I’ve been listening to my brother’s breathing for hours. ere’s a new sound each time he inhales, a faint stuttering in his lungs. In the Wilds, they call it the death rattle, because it means the end is near.
Here in his chambers, I’m unwilling to use the word death at all. I’m unwilling to even think it.
He doesn’t have a fever. ere’s no cause to worry. I can’t even convince myself.
Sunlight blazes through the open window, and birds trill in the trees. Harristan shouldn’t be sleeping this late, but I hate to wake him. To everyone outside the doors to his rooms, we’ve been deliberating over paperwork all morning. I’ve called for food twice, enough to feed a dozen people, but most of it sits untouched. Flies have begun gathering on the sliced fruit, and a bee drones over the pastries.
Harristan coughs faintly, and his breathing eases. Maybe that’s all it was, a tickle in his throat. A tightness in my own chest loosens, and I run a hand across the back of my neck, nding it damp.
A faint breeze nudges at my papers with enough insistence that I tuck most of them under the weight of the lamp before they can scatter across the desk. One of us has to work. I’ve been making notes along the margins of a funding request from one of the eastern cities, looking for omissions and inaccuracies in their statement demonstrating the need for a new bridge. I expected to get through only a few pages before Harristan would wake up, but now I’ve gone through the entire report and it must be nearly midday.
I tug my pocket watch free and glance at the glittering diamonds embedded in its face. It is midday. If he doesn’t appear at the meeting of the sector consuls, there will be talk. I can only silence so much.
As if my thoughts wake him, my brother stirs, blinking in the sunlight. He frowns at me and sits up, shirtless, then runs a hand down his face. “It’s late. Why didn’t you wake me?”
I listen to his voice carefully, but there’s no roughness to his tone, no sign of any difficulty breathing. Maybe I imagined it. “I was just about to.” I move to the sideboard and li the kettle. “e tea has gone cold.” I pour a cup anyway and carry it to him, along with a thin corked tube of Moon ower elixir that’s darker than usual. e palace apothecary doubled his dosage last week when the coughing started again, so maybe the medicine is beginning to work.
Harristan uncorks the tube, drinks it, and makes a face. “ere, there,” I say without a lick of sympathy.
He grins. at’s something he only does when we’re alone. Neither of us smiles outside these rooms very oen. “What have you been doing all morning?”
“I went through the request from Artis. I’ve draed a refusal for you to sign.”
His expression turns serious. “A refusal?”
“ey’re asking for twice what a new bridge would cost. ey hid it well, but someone got greedy.”
“You hardly need me anymore.”
e words are said lightly, but they hit me like an arrow. Kandala needs its king. I need my brother.
I lock away my worries and fold my arms. “You need to dress—and shave. I’ll call for Geoffrey. I’ve said we were too busy for you to bother earlier. Quint has requested an audience with you twice, but he will need to wait until aer the evening meal, unless—”
“Cory.” His voice is so, and I go still. He only ever calls me Cory when we’re alone, one of the few reminders of childhood we have le. A nickname from when I was small and eager and trailing aer him everywhere he went. A name that was once spoken in gentle fondness by our mother or encouraging praise by our father, back when we believed our family was beloved by all. Back before anyone knew about the fever, or the Moon ower, or the way our country would change in ways no one expected.
Back when everyone expected Harristan to have decades before he’d take the throne, that he’d rule with rm kindness and thoughtful care for his
people, just as our parents did.
But four years ago, they were assassinated right in front of us. Shot through the throat in the throne room. e arrows pinned them upright, their heads hanging cockeyed, their eyes wide and glassy as they choked on their own blood. e image still haunts my dreams sometimes.
Harristan was nineteen. I was een. He took an arrow in the shoulder when he dove to cover me.
It should have been the other way around.
I stare back into his blue eyes and look for any sign of sickness. ere is none. “What?”
“e medicine is working again.” His voice is quiet. “You don’t need to play nursemaid.”
My smile feels a little wicked. “Cruel Cory playing nursemaid? Never.” He rolls his eyes. “No one calls you Cruel Cory.”
“Not to my face.” No, to my face, I’m Your Highness, or Prince Corrick, or sometimes, when they’re being especially formal, the King’s Justice.
Behind my back, I’m called worse. Much worse. So is Harristan.
We don’t mind. Our parents were loved—and they were loving in return.
It led to betrayal and death.
Fear works better.
