A Throne for Sisters

She wanted love. True love. And she realized in that instant that, even if she’d found it with Sebastian, she’d lost it forever.

Sophia stepped back.

Wiping her flowing tears, she pulled off the ring that he’d given her. She let it fall to the carpet, because she didn’t dare to touch Sebastian again and she couldn’t take it with her.

She wanted so desperately to say: I want you to know that, whatever else was a lie, my love was not.

But at that moment, a sob rose in her throat, so great, it drowned out all speech.

All she could do was turn around and flee. Flee from this castle, this man she loved, and this life that lay just beyond the reach of her fingertips.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

Kate returned to Ashton in frustration, but also with a kind of peace. Frustration, because she hadn’t gained the strength that she was looking for. Peace, because it made things simpler in a lot of ways. She couldn’t take the witch’s offer, and so her life would go back to straightforward days of being Thomas’s apprentice at the forge, trying to learn about blades by swinging them at the air.

It wasn’t what she’d wanted when she’d set off into the city, but it had the potential to be a good life, particularly with Will there. Maybe you didn’t get what you wanted in life, but maybe the alternatives could still be good. The thought of Will waiting back at the forge made Kate smile as she came up to the outskirts of the city. It wouldn’t be long before she was back now.

Kate dismounted, walking her horse on the last stretch toward the smithy. She’d ridden long enough for one day, her legs aching with the effort of it.

“When we get back,” she told the horse, “you can have a quiet life again, and I’ll be the best apprentice Thomas could ask for.”

He was definitely a better teacher than the alternative. He was kind, and patient, and crucially, being a smith’s apprentice presented no risk to owing a witch an unnamed favor. There were some things she couldn’t do, even for the strength to be able to take revenge. Realizing that brought a kind of peace with it, as if a flame that had threatened to consume everything in Kate had dimmed.

Maybe that was a good thing, though. Maybe all of this was a sign that she should put aside violence. Maybe —

“There you are!” a voice called. “I know you!”

And Kate knew that voice. The last time she’d heard it, its owner had been chasing her to the edge of the river, determined to beat her to a pulp before dragging her back to the orphanage.

Sure enough, when she looked, the biggest of the boys from the docks was there, swaggering toward her with the certainty of someone who knew that there was nowhere for Kate to go. He took his time, and Kate knew enough about the tactics of bullies to know that he was just giving her time in which to be scared.

She could read from his thoughts that he could barely believe his luck at having found her at last after looking for so long.

He didn’t look good. He still had bruises from the scuffle down on the docks, but they were matched by fresh marks that had clearly come from a beating. If it had been anyone else, Kate might have felt some sympathy for him. As it was, she edged away from him, wondering if she could get on the horse and ride clear.

“There’s no point running,” he said. “I’ve spent days looking for you, you little bitch! The others crawled back to the orphanage, said they’d rather be sold to a mine than keep looking. I kept going, though.”

“Good for you,” Kate shot back. She was still working her way toward the horse. If she could mount it, she could be away from this idiot as quickly as she had been on the river.

“Good for me, bad for you,” the boy said. “Don’t try to run. You think I don’t know you’re working for the smith? I looked for you. I asked about you. And now…”

Kate gave up edging toward the horse, holding her ground as the boy came forward.

“And now what?” Kate asked. “You don’t have two friends to help you this time.”

“You think I need them? To deal with one girl? I’ve hunted you, I’ve avoided the hunters myself, and now I’m going to make you beg me to drag you back.”

Kate took the practice blade out of her belt. It was only wooden, but it was still long enough to threaten with.

“You need to think about this,” Kate said.

“I am thinking,” the boy said. “I’m thinking that when I bring you back, they’ll let me join one of the hunting gangs. I’ll pay my indenture with my first catch. I’ll be able to do what I want, then.”

Kate sighed at the stupidity of it all. She knew all about the way plans worked out in the real world. “You can already do what you want. Look, what’s your name?”

“Zachariah,” the boy said defensively, as if expecting some trick.

