Prince of Fools (The Red Queen's War 1)

Whatever anyone may say about running, the main thing is to pick your feet up as quickly as possible—as if the ground has developed a great desire to hurt you. Which it kind of had. I took off at a pace that would have left my dog-fleeing self of only that morning stopping to check whether his legs were still moving. More people exploded in my wake as the crack ran through them. I vaulted a cart, which immediately detonated behind me, pieces of burning wood peppering the wall as I dived through an open window.

I rolled to my feet inside what looked to be, and certainly smelled like, a brothel of such low class I hadn’t even been aware of its existence. Shapes writhed in the gloom to one side as I pelted across the chamber, knocking over a lamp, a wicker table, a dresser, and a small man with a toupee, before pulverizing the shutters on the rear window on my way out.

The room lit behind me. I crashed across the alleyway into which I’d spilled, let the opposite wall arrest my momentum, and charged off. The window I came through cracked, sill and lintel, the whole building splitting. The twin fissures, light and dark, wove their path after me, picking up still more speed. I jumped a poppy-head slumped in the alley and raced on. From the sound of it the fissure cured his addiction permanently a heartbeat later.

Eyes forward is the second rule of running, right after the one about picking up your feet. Sometimes, though, you can’t follow all the rules. Something about the crack demanded my attention, and I shot another glance back at it.

Slam! At first I thought I’d run into a wall. Drawing breath for more screaming and more running, I pulled away, only to discover the wall was holding me. Two huge fists, one bandaged and bloody, bunched in the jacket over my chest. I looked up, then up some more, and found myself staring into Snorri ver Snagason’s pale eyes.

“What—” He hadn’t time for more words. The crack ran through us. I saw a black fracture race through the Norseman, jagged lines across his face, bleeding darkness. In the same moment something hot and unbearably brilliant cut through me, filling me with light and stealing the world away.

My vision cleared just in time to see Snorri’s forehead descending. I heard a crack of an entirely different kind. My nose breaking. And the world went away again.

SIX

First check where my money pouch is, and pat for my locket. It’s a habit I’ve developed. When you wake up in the kinds of places I wake up in, and in the company I often pay to keep . . . well, it pays to keep your coin close. The bed was harder and more bumpy than I tend to like. As hard and bumpy as cobbles, in fact. And it smelled like shit. The glorious safe moment between being asleep and being awake was over. I rolled onto my side, clutching my nose. Either I’d not been unconscious very long, or the stink had kept even the beggars off. That and the excitement down the road, the trail of exploded citizens, the burning opera house, the blazing crack. The crack! I staggered to my feet at that, expecting to see the jagged path leading down the alley and pointing straight at me. Nothing. At least nothing to see by starlight and a quarter moon.

“Shit.” My nose hurt more than seemed reasonable. I remembered fierce eyes beneath heavy brows . . . and then those heavy brows smacking into my face. “Snorri . . .”

The Norseman was long gone. Why small charred chunks of us both weren’t decorating the walls, I couldn’t say. I remembered the way those two fissures had run side by side, crossing and recrossing, and at every junction, a detonation. The dark fracture line had run through Snorri—I had seen it across his face. The light—

I patted myself down, sudden frantic hands searching for injury. The light one had run through me. Pulling up my trouser legs revealed grubby shins with no sign of golden light shining from any cracks. But the street showed no sign of the fissure either. Nothing remained but the damage it had wrought.

I shook thoughts of that blinding golden light from my mind. I’d survived! The screams from the opera house returned to me. How many had died? How many of my friends? My relatives? Had Alain’s sisters been there? Pray God Maeres Allus had been. Let it be one of those nights he pretended to be a merchant and used his money to buy him into social circles far above his station. For now, though, I needed to put more distance between me and the site of the fire. But where to go? The Silent Sister’s magic had pursued me. Would she be waiting at the palace to finish the job?

When in doubt, run.

I took off again, along dark streets, lost but knowing in time that I would hit the river and gain my bearings anew. Running blind is apt to get you a broken nose, and since I had one of those already and wasn’t keen to find out what came next I kept my pace on the sensible side of breakneck. I normally find that showing trouble my heels and putting a few miles behind me makes things a whole lot better. As I ran, though, breathing through my mouth and catching my side where a muscle kept cramping, I felt worse and worse. A general unease grew minute by minute and hardened into a general crippling anxiety. I wondered whether this was what conscience felt like. Not that any of it had been my fault. I couldn’t have saved anyone even if I’d tried.