CHAPTER 11
PORTALS ALWAYS FELT LIKE THEY FLATTENED YOU and pulled you apart at the same time. As Gains tugged her through behind him, with his flesh touching her tattoo, she wondered what would happen if he let go of her in the middle of the portal. Where would her body go?
When they broke through to their destination, Briony had two seconds to let her eyes adjust to the dark before she was forced onto a chair, arms dragged behind her. Two guards in Bomardi blue affixed her hands to the back of the chair with a simple spell that worked like glue.
Gains secured Larissa to a chair on her left, instructing the guards in low voices. Briony saw chairs with restrained people lining the entire room.
Was it a room? She looked up to a tall ceiling, maybe three stories, dizzyingly high. There were catwalks and ropes, but also strange things hanging from pulleys. The entire room was a circle.
And the hum of hundreds of voices slithered down to them from above the ceiling.
She knew where they were. It was the Bomardi Circus. Her father had taken them when they were young, and the entertainers had given her purple roses for her hair.
And now she was below deck, like one of the animals that danced for applause.
She looked to her right and found Cordelia sitting several chairs away, eyes wet and cast down.
Briony glanced around. The chairs with prisoners continued in a broad circle, and she startled when she recognized Didion looking back at her.
His eyes were bruised black, and his lip was cut. To his left were more men looking much the same, many of them from Rory’s army. She found Sammy, and when he nodded at her from across the circle, tears pricked her eyes.
Briony whipped her head around, trying to take in as much as she could.
Exits, hiding places, weapons.
There were about seventy prisoners according to Gains’s count yesterday.
She counted fourteen Bomardi down below with them, and half of them were loudly planning to bid. They couldn’t do that from down here. One guard was standing directly in front of Briony with his back to her. He scanned the room, looking for threats.
He was so young, though. He couldn’t be older than twenty. He had pale skin and dark brows that made him look more menacing than his slight frame suggested.
“Parsons, right?” Larissa said to her left. Her gaze was on the back of the guard’s neck. He gave her his profile in response. “Stones, you’ve grown up.
How’s your father?” she said conversationally.
Briony squinted at her. Was now really the time for catching up?
“He’s fine,” Parsons said shortly.
“I was sad to hear that the Trows wouldn’t clear his gambling debts.
Shame.”
Larissa seemed to be sympathetic, but Briony couldn’t believe she would poke a sore subject while restrained to a chair.
Before Parsons could respond, a man swept in through the stage door with Cohle trailing behind him. Briony recognized him instantly, but she didn’t know his name. He was one of the most well-known Bomardi entertainers. In the cities, they drew his face on the sides of buildings, advertising his performances. He had probably been in the circus that day she’d been with Rory and her father, young and just starting out.
The man’s piercing blue eyes traveled over the chairs, stopping briefly over her face. He knew her. He looked down at his shoes and fiddled with the papers in his hands.
“Bomard thanks you for your services, Mr. Vein,” Cohle hissed, clapping him on the shoulder.
“Yes, Cohle. I am...glad to be of assistance.” He shuffled the papers, and Briony recognized them as the notes the appraiser had taken.
She wanted to scream. Vein could stop this. He could try. He wasn’t like the rest of them.
Vein looked down at one of the pages and turned to Cohle. “Is this an error? This number?”
Cohle smiled and nodded at Cordelia. “No error. The future Queen of Evermore. If you think that’s good, take a look at the Eversun princess.”
Vein flipped to the next page, and his face paled.
Briony frowned. The Hearsts had not come to collect Eversuns from the cell. Orion had said he wouldn’t be buying heartsprings, but did that mean he had no one to sell? Would any of the Hearsts be out in the crowd tonight?
She looked to Larissa. Toven would be. Briony couldn’t imagine a world in which Toven Hearst didn’t come to claim Larissa Gains. They’d been close at school, and at one time their betrothal had been imminent. As for why they hadn’t already been married in the years since, Briony could only assume that the uncertainty of war kept young Bomardi from creating unions, much in the same way Rory and Cordelia had put off marriage.
“We need to take our seats, Mr. Vein,” Cohle announced, earning the attention of the other Bomardi. He offered his hand, and Vein took it. “The circus is yours.”
