Bring Me Their Hearts Read online

  The carriage halts suddenly, and Y’shennria looks around. “Why have we stopped?” she asks. “This isn’t the tailor.”

  “There’s a purge blocking the way, milady,” Fisher calls. Y’shennria looks to me grimly.

  “Well. I suppose now is a better time than none to see the state of the city for yourself. Get out.”

  “Gladly.” I disembark on unsteady legs to a thundering crowd. It chokes the street, blocking off the horses. I see something tall and metal poking above the heads of the crowd, and it’s too silvery to be a giant watertell. Fisher jumps down from the driver’s seat, Y’shennria instructing him to watch the carriage. She leads me away, through a dim alley, then two. She finally pushes into a bar with dark wooden countertops and stained glass windows.

  “Lady Y’shennria!” The woman at the bar bows deep. “It’s an honor.”

  “We’re here for the purge,” Y’shennria says, clipped. “No need for drinks.”

  “Very well then, milady.”

  Y’shennria pulls me toward a set of stairs in the back. It leads to an upper level spaced evenly with tables, but it’s the balcony she walks toward. There are a few other nobles (and I can tell they’re nobles because their clothes are equally as fancy as Y’shennria’s) standing at the railing, watching the center of the crowd from this perfect height, where a strange contraption that looks like an oversize metal coffin sits ominously.

  “Baron d’Goliev!” Y’shennria smiles at a portly man in black silk. “How nice to see you.”

  The baron turns from the railing, grinning. “Oh, Lady Y’shennria! What a pleasure. I happened to be in Butcher’s Alley when I heard a purge was happening. Distasteful, the whole lot of it, but better to free ourselves of these threats now than wish we’d done it later, don’t you agree?”

  “Absolutely.” Y’shennria’s smile is tight, but then she motions to me. “Baron, this is my niece, Zera. She’ll be a Bride at the Welcoming in a few days.”

  “Ah!” The baron’s ruddy face creases with a grin. “Finally went and got her, did you? Welcome, milady. It’s good to have you with us.”

  “Thank you, Baron d’Goliev. It’s an honor.” I recite the canned phrase Y’shennria told me to and bow, too deep, because she clears her throat and nudges my boot with her own. When I straighten, the baron squints at me.

  “That’s quite the sword you have there. It’s rare to see a lady carrying one these days. Do you fence, then?”

  “When I can get away with it,” I admit. He nods and turns to Y’shennria.

  “She’s pretty enough, isn’t she? Her hair’s a little long, though.”

  “We’re cutting that before the Welcoming, rest assured,” she says. I bite back the urge to remind them I’m standing right here. Y’shennria told me hours ago to expect this sort of treatment, but it’s still irritating.

  “Of course, of course. Speak true, milady—do you think you’ll catch the prince with her?” He talks to Y’shennria like I’m bait for a fishing rod. I can’t stand it one second more.

  “If we do catch him,” I say, “I very much hope someone will clean his scales before we roast him.”

  The baron blinks, and Y’shennria’s expression is deadly cold before she smiles at him sweetly.

  “I’m sorry, Baron. She’s a little rough around the edges.”

  “Being raised on a farm will do that to you.” The baron chuckles nervously.

  “It would be lovely, though, wouldn’t it? If such coarseness could somehow catch his finicky eye?” Y’shennria presses.

  “Indeed. Just think of it—the Y’shennria family on the Crown Princess’s side! Why, you’d give the whole Steelrun family a fit! They have their own girl in the Spring Brides this season, you know.”

  “So I’ve heard. Lady Steelrun hasn’t been quiet for months about it.”

  “Well, this is our last chance to keep the d’Malvane bloodline in Cavanos, so I’ll be rooting for both of you. Kavar forbid Prince Lucien marries some servile, tower-kept thing from Avel.”

  They laugh in tandem. I don’t get the joke, and I’m more than a little glad for it, because it sounds like a terrible one. The other nobles must not be worth talking to—either that or they’re one of the many families who don’t associate themselves with the Y’shennrias because of their Old God ties. By the snide looks I’m getting, it must be the latter. I focus on the crowd instead. A few people position themselves by the strange metal coffin—one of them a man in an impressive white robe with long silver hair. I wish I had that little brass seeing tube, but Y’shennria is deeply immersed in conversation with the baron, and I don’t dare interrupt.

