Tomorrow's Kingdom (2 page)

Breathing hard, Persephone strained to determine if Azriel, Rachel or Zdeno were among the fallen, but it was no use. The swiftly moving ship had already carried her too far away to make out such details. And though it had not yet carried her too far away to be heard, she
knew that screaming Azriel's name would be both foolish and dangerous. For if he was hiding on the harbour front, the sound of her scream would probably drive him to do something reckless, and if he was dead or gone, he wouldn't hear it anyway.

Persephone's captors, on the other hand,
would
hear her scream, and upon hearing it, they'd know she was awake. She'd thus lose the element of surprise, and since this was one of the very few advantages she had at the moment, she did not intend to give it away.

So she knelt, still and silent, watching as she was taken farther and farther away from … everything. When she could no longer hear even the faintest sounds from shore and could no longer see the docks for the ghostly mists that had drifted in from the sea, she turned away from the crack in the hull. After noting that her dagger was gone, she spent a few minutes futilely straining against the ropes that bound her wrists and then a few minutes more searching the wall behind her for a nail or sharp edge she could use to saw through the ropes. When she found none, she sat back on her heels to consider what to do next. As she did so, one of the rats on the floor below ambled over to the wooden pallet upon which she'd earlier gouged her forehead. Laboriously—for he was an extremely fat rat— he hauled himself up onto the corner of the pallet and began delicately licking at the blood she'd left behind. The sight did not make Persephone feel any sicker than she already felt; on the contrary, it made her wonder how long it would be before her captors came down to feed and water her. She hoped it wouldn't be long. She was beginning to feel thirsty, and though the mere thought of food was enough to turn her stomach, she knew she needed to eat to keep up her strength. She had no idea what lay ahead, but a lifetime of hard experience had taught her that it was always best to assume that the unknown was a place of deprivation and hardship, where an extra mouthful of food today could mean the difference between life and death tomorrow.

Easing herself onto her backside, Persephone drew her legs up to her chest in an attempt to ward off the chill that seemed to be deepening with each passing moment. A fleeting image of a lovely claw-footed bathtub filled to the brim with hot, perfumed water seemed more like a dream than a memory. Resting her chin on her knees, she shivered in the gathering gloom and tried not to notice the way the small swell of her belly pressed against her thighs. She could not afford to think about that now— just as she could not afford to think about Azriel or about Finn or about the impossible promise she'd made to fight for the throne of Glyndoria.

All she could afford to think about was surviving to see another day.

Persephone felt an unexpected pang of regret as she realized how quickly she'd stopped thinking like a princess and started thinking like a slave again. Not that she'd ever
really
thought like a princess—or like a slave, for that matter—but she'd started to get used to the idea that—

EEEEEEEEEK
.

The sudden squeal of rusty hinges wiped
all
thought out of Persephone's mind and set her heart pounding.
Silently scrambling up into a crouch and pressing her back against the hull, she watched the heavy hatch slowly being heaved open.

A moment later, two pairs of black boots appeared at the top step of the ladder leading down into the hold.

Whoever her captors were, they were coming.

THREE

W
HEN AZRIEL RAN
from the horde of New Men at the harbour front, Rachel and Zdeno ran too.

Indeed, Zdeno ran so swiftly that Rachel was nearly yanked off her feet trying to keep up with him. The head start they had on the soldiers was desperately small, but Zdeno made remarkable use of it. As she flew along, clutching his calloused hand for dear life, Rachel did not have to wonder why this was so. Two nights past, Zdeno had spoken to her most heart-rendingly of a childhood spent being chased through the streets of Parthania by those who despised him for his unfortunate birthmark.

Clearly, he'd learned a few tricks along the way.

He'd learned which alleys to duck down and which slag heaps to climb over; he'd learned which alehouses had windows big enough to dive through and which whorehouses had back entrances discreet enough to slip through. He led Rachel and Azriel into and out of cellars and through nondescript doors that opened directly onto other streets; he led them up hidden staircases and over
shingled rooftops. And though he did it all at such a pace and for so long that even his breathing eventually grew laboured, he never wavered, never slowed, never let them get cornered.

For her part, Rachel was so focused on trying to keep up that it wasn't until they staggered into the farthest corner of a neglected graveyard that she realized that the sounds and sights of pursuit had faded to nothingness.

Zdeno had done it.

He'd saved them from death—or worse.

Reckless with relief, Rachel backed him up against the wall of the crumbling crypt behind which they were hiding and kissed him soundly to express her profound gratitude. Then she turned to Azriel and said, “What happened back there, Azriel? Why did you run out of the shed like that? What did you see?”

“I saw Persephone grabbed and taken aboard a ship,” he replied savagely. “I saw the crew of the ship throw off the ropes, kick aside the gangplank and hoist the mainsail.”

“What?”
cried Rachel in horror.

“I saw it all and I—did—nothing.”

“That's not true,” murmured Zdeno, who was still looking rather dazed from Rachel's kiss. “You singlehandedly cut down at least a dozen soldiers.”

“And then I abandoned her.”

