The Soulstoy Inheritance (2 page)

“We make no promises for you though,” someone else muttered, sounding far too close.

There was a thump, a groan, and then another person yelled, “Nobody will be hurt if you just come out! Don’t make this harder than it has to be!”

Harbringer moved back to me, plucking the knife from the carpet, and turning it over in his hand, his expression dark.

“Harrow, look.”

“Bea,” I reminded him numbly, not even realising I had corrected him, as I took the bloodied knife he offered. I was on auto-pilot.

On the handle, a message had been carved.

You should have killed me.

I stared down at it in shock. It was a long time before my eyes wandered back to Harbringer, who appeared just as perplexed as I was. Our silent, private universe of shared confusion was invaded by the sound of a new commotion outside.

“Fetch the King’s Guard! They have another body in there; the synfee was carving it up, I saw the knife in her hand!” A silence descended for the barest of seconds, and then there was chaos. “Take the fastest horse and head straight to the barracks, have them dispatch all men to surround the street. Now!”

I spun around, my eyes meeting the gaze of a soldier through the gap in the curtain, and then Harbringer was pulling me to my feet again.

“Is there a back door?” he asked, hauling me out of the room.

I glanced once more at my father, a last tear spilling down my cheek as I tried to memorise his cold, pale face. I had an awful feeling it might be my last chance to say goodbye. Tying the bloodied dagger to my belt, I jogged toward the back of the house, Harbringer close behind me, and pushed through the door of the kitchen. We rushed to the door leading outside and had almost made it before a crashing sound behind us had me pausing.

“Miss Harrow!” Gretal gasped, falling out of a cupboard and spilling a number of pots out onto the floor. “I was so afraid! That man… there was a hood covering his face… shouldn’t have let him… he just…”

“Gretal,” I made a move toward her, but Harbringer grabbed my hand, his eyes on the housekeeper.

“We can’t stay, there are soldiers outside. They think Beatrice killed the King, and now her father. We have to leave now.”

Gretal squared her shoulders, pushing the rest of the way out of her hiding place, “You are my… mistress now… now that… It is all my fault—“

I swallowed and cut across her, not wanting her to voice the words. I knew that she would turn herself in to protect me, even if she had never liked me in the past. It wouldn’t work. She would probably die too.

“I’m taking you with me. Hurry, Gretal.”

We burst out the back door just as three of the soldiers rounded the side of the house and Harbringer flung out his arm, causing a large slab of earth to rise with a slow, grinding effort from the ground. It rose until it was the height of my father’s house, and I didn’t check to make sure it left no gap between this house and the one beside it. Harbringer wouldn’t have made such a mistake. We raced around the back of the row of houses, our pace a little slower now that we had Gretal in tow, though I found myself strangely glad of her presence.

When we reached the Black Barracks, Harbringer disappeared for a few minutes and returned leading three horses, which we took through the gate into the abandoned garden. The barracks themselves were empty, which meant that the kingdom’s deadliest weapon had amassed at the castle, where there was no longer a threat. We had to skirt the wall until it connected up with one of the game trails, as the northern forest was otherwise too dense for the animals to be led through. Once we were mounted, there was no formal acknowledgement of the path that we would travel, but I turned in the direction of the one place that I knew no Read soldier would be able to follow us. Harbringer trailed me, having come to the same conclusion. A few hours later, as we drew near to the wastelands, I slowed my horse to come up beside Gretal. I would have to prepare her before we crossed over.

She looked up from the trail, meeting my eyes with a devastated expression. It was the first time that she had ever looked to me with something other than fear.

“Gretal…” I hesitated.

“You’re going to the Tainted Ones. I know.” She twisted her hands in the reins, her expression worried. “Will we be safe?”

“The soldiers can’t follow us over the border. There is some kind of repulsion enchantment. If they tried, they would just turn right back, thinking that there was something really important that needed to be done in their own kingdom. The only way you can cross is if someone takes you. Someone who has gone over before.”

“Oh.” She looked down again and I dreaded the question that came next. “I didn’t mean the soldiers…” She hesitated. “I meant…”

“The synfees?”

