deserve for every one of your wishes to come true.’

‘Thorne,’ she sobbed, shaking her head and clutching at me with all her strength. ‘Please don’t leave me. We can fix this. You can’t die. What will I do? What will I be without you? I’ll be nothing. I won’t exist anymore.’

‘No.’ I pulled back and looked into her face. ‘We are not bonded, my love. We are our own people, and I used to think you were so fragile, but now I know the truth – you’re the strongest person I’ve ever met. You’re a miracle, a creature of sweet, gentle beauty, who came out of a cold, loveless world. Rose, you can have a new life. It will be a better life, without me to suffocate you. I … I made it very bad for you.’

She sobbed in agony at that. ‘Oh, don’t you dare say that.’

‘Move to the ocean, love,’ I whispered. ‘Don’t be frightened of it – love it. Help people with your gift. Don’t ever stop.’

Roselyn shook her head slowly. ‘Do you know what my deepest, most important wish is? The wish I make every moment of every day, with every part of my heart?’ She reached out and touched my face. ‘It’s simply for you to love me.’

My heart started beating strangely. I didn’t know if it was because of the poison, or because of her words.

‘And now you’ve granted me that wish, Thorne. You’ve given me the one thing I’ve ever truly wanted – you’ve saved my life just by loving me. And that … it seems to me like that must be enough to redeem everything else you’ve done. I think … I’m sure it means your soul is pure, for to save a life … that can only be the greatest, most noble act a man can make.’

My tears started to pour. How had she known? She’d looked inside me, deep down inside me, to my greatest fear, my greatest tragedy, and she’d dispelled it. I kissed her as gently as I could, but now I was shaking, my whole body was shaking. The taste of her lips – I knew I’d remember it for the rest of eternity, no matter where I ended up.

‘Tell my brother I love him, and I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Tell him he will be a magnificent king,’ I whispered, my voice breaking. Oh Gods, Ambrose – I loved him so much. ‘I only ever wanted happiness for him. That’s all.’

Roselyn sobbed even harder, her hands holding onto me so tightly it hurt. I wanted to make it better for her, wanted somehow to ease her agony, so I did the only thing I could that I knew would help her.

‘Count my tattoos,’ I told her, losing all of my strength and lying back on the bed. ‘Take off my shirt and count my tattoos. There’s a new one.’

I felt her pull my shirt over my head, but it was becoming hard to feel. There was no pain, just the sensation that everything inside me was slowing right down.

She counted the ink on my skin carefully, lovingly, running her fingers over each, unable to stop crying, and I stared up into her face as she did so. The gentle sound of her voice, counting as I’d heard her do a million times, every night before I fell asleep, washed over me and filled me with happiness. That counting of hers was as much a part of me as it was of her.

She came to the last tattoo – the new one. Her fingers stilled, and she looked into my eyes, understanding at last.

It was just one word, this tattoo, and it was over my heart – the place you were supposed to save for Marks, if you got them. Something had always made me ask for the Marks to sit lower. It had always seemed to me like something more important should go over my heart. And yesterday, I’d discovered what.

Roselyn.

She stopped crying and we looked at each other.

‘Promise you’ll try and count the stars again,’ I whispered. ‘Each time you do it, I’ll be there to help you, so don’t give up.’

She leant down and kissed me so gently I barely felt it.

‘Promise,’ I implored.

Roselyn nodded. ‘I promise.’ And then, and then, ‘I’m pregnant, Thorne. We’re having a child.’

I’d never known a moment of such happiness in all of my life. I’d been waiting, I think. All along – just for this. A child of my own, one I could love without limits.

My beast purred in purest joy, and he stopped rattling at the cage. He lay down next to me, tired and full just as I was. I felt his coarse fur between my fingertips, and there was an easy sense of rightness. He would be with me, in the end.

I shared one last look with my wife, three last words, barely audible. ‘I love you.’

And I felt my eyes fall shut, and everything faded into thoughts of a family I’d never thought to deserve.

Chapter 24

Ambrose

I thought I’d understood. I thought I’d been able to imagine the kind of pain that comes with grief – real grief – but I didn’t. I didn’t understand at all until that moment, when I walked into that room and found my brother’s body, and understood that he was dead. A kind of black despair settled over my heart. A fury I could not contain. A cry escaped my mouth, an anguished sound that didn’t seem like it should exist.

Ava was behind me and she gasped as she took in the sight of the two of them and the empty goblet. Roselyn looked up at us from where she’d been lying over Thorne’s body. If I had doubted it, I believed his death completely when I looked into her broken eyes.

I turned and ran as fast as I could to the dungeons. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think. He was there, sitting in the furthest cell, staring calmly with his black eyes. I knew when I saw his expression that my guess had been right – it was Vincent who was responsible for the poison, for manipulating someone into administering it. And it was my foolish hunger for revenge that had kept him alive long enough to do it.

I unlocked the bars and stepped into the cell, towering above him. There was a smile in his eyes, and that was what undid me. I reached out and snapped his neck like it was a twig. As soon as I did, I screamed in fury, because it had been a mistake – I’d been planning to drag it out, make him suffer for as long as possible, enjoy his torture. This was too easy a death for Vincent. I wanted blood and agony. I lifted his body, small like a doll in my hands. I shook it ferociously, an inhuman cruelty in my hands and a need to forget, to disappear. How had I not stopped this? How had I let him die, my brother, my brother, my brother. Oh, Thorne.

Who had ever loved me, in this life, more than he?

‘Ambrose,’ a voice reached into the chaos of my mind and heart and seemed to bring me out of my daze. I turned to look at Ava. Her eyes were gold, so gold. I sank to my knees, unable to bear it. The weight was too heavy. She understood. She was probably the only one who could. She sank to the ground before me and wrapped me in her arms as I wept, violent sobs that wracked us both.

‘I’m me only because of him,’ I said.

Ava

The shock, I think, was what made it so hard – those moments when you told yourself it couldn’t possibly be real. You clung to those thoughts like they could save you, and erase all else.

Afterwards, it took a long time to let those thoughts go. With me, it had taken two years. This man in my arms had carried me through the unyielding sea of sorrow I’d been perfectly happy to drown in, and he’d given me reason to live. I was going to do the same for him. I could not carry the weight of his brother’s death for him, but I could carry Ambrose for every step he took, for every moment of the rest of our lives. I was strong enough for that, because I was a half-walker.

Epilogue

Ava

Along the curve of the bay a long, wooden bridge had been built. It travelled over the top of the cliff and down along the oyster farms until it reached the fortress. This bridge meant easy access to the small, secluded bay Ambrose’s father had lived in, which in turn meant people could quickly reach the best medical treatment in the country without too much hassle.

I walked along it until I reached the small cabin by the sea.