I move to the closet and pull out a laced shirt to toss at my brother. “You don’t want a nursemaid? en stop lazing around. ere’s a country to run.”
 |
e midday meal is already arranged on the sideboard when we enter. Roasted pheasant drips with honey and berries, nestled among a dense bed of greens and root vegetables. A few feathers have been artfully placed along the gilded edge of each platter, held in place by a glistening drop of crystalized honey. ough the stewards stand in silence along the wall, waiting to serve, the eight other Royal Consuls are engaged in lively conversation by the window. I’m the ninth, but I have no interest in lively conversation.
ere used to be ten, but Consul Barnard led the plot to have my parents killed. He would have killed us, too. Aer Harristan saved my life, I saw Barnard coming aer him with a dagger.
My brother was on top of me, his breath panicked and full of pain in my ear. I pulled that arrow out of Harristan’s shoulder and stabbed it right into Barnard’s neck.
I blink the memory away. e consuls fall silent when we enter the room, each offering a short bow to my brother before moving to their chairs, though no one will sit until Harristan does, and no one will eat until we both have taken a bite.
e table is shaped like a rectangle at one end, narrowing to a point at the other, like the head of an arrow. Harristan eases into his chair at the head of the table, and I ease into mine, directly to his right. e eight consuls ease into theirs, leaving one seat empty. It’s the one directly beside me, where Consul Barnard used to sit. e Trader’s Landing sector has no new consul, and Harristan is in no rush to appoint one. In whispers, the people oen call it Traitor’s Landing, aer what Barnard did, but no one says it in front of us. No one wants to remind the king or his brother of what happened.
ey respect my brother—as they should.
ey fear me.
I don’t mind. It spares me some tedious conversations.
We’ve known everyone in this room for our entire lives, but we’ve long since doused any comfort born of familiarity. We saw what complacence and trust did to our parents, and we know what it could do to us. When Harristan was nineteen, blood still seeping through a bandage on his shoulder, he ran his rst meeting in this room. We were both numb with grief and shock, but I followed him to take a place standing by his shoulder. I remember thinking the consuls would be sympathetic and compassionate following the deaths of our parents. I remember thinking we would all grieve together.
But we were barely in the room for a full minute before Consul eadosia snidely commented that a child had no place attending a meeting of the King’s Council. She was talking about me—but her tone implied she was talking about Harristan, too.
“is child,” said Harristan, “is my brother, your prince.” His voice was like thunder. I’d never heard my brother’s voice like that. It gave me the strength to stand when I so badly wanted to hide under my bed and pretend my world hadn’t been turned upside down.
“Corrick saved my life,” said Harristan. “e life of your new king. He risked himself when none of you were willing to do the same, including you,
eadosia. I have named him King’s Justice, and he will attend any meeting he so pleases.”
I went very still at those words. e King’s Justice was the highest-ranking adviser to the king. e highest position beside Harristan himself. Our father once said that he was allowed to stay in the people’s good graces because the King’s Justice handled anything . . . unsavory.
Another consul at the time, a man named Talec, coughed to cover a laugh and said, “Corrick will be the King’s Justice? At een?”
“Was I unclear?” said Harristan.
“Exactly what justice will he mete out? No dinner? No playtime for Kandala’s criminals?”
“We must be strong,” said eadosia, her voice full of scorn. “You dishonor your parents. is is no time for Kandala’s rulers to be a source of mockery.”
You dishonor your parents. e words turned my insides to ice. Our parents were killed because the council failed to uncover a traitor.
“He looks like he’s ready to cry,” said Talec, “and you expect to hold your throne with him at your side?”
I was ready to cry. But aer their statements, I was terri ed to show one single icker of weakness. My parents were killed by someone they trusted, and we couldn’t allow the same to happen to us.
“No dinner and no playtime,” I said, and because Harristan sounded so unyielding, I forced my voice to be the same. I felt like I was playing a role for which I’d had no time to rehearse. “You will spend thirty days in the harvest elds. You are to fast from midday until the next morning.”
ere was absolute silence for a moment, and then eadosia and Talec exploded out of their seats. “is is preposterous!” they cried. “You can’t assign us to work in the elds with the laborers.”
“You asked for a demonstration of my justice,” I said. “Be sure to work quickly. I have heard the foremen carry whips.”
Talec’s eyes were like re. “You’re both children. You’ll never hold this throne.”
“Guards,” I said atly.
I remember worrying that the guards would not obey, that the council would overthrow us both. at we would dishonor our parents. Aer what Barnard had done, every face seemed to hide a secret motive that would lead to our deaths.
But then the guards stepped forward and took hold of Talec and
eadosia. e doors swung closed behind them, leaving the room in absolute silence. Every pair of eyes around the table sat wide and staring at my brother.
