Page 71 of The Ragpicker King
You rise, your magic finding purchase on the currents of the air, until you are at the window of the Palace library. Inside, the Prince is watching a red-haired girl read a book with the expression of a starving man staring at a plate of food. You want to stop and watch the scene, the girl in particular, but you have somewhere else you need to go. Tonight, the Palace is busy. Tonight is your best chance. You cannot waste it.
You soar upward, toward the gray spike of the North Tower. High up in the tower is a window, arched and narrow. You aim yourself toward it like an arrow.
In the dark and silent tower room, the King sits motionless, his gloved hands rigid and still on the arms of his chair. He has been this way for hours, days. He no longer eats or drinks. He stares fixedly into the darkness, his gaze never wavering, even when a dark figure appears at the window. Even when it creaks open on its hinges, and Elsabet slips into the room.
She is all in black, though her face is bare, pale as a moon in the gloom. She seems thin and sharp as a black needle, her inky hair bound tightly at the back of her head. Beneath the thin skin of her chest, a dark stone gleams with a bright inner fire that seems to pulse like a heart. An Arkhe.
If the King recognizes it, or her, he gives no sign. He is motionless as she comes close. The pendant at her throat radiates light, illuminating the room, the King’s set face and shadowed eyes. “All my life,” Elsabet says, coming a step closer, “I have wished to look upon the face of the man who nearly brought my country to ruin.”
The King does not respond. He is a statue, carved out of living flesh, barely breathing.
“What do you see when you look at me?” demands Elsabet. “Do you see my mother? She remembers you well—a quiet boy scuttling through the great halls of the palace in Favár. Who would have thought that such an unprepossessingpilczacould destroy the source of all our power?” She brings a hand down, hard, upon the nearby desk, causing the astrolabe and other instruments of celestial divination to shudder. “Were you jealous? Did you realize your royal blood did not carry magic, as ours did? Did you wish to make House Aurelian special, as House Belmany is special? You must have thought you were so clever, fleeing with Fausten, he of little magic. As if he could protect you from our wrath, our vengeance. No. He never did that. He was always on our side, even under your very nose, giving you your potion. You were so desperate for it, he said, for it quieted the screaming in your head. The cry of the phoenix.”
The King’s hand moves, very slightly. In a flash, Elsabet is at his side, peering at him. Had it been a trick of the light? His eyes are blank as ever.
“What did you think would happen?” she muses. “Spilling the lifeblood of magic itself? You destroyed a being whose whole nature is transformation. Did you not think that would change you? We never thought you would be such a fool as to have your own child. Did you truly never realize that the magic you stole runs in your blood now, and that you would pass it on to him? Your boy, your pretty Prince? Perhaps you understood, a little. Perhaps that is why you insisted he have aKirálar.A Sword Catcher.”
Elsabet lets her mind dwell briefly on the Prince, the one who is even now in the library nearby, the contents of his heart stamped on his face. She knows he will be hers, in the end, for that is part of the great plan: He might be mindless, enslaved by magic, but he will belong to her and she will do as she likes with him. The thought spreads warmth through her veins.
“The potion slowed your change,” she whispers now. Her mother had told her that Markus had been handsome in his youth, though she could see none of Conor’s looks in him. “But when it comes upon you—and it will—oh, we will lock you in a cage and sink it so deep in the ground, your screams will go forever unanswered. And as for your son, spoiled and unformed as he is, he is a seed of power—one that will be replanted in Malgasi soil. In me.” She grins, not caring now whether he knows she is there or not. “After that, we will have no more use for him. But he is a pretty thing; I will enjoy him before I discard him. And as for your city, of which you are so proud, it will become a second Favár. Clean, quiet, orderly, and under Belmany power.” She leans closer to the King, close enough that she thinks she can smell the bitterness of smoke. “All that you have will be taken from you. All that you love, destroyed.”
