Chapter 125: New Captain

"Unfortunately, it has been more than a week since Captain Rashford went missing. Because of this, a new captain shall be appointed today."

The voice belonged to a man in dark brown robes, a cloak pulled so far over his head that nothing of his face could be seen. He stood at the foot of the podium with his hands folded in his sleeves, and he spoke in the flat, patient tone of someone who had delivered a thousand verdicts and enjoyed none of them.

I had never learned his name.

I had never heard anyone dare to ask.

The throne room was larger than I had imagined.

It was a vast, round hall on the fifth floor, with crimson windows climbing the walls like open wounds, and in its center stood a round table of black wood.

Eight chairs circled it. Eight captains sat in them, three senior and five lesser.

I had learned that number only a week ago.

I had believed there were three. It was a humbling thing, to realize how much of the palace I had never seen.

The three senior captains sat with their backs straight, the dragon-and-fang tattoos beside their eyes catching the light.

The five lesser ones sat beside them with the nervous stillness of men who knew exactly how small their chairs were.

Captain Daniel was among the seniors, his red hair tied back, his gaze fixed on the table as though it might contain a prayer.

An empty chair stood among them. It had been empty for eight days.

Along the sides of the room, in long, stiff lines, stood the soldiers of each faction.

I was in Daniel’s, between Jeffrey and Martha, in my green shirt with its lonely star. I kept my head slightly lowered and my shoulders slightly hunched. Peter would not look at the throne.

I looked at it anyway, from under my lashes.

It stood at the top of a short flight of steps, a tall, narrow seat carved from something pale and cold, and King Culex sat on it as if it had been built around him.

His black robes pooled over the steps like spilled ink. His face was the same as it had been at the execution, white and perfect and merciless, and his red eyes were half closed, lazy and bored.

I felt the pressure of his presence settle across my shoulders. I had learned to breathe beneath it. It was only a little easier than before.

The robed man continued.

"The new captain, as selected by his majesty, King Culex, will be Ex-soldier Rico." He paused, and the silence stretched. "From this day forward, he shall be known as Captain Rico."

For a heartbeat, no one moved.

Then the room broke into applause. It was loud, brisk and thoroughly rehearsed.

Rico stepped out of our line.

He did not walk like a scholar anymore. His back was straight and his steps were measured, and when he reached the center of the floor, he turned and smiled at the room.

It was a bright smile. It was far brighter than I had ever seen on him, and the mole on the right side of his neck bobbed as he swallowed.

I thought, with a cold flicker of unease, that I had never once seen him smile before tonight.

The robed man held out a small object on a velvet cloth.

It was a dragon of dark metal, coiled in a tight spiral, about the size of two palms. Its jaws were open.

Its eyes were tiny rubies.

Rico took it in both hands and drew a short knife from his belt. He pricked his thumb, and a bead of blood swelled there, dark in the torchlight.

He pressed it to the dragon’s mouth.

For a moment, nothing happened. The blood slid across the metal and dripped into the throat. I counted the seconds.

Then, the dragon’s jaws parted wide, and crimson fire surged from its mouth.

It was not a normal flame. It rose in a slow, silent pillar, red as a fresh wound, and it did not burn the cloth beneath it or the hand that held it.

It simply hung there, licking the air, until Rico lowered the dragon and the flame bowed and vanished.

A tattoo bloomed beside his left eye, a coiled dragon wrapped around a fang, still faintly glowing at the edges.

Rico was officially a captain.

The applause came again, louder.

I clapped until my hands hurt, and I let myself feel the thrill that ran under my ribs. A man from my own table had taken the seat. A man who sat across from me every night.

A man who watched Peter a little too long. It was the connection I had been hoping for, and it was also a knife held at my own throat.

As the sound died, Rico’s eyes swept the line of soldiers. They passed over Jeffrey. They passed over Jonas. They reached me and paused, only for the space of one breath, with that sharp, thoughtful look.

Then he smiled again, and turned away.

...

The balcony was exactly as I had left it.

It was the same cold stone, the same stretch of black swamp, the same stale wind that smelled of rot.

A week had passed since a different version of me had stood here and watched a captain drag my friend through the dark.