Harristan gestured at the seat to his right—the seat just vacated by Talec. “Prince Corrick. Take a seat.”
I did. No one else dared to say a word.
Harristan has held on to his throne for four years.
We’re later than usual today, and the food is likely going cool, but he’s in no rush to eat. When my father ran meetings, there was a sense of jovial ease around this table, but that’s always been lacking during Harristan’s reign.
He glances at me. “You have the response for Artis?”
I place a leather folio on the table before him, along with a fountain pen. He makes a show of reviewing the document, though he’d probably sign a letter authorizing his own execution if I placed it in front of him. Harristan has little patience for lengthy legal documents. He’s all about grand plans and the broad view. I’m the one who dwells in details.
He signs with a little ourish, lays the pen to the side, and shoves the folio down the table to Jonas Beeching, an older man with a girth as round as he is tall. I guarantee he’s dying to eat, but he eagerly ips open the cover. He’s expecting a positive response, I can tell. He’s practically salivating at the idea of bringing chests full of gold back to Artis this aernoon.
His face falls when he reads the refusal I draed. “Your Majesty,” he says carefully to Harristan. “is bridge would reduce the travel time from Artis to the Royal Sector by three days.”
“It should also cost half as much,” I say.
“But—but my engineers have spent months on this proposal.” He glances around the table, then back at us. “Surely you could not make a determination in less than a day—”
“Your engineers are wrong,” I say.
“Perhaps we can come to some sort of compromise. ere—there must be an error in calculation—”
“Do you seek a compromise, or do you suspect an error?” says Harristan. “I—” Jonas’s mouth hangs open. He hesitates, and his voice turns rough.
“Both, Your Majesty.” He pauses. “Artis has lost many lives to the fever.”
At the mention of the fever, I want to look at Harristan. I want to reassure myself that he’s ne. at the rattle in his breathing this morning was all in my imagination.
I steel my will and keep my eyes on Jonas. “Artis receives a ration of Moon ower petals, just like the other sectors. If your people need more, they will need to buy it just like anyone else.”
“I know. I know.” Jonas clears his throat. “It seems the warm weather is causing the fever to spread more quickly among the dockworkers. We are having difficulty keeping ships loaded and staffed. is bridge would reduce our reliance on the waterways and allow us to rebuild some of the trade that has been lost.”
“en you should have asked for an appropriate amount of gold,” I say. “Artis can’t build a bridge without healthy workers,” says Arella Cherry,
who sits at the opposite end of the table. She took over for her father when he retired last year. She’s from Sunkeep, a sector far in the south that’s bordered by the Flaming River on the west and the ocean to the south and east. Her people fare the best from the fevers, and it’s thought that Sunkeep’s high heat and humidity make them less susceptible—but the heat is so oppressive that their population is by far the smallest of any of Kandala’s sectors. She’s so-spoken, with rich russet-brown skin and waist-length black hair that she keeps twisted into a looping knot at the back of her head. “Medicine should factor into their proposal.”
“Every city needs healthy workers for all projects,” says Harristan. “Which is why each city receives a ration of medicine for their people. Including yours, Arella.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” she says. “And my people fare well because of it.” She pauses. “But my people are not attempting to construct a bridge across the Queen’s River in the dead heat of summer.”
Her voice is quiet and deferential, but there’s a core of steel beneath her gentle voice and so hands. If she had her way, Harristan would seize Allisander’s lands along with everyone else’s, and he’d distribute Moon ower petals with abandon. We’d also be thrust into a full-on civil war when the other consuls refused to yield their territories, but she’s never keen to
acknowledge that side of things. at said, she’s one of the few people at this table I enjoy a bit of conversation with.
Unfortunately, the last woman who weaseled her way into my thoughts also tried to poison me and Harristan at dinner. It wasn’t the rst assassination attempt, but it was de nitely the closest anyone has gotten since our parents were killed.
So romance is off the table for me.
Allisander Sallister clears his throat. He sits almost directly opposite me, and his face is pale, with pink spots over his cheeks that look painted on. His hair and brows are both thick and brown, and he wears a goatee that he’s clearly enamored of, but I think looks ridiculous. He’s only a year younger than Harristan, and they were friends when they were boys. My brother had few companions when we were children, but Allisander was one of the few who had the patience to sit in the library and move chess pieces around a board or listen to tutors read from books of poetry.
