A Trial of Sparks & Kindling (Fall of the Mantle Book 2) Read online

  Magnus leaned on his cane and shook his head. “The king told us to wait here.”

  “Victor and George are having dinner together. They could take hours, and this is more important. Please.” Sera waved them closer, then turned back the way she’d come without looking to see if they had followed.

  Laura’s clacking heels sounded from behind and she caught up with Sera. “What’s going on, majesty?”

  Sera leaned closer and dropped her voice. “We’re leaving the palace.”

  “But Thatch— I mean the grand duke—”

  “I know.”

  The palace halls had never seemed so long. Something shattered in Laroche’s room and a man cried out. Sera didn’t think; she ran the last fifty paces of the corridor and slammed open the door.

  Thatcher stood over Laroche with a long-bladed dagger, and one of the other Green guards, a new member whose name Sera didn’t recall, lay on the carpet in a growing puddle of blood. Shards of glass were spread around his head.

  “Good of you to join us, Seraphine,” Thatcher said. “As the note said, I’ve been looking for you. I’d have come for you once this swine was dead, but I have to kill him now, so I guess this is it.”

  “You.” She thought back on the intruder in her room, the voice she knew she’d heard before but had been altered. Of course it was him. On some level she’d known—hadn’t she been afraid of him when Kida had gone missing? Had he been using Laura to get information about Sera? Worse, he had to be a member of the Sanctus Sect. Was he connected to Geo—

  Thatcher turned from Laroche and stormed on her, blade stretched before him.

  Sera dodged out of the way. He turned on her again, grabbing her by the wrist, and sneered in her face. Laura yelped behind them, and he looked away for a second. His grip was tight enough to snap bone, but Sera had some bone-snapping tricks of her own. She slammed her fist into his groin.

  He grunted and doubled over, eyes watering, then staggered towards her again.

  A shape flew past Sera and smacked into Thatcher.

  Roye. They struggled for no more than a moment, then three shots sounded, and Thatcher crumpled to the ground.

  “Declan!” Laura cried, and struggled against Ahmed’s grip to enter the room, but he was stronger and held her back.

  “I should have known it was this bastard.” Roye’s shirt was spotted with blood, his face grim. “My queen, we have no time. When I was on my way here, there was a commotion in the dining room. The king was choking or something. I didn’t stay to find out, because you were in danger, but if I have to guess, George was killing the king. We have to move, now.”

  “Help me,” Laroche said.

  Roye slung one of Laroche’s arms over his shoulder, while Ahmed passed Laura to Jerry, and took the other arm.

  “If Victor’s in danger, I have to help him,” Magnus said.

  “Respect, Doc, but the king’s not walking out of there alive.” Roye shook his head. “Not now that the dog’s tasted human blood.”

  Sera gasped. Sect or not, Victor was his father. “You think George will kill him?”

  “I don’t doubt it.”

  They hurried through empty halls, then took the servants’ passages. Magnus kept falling behind despite Jerry half-dragging him along, and though Laura took Magnus’s other arm, she helped little. Tears dripped from her chin, and her jaw hung slack.

  The pressure in Sera’s head was deafening. Her eyes throbbed with it; her vision pulsed to white. Everyone was dead or dying, and now she was running for her life.

  Thatcher had betrayed her. He’d been so good to her, always there when she’d needed someone. He’d even used Laura, but why? To get close to her? Was he connected to George? Had to be. Why else would he strike as George was moving against Victor? Was she overthinking? They hadn’t proven that George belonged to the Sect, and the ruckus Roye had heard didn’t confirm George was killing his father.

  Shut up and get out of the palace.

  They hurried down the stairs to the main floor, where furniture, mirrors, and paintings had been draped in black in addition to the drawn curtains. Even fewer lights flickered here. A statue of Richard had been moved from one of the ballrooms, and now stood on a marble pedestal in the entry hall—the first thing people would see when they returned to the palace. For now. Once George was king, his statue would likely fill the entryway.

