The King Slayer Part 5

"Point." Fifer raises a hand.

"You're scoring?" I retrieve my sword.

She nods. "If you win, you choose your next test."

"And if Schuyler wins?"

"He does."

"Again, bijoux." Schuyler steps toward me.

I lunge forward and attack, but he's ready. He blocks, then blocks again. Frustrated, I drop to the ground and swipe my leg under his. He's not expecting this; he stumbles and I throw up my other leg, kick him in the groin.

Schuyler falls to one knee, groaning a catalog of curses. I toss my sword aside and jump him; he's not expecting this, either. We hit the ground, rolling over and over. He hooks an arm around my throat, throws me to my back, pins me there. I jam a thumb into his eye, an old trick. He yelps like a child, rushes at me with a roar. Slams on top of me, reaching for my wrists, trying to pin me. But before he can, I yank a dagger from my belt, thrust it against his throat. The blade pierces his skin, a drop of curiously black blood bubbling to the surface.

"Point," Fifer calls. I glance at her. She's grinning.

Schuyler gets to his feet, a shadow of pain etched across his face. He swipes at the blood on his neck, glances at it, then at me. His blue eyes glitter with antagonism.

"Again."

AS IT DID THE FIRST time around, training exhausts me.

Most days I fall asleep before the sun sets, only to wake with the kick of a boot against my door at dawn, Schuyler and Fifer bidding me to rise, to get dressed, to follow them to whatever new test they've devised for me. Day after day the tests get harder, more painful, draw more blood. But day by day I get stronger, more confident, less afraid.

In the week since I began training and John left with the Watch, he's written to me twice, both letters delivered in the bony clutches of his falcon, Horace. He tells me about the patrol along the border: uneventful. He tells me how he is: tired. Horace perches on my windowsill, patiently preening his feathers as I write back, telling John about my training with Fifer and Schuyler. I don't mention how hard it is, I don't mention how I ache. In reply, he doesn't tell me to stop; he only tells me he misses me.

On the evening John is due to return home, I'm determined to stay awake long enough to see him. I lost today's scrimmage with Schuyler and he sentenced me to a ten-mile run, fully armed, through the hills of Whetstone. My muscles scream for rest, but I manage to stay awake.

I lie in my white bed, the quartered moon s.h.i.+ning through squared panes, sending pale shafts of light along the floor and up the darkened walls. The cottage is quiet tonight: There's no patter of rain on the roof, no winged rustle of an odd barn owl or the soft tapping of branches against the window. I've got an ear half c.o.c.ked, listening for the door to finally open, for the familiar thud of footsteps on creaky stairs. The only thing that breaks the silence is the clock on the mantel downstairs, softly chiming out the hours.

Twelve. One. Two.

I don't remember hearing the clock chime three, so I suppose I drifted off. But then I hear the smallest whisper of noise, hovering just above me. I feel a smile work its way across my face.

"You're back." My voice is sleepy, half dreaming. "I tried to stay awake for you, but..." I trail off, wait for his hand in my hair, for the familiar weight of him as he sinks into the mattress beside me.

"Playing cottage with a new paramour, are we? How sweet." The voice is oily, dripping with sarcasm, and it's not John's.

My eyes fly open.

Looming above me, a figure in all black. Black hooded cloak, black heavy boots, and a black, stupid smile. And it's a figure I recognize: Fulke Aughton. A witch hunter.

I lurch to sit up, but Fulke slams his hand around my throat, forcing me back down.

Fulke was the lowest-ranked of all Blackwell's recruits. The slowest, the clumsiest, the most fearful. Caleb and the others called him Fluke Naughton-they reckoned he made it through training by a combination of sheer accident and luck. To see him here, in my bedroom, my first feeling isn't fear, nor is it dread. It's outrage.

I jam my thumb into his eyeball. Fulke bites back a grunt of pain, then s.n.a.t.c.hes my hand, twisting my thumb back so far I hear a pop as the bone dislocates from the joint. I let out a gasp, but I refuse to scream. Not for him.