  “People of Vetris!” The silver-haired man’s voice booms, startling me. He holds a copper stick to his mouth, and it somehow amplifies his voice—another strange yet useful human machine. “I bring to you today a purging of our hidden wickedness, an enemy of Kavar, and a threat to the safety of our great nation!”

  The crowd roars. One of the nobles beside me waves a handkerchief like a flag. Y’shennria leans in to me, murmuring, “That man in white is the Minister of the Blade—Archduke Gavik Himintell. He’s the leader of all the lawguards in Cavanos, and he oversees Vetris’s army.”

  “Sounds like a man with a lot of power,” I say. Y’shennria nods.

  “Too much, some say. He and the king have grown close in the last six years, and he has the king’s ear in all matters. He’s dangerous and clever. Stay away from him if you can.”

  I watch the archduke in the distance, his voice still booming.

  “By the grace of our king, the guidance of our High Priest, and the workings of our Crimson Lady, we have discovered a witch traitor in our midst, plotting even now to kill and maim your children, your husbands, your wives!”

  The crowd roars again, fire on their tongues. The man raises a pale sword high, sweeping it around the throng.

  “They would take the hearts from your chests!”

  Another roar. The hunger whispers in agreement with him: Gladly.

  “They would curse you with magic enough to turn your blood to ash, your crops to stone!”

  Another cheer.

  “They would taint the holiness of our great and honorable city with their Old God filth, and for this, they must die!” Archduke Gavik motions for someone. Two lawguards lead a young boy forward, no older than me. He looks underfed, afraid. He’s gagged with a wad of cloth and bound at the wrists. The crowd goes absolutely wild at the sight of him. People chant drown the witch; others throw rotting fruit. I clutch the railing, a sick feeling rising in my throat. That’s what the coffin is for. That’s why it’s suddenly filling with water from a long tube attached to it at the side. The silver-haired man lets the crowd work itself up with every inch of water that seeps in. More fruit, stones, sticks. The boy flinches as a rotting peach hits his feet. I look to Y’shennria, her head held high, her eyes never leaving the sight.

  “Y’shennria—”

  “No,” she says simply, quietly, so the baron watching next to her can’t hear. My unheart sinks. Am I to be forced to sit here and watch someone die? If I do nothing to stop this, it’s as if I killed him myself—another body to the pile of my cruelty.

  The lawguards bring a stepping ladder, placing it against the now-full metal coffin. They open the lid, and the silver-haired archduke points at the boy.

  “Drown the witch, in the name of the New God, in the name of peace!”

  The lawguards muscle the boy onto the stepladder, his thin body flailing madly in a last attempt at freedom. Celeon, human—it doesn’t matter. Everyone is cheering. And if they aren’t outright cheering, they’re grimly watching everything unfold before them. Baron d’Goliev makes a gesture, touching his eyelids, then his heart.

  “Water for a witch,” he mutters, as if it’s a prayer that will protect him. “Fire for their thralls.”

  Y’shennria’s face is grim, granite. No one moves. No one even tries. I grip the hilt of my sword tight. If
I do nothing, he dies—but how can I do something? I’d put myself at risk, get thrown into the dungeons. Nightsinger would shatter my heart, and that would be it. I would never be free.

  And it’s then I realize with crystal clarity just how selfish, just how monstrous, I really am.

  I have to let him die.

  I can’t watch. I squeeze my eyes shut as the boy takes his last forced step up the ladder. There’s silence, the slamming of something metal. Time moves so long and slow, until cheering bursts from the crowd like a grim punctuation mark on the end of the boy’s life.

  I run back into the bar and vomit into the nearest vase.

  4

  A Meeting

  of Thieves

  “This city is rotten,” I hiss, wiping at my mouth with a handkerchief Y’shennria’s offered me.