  Red flowers had been woven into wreaths: poppies, roses, carnations, lilies, daisies. Richard had been the Prince of Red. The wreaths were propped up against the statue, while candles glittered all around it. Similar shrines had been erected outside the palace walls, and citizens added letters, candles, flowers, and other gifts to those regularly. Here on the main floor, Sera could just make out the soft murmur of the ululations the mourners sang to him.

  “Where to?” Roye asked.

  “Down. Dungeon.” Laroche panted. His feet dangled a centimetre or two above the ground, and his head sagged forward as he fell in and out of consciousness.

  Not him, too.

  “What the hell is going on, Jean?” Magnus’s breath sounded as gasps. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth and dripped from his chin to stain his grey robe. Once, that robe had been stained only with ink or tobacco.

  “Safety, old friend.” Laroche’s eyes shut, and his mouth hung open.

  “Papa.” Sera’s every muscle vibrated, and vomit rose to her tongue. She swallowed, swallowed again.

  “Come along, Magnus,” Jerry said. “I swore to Nate I’d take care of you.”

  “And you have, boy. You have.” Magnus wheezed.

  The path to the next stairwell seemed continents away, especially with Magnus and Jerry struggling to keep up. Sera took Laura’s place, and supported Magnus with the one arm and Laura with the other.

  “I didn’t know,” Laura mumbled. “Didn’t realise.”

  “It’s not your fault, darling,” Sera said.

  Laura wept louder.

  At last, they reached the stairs and went down. The basement halls showed signs of life. The lights were on. Those staff members who’d stayed were all on errands, running around with rolls of dark fabric, candles for the shrine, or flowers for the funeral. No black-lined mirrors here, though they wore their black livery. The halls were plainer, narrower. No fancy rugs or vases with plants—though the upper floors had also lacked those in the recent past—no benches along the stone walls.

  The sirens screamed when they were about ten paces from the final stairwell. People paused, then scurried once more.

  In twenty years, no siren had ever sounded in the palace, but this song had repeated twice in less than a month.

  “Leave me,” Laroche said. “Take the queen to the dungeon. Service way out of the grounds. Automotive waiting. Du Pont estate.”

  Roye gave one step towards the wall and shifted Laroche downwards, but Sera grabbed his arm.

  “Don’t you dare,” she said.

  “Leave me.” Laroche pleaded with his eyes.

  She shook her head. “The Mantle will crash down on us sooner than I’d leave you here. Bring him, Roye, and bring him fast.”

  They ran. Two men dressed in servants’ livery joined them and picked up Magnus without any comment. Jerry exhaled and shook out his hands. He ran slower than the rest, but at least moved faster than when he had to support Magnus. Once they reached the passageway to the dungeon, three pings and a click sounded from the speakers attached to the lampposts across Aelland.

  Shit, what now?

  “My good people.” George sounded hollow. “This is a black day indeed. I am distraught to formally announce the death of King Victor of Aellor. The cause of death is yet unknown, but foul play is suspected. It further saddens my heart to announce the prime suspects of the crime are Queen Seraphine of Aellor, as two of her guards—both on duty—were also found murdered in her suite, and her father, Grand Duke Laroche, who is missing from the palace.

  “Despite this dark time, we must ask
that any and all information about her whereabouts be delivered to the palace with the utmost haste.”

  Victor, dead. George was king. Uncrowned, but king. And when his plans to murder her and her father had failed, George had—in a brilliant move in the game—placed the bodies of the guards in her suite to make her, the queen, the prime suspect in a triple murder. Under normal circumstances, she’d have applauded him.

  The snakelet turned out to be the more vicious of her enemies. Sera’s body ceased to work. Her mind shut down, knees buckled, and her senses dissolved.

  Laura held her upright, and another pair of hands urged her on from behind.

  For a few moments, she was nothing, then the smell guided her back into her skin. Death and rotting flesh, human excrement, dank and mould—this was where the worst of people were kept. The dark in the dungeon swallowed her, but the stench kept her bound to herself.

