Chapter Thirty-Three

We smelled it before we saw it—the acrid bite of smoke, the sear of air.

Ruin.

Broken trunks spilled clothes, all grays and woolly creams. Doors hung off hinges. Inside, dark flashes of movement. The wet gleam of eyes. Sobs. Ash blew through the streets.

I swallowed and pressed my hands to Helhest’s neck, felt the steadying heave of each breath.

The letter said there had been protests, chaos, fires, but I hadn’t expected…

If you didn’t want to be gutted…

I should have expected.

I’d stolen the Lover’s Box almost every night on the journey back, sat cross-legged in my tent and fiddled with it until the pull made my eyes blurry and my teeth ache, until my fingers were slicked with the blood from my ear and the skin went numb. No answers, but when I touched the box, the memories seemed to sharpen.

Wings.

Fire.

Apricots.

Stars.

All falling together like…

Drops

Of

Rain.

And I knew— knew —there was something bigger, something deeper, a beast lurking beneath the surface, and maybe the clasp wasn’t a clasp, but a mouth, and maybe the rosettes weren’t rosettes, but eyes, and maybe the box was a living thing that wanted to bite and swallow and chew.

And maybe, just maybe, it wanted to be let out.

Behind me, Erik shifted, the warmth of his body pressing against my back. His arm wrapped tighter around my waist, and we were back in the ruined city, back to the burn of smoke, the bite of char, the clop of Helhest’s hooves ringing over stone. Cracked windows. Broken chairs. A scraggly cat slunk through the wreckage.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” he said. “It was supposed to be peaceful.”

We’d never stopped to replace Buttercup, and I’d ridden with him the entire trip back. Awkward beginning aside, I liked the way we sank into each other, liked the way he fiddled with my sweater sleeve, his steadiness, his warmth, and I shouldn’t have liked it, I shouldn’t have because now a ribbon fluttered, tied to a charred wheel spoke, and now a splintered bell hung off a stoop and—

“Why?” I asked. “Because we’re small?”

“I didn’t say that.”

I bit back a laugh. It might have been a cry. “We may not be big enough to drive you out, but we’re not weak.”

Behind me, he stiffened. “Without a bigger ally—without us —you’ll lose the coming war.”

“A war Volgaard is starting.”

“Larland will demolish you.”

“Larland isn’t our enemy!”

“We’re not your enemy, Isabel.” A note of pleading in his voice. “ I’m not your enemy.”

A rag doll lay face-down in the mud.

No , I wanted to scream. Your people just killed Hans, killed the minister, sacked our city. “ Larland might have owned us,” I said, “but they never treated us like this.” I scooted forward, as far as I could go. A sudden rush of cold washed my back. “I’ll ride with Bo.”

Erik’s knuckles tightened on the reins, but he stopped and let me scramble off.

Bo’s body was more slight than Erik’s, more willowy. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You’re not my snake’s type.” He tried to give a teasing smile.

Smoke continued to waft over us.

Bo and I turned down the path that led to Karlsborn Castle. The others broke toward the beach path, Erik spearing the head, jaw set, eyes hard, Kaspar and Signey just behind.

“He’s right, you know,” Bo continued. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. We never came to the Sanokes to conquer them.”

I tore my gaze away from Erik. “Only if we didn’t help you in your war against Larland.”

Bo’s response was so quiet, I almost missed it. “Only that.”

We fell into a guarded silence, the only sound the toll of bells, the shriek of gulls. They might not have intended this to happen, but it had. The Volds were a tempest and there was no stopping them, no way to guard against the damage that would continue to grow and grow.

Unless we secured Larland’s help. Unless we found the weapon.

We left Bo’s horse at the stables and followed the path of ruin into the castle. Settees had been slashed down the center, bouquets of buttercups sat crushed and browning at the edges.

Bo kept his hands in his pockets and picked his way through the ruin, but I kept my hands out, let my fingers trail across the wisps of curtain lace, the leg of an overturned chair.

The castle wasn’t home, not exactly. Still, something curled and knotted in my stomach, and it was a daze, a dream, a delicate, gilded thing.

“It’s going to be okay,” Bo said. “We’re going to fix this. We’re going to— Erik will shadow walk. He’ll shadow walk and figure out—”

“You can’t fix this,” I said. “It’s done.”

Bo turned away, a flash of cheek and jaw.

Down another hallway, light dazzled from broken chandeliers, sparkled from shattered vases, soft as a soap bubble, shiny as a snowflake, and—

Something caught my eye.

A credenza wedged against a door. A chair shoved under a handle. Crates brought up from the kitchen, overturned to form a barricade.

Too small to drive you out, but not weak.

Bo took a shaky breath, ran a hand through his hair. “I should help him. Erik. I should—” A glance over his shoulder. “He’ll want to shadow walk. He’ll want to know—”

“It’s fine.” Another credenza. Another door. Another stack of chairs with arms that bowed back on themselves like swans. “Go.”

“But he’ll want to make sure you made it home.”

Broken windows. Smashed locks. We hadn’t made it easy for them.