The cabin itself was unchanged, furnished simply, but the back of it led to a new section of housing, known as the infirmary.

Here Roselyn treated her patients, assisted by an army of physicians.

To my right the sun was setting gloriously, steeling the sky to its palest shades of pink and purple and orange. The bay water was still, but beneath its surface was a host of glistening silver teeth, the oyster shells this region of Araan was best known for.

I stepped into the crowded infirmary, walking by rows of patients. I spotted Rose – she was sitting next to a woman with an ugly red rash on her face. I watched Rose for a moment, noting the relaxed way she dealt with her patients, the kind smile at her lips, the knowing look in her eyes and the certainty with which her eight fingers moved.

She caught sight of me and her smile widened. I raised a hand, telling her to stay, and then I walked through into the private part of the house.

The fire in the living room was crackling loudly. Before it sat Ambrose with his nephew, playing idly with something I couldn’t see. A smell wafted to me from the kitchen and I wandered in to stir the massive pot of stew. Touching the end of the wooden spoon to the tip of my tongue, I tasted wild mushrooms, parsley and beetroot, smiling as I recognised the flavours Ambrose had taught me.

Words drifted in, the sound of a deep voice I knew very well.

‘… without a hope, plunging into the ice of the north. He vanished amidst blue veins and cracked fissures, never to be seen again.’

I went to the doorway and leant against it, watching them. ‘Bleak, for a kid.’

Ambrose looked up at me, smiling. ‘A kid should know how brave his da was’

Walking into the hot room, I sank onto my knees and gazed at the beautiful little boy. Only two months old, he already had his father’s strong features and pale blue eyes.

‘He’ll know,’ I murmured, reaching for his pudgy little fingers. ‘Stew’s ready, Your Highness.’

As he rose, Ambrose ruffled my hair in annoyance at the title. I smiled, leaning close to the boy’s face. ‘That’s his name, isn’t it?’ I asked in a baby voice. ‘It’s your name too, handsome. Your name is also precious, and adorable, and perfect, and—’

‘Don’t say anything you don’t mean,’ Ambrose warned from the kitchen. ‘He knows the rules – own every title anyone ever gives him. That way they’ll always remember his true name.’

I kissed his little toes, tickling his tummy. ‘Take your own advice then, Your Highness.’

‘Brat,’ I heard him mutter.

Rose wafted in from the infirmary, crossing to sit by the fire and pull her son into her arms. She was radiant – motherhood had made her so beautiful it almost seemed impossible. There was an edge to it, though, a shadow of sadness that walked with her everywhere, and I thought that this – as well as her happiness – was what made her so lovely. I spent as much time here as I possibly could, because I knew with perfect clarity what it felt like to lose a husband. I had not dealt with it like Rose had – with grace and sorrow – instead I had become angry and hateful, but there was something about Rose’s quiet, gentle manner that calmed me and made me happy.

She humbled me, and made me proud to know her.

‘Long day?’ I asked.

She simply smiled. ‘When are you leaving?’

I glanced at the door to the kitchen, then murmured, ‘In the morning.’

‘Why?’ she pleaded. ‘Why must you go? What waits for you there?’

I shrugged. ‘You know I have to. He doesn’t …’

She shook her head. ‘You don’t speak plainly, either one of you. You spend your days together and then you go to sleep alone, each as stubborn as the other and thinking the other indifferent!’

The sound of Ambrose’s deep singing drifted in to us, and I smiled without meaning to, sinking onto my back beside Thorne. He smelt like baby, that rich, sweet, clean smell. His fist found a lock of my hair and I felt near to tears.

‘Red and green and orange, all the colours of her eyes as she leapt from her tower and found the sea,’ Ambrose sang.

Don’t, I begged him. Don’t sing about Kaya. Don’t make me love you any more than I already do.

‘I should go,’ I tried, clearing my throat.

‘Ava,’ Roselyn said softly. ‘I spent a lifetime not telling my husband how I felt about him because I was afraid of his response. I’d give anything to go back and tell him how I loved him, on that first day that I knew.’

I nodded, meeting her eyes. I kissed Thorne first, and then I kissed his mother, brushing her red hair off her forehead. Then I headed for the kitchen.

‘I … I’m leaving now.’

He turned from the stove. I couldn’t read his expression. It hurt to try, so I moved out into the bay, my footsteps taking me down to the waterline. Drawing a deep, deep breath, I willed my body to iron. Ambrose arrived beside me, his hands in his pockets. Together we watched the sea.

Ten months, since the day his brother died. Ten months I’d spent in his fortress, unable to leave, working for the treaty he and I had established together. Ten months we’d spent alongside each other without really saying a word, without letting a look linger too long, without touching each other the way I longed for. Neither of us admitted the fact that the peace treaty we were working for would not be happening if the first king were still alive – that was too bitter a fact to acknowledge. And neither of us spoke about what Thorne had claimed – that there might be a kind of magic that could set us free of each other – because that was so confusing it would drive us both mad. In any case, I was certain the idea of it had to be a lie. Falco would be searching the world for the spell if he thought it existed.

A sickness had pervaded my life, a sickness made of yearning and of silence. I couldn’t allow it to go on any longer. Even if this could be enough for me, just to be around him, it surely couldn’t be enough for him. We couldn’t have only a little piece of each other – if we couldn’t have the whole, then I had to leave him be, leave him to find a life of his own.

‘You’re really leaving?’ he said, but it didn’t sound like a question.

‘I am.’

‘I’ve had Migliori tended to,’ he went on calmly. ‘It’s a long flight home.’

My heart constricted.

‘Will you leave in the morning?’

I could do nothing but nod.

Ambrose smiled a half smile. ‘Your family will understand, when they see you. They’ll know it was right for you to live.’

My throat was too thick to speak.

‘Things will be different now,’ he murmured under his breath, eyes darting up to the horizon. ‘Our countries are finding ways to live alongside each other without bloodshed. They’re finding ways to forgive.’

I nodded jerkily.

‘And I’ll muddle through as best I can.’ He grinned.

‘Ambrose,’ I said. Panic struck – blind panic – and a sense of my own foolishness. Speak, I willed myself. You must speak.

‘Mm?’

The water had been still but suddenly I seemed to be able to hear the sound of crashing waves in my ears. I could feel the rocks hard and smooth beneath my feet.

Ambrose turned his back to the sea, looking at me with hooded eyes. He was beautiful in the sinking sunlight. He was always beautiful.

‘What’s wrong, Ava?’

‘Nothing,’ I murmured, voice scratchy. Then I said, ‘I love all the pieces of you.’

He froze, his tall frame finding an impossible stillness.