  How many servants had seen them pass through the basement? What if they told George? The game would be up before she’d had chance to play. What about the prisoners?

  Whispers bounced about the cages as they passed, and a few prisoners demanded to know who they were, and what they wanted.

  “Here.” Laroche sounded like the dungeons smelled. Death in the flesh.

  A few cells were free of occupants.

  “Leave you here; open the others?” Roye said.

  “Yes,” Laroche whispered.

  Three others had joined them in the dungeon’s everlasting night. Sera couldn’t see much more of them than glinting eyes. Metal clanged as the cell doors slid open, and her companions entered their new temporary habitation.

  Her feet refused to take the step into the moist cell.

  “Just a moment, my queen.” Roye urged her on with a hand between her shoulder blades. “Please. Fifteen minutes at most. It’s for your safety, too. When this lot begins to riot, they won’t get at you here.”

  He was right—she was a queen. “Get us out of here, Roye.”

  “On my mother’s life.”

  She shuddered as the door of the cell shut behind her.

  Chapter 20

  Lance strained to hear the new sounds over the whispers. Too many feet thumped in the narrow passage, but nobody had passed by his cell. He pressed his face against the bars and caught a flash of movement, but no more.

  From the scuffling, someone had entered the adjacent cell.

  The guards rarely delivered new prisoners this time of the night, and even when they did, they used the cells closest to the entrance. They never came in this deep if they didn’t have to. Moments ago, there’d been an announcement, but the speakers in the dungeon were broken and played only static.

  The new prisoner’s breathing grew into louder, hysterical pants.

  Lance put his forehead on the stone between him and the new one. “Calm yourself. It’s small, but it’s not so bad.”

  The breathing stopped.

  “Don’t be scared. I’ve been here awhile, and I’m a survivor, so you won’t get sick from me. In fact, most of us here are the ones who refused to die. I’m Lance.”

  Silence answered him, then a sigh. “Sera.”

  “Well, a woman! Excuse me, Sarah, if I’d known you’d grace us with your presence, I’d have dressed up or something. What are you in for then?”

  Her voice shook, small and delicate as little bells ringing. “It’s complicated. You?”

  “I pretty much led the rot revolution.”

  “You… What?”

  “Not a fan, then. You must be noble,” Lance said.

  “No, I understand why you did it. Some days, I wish I could lead a revolution.” Thuds sounded, as if she were punching or kicking something. “Still, because of you, Aelland is dying. You killed the crown prince.”

  “We had nothing to do with that, I’ll have you know. Not to mention, your crown prince’s prick-faced father killed half the bloody slums, so it’s a fair trade.”

  “Well, his father is dead now, for what it’s worth.” She choked on the words.

  The king was dead? Was that the announcement they’d made earlier?

  Lance whooped. Late, but the slummers had done it. They’d come to kill a king, and by one hand or another, he was dead because of the chaos they’d caused. Him and the crown prince.

  He laughed. The nobles could suck on that.

  Many prisoners shouted for him to shut up, but Lance whistled, long and loud.

  “The king’s dead, friends. The king and the crown prince both.” He cupped his hands around his mouth. “We boiling did it! The least of all his people rose and killed him. Down with the king! Down with the Aellors!”

  Shouts echoing his words rose in an instant, followed by others demanding to know how he knew. The slummers who supported him still outnumbered the others, though, as the shouts of ‘down with the Aellors’ rose loud enough to swallow the questions.

  “Wait till your new king reigns,” Sarah said. “Within the first month of his rule, you’ll wish the slummers all died. Aelland is doomed, Lance, and you’re not going to survive that. Victor was a bad king, I’ll concede, but at least he had a heart. George doesn’t.”

  Lance tilted his head back against the cell wall. Magnus Cutter’s words ran in circles in his mind. Of all the royals, she’s the only one who tries to help the slummers. The queen was good, wherever she was. Maybe, while she was alive, they had hope. “We won’t follow a king,” he said.

  Now she laughed, small and delicate like her words, but laced with venom. “And who would you follow?”

