The Half King

32

Cerise stumbled away from Nina’s body.

“Mother Shiera, mistress of worlds,” she heard herself say. Her voice broke. She couldn’t finish the prayer for the departed. She wasn’t ready to recite the words. Praying for Nina would mean admitting she was dead, and she simply couldn’t do that. Not yet.

Maybe not ever.

Noises and flashes of light surrounded her, muted as though she were underwater. From the opposite end of the prayer room, the motion of fabric and the sound of shoes told her the priests had breached the sanctuary. Kian materialized by her side, naked and flinching with the shock of the chaos he’d appeared into—smoke in the air, bodies on the floor, General Petros unconscious, Father Padron wounded, and the priests scurrying to his aid.

“What in damnation?” Kian asked her. “Whose blood is this? What’s happening? Did you break the curse—is that why I’m here?”

Yes, she had broken the curse. Along with her own heart.

She faced away from him. She couldn’t look him in the eyes. The logical part of her knew that his command had saved her life. Father Padron would have killed her if she’d surrendered, and he probably would have killed Nina, too. But she also knew that her survival had come at a price.

It had cost her the sun.

Kian pulled her back to him, wrapping both arms around her waist and tackling her to the floor. The blow jarred her senses into place.

She glanced up and watched magic rend the air where she had just stood. Father Padron had made it to his feet, swaying visibly as he clutched a scarlet gash low on his abdomen. Blood flowed between his fingers. Sweat covered his face, his gaze shifting focus, but like the feral beast that he was, his wounds were bound to make him even more dangerous.

Cerise pushed to her knees and prepared to defend her king. From behind her, she heard Kian order Father Padron to stand down—impotent words that went ignored. Father Padron released a bitter laugh, and the next thing Cerise knew, she tasted energy, and her body stiffened where she knelt on the floor. She hadn’t defended herself in time. Her grief had made her slow, but not Father Padron. He had already paralyzed her, starting with her limbs and ending with her lungs. Unable to move or breathe, she saw Kian in her peripheral vision. He was trapped under the same enchantment, frozen beneath Father Padron’s glare.

“You don’t command me, Your Highness ,” Father Padron spat. “And you never will again. By this night’s end, I’ll make you wish you had surrendered into the shadows for all of eternity.”

Grief gave way to fear. Cerise ached to breathe, but she couldn’t reach her own energy. Padron had somehow paralyzed that, too. He closed the distance between them and then leaned aside as much as his wound would allow, bending to look her in the eyes, to savor her suffering. A smile had barely curved his lips when something struck his shoulder hard enough to spin him around. Cerise heard the tearing of flesh, and his enchantment broke. All of a sudden, she and Kian were free.

She drew a breath and glanced behind Father Padron to find Delora holding a bow, already nocking a second arrow. Two priests used their magic to disarm Delora, and in a flash, she was face down on the floor with her wrists behind her back—but Blue charged ahead, snarling at Father Padron.

Padron cast a shield around himself, and Blue skidded to a halt and clawed at it. When Blue couldn’t penetrate the magic, he loped to Cerise and whined in agitation. The violence in the air had triggered his predatory instincts, and he didn’t seem to know what to do with himself. From somewhere in the distance, a bell tolled to summon the royal guard, and Blue tipped back his head and released a savage howl.

“Let her go,” Kian ordered the priests while pointing at Delora. “Your high priest has committed treason. You will assist me in taking—”

“You will do no such thing!” Father Padron called to his priests. “You will kill the emissary, her beast, and anyone who stands in your way!” He yanked the arrow from his shoulder and then thrust it toward her. “Cerise Solon is a heretic and a sorceress!”

At once, Cerise cast a shield in front of herself, Blue, and the king. Hiding her magic was no longer an option.

Kian had torn a strip of fabric from the curtains and tied it around his waist. “You will stand down,” he repeated to the priests. “And assist the royal guard in—”

“Kian Mortara no longer commands you,” Father Padron shouted. “Your chains are broken. Test your magic and see! You are beholden to no layman—and to no false king! This is the day I have promised you! The day we reclaim our divine right to rule after a thousand years of oppression!”

Daerick shouted from the sanctuary entrance, “The royal guard is coming, and so is every man and woman in the palace capable of holding a blade. I don’t think any of you want to fight a bloody battle in this room tonight—I know I don’t—but unless you bend the knee to your king, that will happen. People will die here. I guarantee some of them will be you.”

