Sin Eater's Daughter 2 - The Sleeping Prince (20 page)

Apprehension tightens my belly, but we have little choice. “Tremayne is closest, two miles, if you want an inn.”

“Where the alchemist house is.”

“Where I was born, too. And Lief.” She doesn’t reply. “They close the city gates at sundown.”

Dimia looks up to where the sky is starting to turn dark around the edges, like ink bleeding across paper. “We should hurry, then.”

We stumble in the growing darkness back to the horses, which are fretting, whickering softly to us as we untie them. We ride out, past the silent graveyard, cantering into the night, the smell of smoke getting ever stronger. Half a mile outside the town walls, we find the source of the fire. There, smouldering crimson and orange in the darkness, is what remains of one of the harvest stores built on the outskirts of the village. The barns where the hay harvests were stored over winter, the lofts filled with apples and pears. Byres and sheep houses and stables where cattle and sheep were sheltered when the snows arrived. Burned to the ground. The air is thick with smoke, the smell of burnt hay and corn. Of roasted meat. My throat catches when I think of the animals that would have been caught inside their barns, frightened and trapped.

Dimia is looking at me with some curiosity. “Do you know who owns it?” she asks.

“The Prythewells. Friends of my father’s. They kept sheep and cows for eating. That’ll be all their food and income for the winter.” I shake my head at the loss.

“It looks as though there is nothing to be done.”

I frown at the remains of the buildings. The ruins still smoulder. Surely someone should be here, trying to put them out? If the wind blew hot cinders into the village and they caught in a thatch, then the fire could easily spread, passing through Tremayne like a plague. Where are the people? Where are the soldiers? Shouldn’t someone, anyone, be here, salvaging, or even looting?

I turn towards Tremayne as a cold, stark fear begins to bloom inside me. I kick the horse straight into a gallop; I can hear Dimia’s pony pounding the dirt behind me. The smell of smoke becomes stronger and the ears of the horse flatten against her head as she stops, despite my urging. She skitters sideways and refuses to move, weaving across the track. Dimia’s pony pulls ahead of me. Dimia clings to its neck as it rears, its whinny more of a scream. The whites of its eyes are visible as it tries to throw her.

I dismount to help her, but as soon as I’m down my horse bolts, back the way we came. I stare after her in horror. Then Dimia whimpers and I turn to see her pony rushing back towards me, running after mine. As he passes I reach out and grab his reins long enough for Dimia to slide from his back. Then he’s gone too, leaving my fingers red and stinging, burned from the leather whipping across my skin.

Dimia leans against a tree, pale and shaking. “What’s wrong with them?”

“I’ve no idea,” I say, though it’s not wholly true. My horse was an army mount, trained to fight. Whatever it’s running from must be terrifying. And unnatural.

“What do we do now?”

“Find out what’s going on,” I say with a lot more courage than I feel. I pull my knife out from my belt.

We find the first body lying inside the gate, his legs bent at a funny angle, his throat slit. His blood is dark and thick-looking, not fresh. Tuck, the meaner one, has been impaled, his sword pinioning him to the walls he was supposed to guard. When Dimia moans I turn and follow her gaze. The soldier who lied to get me through the gate, the one who winked at me, is hanging over the top of the tower gate wall. One eye is open, blue and staring. The other is home to an arrow, and I turn away, praying that it wasn’t one of his own and that it was fast. I didn’t know his name.

Dimia slides her hand into mine and I grip it tightly as we enter, stepping gingerly around the fallen men. Ahead of us, inside the walls of Tregellan’s second city, fires burn. We walk slowly through the merchant quarter, tunics pulled up over our noses and mouths, eyes streaming from the smoke. The light from the fire is enough to see the devastation as we approach the main square.

Everything is gone. Every shop – the baker’s, the chandler’s, the general store – all black shells, acrid smoke pouring from them. The apothecary is a wreck, the windows gaping like missing teeth, the door vanished, the insides dark and cave-like. The House of Justice is smouldering rubble, the golden bricks charred and shattered, glass reflecting the remaining flames. The village green is torn up; brown earth scores the turf like scars.