“Them. Yes.”

“Their King is dead. He died tonight or…” I looked at the sun, beginning to peek over the edges of the trees, wondering how I wasn’t yet tired. I had battled a group of powerful Force-users, been forced to kill Nareon, saved Hazen and fled the execution of Fenrel only to arrive at the execution of my father, all in the space of a single night. “He died last night,” I corrected myself. “He kind of left me in charge of, well, everything.”

“He
what
?” Gretal seemed to lose even her sadness. The mask of everything that I had known her to be so far—fear and social rigidity; anguish and sadness—all crumbled away until only stark astonishment remained.

“Their rulers are chosen differently to ours,” I tried to explain. “The old King was a complicated man. He breathed manipulation. If you ever found out something that he was hiding, it was only because he wanted you to. This is all a part of some grand scheme that he has whittled into being. And I suppose none of us will really know the truth until it’s too late.”

“But he’s dead.”

“Yes,” I muttered half-heartedly. “He’s dead.”
And determined to haunt me forever, until he finds a way to manipulate himself back into the world of the living
.

“We’re almost there,” Harbringer called over his shoulder.

I turned back to Gretal, reaching over and grasping her hand. She stiffened, but I ignored her. Gone was the little synfee girl who cringed whenever a stranger looked at her, or one of her own friends touched her. Someone harder and stronger now possessed my body.

“You’ll be safe,” I assured her. “I’ll keep you safe.”

I’d have to
. Fenrel hadn’t been much of a loss to me, but once upon a time, before Hazen, Cale and Rose; before Harbringer and Nareon… there had been my father. My entire life. My only friend. Gone.

We dismounted to cross the border, and I held tight to Gretal’s hand. She pulled away at first, as the enchantment worked its manipulation on her mind, and then she was clutching me as the usual group of soldiers ran to meet us.

“Lady Queen!” Grenlow broke free of them, and deposited a quick bow before me, his eyes sliding only briefly to the other two. “It is good of you to return so soon. The people are restless that you have made no formal appearance.”

“Grenlow,” I sighed, “If you don’t start calling me by my name, I swear I’ll replace you with Harbringer.”

He flicked a look at the man in question, who was now grinning, and then seemed to pale.

“Not the Power Thief.”

“Good. Then cut out the formalities. We both know I didn’t want this. And spread the word. Any person who calls me by that title will be… ahh… in trouble.”

Harbringer coughed, and one of the soldiers snickered.

“They’ll be in trouble with the Power Thief,” I amended.

Grenlow nodded, as if this were a better incentive, and then motioned toward the castle.

“So you’re staying then?”

“Yes. I’ve been framed for the murder of the King,” I stated as matter-of-factly as I possibly could. “I can’t return to the Read Empire until I have proved my innocence.”

Grenlow frowned, a look of confusion passing over his face. Either he was confused as to which king I was referring, or else he, too, was mulling over the fact that both kingdoms had been attacked simultaneously. I wondered if he factored into account my proximity to each attack, and the fact that I had been responsible for at least one of the deaths.

“I suggest we retire to the Council chambers to talk about this in a more private setting,” he said quietly.

All I wanted to do was run as fast and as far as I could, until I crouched in some remote part of the forest. Alone. I wanted to cry until even the tears hurt, and then I wanted to curl into a ball in the dirt and sleep forever. Instead, I looked to Harbringer, who nodded, and then gently eased my fingers from Gretal’s, motioning Grenlow to lead the way. People stared more than usual as we passed through the gates, across the courtyard and into the fountain room. I looked straight ahead, trying not to notice the way that more than a few of them hurried away when they spotted me coming. I was Nareon’s successor, so they probably only assumed that I was just like Nareon. Which of course made me wonder what exactly Nareon did to his own people that had them so afraid of me—a thought that I had to quickly push from my mind.

Thinking such things was dangerous, as I had always been on a ledge where Nareon was concerned. I feared him, and yet I found that his unwavering care for me only inspired a similar care in kind. I fought to protect him, and yet I wasn’t even sure if I liked him. I cried when he died, and yet there were times where I felt I might wish him dead, for the way he had manipulated me.

