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9:10 Dragon
The Estate of Matthias Pentaghast, Cumberland, and the Royal Palace, Nevarra City, Nevarra
There was shouting outside. The halls of the house were empty. Almost all of the doors were open. So were Mother’s jewelry case and the drawer for the silver in the kitchen. This afternoon, when Marte had ordered her to pack, Cassandra had opened her wardrobe to find there was hardly anything left to pack: someone had taken most of her dresses. This morning, there had been twelve servants in the house. After luncheon, Cassandra had called out to Agnes to help her with her trunk, and Agnes had ignored her and walked the other way. Now, the only two servants with them were Marte and Benin. Cassandra didn’t know if they would leave too if they still could. They couldn’t anymore.
The soldiers were coming. Anthony had seen two of their own guards outside with King Markus’s men. When he had told Benin, the old driver had spat: “Cowards. Hoping the king doesn’t execute them for traitors, never mind they’re committing treachery to convince him.”
The message the boy had given them this morning didn’t seem real: Mother and Father, traitors. Discovered in a plot against King Markus with several conspirators. Several of them captured. Mother and Father already killed in the struggle.
Mother and Father, dead. She had read the note herself this morning, sent by Cousin Oscar in a hurry, and in secret. He had warned them to run, that the immediate families of all the conspirators would be rounded up as traitors, whether or not they had been involved in the plot. They had already taken Uncle Ehren and Aunt Liesl, and Oscar had only been spared because he had not lived or been close with his parents these four years.
Cassandra had been reading a whole year now, but for a moment, she thought she hadn’t understood the message. Mother and Father had been home just last week, talking about lessons with Anthony at supper, saying the Chant with the two of them in the morning. Father had walked with her in the gardens. He had shown her a map of the Free Marches he had bought for his collection in Nevarra City. Everything had been fine. Now they were traitors. Dead like the bodies in the Grand Necropolis, and if something else came to live inside them, it wouldn’t be Mother and Father anymore but some Fade spirit that wouldn’t even know Cassandra or Anthony. It felt like nonsense, a bad dream or a silly joke.
But when Marte had leaped into action, ordering Cassandra to get her things, to get ready to leave—that felt real. Only with the servants run away and everything going missing, they hadn’t moved fast enough. Ten minutes ago, Anthony had heard a neighbor say they had closed the city gates. Four minutes ago, he had seen the soldiers marching up the street toward the house.
Benin and Marte had ordered them to stay in Cassandra’s room. There had been three guards that had stayed. One of them was standing outside the door now. Benin and Marte were with the other two at the front of the house. They had promised they would try to keep the soldiers away.
Anthony stood by the wardrobe now. His fingers tightened and loosened around the hilt of the sword Father had only allowed him to have three weeks ago. He was so tall—but he was skinny, too, Cassandra thought, and he looked very white as he stared at the blade of the sword.
“They’re going to die, aren’t they?” Cassandra asked, very quietly. “Benin and Marte and the guards. They’re all going to die. We’re going to die.” She giggled then, but somehow, tears were running down her cheeks too. It was nonsense, a bad dream or a silly joke.
Anthony moved then. He crossed the room, sheathed his sword, and pulled something out of his jacket. It was a knife, Cassandra saw—just a common belt knife, really, for carving up kindling and cutting knotted rope and things like that, but its sheath was shiny and soft, and when Cassandra took it out, the blade was wickedly sharp. “Benin gave this to me the day you were born,” Anthony told her. “You know that story—bandits attacked us on the road, and he knew I had to be ready to protect you. Cassandra, they’re going to have to kill me before they can hurt you or take you away.” He swallowed. “But it might not be enough. You should be ready to fight too. Take this.”
Cassandra wrapped her fingers tight around the hilt. “I don’t know how to use it.”