  “This city is afraid,” she corrects. “And fear turns the wisest and kindest men stupid and cruel.”

  “Then Archduke Gavik is the cruelest and stupidest of all,” I snarl. Her eyes dart around, as if fearful someone heard that, but she doesn’t disagree. “Why does he do these purges? How often?”

  “It started as once every few weeks, then became once every few days. He claims it’s for the city’s sake,” Y’shennria says. “Though I’ve known him since we were young—he’s always held a burning hate for witches and their kind. His father was killed in the Sunless War, and his mother wasted away slowly before she took her own life.”

  “That’s no excuse to drown a living being like that!”

  “I never said it was an excuse,” she says softly. “Simply that our pain breeds hate, and our hate makes us all do terrible things.”

  “There aren’t any witches left in Vetris,” I murmur. “They told me that themselves. So who was that boy?”

  “A human, no doubt. A drifter, or a starseed addict, or a refugee from Pendron and its civil war. The archduke isn’t picky about his scapegoats.”

  “Can’t the king stop him?”

  “The king knows about it, undoubtedly sanctions it.”

  “Why?”

  “To keep Cavanos in line, of course. He’s not his father—he doesn’t have the love of his people. But he has their fear.”

  A hard pit of hate begins to burn in me. It’s an old hate, a familiar hate—the same hate that drove me to tear the bandits apart. Hate is dangerous. This city’s reminded me of that much.

  Mercifully, Y’shennria ushers me out of the bar and back into the carriage. She lectures me on how to wear the colors of spring correctly—pinks and greens and oranges, no reds or yellows, ribbons appreciated and chiffon a requirement, but I can barely parse it all. She knows that, presses hard on these lessons as if they’ll distract me from what I just saw. But I can’t banish the lingering sick in my throat, at both the city and at myself for how ready I was to sacrifice that boy for my freedom.

  Y’shennria stops the carriage at a tailor shop, and numbly I go in. I can’t even muster excitement about the endless rows of gorgeous, ruffle-drenched dresses in the window. I let the bug-eyed old man measure my every body part. He croons about how lovely velvet would look on me or some such nonsense. Y’shennria urges me to thank him, but when I don’t, she pulls me aside.

  “You must put what happened behind you, if you want your heart,” she mutters. “You are a lady, and a lady always hides her true feelings behind an impenetrable mask of politeness.”

  “They killed someone,” I hiss. “In front of everyone.”

  “And they will kill many more,” Y’shennria hisses back, “if you don’t take the first step and impress the prince and the court with these dresses.”

  I swallow, and when she steps away, I smile at the tailor.

  “I’m sorry, good sir. You’d be surprised how quickly traveling turns one into a grumpy wreck.”

  The tailor grins, bobbing his wizened head and resuming his measurements. When it’s over, and Y’shennria and the tailor are talking of what fabrics to use for my extensive wardrobe, I bow out of the shop and breathe the mercury-tinged air of Vetris deeply. A shout rings out just then in the square, a welcome distraction.

  “Thief! Lawguards, a thief just stole from my pockets!”

  I whirl to see a noble in distress, fishing about lamely at his gilded vest. A dark figure speeds away from the noble, something golden clutched in his hand. Clanking armor resounds as the lawguards dash after the figure, swords drawn.

  I might not be able to stop a purge, but I can definitely catch a thief.

  I gather my skirts and dash madly after the thief before Fisher can stop me. He ducked into a side alley—how predictable. Except when I round the alley, he isn’t there. I hear lawguards shouting, their armor clanking in other directions. The thief won’t be near any noise if he’s smart. He looked tall and strapping, so climbing the fence to my right wouldn’t have been a problem. I pull myself up with some struggle, landing on the other side. It’s another alley. A dead end.

  “I’m guessing you don’t want a gold watch because you need to tell the time,” I say loudly. A dark shadow straightens from behind a pile of trash, the sunlight shafting through the buildings barely illuminating the dark leather armor he’s wearing. Silent boots, silent gloves. A hood and mask obscure his face; the only things showing are two eyes so dark they hum with shadow, like the deepest parts of a midnight sky. He’s tall and lean and moves achingly slowly with suspicious tension.