Daerick had just finished his warning when the first squadron of the royal guard arrived. Dozens of uniformed soldiers armed with swords and bows gathered outside the sanctuary, seemingly unsure if they should enter. Through the crowd, Cerise could see servants, stable hands, and cooks, each of them bearing a makeshift weapon of their own—a shovel, a kitchen knife, a pitchfork. The workers looked to one another in confusion. Kian extended a palm to hold them off.

“Choose your next actions carefully,” Kian told the priests, who outnumbered his royal guard. Even if more guards arrived, their swords and arrows couldn’t match the combined magic of the Order.

Daerick had been right. People would die if the priests turned against the king. Cerise’s body went numb as her gaze was drawn once more to Nina. All of them might die if the priests turned against the king.

“The penalty for treason is death,” Kian continued. “Obey me, go and stand with my guard, and all will be forgiven.”

“Your faith is your king,” Father Padron told his men. “The goddess delivered your freedom so that you may carry out her will. Now let her will be done. The emissary is an abomination. You can see the forbidden magic she uses to shield herself. It is our duty to dispatch her and anyone who stands in the way of divine justice.”

“Divine justice ?” Cerise called out. The numb places inside her body began to fill with heat. She pointed at Cole and then at Nina. “Your high priest is a murderer and a hypocrite. He killed an innocent woman with a child in her womb!”

“Cole Solon killed the woman,” Father Padron smoothly lied. “Because she carried his bastard. I couldn’t stop him, but I dispatched him for his crimes.”

Rage boiled Cerise’s blood. Every part of her felt ready to combust. “The only bastard she ever carried was yours !”

There was a collective intake of breath.

“That woman was my mother,” Cerise yelled, pointing at Nina. “And this”—thrusting an index finger at the high priest—“is the man who stole her heart and fathered me.”

“Lies!” Father Padron shouted.

“I wish it was a lie!” she shouted back at him. “I hate that your blood runs in my veins! But it does.” To prove it, she conjured a flame in her hand. “Where do you think my magic came from?”

“From sorcery,” Father Padron spat. “You convict yourself even as you speak.”

She ignored him and addressed the priests. For once, they would know what kind of man they served. The fire of her fury had engulfed her, consumed her. “He killed my mother to hide his secret. He murdered Cole Solon after using him to poison the late king and queen. And when Mother Strout discovered his treason, he poisoned her, too. His evil has no limits. I can’t stop him alone, but together we can bind him. You have to help me.”

“Help you?” Father Padron asked, scoffing. “A heretic who would say anything to save herself?”

“I don’t need saving.” Cerise unsheathed the Petros Blade. “The goddess entrusted me with the most destructive weapon in all of creation— me , not Father Padron—because I alone was worthy to wield it.” As she spoke, the blade began to vanish, exactly like the sunset runes had done, and she held it high for all to see the last glimpse of it. “Shiera gifted me with her favor so I could break the noble curses. She guided my path and blessed me along every step of the journey. That is what the will of the goddess looks like.” Cerise paused. “Listen to your hearts. Who do you think she would want you to follow? A priestess created in her own image? Or a man who perverts her holy magic by using it to torture and murder innocents?”

Kian stood beside her and clasped her hand. To anyone watching, the gesture probably looked like an act of solidarity. But there was love in his touch, a silent I’m sorry, and I’m here for you in the squeeze of his palm and the brush of his thumb against her inner wrist. She squeezed him in return while settling her other hand atop Blue’s head. If not for the two of them, she didn’t know how she would have the strength to stand.

As she scanned the crowd of priests, she was met with dozens of cold, hard gazes from the men whose loyalty belonged to Father Padron. Even now, knowing the evil he had done, they were willing to overlook his crimes in exchange for whatever he had promised them. There were more of his kind than she had hoped. The Reverend Mother’s words echoed in her ears. Nameless, faceless men who served false idols. It wasn’t the Triad. It was the Order.

A few pockets of men traded wary glances with one another, hesitating to act, clearly torn between the treason Father Padron had asked them to commit and the risk to their own safety if they refused. Cerise remembered what Cole had told her—that he had chosen to be Father Padron’s ally instead of his enemy. She could only hope the priests would be braver than Cole had been.

While the men wrestled with their morals, one priest backed away and strode briskly to join the royal guard at the sanctuary entrance. Cerise recognized him as Father Bishop. She held her breath and silently prayed that other men would follow his lead, that his bravery would embolden them to do the right thing. But in the end, every other priest remained in the room. One by one, each man made his decision until all of them stood tall and clasped their hands in front of Father Padron, collectively declaring their allegiance to the Order.

The priests had listened to their hearts, and they had chosen cowardice.

They shamed the mighty goddess they claimed to serve.

