Tomorrow's Kingdom

Tomorrow's Kingdom

ALSO BY MAUREEN FERGUS

A Fool's Errand

(Book 2, The Gypsy King Trilogy)

The Gypsy King

(Book 1, The Gypsy King Trilogy)

Ortega

Recipe for Disaster

Exploits of a Reluctant (But Extremely Goodlooking) Hero

For younger readers

The Day My Mom Came to Kindergarten

Tomorrow's Kingdom

MAUREEN FERGUS

For my handsome, brilliant son Sam, who makes me laugh (always), who laughs at my jokes (sometimes) and whose drive to pursue his own passion both awes and inspires me

ONE

“
W
HAT IN THE NAME
of the gods was Persephone thinking going to face Mordecai alone?” demanded Azriel, his blue eyes blazing in the dimness of the harbour shed.

Heart heavy with the secret knowledge that Persephone was not truly alone, Rachel leaned her head against Zdeno's homespun-clad shoulder and said, “You know what she was thinking, Azriel. She was thinking of you—she was afraid of the terrible things Mordecai would do to you.”

“And what of the terrible things he will do to
her
?” hissed Azriel, his powerful hands clenching into fists. “Tell me, Rachel—what, exactly, do you imagine Mordecai will do to Persephone when he discovers that she lied about having found the healing Pool of Genezing?”

“We must stay positive,” faltered Rachel as a thousand images—all of them hideous—flitted through her mind. “We have to believe that until the Gypsy King is come, the Fates will keep—”

The sudden sound of raised voices and many boots clattering over cobblestone some distance down the harbour front caused Rachel to freeze mid-sentence, but it was the look that passed between Azriel and Zdeno that turned her blood to ice.

“What is it?” she whispered fearfully. “Do you think the commotion out there has something to do with us?”

Instead of answering, Zdeno kissed her hard on the mouth. It was the first time he'd ever done such a bold thing, and Rachel refused to think on why he should dare to do so now. Instead, she touched her trembling fingertips to her lips and pressed so close to him that she could feel his compact body coiling with tension. Together, they watched Azriel draw his sword, ease open the door of the shed and peer in the direction of the approaching danger.

All at once, the handsome Gypsy's head jerked toward the harbour as though yanked around by an invisible string. Bellowing Persephone's name, he flung the shed door wide and dashed out into the street like a man possessed.

“Azriel, what are you doing?” screamed Rachel as she bolted to her feet. “
ZDENO
,
WHAT
IS
HE
DOING
?”

“Stay back,” ordered Zdeno, who was already halfway to the door with his deadly slingshot loaded and whirling above his head.

But Rachel would not stay back—she
could
not stay back. Driven forward by her terror, she reached the doorway just in time to see Azriel cut down the first two snarling New Men who rushed him. He ducked and skewered a third; a fourth would have cleaved Azriel's head in two if Zdeno had not scored a direct hit. As the soldier's head snapped back from the force of the stone that had slammed into his forehead, his sword flew out of his hand. Snatching it out of mid-air, Azriel speared him with it. Then he bounded forward to attack the rest of the charging soldiers. With a blade in each hand, Azriel cut, thrust and parried with preternatural speed while terrified women and children ran shrieking for cover, and Zdeno did what damage he could without leaving Rachel unprotected.

In a matter of seconds, the street was strewn with black-clad bodies, and Azriel was running for the docks—a bloody sword in each hand and a look of savage determination on his face. He'd not gone ten steps, however, before a seemingly endless horde of New Men began pouring into the far end of the harbour front.

One look was evidently enough for Zdeno: resolutely turning his back on the husband of the princess he'd once sworn to protect, he grabbed Rachel's hand and tried to drag her away. Though half-mad with fear, she resisted. Bracing her heels as best she could against the slippery, red street, she screamed Azriel's name.

He checked briefly at the sound of her voice, then again at the sight of the many soldiers who were rapidly closing in on him. For one heart-stopping moment, Rachel thought he was going to turn and fight even though any fool could see that to do so would mean certain death.

But Azriel did not turn and fight.

Instead, he shouted Persephone's name in a voice so anguished that it made the hairs on the back of Rachel's neck stand on end.

Then he turned and ran.

