Page 2 of Between Smoke and Shadow

Dad pulls me to his chest, and I sag against him.

“I love you,” he whispers.

I’m crying too hard to say it back. I only burrow my head against his shoulder, letting the tears fall until I run out of them. When he finally pulls away, I grab his left hand. It’s the only thing visible in this blackened room. Dull magic shines through it, the red glow twisted into the shape of an Old World wolf. Magic that bears no use to him, except to trap us here. Within its mouth, dozens and dozens of marks symbolize our debt.

“Do you regret it?” I ask, the question I’ve never dared to voice. I don’t know why I do now, if I’m so desperate for compassion I’m willing to hurt him for it.

“No,” he whispers. “I loved your mother too much not to try.”

My hands shake as I hold his fingers. I was eight when Mom fell ill, when Dad attempted to steal a medicinal root to save her life. After he failed and was arrested, but before the guards came to take our family as collateral, I sat with Mom at her bedside. I counted the seconds between her last breaths, reaching nearlyone thousand before I allowed myself to believe she was really and truly dead.

“I wish you loved me that much,” I say.

They are the cruelest words I’ve ever spoken, but I don’t take them back. I release my father’s hand and lay on my side, turning to face the wall instead of him. He leaves a few minutes later, and I fall asleep, waiting for him to return.

Cycle 892 / Blizzard Season / Day 48

Harrick

When I was young,I had a servant named Quil. I considered him my closest friend, but I didn’t really know him. I was always too busy talking. I’d tell him how I hated my brother and how desperately I wanted to be king. I complained about my annoying sister and the tutors who made me feel stupid. I’d seek his help when the Architect beat me and forbid me from getting a healer. He’d do his best to tend my wounds, and he never laughed if I cried.

Even now, I don’t know if he had family or why he was working as a crowned servant so young. I knew his clothes were too small, and that he was skinny and skittish. And yet, I never realized I should help him.

Instead, I took everything he offered and only tried to give when it was too late. He had stolen bread, a foreign concept to someone like me, and had earned twenty lashings. The Architect demanded I deliver them, setting us up in the courtyard with a crowd of servants watching. And when I refused, when I publicly defied him, he removed his mask and killed Quil in front of me. He killed my friend in a matter of seconds, and I stared at themangled body like I could will it back to life. I might have tried, had the Architect not cuffed my ear and dragged me from the courtyard.

We do not show mercy, he told me. I hadn’t responded. I only trembled, feeling my body grow distant, as if it was no longer mine. My mouth wouldn’t move, even as I tried to speak. The Architect pinched my chin, hard enough that it bruised by nightfall. He said again, louder.We do not show mercy, Harrick. Especially not to them.

I think of Quil now, as I sit on my throne in that same courtyard, surrounded by a cocoon of magicked heat. Beyond this stage, the early morning air is brittle and stark, paled by an onslaught of heavy snow. My brother and sister sit to my left and my mother to the right, with the red-suited Architect across the platform. His throne, a horrible thing of cleaved bones—animal and not—is raised to shadow ours.

I dig at the rough carvings on my armrests. They’re twisted into the shape of Old World creatures: growling bears and open-mouthed lions and cackling hyenas. My scarlet attire is a drop of blood against the black throne, and the latter is a blot of ink against the snow-swept sky. I finger the rough edges as I stare out at the crowd, a shivering mass of white and yellow. There is not a blanket of heat for them. There is only crushing snow and relentless wind and the choking smell of death.

The cobblestone yard is hidden beneath a layer of thick ice, and a trail of blood traces from the prisoner holding area to the center of the square. The final man, a gaunt prisoner with startling blue eyes and blond hair so filthy it looks brown, walks barefoot to his death. His pale skin is sickly, as if the afterlife would have caught him soon, even if our guards hadn’t.

“Number 246,” the lead calls. Dressed in all-encompassing black, our guards look more like shadows than people. These ones, the royal guards, wear masks shaped like wolves.

“You are charged with conspiracy to abscond,” says the guard. His voice is deep but flat, and I try to decide whether he loves or hates this role. After many cycles, I’ve learned there’s not often an in-between. “For your attempt to evade debt owed, you now face immediate execution.”

I study the prisoner from where I sit. He wasn’t supposed to be on the death toll this morning. He was a late addition, caught by an undercover guard mere hours ago. He’d been inquiring about a smuggling operation, one that doesn’t actually exist.

Now, the man’s hands are bound behind his back, and I can make out the red outline of his indebted brand from here. His legs remain untied, but he makes no move to run. I’m sure the Architect is disappointed. It is only when they run that my father plays with them. Coils his magic between their ears as they flee, infecting their thoughts with every terrible thing they’ve ever done, until they can’t bear their own existence. They inevitably return before they reach the fenceline, and when the Architect offers them a blade, they eagerly slice their own throats.

None of our prisoners have died like that this season, but the memories are as visceral as the real thing. I steady my breathing and still my twitching hands, ignoring Mother’s heavy gaze. She has an unnatural sense for weakness, especially when it comes to mine. I don’t let myself look at her.

Instead, I study the commoners and servants. They stand in a huddled mass, their eyes covered by varying styles of masks. The commoners wear white ones, narrow but thick. The servants wear yellow, eyes covered less by a mask and more a scrap of thin veil. Above us, in the looming Tower, royals and elites watch from their viewing rooms.

“Your remaining debt shall fall to your estate,” the guard says, startling me. When the man winces, I again look through the attending servants. He has surviving family then, but they’re not here. They probably don’t know.

Prisoner 246 shifts, and the movement catches a glimmer of sunlight. His brand, a red wolf with a gaping mouth, has less than two dozen gem marks between its teeth. If I had to guess, he owes one more cycle of servitude, maybe two.

“For thievery of Amarum in Cycle 886, four hundred and twelve beryls. For attempted evasion in Cycle 892, ten thousand and two hundred sixteen beryls. All remaining debt…” the guard pauses, consulting the device on his forearm before continuing. If he notices how still the man has gone, how utterly pale and withdrawn, he doesn’t react. He only faces the crowd, announcing, “All remaining debt to prisoner 247.”

I squeeze the armrests hard enough I might crush the animal carvings. My breath stalls as I work not to make outward movements. Ten thousand is an insurmountable sum, surpassing fifty cycles if there is only one person carrying it. I watch the servant, and then the guard. He stands tall, chin tipped high, and I have my answer from earlier. He is, without a doubt, relishing in this man’s torture.

“No.” The word is whispered, yet it somehow vibrates through the entire courtyard. I look back to the servant. His body is stiff and there’s no touch of emotion on his expression. But there’s something in his eyes, barely visible from behind his ratted veil. “I only have one—one daughter. The debt is too?—”

“Fifteen thousand,” the Architect interrupts. He rises from his throne, striding to stand above the guard and his prisoner. “Question my guard again, and it will be twenty.”

Now the man lets out an animalistic sob. His face barely moves, but that look in his eyes flares into something recognizable. Not anger or ferocity…no, it’s hopeless devastation.

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