—and then it stopped, as suddenly as it had begun.
Silence; nothing left alive, just cratered earth.
Will opened his eyes slowly, his fingers moving in gritty, blackened dirt. Slowly, he lifted his head.
He was kneeling in a blasted, ruined crater, the valley gouged open, the birds and animals dead, the trees shattered into splinters, the farmhouse sundered. For miles in every direction, he and Simon were the only things alive.
Alive. He saw the look of incomprehension on Simon’s face.
It was Will’s turn to laugh, except that it might have come out as a dry sob, shaky with the effects of adrenaline, his heart-pounding preparedness to die. But he hadn’t. He was still alive. The Blade hadn’t worked on him.
He knew why. His mother’s last words, her last moments, all of it made sense. What she had known all these years he now knew too. The truth, tested and proven in the fires of the Blade.
‘Why didn’t it work?’ said Simon.
Slowly, Will pushed himself up from where the blast had driven him to his knees. He looked right across the flattened landscape at Simon. His chest was heaving. He was bleeding from new cuts, where small rocks and sticks had hit him during the blast.
‘You know, I came to London looking for you,’ said Will.
‘Why didn’t it work?’ said Simon. He was staring back at Will in disbelief.
‘At first I thought I could destroy your business. I sabotaged your cargo, untying ropes so that your gunpowder would be lost in the river.’
‘That was an accident,’ said Simon.
‘That was me,’ said Will. ‘When your fiancée left you? That was me too.’
‘What do you mean, left me,’ said Simon.
‘I kissed her in the garden of the house you bought her. She came to me in the Hall.’
‘Katherine?’ said Simon.
‘I think you valued James more. You liked the idea that he was Sarcean’s favourite. I heard they called him Simon’s Prize. He’s left you now too.’
‘How do you know James is missing?’ said Simon sharply, real suspicion in his voice for the first time. Will felt a surge of triumph at that; he’d been right, James had taken the Collar and not returned to Simon. His heart was pounding.
‘What could I take from you? What is it that you care about? Your wealth? Your lover? Your plans? What’s equal to a mother?’
‘My God, what is this? Some pitiful boy’s revenge?’ said Simon. ‘You think you can stand in the way of my destiny? The plans my father and I have put in motion can’t be stopped.’
Simon’s voice was full of scorn and mild annoyance. Will glimpsed himself through Simon’s eyes: a nuisance, an obstacle that he would soon clear from his way. Simon still held the Blade; it was a straight line pointing downward from his hand.
‘You’re right,’ said Will. ‘It’s a boy’s revenge. Just not against you.’
He picked up his own sword, shifting the hilt in his hand.
‘Your father was the one who ordered my mother’s death,’ said Will. ‘That’s why I’m here to kill his son.’
And he took his sword and drove it into Simon’s body.
Simon lifted the sheathed Blade, but the ancient weapon wasn’t something he’d ever expected to have to fight with. It was a power to be unleashed, and once it had failed, he didn’t know what to do. The sheathed Blade barely glanced against Will’s weapon. Simon’s look was one of shock as Will’s sword went in.
It was hard, but easier than it had been before he’d killed three other men. He knew the resistance of the body, the strength of muscle and sinew that it took to push the weapon in. He knew that men didn’t die right away but clutched their wound, the blood pumping out, each pulse weaker than the last, their life fading slowly. Simon was on his knees, looking up at Will in disbelief, but when he opened his mouth, blood and not words came out of it.
‘I might not have stopped your father,’ said Will, looking down at him. ‘But I think he’ll feel this at least a little.’
‘You’re too late,’ Simon managed, his voice thick with blood. ‘The Shadow Kings have been released. I ordered them to hunt down the Lady’s descendant …’ He was grinning up at Will, his teeth red. ‘Your death will bring him back. You’re the final sacrifice … the Shadow Kings … You can’t escape … The Blood of the Lady will return the Dark King.’
He still hadn’t understood. He’d seen Will touch the armour. He’d seen him survive the Blade. But he hadn’t understood what Will had come to realise piece by piece. The truth that his mother had known when she’d died on this very spot, looking at Will with despair in her eyes.