People lie prone in the debris, arms flung out, feet disappearing into piles of stone. The angles of their bodies tell me there’s no use in seeing if I can help, for no one who falls in that way will ever rise again. What was it Carys said – death favours the bold? Death has favoured everyone here equally. The green tunics of the soldiers, stripped of their weapons, the rough wool in red and blues of the people who lived here. My friends. My neighbours. I’m scared to look at the faces, turning away before recognition can punch me in the stomach. Dimia squeezes my hand, and when I look at her, tears are clearing a path through the soot on her cheeks.

We walk silently through the square and out towards the smith and masonry quarter. I strain for the sound of voices, hoping desperately someone has been left alive here. We walk past houses that have been gutted, doors torn from their frames, windows smashed on upper and lower levels. Belongings are strewn about the place, as though a giant has come in and picked up the houses, shaking them out before tossing them to the floor. Copper pots, broken pottery, bedding, wooden stools, all smashed, or dented, or crushed underfoot; nothing has been left whole, everything has been ripped out and destroyed with a deliberateness that makes me feel sick.

I peer into the house where Kirin used to live. When I see a shadow lying inside, I turn away, covering my mouth.

“Do you know any of them?” Dimia asks quietly. “Are any of your people here?”

My eyes widen and I drop her hand, taking off at a run, tripping over the possessions that litter the ground. I feel the flesh on my left knee split open and stones embed themselves in my palms but I don’t care. I force myself back to my feet, hobbling past the tavern, its shell still echoing with pops and cracks as forgotten caches of alcohol catch alight. My lungs burn from the smoke and the effort, and my thighs and calves scream at me, but I can’t stop. They live on the edge, near the clock tower. It’s far out. They have to be safe.

And at first their house looks miraculously untouched. But then I see the door, gaping open like a wound, and I see the darkness inside.

“Don’t,” Dimia says as I walk towards it, but I shake her off, leaving her behind me as I approach the house.

When I get closer, my heart hammering in my chest, I see a flicker of light near the kitchen. Hope floods through me, and I move to the doorway.

“Lirys?” I call softly. “Carys?”

The light grows as the owner of the candle steps towards me.

It’s not my friend.

A dark-haired man stands before me, his teeth as black as his hair, a knife in his other hand. I scream in rage and raise my knife, and he throws the candle at me, hot wax splashing against my hand and I drop my knife.

“There’s a girl here!” he calls, and I turn on my heels and bolt.

“Run!” I scream at Dimia’s startled face, and she does, lifting her skirts and starting to run.

I grab her as I pass her and we tear away from the farm, my knee throbbing with every hard step. When I look back I see other men, bearded, sallow-skinned and armed to the teeth, pouring out of the dairy and the cowsheds, like ants from a nest. Their hands are red with blood and I grip Dimia’s wrist tighter, dragging her forward.

I guide us towards the town square, hoping we can lose them in the labyrinthine streets around the merchant quarters, racing down narrow alleys, left, then right, stumbling over rubble and household objects the fog blinds us to. Somewhere behind us voices chase and footsteps echo, urging us to move faster, to not stop.

When we break out on to the square I lengthen my stride, putting all of my energy into getting us across it, into the guild area, where we can climb to the walls and hide. We’re halfway across when Dimia shrieks and pulls me to a halt.

Appearing from inside the fog like a nightmare and blocking our path is a golem.

I try to double back, but too late: its colossal hand thrusts forward and grips my arm, its clay fingers crushing my wrist.

“Errin!” Dimia screams as it hauls me into the air, black spots exploding in my eyes, my arm feeling as though it will tear from its socket. It hurts so much I can’t breathe. It raises me until I’m level with its head, as if looking at me. As I dangle in its grip, I see the men out of the corner of my eye. They’ve stopped; some of them watch Dimia and some watch the golem. I get the distinct impression they’re keen to stay out of its reach, even as they try to edge around it towards Dimia.

“Go,” I shriek at her, and the golem swings around, taking me with it. Then I’m soaring through the air, the moon above me. Stars burst behind my eyes as I hit the side of a building, something in my back snapping with a faint pop. A second later pain explodes with such force that I can’t even scream, choked by the agony of it. Then I can’t feel anything, lying on the ground, staring up at the night.

Everything goes black.