Briony watched as Gains and the others followed Cohle out. Reighven made sure to sweep by her, trailing his fingertips across one shoulder, dipping below her collarbone and across. When she could bring her eyes off the floor, she looked up to see Parsons glancing away from her.
“Yes, she’s been the center of attention all week,” Larissa said to Parsons.
“Everybody has their eye on her.” Suddenly, Larissa leaned forward as far as her restrained arms would allow. “And did you hear how much she’s
estimated to go for?” she said in a loud whisper, as if she and Parsons had a secret. “Thirty thousand gold.”
That caught Parsons’s attention. Briony didn’t know how Larissa had heard about her estimated price, but it didn’t matter. Parsons turned to look over his shoulder, his lips parting at the number.
A bell chimed. Vein cleared his throat and moved to the center of the room. He seemed focused on ignoring the presence of the people whose sale he was about to facilitate. A circle in the ceiling opened, and a platform rose with Vein on it, lifting him to the audience.
A stage light hit him, igniting his smile and jaunty step. The theater roared, and Briony jumped with the pressure of it. Thousands of people.
The platform completed its lift, and the ceiling was closed again.
“Welcome!” Vein’s amplified voice spun over the crowd, reaching below stage easily. “Welcome. Find your seats, ladies and gentlemen!”
Briony’s heart thundered in time with the applause.
One of the women a few chairs away started to hyperventilate. She dipped her head between her knees, tears tracking down her cheeks, mouth open wide. One of the guards went to check on her, wrenching her up.
Vein began his opening remarks. “We are honored tonight by the presence of Mistress Mallow. May she reign forevermore.”
Briony shivered. Mallow was up there. As she listened to the shouts and applause, Briony imagined the tunnels of Mallow’s black eyes on her as Bomard sold her off to the highest bidder.
Vein launched into propaganda about the days to come, signaling Mallow’s power and Bomard’s right to rule over the entire Moreland continent.
Two of the guards stared up, listening to Vein. The others were hovering around the men across the room, as if waiting for trouble.
“And she’s a virgin,” Larissa said. Briony glared at her, wondering why she was still pushing this. Larissa relaxed in her chair and gazed at her. “I couldn’t fathom what anyone would want that for in the bedroom, but the
blood?” Larissa whistled.
Parsons’s head was turned to listen.
“They’ve only asked for another five thousand for the virgins, but I would have gone higher. Imagine if you drain her blood once a week—not enough to kill her, of course, but a healthy amount of it. What does that go for on the black market here? Five hundred gold?” Larissa smiled. “I was never very good at maths, but do that once a week for a year? Two years?”
Briony stared at her. Where was she going with this?
Above them, Vein continued. “We have seventy-four lots for auction tonight,” he announced magnanimously. The crowd erupted. Across the room, Didion pulled against his chair, fighting the spell that stuck his hands to it.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll bring each lot onstage, one at a time. I have here a measure of their magical strength out of five. All lots sold as is. The winning bidders will coordinate with Gains at the end to arrange payment.
Let’s start off the evening right,” Vein crowed. “With a Meers.”
Two guards moved to pull Sammy to the center, where the platform would raise him up. A trapdoor opened in the ceiling.
Briony’s heart leapt. The auction was beginning.
Larissa was unfazed. “So, Parsons,” she said. “You’re not bidding? Stuck down here with us instead?” She hummed. “That doesn’t seem right.”
Sammy’s hands were fixed together behind his back, and he had a black eye and a limp. He was shoved to the circle in the center, and the stage rose with him on it.
“Did they give you payment for your service to Mistress Mallow at the very least?” Larissa asked.
“Stop talking,” Parsons snapped at her. He turned to face them. “Or I’ll have to silence you.”
Briony looked between them as Larissa grinned.
“I just think it’s a shame. That’s all,” Larissa said.
Above, Vein read Sammy’s catalog. “Thirty-one years old. Son of
General Meers of Evermore.”
The crowd hissed.
Parsons’s eyes flicked to Briony, his lips tight with a decision he seemed
to be making. Briony’s pulse raced with the way he looked at her. Like she was a diamond in a glass case.
“Specialized in combat and strategy at school, so this heartspring would be perfect for someone in Bomard’s army. The strength of his magic was measured at a four out of five. Most impressive.”
Parsons glanced at the positions of the other guards. Almost all of them were staring upward, listening to the auction. He moved quickly.