‘I’ll do anything for you,’ I whispered. ‘You’re so … you love so big, Ambrose – so bravely. You’re the best person I’ve ever met. You’ve saved my life and taught me what it means. You give so much and ask for nothing in return – nothing. I’ll— I’ll do anything, if only you’ll consider me the way you once did. If you could just … think about it? One day, when you have time? Because I’ll be here, forever – for the rest of my life and yours. I’ll wait until … I mean, I’ll do anything. I’ll give you everything I have, which I know isn’t much, but I’ll love you, as high as the sky and as wide as the sea. I’ll love you like a wild thing who cares about nothing else. I’ll be yours, every piece of me. I’ll fight for you. I’ll die for you – gladly. I’ll—’

He held up a hand, a quick brand that stopped me in my tracks. There were tears streaming down my face and I hated them, but they didn’t matter – only he mattered.

Ambrose stared at me.

I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t bear the terrible vulnerability. I knew what was coming, the rejection. There was no way in this life that he could feel anything other than resentment for me. In ten months he hadn’t said a single word about his feelings and, in truth, I believed they died when his brother did. Yet here I stood, rambling like a lunatic, unable to give up hope.

‘I would never presume to deserve you,’ I whispered.

He shook his head, very quickly. ‘Ava—’

‘Please, listen to me. I don’t … I could never expect to have you. I’ve been cruel and selfish. I didn’t understand what a gift you were, but I need you to know that there’s someone in this world who loves you more than life, more than anything. Who admires you and respects you and trusts you. I belong to you, Ambrose. Only you, and I’ll die for you—’

‘Stop, Ava!’ he said very loudly.

I stopped. My chest felt empty, like someone had hollowed it out and left me only the ugly, bleeding remains.

‘I don’t want you to die for me,’ he said clearly.

I held myself very still, knowing I had to endure this – had to endure the heartbreak I deserved, the heartbreak my dumb blindness had earned for me. But then he moved, my Ambrose. He turned very, very slightly, just enough that the light of the sunset caught his eyes and showed me how they glistened.

I froze, not understanding his tears.

And then he said, ‘Are you really so blind?’ Smiling, he shook his head. ‘I’m yours. I’m completely yours, and all I want is for you to live.’ And then he crossed the rocks and took me in his arms, ducking his head to kiss me breathless.

Our gazes were gold, but it didn’t matter, I didn’t even care. I would have loved him no matter the colour of his eyes.

Roselyn

I didn’t make wishes anymore. These days I had so many to make, but as most of the wishes were impossible they hurt me too much when I did make them. I still counted. Out on the coast of Pirenti, next to the oyster farms, there was a lot to count. I was finally away from the fortress, from all the people with their pitying, staring eyes. The only people who came here were the ones who needed my help, and that was all I’d ever need – my medicine, and Thorne, of course. Out here, with my son, there was a great deal to count.

Sometimes I counted the rhythm of the waves slapping onto the shore. Sometimes I counted all the fish I could spot. Sometimes it would be the birds I saw, or the many thousands of oyster shells I could see out my window. Often I counted the steps between patients’ beds, how many centimetres of liquid I gave them to drink, how many stiches they might need.

Mostly I counted my son’s breathing, how many times he cried during the night, all the little sounds he made during the day, how many times he laughed in a week … I’d named him after his father, and they shared the same deep blue eyes – eyes that seemed to make the laboured beating of my heart so much stronger.

And always, every night, the three of us would count the stars until we fell asleep.

Ambrose

Slowly, very slowly, we started to see the change that came over my country. When she was here, Ava would tell me stories about all the men and women and children she came across – all the stories of how happy they were and how well their families thrived. No longer were the men employed to leave their families for military training or to fight in wars that killed them.

She would tell me softly, in the darkness of night, how a child’s laughter had made his mother smile, or how she’d seen a woman working in the field alongside her husband, or how the oyster farmers on the coast had waved to her in the sky as she flew past on Migliori.

Most days she would also talk about Avery. She told me story after story and he grew so vivid, so real in my mind that it came to me quickly that I missed him. I actually missed this man I’d never met, with an ache that set my bones alight. It was a strange emptiness I couldn’t fill.

One day I told her a thought I’d had on one of my nights alone. It was simply this: the bond didn’t tear a couple apart when one of them died – instead, it finally joined the two halves of one soul together, and that’s why there was so much of Avery inside her.

The day I told her that was the day she asked me to marry her.

Then she told me more stories about Avery, long into the night, and I felt my eyes change colour, as they often did now. When she disappeared, as I always knew she must, off to her duties, I was comforted by the fact that I knew without needing to be told that she would come back to me. For all the days that the world turned.

She didn’t dress as a boy anymore and sometimes I found that I missed Avery – the Avery she had been, as well as the one in the stories. That’s when we would ride into the forest and stay there for days at a time, surviving only on the food we caught ourselves, sleeping by the fireside at night, swimming in the ocean and telling each other stories. Once, not long ago, we even sailed back to our island and visited the Kayans there, setting free all the prisoners and sending them home. In doing all of these things I’d remember that my best friend – the determined little pretty boy who’d started all of this in the first place – was still there, inside the woman I’d come to love more than I’d thought possible. He was still there, in her spirit, her passion and her arrogance. He was there when we argued, when we cried, when we laughed and made love.

And so it made Thorne’s absence just that little bit easier to bear, having someone with whom to share his loss. I had my people spend a moment each month remembering him, always frightened that his memory would somehow be entangled with the memory of the Barbarian Queen. His son would come and live with me when it was time for the boy to start learning how to rule Pirenti, and even if I had children of my own, Thorne’s son would always be heir to the throne. It was all I could do, in this life, to show my brother how much I loved him and to acknowledge all that he’d sacrificed in order to make us into a new country.

Ava

Grief is a funny thing. It can make you feel like you’re broken, can make you believe you’ve lost a part of yourself, that you’re incapable of smiling and laughing, but the truth is, it’s all an illusion. The only thing that can allow you to see through it is the people in your life, no matter what size or shape or sex they are, no matter which country they come from or whether their eyes change colour. Just the people.

On the eastern side of the fortress, there was a wide balcony that curved around three walls of the top floor. It was a different balcony to the one that overlooked the courtyard where all our ugly memories waited – this one overlooked the ocean. At the end of this balcony was a large iron statue, and standing before this statue was where I found him, as I’d known I would.

This feels like coming home, a newly awakened part of me acknowledged as I arrived here after having been gone a month. He was as still as the statue itself. Ambrose had been this way since his brother’s death – quieter, more thoughtful, and gentler. It was always the stillness that struck me, though – it wasn’t something I could understand, as I had restless tremors beneath my surface at all times.

Footsteps as light as I could make them, I approached soundlessly and slid my hands under the back of his shirt. He didn’t startle, and I knew he must have heard me. The warm pulse of his blood beat beneath his skin and muscles, and I pressed my lips against his spine.

‘Maria, I’ve been waiting for you,’ he said.

