Serpent and the Throne (Fedosian Wars #1)

26. Return to Me

twenty-six

Return to Me

The hallway Sofia had wandered into during her first visit to Raven, the one she’d thought full of armors, was now in disarray. Not empty armors but watchmen, and they were scattered in pieces. Some of it twitched—a severed leg, a hand, a torso still attempting to crawl… Eugene put that one out of his misery.

A red cape hung from the chandelier, the fixture swaying still, and there was a watchman inside the wall, one hand stretched out. Warhammers were bent, twisted like wrung fabric. Sofia stepped on something and it was a tongue. Red small little thing, a tongue without a mouth or a face. Teeth were scattered like marbles children had been flicking, and the whole thing stunk of spilled guts, like butchered animals but worse, much worse. Had she not known better, she’d think they fought and killed each other. The brutality was excessive.

“These are watchmen,” Eugene breathed. “You’ve…” He let his words die and advanced through the slaughter ground, choosing his footing carefully, and Sofia clung onto his arm.

Nikolas sniveled. “I’m sorry. I had to. She was killing him. I could hear him. It’s been hours and she wouldn’t stop.”

“Are you sure she’s dead? The bitch has nine lives.” Eugene pushed Sofia aside, and the rod he carried released into his hand, snapping into a long scythe as the alchemy on his vambrace glowed. “You,” his mask dropped over his face as he turned to Sofia, “mind the prince and make sure he doesn’t touch anything . If the bitch lives, take my boy, and run. Understood?”

Sofia nodded. She kept the prince behind herself.

Eugene held up his hand, asking her to wait, and carefully pushed in the chamber door. It was heavy, slow, and creaked. A tremble passed through Sofia.

He went in, and it took him a moment, a long moment, but he marched back out alive. “I see her. She’s dead as fuck, but I need more light.” He fetched a toppled over candlestand from the hallway. The alchemy flint sparked, breathing fire, and the wicks fizzled alive. “Come on then,” he said this time, and Sofia followed him into the chamber, keeping the prince behind her.

As soon as Sofia entered, she stepped on something sharp and curved that swung up and stabbed into her ankle in the dark. Eugene must’ve not felt that because he was wearing boots.

She tightened her grip around the prince’s arm. “Don’t move. There’s darksteel on the floor.” She remembered Aleksei telling her the prince wouldn’t stop bleeding if he got cut.

Eugene could see better than her, and she waited for him to light the candles around the room, which all had blown out unless the queen had nocturnal vision.

As an orange glow lit the bedchamber little by little, the obsidian like darksteel glittered on the floor, catching the light of the flame. They weren’t thrown, but fallen, and Sofia tipped her head at the dark, tall ceiling. The queen was up there. Her kokoshnik was breaking apart and shedding pieces onto the hardwood floor, the rest of her darksteel gear too. Except for her weapons, she was unclothed. Someone had torn off her head and lodged it into the ceiling a foot apart from the rest of her. She was most certainly dead.

“Prince, perhaps you should stay outside,” Sofia whispered. He was a child, after all.

“Please help Aleksei,” the prince whimpered.

Aleksei… Sofia didn’t see him.

The queen’s bed had a black headboard with spirals like Raven. Her sheets were red. Eugene stood by it, then he clicked his tongue. “Sorry, boy, he’s done.”

“He’s died then?” The prince’s voice cracked.

“He’s redlined.”

Sofia dropped the prince’s arm and rushed toward the bed, and as she touched the sheets, she realized they weren’t red silk but wet with warm blood.

Aleksei was a lump on the grand bed, the rope had eaten into the skin on his neck, wrists, knees… everywhere. His breathing was slight, quiet, and failing. One eye had swollen shut and the other was half open but glowing red like watchmen. Sofia touched the side of his face. There was so much blood. Oh, darling.

“Eugene, free him,” she whispered. It looked as though the queen had tied him and beat the lights out of him.

“I mean to,” the sentinel said. His face armor was up on his crown and the scythe was still in his hand. “He’s done. Let me put him out of his misery. The kid would have done the same for me. Move aside, Guard.”

“No.” Sofia covered him with her body. “I mean his binds. Cut him loose. And he needs a physician. Niko, tell him.”

The prince had stayed by the door, and he was crying.

“Fuck you,” hissed Eugene. “Don’t bring the boy into this. I could silence you in a blink, Guard. Move aside or I’ll cut you the same. You don’t mean shit to me.”

“No,” Sofia begged. “Niko, tell him. Don’t let him kill your brother.”

