Everything is happening too fast. I’ve got a rock in my hand and I’m racing at the patrolman, but my thoughts are a tangled mess of panic and horror.
en I’m leaping, jumping, swinging the rock as hard as I can. I hear the swick of the crossbow, then the crunch of my rock against the patrolman’s head. He goes down.
A shadow rolls into me, and suddenly Corrick has the fallen patrolman’s crossbow, and he’s reaching for an arrow.
He’s not going to be fast enough. ere are three of them, and the other is already pointing, ready to shoot.
“No!” screams Forrest, surging off the ground to tackle the patrolman around the waist.
e man stumbles back a few feet, but Forrest isn’t big enough to bring him down. e patrolman pulls a dagger. “You lthy brat—”
Corrick shoots him in the face.
e man jerks and goes down. I gasp, choking on my breath.
But there’s still one more, and he’s managed to reload. Corrick is ghting for another arrow, but his movement is slow and clumsy. He’ll never be fast enough.
I yank the dagger from my boot, the gi Prince Corrick gave me during our carriage ride. I know the worst spots for a dagger to hit, and I don’t bother to aim carefully. I plunge the dagger into the patrolman’s neck. He collapses.
e silence is sudden and weighted.
Forrest is panting, his breath coming in rapid, panicked gasps.
I might be doing the same thing. My ngers are sticky with blood.
Corrick nishes loading the crossbow, and he seizes another two arrows to shove under his belt. “Forrest,” he says, and his voice is shockingly quiet
aer what just happened.
e boy’s gasps have turned to dry heaving, and his hands press tightly against his abdomen.
“Forrest,” Corrick says again. His voice is cool and authoritative, which shouldn’t be a surprise, but it is. Now I know why Wes was always so calm in the face of violence. He puts a hand against the boy’s shoulder. “e bodies need to be burned. Is your da home? Strip their uniforms and hide them. If anyone sees the smoke, say they died of the fever—”
“I’ll help him.”
e male voice comes from behind us, and Corrick whirls, the crossbow raised.
A young man has come through the trees, but he sees the crossbow and he lis his hands. He’s wearing a hooded cloak, so I can’t make out much of his features in the dark, but his arm is thickly bandaged, the ngers stiff and swollen. He doesn’t look afraid. If anything, he looks long-suffering, like he’s used to weapons being pointed at him.
“Go ahead,” he says to Forrest, nodding toward the village. “Get your da to help drag them to the pit.”
e boy nods quickly and bolts.
Corrick hasn’t moved. e crossbow is leveled with deadly aim.
“I’m Lochlan,” the other man says. He offers half a shrug. “You can put down the bow. We’re all doing the same thing.” His eyes narrow. “Or were you looking to steal the boy’s pack?”
“No.” Corrick still hasn’t looked away, and his voice is very low, very quiet. “Tessa. Are you all right?”
I haven’t given a moment’s thought to myself, and I’m frozen by the unexpected tension that seems to have overtaken this small clearing. “I— yes.”
“Tessa?” says Lochlan. His tone is lazy, musing. “Would that make you Wes?”
“Help Forrest get rid of the bodies,” says Corrick. “We have rounds to make.”
Lochlan keeps his hands up, but he moves closer, peering at Wes. “I’ve heard a lot of stories, but rumor said you were killed.”
“Still alive,” says Corrick. He doesn’t lower the crossbow.
“ere’s something . . . familiar about you,” says Lochlan. “Have we met?”
“No.” Corrick jerks his head toward the trees. “Tessa. Head for our place.”
I don’t understand what’s happening, but I can hear the urgency in his voice. I don’t want to be unarmed, though. I have no idea how to use a crossbow, but I reach for the dagger and pull it free. It jerks out of the patrolman’s neck with a horri c squelching sound.
Lochlan’s eyes follow the motion. “at’s a fancy dagger.”
Something about the way he says it feels dangerous. “Stolen,” I say quickly. Too quickly. His eyes narrow further.
I think of the prince cautioning me in the room of the palace. You’re too earnest.
Lochlan takes another step closer. His eyes have shied back to Corrick, lit with careful scrutiny.
“Tessa,” says Corrick. “Go. Now. I’ll follow.”
I’m not sure what’s happening, but I don’t want to leave him. My heart beats hard in my chest.