‘Very funny, idiot.’ I dug my fingernails into his skin, making him wince and grab me.

‘You’re a sight for sore eyes, kid,’ he smiled.

‘Sure you wouldn’t prefer Maria?’

‘After much comparison, I’ve decided she’s not as good at kissing as you are.’

I punched him in the shoulder and he laughed, kissing me soft and sweet. I breathed in the scent of him, relief swelling at the simple pleasure of having him close.

‘Your parents?’ he asked softly, resting his forehead against mine.

‘Tired, sad and kind.’

One of his large hands moved to cup the back of my neck. ‘I want to meet them.’

‘Da won’t even speak your name.’

‘He’s a wise man,’ Ambrose replied. ‘I haven’t earned that right yet.’

I shook my head. ‘You’ve earned it a thousand times over. He’s just old-fashioned.’

‘A name is a powerful thing.’

‘Yours, King Ambrose of Pirenti, belongs to you.’ I swallowed, meeting his eyes. ‘And so does mine.’

He nodded, the smile in his eyes growing sad and proud at the same time. He ran his fingers along my jawline and then we turned together to look at the statue.

Thorne’s bronzed face was in shadow as the sun sank behind him. I thought it a perfect likeness, except for the eyes. I believed they were much cleverer in real life than they were in this statue. In two days it would be the anniversary of his death.

I watched as Ambrose reached out and ran a thumb along the smooth surface of Thorne’s clenched fist.

‘You were the giant,’ I heard him tell his brother.

Sighing, he turned and faced me, and I saw him pull himself out of the grief, as if he could be strong enough to do so by will alone.

‘I have an idea,’ I said.

‘You, my love, are full of ideas.’

‘Would you like to go for a ride?’

He smiled slowly, pale blue eyes sparkling. ‘With you and Migliori? I can’t think of anything I’d love more.’

The people of Kaya have always died in pairs. It is our gift; it is our curse. For a woman who has bonded twice, who has loved two men in her life and who knows the intricacy of both the pleasure and the pain of it, you’d think I would know the answer, but I don’t. I still don’t know whether the bond is good or bad. But if I had to take a guess, I’d say that you can choose – you can make it whatever you want. If you let it, it will seem like a curse, but if you are strong enough, and brave enough, you can make it a gift, the most precious gift you’ll ever be given.

The people of Kaya die in pairs. With the forging of the soul magic, so is forged an unbreakable bond between those in love. When one dies, so shall the other, and forever will it remain so …

– extract from the words of Agathon of Sancia First Warder of Kaya

When one dies, so shall the other, and forever will it remain so … unless in the turning of the world the day comes when one is born with both the frozen blood of the north in his veins, and the hot winds of the south blazing through his soul. Then shall he, and only he, have the power to break the unbreakable bond.

– extract from the full and hidden words of Agathon of Sancia
First Warder of Kaya

Here ends book one of The Chronicles Of Kaya

Read on for an extract from Thorne, the next book in The Chronicles of Kaya series

Chapter One

Thorne

There are red clouds in the sky and they are dripping blood.

I tilt my face back to feel the drops on my skin and taste them in my mouth. They are acrid and familiar, their thickness as always a disturbing reality. I can feel them filling me up, filling from the tips of my toes, up my legs, my stomach and chest, my arms, my neck, right up through my throat and mouth until they reach the very top of me. When I move all I hear is slosh, slosh, slosh.

And then I am leaking blood that is not my own, and it hurts, it hurts.

‘Thorne.’

It’s feathers and rosewater and shadows, that voice. It’s every part of me that I like.

‘Thorne.’

The blood explodes from my skin, tearing me to pieces—

I felt a sharp awareness of my body, the giant hulking weapon I hated. I used it to orient me without opening my eyes. There were rough linen sheets beneath me, rubbing against my arms and legs in an irritating way I was all too accustomed to. Smells hit me – lamb and rosemary stew boiling on the stove, and the scent of soap so familiar it filled me with comfort. Beyond those, as always, was the confusing smell of the ocean. This, I had always thought, would follow me to my grave. I was aghast to feel liquid still on my lips, trickling into my mouth, but when I licked it I tasted not the heavy iron of blood but the fresh salt of tears.

Clicking my tongue in irritation, I dashed the tears from my cheeks with the back of my hand and opened my eyes. In one lurching, graceless movement I was sitting up, looking at my mother. The rising sunlight made her look wraithlike; her burnt ochre hair hung tangled around her porcelain skin and her eyes were very large.

‘Just a dream, Ma,’ I murmured. ‘I’m fine.’

She kept looking at me and I wondered where her mind was this morning. ‘You screamed,’ she said softly, her voice the delicate sound I’d known all my life. That voice was the thing I knew best in the world.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘What was it this time?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Please?’ she asked, just like a frightened child.

I hesitated, then decided as I did most mornings – but not every morning – that the truth was best for Roselyn. ‘I was full of blood. Not mine.’

Something passed her eyes, too quick for me to interpret. ‘You’ve not spilt a drop of blood in your whole life, Thorne of Araan.’

I climbed out of bed and made my way to the kitchen. Sometimes I didn’t know what world my ma lived in.

Grabbing the oldest, stalest loaf of bread from the bench, I tore into it hungrily. Once I’d finished the loaf I sat at the table and let Ma serve me a big bowl of stew. Then I ate a second bowl. She poured me several glasses of goat’s milk to go with it, and the meal filled me up somewhat, though in an hour or so I knew I’d be starving again. My body annihilated food as if it might starve at any moment, which was painfully inconvenient most of the time. Thankfully, the men in Pirenti understood. No, actually – they thought they understood, but they didn’t, not really. Not one of them truly knew what it was to yield a berserker’s appetite.

I was the last man in the world who did.

My mother put an unopened envelope on the table before me, then sat down and stared at it.

‘How many times?’ I asked.

‘Twelve.’

So I opened and closed it twelve times before I read it. Once I’d finished I looked at her swiftly. ‘When did this come?’

‘This morning.’

‘It’s from Ambrose.’

She went still like she always did when my uncle was brought up. Her brown eyes probed me, eyes that were vastly clever but absent more often than not.

‘He wants me for business. Says that I’ll be away for weeks, maybe months, if it’s all right with you. Ava will come and stay with you while I’m gone. Which means the twins too.’

Roselyn loved the twins. She considered and I watched her lips move very slightly with silent numbers. Her eyes drifted to the window and she disappeared. I reread the letter, cleaned up after my breakfast and then sat down again without her noticing a thing.

‘Ma?’

Her eyes travelled a long way back to rest on me. ‘Of course.’

‘I don’t have to go. Ambrose would understand.’

Her eyebrows knitted together. ‘Don’t be silly, darling. I have to get used to it at some point – you’re all grown up now. I’ll be perfectly fine.’

