We’re able to nd horses on the outskirts of the sector, but the army stops us before we can get close to Tessa and Harristan.
We can hear their shouts to the rebels.
We can hear the crossbow snap when Lochlan says, “Shoot another one.”
e army surges forward, but Harristan calls for them to hold. e tension in his voice is potent. I saw Leander Cra fall earlier, the consul from Steel City. is time it’s a young woman in a sleeping shi, and it takes me a moment to place her. She’s the “niece” Quint saw with Jonas Beeching
—con rmed when Jonas screams in rage.
It’s a calculated strike. Another dead hostage, but not a consul.
I draw up the reins of my horse and look at Quint and Rocco. Quint is a bit pale, and he’s gripping his side. I turn to one of the soldiers. “Help Master Quint down from his horse. He needs a physician.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Quint doesn’t protest, which tells me he’s more hurt than he’s letting on. I look at Rocco. “Let’s go.”
“Go?”
“Harristan isn’t going to make any headway like this. He needs something tangible to offer them.”
“What can he give them? e consuls are already held hostage.” I cluck to my horse. “Not all of them.”
 |
Many of the Hold guards have abandoned their posts, either out of fear or necessity, but a few still stand. e prison is dark and quiet as I limp down the staircase to the lowest level where Allisander is locked in a cell.
He scrambles to his feet when he sees me.
“Corrick,” he seethes. “I cannot wait to see you at the end of a rope.” “Same,” I say. “Rocco. Go in there and break his arms.”
Allisander stumbles back from the bars so quickly that he trips over his feet and falls down. I must be pretty convincing—or Rocco’s lack of hesitation is—because the consul keeps shoving himself backward through the straw.
“Enough,” I say, and Rocco stops with his hand on the gate.
Allisander freezes but then gets to his feet. If his eyes were weapons, I’d be impaled.
But I think of Tessa and Harristan facing down the rebels and I want to break his arms myself. I hook my ngers on the cell bars and hold his gaze. “You said you’ve allied with other consuls to overthrow Harristan. Who?”
“I’m not telling you anything.”
“Do you recall asking if I torture prisoners during questioning?” I say, and I feel that familiar cool distance wind through my thoughts, the one that allows me to do what needs to be done. With Allisander, I hardly need it. “Would you like to nd out?”
He steps forward like he’s going to attack the bars, but Rocco is through the gate and stops him before I can blink.
He twists Allisander’s le arm up behind his body, probably using a little more force than necessary, because the consul gasps and hisses a breath through his teeth.
Based on the look on Rocco’s face, I don’t think I’m the only one who doesn’t like this man.
“Tell me,” I say. “No.”
My eyes ick up to Rocco. “Break a nger.”
e guard shis his weight, and Allisander cries out before he catches himself. A sheen of sweat blooms on his forehead. “I’m going to hang your body on my gate, Corrick.”
I don’t look away from him. “Break another one.”
is time the snap is audible. ere’s blood on Allisander’s teeth. He must have bitten his tongue.
“Tell me,” I say.
He glares at me, his breathing rapid and fractured.
I glance at Rocco. “Another one.”
“All right!” Allisander shouts. He’s almost keening now. “Leander Cra!
Lissa Marpetta!”
I’m not surprised about Lissa. Leander is lying dead on the dais of the Circle, so I’m not worried about him either.
“What do you know about Arella and Roydan?” I say. “What are they doing?”
He’s panting, and I wonder if Rocco is putting pressure on another limb. “I don’t know,” he says swily. “I don’t know.”
“Break another nger—”
“No!” he pants. “Corrick, I swear it. I swear to you. Arella has been going through documents from Trader’s Landing with Roydan.”
“What kind of documents?” “Shipping logs. at’s all I know.”
Shipping logs. at doesn’t seem important enough to warrant secret meetings. “Are they funding these raids?”
“No!” He gasps, then swallows. “I mean—I don’t know.”
Rocco looks at me. “Consul Cherry does not keep company with Consul Sallister.”
at’s true. Arella and Allisander are most de nitely not friends.
“Do you know what’s been happening while you’ve been locked down here?” I say to him.
“No.” A fresh bloom of sweat appears on his forehead.
“Rebels have attacked the palace. ey’ve taken the other consuls hostage.
Harristan is trying to negotiate for their release.”
His reaction is . . . not what I expect. He blinks at me in dismay. “ey’ve attacked the palace?”
“Yes. Leander Cra is dead. So is Jonas Beeching’s niece. Possibly more in the time you’ve been stalling.” I pause. “You should be thanking me for locking you down here.”
“ey weren’t supposed to attack the palace.”
e impact of those words takes a moment to hit me.
ey weren’t supposed to attack the palace. “Allisander,” I snap. “What have you done?”
He says nothing. Rocco makes a small motion, and the consul cries out.
“Please,” he whimpers. “ey were supposed to attack the supply runs.
Leander was a good man. ey weren’t supposed to come into the sector.”
I stare at him. “You—you were working with the rebels? To attack your own supply runs?”
“It was just a little bit of medicine here and there,” he says. “ey’ll do anything for it, Corrick. It was easy, really, and they don’t—”
“But—” Maybe I’m too tired or too injured or too overwhelmed, but my brain can’t make sense of this. “But why?”
“Because Harristan wouldn’t pay a higher price if my shipments weren’t at risk.”
I have to take a step back from the bars. I want to kill him myself.
“You did it for silver?” I demand.
“No. I did it because this time, I could force him to give me what I asked for.”
I freeze.
“I see the way you manipulate the consuls,” he says, “making us volley for funds. I saw it when I was a boy, when we asked for part of Lissa’s lands.”