But it was more than that, because Nareon was now a
part
of me, however permanently, however dangerously.

The crowds thinned out the higher we climber in the castle, and yet I knew we were still a long way from the top when Grenlow paused beside a door and opened it. He waved us in and then closed the door behind us, moving to sit himself at the large, circular table in the centre of the room. I sat beside him and Harbringer moved to the window, looking down at what section of the grounds was visible below him. I gazed out to the closest town, which was not too far from the northwestern section of the castle wall. Gretal hovered by the door, still uncertain.

“Have a seat,” I coaxed her, trying to make my voice as soft and calm as I could, as if she were some wild and abused animal, about to bolt at the slightest disruption.

“I’m going to bring out Nareon,” I continued, once Gretal had taken a seat, and Grenlow began to nod vigorously as if this were a great idea, but Harbringer moved away from the window and leaned against the back of one of the chairs, frowning down at me.

“You shouldn’t bring him into this world. I suspect it only makes him stronger. It feels wrong.”

“We need him right now. He has answers, and you know it. Besides, he hasn’t been dead for very long, and whatever it is he’s up to, I doubt he’s going to accomplish it in a few days.”

His frown deepened, and I braced myself for Gretal’s reaction. She wasn’t saying anything. I suspected that she had gone straight back into shock.

“When Nareon died, it was technically my doing. He manipulated my power, and used it to kill himself.”

“Why?” she squeaked, wide blue eyes jerking from my face to Harbringer’s, skipping straight over Grenlow.

“When a synfee is killed by a weaker being, a piece of themselves is essentially saved. It latches onto the weaker person, but is enslaved to that person.”

“How could they have died, if they were stronger in the first place?”

“It doesn’t happen often,” Grenlow answered, though Gretal still refused to look at him, “It… almost never happens.”

“So that’s why you are now Queen?” Gretal asked me. “You rule by proxy of the King living on in some way through you?”

“He is no longer King,” both Harbringer and Grenlow said at the same time.

“Do you remember what I said before?” I asked her, ignoring them both. “About Nareon always having a grand plan that none of us are aware of, until it is too late, or he chooses to enlighten us?”

She nodded, and I could see a flicker of understanding pass across her face.

“Whatever the most obvious reason is, it’s probably wrong. Whatever reason I can give you for this happening, it will be wrong.”

Chapter Two

Kinship through Queenship

Nareon appeared as the first syllable of his name was on my lips. He was standing in the middle of the circular table, and seemed surprised to find himself back in the Synfee Empire. He strode across the table and jumped off, landing soundlessly between myself and Grenlow, and then dropped to his knees, his dark golden head lowered.

“Forgive me, my mistress!”

I frowned at his joke, not sure if he were mocking me for banishing him instead of killing the synfee that had been draining Hazen.

“You know I will never willingly use that ability.” I tried to make my gaze solemn, as I looked down at him, but it still felt as if he were the King, and I the lost, half-human girl.

Nareon sprang to his feet, the smile on his face telling me that he had indeed been mocking me, and then he strode part way around the table and seated himself next to Gretal, who was staring at him with wide, terrified eyes. He winked at her, and then turned back to me.

“You
should
have killed him, Spitfire.”

I opened my mouth to reply, and then locked up, a terrible, nauseating feeling settling in the pit of my stomach. I pushed out of the chair and fumbled with the ties that still held the bloodied dagger attached to my belt. I pulled it up before my face, my lips moving wordlessly as I re-read the words carved into the handle.

You should have killed me.

“God no…” I moaned, as Nareon floated out of his seat and tried to pluck the dagger from my fingers.

The only problem was, Nareon was no longer real—or at least, no longer as tangible as the rest of us. His fingers glided right through the handle, and my own fingers. A shock of cold passed down to my wrist, and I dropped the dagger. Harbringer, who had been standing behind me, jerked forward and caught the hilt, and then gave Nareon a warning look. Though we all knew Nareon couldn’t be harmed in this world. Not anymore.