When I wake I’m still on the ground. I blink rapidly, too stunned to move. From the corner of my eye, I see a flash, then Dimia comes into view waving a large wooden pole, the end alight. She stands a little away from me, thrusting it at the golem, which is trying to get past it, reaching for her. There’s no sign of the men, and there is a moment when I wonder if I’ve been knocked deaf, the quietness is so loud. The golem has no mouth, and Dimia makes no noise either; the only sound is the sizzling from her torch when it touches the golem’s clay hide, and the scuffles of her boots against the ground when she dodges its attack.

She thrusts the flaming pole into the golem’s hand, making it stagger backwards out of my sight. Then it charges forward, she darts aside, and I roll out of the way.

Except I don’t. I don’t go anywhere.

I try to wiggle my toes, then move my knees, my hips. I don’t know if they move, I can’t feel them. I can’t feel my legs. I can’t feel anything. I should be in agony. It threw me into a building.

That snapping sound, it was my spine.

It broke my back.

I hear shouts from my left and I whimper, helpless as boots run past me, scrunching my eyes closed, but then forcing them open, trying desperately not to cry, or scream. I will my legs to move but there’s nothing, I can feel nothing.

“Go for the hand,” Dimia cries, and then the crowd moves into my view, men and women with torches like Dimia’s, all thrusting at the golem. Dimia fights with them, her teeth bared, pushing the pole at its hand, which appears to be on fire. She wanted to fight, I think wildly, and here she is. There are people around her, joining the fray. She has her army.

I don’t think I’ll be her apothecary though.

For the third time, I see her push the flames into the golem’s outstretched palm, and this time it stiffens. Dimia and the others step back warily. At first nothing happens. Then, without warning, the golem keels over and moves no more.

Dimia stares over its body at me. The she drops the torch and runs to my side. “Errin?” she says, reaching for me.

“Don’t,” I say, trying to smile at her, to reassure her. “Don’t move me. My spine is broken.”

“No.” She stares at me. “No.”

I take a deep breath, and realize I feel calm. “Listen,” I say quietly. “My mother’s name is Trina Vastel. She has the same illness as the Scarlet Varulv. You can look it up. The potion that helped her is called the Elixir of Life. The alchemist I was looking for, the one I thought you were, can make it. If Mama has the Elixir on the nights leading up to and following the full moon, she’s fine. Without it, she’ll hurt you. So if you can get some… Please find her. Please help her.”

Dimia nods, tears falling freely.

“And you were really good at fighting,” I say. “I didn’t think you would be, but you did it. You killed it. I wish—”

Gloved fingers close over her shoulders and she’s moved away.

Replacing her is Silas Kolby.

“You stupid, stupid girl,” he says, looking at me, his mouth pulled into a grimace. “Why did you leave without me?”

“You left me,” I say, looking into his amber eyes. “Unwin saw you.”

“And you listened to him?” Silas looks down at me, his eyes bright. “I never would.” He shakes his head. “I never would,” he repeats.

“We have to get inside,” a female voice says.

He nods without looking away from me. “I’m going to lift you.”

“You can’t.” The same woman speaks again. “Silas, her back is broken. It would be cruel.” She lowers her voice. “She’s not going to make it.”

“Yes, she will.”

There is a pause; the air seems to ripple.

“You can’t mean…” The woman appears in my sight line, dark-skinned, dark-haired, carrying a small thin sword in each hand, and her mouth is a line of disapproval. Her eyes widen as she looks down at him, determinedly not looking at me, and I realize with a jolt that I recognize her.

“Yes, I can,” he says.

“Silas, she’s not one of us.”

He turns around, and though I can’t see his face, the way the woman recoils tells me all I need to know about his expression. When he turns back, there are tears catching on his white eyelashes.

“It’s all right,” I reassure him.

“It will be,” he says. He doesn’t blink, staring fiercely ahead as he carefully slides his arms under my broken back. I can’t feel his arms as he scoops me up and holds me close to his chest. I’ve never been a fan of pain, but this is worse. This nothingness. I feel as though I might fly away at any moment.

“Let’s go,” he says, and his voice is firm.

