A Dirge for Princes (A Throne for Sisters—Book Four)

CHAPTER ONE Kate sprinted for the docks Finnael had told her about, moving faster than anyone else could have, praying that she would be in time. The vision of her sister lying gray and dead haunted her, pushing her forward with all the speed her powers could give her. Sophia couldn’t be dead. She couldn’t. Kate could see the royal soldiers down in the village, pulling together now around their leader. Another time, Kate might have stopped to fight them, simply for the harm that the Dowager had done in her life. Now, though, there was no time. She ran for the boats, trying to pick out the one Sophia had been on in her vision. She saw it ahead, a dual-masted vessel with a seahorse for a prow. She ran for it, leaping as she got close to clear the railing and land lightly on the deck of the ship. She could see sailors staring at her, some of them reaching for weapons. If they had done anything to harm her sister, she would kill every last one of them. “Where is my sister?” she demanded, the words ringing out. Perhaps they recognized the resemblance, even though Kate was shorter and more muscled than Sophia, and her hair was hacked boyishly short. They pointed mutely toward the cabin at the rear of the ship. As she stormed toward it, Kate saw a large, balding, bearded man struggling back to his feet. “What happened here?” she demanded. “Quickly, I think my sister is in danger.” “Your sister is Sophia?” the man said. He still looked confused by whatever had knocked him down. “There was a man… he hit me. Your sister is in the cabin.” Kate didn’t hesitate. She walked to the cabin and kicked the door hard enough to splinter it open. Inside… She saw a forest cat in one corner, large and gray-furred, growling softly. She saw Sebastian there, kneeling there with a dagger in his hands, wet with blood almost to the wrists. He was howling with tears, but that meant nothing. A man could cry with remorse, or with guilt, just as easily as anything else. On the floor beside him, Kate could see Sophia, lying corpse still, her flesh as gray as anything Kate had seen in her vision. There was blood pooling on the floor beside her, and a wound in her chest that could only have come from one weapon. “She’s dead, Kate,” Sebastian said, looking over at her. “She’s dead.” “You’re dead,” Kate bellowed. She’d told Sebastian once that she couldn’t forgive the way he’d hurt Sophia. This, though, was beyond anything he’d done before. He’d tried to murder her sister. Anger flooded through Kate then, and she surged forward. She hit Sebastian, knocking him away from her sister. He rolled up, the knife still in his hand. “Kate, I don’t want to hurt you.” “Like you hurt my sister?” Kate kicked him in the stomach and then grabbed his arm, wrenching it until the knife clattered to the floor. He managed to pull clear before she could break the limb, but Kate wasn’t done with him yet. “Kate, I didn’t do this, I—” “Liar!” She ran forward, grabbing him and bundling him back through the doorway as much through speed as through the enhanced strength the fountain had given her. She burst out into the sunlight with him, then managed to get a grip on Sebastian’s legs, lifting him. She flung him over the side of the ship to plunge down toward the docks. He landed on them headfirst, sprawling bonelessly in unconsciousness. Kate wanted to jump down after him. Wanted to kill him. There was no time though. She had to get back to Sophia. “If he wakes up,” Kate said to the captain, “kill him.” “I’d do it now,” the big man said, “but I have to get this ship moving.” Kate saw him point to where the royal soldiers were descending on the ship, moving toward it with grim determination. “Do what you can,” Kate said. “I have to help my sister.” She ran back into the cabin. Sophia was still too still, too bloodied. Kate couldn’t see her chest rising or falling. Only the faintest flicker of thoughts within her told Kate that there was any life there at all. Kate knelt by her, trying to gather herself, trying to remember what Finnael the sorcerer had taught her. He’d brought a plant back to lush green life, but Sophia wasn’t a plant, she was Kate’s sister. Kate reached for the space within her where she could see the energy around things, where she could see the soft golden glow that had faded almost to nothing around Sophia. She could feel that energy now, and Kate could remember what it had felt like to pull energy out of the plant, but pulling energy away wasn’t what she needed to do. She reached out, seeking other sources of energy, seeking the power that she needed to do this. She sank into it, trying to find any energy that she could. Kate could feel it then; feel it beyond the confines of this room, beyond the narrow bounds that defined her own flesh. She felt it then, the instant of connection so huge, so overwhelming, that Kate didn’t think she could hold onto it. It was too much, but if it meant saving Sophia, Kate had to find a way to do it. She grabbed for the power around her… …and found herself feeling the whole of the kingdom, every life, every hint of power. Kate could feel the plants and the animals, the people and the things that represented older, stranger powers. Kate could feel it, and she knew what the energy was: it was