Night of Masks and Knives (The Broken Kingdoms Book 4)

He would not die. I would go to battle against the All Father himself if the gods tried to take Kase from me.

With the storm wall in place, skydguard trapped behind, I hurried to check the pulse point on his wrist. The beat came uneven. Kase’s shoulder was burned and bleeding; the liquid seared straight through his guarders and tunic. “Tova! Where is Tova?”

″Here,” she said weakly.

I cursed under my breath. She leaned against the wall of the alley, holding a bloody wound in her stomach.

″I’m fine,” she said through a wince. “Truly, it looks worse than it is.” Vali murmured something until she smiled as he helped her to her feet. “I might need help—” she winced again, “in helping him, though.”

I nodded as though she personally gave me the charge of overseeing Kase’s care.

″Malin,” Raum said. “We need to move him.”

Kase snapped up. Blood stained the side of his face. He tried to shove me away, or perhaps he reached for me.

In the end his hand simply fell in mine. I held it and looked to Raum. “Move him where?”

My voice broke. I would not lose him here. Not like this, not when too much had been left unsaid.

″Our way out is just down there, but these gates aren’t going to hold forever.” Raum glanced at the storm gate. The skydguard still pounded on the wood. “Get him up, boys.”

Lynx and Gunnar forced Kase to stand. Around the corner, a man with voluptuous brown hair, toasted skin, and a wickedly playful smile on his face flicked open a gold pocket watch and examined the time.

″Rough night, my friends?” His eyes slid to Kase and Tova. ”Nish, what’s happened?”

″A heavy dose of eldrish,” Lynx said. “And Tova angered the wrong skydguard.”

Tova smiled, but it was more a grimace. “I did my best.”

The man made a face and hurried to Kase’s side. “Dammit. I don’t know if I’ve got anything strong enough whipped up to help eldrish, but Tova, my lovely friend, we’ll get you patched up in no time.”

″He’s not going to make it if I don’t start working on him now,” I said, shoving my way through.

″Mediski?” the stranger asked.

″No, but I know mending well enough.” Truth be told, I wasn’t sure I did. Not with this.

″Come on then. I’ll at least get some herbs.”

Kase had settled against Lynx’s shoulder, and I didn’t think he was entirely conscious. Only once I stepped through the door to the house did I realize the building on the street was a front for a hideout underground. The stairwell rounded two times before the stranger stopped in front of another door with a mat to wipe mud from shoes.

″Junius,” he called out. “We’ve a total mess coming in.”

I expected the underground house to smell earthy, moldy maybe, but inside the air was fresh with a hint of cinnamon. Furnishings with real satin thread decorated the front sitting room, but the breadth of the house went on for lengths under the streets. I steadied Kase from behind, warmth from his skin on my hand; I prayed he stayed warm.

A woman with silk beaded ribbons braided in her dark hair peered around a corner. A delicate gold chain crowned her forehead, and two silver studs pierced her cheeks. She had beautiful dark skin with warm brown eyes.

″Niklas,” she said in a gasp. “What’s happened?”

″Eldrish.” He pressed a kiss to the side of her head. “And Tova will need your steady hands with a needle.”

″Is there a place we can lie him down?” I asked. We’d exchange introductions later.

″Yes, this way.” She led us into a large kitchen space, even larger than the cooking area back home. Junius moved a set of wooden bowls and a half-eaten loaf of bread from a long carving table. “Rest him here.”

With Kase losing strength, then jumping awake the next moment, it was an ordeal of clever maneuvering and leveraging from me, Raum, and Lynx to get him onto the carving block.

″No, don’t touch me,” he muttered and tried to shove us away. Who was he fighting? His voice wasn’t the bold tremble of confidence. To me, he sounded terrified.

″Kase, stop,” I begged.

My voice brought him clarity and his hand covered the side of my face. “Malin?”

″I’m right here.”

His eyes fluttered. “I thought . . .” He winced and shouted his pain.

Lynx stepped between us and rested his hand over Kase’s chest until he went limp, breaths shallow.

″He’s fading,” Lynx said. “But he’ll be calm. Help him, Malin. Please. I know nothing about mending.”