I look up at him as we move, but he keeps his eyes fixed ahead, his mouth a line of concentration. From the corner of my eye I see Dimia walking next to him, looking down at me, and I smile, faintly, but it’s enough for her to do the same. My gaze slides to the buildings either side of us; we’re back in the merchant quarter. We pause outside one of the houses and I look up to see the crossed circle again, realizing we’re outside the salt merchant’s house. Again that niggling feeling comes. I recognize it and I try to remember where I know it from. A book? My lessons?

Then we begin to move again, passing through a doorway and the air instantly becomes cooler, as though we’ve stepped into a dairy or cool room. Except it’s dark, the way lit by torches, and I can feel Silas’s gait change as he shortens his stride. We’re moving downwards.

“Where are we?” I whisper.

“Hush. Just rest,” he murmurs back, I feel the rumbling in his chest as he speaks. I want to tell him not to dismiss me, but I’m suddenly exhausted. I hear doors being unlocked, then locked again, so many I lose count. I let my eyes drift closed, let the numbness wash over me.

I think I must have lost consciousness, because the next time I see anything, I’m not in Silas’s arms any more; I’m on my back, staring up at a rock ceiling. I can’t feel what I’m lying on, but from the height of it I guess I’m on some kind of table. The room is lit by candles, sconces mounted on the walls. There are stalactites hanging from the ceiling, thousands of them like needles, white and glinting. We’re underground.

Of course, you could travel the whole kingdom and never ever find it. No wonder they drugged guests before bringing them here.

We’re in the Conclave. Beneath Tremayne. It was here. That’s what the symbol means. Alchemists. On the doorway and on the gravestones. It’s part of Silas’s moon tattoos; a circle crossed with a line at the centre. It’s an alchemic symbol. It was right under my nose all along.

“Out.” Silas orders unknown people from the room and I hear them leaving. The woman who protested earlier is at the back. I can see her if I look to the side, her shoulders high and rigid. Only Dimia remains, looking nervous, her eyes focused on something behind me.

“You need the Elixir,” she says softly. “Without it you’ll—” She stops and presses her lips together.

I look at her. “But you said you weren’t an alchemist.”

“She’s not,” Silas says from my left, and I look towards his voice.

There is another table, next to the one I’m on, and he’s behind it, placing a tripod on a piece of slate. My heart starts to speed up as he places a small metal bowl under it, balancing a second one, ceramic, thin, almost iridescent in the candlelight, atop it. I watch him arrange tongs, glass jars with powders and leaves in, two earthenware jars, twists of paper that hiss against the scarred wood of the table when he puts them down, pipettes and spoons, ceramic stirrers. My mouth falls open and I stare at him.

“It’s you?” I say. “You’re the philtresmith?”

He nods, but doesn’t look at me, continuing to set up his laboratory. None of it looks especially alchemical, it’s the same equipment I know from my apothecary work, but there is something about seeing it in this place that makes it strange to me and a thrill of something like fear prickles along my scalp.

“It was you all along?” I ask and again he nods. “But the girl—”

Then his amber-gold eyes find mine and silence me instantly. It feels as though he’s seeing into me, reading me, and though my skin burns, I don’t flinch or look away.

He breaks the contact first. “What can you feel?”

I close my eyes, trying to work through my body. “Nothing,” I say, my eyes flying open, my voice coming out as a sob.

He takes a deep breath. “Can you try moving your toes?” he asks.

I focus on it, on making them wiggle, and he looks at me fiercely, then shakes his head. “Fingers?”

I try and he exhales, looking at Dimia, who nods.

“Did they move?” I ask, hope rising in me.

“Your little one did,” Dimia says.

“Again,” says Silas, and I do it. When he nods, the relief is dizzying.

“Good. This is good,” Silas says, but his gloved hands rise to cover his face, contradicting his words.

When he pulls them away he looks down at them, then takes a deep breath, and it seems that with that breath the room grows smaller, closer, as though he’s drawn it inside him. The air becomes charged and expectant and it settles over me like a veil, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up beneath the scratchy wool of my tunic. I can feel that.

“Are you ready?” he asks. “It might not work. I’ve never… Not with something this big. But it’s worth a try.”

“Thank you,” I whisper.

He nods and begins to work, uncorking bottles and opening twists of paper, examining the scales. When he looks down at me again I smile, and he clears his throat.

“Let’s begin then.” He opens a square of wax paper marked with a circle, a line bisecting it, and I gasp.

