Elston subsided. Kibb had finished tying Mhurn’s hands and feet, and now Mhurn merely dangled from Elston’s arms like a bound doll, his blond hair hanging limply in his face. Kelsea suddenly recalled something he had said that night out in the Reddick Forest: that the crimes of soldiers came from two sources—situation or leadership. The other prisoner, the Gate Guard, had picked up an axe in the last extremity and tried to right his wrong, but Mhurn had not. His was a difficult situation, to be sure, but was Kelsea’s leadership also to blame? From Mace, she knew that Mhurn was a gifted swordsman, not quite of Pen’s caliber, but impressive. He was also one of the most levelheaded of the guards, the one Mace trusted when something needed to be done tactfully. It was a terrible loss of a valuable man, and try as she might, Kelsea could feel no anger, only sorrow and the certainty that this tragedy could have been avoided somehow, that she had missed something crucial along the way.
“Coryn, do you know how to inject him with that stuff?”
“I’ve injected men with antibiotics before, Lady, but I know little of morphia. I might as easily kill him.”
“Well, that’s neither here nor there now. Give him a decent dose.”
“Lady!” Mace barked. “He doesn’t deserve that!”
“My decision, Lazarus.”
Kelsea watched with covert interest as Coryn went to work, lighting a small flame and heating the white powder in one of his medical tins. As it liquefied, the morphine collapsed into itself like a tiny building. But when Coryn had filled one of his syringes, Kelsea turned away, unable to watch him give Mhurn the injection.
“All done, Lady.”
Turning back, she marked the hard angles of Mhurn’s face, softened now, and the hazy look in those cold, beautiful eyes. His entire body appeared to have gone limp. How could a drug work so quickly?
“What happened to you in the Mort invasion, Mhurn?”
“You heard me tell it, Majesty.”
“I’ve heard two versions now, Mhurn, and neither was complete. What happened to you?”
Mhurn stared dreamily over her shoulder. When he spoke, his voice had a disconnected quality that made Kelsea’s stomach clench. “We lived in Concord, Lady, on the shores of the Crithe. Our village was isolated; we didn’t even know the Mort were coming until a warning rider came through. But then we could see the shadow on the horizon . . . the smoke from their fires . . . the vultures that followed them in the sky. We fled our village, but we weren’t quick enough. My daughter was sick, my wife had never learned to ride, and at any rate we had only one horse. They caught us halfway between the Crithe and the Caddell. My wife was bad, Lady, but Alma, my daughter . . . she was taken by Ducarte himself, dragged along in the train of the Mort army for miles. I found her body months later, in the piles of dead left by the Mort after they withdrew from the Keep Lawn. She was covered with bruises . . . worse than bruises. I see her always, Lady. Except when I’m on the needle . . . that’s the only time I’m blind.
“So you’re wrong, sir,” he continued, turning to Mace, “if you think I care how I die, or when.”
“You never told us any of that,” Mace snapped back.
“Can you blame me?”
“Carroll would never have taken you into the Guard if he’d known you were so fucked in the head.”
Kelsea had heard enough. She reached down and pulled out her knife, the knife that Barty had given her so long ago. Barty had been a Queen’s Guard once; would he have wanted this?
Mace’s jaw dropped as she straightened. “Lady, any of us would gladly do this for you! You don’t have to—”
“Of course I do, Lazarus. This is a traitor to the Crown. I’m the Crown.”
Mhurn looked up, his dilated pupils gradually focusing on her knife, and he smiled hazily. “They don’t understand, Lady, but I do. You’ve done me a kindness, and now you mean to do me an honor as well.”
Kelsea’s eyes filled with tears. She looked up at Elston, seeing his huge form as a blur. “Hold him steady, Elston. I won’t be able to do this twice.”
“Done, Lady.”
Kelsea dashed the tears away, grabbed a handful of Mhurn’s blond hair, and yanked his head upright. She spotted his carotid artery, pulsing gently at the corner of his throat. Barty always said to avoid the carotid, if possible; an imprecise cut would end up covering the cutter in blood. She gripped her knife tightly, suddenly sure that this was what Barty would have wanted: for her to do a clean job. She placed the edge of the blade flat against the right side of Mhurn’s throat, then drew it across in a quick, sharp movement. Warm crimson spurted over her knife hand but Kelsea ignored it, holding Mhurn’s head up long enough to see the widening red smile, the blood beginning to sheet down his throat. His blue eyes stared dreamily into hers for another minute, then she let go of his hair and backed away, watching his head sink slowly toward his chest.
“That’s well done, Majesty,” Venner remarked. “A good, clean slice.”
Kelsea sat down on the ground, crying now, and leaned her head on her crossed arms.
“Leave her alone for a minute,” Mace ordered roughly. “Put him on the fire. Coryn, you take charge of the rest of that crap in the pouch; maybe Arliss can make something of it when we get home.”
They all moved away then, except for one guard who sat down beside her. Pen.
“Lady,” he murmured. “It’s time to go.”
Kelsea nodded, but it seemed she couldn’t stop crying; the tears continued to leak out no matter how she worked to get control. Her breath came in thick, asthmatic gasps. After a moment she felt Pen’s hand on hers, gently wiping away the blood.
“Pen!”
Pen’s hand vanished.
“Get her up! We’ve stayed too long already!”
Pen’s reached beneath Kelsea’s arm, his touch impersonal now, and lifted her from the ground. He held her up as she stumbled along, heading for the pile of boulders where the horses waited inside their makeshift paddock. When she reached Dyer, who was holding her horse, she climbed up automatically, wiping her face on her sleeve.
“Can we go, Lady?”
Kelsea turned to stare behind them, toward the eastern end of the pass. She could see nothing beyond; the rise was too steep. There was no time, but she had the sudden urge to tiptoe up to the edge of the slope, to peek over and behold Mortmesne, this land she’d seen only in dreams. But they were all waiting for her. She wiped the last tears from her cheeks. Mhurn’s face was in her mind, but she clenched the reins in her fist and wiped that image clean as well. “All right. Let’s go home.”