But Lochlan takes a step back, tossing sandy hair back from his eyes. Any tension drains from the air. “Go ahead,” he says. “If you’re leaving the boy’s pack, I’ve got no trouble with you.” He glances at the bodies and spits at the night patrol, then looks right back at Corrick. “I’ll clean up your mess.”
Corrick doesn’t move.
I reach for his arm, and it’s only then that I realize a wide swath of his shirt is blacker than the rest, and the sleeve is torn. Was he hit? I don’t see an arrow. But now I see that his hand is trembling, and his jaw looks more pale than it should be. “Wes,” I say. “Wes, come on.”
For an instant, I don’t think he’s going to follow. But then he steps past Lochlan, giving the other man a wide berth, and we let the darkness and the trees swallow us up.
 |
Corrick’s manner is tense and prickly, and he keeps casting glances over his shoulder, so I stay silent and close. He holds the crossbow assuredly, like he’s ready to re a bolt at any moment. I’ve never seen him hold a weapon.
I’ve never seen him kill anyone, for that matter. Not like this.
I saw the aereffects of what he had to do in the Hold, but that was different. is is different. e night patrol would have killed that boy. ey
would have killed Corrick and me, too.
I swallow, tasting blood on my tongue. I don’t know if I’ve bitten my lip or if it’s just the scent in the air. My hands are still sticky with the patrolman’s blood.
I’m trying not to think about the fact that I killed someone, too.
I try to force the image out of my brain, but it doesn’t want to shake loose. It’s too tangled up with the sound of the boy screaming for his father. Did we do the wrong thing? e right thing? I have no idea.
We reach a small clearing, and Corrick puts up a hand for me to stop. We’re not far from the workshop now, but I’m savvy enough to know he thinks we might have been followed, so I stay silent and still while we wait.
Minutes tick by. I study the tear in his sleeve. His arm is awash with blood, and he hasn’t let go of the crossbow, so it must be mostly super cial. Still, he needs a bandage, and maybe a sling. I remember the way his ngers trembled when he held the weapon upright.
en I realize I’m being foolish. He can’t have a sling. How would Prince Corrick explain that away?
Everything happened so fast. Too fast.
Finally, an eternity later, Corrick nods to me, and we stride across the clearing. e crossbow hangs at his side now, in the hand of his good arm. His shoulders are a bit less tense. Moonlight traces every inch of him, though, and I can see the hard set of his jaw, the tension that hasn’t quite escaped his eyes.
“Who was he?” I say soly, because it’s obvious that Corrick has some history with Lochlan.
“A prisoner in the Hold,” he says, his voice barely more than a rasp on the night air. “I broke his wrist.”
I swallow. Every time I want to forget who he is, fate seems determined to remind me. “Why?”
“He was trying to kill Consul Sallister.” He pauses. “He was one of the three who escaped. During the riots.”
“Oh.” e sound eases out of me as I work that through in my head. “And he’s smuggling again.”
“I spoke with Tris. Alfred is doing something for him. And we saw the other men in the woods.” Corrick sighs tightly. “I wanted to talk to others, to see if I could nd out more.”
I consider the way Lochlan watched me pull the dagger out of the patrolman’s neck. “You think he recognized you?”
“I think he was close to recognizing me.”
“Does it matter? You said no one would believe me if I accused you—” “I’m not worried about him accusing me.” He breaks off and tugs at the
brim of his hat, then winces. “You know who I am, Tessa. If I’m caught by smugglers—”
“ey’d kill you.”
He snorts. “No. I’d wish for them to kill me. ey’d torture me and use me against Harristan.”
He says it so simply, while a chill grips my spine at the thought. I hadn’t even considered. I remember the night he “died,” how he made a comment that he was surprised I wasn’t waiting to turn him in to the night patrol. A part of him really was worried. Now I see why he was so tense, thinking Lochlan might have followed.
Corrick looks down at me. “I’m worried more about what they’d do to you.”
A shiver runs through me.
“I don’t like being out in the open,” he says. “Let’s get to the workshop.”
e workshop is cold from the night air, with a thin layer of dust on everything. It’s clearly been le untouched since we were last here. He drags wood from the pile and tosses it into the hearth one-handed, which makes me think his arm is bothering him more than he’s letting on. He strikes a match and lights the re while I use the broom to get rid of the worst of the cobwebs and dust. It’s not long before the workshop is warm, lit with a glow.
Wes leans against the table, his eyes shadowed under the brim of his hat.
e crossbow sits right beside him.
