Now that the tournament was done, most of the pennants sat soaking up ale on tabletops, and the silver-and-blue flame on Alucard’s banner was looking muddier by the round.
Their illustrious captain was long gone, probably toasting himself up at the winner’s ball. If Lenos strained, he could hear the occasional echo of fireworks over the rattle of the crowd in the Wandering Road.
There’d be a proper parade in the morning, and a final wave of celebration (and half of London still in their cups), but tonight, the palace was for the champions, the taverns for the rest.
“Any sign of Bard?” asked Tav.
Lenos looked around, scanning the crowded inn. He hadn’t seen her, not since the first round of drinks. The crew teased him for the way he was around her, mistaking his skittishness for shyness, attraction, even fear—and maybe it was fear, at least a little, but if so, it was the smart kind. Lenos feared Lila the way a rabbit feared a hound. The way a mortal feared lightning after a storm.
A shiver ran through him, sudden and cold.
He’d always been sensitive to the balance of things. Could have been a priest, if he’d had a bit more magic. He knew when things were right—that wonderful feeling like warm sun on a cool day—and he knew when they were aven—like Lila, with her strange past and stranger power—and he knew when they were wrong.
And right now, something was wrong.
Lenos took a sip of ale to steady his nerves—his reflection a frowning amber smudge on its surface—and got to his feet. The Spire’s first mate caught his eye, and rose as well. (Stross knew about his moments, and unlike the rest of the crew, who called him odd, superstitious, Stross seemed to believe him. Or, at least, not disbelieve him outright.)
Lenos moved through the room in a kind of daze, caught up in the strange spell of the feeling, the cord of wrongness like a rope tugging him along. He was halfway to the door when the first shout came from the tavern window.
“There’s something in the river!”
“Yeah,” Tav called back, “big floating arenas. Been there all week.”
But Lenos was still moving toward the tavern’s entrance. He pushed open the door, unmoved by the sudden cut of cold wind.
The streets were emptier than usual, the first heads just poking out to see.
Lenos walked, Stross on his heels, until he rounded the corner and saw the edge of the night market, its crowd shifting to the riverbanks, tilting toward the red water like loose cargo on a ship.
His heart thudded in his chest as he pushed forward, his slim body slipping through where Stross’s broad form lodged and stuck. There, ahead, the crimson glow of the Isle, and—
Lenos stopped.
Something was spreading along the river’s surface, like an oil slick, blotting out the light, replacing it with something black, and glistening, and wrong. The darkness slipped onto the bank, sloshing up against the dead winter grass, the stone walk, leaving an iridescent streak with every lapping wave.
The sight tugged at Lenos’s limbs, that same downward pull, easy as gravity, and when he felt himself stepping forward, he tore his gaze away, forced himself to stop.
To his right, a man stumbled forward to the river’s edge. Lenos tried to catch his sleeve, but the man was already past him, with a woman following close behind. All around, the crowd was torn between staggering back and jostling forward, and Lenos, unable to move away, could only fight to hold his ground.
“Stop!” called a guard as the man who’d swept past Lenos sank to one knee and reached out, as if to touch the river’s surface. Instead, the river touched him, stretched out a hand made of blackish water and wrapped its fingers around the man’s arm, and pulled him in. Screams went up, swallowing the splash, the instant of struggle before the man went under.
The crowd recoiled as the oily sheen began to smooth, went silent as it waited for the man—or his body—to surface.
“Stand aside!” demanded another guard, forcing his way forward. He was almost to the bank when the man reappeared. The guard stumbled back in shock as the man came up, not gasping for air, or struggling against the river’s hold, but calm and slow, as if rising from a bath. Gasps and murmurs as the man climbed out of the river and onto the bank, oblivious to the waterlogged clothes weighing him down. Dripping from his skin, the water looked clean, clear, but when it pooled on the stones, it glistened and moved.
Stross’s hand was on Lenos’s shoulder, straining, but he couldn’t take his eyes from the man on the bank. There was something wrong with him. Something very wrong. Shadows swirled in his eyes, coiling like wisps of smoke, and his veins stood out against his tan skin, darkening to threads of black. But it was the rictus smile more than anything that made Lenos shiver.
The man spread his arms, streaming water, and announced boldly, “The king has come.”
He threw his head back and began to laugh as the darkness climbed the banks around him, tendrils of black fog that reached like fingers, clawing their way forward into the street. The crowd was thrown into panic, the ones close enough to see now scrambling to get away, only to be penned in by those behind. Lenos turned, looking for Stross, but the man was nowhere to be seen. Down the bank, another scream. Somewhere in the distance, an echo of the man’s words, now on a woman’s lips, now a child’s.
“The king has come.”
“The king has come.”
“The king has come,” said an old man, eyes shining, “and he is glorious.”
Lenos tried to get away, but the street was a roiling mass of bodies, crowded in by the shadow’s reach. Most fought to get free, but dotting the crowd were those who couldn’t tear their eyes from the black river. Those who stood, stiff as stone, transfixed by the glistening waves, the gravity of the spell pulling them down.