life, it was magic. She took power as delicately as she could, in fragments from a hundred places. Kate felt a patch of grass brown in the Ridings, a few leaves fall from trees on the slopes of Monthys. She only took the barest amount from each place, not wanting to do more harm than that. Even so, it felt like trying to contain a flood. Kate screamed with the effort of trying to contain it all, but she held. She had to. Kate poured it into Sophia, trying to regulate it all, trying to force it to do what she wanted. With the plant it had simply been a case of adding energy, but would that work here? Kate hoped so, because she wasn’t sure that she knew enough about healing wounds to do anything else. She gave Sophia the energy that she’d borrowed from the world, bolstering the thin gold line of her life, trying to build it into something more. Slowly, so slowly that it was almost imperceptible, Kate saw the wound start to close. She kept going, until the flesh there was perfect, but there was still more to do. It wasn’t enough to have a perfect-looking corpse. She kept pushing energy into her sister, hoping against hope that it would be enough. Finally she saw Sophia’s chest start to rise and fall once more. Her sister was breathing on her own, and for the first time, Kate had the sense that she wasn’t going to die. Relief flooded through her at that thought. Sophia didn’t wake, though, her eyes staying closed no matter how much energy Kate used. Kate wasn’t sure that she could hold onto the power any longer. She let it go, falling back to the deck in exhaustion as if she’d just run a dozen leagues. That was when she heard the shouts of fighting from beyond the cabin. Kate forced herself to her feet, and it wasn’t easy. Even if the energy to restore Sophia hadn’t come from her, channeling it had still taken an effort. Kate managed to stand, drawing her blade and making it to the door. Beyond, soldiers in royal uniforms were forcing their way onto the ship, while sailors struggled to push them back. She saw the captain charge forward, cutting a man down using a long knife, while another sailor pushed a man back from the railing with a billhook. She also saw a sailor killed by the thrust of a soldier’s sword, another fall backward as a pistol sounded. Kate all but staggered forward, managing to lunge with a thrust that took a soldier through the armpit, but barely managing to parry a blow from the butt of a musket. She stumbled and the man stood over her, reversing the weapon to bring a bayonet to bear. Then Kate heard a roar, and the forest cat leapt past her, slamming into the man, its teeth ripping into his throat. The beast snarled and leapt at another, and now the soldiers hesitated, pulling back. Kate had to kneel there and watch it, because she was too exhausted to do more than that. When she saw one of the soldiers aiming a pistol at the cat, she drew a dagger and threw it overhand. The weapon went off and he fell back from the boat. Kate saw the cat leap over the side, onto the docks, and a second later she heard a scream as it struck again. “Get this boat out to sea!” she yelled. “We’re dead if we stay here!” The sailors leapt to do it, and Kate forced herself up again, trying to plug the gap. Some fought, and they were like defenders at a parapet, pushing back the clambering foes. The forest cat snapped and snarled, leaping at those who forced their way aboard, swiping with claws and clamping down with needle-sharp teeth. Kate didn’t know when her sister had acquired a companion like that, but it was certainly loyal—and deadly. If she had been at full strength, she might have taken on the soldiers by herself, moving among them, running and killing. As it was, she could barely muster the energy to thrust down at them alongside the sailors. Those pushed past Kate, as if trying to shield her from the fighting. Kate just wanted them to focus on getting the ship away from the docks. Slowly, the ship did start to move. The sailors used oars and long poles to push it clear, and Kate felt the shift of the deck under their efforts. A solider leapt at the ship and fell short, falling between the boat and the docks. Below, Kate saw the forest cat still snarling and killing, hemmed in by soldiers. Kate suspected that her sister wouldn’t want her companion abandoned, and in any case, the forest cat had saved them. She couldn’t just leave it. “You need to get aboard,” she yelled, then realized the stupidity of expecting it to understand that. Instead, she summoned up the little power she had left, wrapping the need to get aboard with an image of the boat leaving, and threw it at the creature. It turned its head, sniffed the air once, and bounded for the boat. Kate saw its muscles bunch, and then it leapt. Its claws dug into the wood of the ship as it pulled itself up the side, and then it settled on the railing pushing its head against Kate’s hand and purring. Kate stumbled back, feeling the solidity of a mast at her back. She all but slid down it to the deck, sitting there because she no longer had the strength to stand. But that didn’t matter anymore. They were already well away from the docks, only a few scattered shots marking the presence of their attackers there. They’d done it. They were safe, and Sophia was alive. At least for now.