“He was your friend, Allisander!”
“No. He was not my friend. A friend would not have humiliated me before half the nobility. A friend would have found a way to help me save face in front of my father. Harristan is no one’s friend, Corrick. Not even yours. Look at the way he le you in prison for an entire day.”
My ngers tighten on the bars.
“Do you know how much convincing it took for me to get him to accuse you?” he says. He leans in, his voice turning vicious. “It wasn’t much at all.”
I have to shake off the doubts he’s putting into my mind. I know my role here. I know what I’ve done.
I’m only beginning to clearly see what Allisander has done.
I think of the prisoners we were set to execute, the ones led by Lochlan. I kept saying they weren’t organized, because they weren’t. ey were innocent people lured into smuggling by Allisander—a man who was urging their punishment from the other side.
He was giving silver and medicine to desperate people. He was urging them to rebel—right when they needed little urging. And he was giving them the means to do it.
I think of Tessa splitting the petals before the explosions in the palace. I put my hands over my mouth and try to force my brain to think.
“You weren’t even giving the rebels real medicine,” I say soly.
“Why would I risk real medicine?” he demands. “Lissa has been supplying it to the palace for years.”
I take a jolting step back. Lissa, who never demands anything. Lissa, who’s always happy to maintain the status quo.
Lissa, who stood in the salon and tried to convince me not to trust Tessa.
It had nothing to do with her being a girl from the Wilds.
It had to do with knowledge, and information, and access to everything Lissa was doing wrong.
It’s just like Tessa said before the rebels attacked the palace. We’re not getting a full dosage. Of course we need to take it three times a day in the palace.
Of course Harristan always seems on the verge of illness.
“You started this revolution,” I say to Allisander. “Out of petty revenge.” “We all helped start this revolution,” he snaps. “You too, Your Highness.
You, the King’s Justice. I gave them the means. You gave them the reason.” I inch. I can’t help it.
But then I take a breath and look at him. I can’t undo what’s been done, but maybe I can help stop what’s been set in motion. “e rebels will not yield to Harristan. He can’t promise access to the Moon ower—not when you’re refusing to send shipments that are at risk.”
“I don’t care if Harristan falls to the rebels or to the consuls,” Allisander says. “Either way, your brother will not be in power for long.”
I slam my hand against the bars and the clang echoes throughout the prison. “Are you not hearing me?” I say. “Are you not listening? ey will kill the other consuls. ey have set the palace on re. If we cannot nd a way to undo this mess that you had a hand in creating, then there will be no Royal Sector to spend silver on your precious shipments.”
He blanches at that.
“I will not bargain with smugglers,” he says.
“You already have. And I don’t want a bargain. I want medicine, and plenty of it. Harristan needs to be able to buy time.”
“Absolutely not. You will not have one single petal—” “Shut up.” I look at Rocco. “Bring him.”
Rocco drags Allisander out of the cell. He screams and thrashes the whole way, but the guard is impassive and unaffected, even when we move to climb the stairs.
I think of Tessa and Harristan facing down the rebels. I think of Arella Cherry begging for leniency, even though it pitted her against the other consuls, every single time. I think of Jonas Beeching pleading for more silver, and how Allisander accused him of cheating the system to buy more medicine.
And all the while, Allisander was trying to in ate his own prices. I should tell Rocco to knock him down the stairs.
When we get out of the prison and onto the streets, Allisander shuts up. I don’t know if it’s the smoke in the air or the fact that we can see that res still burn in the east wing of the palace, but I’m glad something made him stop.
“ey did this?” he says, and his tone is strangled. “You gave them the means,” I snap.
Rocco binds his hands while I climb onto my horse, and then I take the rope and give it a jerk, nearly knocking Allisander off his feet. “Walk,” I say to him.
“I absolutely will not—”
“Suit yourself.” I loop the rope through the pommel of my saddle and cluck to the horse. e rope jerks tight.
Allisander swears and stumbles and almost falls, but he must decide walking is better than being dragged. “is is extortion,” he snaps at me.
“Medicine,” I snap back. “How much can you provide?” “None.”
I look at Rocco. “Fancy a gallop?” I draw up my reins. e horse begins to prance, eager.
“Fine,” Allisander grits out. “A week of medicine.” “Eight weeks.”
“I cannot provide medicine to all of Kandala for eight weeks—” But he breaks off as we sidestep a pair of bodies in the street. Two members of the night patrol. One took an arrow through the chest, though the other looks like he took an ax to the head. Tissue and bone glisten in the moonlight. Allisander realizes he’s walking through blood and probably other things and sidesteps quickly.
His breathing has gone shallow and ragged. He probably wants his precious handkerchief.
“ere are more,” I say. A dozen yards ahead, we stumble upon three more. One woman, two men. A wide swath of blood streaks across a wall, black in the shadowed street.
“Two weeks,” Allisander says, and it sounds like the words have been forced out of his mouth.
“Six,” I say.
“Four.”
“Six.”
“Four, Corrick! I can’t do more than that, and you know it.” I look down at him. “Yes. You can.”
“I will agree to six if Consul Marpetta will agree to the same.”
“She usually follows your—” I break off. What did Lochlan and Karri say in the hut when Tessa was stitching me up? ere’s a man and a woman. We call them the Benefactors. I thought it was Arella and Roydan. And Lissa was one of the few consuls who le the palace before any of this happened. “Allisander,” I demand. “Is Lissa doing this with you?”
He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to.
“Six weeks,” I say to him. “And you’ll be lucky if Harristan lets you keep your head at the end of it.” I give the rope a sharp tug. “Hurry up. We need to stop a war.”