“What?” he asks, alarm striking through his usual rasp as he looks at me, spilling white grains from the packet onto the table.

“Is that salt?”

“Yes.” He scrapes the fallen salt into his hands. “Why?”

“It was bothering me; I kept seeing it. I realized when we came here it was alchemic. But I didn’t know until just now that it meant salt. The great purifier.”

He huffs, then tips the white crystals into his scales, balancing them against expensive-looking bronze weights before he nods in satisfaction. “It comes from here, the salt. Crystals that form when water drips through the rock. That’s what glitters up there.” He points towards the sparkling ceiling, before tipping the salt into the pestle and beginning to grind it. “
Sal Salis
. It’s different from sea salt. You wouldn’t want to use it to season your food. Trust me, I learned the hard way.” He’s pushed the sleeves of his tunic right up, bunching them around the tops of his arms. I can see the muscles there flexing and tensing as he works and, despite everything, I find it strangely hypnotic to watch them bulge and then ebb as he turns the salt to powder before adding it to the bowl.

“Start the fire, please,” he says, shaking me from my trance.

Dimia appears by his side at the bench, smiling at me as she strikes the flint. I feel the sting of envy when I see her working by his side. I want to be part of this.

I stay silent as he tells her what to pass to him, watching as he adds it to the ceramic bowl, trying to keep up as he points out herbs, plants, powders, things I know, things I’ve never seen before, things I didn’t know existed. Marigold, morning glory, angel water, spagyric tonic, bay leaves, mandrake, convolvulus, yew bark, wheat. The names whirl around my mind and I try to remember them all.

As the mixture heats, a strange, herbal smell starts to spiral out from it, and I wrinkle my nose.

“It’s going to get a lot worse.” Silas leans away from the table and walks out of my sight. When he returns, carrying two earthenware jars, he peers into the bowl as he places them beside it. “Almost,” he says, as much to himself as to Dimia and me. He pulls the jars towards him and I see both have symbols baked into their side.

The first has a triangle with an upside-down cross stretching from the base, and from this he pulls a bright yellow rock. From the second, marked with a crowned circle, he pulls a red rock. He stands each in a tiny, shallow copper plate marked with the same symbol as was on the jar and places them in front of the tripod.

“You need to go now.” He looks at Dimia and she nods reluctantly, shooting a glance at me.

“I’ll see you soon,” she says, walking over and touching my hand. I think I feel it. I smile at her, and then she’s gone. I turn back to Silas.

He pulls a taper, a small dull knife, a glass pipe-shaped instrument and a crystal vial with a flat metal base towards him and arranges them in front of him. The way he does it is so precise, so deliberate, that I’m furious I can’t sit up, can’t see it properly. All at once it hits me that what I’m seeing is real alchemy. From start to finish. Not the end product following a drugged sleep, but possibly the last philtresmith in the world, making the Elixir from scratch, before my eyes.

Silas exhales, loudly, breaking into my wonder. With lightning speed, he plunges the taper into the flames beneath the white bowl and uses it to set both the red and yellow rocks alight. Instantly the room fills with a metallic, sulphuric reek and I wish I could cover my nose. He lifts the white bowl in his gloved hands and strains it into the crystal vial. He puts the thin end of the pipe instrument into the neck of the vial and holds it over the smoke from the red rock, and I watch as it flows in through the wide bowl, along the thin stem and into the vial, where it crystallizes and sinks to the bottom, forming a layer of deep, blood-red liquid. When the red reaches the halfway point he stops, and repeats the process over the yellow rock. The yellow layer is heavier than the red, sinking to the bottom of the vial.

When there is barely room for a single other drop he pulls the vial away, removing the pipe and stoppering it. Ignoring my gasp, with his left, gloved hand he smothers both rocks, yellow, then red, until the rocks and his glove smoulder gently.

He shakes the bottle, seemingly oblivious to the pain, and I watch as the liquid inside it turns pale pink.

His mouth becomes a resigned line, his forehead puckering, before he opens them and looks right at me. Keeping his gaze locked on mine, he peels his gloves away and lays them on the table. Eyes blazing, he looks down at his hands, and I do the same. Then I gasp, forgetting about my back, forgetting everything else.