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I took his hand and walked through desolate bloodstained corridors, down to the foyer, and outside, to a waiting black carriage. Razak led me inside. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled. Whatever this was, wherever we were headed, I’d endure it—but as the horses lurched and the carriage jolted into motion, the tingling continued down my spine.
I’ll wait for that tomorrow…
I spotted the dagger I’d used to threaten Draven’s boy hooked into a sheath at Razak’s hip. If I were to snatch it and attack now, he’d yank out my soul long before I could open a vein.
“I thought you’d have the crowns with you,” I said, making conversation. “After going to such great effort to secure them.”
“They’re safe.” He folded his legs and tapped his boot to the rhythmic clip-clop of horses’ hooves.
I had to know where, and once I did, I’d make him take me there, steal that dagger, line the crowns up like in the wall art images, and what would be, would be. As plans went, it was damned flimsy. But I needed to make it so Razak wouldn’t see the dagger coming until it was already buried in his heart. I’d gotten this close; he believed my lies. It was almost over.
The somber, rain-drenched city blurred by the windows. A niggling itch began at the back of my thoughts, like the pluck of an out of tune violin string—a beginning, a warning.
“I’ll wait for that tomorrow.”
“What?” Razak said.
I’d spoken aloud. Fool. “Nothing, a song, that’s all…”
“A song?” He bounced his boot. “The crowns.”
“What about them?”
“Do you want to know where they are?”
“It’s of no concern.”
He leaned forward. “Are you sure? You seem very concerned.”
The slight change in his body language tingled that sense of unease down my back. Since we’d climbed into the carriage, the change in him had been growing, becoming a loosening, as though only now he’d begun to relax. Why was he so comfortable? Wherewerewe going?
“Bendrik’s chambers. I have them there,” he said. “One in each corner of the room. Except this one.” He tapped the crown on his head. Perhaps I imagined it, but it seemed as though the barbs dug a little deeper into his skull and his eyes gleamed brighter. “We can’t have everyone knowing where they are and leave them together, now can we?”
“Certainly not.”
“Do you know why? Did you decipher the past, clever Zayan? Did you see what has been in front of your eyes all along? In front of everyone, if they’d only looked up from their closeted courts?”
Something was wrong. His smirk was the bitter kind.
If I leaped from the carriage, it would be over. If he even allowed me to get that far. If I snatched the dagger, he’d rip out my soul. I turned my gaze away, sent it out of the window onto rows of blurred trees. We’d left the city far behind.
This felt familiar. How he sat, the road we rattled along, the galloping horses. And that persistent out of tune violin note at the back of my mind, growing louder and louder.
“The crowns are the key,” I said, because he looked at me as though I had to say something.
“It’s best if you don’t think of them as crowns at all. Four corners, four courts, four plates on the scales of balance. Dallin made them not as a way to bring peace to the lands, he made them to ruin peace. He made them as weapons.”
The carriage driver slowed the horses, and the carriage rocked to a halt. Razak grasped the door, flung it open, and dropped down into puddles.
A track continued up the hill, winding its way through the forest.
Fear yanked my heart from my chest. I knew where we were, and why I was here. A lifetime of horror and agony piled on, freezing me rigid.
“Come now, Zayan.” He grabbed my arm and hauled me from the carriage. “Aren’t you pleased to be back again? So many wonderful memories here.”
I stumbled on wet stones and rain-filled divots. I’d walked this track before with our father beside me. I’d walked it before and seen Justice Ines swing from a branch at its end. Only one question remained—who swung from the hanging tree now?
It wasn’t over. He might yet still believe me. I could get to the crowns. I knew where they were, if he just believed me.