I reached out and threaded a hand through her soft hair. As always, I was a creature made of uncertainties. I wanted to stay – there was never an inch of me that felt okay about leaving her here on her own. But I wanted to wander, too. I wanted to see something other than the endless oyster farms that spread before me, silver and flickering in the moonlight. I’d cut my feet on those shells a thousand times, and each time I’d smiled, because my own blood was nothing to fear.

I was anxious to stay, anxious to go. Wild pegasi pulled me in two different directions, stretching my skin over my bones like a dried out old skeleton. And under those bones – under the skin and the flesh and the muscle and even under the blood – was something else entirely. A monster, caressing my edges and trying to whisper its way out of my heart. Mostly I kept him caged. But he was cunning and he was strong, and sometimes …

‘You’ll leave immediately,’ my mother told me.

‘You could come with me.’

She tilted her head, thinking about it. Perhaps making wishes.

‘I’m not sure how I’ll control myself.’

Roselyn shook her head firmly. ‘You will be fine, my love. Perfectly fine. You know the rules. You know exactly what to do when you feel it begin.’

There was a question on my lips – a painful, impossible question. One I had never spoken aloud, for fear of the answer. Finally, I couldn’t keep it in any longer. The question had consumed my life, and if I really was supposed to be growing up, leaving home, then I ought to know the answer.

‘Did he fight it? Or did he give in?’

She knew who I meant straight away – there could be no confusion in this. I watched the way her eyes gathered more depths, as they always did. Infinite depths, where my da was concerned. She saw so many things in him that nobody else ever did, understood so many things about him that were impossible.

‘In the beginning,’ Roselyn said softly, ‘he was more beast than man. That was when the blood spilt, oceans of it. But at the very end, he fought like no ordinary man could – he fought with strength only his blood could have allowed him.’

I wasn’t sure if the blood she was talking about was the half that came from the wild snow beast or the half that came from the evil half-walker. Either blood seemed particularly unappealing, and I housed both in my veins.

‘He died fighting it, then,’ I said flatly.

She shook her head, my mother. ‘On the day he died he’d already beaten it. He was a long way beyond it.’

I was a creature made of uncertainties, except for the one single thing I knew: I would never beat the beast.

I wasn’t strong like my da had been.

‘Do you know what the king wants you for?’ Ma asked me.

I met her eyes. ‘He’s sending me to live in Kaya.’ And for the first time in a long while, my mother looked truly frightened.

Finn

All I wanted was a hat. Was that too much to ask? Jonah was at my side, elbowing me in the ribs at regular intervals, and Penn was on my other side, tugging on my hair to get my attention. I felt likely to kill them both. The sun was beating down on my uncovered head, glancing off all the windows of the buildings around me, blinding me with its brightness, and we’d been standing here for over an hour. All of this might have been fine under normal circumstances – I usually quite liked public announcements – but there was a gallon of last night’s ale still making its way through my body, and I was very close to vomiting.

All I wanted was a damn hat.

‘It’s your own fault,’ my idiot brother told me smugly.

‘One more word and I’ll kick you in the groin.’

‘Do you know what this is about?’ Penn asked me for the thousandth time. He was on repeat this morning. Sometimes when he got something stuck in his head – a question or a thought, a word or a colour or an image – it came out of his mouth over and over again until someone screamed at him for mercy.

‘No,’ both Jonah and I replied forcefully.

‘But look,’ Jonah pointed out, ‘soldiers are here, and several warders, so I reckon it must be important.’

‘Do you think they’re finally going to tell us if the rumour is true or not?’ I wondered aloud.

Eighteen years ago, the first peace treaty in known history between Kaya and Pirenti was drawn up. Ten years after that, a rumour started. I had no idea where it originally came from, but it had seemed like an incredibly nasty rumour. A cruel whisper that no one could believe: that there might, somewhere, be a way to break the bond.

As the rumour grew in strength, Kaya began to crumble. The very idea divided the regions, rekindling the oldest argument – was the bond a gift or a curse? Should we treasure it, or fight to survive it?

I wanted to know the answer more than anyone, because if it was true, and there was a way to end the bond for all Kayans to come, then I was going to be the one to break the curse once and for all, and no warder’s magic, no army of berserkers – nothing at all in the entire world – would stop me.

At the end of the public square was a raised wooden plinth. This was where they held award ceremonies and punishments. I’d seen a Pirenti man get hanged there, but that had been a long time ago. No one had been hanged since the peace treaty had started to properly take effect about ten years ago. Now the square was mostly saved for fairs and markets and performances, the countless swinging corpses of war just an unhappy, ghoulish memory that haunted the cobblestones.

I fixed my eyes on the stage and begged the gods to let whatever was happening start soon. The sun, which I normally welcomed like a lover, was starting to become the worst kind of nightmare, seeping into my head and making it throb with blinding light.

‘Can we go?’ I asked. ‘This is stupid.’

‘It’s your own fault,’ Jonah repeated.

‘What’s my fault?’ I snapped. ‘The sun? All these people? This stupid announcement?’

‘No, drinking too much and acting like a sourpuss.’

‘Sourpuss,’ Penn agreed with a secret giggle that nearly made me crack a smile.

Just then the horn blew, and I groaned aloud in gratitude.

Several men walked onto the stage. The first man was the army general, Brathe. He was taller than most Kayans, and so bald that it hurt my eyes to look upon the glaring surface of his skull. Next came Sharn and Valerie, the two royal informants of the Emperor. They were always dressed the same – in the gold of their eyes when they looked at each other. For eight years people had protested the fact that a bonded couple were the two royal informants. It was unsafe. But the Emperor had never done anything about it, which had fuelled the rebels’ excitement about a world designed on the survival of the bond.

Next came the head warder, Lutius. He was terrifying as always, though at this moment his eyes and skin were a normal colour.

And lastly was a man who didn’t fail to grab everyone – everyone – in that square’s attention. I could feel the rustle move through the large crowd, the whispers and the fidgeting and the general disbelief.

Because here – striding out onto the raised plinth for everyone to see – was a giant of a man, and he was unquestionably from Pirenti. There’d been no one born in Kaya who had ever looked like that, not since the dawning of the world.

There was fear, then. Indelible fear. We weren’t ready. They should have warned us. Too many had died at the hands of the Pirenti pigs. For too many years we had fought in the wars against them. Even for those of us like Penn, Jonah and myself – who were too young to have seen any violence there was still a bone deep awareness of danger that came with seeing the northern giants. Parents and grandparents had been killed. Cousins and aunts and uncles. No family had been spared the savagery of the Pirenti.

And not even peace, which was a constant relief, could erase the fear and the grief.