I tried not to think about that. I leaned on the railing as if I were only enjoying the view, slid my hand into the narrow gap between two balusters and felt paper beneath my fingers.

I drew it out.

I held the mirror up and read it, and a slow smile crept across my face.

800 Coins.

I turned the number over in my head. Eight hundred was no small amount.

Rashford had been the captain of money and shops. For more than a week, his faction had been without a leader, and the market had slid into a quiet, nervous chaos.

Prices drifted. Rules went unenforced. Merchants did not know whom to bribe or fear. The honest ones panicked and the dishonest ones grew bold, and in the cracks between them, my twenty disciples had stitched a steady, silent profit.

It was a beautiful thing. It was a market with no master, and I was the only one who understood how to read it.

’He gave me this,’ I thought. ’By disappearing.’

I tucked the note into my sleeve and let the wind take my hair. The smile stayed on my face for a long time.

...

The bathtub was hot, and the soap smelled faintly of lavender. It was a luxury I had stopped feeling guilty about around the second day.

I lay back and let the steam rise over my face, and for a while I was only a body in the water, with nothing to plan and no one to be.

When I finished, I dried myself and put on my pajamas, the soft grey ones I had paid four coins for. I was reaching for the lamp when a knock sounded at my door.

Knock! Knock!

I froze.

It was late.

No one knocked on a soldier’s door at this hour unless something had gone wrong. My heart sped up, and my hand drifted toward the nightstand, where Fury lay in its sheath.

My spiritual power gathered at my fingertips. I could steal a thought in half a second. I could be through the Moon’s Door in three.

I frowned and kept my voice even.

"Come in."

The door opened.

It was Charolette.

She stood in the frame with the corridor torches behind her, her blonde hair loose over her shoulders and her blue eyes steady.

She looked at me, and I looked at her, and for a few seconds neither of us said a word.

She was the first to speak. "Do you need any help?"

My heartbeat slowed.

It did not race. It slowed, as if someone had put a hand around it. The quiet of the room pressed against my ears.

"Wh... what?"

She stepped inside and closed the door behind her. Then she crossed the room, one measured step at a time, until she was so close that I could feel her breath against my cheek.

"I said," she repeated, softly, "do you need any help?"

"For what?"

"Like..." For the first time, she hesitated. Her eyes dropped to my shirt collar, then rose again. "Should I join your faction? Become a soldier, I mean."

My heart, which had stopped on its own, finally found its pace again. It beat once, then twice, then several times too fast.

’She is testing me,’ I told myself. ’That is all. Of course she is testing me. A guest who becomes a soldier gains access to everything. She wants to watch me. Or she wants to help me, and she is checking whether I will flinch.’

"Yeah," I heard myself say. "Yeah. It’s alright."

It was not the answer I had planned. It was not Peter’s answer, either. But Charolette only nodded, and the faintest hint of something, perhaps relief, passed over her face before she stepped back.

I breathed out, slowly.

"How are Rudy and the others?" I asked, to fill the silence.

"They are fine. Good, honestly. We had a good day yesterday. We played cards for a long time. Hazel cheated, and Camila pretended not to notice, and Rudy lost three times in a row and blamed the deck."

I smiled before I could stop myself. It sounded exactly like Theodore.

"Actually," she added, tilting her head, "do you want to play?"

I looked at the clock on the wall. I had no patrol tonight. I had ten hours of free time, and nothing in them but a soft bed and a head full of numbers.

’Two or three hours,’ I thought. ’Then sleep. It would look natural. A boy who is lonely, who misses his old roommates. Peter would say yes.’

I did not examine whether it was Peter who wanted to.

"Yeah, alright," I said. "I’m coming."

She smiled and slipped out of the room.

I stood there in my pajamas, listening to her footsteps fade down the corridor.

’Isn’t it banned for guests to come up here?’ I thought.

A guest on the soldiers’ floor was a serious offense. It could be punished by a beating, or worse.

She had walked straight through three checkpoints and knocked on my door as if the rules were only a suggestion.

I smiled at the empty room.

Then I pulled on a jacket and went after her.

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Hi, so well, today is my birthday. I don’t know, I thought I should just tell you guys :P