But then, when they were teens, Allisander’s father, Nathaniel Sallister, requested additional lands from a neighboring sector, claiming his farmlands yielded better crops—and would therefore yield better pro ts, and greater taxes for the Crown. Our father, the king, refused. Allisander then made a plea to Harristan, leaning on their friendship, asking him to intercede on the Sallisters’ behalf—and still, our father, a fair and just man, refused.
“We cannot force one sector to yield lands to another,” he said to us over dinner. “Our lands were divided by law, and we will not unjustly take from one to give to another.”
He made Harristan reject Allisander’s request personally. Publicly. At a dinner with all the consuls present.
In retrospect, I think Father meant to send a message, that it was unfair to seek favoritism through his children, and he wouldn’t play those kinds of games.
But Allisander took it personally. We didn’t see him in the palace much aer that.
Not until last year, when his silver-hoarding father stepped down. Harristan had hoped Allisander would be a new voice for his sector, the key to distributing more of the Moon ower petals among the population.
Instead, he’s worse than his father was. Under Nathaniel Sallister, Moon ower prices were expensive, but stable. Allisander never misses a chance to negotiate for more. Harristan doesn’t like to think that their controversy as teenagers would have anything to do with the way Allisander barters now, but I have no doubt.
I spend a lot of time at these meetings imagining ways to irritate him.
“A new bridge along with extra medicinal rations would give Artis an unfair advantage at trade,” Allisander says.
“An unfair advantage!” Jonas sputters. “You and Lissa control the Moon ower, and you want to accuse me of seeking an unfair advantage?”
Allisander steeples his ngers and says nothing.
Jonas isn’t wrong. Allisander Sallister represents the Moonlight Plains, and Lissa Marpetta represents Emberridge—the two sectors where the Moon ower, the only known treatment for the fevers that plague Kandala, grows.
erefore the richest sectors. e most powerful.
Also, the reason all my imagined irritants for Allisander stay in my head. I can hate him and need him as an ally at the same time. “Regardless of advantage,” I say, “your motives in your proposal were deceitful, Jonas.”
Allisander glances across the table at me and gives a small nod of appreciation.
I nod in return. I want to throw the fountain pen at him.
Roydan Pelham clears his throat from the other end of the table. He’s pushing eighty, with weathered skin that can’t seem to decide if it’s more beige or more sallow. He’s served on this council since my grandfather was king. Most of the others seem to grudgingly tolerate him, but I rather like the old man. He’s set in his ways, but he’s also the only consul who seemed genuinely concerned for us aer our parents were killed. No one dotes on Harristan—or me, for that matter—but if anyone could be considered doting, it would be Roydan.
“My people suffer as greatly as Artis’s,” he says quietly. “If you grant this petition, I will seek the same.”
“You have no river to cross!” says Jonas.
“Indeed,” says Roydan. “But my people are just as sick.”
My brain wants to dri. is is a common argument. If the proposal from Artis hadn’t started it, something else would have. e fever has no cure.
Our people are suffering. Allisander and Lissa won’t yield the power and control granted to them by their lands and holdings—and as much as Harristan would love to be able to seize their properties, the other consuls would never stand for it.
Harristan lets them argue for a few minutes. He’s more patient than I am. Or maybe he’s just better rested. I did let him sleep till noon, when I’ve been up longer than the sun.
Eventually, my brother shis his weight and inhales, and that’s all it takes for them to shut up.
“Your petition was rejected,” Harristan says to Jonas. “You are free to le another before we convene next month.”
e man sucks in a breath like he wants to argue, but his eyes ick to me, and his mouth claps shut. My brother’s temper has a limit, and no one here wants to nd it.
“When your people are suffering,” Arella says fearlessly, “it would not be inappropriate for the Crown to help make them well.”
Harristan looks down the table at her. “At what cost? All of Kandala is suffering. e supply of Moon ower petals is not endless. How would you choose, Arella? Would you sacri ce your doses? Your family’s?”
She swallows. She wouldn’t. None of them would.
I think of Harristan’s cough this morning, of his fever last month, and I can’t even blame them.
I wouldn’t either.
“We will dine now,” says Harristan, and the silent attendants shi away from the wall to begin serving the food. For a short while, the only sound in the room is the clatter of silver against china. But under it all, I catch the low hiss of Jonas’s voice, spoken under his breath to Jasper Gold, the consul from Mosswell.
“ey’re heartless,” he says.
I freeze. From the corner of my eye, I see Harristan’s fork go still as well. It might be a coincidence. I wait to see if he’ll acknowledge the words.
He doesn’t.
And because I’m not heartless, I don’t either.