I reach up, grasp the back of Fulke's head with both my hands, and slam my forehead into his. Fulke, the idiot, bites his tongue, hard, and lets out a strangled cry. He backs away from the bed and I leap on top of the mattress and launch myself at him. He's caught off guard and the two of us stagger backward into the white brick fireplace. We hit the hearth and I jump off him, grab his head again, and slam it into the brick. Fulke lets out another cry and drops to his knees. I s.n.a.t.c.h a poker from the fireplace, hold the sharp end to the vein on the side of his neck. He's trapped between the wall and me, and neither of us is yielding.

There aren't a lot of ways to kill a witch hunter. But a broken neck or a knife to the jugular or a sword to the eye or ear, something that penetrates to the brain, that's something not even a stigma would be able to heal.

"What are you doing here?" I keep my eyes on his. As long as he's looking at me, he won't try anything. It's another reason Fulke isn't a good witch hunter. He's not smart enough to plan a move without first s.h.i.+fting his eyes to the target, alerting them to his next move.

"I don't have to tell you anything."

"I hold the weapon, I make the rules," I say. "If you want to see the sun rise, tell me why you're here."

"No."

I thrust the poker into his neck and with a tiny popping noise, the point breaks the skin. I can just see his blood in the pale moonlight, a running rivulet down his neck.

"Stop!" His voice is a high-pitched whine.

"Why are you here?" I repeat.

"Why do you think?" Fulke's brown eyes are steady on mine. "We're here to bring you back to Blackwell."

A pause, then it sinks in. "We?"

Fulke's eyes flick to the window. I whirl around just as it slams open and there, sitting on the ledge, is another witch hunter in all black: Griffin Talbot. Short blond hair, dark blue eyes, handsome and charismatic, a friend of Caleb's and a favorite of Blackwell's. Unlike Fulke, Griffin isn't slow. Nor is he stupid, or clumsy, or fearful. He's everything a witch hunter should be: Smart. Strong. Fast.

Deadly.

"Fluke, you idiot." Griffin slides off the ledge, his heavy boots a menacing thud against the floor. He saunters toward us, his gaze traveling from Fulke, still on his knees with his back against the fireplace and my poker in his neck, to me crouched beside him in a thin white linen nightdress, low cut and trimmed with pale pink ribbons, my hair spilling down my back.

Griffin smirks.

"You're looking well these days, Elizabeth," he says. "I was never one for your particular brand of charm, but perhaps I was wrong." His eyes roam the length of my body; I'll gouge them out given half a chance. "Being a traitor becomes you."

I fire off a string of obscenities.

"Enchanting, as always." Griffin switches his attention to Fulke. "You had one job," he says. "Watch a sleeping girl while I checked the house. Jesus, Fluke. She had you against the wall in under a minute, and she's not even dressed. Nor was she armed. Unless she sleeps with a fire poker under her pillow."

Fulke pouts. "You know who she is."

Griffin shrugs and turns back to me. "I didn't know you had it in you, Grey. Your healer gets killed and you go and cozy up with his father?"

Fulke lets out a sycophantic laugh. "That's right. Who do you think you are? Myrrha?"

"No, that's not Myrrha," Griffin says. "Myrrha was in love with her own father. Not her lover's father."

"Jocasta, then?"

"No, she's the one who married her son."

I tune out their bickering as my stomach drops. John? Killed? But that's not possible. He's got my stigma, they couldn't have killed him. He can't be dead, he can't be...

That's when it occurs to me, with a sigh of relief they don't hear: The night of the masque, Blackwell stabbed John-but Blackwell left before Fifer transferred my stigma to him. They think John is dead, and they think I'm still what I was.

I think fast. Two witch hunters in my room, one I could easily kill, another who could easily kill me. John and Peter are still gone, but that could change any minute. John could hold his own in a fight, at least for a while. Peter, too. But Griffin is good-too good. He's an excellent strategist; his only weakness is he gets too aggressive in the heat of battle and makes stupid mistakes. But this won't be a battle, it'll be a ma.s.sacre. Unless...

Schuyler. I think his name in my head; I shout it. They're here. Witch hunters. Two of them, inside my room, they're here...

"...no, Nyx and Erebus were siblings. Jesus, Fluke. Remind me to tell Blackwell to send you back to remedial-"

"Shut it, Griffin."