“Let’s start the bidding at two thousand gold pieces.”
With a twitch of Parsons’s fingers, Briony’s hands were released from their position on the back of the wooden chair. Before she could fight him, his hand was on her arm, hauling her up.
Larissa tilted forward on her feet, the wooden chair lifted into the air behind her, and with a snarl she threw her body against Parsons. The three of them fell to the ground, the chair splintering around them. Briony’s head
smacked against the ground.
Parsons yelled out.
Her skull ached as she opened her eyes. Larissa’s hands were raised with the shards of the broken wooden chair still stuck to them. She screamed, bring them down like stakes into Parson’s neck and chest.
Briony stared in horror as Parsons choked and the blood bubbled. Larissa bared her teeth at her. “Go, you idiot!”
Scrambling to her feet, Briony ran.
There was splintering all around the room. Grunting and yelling.
The guards cursed and scattered as they realized what had happened.
Briony ran the outer edge of the circle, her head spinning from where it had hit the ground. She searched for an exit as every chair she passed cracked and splintered against the ground.
Seventy-four prisoners following Larissa Gains’s lead, and only a handful of guards to stop them.
As she ran by Cordelia, she saw pieces of wood firm in her fists, beating against one of the guards. Jellica Reeve had most of her chair still put together and swung it at the head of a running guard, knocking him back and
climbing on top of him, slamming the wood against him. The rest of the guards moved quickly to restrain the men first.
Vein’s voice floated down from above. “Some kind of...commotion.
Nothing to worry about—”
Spells started flying. One slammed into Briony, and she flew against the outer wall, her shoulder popping, sickeningly. She yelped with no sound.
Someone hauled her up by her dislocated arm, and she tugged out of their grip. Blood dripped into her eyes from a cut on her head, and the pain in her shoulder blinded her.
“Briony!” It was Didion. He pulled her in a direction she hoped was an exit.
Running footsteps thundered from the stage above, and then the Bomardi were there, casting spells and kicking prisoners aside to beat through the crowd. She recognized Reighven’s angry growl.
The smell of magic was thick in the air. The sizzle of it burned her nostrils. They’d only taken a handful of steps before Didion screamed, dropping to his knees at her side. Someone knocked into her, and they were separated.
Cohle screamed orders and Gains organized the restrained bodies, yelling for them to get to Briony.
A pair of arms wrapped around her waist from behind, tugging her back.
She kicked, and he dropped her, her elbow slamming into the ground. Arms around her again, and she wasn’t sure if they were the same.
She was pulled up, held against a man’s chest with one arm wrapped around her shoulders and the other wound over her hips. She screamed silently, kicking the air. He moved with her, dragging her away.
Was he stealing her or bringing her back?
The air smelled of blood and pine, and her head was pounding.
She was being dragged away, toward the door.
She heard Gains’s voice close by, and the man who held her turned.
“Good work, Hearst.”
She had just enough time to wonder if it was Toven’s or Orion’s arms around her before Gains knocked her out.
* * *
Her head burst apart, and she gasped noiselessly against the pain.
Thunder rolled through, rattling her skull. She blinked her eyes open and found herself in a dark circular room. A gavel banged, and she knew where she was.
There were two guards on either side of Briony, hauling her up until she stood on her own. She’d been brought back to consciousness by one of them.
She turned to look at everyone else in the holding area, but all she found were broken chair legs and drying blood.
Twisting to look around pulled at her shoulder, recently reset. She found a backstage mirror, cracked down the middle, and saw that they had banished the blood from her face. She couldn’t tell if the concussion had been healed.
She was nauseous and spinning, but it might have been the symptom of a handful of other things.
She tilted her head back and looked up at the place where the stage lay on the other side of the ceiling. There was raucous yelling from above.
“Locklin, we all know you don’t have that kind of gold!” Vein’s voice cut through the pounding in her ears. The audience laughed. “Only serious bids here for Miss Hardstark, ladies and gentlemen!”
Briony’s knees gave out, but the guards propped her up. She was going to
be sick.
Cordelia was being auctioned. Then her.
She’d missed it. She’d missed the entire auction. She would never know where everyone ended up. Where Phoebe was sent, or Katrina or Didion or Sammy. She’d have to gather the information as best she could and hope to see them again in this lifetime.