“I fight for the king and his priestess!” shouted a young woman from the crowd that had gathered behind the royal guard. Other voices clamored with hers in support.

Kian looked to Cerise. “Are you ready, my love?”

She nodded at him and said, “If we survived the blighted mountain, we can survive this.” And then she dropped her shield.

The priests formed a tight huddle and worked together to raise a shield of their own, but Cerise was prepared for them, and she used her energy to strike it down. Then Kian gave the signal for his royal guard to attack, and the sanctuary erupted into chaos.

The battalion surrounded the priests and slashed out at the men on the fringes, who scrambled to defend themselves with their limited magic. A lone priest could be defeated, but collectively, they were unstoppable, and so Cerise focused her efforts on blocking them from pooling their energy. Blue barked and snarled, tensing on his haunches and all but begging her to release him into the crowd. She told him, “Go,” and at once, he launched into the fray and tore into his first victim.

Daerick ran to Kian’s side and handed him a sword, and the two of them joined the fight. In the brief moment that Cerise looked at them and away from the battle, one of the priests killed a guard and used magic to duplicate his weapon—two blades, then four, eight, sixteen, until more priests were armed than not—and then the sound of clanking metal filled the sanctuary, punctuated by feral shouts and groans of pain. The tang of magic and the smell of sweat thickened the air, and then it struck Cerise: she had lost sight of Father Padron.

She peered through the chaos for his gilded robes. When she couldn’t find him, she lowered to one knee and searched the floor for his body. All that remained of Father Padron was a set of bloodred shoe prints leading to a side door.

Cerise drew a hopeful breath. He never would have abandoned the fight unless he was vulnerable. Judging by the trail of blood he had left behind, he hadn’t been able to heal himself from his wounds. Perhaps the magic infused into the Petros Blade had prevented it. If so, that meant this was her chance to end him, to cut the head off the beast and restore balance to Shiera’s holy Order.

Cerise glanced at Kian as he thrust his sword into his opponent’s chest. He didn’t need her help, at least not now, and so she seized the moment and went after Father Padron. She crouched low and followed the trail of blood to the side door, then pushed the door open and left it partly ajar—just wide enough for her to see the battle on the other side.

As her eyes adjusted to the moonlight, she stepped into what appeared to be a private garden. Shorn grass stretched out for roughly half the length of the prayer room, bordered by tall, leafy hedges that blocked the space from view. It was a simple garden with no flowering vines or fountains on display. The highlight of the space was a small carriage resting in the corner, already tethered to a pair of horses.

A shadowy figure limped toward the carriage. His steps were clumsy and uneven. He clutched his side with one hand, the other hanging limp from the shoulder where an arrow had landed. He had nearly reached his escape.

Cerise clenched her jaw. He was going to be disappointed.

She strode across the lawn while raising her hands toward the hedges, willing them to stretch forth their branches and cover the carriage wheels. They sprouted, one branch atop another, thicker and thicker until not a glimpse of wood or metal remained.

“You’re not going anywhere,” she said. “Except to the goddess. Then she can deliver the justice that you deserve.”

Father Padron turned around and leaned against the hedges for support. Though he was weak and bleeding, he laughed at her, a reaction that struck her as odd. It was then that she realized her mistake. He’d predicted that she would follow him.

He had lured her there and set a trap, and she’d just walked into it.

The space around her formed an invisible cylinder, and then dirt began to fill it from the ground up. It seemed Father Padron lacked the strength to stop her heart, so he meant to suffocate her.

Thinking fast, she conjured a bubble of air around her head. Dirt rose up to her face, blocking her view. She imagined the cylinder bursting apart. When that didn’t work, she envisioned a hole opening up at the bottom of it, wide enough for her to crawl through. It took two tries to pierce Father Padron’s magic and another two tries before she managed to squeeze out onto the grass. She stood up, shaking the soil from her body, and found half of the carriage wheels uncovered.

“I told you,” she gritted out. “You’re not going anywhere.”

She braided the hedges back together, this time trapping him between the branches. Her mouth watered with the metallic tang of magic. She could choke him, make him suffer the same death as Nina. Yes , she decided. But as she willed the branches to wrap around his throat, a sharp howl rang out from inside the sanctuary, and she whirled toward the sound.

Blue .

She squinted through the open doorway, but the air had turned hazy, and she struggled to make out Blue in the distance. He seemed to be writhing on the floor, surrounded by the sandaled feet of priests.

Cerise tensed to run to him, but she hesitated. Father Padron would never be this weak again. This was her chance to end him, to make him pay for what he’d done to Nina. If she left to go and fight the priests, she might not have the strength to kill him when she returned.