The door to the bedroom fell open with a crash. The guard fell into Cassandra’s room. His legs were broken, and he was gasping. He whimpered like a dog, face a white-green Cassandra had never seen before. As she watched, another soldier reached down and stabbed him in the throat. Blood welled up around the soldier’s sword, redder than the flowers in the garden. The guard gurgled. His eyes were wide and staring. Then Cassandra couldn’t look anymore.
They were in the room.
Anthony yelled and ran at them, sword raised. Cassandra wanted to run, to hide in the shadows of the wardrobe, but Anthony was fighting them, trying to push the first two soldiers back out of her room. His sword seemed to shriek on theirs. Anthony was cursing, crying as he fought them. He got under the guard of one and stabbed him, up under the ribs. But then a third man came into the room, behind Anthony. He brought his sword down from above and hit Anthony in the head with the pommel and his gauntleted fist. Anthony went limp and fell.
Cassandra screamed and flew at the man, knife raised. She would kill him! She would kill them all! But a soldier caught her arm as it came up with the knife. Hands closed around her, and picked her up off the floor. Cassandra punched and kicked and bit, but someone tore the knife out of her hand. She was thrown over an armored shoulder, her legs and arms pinned helplessly by arms almost as big as she was.
As she was carried away, Cassandra saw Anthony lying on the floor beside the dead guard, white and still. The blood from the dead guard’s throat was pooling in Anthony’s hair. “No!” Cassandra yelled. “No! No! No! No! No!”
THREE WEEKS LATER
“You should eat, Cassie,” Anthony said. He pushed the porridge the guard had brought them this morning at her.
“Why?” Cassandra demanded. “They’re going to kill us. And yesterday’s had weevils in it.”
“Extra flavor and energy,” Anthony joked. “Cassie, please. For me?”
Cassandra looked up into Anthony’s face. The light was bad in the cell they shared in King Markus’s dungeon. The torches down here were too far outside the cell, and the light only came in through the tiny window at the top of the wall at certain times during the day, but Cassie could still see how much thinner he looked after just three weeks. It was scary. Anthony had never been a fat boy. Even though the bruise on his forehead had faded to yellow, his black hair was all clumped together with dirt and blood because the soldiers hadn’t given them a chance to wash after taking them from home—not on the road or anywhere else. He smelled. She smelled. And the guards didn’t take the chamberpot away often enough. They had to share, each turning their back when they needed it, so everything smelled. Their second day here, Cassandra had noticed little bugs crawling on their blankets. It was disgusting. But even worse was not knowing when the soldiers would come to take them to the king—or if they ever would.
She didn’t want to be here anymore. She wished she was already dead, with Mother and Father and Marthe and Benin and all the rest of them. The Chant of Light said the spirits of the dead went back to the Fade to stay at the Maker’s side, and that had to be better than this.
But she didn’t want to go without Anthony.
She took her bowl from him and the rough wooden spoon they had to share. “All right,” she muttered. “For you.”
He waited until she was done before he took the spoon back to finish his. It had to be even nastier now it had gone cold, but Anthony didn’t say anything about it. “You should go first next time,” Cassandra told him quietly. “Or we’ll take turns.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Anthony told her. “At least they’re feeding us, right?”
Cassandra snorted. She drew her legs up in front of her chest and wrapped her arms around them against the cold. Then she heard the door at the top of the stairs slam open and boots coming down. More boots than just the guard that would take their bowls away.
Anthony straightened. “They’re coming.”
There were four soldiers this time. They all towered over Cassandra. Even Anthony. Three weeks ago, she had thought he was so grown up. Now she knew he wasn’t, not really. But when they stood together, she still reached out for his hand.
One of them brought up a ring of heavy, iron keys and unlocked their cell. He opened the door, and another stepped inside. “Hands?” he asked, taking some rope from his belt.
Anthony shook his head. “You don’t need to bind us, ser. We won’t fight or try to escape. There’s no point anymore. I’m not armed, and my sister is a child.”
“They’re both children,” one of the guards muttered. He looked uncomfortable.
“They’re traitors,” the guard with the keys said, but his cheek next to his mustache twitched.