TWO

I
GNORING THE URGE
to drift back down into the seductive depths of sleep, Persephone fought her way to the surface of consciousness. The sound of Azriel shouting her name seemed to echo in the fetid darkness in which she lay with her hands bound behind her back, but whether it was real or only a dream, she could not say. Her normally sharp senses felt as dull as a cheap blade.

Without moving or opening her eyes, Persephone struggled to remember what had happened to her and to figure out where she was. At first, her efforts produced no clear answers, only called up a series of random images that began to dissolve almost as soon as they appeared. Finn standing on an overturned milk pail delivering a fiery harangue to a deaf horse … Azriel standing at the edge of a hot spring wearing nothing but his boots and his breeches … Fireflies trapped in coloured glass jars … Wet sand beneath her bare back.

A vision of Mordecai reverently clutching a locket that contained the so-called proof that she'd found the healing pool melted into a vision of him hunched at the threshold of the royal bedchamber, his dark eyes glowing with pleasure as he beckoned her to come forward and see what lay beyond.

Finn.

The truth about the moments before everything went black came back to Persephone in a sickening rush. The sight of her beautiful twin gasping out his last laboured breaths; the promise she'd made to fight for the throne that was hers by right of birth. The way she'd eluded Mordecai by escaping through the secret passageway behind the hanging tapestry. Standing in the bustling street of the imperial capital struggling against the almost overwhelming desire to run away before turning toward the harbour shed where Azriel, Rachel and Zdeno were hiding.

Because I desperately needed the shelter of Azriel's embrace—and because even if I could have run away from everything else, there was one thing I could not have run away from no matter how hard or how far I ran,
she recalled with a flutter of panic.

Pushing the panic aside, Persephone had just started to replay the memory of being grabbed from behind and having a pungent-smelling cloth pressed over her face when she felt something sink its sharp little teeth into the tender flesh at the back of her ankle. Gasping aloud, she kicked out violently, then tucked her legs up to her chest and rolled to her knees. The instant she did so, the plank floor seemed to tilt beneath her. Thrown off-balance and unable to use her hands to break her fall, she hit the floor like a sack of potatoes and gouged her forehead on the corner of a wooden pallet in the bargain.

I see you still have the grace and poise of a natural dancer, Persephone,
said a gently mocking voice in her head.

In spite of everything, Persephone found herself smiling at the memory of the pirate grin that had accompanied those words.

Then she remembered why she'd rolled to her knees in the first place.

Scrambling up into a sitting position, she tossed her wild, dark hair out of her eyes and strained for a glimpse of the thing that had bitten her. As she did so, she felt something warm dribble down her forehead.

Blood.

Drawn by the sight and smell of it, the rat warily crept out of the shadows, dragging its long skinny tail behind it. Persephone lashed out with her feet and snarled threats in a bid to scare the creature off, but her efforts only seemed to excite it. Beady eyes gleaming, it boldly continued toward her. As if inspired by its boldness, other rats—a veritable army of other rats—began creeping out of the shadows as well.

Persephone staggered to her feet. Taking care to stay low and well balanced, she gave the nearest rat a kick that sent it sailing back into the shadows. The meaty thud with which it landed attracted the attention of half a dozen other rats. While they excitedly scuttled after their fallen comrade, Persephone looked around for the highest spot she'd be able to reach with her hands tied behind her back.

Almost at once, she spied two large wooden crates haphazardly stacked against the nearest wall. Pausing for just long enough to send another rat sailing, she lurched toward them and jumped onto the jutting corner of the bottom crate. Jerking her hands up behind her and bending at the waist so that her heaving chest was pressed against the slatted lid of the top crate, she then wriggled, rolled and flopped her way onto it.

Even before she'd fully recovered from the wave of dizziness caused by her exertions, Persephone set about taking stock of her circumstances. She could not say what had happened or how much time had passed since she'd been rendered unconscious down on the docks. However, the sound of waves splashing, sails snapping and boots stomping overhead told her that she'd somehow ended up in the hold of a ship. That was why the floor had tilted beneath her when she'd first rolled to her knees and why it continued to rise and fall enough to set her already-queasy stomach churning. It was also why it was cold, damp and so dark that she'd have been as good as blind if not for the slivers of light that bled in through those cracks in the hull that sat high enough above the waterline to have gone unnoticed and untarred.

Manoeuvring around so that she could press her eye against one of these cracks, Persephone's relief upon seeing that the docks were yet within hailing distance turned to dread when she realized that they were littered with bodies and swarming with New Men.