“On your feet,” ordered the woman, and Kosika rose, stepping in front of Lark as she did. She wanted to run, but he couldn’t even stand, not yet, and she wouldn’t leave him. Besides, she was starting to feel dizzy, as if she was the one who’d lost all that blood.
Kosika was still trying to decide what to do when horse hooves thundered on the stones, and a third soldier arrived, dressed differently from the other two, clad in silver armor and riding a dark horse. A royal guard. He dismounted, and removed his helmet as he took in the scene.
“Kot err,” he muttered. King’s breath. And then, louder, “Who did this?”
“I did,” said Kosika, defiantly meeting the royal guard’s eyes. His breath caught, surprise sweeping across his face.
She didn’t realize one of the previous soldiers had gone away until he returned, hauling the collector who’d slit Lark’s throat—the one who’d gotten away. The man was limping, the little knife still stuck in his foot, and babbling on incoherently until the royal guard made a sign and the grey soldier struck the man hard, so hard he fell to his knees, and stayed there. Good, thought Kosika, and she might have gone and kicked him for good measure, but the royal guard turned and knelt in front of her so they were face-to-face.
The silver armor on his chest was so polished that Kosika could almost make out her reflection in the gleaming metal. Almost, but not quite.
“Whose blood is that?” asked the royal guard, gesturing to her hands. Kosika flexed her fingers, the red drying brown on her palms. Most of it was Lark’s, but she had touched the back of her head, before, hadn’t she, which meant a little must be hers, too. She didn’t say any of that, only glared at the man on his knees.
“He cut my friend’s throat.”
The royal guard didn’t look at the collector. Didn’t look at anyone but Kosika. His hair was pale, his eyes the color of the sky, a watery blue.
“Good thing you were there to fix it,” he said, and there was something in his voice; not anger, or kindness—it was wonder. She heard the hiss of steel being released, and then the man on his knees toppled forward, his throat open and blood spilling out onto the street, the way Lark’s had minutes before. But no one rushed forward to fix him, and so Kosika watched, satisfied, as he died.
One of the grey soldiers—the woman—was kneeling next to Lark now, helping him sit up, and Kosika wanted to go to her friend, to make sure he was all right, but the royal guard held her still with his gaze.
“How long have you had magic?” he asked, and she was about to say that she didn’t, that it hadn’t arrived yet—but obviously that wasn’t true, not anymore. When she didn’t answer, he tried again.
“Where is your home?”
Kosika chewed her lip, wasn’t about to tell the guard that she no longer had one, that last night she’d slept in an attic with a loose window latch, hoping there weren’t mice. She just shook her head, and the royal guard seemed to understand, because instead of pressing her, he said, “My name is Patjoric. What is yours?”
That, at least, she could answer. “Kosika.”
“Kosika,” he repeated, his face breaking into a smile. “Do you know what it means?”
She shook her head. She hadn’t known a name could mean anything—her mother told her she was named for the jagged stretch of the Kosik itself, which ran along the city’s edge like a wound that wouldn’t heal. But the royal guard looked her in the eyes.
“It means little queen.” He straightened, and held out his hand. “You must be tired and hungry, Kosika. Why don’t you come with us to the palace?”
She tensed, suspecting a trap, wondered if the guard was just another kind of child thief. And Lark must have thought so, too, because he was on his feet now, lurching toward them.
“Don’t go,” he shouted hoarsely. But the female soldier grabbed him by his arms and hauled him back, and anger rose in Kosika like a wave as Lark tried, weakly, to pull free.
“Don’t hurt him,” she said in a feral growl, and the world seemed to echo with her voice. The stones beneath her feet began to tremble, and what was left of the wall began to lean, and a gust of wind whipped against her skin, and the whole alley groaned and splintered, and she didn’t hear the bootsteps or see the hilt of the sword until it crashed into the side of her head.
And everything stopped.
II
NOW
Kosika would be the last to make her offering.