“Well, Zachariah, look at where you are. You aren’t in the orphanage, are you? You aren’t in the middle of being indentured. You can walk away and do what you want. You’ve avoided the hunters for a day or two, so why not forever? There aren’t as many in the country, are there? You can just turn around and walk away.”

It seemed so obvious to her. Neither one of them was indentured or in danger. The boy would go his way, she would go hers, and the House of the Unclaimed wouldn’t have any hold over them. He might be able to forge a life out there, whether it was finding a farm to work on or, more likely, taking to a life of robbery. Wasn’t that enough?

“I could,” he said. “I don’t want to. What I want to do is beat you bloody, yell for the watch, and then laugh while they drag you back. Guards!”

He shouted it loud enough that Kate winced.

“Guards! There’s a runaway!” He looked at Kate with a sneer on his face. “And when they catch you, they’ll make you give up that sister of yours. Maybe I’ll get to – ”

“Don’t you talk about my sister!” Kate yelled, swinging the practice blade at his head. He flinched and it hit his shoulder, bouncing off.

“I’m going to beat you to a pulp,” he promised, charging forward. He slammed into Kate, and in an instant the two of them were tumbling to the ground, the momentum of the rush carrying them both down together.

Kate hit at him with her wooden blade, but the boy caught it, twisting it from her hand. He hit her hard, and in that instant, Kate might have been back on the training ground, or by the dock. She tasted blood the same way, felt her head ringing. She felt the same sense of utter helplessness, and she hated it.

“I’m going to leave you looking as though you’ve been kicked by that horse of yours,” he said. “Then I’m going to find your sister, and I’m going to drag you both back together.”

Kate reached out for the wooden sword he’d knocked from her hand. He hit her again, then grabbed it himself, lifting it up.

“Oh, do you want this?” he demanded.

“No,” she replied, and her voice sounded strange even to herself. “I just want your hands full.”

She pulled her eating knife from its sheath and buried it in his chest in one movement.

It was easier than she’d thought it would be. The knife was sharp, and the boy’s flesh was soft, but even so, it didn’t feel as though it should be that easy to kill someone. It shouldn’t be that simple to just slide a knife up under someone’s ribs, listening to them gasp as it reached their heart.

Zachariah looked shocked by the sudden pain of it. He looked as though he was going to try to say something, maybe call for the watch again, but the words didn’t come. Instead, blood trickled at the side of his mouth, and he slumped, his weight collapsing onto Kate.

The worst part was that her power let her see the moment when he died, his thoughts going from pain and panic to a kind of total emptiness as his spirit fled him. She sensed the instant when he died, and she felt…

…well, what did she feel? That was a harder question than Kate had thought. That he’d deserved it, mostly. That she needed to get out from under the sheer dead weight of him before it crushed her. Not remorse though. Not yet. Not the panic that Kate was sure she ought to have felt, because she’d just killed someone.

Instead, she found herself feeling almost weirdly calm about it. Still, like the center of a storm, as if the rest of the world were something not really happening. Kate pushed her way free of the boy’s greater bulk, wiping her knife clean and then seeing that there was blood on her tunic as well. There was nothing she could do about that, though.

In the distance, whistles and shouts signaled the approach of guardsmen, or just locals banding together when someone had called for help. That was what they did when there was danger, wasn’t it? They sent up the cry and all those who lived there joined in to chase off thieves or fend off wolves. Or hang murderers. Kate heard them getting closer, and for the longest time, all she could do was stand there, trying to make sense of it.

Now, emotion started to creep in past the shock of it all. She’d just killed someone, and the full horror of that landed on her like a lead weight. Whatever the reason, whatever the situation, she’d just stabbed someone. If the watch came for her, or the rougher justice of the mob, would it make any difference that he’d been beating her half to death at the time?

Somehow, Kate doubted it. She went back to her horse, half stumbling with a combination of emotion and the pain of her beating. It took her three attempts just to mount it, pulling herself up into the saddle clumsily and almost falling even then.