She was still wavering when Blue cried out in agony, and the decision made itself. She wove another thicket of branches around Father Padron to hold him in place, and then she spun around and bolted back inside the sanctuary.

The room was in ruin.

Someone had knocked the sacrificial bowl into the curtains, which had caught flame and filled the air with smoke. Figures ran to and fro, but she couldn’t discern who anyone was. She dropped to her knees to peer below the haze and crawled closer to Blue. She counted ten pairs of feet around him—too many priests for her to fight alone. Then she noticed the faces of the fallen, some of whom she recognized.

There in front of her was Father Bishop with his neck broken, and beside him lay sweet Lark, the young, freckled maid who had once braided Cerise’s hair, now slain, her eyes open and sightless, exactly like Nina’s. Another girl of no more than fifteen lay sprawled beneath the weight of a stone slab that a priest had cast onto her chest. Sandaled feet trampled over the girls as more priests gathered to surround Blue and combine their magic against him. When one of the priests stepped on Lark’s face, Cerise felt her heart rend in two, and she realized something that had eluded her before.

Lark meant nothing to the priest. He didn’t value her life. He didn’t respect her in death. And he never would. None of them would.

So it was within the Order. These were the same men who had rejected Cerise in favor of a monster of their own kind. They would never accept her as a priestess, because to them, women were objects to be tamed and controlled or else threats to be cut down. Even the goddess had been no exception. The priests of long ago had resented Shiera’s power so deeply that they’d tried to dampen her flame. A thousand years later, the Order still hadn’t learned, hadn’t changed. They would rather extinguish a woman’s flame than stand in her warmth.

As above, so below . The flame you seek to dampen will consume you .

Cerise finally understood her purpose. It wasn’t to restore balance to the Order; it was to raze it to the ground and build something new.

She turned her gaze to the enchanted murals on the ceiling. Through the smoky haze, she found the vengeful side of Shiera’s face—one eye blazing, her upper lip hitched above a lethal incisor. Cerise didn’t shrink away from the sight. For the first time in her life, she understood the value of wrath over mercy.

“Mother Shiera, mistress of worlds,” she called out in a voice that matched the goddess’s fury. “You are darkness and light, balance in all things. You foresaw that to give more power to your own sex would create instability, and so you favored the priests with magic. But now, balance is lost. Power has rotted them. They use their holy gift to dominate and murder your daughters. Hear me; make me your vessel. Punish my enemies and yours. Fill me with your flame, and let them be consumed!”

Ebony fire erupted from the burning altar. Cerise yanked free the golden chain Nina had given her. She sent the chain slithering across the floor and commanded it to lengthen and loop around the ankle of every priest left standing. Then she reached a hand toward the burning altar and imagined a link between herself and the flames. She opened herself like a conduit, channeling the flames through her body and into the metal necklace.

Scorching heat flowed through her. The black flame seemed to boil the blood inside her veins. She screamed out in agony, her limbs trembling while she held the connection. Throughout the room, bodies stiffened and fell. The smell of burned hair and flesh rose above the smoke. Even still, Cerise willed the goddess to give her more fire, more vengeance, until the final priest dropped and she broke the link.

She collapsed onto the tile floor. In the wake of the sudden deaths, shouts of confusion broke out, followed by retreating boots. She dragged herself to Blue’s body and gently skimmed her palm over his hide. His tongue was lolled to the side, his eyes rolled back in his head. He didn’t even try to sit up, and that scared her the most. The priests had wounded him in places she couldn’t see.

She darted a glance at the garden door while stroking Blue’s head.

“I’m here, sweet boy,” she murmured. “They can’t hurt you anymore.” Closing her eyes, she poured what remained of her energy into his body, imagining his broken bones mending and his severed tissue knitting back together. She gave him everything she had, and with her last drop of magic, she enchanted him to sleep so he wouldn’t suffer.

When she had healed Blue to the best of her ability, she stood up and swayed for a moment, gripping her thighs for support. The curtains had burned out, and with nothing else in the prayer room to catch flame, the air was beginning to clear. She followed her own trail of dirt back to the garden. Along the way, she passed a discarded sword and picked it up, but she had little hope of using it. She had been gone for too long, and Father Padron was too clever to have stayed where she’d put him.

She stepped outside, and her shoulders rounded. The carriage was gone, the hedges shredded into piles of leaves. She didn’t bother walking to the hedge wall to scan the horizon for him. Even if she knew which direction he had gone, she was too weak to ride after him. She plunged the blade into the grass and raised her face to the moon.

Tonight, she had broken more than a curse.

She had broken everything that mattered.