  “Met this physician once. Cutter, he was called. Came into the slums with someone I really admired. Someone who passed in the revolution. Anyway, Cutter told me the queen’s not half bad. Didn’t believe him at first, but Cutter’s a good man. If he thinks the queen’s all right, I think the queen’s all right. Maybe it’s time we followed her instead.”

  “You… You’d do that?”

  “She tried to help us, at least. Better than any other noble I’ve ever heard of.”

  “I, ah. Well. She’d be happy to hear that.”

  Lance frowned. Was this woman close to the queen in some way? Why else would she be so concerned about who the slummers would or would not follow? “You know the queen, don’t you?”

  A pause. “Yes.”

  “She safe up there? With all the royals falling dead and all.”

  Sarah laughed shrilly. “She’s been accused of murdering the king.”

  “Did she do it?”

  “No.”

  Lance crossed his arms. “It was probably Highness and Lackey.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “About once a week, a pair of voices visited us in the dark. Plotting, always plotting. Said they’d found a survivor and were planning to give the crown prince rot. Then something about the queen’s cat and scaring her. Then getting rid of the grand duke.”

  She gasped. “So, they were connected after all. I should have slit his damn throat in his sleep.”

  Had he heard that right? He clamped his forefinger between his teeth. Talk of being connected—this Sarah was connected. Called the royals by their first names, knew the queen. That hitch in her voice when he’d said he’d follow the queen. Sarah. He snorted. Or Sera, as in Seraphine? “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you more than know the queen, don’t you?”

  She didn’t answer.

  Slag and bloody soot, here she was. The queen of boiling Aelland, in the dungeon with him. A slummer. The Creator had one twisted sense of humour. A million things he could say flashed in his mind. The foremost was simple. “Thank you.”

  “I— For what?”

  “For not giving up on us.”

  She inhaled sharply, then sighed. “This is my home; these people are my people. For Aelland, I’d give everything.”

  “You know, I actually believe you.” He huffed. “So, why are you down here?”

  “Well, they’re framing me for three murders I didn’t commit, so I gues
s I’m a fugitive now.”

  He chuckled. “Welcome to the guild.” He rubbed his hands together then blew into his palms.

  The queen being here with him—this was no coincidence. Just as it had been no coincidence that Cutter had come to see Puck, and changed Lance’s mind about her. Maybe the Creator had let this all happen so he’d end up in Roicester with her. Puck had believed in these connections, these divine interventions, so maybe it was his gods. Maybe they’d set this path for Lance, blasphemous as the idea might be.

  Say he escaped, made it out of this shithole alive, what then? Now that the revolution was over, could he go back to the slums? Back into ignorance, while the nobles would gain wealth and weight, and the slummers would die of hunger. Maybe the queen had ended up in the cell next to his because he was supposed to go with her. Make Aelland better for everyone. She’d said she’d give everything, and with his whole heart, he knew she’d spoken the truth. Maybe he’d also give everything.

  Like called to like, didn’t it? Uneducated he may be, stupid by their standards, but Lance recognised a kindred soul in her. Even through the stone wall of a prison cell. He had power, whatever that might mean. Most of the slummers were loyal to him. For now—loyalties shifted fast among these people. If he allied with the queen, maybe he could speak for the slummers. They needed a voice in Roicester.

  A warmth spread through his chest and the hair on his arms prickled. “Look, as a fellow fugitive—I want you to know I’ll follow you wherever you go. I’ll teach you about these people, I’ll help you show Aelland the time of kings is over. If you want me.”

  She laughed. “You keep surprising me, Lance. If you’re willing to help, you’re welcome to come with me. Thank you.”

  “Think nothing of it. I’m just a Mantle-licker.”

  “One who managed to rally a revolution.”

  He grinned. “There is that, though it wasn’t much of— Did you hear that?”

  Cells slammed open in loud clangs, and prisoners laughed or shouted as they were freed. Was Sunshine among them? Creator, keep the boy if he is.

  Bare feet slapped on stone ways, and torches rendered Lance blind as they flared up and devoured the dark.