He was a monster of a man. The second tallest man on that stage only came to his shoulder, and just barely. He must have been seven foot tall, at least. His chest was an enormous barrel, his arms muscled like tree-trunks. He wore his hair shaved very short, like all Pirenti soldiers did, and his skin was pale and ghostly as a Kayan’s would never be.

‘Doesn’t the sun shine there?’ Jonah had asked a very long time ago when we’d been four or five years old.

‘It’s hidden behind all the blood,’ my ma had replied.

Beyond that I couldn’t see him very well, but there was something about him that made me forget my headache.

‘Greetings!’ Sharn called to the assembled crowd. The public square was full – whatever news was announced this morning would be spread throughout Limontae by the time the sun went down. Of that there was no doubt – we loved to gossip, we Kayans.

A shout of response came from the crowd – a gathered ‘Ho!’ that made Sharn grin. She glanced at her bondmate and whatever she saw there made her curb her smile. Valerie was as stern as Sharn was flippant.

‘Peace prevails!’ she shouted next, and the resounding cheer was even louder.

The Pirenti man didn’t move a muscle. He surveyed the crowd with an expression that was completely unreadable – I was trying to read it, by gods I was trying.

Brathe, the general, looked exceedingly unimpressed, but I only glanced at him before my eyes were pulled back to the outlandish stranger.

‘After eighteen wonderful years of peace, we must move forward even further,’ Sharn announced. ‘We’ve taken the first step in a unified world, but until now our borders have never been shared. We have not offered our homes to an ally as we should have. Today we welcome a man from the north into our country, a man who signifies our ties with progress and with peace.’

Something inside me started to move. I pushed through the people in front of me, shoving them out of the way unceremoniously. There were loud grunts of disapproval but I barely heard them. I was forcing my way to the stage and there was nothing else, for just a moment, but the need to see the Pirenti man’s face clearly. I didn’t know why, but I had to see that face. I reached the base of the plinth and stopped, staring up at him, oblivious to all else. The sharp, clear angles of his face, his small, thin mouth, his severe jaw, and his eyes. His eyes. They were a startling shade of the lightest blue. So pale they almost looked white. Clear and crisp and distant.

In all my life, surrounded by people with eyes that changed to every imaginable hue, I had never once seen such a pale shade of blue. I wanted to know what it meant, I wanted to know what the colour meant.

Then I remembered that in Pirenti colours meant nothing.

I took a breath and was dismayed to feel it tremble. Up so close, I could see how far away he was. He barely stood there, on the ground. He was a million miles away, his angled face pensive and haunted. I had the strangest desire to reach out and catch all of his thoughts in my hands and hold them to my face so I could see them before they escaped. I wanted to see what colour they were; I wanted to see if they were as beautiful as his face was.

‘Finn …’ my twin brother hissed, coming up behind me with apologetic glances to everyone around us. ‘Damned impossible girl!’

‘Beside me,’ Sharn called, interrupting Jonah, ‘stands the Crown Prince Thorne of Pirenti.’

Everyone in the crowd froze. No one had any way to be prepared for that, for the terror. We were stunned, every one of us.

In the north there had been a man, a demon man, who’d spilt more blood than any other human in the world. He fed on Kayans, the legend went. Sucked their blood from their bones and kept their teeth as trophies. Slaughterman of the Barbarian Queen – the most dangerous man in the world.

In some legends, it was told that he was part berserker – the monsters of the ice – but that was impossible, I told myself sharply, curbing my frightened mind before it got away with me.

His name … That name followed us into our nightmares. We went to sleep fearing Thorne the slaughterman. And although we all knew by now that the war was over and that the slaughterman was dead, there was a kind of disease that came with even the mention of it. A sickness that crept inside our bones, eating away at them until we were so scared of Pirenti that we were willing to do anything – anything at all – to make it end.

I took half a step back – it was all I had room for. The people behind me were close and panicked, just as I was.

‘Prince Thorne comes in peace,’ Sharn shouted quickly, sensing the unrest her words had created. ‘He is a peace envoy from the King and Queen of Pirenti, and he is here to learn more about our ways to further the understanding between our peoples. This is a joyous occasion – joyous!’

Nobody was listening. There was too much hatred, too deep in our bones.

Brathe stepped forward, his grizzly face evidence of all the battles he’d fought in the war. ‘Every person in Limontae – and Kaya, for that matter – is bound by law to treat this man with respect. He is protected by Kayan royalty, and by the precious treaty that has kept us all alive. We must protect that treaty. Any violence towards him will be punishable by death.’

The dire warning reached out to all of us, and people started to hurry home.

I stood a moment longer, not sure why, but aware that fear had curdled in my fingertips and started to spread. But the funny thing was, it left a strange kind of excitement in its wake. My heart was pounding heavily. Everything was transient except fear – it was the only thing that stayed. This I knew and hated with a shameful kind of intimacy. This I forbade myself to think upon.

Jonah and Penn both grabbed my arms but I shrugged them off, staring up at the Pirenti man’s face. He was very young, barely a man at all, really.

The warder moved past the prince, striding off the stage. Next went the bonded informants, followed by the general.

Now the prince stood alone. He was an easy target like that, utterly motionless. His eyes were fixed somewhere in the distance, like maybe he hadn’t realised the others had left. What could he be imagining in that head? Trying to picture a Pirenti Prince’s thoughts was so far from my capabilities that a ravenous curiosity ignited in my veins. I’d never come across anyone as exotic or strange, or as different to me as the sky was to the earth. I stared up at him, held taut by my fear and my fascination, and in that moment he looked down at me.

Our eyes met.

His blue gaze was icy at first, and then it warmed to a kind of fire as he stared at me. All the muscles in his face relaxed very slightly – very, very slightly – and then his eyes followed suit. At the corner of his mouth I saw a twitch. And then he smiled, a thing made of warmth. A thing made to keep people alive. A thing that was beautiful beyond what I’d understood could exist.

A second later the general called for him and he was gone.

I was left in the glaring sun with my brother and my friend and a heart made of shattered stone.

Thorne

She was wild. That was the first thing I understood about the girl in the town square.

I was led up onto that stage behind the Kayans so that their people could behold me, and even though I knew it was important, I wasn’t sure exactly what I could offer them that they would be pleased with. I wanted to try, wanted to give them something other than the memory of the war. But I felt like a tamed animal on display and they were distraught. All of them. I could smell their fear, pungent and heady. It made my beast claw at my insides in excitement, but I swallowed him away with all the strength I could manage.

I’d been sent here by my uncle, my King, because to breach the borders like this was to cement our power. He knew I was no good with people, but he’d sent me anyhow. I didn’t understand, but I obeyed. Because I believed in peace.

Except that all these Kayans abhorred me. And worse – they feared me. It was always unsettling to see terror in eyes and know it was because of me. My beast enjoyed it; I did not.