“Do they look dangerous to you?” the guard who had complained before demanded, thrusting his hand in their direction.
“You took my knife and Anthony’s sword, and Anthony’s hurt,” Cassandra said. “We couldn’t hurt you even if we wanted to now. Just kill us here if that’s what you’re supposed to do.”
Anthony squeezed her hand. She was trying to sound brave, but her voice shook, and one tear fell down her cheek. Cassandra went hot with shame but stuck her chin out and closed her eyes.
“Just—just come with us,” the guard with the keys decided. Cassandra opened her eyes. “Braun, Keller, walk behind them. Wagner, with me. And you, little lord, you two better be as harmless as you claim. If either of you try anything, we won’t hesitate to hurt you, and it won’t go well for you at the trial.”
“I understand,” Anthony said. “Come on, Cassie.”
Cassandra hesitated, then followed the guard with the keys and the man who had complained—Wagner—out of the cell.
“You’re not supposed to kill us?” she asked after a little.
There was silence for a long moment, then one of the guards behind them answered. “Not yet, milady. The king wants you brought up to the throne room for judgment.”
Cassandra glanced at Anthony. His jaw was set, and he squeezed her hand still tighter.
The king could decide not to kill them, Cassandra knew. He was the king. He could do whatever he wanted. But why would he? And where would they go, even if he decided not to kill them? How many relatives would want to take them, after Mother and Father had been caught doing what they’d done? And what if the king decided to banish them from Nevarra? What would they do then?
The guards led them up out of the dungeons and down a series of corridors. As they walked, the corridors got lighter and grander, until finally, they were brought through a beautifully carved wooden door and into a great hall.
The floor was marble of all different colors, cut and laid together to form lovely patterns. Enormous candle chandeliers hung overhead. There were sconces on all the walls, and the windows faced east so that sun streamed into the hall. Cassandra could see dozens of men and women standing around the hall—almost all of them old, dressed in clothes as nice as her best dresses had been back home, and looking so serious she wanted to cry. She swallowed and pressed closer to Anthony, feeling very small, very dirty, and very wicked.
She hadn’t known about Mother and Father’s plot against the king. Neither had Anthony. But she didn’t think it mattered here.
The king was an old man. His hair and beard were gray, and his eyes, mouth, and nose were all lined with wrinkles. He wasn’t looking at them. Instead, he was looking at his hands, twisting them in his velvet robe.
The herald next to him pounded a standard on the steps leading up to the throne as two of the guards that had brought them here stepped away and the others stepped to either side of Cassandra and Anthony, revealing them to the king and everyone in the hall.
“Before you stands Anthony Alessio Edmund Orlando Vincent Pentaghast and Cassandra Portia Calogera Filomena Pentaghast, son and daughter to Matthias and Tigana Pentaghast, traitorous participants in the recent plot against Your Majesty. It is unclear whether either was party to the treachery of their parents, but there are many witnesses that will attest that both are guilty of resisting arrest. The boy, additionally, stands guilty of the murder of one of Your Majesty’s soldiers.”
Anthony flinched. “He died?” he burst out.
“Silence! The accused will have their chance to speak,” one of the men standing near the king thundered.
Cassandra couldn’t feel her hand anymore; Anthony was holding it so tightly. He had gone white, and suddenly he was sweating too. “That soldier you stabbed?” Cassandra whispered. “It wasn’t murder, Anthony. You were trying to protect us.”
“I killed him,” Anthony whispered back. “I didn’t know that I killed him.”
The man who had yelled for them to be quiet spoke again. “It would be better to execute these two, Your Majesty. Traitors breed traitors. Lord Matthias was a dread warrior and dragon hunter, and the Lady Tigana a devious politician—your own royal steward. Their children will grow up to be dangerous, and they will not forgive the deaths of their parents—even if they were innocent of their parents’ machinations before now.”