She looked up to the ceiling as the gavel banged.
“Sold!” The audience erupted. “Cordelia Hardstark, love of the late Rory Rosewood, sold to Riann Cohle for twenty-eight thousand, five hundred
gold!”
Her stomach heaved.
Such a lot of money. An insane amount. Would she really fetch her
appraised price—over thirty thousand gold?
The noise from the crowd deafened her momentarily, and then she knew her concussion wasn’t healed.
A circle opened in the ceiling, and there was Cordelia, lowering back down. Her white dress was spattered with red, and her spotlit face was impassive.
Through the hole in the ceiling, Briony saw Cohle come forward, his thin lips smirking at the crowd. Vein produced a scroll, and the yelling intensified as Cohle took the offered quill.
Cordelia jerked her arm as the platform brought her down, wincing as Cohle signed his name on the scroll. The brand on their forearms had to change to reflect ownership. Where Cordelia’s arm had once displayed Reighven’s signature, now it must bear Cohle’s name.
Briony’s head pounded as Cordelia grew closer and closer to her. She wondered if there was something she’d missed. If there was something she could have done differently.
Maybe they should have hidden when Anna told them to. Maybe she should have let Katrina die in the dungeon.
Maybe she shouldn’t have rallied everyone’s faith around Rory. Maybe she shouldn’t have let him go into battle at all.
Maybe she should have been by his side.
Cordelia’s bottom lip trembled beneath somebody’s dried blood as she saw Briony standing there, waiting, and Briony decided her only true mistake had been not killing Reighven in the dungeon corridors.
She should have killed Reighven, and then Gains, and then taken whoever was still alive and escaped. She should have let Katrina die. It probably would have been for the best.
Cordelia ran into Briony’s arms, dodging the guards. “I will find you, Briony. It’s not over.”
The guards tugged Cordelia back, and Briony looked at Cordelia’s face for the last time.
Briony voicelessly responded, Not alone.
The guards took Cordelia’s arms, and she disappeared through the
backstage door.
“And now...our grand finale.”
She blinked, trying to focus. She needed to be present. Maybe once this day was over, she would fall asleep from her concussion and never wake up.
The guards pushed her onto the platform. The stage began to rise, and the roar of the crowd felt like a living thing. Vein was yelling, inciting them, but she could only squint against the lights as they hit her.
She looked down at her feet as the stage completed its ascension. Her gold dress shimmered.
The circus was full. Balcony after balcony. She turned to see the full circle of the audience. It must have been over ten thousand people, and Briony despaired at the thought that Mallow had this many followers already.
How many of these people had been lying in wait, biding their time until the end of the war? And now here they were.
The noise continued for ages. Her eyes landed on the Bomardi on the ground level, filling up the majority of the front rows. Some of them on their feet, hollering. Some of them seated, whispering to one another and pointing to the stage.
She scanned the crowd. Mallow sat in the box reserved for the Seat of Bomard. She gazed at Briony as if she were no more than an elephant, about to balance on a ball. Gains was in the front, Reighven by his side. Cohle and Quill. She couldn’t find the gray locks of Orion Hearst.
“All right! All right!” Vein laughed, sounding like his old self again— performing. “I know we’re excited. Some of us have a new source of power to test out.”
Briony slid her eyes to Vein as the Bomardi cackled. He’d been seduced by it all. Infected. He met her eyes and quickly looked away.
“Our final lot of the evening,” he announced theatrically. He read off her appraisal notes. “Briony Rosewood.” Hissing. “Eversun born.” Booing.
“Gold-blooded Princess of Evermore.” Jeering. “Sister of Rory the Slain and enemy of Mistress Mallow.”
They were on their feet again, yelling in the name of their Seat of Bomard.
She let it wash over her, like a cool bath.
Only one person sat perfectly still throughout. Four rows back on the left aisle. The stage lights blinded her from seeing his face.
“Ladies, gentlemen,” Vein crooned. He raised his hands to call for peace.
“I’ve not yet begun the bidding.”
The lights were hot.
She focused on the lone person, still not socializing. Maybe he’d already bid on his lot and now was just enjoying a night at the circus.