Not Wes. Corrick.
I clear my throat and look away. “Do you want me to take a look at your arm?”
“e arrow clipped me. I’m ne.” He tosses a small pouch onto the table. “Tris said the Benefactors have been distributing medicine.”
I pick it up and shake it out. Gray and white petals utter to the table, each one long and curved, though some are shorter, with a bit of a sharper angle at the top. I frown, but at my side, Wes is exing his arm like it hurts.
I roll my eyes and step over to him, ignoring the petals. “Don’t be foolish. I’ve been watching you favor this for the last twenty minutes.” I tear the gap in his sleeve wider. e arrow sliced through the side of his upper arm, and he likely needs stitches, but I don’t have any supplies here.
“Take your shirt off,” I say. “I have some muslin. I’ll wrap it.”
He removes his hat, then drags his shirt over his head, and again he’s shirtless in front of me. I’ve seen the show before, but he’s got the mask on, and now it’s like Wes disrobing, and for a long, awkward moment, my voice doesn’t want to work.
I focus on the wound, fetching water from our rain barrel to clean the blood away gently. I listen to him breathing, inhaling the scent of him in the warm closeness of the workshop.
is is too intimate. Words need to happen. “Where did you learn to shoot like that?” I say.
“I’m the brother to the king, Tessa.” He says this like it’s amusing. “You’ve never interfered with the night patrol before.”
at draws him up short, and he looks away. “It’s . . . different now.” He pauses. “And they’re not supposed to slaughter people in the streets. It’s part of why I was so angry at Allisander for having his guards rough up the last round of captives. It’s one thing for me to issue an order of punishment, but I don’t torture people for the sport of it. My guards in the Hold aren’t cruel.
e night patrol shouldn’t be either. Forrest is a boy. ey could have arrested him.”
“Well. You saw what they did to Mistress Kendall.” “She attacked them.”
I try to remember. All that comes to mind is her grief. Does that matter? I can’t tell.
My parents attacked them. I remember that. It’s the same to the night patrol.
I dry his arm carefully and tear long strips of muslin to make a bandage. “No matter what you say, if your actions are cruel, those who act on your behalf will do the same.”
I expect him to deny it, or to offer some kind of rebuttal, but he doesn’t. Instead, he says, “So I’ve seen.”
I meet his eyes. Cool blue stares back at me, no deceit or cunning in those depths.
“You make me want to do better,” he says suddenly, and his voice is thick with emotion, so I go still. “You make me wish Weston Lark was real, because you will never look at me the way you look at him. I don’t know how to x everything I’ve done wrong, Tessa. I don’t even know if I can. But I want to try.”
I don’t know either. And no matter what he does as King’s Justice, it won’t cure the fevers. It won’t x access to the Moon ower. It won’t stop the cries for revolution. He and Harristan have set things in motion that may never stop. Or maybe the execution of their parents did. Either way, the people of Kandala will never go back to the way they were before all of this happened.
But then I realize he’s not just talking about xing everything for the people of Kandala.
He’s talking about xing everything for me.
I tie off the bandage, but my ngertips linger on the muscle of his bicep. “Does it hurt?” I whisper, and I’m not entirely talking about the wound to
his arm.
“Very much.” Neither is he.
I li a hand, pressing it to his cheek, and his breath hitches, just a little. His skin is warm against my palm, just a little rough. My thumb brushes along the curve of his lip, and I swear he stops breathing. My ngers tease at the edge of the mask the way I’ve done in the past.
I wait for him to duck away, to hide, but he doesn’t move. My ngertips slip under the edge of the fabric. It lis by an inch, then two, then reveals one blue eye smudged with kohl.
His gaze never leaves mine. His lips part, and a breath escapes.
And then he reaches up to tear the rest of the mask away, and I’m le facing Prince Corrick in the tight warmth of our workshop.
e mask drops on the table beside the crossbow. His chest is rising and falling rapidly, and his hands look like they want to reach for me, but he’s waiting. For me.
I’ve spent so much time wondering how a terrible man like Prince Corrick could spend hours secretly helping the people of Kandala, when I’ve been looking at it backward all along. I should have been wondering how a man who wants so badly to be kind and good, to do right, would be able to
hide the truest parts of himself away to support his brother and protect his people.
“Hello,” I say soly. “Corrick.”
A light sparks in his eyes. “I don’t think I’ve heard you say my name before.”