"Blackwell must be hard-pressed for help if he's sending Fulke to do his dirty work." I break into their ridiculous conversation. Maybe if I get Griffin talking, I can buy time for Schuyler to reach me.

"Not hard-pressed at all," Griffin says. "It's an honor to serve the king. The rightful king."

"Blackwell is not the rightful king."

"He's the one sitting on the throne. That seems rightful enough to me."

"What are you doing these days, now that Blackwell's a wizard and witchcraft isn't against the law?" I ask. "Do you call yourself witch hunters still?"

"We're knights now," Griffin replies. "Knights of the Anglian Royal Empire."

"Fulke is a knight?" I glance at the motto st.i.tched beneath the herald on their cloaks. In Gallic it reads Honte celui qui ne peut pas atteindre. Shame be to him who achieves less.

I scoff then. I can't help it. "They got the shame part right anyway."

Griffin doesn't reply.

"How many of you are there?" I continue. "Is it just witch hunters? Or is Blackwell recruiting new members?"

"Nice try, Grey," Griffin says. "I'm not telling you a d.a.m.ned thing."

"What are you going to do, then?" I say. "Try to kill me? Because I'll tell you right now, that won't end well for you."

"Always picking a fight, aren't you?" Griffin tuts. "No, we aren't here to kill you. But then, we don't kill. We never did. Just you. You're the one who kills."

I'm the one who kills.

"I saw Caleb's body," he continues. "When Blackwell brought it back. You know, I always thought you had a thing for him. Caleb, that is. The way you followed him around, made sheep's eyes at him. We all saw it. Then we saw his body. The way you flayed him open, eviscerated him, really. You must have hated him. Deep down, you must have. Maybe because he didn't care for you back. Not in that way, anyway."

Griffin's trying to rattle me, and it's working. I can feel Fulke beside me, loosening his posture, about to make a move. I can feel myself disconnecting from this moment and moving into another, into the past where I see Caleb coming, where I stay my hand, where I don't kill him...

"Grab her, Fluke."

Before Fulke can make a move, I shove the fire poker into his neck until the point thrusts out the other side.

Blood hurls itself across my face with a sickening splash. Fulke slumps to the boards, thras.h.i.+ng and jerking, pawing at the poker with his hands, trying to stem the flow of his own blood spurting from his neck.

I'm on my feet but Griffin is on me in a second, his dagger raised, steel flas.h.i.+ng like lightning in the moonlight. I dodge it once, duck from it twice; he won't miss a third. I back across the room, stumble into the wardrobe. Griffin lunges for me; I throw open the wardrobe door, hear a crunch as his face meets wood, then his muttered curse. I scramble over the bed, s.n.a.t.c.hing my bedsheet as I go, balling the white linen in my fist. Rush to the window, smash my fist through it. The broken gla.s.s falls in satisfyingly large shards and I s.n.a.t.c.h them up, holding them in front of me as if they were knives.

Griffin wipes the smallest smear of blood from beneath his nose. It must have broken on the wardrobe door, but it's healed now. He's watching me as he prowls around the bed, his eyes glittery with anger and the thrill of the hunt. I know that feeling, or I did: part nerves, part fear, part excitement.

I don't feel it now.

He starts for me again and I pull back, narrowly miss stepping on a shard of the broken window gla.s.s. I stumble from it, but the delay is enough. Griffin tosses his dagger to the floor, s.n.a.t.c.hes my wrists, and hauls me across the bed. I slash at him; he twists my arm, hard, to get me to release the gla.s.s. I don't. We scuffle around on the mattress, him on top of me, me thras.h.i.+ng beneath him. I knee him in the groin and he grunts in pain, rolling off me and onto the floor, dragging me with him. Somehow in the tumble the gla.s.s gets loose again, raking across my forearm, the cut smooth and sharp.

I slap my hand over my skin but it's too late: Blood leaps from my veins and seeps between my fingers, running fast down my arm to join the rest of the blood-both mine and Fulke's-on my nightdress.

