Royal Blood, Page 2

  * * *

  The sun rose behind the smoke-gray clouds of the Grimdark the next morning, and Rheine found herself alone with her brother in their dwelling. She could see through the windows that the house was completely surrounded by guards. Her brother sat hunched in a corner, puzzling over a game with cubic pieces.

  She threw on her tunic and scrambled onto the floor beside him. “Hey, where’s Daddy?” she whispered.

  He looked up at her and pointed to one of the armed guards pacing just outside. The Grimdark was teeming with them.

  “I was afraid of that.” Rheine gulped down a handful of raisins and grabbed her dagger and the key to her blackwind. “Did you get a chance to look at the brakes like I asked?” Her brother smiled back at her, and she nodded. “Back in a few, I hope.”

  A guard stood right outside her door, shifting his weight left and right in the mud. People from the upper city always had to adjust to the Grimdark; the ground was like quicksand. Barely sinking as she tiptoed across the soft terrain, Rheine crept behind the guard and unsheathed her dagger. She secured his skull with one hand and slit his throat with the other in one swift motion. The guard gurgled to the ground in a bloody heap. He didn’t seem to be carrying anything of value, so Rheine started her blackwind and took off for the castle. If she used the sewer entrance she’d be found out in no time. She had to play dumb if she wanted her plan to work, and that was something she hated.

  Soldiers shouted and launched spears after her, but they sank into the mud behind her rear tire as she sped off, leaning low and carving a new path. Wynn Castle was visible in the distance behind the veil of fetid smog that was the Grimdark, and her vehicle bounced against the solid green earth as she left her home behind. The engine roared as she twisted it into a higher gear. The wheels were specially made for dealing with wet, supple ground, but it was more than capable of handling arid, stony conditions as well.

  A pair of soldiers wielding lances and tall shields appeared from behind the gate as she approached the drawbridge. The horses they’d mounted whinnied and charged, hooves kicking up dust. The guards intended to run her through.

  Keeping her blackwind steady with one hand, she took her dagger into the other and reversed the blade. She crouched even lower, preparing herself and the bike to slide. She’d make contact with the guards in soon, and their lances sooner. She leaned her body to the side. Tires squealed in protest as she began to move forward in tight circles along the ground that threw up clumps of grass and showers of rich, dark soil.

  Rheine narrowed her eyes and held her wrist tight, letting her arm flow with the impact. Her dagger slid into the left horse’s ankles as they crossed paths. Her bike continued to spiral almost parallel to the earth, and her blade clipped the hind leg of another horse. One last spin revealed both men struggling to control their steeds as they fell to the ground, crushed by the sheer weight of their panicked beasts.

  She righted herself again, slid the dagger away, and continued across the drawbridge into the courtyard. The main gate was just ahead, opened and revealing dozens more guards standing with their weapons raised. She swerved her blackwind to the side and tapped the brake. Pulled it. Squeezed it, all to no avail.

  She looked up again. The guards were getting closer, their weapons looming, and the castle walls seemed as dense and impenetrable as ever.

  She spat a curse and jumped from her bike, trying to roll onto the ground and finding that the speed was simply too great. Her leg snapped painfully, hyper extended at the knee, and her world went dark.

  * * *

  When Rheine opened her eyes again, she was sitting in the throne room. Kneeling, forcibly. Her hands were chained behind her back, and guards held each of her shoulders. Her father knelt to her right, bruised and beaten. His eyes were swollen shut; she didn’t even notice two of her own fingers had been broken, and it would be weeks before she could walk again.

  The queen stood before both of them, glaring and fuming in silence. She snapped her fingers, and a guard standing at attention came to her side. He pulled Rheine’s dagger from a strap at his belt and slid it across the ground toward her. Rheine ground her teeth.

  “Is this what you used to murder Viscount Gildre?” the queen asked. She crossed her arms in front of her purple bodice and tapped her elbow with a gloved finger. “I’m waiting.”

  Rheine reared her head back and spat at the queen’s feet. One of the guards struck the girl in the back of the head with an armored fist, sending a shudder of pain into her body.

  The queen stepped over Rheine’s liquid disrespect and looked her in the eyes. “Did you honestly believe I wouldn’t suspect someone from the Grimdark? Did you truly think I wouldn’t know it was you?”

  “I could ask you the same question, now that I’ve got your attention,” Rheine mumbled, still shaking.

  The queen scowled, hands trembling with the desire to slap the girl in her mouth. “What was that, you little wretch?”

  “You thought you could just throw us into the Grimdark? Did we inconvenience you so, Your Grace?” Rheine’s lips trembled with a seething hatred. “Evil deeds don’t disappear just because you hide them in the—”

  The queen brought her hand across the girl’s face with a crack.

  Rheine wrinkled her nose, cheeks flushed with rage. “I was abandoned by my mother and left to die! You think a slap means anything? You think that comes anywhere close to being the worst thing you’ve done to me?”

  “P-please... What she says is...” Rheine’s father sputtered, struggling to keep his head aloft.

  The queen inhaled sharply and leaned even closer. “Leaving you and that idiot brother of yours behind was the best decision I ever made.” She rose at her waist and gave a gesture of her hand. “The gallows with both of them.”

  Rheine saw it again as she and her father were dragged off. She didn’t kick. Didn’t scream. She was mesmerized—haunted—by the image of her mother’s rage. Yet another barren daughter to be tossed into the wastelands with the others. Yet another princess cast into that living graveyard.

  When she came to again, a hundred upper-class onlookers were standing below her, faces blank in anticipation. They began to chant, slowly, until the buzz became a roar in her ears. She closed her eyes again, thankful that the memories would finally end.

  The ground beneath her disappeared, and the rope snapped tight.