“Corrick,” I say again, and his eyes close for a moment while he takes a long breath.
I press a palm to his cheek again, and now there’s no mask between us. His eyes ick open, and he’s closer suddenly. I don’t know if that’s his doing or mine.
“Corrick,” I whisper.
His hand lands on my waist, very lightly, very gently. e other strokes a line across my cheek, and I remember I’m still wearing a mask.
He gives it the slightest tug. “May I?” I hold my breath and nod.
He’s slow and delicate and it’s torture. We’re close enough that I can feel the heat of his body. He unties the knot, and my mask slips away.
He leans in to pull the cord that keeps my braid in place, and my hair slips across my shoulders. His breath caresses my ear. “Say it again,” he whispers.
“Corrick,” I exhale. His thumb strokes across my lower lip, and my breath shudders.
He’s so close that my ngertips nd the bare skin of his chest, and it lights a re in my belly. “Cory?” I try.
A low sound escapes his throat. “Lord, Tessa.” His hands lock on my waist, and his lips nd mine.
His touch was so slow and tentative that I expect his kiss to be the same, but his mouth is sure and determined. When my lips part, his tongue teases at mine, drawing a gasp that he inhales. He tastes like cinnamon and sugar, and my hands stroke up the length of his chest to nd his broad shoulders, his sloping neck, his muscled arms. I expect to feel hesitant, the way I did in the palace when he almost kissed me, but I don’t.
Because this is different. is is our space. He’s not Wes, because there is no Wes, not really. He’s Corrick. He’s always been Corrick. Everything we’ve done together is a part of who he is.
Without warning, his hands close on my waist tightly, and I’m lied to settle on the table. My legs fall apart, and he steps into me, my skirts
bunching around him, his mouth nding mine again. He’s closer now, his hands freer. I explore the warm stretch of his waist, the curved muscle of his back. His lips dri down my jaw, his teeth dragging at the sensitive skin below my ear, nibbling along my neck. Every nerve ending in my body is
ring, and I want him closer. My hands slide along the waist of his trousers, the skin there soer than silk.
One of his hands nds my knee, his ngers driing along the outside of my thigh. I suck in a breath and pull him closer, and he buries his face in my neck to make a sound that’s very much like a low growl. Our hips meet, and I cling to him, my ngers digging into his skin. His hand skims higher along my thigh, until I see stars and shiver. is time when he kisses me, he’s slow and sure, one arm holding me against him so tightly that I can feel his heart beat against mine.
“Tessa,” he whispers, and my name sounds like a plea. “Oh, Tessa.” “Say it again,” I tease, and I feel his smile against my lips.
e alarm in the Royal Sector pierces the night, and I freeze. So does Corrick.
His breathing is shuddering. I have to close my eyes. “ey’ve caught someone,” I whisper.
Someone he’ll have to deal with. Someone he might have to execute. I pull my hands to my chest.
Aer a moment, Corrick’s gentle ngers settle on my wrists. His lips brush against my temple.
He sighs. I sigh.
“We need to nish our rounds,” he says. He nds his shirt and slips his arms through the sleeves. “We’ll head toward Artis and see what we can discover before daybreak.”
And aer that, we’ll have to go back. He’ll need to be the King’s Justice.
I don’t need to say it. He knows it, too. e disarmed look is gone from his eye, and cool Prince Corrick looks down at me.
He scoops me off the table, setting me on my feet. He draws my hand to his mouth and kisses it. en he grabs his mask and ties it in place. “Yours too,” he says.
I rebraid my hair, trying to ignore the tightening of my throat. My ngers are trembling and don’t want to work right.
Maybe he can tell, because Corrick takes the ends of my mask in his
ngers and ties it gently.
“You were right,” he says. “I should have listened to you in the beginning.
When it comes to revolution, we should be riding at the front.” I widen my eyes as my head spins. “You mean as outlaws?”
“No. I mean as Prince Corrick and his brilliant apothecary. Weston Lark can’t step out of the shadows.” He pauses. “But the King’s Justice can.”
My heart skips.
“Don’t worry,” he says soly. “I’ll be better.” en he drops one last kiss on my lips. “We’ll pick that up later,” he says in that rough-growl voice, and goose bumps spring up everywhere. I shiver as he reaches for the door to swing it wide.
On the other side, backed by eight men, stands Lochlan, his crossbow pointed right at Corrick.