Griffin pushes me off him and scrambles to his feet. He stands there a moment, silent, pointing at my arm. "You... your arm. It's not healing," he says finally. His eyes are wide. "Why isn't it healing?"

Before I can think of what or how to reply, he grabs me by the throat, lifts me off the floor, and slams me into the wall.

"Where is it?" Another slam, then another. "What happened to it?"

My head is spinning, and not just from Griffin throttling me like a rag doll. He knows I don't have my stigma; this is nothing but trouble for me. So why is he acting as if he's the one hard put by it? If he's here to bring me back to Blackwell, he's got me right where he wants me.

A creak of a window frame. Another rumble of boots on the floor. A tsk of impatience, amus.e.m.e.nt, irritation, or all three, and there's Schuyler standing in front of the window, arms crossed, eyebrows raised. He takes in the b.l.o.o.d.y scene before him and shakes his head.

"Isn't this a treat, then? A witch hunter inside Harrow." Schuyler's eyes, alight with antic.i.p.ation, lock on to Griffin. "Managed to evade the Watch, did you?"

Griffin releases me and I slump to the floor, gasping for air. "Your watch leaves much to be desired."

Schuyler glances at Fulke, drained of blood and pale as moonlight, sprawled out beside the fireplace, the poker still crammed in his neck.

"I wouldn't go that far." Schuyler shrugs. "As they say, it's the end that counts, not the beginning. And so far, your side isn't making a very good end."

Griffin yanks the fire poker from Fulke's neck with a sickening squelch and steps toward Schuyler. He swings it slowly in front of him, droplets of blood falling onto the floor, dark as ink.

"Pyrrhic victory," Griffin says. "Whatever small wins your side manages to achieve, they'll never outweigh your losses." He looks Schuyler up and down, cold and appraising. "But let's be honest. When I kill you, I'm not sure they'll consider that a loss."

And here it is: Griffin's aggression, his overconfidence, his inability to see what's really happening. He doesn't see what I do-the malice lurking beneath the surface of Schuyler's calm demeanor, the s.h.i.+ne of violence that in a revenant is never truly tarnished.

Griffin hurls the fire poker at Schuyler as if it were a javelin. Schuyler bats it away just as Griffin yanks a sword from his scabbard, so fast it's a silver blur. He lunges toward Schuyler, blade flying. He swings the sword toward Schuyler's neck while simultaneously reaching into the bag knotted by his side, full of salt, sending a spray of it directly into Schuyler's face. It's a move Blackwell taught us: The salt is meant to blind and confuse a revenant, allowing the blade to land somewhere, anywhere. It's not meant to kill, just to stun long enough to allow for escape. Much like what I did to Schuyler the first time I met him, inside the Green Knight's tomb.

Only escape isn't Griffin's plan.

Schuyler ducks the shower of salt, evades most of it. By this time Griffin's got a dagger, a weapon in each hand now. He jabs at Schuyler, but Schuyler knocks the dagger away with ease; it flies from Griffin's hand and skitters across the floor. Then he grabs the sword with the other, wraps his fingers around the blade. I wince as it cuts into his hand, that curious black blood flooding to the surface, watch as he bends-bends-the shaft of the sword. Griffin lets go and it, too, clatters to the floor.

Schuyler holds out his palm, then squeezes it into a fist, as if wringing himself of his own blood. He steps toward Griffin, weaponless. But not powerless.

Griffin pulls out another dagger.

To watch them is to watch a game of cat and mouse. A cat swiping at the mouse, over and over, toying with it, making it think it's on equal footing just for the sport of it when you know-even if the mouse doesn't-that it never even stood a chance.

It happens so quickly then.

The dagger, knocked from Griffin's hand. A futile reach for another fireplace tool, missed. A thrown punch, also missed, a tossed piece of furniture, the dawning recognition on Griffin's face that he's out of options.

Hands on either side of the head, a quick and savage snap, and Griffin is gone. Slumped to the floor, his eyes and mouth both open, the defeat on his face a surprise, even in death. For a moment, the room falls back into the silence of before. No patter of rain, no rustling barn owl, no brus.h.i.+ng branches. Not even the chime of the clock downstairs to break the sound of my ragged breathing.