Pillows torn. Scorch marks up the walls.

What happened to everyone? Gone, probably, and I could leave, too, could find work somewhere else. There was no royal physician anymore. There was no royal anything .

But Hans…

When history was written, it wouldn’t be about his sacrifice. His death would be nothing, would mean nothing.

No, I’d stay. I’d figure out what happened here, see what we could salvage from this ruin.

He’ll want to make sure you made it home. Bo’s statement hung in the air.

I turned to him. “I am home.”

The latch to the apothecary’s door no longer lined up with the lock. It hit the frame with a soft tap, tap, tap. I caught the swing and let my hand rest on the handle. Bo had gone back to shadow walk with Erik, and I’d traveled on alone, past shattered statuettes and torn paintings.

A draft caught my hair, and feathers swept the hall like snow. Maybe sending Bo away was a bad idea, but I couldn’t keep him forever, and if I didn’t search for survivors, I’d never learn what happened. I’d just put down my bag.

I pushed the apothecary door open…

The long worktable had been overturned. Shattered jars. Broken books. Dried flower buds littered the floor, white and curled, fair like fleece. Rancid smoke gave everything a grayish tinge. I pressed the neck of my sweater to my nose.

No staff.

No Stefan.

But Volds…

Two of them.

They basked in the smoke, their feet kicked on the table, puffing from pipes that dangled between their fingertips. One had his long hair tied back in a ponytail, his cheek crisscrossed with puckers of scar tissue, hands tattooed with so many knots and whirls, they webbed his skin like spiders. The other was missing an eye.

I loosened the grip on my sweater and gave a little sniff. Rancid, yes, but beneath it, the weedy sweet of citrus and mud.

Golden grass, a mild relaxant. Not strong enough to make you high, but it would definitely give you a buzz.

“Oh looksies,” said the one-eyed Vold. “A maid.”

The other’s lips pulled into a sneer, revealing a split tongue and sharp teeth. “One we haven’t broken yet.”

The tattoos on his hands flared, fire licking up his arms like gloves. Light spilled from his mouth like a lantern and his eyes burned like pits.

I backed toward the door. Oh no. No, no, no. “This isn’t… I’m not—”

A fireball blasted the door, spraying wood.

I ran.

Ran, ran, ran. Down one hall, then another. “Bo!” I shouted. “Bo!”

A second fireball scorched the stone right next to my head.

“Come back,” one of the Volds shouted. “Let’s have some fun.”

My foot slipped. My hip banged against a credenza. Pain coursed up my leg, spiraling, spiraling, spiraling—

“ BO! ”

Another fireball splintered stone, and bits of dust caught in my hair, my teeth, and I wouldn’t make it, wouldn’t—

Bo skidded around the corner, eyes wide, jacket askew.

“Stop. Stop! ” He held up his hands. “She’s under the protection of House Rythja. You can’t hurt her.”

The Volds came to a swerving halt. Dark hair. Furs. Fire licked the split-tongue’s arms in smoky tendrils.

The one-eyed Vold curled his lip. “Says who?”

“Erik, son of Lothgar.”

“And you are?”

I rested my hands on my knees. My heart beat through my fingertips. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. But safe. I was safe.

“Bj?rn, son of Bror. Erik’s Kaldr-Flodi anchor.”

“Bror’s son,” repeated split-tongue. He licked his teeth. The fire coming off him hissed and snapped, yellow tongues inked blue.

Bo’s hands balled to fists. “Yes.”

“Anchor to Lothgar’s bastard.”

Bo tipped his chin. A smirk. Maybe there was something feral in Bo, too—kind and sweet Bo—because right now, he had that same wild energy as Erik or any of his men. A flare of nostril. A flash of teeth.

Sweat beaded my brow.

Ba-dum, ba-dum.

With one swift motion, split-tongue grabbed Bo’s shirt and whirled him against the wall. Bo’s head hit the plaster with a crack .

“Bo!” I shouted, and then I was on split-tongue, clawing at his clothes, his eyes, my fingers digging into the fleshy skin of his—

An elbow to my ribs. Another to my stomach.

I stumbled back. My palms slapped the ground.

Blood oozed from Bo’s temple.

Ba-dum, ba-dum.

I flexed my hands, wiped them on my skirts.

“You know, I always wondered about Kaldr-Flodi blood,” split-tongue continued. “Is it as sweet as everyone says?” He leaned forward and tasted it, a slow drag of the mouth against Bo’s temple.

“Leave him alone,” I said. “You were after me. Come at me! Come on!”

Split-tongue ignored me. His lips came away sheened a bright ruby-red. “Sweeter. Like honey. And warm like milk.” His tongue flickered out and caught a stray drop. “We’ve been looking for you, you know. There’s an unskag on your head. A thousand pennigars.”

Bo struggled against his grip. “An unskag? For what? I haven’t—”

Split tongue pressed a finger to Bo’s lips. “Ah-ah-ah.”

Bo’s eyes found mine. “Find Erik.”

Split-tongue shoved a hand over Bo’s mouth and pulled him away.