“I’m sorry,” Kiril said with a sigh. The honesty of it surprised him. “I’m sorry that Lychandra’s memory is tangled in this mess. And I’m sorry for Nikos. It’s you Phaedra means to destroy-Nikos merely has the misfortune of being too close.”
The king flinched at the sound of her name. “And isn’t that an irony, that Nikos and I might ever be too close. How long have you known?”
“Long enough.”
“This is treason. I could have you killed.”
“It is, and you can certainly try.”
Their eyes met, and it was Mathiros who broke. The king had never been one for cowardice, so he must still have a sense of shame. He stepped around the desk, leaving the sword where it lay. “Where is she?”
All Kiril’s anger was spent, only the bitter lees remaining. Just as he’d promised Isyllt, there was no satisfaction in any of this. “She lairs in the ruined palace. I imagine she’s waiting for you already.” He turned, infinitely weary.
“You can’t leave,” Mathiros said, entreaty threading the words. “Me, perhaps, but not Nikos. This isn’t his doing.”
He thought of Nikolaos, and of his own father, nearly forgotten after so many years. “Sons should never suffer for their fathers’ sins, and yet they always do. I’m sorry for that as well, but I have no service left to offer you. Goodbye, Mathiros.”
The door shut behind him, and with its echo he felt the sundering of thirty years. Not even the moment he broke his vows had felt so final.
He wrapped a shadow around him to avoid the inquisitive staff and turned toward the stables. He hesitated for a moment, and nearly laughed at himself. After all his great betrayals, the thought of stealing a horse gave him pause. But he needed to be gone, and that was the fastest way to do so.
It had begun to snow. Fat flakes snagged on his cloak as he crossed the courtyard. The first snow of winter. If it didn’t melt, it might last clean and untrampled till the New Year, when children would build forts with it.
Then the wind changed, carrying whispers of rage and blood and distant torches, and he knew the city wouldn’t stay clean.
Kiril paused in front of the stables-he’d thought to beat Mathiros there, but others had beaten him in turn. The princess and the pallakis Savedra waited in the courtyard while Captain Denaris gathered horses. Isyllt was with them. Riding after Nikos, through whatever chaos Phaedra had wrought in the city.
Isyllt lifted her head, scenting the night, and glanced unerringly toward him. She stood straight and slender as a blade, and the wind unraveled her braid in black ribbons. Through snow and shifting, torchlit shadows her eyes met his, and he felt the weight of her name on his lips.
She turned from him, the shape of her shoulders a shutting door.
CHAPTER 20
Isyllt had no time to regret walking away from Kiril; as soon as they neared the palace gates she knew something was wrong. A moonless night, but snowlight washed the sky soft and grey as a mourning dove’s breast. Except to the east, where clouds seethed red and angry. Something was burning.
“Don’t go out there, ladies,” called a guard at the gates. “Oldtown is rioting.”
“What happened?” Isyllt asked, drawing rein. Her gelding, a compact warmblood, responded easily. These were the same sort of horses the Vigils used, bred to be nimble on city streets, and unflinchingly calm above all else.
“We’ve only rumors still,” another said, “but word is that some opera singer turned up dead, her throat slit. A Rosian girl. Now all of Cab-Little Kiva is up in arms.”
Some opera singer. A Rosian girl. Isyllt remembered Anika Sirota’s pale pretty face raised in song, remembered the thunder of applause as the curtains fell. Oh yes, Little Kiva would rise to avenge her death, or to give her a pyre worthy of an opera.
“Shadows take them,” Isyllt swore. At the moment, she meant it for the murderers and the vengeful refugees alike.
“Thank you for the warning,” Savedra said, steering her black mare closer. “We’ll be careful.”
The guards looked at one another unhappily, but finally unbarred the gates and let the riders pass.
The city was dark and silent, though Isyllt glimpsed faces peering through shutters as they passed. The closer they grew to Oldtown, the more citizens left their homes to see what was happening. Spirits clustered too, shadows moving across rooftops, iridescent ripples in the air at the corners of Isyllt’s vision. Nothing that could challenge her, but she’d lay odds that more than one of the gawkers would come to harm before morning.
Snow caught and melted in her horse’s sorrel mane; it had begun to stick to the cobbles and eaves, softening the lines of houses. As they neared the city’s heart, the flakes that drifted over them were grey and unmelting- ash.
They passed Vigils and a few brave runners as they rode, and pieced the story together one scrap at a time. Sirota’s body had been found at sunset, sprawled on a street outside Little Kiva. The crowd that gathered ran to the nearest police station, only to be turned away because of the day and the hour. Shouting turned to thrown rocks; windows were smashed. It only worsened from there. Most hearths were cold on the dead days, but they still found fire for their torches. Now Oldtown was burning and Vigils and citizens alike were dead, but no one knew how many.
The last runner they met was a boy no older than fourteen, cocky with youth and the urgency of his news, blind to the grinning spirit perched on his shoulder. Skrals, her mother had called such, malicious spirits usually too weak to cause harm. This one bared ephemeral black teeth in a grin, daring Isyllt to challenge it.
She could have destroyed it easily, or banished it beyond the city walls. But Ashlin and Denaris were already urging their horses on, and she had no time. She let a little of the night’s chill into her heart, and rode on.
The smell of ash worsened as they neared the city’s heart, and the shouts and crashes grew louder. The sorrel flicked his ears but didn’t slow. At the end of the street they met a police barricade; torchlight washed the Vigils’ orange coats bloody. Constables wheeled at their approach. Isyllt caught the shine of a raised pistol before Captain Denaris rode forward in her white-and-grey uniform.
“What’s going on, Sergeant?” asked the captain, finding the coat with the most black bars on the sleeve. Isyllt kept her eyes on the nervous constable.
“The refugees started the riot, but now half of Birthgrave has joined in.” The woman spat in the thickening snow. “Those bastards are always looking for a reason to start trouble. Now they’re looting and burning anything they come across.”
Isyllt’s hands ached. Leather creaked, and she realized she was twisting the reins. How often had this woman ever been in Birthgrave? Orangecoats were notoriously rare on those streets, especially when trouble was near. Her horse snorted, unimpressed by her temper, and she forced her shoulders to relax.
“No,” said the sergeant in response to something Denaris had said. “This is our jurisdiction, Captain, and we’re not opening this barricade. Find another way in. Or better still, go home.”
“Is there another way?” Savedra asked, leaning close.
Isyllt shook her head. “It would cost us hours at this rate.”
“We don’t have hours!”
“Don’t worry.” She tugged off her right glove. “I’ll get us through.”
Ghostlight flared brighter than the torches. This the horses didn’t like, but she stroked her gelding’s neck and he held steady.
“You’re correct about jurisdiction, Sergeant.” The witchlight’s pale glare washed the woman’s face sallow and ghastly, and showed her fear very well indeed. “But the royal guard and the Arcanost would both appreciate your assistance in this matter.”
The sergeant’s resolve folded before Isyllt could press further. “Of c-course, Necromancer.” She lifted a hand,