I’d never seen the meaty Kryv so discomposed.

I was no mender, no Mediski, but I’d studied herbs and learned some about fixing wounds from Sasha, Ansel’s wife, back home. I brushed my hair off my face. “Kase, you’re not dying today.” The words came out like a command. “You are not dying, do you hear me?”

I wiped my hand under my nose, unbothered I was crying, and inspected the wet blisters on his skin.

″What did you do, you bleeding fool?” Junius whispered at my side, her eyes on Kase. Her hand fell to my shoulder. “Niklas will be here to help the moment he has something mixed. Until then, what do you need?”

″Clean towels and water. Oh, and shears if you have them.”

Junius nodded and left immediately.

I washed my hands with a soap pearl near one of the basins and offered Junius a quick thanks when she returned holding silver shears and stacks of towels.

″Can you help him?” Lynx asked in an oddly small voice.

″Yes,” I said with confidence, but I didn’t even know what I was mending. Wetting a towel, I rested it over his shoulder to cool the skin and started cutting the neckline of his dark tunic. “This is the same poison that burned Gunnar, yes?”

Lynx nodded. “Blocks mesmer but can kill Alvers from the toxins. It’s what makes magisk collars. Dumped on him in such a way . . .” Lynx shook his head and didn’t say anything more.

″I will help him.”

I tied my hair off my neck and started cutting away the Nightrender’s tunic. Ash peeked his head into the kitchen. Possibly, the boy was paler. “Is he . . .”

″No, Ash,” I said gently. “He’s only sleeping.”

The boy’s chin quivered. At times, Ash showed little emotion, simply factual and knowing, but his dark eyes were wet. “D-Don’t let him hurt.” He scrubbed his hands together and tried to bite back the tears.

″I’ll take care of him, but I need you to go help Tova and stay with Hanna. Will you do that for me?”

Ash’s face brightened in relief at having a task and allowed Lynx to lead him out of the room.

I wiped my clammy hands on my dress and kept cutting Kase’s clothes.

The threads embedded into his skin, and he jolted whenever I picked at the bloody pieces. Twine hung around his neck, and a sob scraped from my throat at the sight of what was on the end. The wooden raven I’d returned, but the second pendant was a terribly shaped rose with rough-cut petals.

My fingertips brushed over the wooden charm. The rose he’d carved for me, then told me he got to wear it to keep a piece of me with him while I kept his raven with me.

No matter how much he fought against it, the truth was the Nightrender had gripped onto the kinder parts of the past the same as me. He hadn’t rejected everything, and the boy I once knew was still there. Locked inside shadows and blood and hate.

I wiped my brow when the shoulder was cleaned and slimed in herb balms Niklas brought while he drifted between Tova and Kase.

He was an Elixist, no mistake, for he said he had nothing whipped up, but soon the carving block was laden in pungent mixes to bring relief to Kase’s burning skin.

Alone now, sweat dripped down the side of my face by the time the blisters stopped oozing. Nudging him onto one shoulder, Kase’s bare back faced me, and all along the planes of his muscle were masses of taut scars. Angry skin spanned the wing of his left shoulder to his hip bone.

I blinked through tears and a rush of violence against those who’d harmed him. Only hatred and torture could have done this. “What happened to you?”

My fingertips touched his face with soft strokes. He wouldn’t die here today. He’d live, and by the gods, if he wanted vengeance against those who’d harmed him, I would be the first to lift a blade on his behalf.

In many ways the boy I once knew was dead.

Yet, watching him sleep now that his wounds were cleaned, I could see him behind the anger of the Nightrender.

Tova winced as she slipped a clean tunic over her bandaged side.

I bit my thumbnail and waited for her to sit beside me. “Tova, tell me everything. No more secrets. I need to know what happened to him.”

She hung her head and picked up a bowl of potato stew Junius brought. Mine had gone cold. “It’s not my story—”

″His story is your story. Please,” I said with a touch of desperation. “Tell me. I don’t understand what happened. How did he become a Kryv?”