Brathe led the way off stage, which I thought was too soon. They should have kept us all there longer, forcing the people in the square to acclimatise to the idea of me. They needed to get used to the look of me. But instead they rushed me off as if I was a creature of nightmare to be feared.

I thought of my ma and da. In my mind they had always represented a kind of good and evil. There was a monster, and there was the angel who’d tamed him. I knew only the mother who had raised me, soft and gentle and disastrously vague. And I knew the legend of the slaughterman.

‘Your Highness,’ someone called from the side of the stage. Probably Brathe, since he seemed to be responsible for me. But before my eyes could move to him, they swept over the crowd before me and stopped.

There was a girl standing there. Not far below me. Still, in the middle of a broiling mass of uncertainty. Where everyone else fled, she remained.

Her tanned skin bristled with an undeniable movement, her short yellow hair whipped about her face with a life of its own. Despite her stillness, I had a sense that she never stopped moving, not for a single second. I had a sense that she was excited and loud and difficult. I had a million senses all at once and they were like a fist to the face.

Her short, slim body reminded me of the women in Pirenti who were made an example of. They were weak, those women. But in this girl’s eyes there was no weakness. All I saw, in the yellow gaze, was laughter. And laughter, I’d become aware, was not something I was good at.

Brathe grabbed my arm and wrenched me off the stage, but I pulled away from him and ran back into the crowd. People scattered before me – I even heard a few screams, for gods’ sakes. True, I probably looked like a lunatic, lumbering down off the stage like that, but screaming?

Blindly I forced my way to where she’d been standing.

I was too late; she was gone. Instead, all I found were people running in terror of me.

Falco

A simple man was an unthreatening one. That was what I knew – one of the only things I knew for sure. It was not good for a man in my position to be good at too many things.

So when the skirmish broke out, my hunting party attacked on the border of my land, I gave an audible gasp of fear and cowed behind my horse.

‘Protect His Majesty,’ Petir ordered smoothly, and the soldiers of my guard surrounded me, their training making quick work of the rough group of southern rebels. When the six men were dead at our feet, I straightened and peered at them.

Petir and Coll went through the bodies, searching for identification, but found only the tattoos of the Sparrow on the backs of their necks.

‘Your Majesty?’

I licked my lips, feigning discomfort with the corpses and swinging back up onto my mount. ‘Home. But don’t mention anything to the Empress – she’ll be outraged at having missed the fun.’

A few of the men grinned, and then we kicked our mounts forward over the grassy hills of Galincia. In the distance the city loomed, its red and gold walls a thing of sparkling beauty against the backdrop of the ocean.

At the gates I pulled my blindfold tightly over my eyes and allowed Petir to lead my mount up the winding streets to the palace. As usual, the sounds of my city were how I lived it, learned it. The trickle of lazy stone fountains. The clip clop of our horses’ hooves on the sandstone. The soft murmurs of citizens as I passed them by. I knew when we neared the markets as there was a clatter of noise – the shouts of haggling, workers dragging crates and getting ordered to hurry up, the cries and laughter of children as they ran through the stalls … Smells hit me, the light and tangy scent of citrus fruits, the deep scents of resin and various oils, stalls full of incense, horse shit and always the glorious smell of salt from the sea breeze.

At the stables, Petir helped me off my mount and then guided me inside the palace, where at last I was able to take off my blindfold and my shoes. Padding across the cool marble, I traversed the airy chambers with their high roofs and open windows until I found her standing on the Eastern balcony. Dropping a kiss on the back of her neck, I was rewarded with an elbow to my stomach.

‘Oof. Mercy, Quillane.’

‘Don’t sneak up on me.’

‘Don’t pretend you didn’t hear me.’

The Empress turned her cat-eyes to me, lips twitching. ‘Did you catch anything?’

‘We did indeed.’ I hesitated, then flapped a hand flamboyantly. ‘Six Sparrows, as it were.’

Quillane’s angular face lost its amusement immediately. ‘Inside Galincia? Surely not!’

‘Actually, I’m quite sure, since the gruesome sight of their corpses will plague my dreams for months.’ I shuddered, making a face of distaste. ‘They smelt quite horrid. Did you know dead bodies had such a stench?’

She shook her head at my idiocy, her straight black hair swaying silkily. I wanted to run my hands through it. But I always wanted to run my hands through it, which meant I’d come up with ways of distracting myself from it, just as I did with her beauty. The Empress Quillane was one of the strangest looking women in Kaya, one of very few people born with jet-black hair and green eyes that rarely changed shades. She had feline grace and strength in her muscles, but her skin wasn’t the bronzed shade of the coast-dwelling folk of our lands – instead, it was a pale shade of creamy white. She had endured whispers her whole life that claimed she looked more like she belonged in Pirenti, and before her election to power she was even subjected to a warder’s proof of parentage.

‘We stray closer and closer to war with every passing day.’

‘We will not initiate civil war,’ I stated flatly.

‘We won’t have to, Falco. It is coming for us. And when we make our announcement I cannot imagine the chaos …’

I shook my head, allowing myself a moment of gravity before I had to don the cloak of joviality once more. ‘Hundreds of years of war over, only to start fighting amongst ourselves. I am ashamed.’

Quillane sighed and rested her elbows on the sandstone balcony. Silently, we watched the sea crash against the rocks below the cliff our palace was perched on. Gulls circled the sky above, screeching their joy at traversing the wind pockets.

‘What is it that they think this will achieve?’ she murmured.

‘They are angry and hurt. And they follow a madman who will not stop until he has led them all to destruction.’

‘Our spies have yet to learn his identity.’

‘He will not be an easy man to find.’

I dreamt of him, some nights. The Sparrow. I had come to understand that my fate and his were irrevocably entwined. And some nights, when I woke sweating from the terror of his approach, I knew that when he and I finally came face to face, as we must, only one of us would live through that day.

Quillane

I watched him out of the corner of my eye, wondering at the darkness of his mood. It wasn’t strange that my Emperor would feel the black dread of this looming war, but it was strange for him to allow me to see him this way.

It was a rare day that Falco of Sancia deigned to discuss anything serious, and I wanted to take advantage of these fleeting moments. ‘I want to meet with Brathe and Lutius.’

‘I’ll send for Brathe, but I don’t want Lutius in my palace. Not now.’

‘It’s not the time to be alienating the warders, Fal. We’ll need them.’

‘They’re the reason we’re in this mess,’ he muttered. Which happened to be true. The warders were the ones who’d kept the truth of the bond from us all these years, and admitted the truth only when Queen Ava and King Ambrose of Pirenti had threatened to tear down their temples unless they spoke the truth at long last.

‘Don’t be silly,’ I said faintly, distracted by thoughts of the northern nation.

