Crown of Three (21 page)

“What did you say?” said Samial, stepping forward.

She seized the jewel so tightly she nearly pulled it from its chain. “Nothing,” she gasped. “You just took me by surprise.”

He frowned. “You are upset? Why?”

Elodie gulped, telling herself not to be so silly. He'd just been hiding, that was all. He must have been.

“I'm going,” she said shakily. “I mean, Trident is going, and I'm going with them.”

“Oh.” The boy's expression was unreadable. “You made your decision then, Princess.”

“Yes, and I want you to come with me. With us.” Elodie extended her hands. As he always did, Samial shrank away from her touch.

Why does he do that?

“I cannot leave Sir Jaken.”

“We're marching to Idilliam. My brother's there and . . . Please, Samial. Trident supports me, and Palenie is my friend, but you're the only one who really understands. . . . I don't want to go without you.”

“You must.”

She reached for him again, but he retreated farther into the shadows. The darkness seemed to envelop him, as if he were somehow part of it.

It's just the dark
, she told herself again.

But a shiver ran through her and she sat heavily on a moss-covered stump.

“There's probably going to be a battle,” she said bitterly. “I've never even been near a battle. How am I supposed to know what to do?”

“You will know,” said Samial.

“That's easy for you to say! You have trained for war. I thought you'd help me, but now all you want to do is skulk about these stupid woods with some stupid knight who—”

A branch snapped behind her. Elodie jumped to her feet, whirling around in fright. Her first thought was that she'd see Stown bearing down on her. To her relief, it was Palenie.

“Who are you talking to?” Palenie said, stooping as she picked her way between the willows.

There was no point lying. “His name's Samial.” Elodie turned back to her friend.

But Samial wasn't there. In his place, slowly dissolving into the empty air, was a dark cloud in the crude shape of a boy. Just before it disappeared altogether, the two pale circles of his eyes flashed once, then faded to nothing.

“A ghost!” Palenie gasped. “Look there, the trees moved!” For the first time since they'd met, Elodie saw fear in her face.

“No, he's here,” Elodie cried. “He has to be. . . .” Horrified, she ran through the deserted clearing, trying to pick out Samial's fleeing form among the trees. But he was nowhere to be seen.

Deep down, in her gut, she knew Palenie was right. Samial wasn't a boy at all. He wasn't even alive—he was just a wandering spirit, lost in the borderlands between this world and the next.

She'd spent her days here talking to the dead.

Elodie felt herself shaking, not with fear but with anger. All this time he'd let her think she could stay with him in the woods. Let her believe they were friends.

“Many people died here,” said Palenie, looking anxiously around at the shadowy trees. “In the War of Blood. It ended when Brutan took the crown. That's why they call them the Weeping Woods.”

Elodie couldn't stop trembling. Samial had told her that his knight had fought in that war. Now she knew that he hadn't been squired to an exiled knight at all, but killed alongside his lord in these woods. She knew the truth, but it was so hard to believe. “I saw him,” she insisted. “I really did.”

Palenie came over to Elodie. “You saw his ghost. He was real once. Not anymore.” She took her hands, her voice gentle. “Elodie, is he the only one you saw?”

“Yes.” Hot tears came from her eyes as the truth about herself, about the voices, came to her. “But I hear others. I always have.”

She thought about all the times she'd heard whispered conversations in the corridors of Castle Vicerin. All those voices. All those years convincing herself she was mad.

All those ghosts.

Was the whole world haunted? And was she the only one who heard the dead?

She pulled away from Palenie and rubbed her eyes. “I thought it was all in my head. . . . I thought I was . . .”

“Don't say it,” said Palenie sharply. “There's nothing wrong with you, Elodie.”

“Apart from hearing ghosts?”

She waited for Palenie to leave, to say she was going back to the camp to tell Fessan and Rotho and the others that their future queen was cursed. Instead, Palenie gently took her hand.

“Maybe it's a gift,” she said softly. “You're a princess, after all.” She looked nervously around the trees. “Come on. We've a long journey ahead.”

As they left the Weeping Woods, Elodie refused to look back over her shoulder. There was no point.

I never want to see him again
, she thought.

T
he minstrels played a rousing march. Behind them, colorful flags flapped in the wind. A line of soldiers stood at attention, polished spears pointing straight up at the sun. Gulph had expected to see more of them, but most of Nynus's army was now deployed across the chasm in Isur, laying siege to a rebel village.

Gulph wondered how the scene looked through Nynus's eyes. He supposed the young king was pleased with what he saw: loyal subjects enacting the king's command. Yet he was about to sever the only link between Idilliam and the rest of the world, cutting off the very soldiers he'd just sent to Isur.

This isn't a celebration
, Gulph thought.
It's a disaster.

Crowds had gathered near the Idilliam Bridge, ready to watch the spectacle. Gulph wondered how many of them had been bullied into attending. Their faces were either angry or full of fear. Destroying the bridge meant isolating the city, and none of them wanted to be marooned.

“Raise the rams!” cried Nynus.

The king of Toronia was seated beside his mother on a low wooden platform that had been constructed to overlook the bridge. A black canopy shielded him from the sunlight; even so, Nynus held his hand over his eyes and kept his face screwed up.

On the bridge, a gang of soldiers hauled at ropes attached to four huge siege engines. The giant machines were relics from the War of Blood, brought at Nynus's command out of the garrison storehouses and set up on the Idilliam Bridge. Originally designed as battering rams, they'd been completely rebuilt. Now, instead of swinging sideways, the huge log rams hung vertically, their solid iron tips aiming straight down at the bridge's rock bed.

