“Sanct,” snarled Kell, shoving himself to his feet. “If the darkness doesn’t kill them, their tempers will.”
His brother plunged out of the room without looking back, and Rhy stood alone for a long moment, shadows whispering against the glass, before he grabbed Kell’s coat, found the nearest hidden door, and slipped through.
* * *
The city—his city—was full of shadows.
Rhy pulled Kell’s coat close about his shoulders and wrapped a scarf around his nose and mouth, the way one might before braving a fire, as if a strip of cloth could keep the magic out. He held his breath as he plunged forward into the sea of fog, but when his body met the shadows, they recoiled, granting Rhy a berth of several feet.
He looked around and, for a moment, felt as if he were a man expecting to drown, only to find the water two feet deep.
And then Rhy stopped thinking altogether, and ran.
Chaos blossomed all around him, the air a tangled mess of sound and fear and smoke. Men and women were trying to drag their neighbors toward the black stretch of the river. Some people staggered and fell, attacked by invisible foes, while others hid behind bolted doors and tried to ward the walls with water, earth, sand, blood.
Still, Rhy moved like a ghost among them. Unseen. Unsensed. No footsteps followed him through the streets. No hands sought to drag him into the river. No mobs tried to sicken him with shadow.
The poisoned fog parted for the prince, slipped around him like water around a stone.
Was it Kell’s life shielding him from harm? Or was it the absence of Rhy’s own? The fact that there was nothing left for the darkness to claim?
“Get inside,” he called to the fevered, but they could not hear him.
“Get back,” he shouted at the fallen, but they did not listen.
The madness surged around him, and Rhy tore himself away from the breaking city and turned his sights again to his quest for the captain of the Night Spire.
There were only two places Alucard Emery would go: his family estate or his ship.
Logic said he’d go to the house, but something in Rhy’s gut sent him in the opposite direction, toward the docks.
He found the captain on his cabin floor.
One of the chairs by the hearth had been toppled, a table knocked clean of glasses, their glittering shards scattered in the rug and across the wooden floor. Alucard—decisive, strong, beautiful Alucard—lay curled on his side, shivering with fever, his warm brown hair matted to his cheeks with sweat. He was clutching his head, breath escaping in ragged gasps as he spoke to ghosts.
“Stop … please …” His voice—that even, clear voice, always brimming with laughter—broke. “Don’t make me …”
Rhy was on his knees beside him. “Luc,” he said, touching the man’s shoulder.
Alucard’s eyes flashed open, and Rhy recoiled when he saw them filled with shadows. Not the even black of Kell’s gaze, but instead menacing streaks of darkness that writhed and coiled like snakes through his vision, storm blue irises flashing and vanishing behind the fog.
“Stop,” snarled the captain suddenly. He struggled up, limbs shaking, only to fall back against the floor.
Rhy hovered over him, helpless, unsure whether to hold him down or try to help him up. Alucard’s eyes found his, but looked straight through him. He was somewhere else.
“Please,” the captain pleaded with the ghosts. “Don’t make me go.”
“I won’t,” said Rhy, wondering who Alucard saw. What he saw. How to free him. The captain’s veins stood out like ropes against his skin.
“He’ll never forgive me.”
“Who?” asked Rhy, and Alucard’s brow furrowed, as if he were trying to see through the fog, the fever.
“Rhy—” The sickness tightened its hold, the shadows in his eyes streaking with lines of light like lightning. The captain bit back a scream.
Rhy ran his fingers over Alucard’s hair, took his face in his hands. “Fight it,” he ordered. “Whatever’s holding you, fight it.”
Alucard folded in on himself, shuddering. “I can’t….”
“Focus on me.”
“Rhy …” he sobbed.
“I’m here.” Rhy Maresh lowered himself onto the glass-strewn floor, lay on his side so they were face-to-face. “I’m here.”
He remembered, then. Like a dream flickering back to the surface, he remembered Alucard’s hands on his shoulders, his voice cutting through the pain, reaching out to him, even in the dark.
I’m here now, he’d said, so you can’t die.
“I’m here now,” echoed Rhy, twining his fingers through Alucard’s. “And I’m not letting go, so don’t you dare.”
Another scream tore from Alucard’s throat, his grip tightening as the lines of black on his skin began to glow. First red, then white. Burning. He was burning from the inside out. And it hurt—hurt to watch, hurt to feel so helpless.
But Rhy kept his word.
He didn’t let go.
VIII
Kell stormed toward the western foyer, following the sounds of a brewing fight.
It was only a matter of time before the mood in the palace turned. Before the magicians refused to sit and wait and watch the city fall. Before someone took it in their head to act.
He threw open the doors and found Hastra standing before the western entrance, royal short sword clutched in both hands, looking like a cat facing down a line of wolves.