He sighed, eyeing me sideways. Falco, Emperor of Kaya, was an obscenely beautiful man. Golden hair tied at the nape of his neck, eyes the colour of sparkling diamonds, a wide smile of perfect white teeth … Even I sometimes found myself staring at him in astonishment, wondering how such a man could have sprouted from the loins of two such plain parents. Taller in stature than most Kayans, he was lean and strong. It was a pity, however, that his body happened to be utterly useless. Unable to wield a sword or throw a punch, disastrously uncoordinated and full of cowardice, Falco’s only real qualities were the sharpness of his mind and the compassion in his heart. His ability to make whomever he smiled at believe themself to be the most special person in the world was both a skill and a detriment to him, as more often than not, the sudden absence of that smile would break the same person’s heart.

‘Fine, have them both sent for.’ He paused, eyes dropping to the length of my body. ‘You’re looking delicious today, darling. Did I mention that?’

I looked away. ‘You know the princeling arrives today.’

Falco sighed as if he couldn’t care less. ‘The beast, you mean? Son of the slaughterman? I don’t want to talk about him. I want to talk about you and I going into that closet over there, and I want to talk about how I could teach you the meaning of life with only my tongue.’

‘You may not want to talk about him, but he is all too real. We’ll have to receive him soon.’

‘And have him traipse in here with his bloodied animal skins and human bone jewelry? The man is a savage. He’d stain our pretty white marble floors with his filth.’

The serious discussion was over, clearly. Shaking my head, I turned and headed inside.

‘Darling, you slay me,’ he laughed. ‘Just one little lick? I promise you’ll love it.’

‘I’d cut off that tongue before it came anywhere near me.’

‘You don’t know what you’re missing, my love.’

Maybe I didn’t. But regardless of how pretty or how charming my Emperor was, regardless of how I loved him, he wasn’t the one I wanted, and never could be.

With my gauzy skirts billowing behind me, I returned to my private chambers and removed a key from around my neck. Behind the bookcase was a passageway. Only three people alive today knew about this passage, and the chamber it led to. Falco was not one of them, and I’d die before I did him the disservice of telling him.

Securing the door behind me, I crept along the tunnel until I reached the bedroom and found her cross-stitching by the single window. Her blond hair fell across her face as she looked up at me.

‘Have you eaten, sweetheart?’ I asked.

Smiling prettily, she nodded. Radha had been mine for eighteen years. And for eight of those I had kept her in this room. Each time my eyes turned gold for her, my heart broke a little at the terrible cruelty of the life we led. The injustice of the ambition in my veins and the passion in my heart that meant she lived her life locked out of sight of anyone in this kingdom.

‘Did he fall from his horse again?’

I shrugged. ‘Probably. I didn’t ask.’

Radha gave a soft trickle of laughter. Everything about her was sweet and soft. I tried desperately to be more like her, but I was too cynical to keep it up for long.

‘He was attacked by six Sparrows.’

Radha paused, lowering her embroidery. ‘Oh, Quill.’

I nodded, slumping into a chair beside her. ‘They grow bolder every day.’

‘So what will you do about it?’

I shrugged.

‘You know what the answer is,’ she murmured gently.

I met her golden eyes and felt the bond pull at us both. An ache in my skin, in my bones and my gut.

‘Send troops in to control them.’

‘I send troops, and they’ll see it as an act of warfare, which means that there will be an ocean of bloodshed. They are too many and too well armed for us to expect any other outcome. I don’t want violence in my country.’

‘You will have it anyway, my love. Making the proclamation as you did and having your people seek out the end to the bond has excited everyone. And if you let the rebels grow in numbers and strength, if you fail to show yours, they will bring the war to you and the bloodshed will be much worse.’

I closed my eyes, resting my head against the chair. ‘I can’t make that decision on my own.’

‘You may have to,’ Radha told me gently. ‘What help will you get from Emperor Feckless?’

‘He’s not feckless,’ I muttered, without much conviction. Radha didn’t dislike anyone, but if she did, I believed it would be Falco. They’d never met, but she’d heard enough about him to be equal parts amused by his antics and exasperated with his failings.

I heard a rustle of silk and then she was upon me, her small frame sliding onto my lap, her lips tracing the shape of my jaw. ‘You’re a brave woman, Empress.’

My hands went to her hips. ‘I’m not. If I was, you’d live with the country’s eyes upon you, as you deserve, instead of hiding in here as if I’m ashamed of you.’

She made a soft sound. ‘You’d lose your throne.’

It shouldn’t matter, but it did. There were too many things I wanted to do, to achieve. I wanted a new life for Kaya. I wanted peace. And I couldn’t fight for that unless I sat on the throne. ‘I want you out of here.’

‘I won’t be apart from you.’

A conversation we’d had every day for years.

‘How do you breathe?’

‘I think of you and it’s easy,’ she said, and then kissed me. A powerful hurricane consumed us; this was how she and I loved each other, with obsession and need and an impossible desperation.

But when those things waned, when we chipped away at them until they broke, what would we have left?

Unbreakable, the bond was said to be. Some days I felt the untruth of this. Because when the day came that this life was too much for her, when she forgot who she had once been within the confines of this prison cell, and when she finally grew to hate me, what would the bond mean then? What would it be worth?

And it was in moments like these that I wished my kingdom were a different place. In this different place, there would be no law against the Emperor and Empress having bondmates, and there would be no law against two women ruling together. And in this different place, Radha would walk free, and our eyes would turn gold, and everyone in the kingdom would see and rejoice instead of burning us at the stake.

About the Author

Charlotte grew up with her nose in a book and her head in the clouds. At fourteen, her English teacher told her that the short story she’d submitted was wildly romantic but somewhat clichéd, so she decided to prove him wrong – and write a novel. Thus began her foray into epic fantasy, with sweeping romances and heroic adventures, and as much juicy drama as she could possibly squeeze in.

Her first novel, Arrival, was published at age seventeen, followed by Descent when she was twenty, launching The Strangers of Paragor series, which is adventure fantasy for teenagers.

Soon she started her first adult fantasy novel, Avery, the prologue of which came to her in a very vivid dream. This novel didn’t come together fully until she had finished a degree in screenwriting at the Australian Film, Television & Radio School in Sydney, and then all at once it seemed to fall into place. Avery will be the first book in a new series called The Chronicles of Kaya.

Charlotte currently lives in Sydney, studying a Masters in Screenwriting, which allows her to explore different aspects of her writing and indulge in her passion for film and television. She will, however, always be a novelist at heart, still unable to get her nose out of the books.

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Version 1.0
Avery
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Copyright © Charlotte McConaghy, 2013

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

A Random Romance book
Published by Random House Australia Pty Ltd
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First published by Random Romance in 2013

Cataloguing-in-Publication information available through the National Library of Australia

Cover image © iStockphoto
Cover design by Cathie Glassby
Map by Xou Creative
Ebook by First Source

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