Slowly, so slowly, the King raises his heavy eyelids. And Elsabet takes a step back. He is motionless again, but in his eyes, she seesfire—that same fire that blazes behind her own eyes when she uses the power of her Arkhe. More golden than any ordinary flame: a fire thought vanished from the world with the Sundering. More than that, behind him, she thinks she sees the shadow of wings, cast against the wall—
Her hand flies to the Source-Stone at her throat. It was filled long ago, when House Belmany had what seemed an infinity of magic to draw upon. It is now a pale shadow of that old power, but it is still more than most will ever have access to. If there is another Source-Stone in Dannemore, she does not know of it.
Sluggishly, it calls to the magic in her blood, and her blood answers. Over the years, it has grown weaker, but it is still enough. Elsabet has been raised to one purpose: To reclaim the lost magic of her family. To recover their power. She gazes now at the King, at his burning eyes.
“When I see you again, you will be quite changed,” she says. “It will not be long now.”
She leaps for the window then, letting the magic of the stone buoy her into the air, letting it carry her through the night.
CHAPTER TWELVE
During the day, the Ruta Maestra was a wide road bordered by rich shops selling to the upper classes of Castellane. She was a beautiful aristocrat, draped in rich silk, toying with the diamonds at her throat. But at night, she doffed her furs and revealed herself as the pretender she was—a merchant’s daughter whose jewels were paste, with an ambitious gleam in her eye.
Kel and Conor rode together through the lights of the Broken Market, Conor on Asti and Kel on Asti’s brother, a roan gelding named Matix. Conor had his hood up, hiding his identity from the crowds. Occasionally, they passed the flare of a naphtha torch whose sudden illumination would reveal a portion of Conor’s face, and Kel would wonder how they did not know him, did not recognize him by the curve of his cheekbone or the sharp flash of his smile. He had the most recognizable face in Castellane, and yet it was as if he were invisible simply because he had donned a homespun linen cloak.
It was as if he had his own sort of amulet, Kel thought as they turned into the Temple District. Those who knew who Kel really was were not fooled; those who expected to see the Prince saw the Prince. It was, above all things, a game of expectations.
When they reached the Caravel, they dismounted, handing thereins of their horses to waiting grooms. As they went inside, Conor tossed his hood back, looked at Kel, and smiled.
Kel was not fooled by the ease of the smile. In theory, they were visiting the Caravel to celebrate with Falconet, who had made a great deal of money on a shipment of spices that had just come in. Three months ago, it was the sort of thing Conor wouldn’t have thought of missing. Tonight, Kel had had to cajole and press him out the door, telling him it would make Falconet furious if they made no appearance.
In truth, Kel cared little about whether Joss was furious or not; he was worried about Conor. When he had come back from the banquet last night, he had found Conor lying flat on one of the divans in their room, uncharacteristically silent. He had not asked Kel about the nobles, or Anjelica. He had been holding his arm as if it were injured, but he snapped at Kel for wanting to see it. And when Kel had asked him about Lin, Conor had only turned away, as if he did not want Kel to see his expression. It was unusual for Conor to conceal his feelings this way, but Kel already knew that when it came to Lin and Conor, everything was unusual.
Then Conor had woken up in the dead of night screaming—a mix of Castellani and Malgasi. Kel recognized some of the words.Atma az dóta.Fire and shadow.
He had gone over to sit on Conor’s bed, and Conor had rolled onto his back, looking up at Kel with wide gray eyes, as he had when he was a child. “You are the only one I trust,” he said, and when he fell asleep, he did it holding fast to Kel’s wrist.
Enough was enough, Kel thought. Joss’s party was a convenient excuse for a familiar kind of celebration. One that offered a chance to forget, if only for a night. He had talked Conor into it, and now here they were, having made their way into the crowded main room.
All the expected guests were here. Falconet reclined on a couch near the fireplace, his back to the bare chest of a handsome young blond man from Hanse. He was eating an apple. He grinned when he saw Kel and Conor and tossed it in Conor’s direction.
Kel’s arm shot out; he intercepted the apple automatically. Conor cast him an amused look.
Kel shrugged.I am the Prince’s shield; I stand between him and thrown fruit.He played it off by biting into the apple with a smirk at Joss.
Montfaucon had already approached them, Ciprian just behind him. “Conor,” he said. “What on earth’s going on with the art on the walls?”