“Don’t touch Aleksei,” the prince said. “I forbid you, sentinel.”

“Nothing we can do for him, boy. He’s redlined,” Eugene said.

“How do you know?” Sofia demanded. “Do you mean the glow in his eyes? He does that when he’s distressed. I’ve seen him do that, and he would be fine later.”

“I don’t believe you,” Eugene said. “No one comes back from that.” He exhaled, perhaps considering cutting through Sofia. The only thing stopping him was the prince being there. This sentinel cared for Niko beyond some notion of duty or fear of the now dead queen. He didn’t want to hurt Niko, and that was plain.

“Guard,” he growled, “I need to go speak with the mage, fix this shit before the rest of the watchmen find out. Not to mention the ears and eyes the Boyar Duma has at Raven, those must be dealt with. The boy has too many enemies for this to get out. I can’t free Aleksei if he’s redlined. He’ll kill you and his brother, he won’t know. I don’t have time for this! Move aside or die, Guard, this is your final warning.”

“Go then,” Sofia whispered. “Go find the mage. Take Niko somewhere safe. I’ll stay with Aleksei. Just give me a knife. If you’re right, if he’s done, my life isn’t something to consider, as you’ve said. Then you can even claim he’s redlined and killed his queen.”

“And took on twelve watchmen?” Eugene scowled. “That never happened. It took five of Pyotr Guard’s best men to take down one of those fuckers, and they died for it. The kid is good but not that good. No one is. But do as you like, get mauled by a mad dog, I shed tears for no Guard.” Eugene tossed a dagger on the bed. “Let’s go, boy.” He led the prince out, their footsteps and Eugene’s voice instructing Niko on what to say to the sentinels and the steward faded away down the hallway.

With the dagger Eugene left, Sofia cut Aleksei’s binds. He didn’t say a word, never mind try to kill her. He was too injured anyway. Everything on him was broken and out of place, his hands, his forearm, his jaw, his ribs, his femur, collarbone, everything was broken, some she could see plainly for they were misaligned or the white bone protruding out through the skin, and some she felt with her fingers. She didn’t know if he was lucid, but he was awake. So she lay down next to him on the red bed and ran her hand through his drenched crown.

“I love you,” she said. “You are not alone.” She glided her thumb over the brow of his half-open eye. It was split and had a gash through it. She wished she could get him some help. If he was lucid, he must be in great pain.

“I love you, Aleksei,” she’d been saying over and over, knowing that would calm him should he still be there. She’d been wrong in the piano room of the White Palace. The expression had been that of recognition. He may not have the memory of why he loved her, but the love had been there. “I love you, Aleksei.”

Feeling another presence in the room though she hadn’t heard anyone come in, Sofia’s grip tightened around the hilt of the dagger, but she didn’t take her eyes off Aleksei. “I love you, darling.”

“Yelizaveta, imagine my surprise when I saw you at the Royal Ball,” came Grigori’s voice. Sofia sat up. The mage stood at the center of the room with his face tipped to the ceiling. “That was certainly an overkill.” When he looked at Sofia, he smiled.

“Please help him,” she said.

“My specialty isn’t the living, I’m afraid. You don’t know who I am?” The haunted blue eyes held laughter and amusement, inappropriate for the circumstance.

“The queen’s mage,” Sofia said. “Yelizaveta was my mother. Please tend to the captain.” From the slew of spells the lowest mage could cast, there must be something that would help Aleksei, but Grigori just stood there, smiling.

“Who is Moriz to you?” he asked calmly, infuriating her.

“He was my father. Can’t you do something?”

“Oh, yes. I can kill him if you’d like.”

“No!”

“All right, then, I have some work in the east. I’ll be back for you. We’ll be meeting again, Yeliza.”

To Sofia’s dismay, Grigori turned and walked out. Meaning to plead with him, she ran out after him but he’d disappeared. The corridor was dark but there was only one way he could have gone. She could have chased him down, but he seemed useless and she couldn’t leave Aleksei.

She returned to him and held his broken hand. There wasn’t an unbroken thing she could have held. She’d been sitting bedside and crying, feeling the utter uselessness of herself, when she heard Aleksei whisper, “Please don’t cry.”

Looking up at him, she found him awake, the glow in the half-open eye receding till the color was deep scarlet again. He said something else, unintelligible, then the eye closed and he was asleep.

It was a while till the sentinels came and even longer before there was a physician in the room. Though the night had been full of horror, as the sun rose over Krakova, the bell tolled announcing the death of the monarch and an old physician brought Sofia even better news. Aleksei would survive.