“You didn't abandon her,” protested Rachel, sick at the thought of how much more harshly he'd be judging himself if he knew what she knew. “You … you only ran when you saw that there was no—”

Before she could finish, the great brass bells of the imperial palace began to toll. The last time they'd done so was seventeen years past, and Rachel felt a chill at the tidings they dolefully proclaimed. Namely, that poor King Finnius was dead and that, as his only living blood relative, Persephone had just become a player—or pawn—in the dangerous battle for the throne that was sure to follow.

After the bells stopped tolling, there was a moment of stunned silence.

Then Zdeno put his right hand over his heart and went down on one knee. “The king is dead,” he said in a voice strained with grief. “Long live the queen—and long live her husband, the prince consort.”

Azriel looked almost angry at these words, but all he said was, “I was a fool to run—a fool and a coward.” Pulling the knife from his belt—his swords having been tossed aside during their flight from the soldiers—he announced, “I'm going back for her. Now, before it's too late.”

“It's already too late,” said Zdeno gently. “Forgive me, my prince, but you said yourself that whoever took the queen set sail.”

“I'm no prince and I
never
said the ship set sail,” snapped Azriel. “All I said was that the ship's crew had raised the mainsail. For all we know, the ship may yet be in the harbour.”

“And if it is?” said Rachel desperately. “What then? The harbour is teeming with soldiers, Azriel. You just slaughtered their comrades in broad daylight! Do you honestly imagine that, armed with that tiny knife and injured as you are, you'll be able to slip past every last
one of them, commandeer a ship and give chase without attracting attention?”

Azriel glared at the dark-haired girl who so resembled his kidnapped wife.

Rachel ignored his glare in much the same way as Persephone might have done. “I'm not saying that we should give her up for lost, Azriel,” she said. “I'm only saying that we need to think before we act.”

“But if her brother, the king, is truly dead—”

“Then the need for us to proceed with caution and wisdom is all the greater.”

“But I made a vow—”

“To protect her with your life,” snapped Rachel, her own fear for Persephone rearing up without warning, “not to make her a seventeen-year-old widow by embarking upon a foolhardy suicide mission that has absolutely no chance of seeing her rescued!”

At Rachel's uncharacteristically sharp tone, Azriel's broad shoulders sagged and the wild look in his eyes slowly turned to one of bleakest despair.

“You're right,” he murmured, wincing as he palpated a particularly long cut on his arm. “We need to proceed with caution and wisdom. We need to figure out who took her and where they have taken her and then we need to come up with a plan to rescue her. And we need to do so quickly, for I fear … I fear she is much weakened by the mysterious illness that has plagued her o'er these last weeks.”

“Illness?” said Rachel, hoping she sounded perplexed.

Eyes crinkling in a painful parody of amusement, Azriel said, “Do not attempt to play the fool, Rachel—you're not very good at it, and it doesn't become you, anyway. You know exactly what I'm talking about.”

Rachel opened her mouth to dispute this but closed it again at once. Because the truth was that she
did
know what he was talking about. It was him who didn't know what he was talking about. And though she didn't like the thought of telling Persephone's secret, and though she didn't like to give Azriel more cause to judge himself harshly, she liked even less the idea of letting him torture himself with thoughts that on top of everything else, his beloved wife was slowly succumbing to some mysterious illness.

So, offering up a quick prayer to the gods that she was doing the right thing, Rachel took a deep breath and said, “Persephone isn't ill, Azriel.”

“Don't lie to me,” he flared, jabbing his finger at her with such vehemence that Zdeno calmly but deliberately reached out and pushed his hand aside. “There's been something wrong with her ever since we left the Island of Ru and maybe even before that. I didn't say anything because I knew she'd only deny it, but I have eyes, Rachel. I know what I saw! The unnatural exhaustion, the nausea, the bloating—I've been half-sick myself with worry. And now she's gone and who knows how she's being treated and—”

“Persephone isn't ill, Azriel,” repeated Rachel, who cringed only slightly before adding, “she's pregnant.”

FOUR

F
ROM HER SPOT
high upon the crates, Persephone held her breath as she watched the two pairs of black boots descend into the rat-infested hold.

To her surprise, she recognized the men who wore the boots. They were the same New Men who'd delivered a battered Azriel to her palace chambers following the dreadful feast held in celebration of the execution of poor Lord Pembleton's son. On that long-ago night, Persephone had sent the two of them scurrying with a frosty bearing and the threat of the Regent's displeasure.

She highly doubted that such tactics would work this time, particularly given that Mordecai had almost certainly given the order to kidnap her.

As she was trying to figure out what tactics
would
work, the New Man who looked like a Latin tutor lifted the grimy lantern in his hand higher.

“Where is she?” he asked in a voice that sounded more puzzled than alarmed.

“Don't know,” muttered the other one, snatching the lantern from him. The wiry chest hair that spilled from the open collar of his limp, pit-stained shirt looked like a bushy black beard that had mistakenly attached itself to his chest instead of his face.

“We left her on the floor, right there by those crates,” reminded Tutor, pointing to the crates upon which Persephone was crouched.

“I know where we left her!” exploded Hairy, rounding on him. “I also know that
I
said we ought to bind her wrists and ankles and gag her.
You
said binding her wrists would be sufficient.
You
said she'd not regain consciousness until we were well underway.”