″The same way we all did.” Tova leaned back in her chair. “We met because we were to be trained to be more of the Lord Magnate’s loyal Alvers. But we were placed to protect the youngest son of Ivar.”

″Not Heir Magnate Niall, but—”

″Luca Grym, yes.” Tova scrubbed her face nervously. “We were to serve him, protect him, and I suppose be his friends since he was rarely allowed outdoors. In the meantime, Ivar experimented on us. Mesmer fascinates the Lord Magnate. It’s as if he wants to test every Alver’s limits to know who could be a threat to him or who is simply unique. There is something strange about Ivar and the way Alvers become loyal to him.”

″How did he not gain your loyalty?”

″Because of Luca,” she said. “He made countless appeals that his personal Alvers would be his. Ivar hurt us, but he could never take us for his own.”

I blinked back tears. “You’re not lying?”

″I wish. Ivar likes to begin his manipulation young.”

″No doubt with his mesmer.” Most believed Ivar to be a Hypnotik, but I suspected there was more to the Lord Magnate. No illusion could keep so many Alvers at his righthand side for so long.

″I’m fortunate enough not to know what his mesmer can do. But whatever his Talent is, it does wretched things to the mind, and no one falters in their love for the Lord Magnate,” Tova said. “He’s convinced folk their Alver children will find academia at the Black Palace. Young ones are sent each turn with their families believing it is to be a refuge where they can learn of their mesmer, but it’s all so Ivar can have his puppets. I was nearly too old for his liking at thirteen.”

″Thirteen is young.”

″They preferred younger. Ash and Hanna were born in the Black Palace. Most of the skydguard on watch . . .” Tova squeezed her eyes shut, “took an interest in the female Alvers.”

″Tova,” I whispered, taking her hand.

She sniffed and wiped a hand under her nose. “Ash and Hanna are both children of one of those guards. Their mothers were killed eventually. Ash was four when his died. Hanna, only two. Ivar didn’t want the trouble of any motherly protection while he tried to own them. But both were given to Luca because Kase told him of the little siblings. Ivar must have some affection for his youngest son because he agreed. So, Ash and Hanna have only known us as their family.”

My heart was in shambles. “How did he discover Kase was an Alver? We . . . we snuck into the masque, but we were careful about giving away any hint we had mesmer.”

″I don’t know why he was taken,” she said. “He says neither does he.”

The way she spoke, I had a feeling Tova didn’t believe Kase. The secrets the man kept were not only with me. He hid a great deal from everyone.

After a pause, Tova chuckled. “Kase was different than the rest of us, you know. He was clever, always resisting the Lord Magnate. He and Luca loved causing trouble.”

I wiped away a tear, smiling as I remembered him not so differently. “Sounds like Kase. He always had schemes, but were you really friends with the Lord Magnate’s son?”

I found it impossible to love anything to do with Ivar.

″I’m not sure we knew much about friendship then, but I still say yes. Luca was as much a prisoner as us in some ways.”

″Then how did you escape?”

″When Luca was sent to the academies in Furen to study, the vow Ivar made ended. Kase was set to serve the Lord Magnate instead. Ivar wants no one more than him, the boy he could never break. After Luca was gone, Kase fought back. The short version: we followed his lead. The gods were on our side. Doors opened, few guards were on watch, and we managed to escape.”

Thoughts tumbled in a strange cataclysm. I didn’t wonder why Kase buried his past, how could he not? Becoming the Nightrender was how he survived. “How long ago did you escape?”

″About five turns ago.”

I squeezed Tova’s hand. Her life had been loveless, joyless, yet she still smiled. Still had kindness. “I wish you had not been treated in such a way.”

She leaned her head on my shoulder. “But it has made me who I am, and I will always be grateful for that.”

″It is a good thing to be grateful for.” I smiled. “I should check on his welts until you are well enough.”

″I could do with some sleep,” she told me through a yawn and went to the door. “Thank you for helping him, perhaps you have a bit of Mediski in you.”

″Don’t say that until you see how poorly I mended his shoulder.”

″Will you be all right alone?”

I nodded with a soft smile. “I’m not afraid of Kase Eriksson.