  “It’s all right, I won’t snitch. Yet.” I hold my hands up. “I wake up on the marginally more criminal side of the bed, too, some days.”

  “How did you know where I was?” he asks, voice low. I laugh, then stop when he doesn’t.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Was that a serious question? This alley is the only one small enough to lose a cadre of sword-chests trying to throw you in jail. Dungeon? Dungeon-jail. Not the happiest place, really.”

  “I could’ve taken any other alley,” he insists, the gold watch spinning by its chain in his hand.

  “Ah, see, that’s where you’re wrong. The southern alley has too much sun this time of day—that’d give you away. The alley by the grilled fish stall does have a great cover of smoke, but it’s full of lawguards. So that leaves this one.”

  “You talk like you know this city,” he scoffs.

  “I know thieves,” I correct. “And I know a smart thief doesn’t pick the most expensive item on a noble. The gold pieces are always hardest—around necks, in breast pockets. So either you’re a stupid thief, or you’re after the thrill of the challenge, not the treasure.”

  His eyes narrow to dangerous onyx slits. “Now that you have me all figured out, why don’t you turn me in?”

  “Where’s the fun in that?” I smile.

  There’s a tense, fleeting second of silence. Neither of us moves, some invisible string pulled taut between us. An unquiet challenge courses through the air, audible only to those who deal in shadow, only to him and me.

  And then it snaps, and the thief runs, and I tear after him. He vaults over a stack of boxes with catlike grace, and I leap with all the forest muscle I have. He is water moving over stones with every turn of his body around street corners and through surprised crowds, over copper watertells and below stone arches. I don’t move in beautiful ways, not like he does. But my brute force is enough to keep up with him—to pivot hard and run harder.

  A flock of sunbirds takes off as he runs through them. Red feathers fall like bloodied snowflakes, blinding me momentarily. I spot the thief’s dark figure as he ducks into an alley. At the end of it, a magnificent waterway cuts through the streets. A massive serpent carved in solid marble sits at the head of it, spewing water from its mouth. Children and laborers and the homeless gather to play in its waters, cleaning themselves of the grime and dirt of the hot day. The water-slick ground throws off my footing, but it doesn’t throw off his—he runs up a set of slippery stairs with ease. I can’t lose him now. I clutch the railing and drag myself up. At the top, I spot him standing still,
debating between two roads.

  This second hangs in the air, the sound of my panting mixed with the joyful cries of the children. Water dances up from the snake’s mouth in quartz fragments, splashing cool against my sweating skin. I haven’t run this hard in so long. I haven’t seen this many new things in so long. Molten excitement courses through my veins—this is what it’s like to be free. To be human. I remember now.

  The thief turns his head my way. The moment he locks his dark eyes on me, life kicks up its speed, and he takes off again. As I follow him, out of breath and half in stitches, I realize this is a path with a very specific pattern. He runs it often—and he knows this city like it’s his limb. I can’t cut him off, but I can catch up at the very least. I shove all my energy left into my legs and double my speed. I reach my fingertips out to his shoulder, so very close—

  He spins away at the last second, and I stumble. When I look up again, he’s gone. There are at least four paths he could’ve disappeared down. My brain says he went to the next alley, but my gut tells me he’s stopped, just over the wall to my left. I grab the pipe system grafted into the wall and pull myself up and over with the last of my strength. I land on shaky legs and see him standing there, poised in a fighting stance.

  “You,” he hisses, panting.

  “M-Me!” I exclaim, fully out of breath. “Now that the introductions are out of the way, maybe you can stop the whole ‘being a criminal’ thing and return what you stole.”

  He snorts. “I’ve met some self-righteous hypocrites in my time, but you take the cake.”

  “Thank the New God. It’d be a waste of good baking otherwise.”

  “Whisper?” A tiny voice interrupts us. We both whirl around to see a little girl standing there, her dark hair tangled and her dress worn through with holes. She looks the same age as Crav—no more than ten or eleven—and she’s barefoot. The thief goes to her instantly, kneeling in front of her and offering the watch.