Justice’s face was grey with fatigue. There was blood soaking through his white surcoat. Will felt his stomach turn over. What could have done this to a squadron of Stewards?
‘We found the convoy transporting Marcus,’ said Justice. ‘It was right where our information had said it would be.’ Justice’s expression changed. ‘But it wasn’t carrying Marcus. It was bait for an ambush. James was there.’
James, thought Will, his skin prickling, all his attention fixing on the name. He felt the way he had at the river, when he had seen James for the first time and been unable to look at anything else.
‘The Betrayer,’ said Cyprian, in a hard new voice. ‘He did this?’
‘A mist had come down in the valley,’ said Justice. ‘It gave us the perfect cover. We saw the convoy, four carriages bearing Simon’s coat of arms. We thought we had him.’
Will imagined Stewards riding down into the mist-wreathed valley, ghostly white shapes descending on the four shiny black carriages.
‘We were mid-charge when our front riders just – lifted out of their saddles,’ said Justice. ‘They hung in midair, and their bodies started to jerk. In front of our eyes, their bones snapped, and their flesh tore. I saw Brescia’s armour crumple like paper.’
Stewards hanging limply, suspended in the mist, their bodies cracking and contorting into unnatural shapes. Horrifying and impossible, but Will had seen James lift a crate with invisible power. Why not lift a body, move it, break it to your will?
‘It was chaos, screams, careening horses smashing into each other. I called for a retreat, but it was too late, that invisible force let loose among us. There was no way to fight it. We barely returned with our lives.’
‘But you did return. No one else was captured?’ Jannick’s clipped voice.
Justice nodded tightly. It was obvious that to return and bring home the bodies had cost him something, in lives, in pain. But he had done it.
They can’t fight magic. The Stewards, with their supernatural strength, could outmatch any fighting force in the world. But they couldn’t fight what they couldn’t see.
That’s why they need me. They think I can.
Will’s stomach twisted as he thought of his failed lessons, his inability to light the Tree Stone or shift the single candle flame.
The Stewards are losing to Simon. They’re safe in here. But out there … he’s grown too powerful.
Leda had taken Justice’s weight again, his arm over her shoulders. She beckoned Jannick over, glancing around to make sure they were out of earshot. Then she spoke in a low voice. ‘High Janissary, if we don’t free Marcus soon, he—’
‘Not here,’ said Jannick.
Will followed Jannick’s gaze and saw a huddle of shapes in the doorway, a small group of other novitiates who had crept out after Cyprian and were watching. Will made out Emery, wide-eyed and pale, and Beatrix, still in a bed shirt with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders.
The Elder Steward stepped forward. ‘All of you to bed. We have wounded to tend to here.’
Cyprian and the other novitiates were escorted away, leaving Will and Violet hidden dangerously close to where Jannick and the Elder Steward were standing. He tried to stay very still, barely breathing.
‘The Betrayer toys with us.’ Jannick kept his voice low, but it was thick with disgust.
‘He knows we will do anything to get Marcus back,’ said the Elder Steward.
‘I blame myself. I’m the one who – the Betrayer. I had him. And he slipped out of my grasp. Now Simon has the power he needs to pick us off one by one—’
‘We stand between him and the one thing he wants,’ said the Elder Steward.
Will shivered. She was talking about him. She believed that Will could stop the Dark King. Based on what? A few words of old language and the image of a lady in a mirror?
‘You cannot blame yourself,’ said the Elder Steward to Jannick. ‘You could not know what the Betrayer would become when you—’
She broke off, stumbling slightly on the uneven cobblestones. Jannick immediately rushed to her aid, taking her arm and letting her lean her weight on him.
‘Euphemia—’
‘It’s nothing. A missed step.’
‘Are you certain?’
‘Yes. I’m certain.’ She smiled at Jannick, a reassuring hand on his arm. ‘I’m certain, Jannick. There is no need for concern. Now come. Let us speak further.’
The last of the survivors had dismounted, and the Stewards in the courtyard had started to untie the grey sacks, others leading away horses who had forever lost their riders. The Elder Steward spoke at last. ‘Leda. Justice. Follow us.’