As the ropes were pulled tight, a series of gears and cranks raised heavy weights high into the air. The instant the ropes were released, these weights would drive the rams down onto the bridge.

When Nynus had first described the plan, Gulph had thought it crazy. Watching it unfold before his eyes, he found his opinion hadn't changed one bit.

“Please stop!” The voice came from a peasant man stumbling out of the crowd. Before anyone could challenge him, he'd mounted the platform and was pawing at the king's feet. Nynus stared down at him in disgust.

“Please,” the man wailed. “My family. They live in Isur. Without the bridge, how will I ever see them again?”

Nynus kicked him away. Legionnaires closed in to seize the man, but he broke through their ranks and ran out across the bridge. As if his actions were a signal, other spectators surged through the line of soldiers and climbed the short flight of steps onto the bridge itself, dodging between the siege engines and racing toward the far end.

Gulph could hardly stand to watch.
They're never going to make it
, he thought.

By now, the rams were fully extended and poised to drop. The servants on the ropes waited in the sunlight, their muscles tensed, their bodies slicked with sweat.

Nynus raised his right hand.

Gulph grabbed the arm of his throne. “What are you doing?” he cried. “You can't start yet. There are people on the bridge!”

“And soon they will be off the bridge!” snapped Nynus.

“But that's . . .” Gulph stopped himself. His outrage boiled inside him. Yet angering Nynus would only make things worse for everyone.

How do you tell a tyrant not to be cruel?

At last it came to him. “You want them to love you, don't you? Your subjects, I mean. How will it make you look if you kill these people?”

“It will make the king look strong,” said Magritt. Her voice was dry and hard, like pebbles rattling in a box. “Not soft like you!”

Gulph was about to argue, but her glare silenced him. He thought back to her face looking down from the castle window. Had she seen him save the twins after all?

Watch your step, Gulph
, he told himself.

“But still, my sweet,” Magritt said, “our friend may have a point. Without the bridge, no food will—”

“Mother,” Nynus interrupted. His pale eyes flashed. He clenched his fists like a small child about to fly into a rage. “You would question me?”

Gulph saw a flicker of fear pass over the dowager queen's face. Then she smiled. “Of course not. The king is always right.”

“Yes,” said Nynus, serene once more, gazing back out at the crowd. “Oh yes, I am.”

Even his own mother doesn't dare cross him now
, Gulph thought with a shudder. He looked back at the people running across the bridge. At least a dozen were already halfway across; many more were bunched close behind them. Perhaps his fears were unfounded. Perhaps they were going to make it after all.

Nynus brought down his hand.

One after the other, the four gigantic battering rams slammed into the rock, making contact precisely at the weakest part: where the end of the bridge met the solid bedrock on which the city of Idilliam was built. The impact was immense, beyond mere sound. The blast wave slammed against Gulph's ears and beat against his chest, turning it into a drum. His eyeballs seemed to be vibrating in their sockets.

Horrified, yet fascinated, too, he stepped off the platform to get a better look. Nynus gestured, and the rams pounded the bridge again. The young king's smile widened to demonic proportions. Gray dust rose in an expanding cloud. The ground shrugged like a waking giant. No storm had ever been this loud.

Again the rams struck. Near the middle of the bridge, a chunk of stone the size of a house broke away and plummeted into the chasm, turning end over end. Clinging to it, his face contorted with terror, was the peasant who'd first come to Nynus for help.

Gulph watched, helpless, as the poor man fell to his death. How many more would die today?

There was sudden movement on the far side of the bridge. A white horse and rider cantered out of the trees. As more slabs of rock started to collapse into the abyss, the rider spurred the horse out across the slender finger of rock, scattering the terrified people and speeding straight toward the royal party. With a gasp, Gulph recognized the rider's long hair and sculpted features.

“Limmoni!” Heedless of the danger, he forced his way through the melee, up the steps, and out onto the bridge. The air around the rams was choking, filled with dust and grit. He coughed it out, ignoring the dreadful heaving sensation as the rock rippled beneath his feet.

“Stop!” he yelled, darting between the battering rams. “Go back, Limmoni!” He knew there was no chance she would hear him; he couldn't even hear himself. He was lost inside a world of thunder. His eyes filled up with dust, blinding him. He ran on, senseless in the confusion, not wanting to stop for anything.

The section he was standing on gave way.

Falling forward, scrabbling with his hands, Gulph tried in vain to gain purchase on the crumbling rock. His knees hit something hard and suddenly he was spinning, falling, out of control. Something scraped his arm and he clutched at it instinctively. His fingers found a broken edge of stone and curled around it, stopping his descent abruptly. The jerk yanked his right arm from its socket. Normally this was a trick he could perform easily, but the sudden shock drove a hot spike of agony into his shoulder.

Howling with pain, Gulph swung from the edge of the broken bridge, his feet dangling over the abyss.

On the bridge above, one of the huge battering rams tilted sickeningly over the precipice. There were shouts of terror. “Let it go!” someone shouted, and it plunged, trailing ropes behind it, past Gulph until it was swallowed up in the cloud below.

No,
he thought,
I'm not going down there too!

He pulled against the pain, snapping his bones back into place.

Pretend it's a show! Be an acrobat, Gulph, perform for the crowd!

Throwing his legs sideways at an angle no ordinary person could have achieved, he found a foothold on the swaying stonework. Slowly, painfully, he pulled himself to safety. Shaking from head to toe, his breath ragged, he ran off the bridge and didn't stop until he was on Idilliam soil. Finally, he looked back. Devastation lay all around. The remaining giant rams had fallen silent. Before them, a huge gap had opened in the middle of the bridge.