moments later, she came out. Her face was green. “He’s not there,” she said.
“What’s wrong?” Kylar tried to step past her, but she blocked him.
“You don’t want to go in there.”
He pushed past her.
The room was full of women. They stood frozen, like statues in various poses. One, on all fours, naked, supported a sheet of glass on her back, forming a table. Another, a tall noblewoman Kylar recognized but couldn’t name, stood on tiptoe, stretching seductively, one arm and one leg wrapped around a post of the Godking’s massive four-poster bed. Chellene lo-Gyre sat, legs crossed in her shift, in a wing-backed chair. Kylar didn’t know anything about her except her reputation for a fiery temper. Her expression showed it, as did her disheveled hair and the tension in her lean muscles. Most of the women were naked, the rest wore little. Two, on their knees, held a washbasin. Two others held a mirror. One was manacled to the wall, a scarf around her neck. Kylar’s breath stopped.
It was Serah Drake. Like all of them, she wasn’t as still as a statue; she was a statue. With a little cry, Kylar touched her face, touched the lips he’d once kissed. They were as yielding as living flesh, but cool, and there was no life in her open, shining eyes. Her flesh—all of the women’s flesh—had been frozen in place with some magic, then left here. As art.
Beneath the scarf, Kylar could see the bruises circling Serah’s neck. He looked away. There were two ways to die when hanged: if you fell far enough, your neck would break and you’d die quickly, otherwise you strangled slowly. Serah had died the hard way.
He stepped away, but everywhere his eyes turned, he saw gruesome detail. The women wearing bracelets concealed gashed wrists; chemises concealed pierced hearts; those wearing more clothing did so to conceal the imperfections of their taxidermy: they were the ones who’d thrown themselves from their balconies and now had bulges where no bulges belonged.
Kylar staggered like a man drunk. He needed air. He was going to throw up. He burst out onto the Godking’s wide balcony.
She sat on the stone railing, feet hooked through the posts for balance, leaning far back, naked, a nightgown in her hand, fluttering in the wind like a flag. Mags.
Kylar screamed. Talent leaked through his fury and the scream reverberated over the castle, echoing back from the courtyard far below. All life in the castle stopped. Kylar didn’t notice, nor did he notice the ka’kari rushing over his skin, the face of judgment covering his anguish.
He hammered a palm down on the stone railing and crushed it on one side of Mags, then again on her other side, then he lifted her and carried her back inside. The feeling of her skin, so like living skin, was obscene. But her limbs were locked in place. He laid her on the bed, then tore the bolts holding Serah Drake to the wall. He laid Serah beside her sister. As he covered them, he saw that each girl’s left foot was signed in a bubbly script, as if their corpses were art: Trudana Jadwin.
Vi was staring saucer-eyed from him to the shattered six-inch stone railing. “Fucking fuck,” she whispered. “Kylar, is that you?”
He nodded stiffly. He wanted to remove the mask of judgment, but he couldn’t. He needed it right now.
“I checked the concubines’ rooms,” Vi said. “Nothing. He must already be in the throne room.”
Kylar’s stomach flipped. He jerked involuntarily.
“What?” Vi asked.
“Bad memories,” Kylar said. “Fuck it. Let’s go.”
Dawn was coming. By killing the two guards, they’d tipped their own hourglass. Someone would check the men’s post soon—probably at dawn. Worse, the Cenarian army’s glass was already draining. The battle would begin soon and then the nasty surprises would start. If Logan were to have a chance to be king, Kylar needed to hand him a victory. Killing Garoth Ursuul would unman the Khalidorans.
They walked through the halls brazenly, Vi in her serving girl uniform, and Kylar invisible but flitting from doorway to doorway as if he weren’t, in case any meisters were wandering the halls. As they came to the last hallway, they passed six of the largest highlanders Kylar had ever seen. Kylar dodged behind some statuary as he saw that the highlanders were accompanied by two Vürdmeisters. Most curious of all, the protection seemed to be for one woman—apparently one of the Godking’s concubines or wives—all wrapped up in robes and veils