Kell’s steps did. Holland moved with the terrifying grace of a predator. A white half-cloak draped over one of his shoulders, billowing behind him as he walked. It was held together by a clasp, a silver circular broach, etched with markings that at a distance looked like nothing more than decoration.
But Kell knew the story of Holland and the silver clasp.
He hadn’t heard it from the Antari’s lips, of course, but had bought the truth off a man at the Scorched Bone, traded the full story for a Red London lin several years before. He couldn’t understand why Holland—arguably the most powerful person in the city, and perhaps the world—would serve a pair of glorified cutthroats like Astrid and Athos. Kell had himself been to the city a handful of times before the last king fell, and he had seen Holland at the ruler’s side, but as an ally, not a servant. He had been different then, younger and more arrogant, yes, but there was also something else, something more, a light in his eyes. A fire. And then, between one visit and the next, the fire was gone, and so was the king, replaced by the Danes. Holland was still there, at their side as if nothing had changed. But he had changed, gone cold and dark, and Kell wanted to know what had happened—what had really happened.
So he went looking for an answer. And he found it, as he found most things—and most found him—in the tavern that never moved.
Here it was called the Scorched Bone.
The storyteller clutched the coin as if for warmth as he hunched on his stool and spun the tale in Maktahn, the guttural native tongue of the harsh city.
“Ön vejr tök …” he began under his breath. The story goes …
“Our throne is not something you’re born to. It’s not held by blood. But taken by it. Someone cuts their way to the throne and holds it as long as they can—a year, maybe two—until they fall, and someone else rises. Kings come and go. It is a constant cycle. And usually, it is a simple enough matter. The murderer takes the place of the murdered.
“Seven years ago,” the man continued, “when the last king was killed, several tried to claim his crown, but in the end, it came down to three. Astrid, Athos, and Holland.”
Kell’s eyes widened. While he knew Holland had served the prior crown, he had not known of his aspirations to be king. Though it made sense; Holland was Antari in a world where power meant everything. He should have been the obvious victor. Still, the Dane twins proved nearly as powerful as they were ruthless and cunning. And together, they defeated him. But they didn’t kill him. Instead, they bound him.
At first Kell thought he’d misunderstood—his Maktahn wasn’t as flawless as his Arnesian—and he made the man repeat the word. Vöxt. “Bound.”
“It’s that clasp,” said the man in the Scorched Bone, tapping his chest. “The silver circle.”
It was a binding spell, he explained. And a dark one at that. Made by Athos himself. The king had an unnatural gift for controlling others—but the seal didn’t make Holland a mindless slave, like the guards that lined the castle halls. It didn’t make him think or feel or want. It only made him do.
“The pale king is clever,” added the man, fiddling with his coin. “Terrible, but clever.”
Holland stopped abruptly, and Kell forced his mind and his gaze back to the castle hall and the door that now waited in front of them. He watched as the White Antari brought his hand to the door, where a circle of symbols was burned into the wood. He drew his fingers deftly across them, touching four in sequence; a lock yielded within, and he led Kell through.
The throne room was just as sprawling and hollow as the rest of the castle, but it was circular and made of brilliant white stone, from the rounded walls and the arching ribs of the ceiling to the glittering floors and the twin thrones on the raised platform in its center. Kell shivered, despite the fact the room wasn’t cold. It only looked like ice.
He felt Holland slip away, but did not turn his attention from the throne, or the woman sitting on it.
Astrid Dane would have blended right in, if it weren’t for her veins.
They stood out like dark threads on her hands and at her temples; the rest of her was a study in