Another woman, with red hair and a sour expression, in black satin mourning clothes, spoke up as well. “The boy has already killed a man. One of Your Majesty’s own soldiers. Isn’t this the very definition of treachery? Eleven years old and a hardened murderer. What will he become if you allow him to grow? His bitch sister will be no better.”
The king frowned. “They are children, Lady Flora.” He looked up at them finally, and he looked as uncomfortable as Wagner down in the dungeons.
“Children grow,” the man beside the king said again. “These two have ample reason to hate you.”
“Even so,” the king said.
“If I may, Your Majesty?”
It took a moment for Cassandra to recognize the man that had spoken—a mage, in long, brown brocade robes trimmed with gold. Then she did. It was Uncle Vestalus, dressed in formal court regalia. He hadn’t been killed or punished. She looked up at Anthony, and saw a desperate hope in her brother’s face.
“Vestalus,” King Markus said. “Speak.”
Uncle Vestalus walked forward and knelt in front of King Markus’s throne. “Please, Sire, my brother and sister-in-law’s plot against you was ill-advised, against law and against the Maker, but my niece and nephew are innocent. Children talk, Sire. Why would my brother and sister-in-law risk their plans by confiding in their young children? They knew nothing. If they fought when the soldiers came to seize them, it was because they are young. They were afraid, and acted only from that fear, not from any ill intent. See how peaceably they stand before you now? Unbound and unresisting. I have known them from infancy, Sire. They are good children: pious and noble and honest, both. Spare them, my liege. I beg you. Be merciful and gracious in your victory, and they will remember it. Your people will remember it.”
In that moment, Cassandra took back every awful thing she had ever thought about Uncle Vestalus and his strange work in the nasty old Grand Necropolis. She wanted to run and hug him, but Anthony held her back. “Quiet, Cassie,” he murmured.
King Markus was focused entirely on Uncle Vestalus. He stroked his beard, then he nodded. “I will heed your plea, Vestalus. I am weary of this shedding of kinsblood. It sickens me. These children are my own royal family. I judge them no threat, and commend them to you that they remain so.”
Vestalus seemed to stiffen for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, Sire. Thank you.”
“Little Lord Anthony,” the king said, looking over Vestalus’s head at the two of them then.
“Yes, Your Majesty?” Anthony’s voice came out as a croak. He cleared his throat. “My apologies.”
King Markus waved a hand heavy with golden rings. “I hereby pardon you and your sister of the actions you committed when my soldiers came to seize you at the estate in Cumberland. You are furthermore pardoned for the blood you shed that day. You will not be punished.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty—” Anthony began, but Markus frowned.
“I was not finished, boy.” Anthony trembled, and bowed for the king to continue.
“Your parents’ holdings and assets have been confiscated,” the king told them both. “It was the property of traitors, and neither of you will inherit it. You will, however, retain your noble titles and your place in our own royal family. Many will say this is greater mercy and honor than the two of you deserve. I charge you to prove yourselves worthy of it, in our eyes and in the eyes of the Maker. I commend you both to the care of your father’s brother Vestalus, our trusted prelate.”
King Markus looked back at Vestalus. “Raise them loyal, Vestalus,” he said, “with the proper respect for the traditions and law of Nevarra.”
“I will do so, Your Majesty. Thank you.”
King Markus clapped his hands. “Then you are dismissed, Vestalus. Take them away.”
Vestalus rose and bowed deeply again. Cassandra, seeing Anthony do the same, dipped into a clumsy curtsey. The redheaded woman, the man beside the king, and several others were still glaring at them, but the king had made his judgment. They wouldn’t fight with him, not here. Not now.
The guards let Anthony fall into line behind Vestalus, and he swept out of the hall without looking back at them once. They were going back to the Grand Necropolis, Cassandra knew. From now on, they would live there, among the houses of the dead. But they themselves would not be killed. She didn’t know if she wanted to hug Uncle Vestalus anymore or cry. She eventually decided she wanted to cry, but Anthony hugged her, and that made her feel a little bit better.