Vein read out her grading. “As you know, much like Miss Phoebe Rosewood, this heartspring runs with golden blood. The Rosewood bloodline has an affinity for shield magic and protection spells. I do think I can theorize that whoever bonds to this golden heartspring will become flooded with more shield magic than anyone in Bomard knows what to do with.”
Briony glanced at him. She didn’t know if that was true or if it was part of the show he was putting on. Would the Bomardi who purchased her also receive her magical strengths?
Vein’s voice was low as he continued. “Miss Rosewood appraised as close to a five as anyone did in our scale of measured magical power.”
An intrigued murmur passed through the room. Mallow tilted her head.
“And in case you were curious...” His voice dropped low. “It will be an extra five thousand for this one.”
The acoustics shivered with the hum of whispered interest. The lonely Bomardi did nothing but cross one leg over the other.
“Mistress Mallow,” Vein said over the crowd. “Do we have your permission to begin the bidding at fifteen thousand gold.”
Mallow’s gaze never left Briony as she waved her hand magnanimously.
Fifty hands shot into the air, orange flames popping from fingertips, calling Vein’s attention.
Briony swallowed and looked down to find Reighven raising a lazy hand.
Hands were only raised on the ground floor, she realized. Perhaps they’d sold spectator tickets for the balconies.
“Let’s weed you out a bit, shall we?” Vein quipped. “Sixteen thousand.”
Only about five hands dropped.
“Sixteen five. Jumping up to sixteen five, ladies and gentlemen,” Vein
began.
She watched as hands slowly descended, Reighven and Cohle keeping up with each other, laughing at their little game.
Her knees felt shaky, and she wondered if she would be seeing food again anytime soon.
“Eighteen thousand gold. Do I hear—Yes, sir, eighteen thousand. What about eighteen five?” He pointed to Reighven. “Eighteen five to Reighven.
Several others still in. Nineteen?”
She let her eyes glaze over, watching the unmoving Bomardi. He sat still, one hand on his thigh, head supported by the other. He looked young. Wide shoulders. Tall. Briony shivered with the recognition. With the intimate knowledge of his lazy posture and his long fingers.
“Nineteen five? Yes, nineteen five to Quill. Do we have—?”
“Twenty-five thousand,” said a tense voice. Briony blinked as every person in the first three rows turned to look at that one solitary man. He’d raised his hand and produced a flare from his fingertips. Had she summoned his voice by staring at him?
Whispers and shuffling. She knew that Cordelia had just sold for a bit
more than that.
“Er, yes. Twenty-five thousand to...”
“Twenty-six,” Reighven snarled, sending a glare back at the younger man.
“Twenty-six five,” from the fourth row.
“Twenty-seven.”
“Twenty-seven five.”
“Twenty-eight!” Reighven yelled, irritated with the man in the fourth row.
The man whose voice drawled out, “Twenty-eight five,” as if money was no object to him. The man whose eyes she knew to be speckled with blue in certain light. Whose long fingers twirled his pen in class much as he was now, gathering the air and sparking it to produce flames.
Reighven hesitated, looking up to Vein. “Twenty-nine.”
“Twenty-nine five.”
And the thought floated through her addled consciousness that there was an auction, and she would belong to someone in a few short minutes.
And Toven Hearst was bidding.
The theater was buzzing. Most of the crowd had figured out that the Hearst boy was throwing his money against Lag Reighven.
“Thirty,” Reighven stated firmly, like he’d ended a game of cards.
“Thirty thousand, five hundred,” Toven hummed.
A crashing wave of whispers. Briony looked down at her feet, finding specks of blood on her shoes that they’d forgotten to clean.
“Do I hear thirty-one thousand?” Vein asked, speaking up again.
Reighven’s hand shot in the air. Toven’s followed.
Reighven had been so arrogant, so firm in his beliefs that he could afford her. But he didn’t have the gold to back this up. Did he?
Her blood ran cold.
Cordelia. Cordelia’s twenty-eight thousand gold now belonged to Reighven.
And Katrina. And the other women he’d caught.
Since he’d had several virgins, he now had a lot of money to spend.
“Thirty-two thousand,” one of them yelled, but Briony was concentrating on her head pounding, her shoulder aching.
As the bids rose higher, she thought about Toven Hearst. How the last time she’d seen him, he’d proven himself a dangerous man.
“Thirty-three thousand,” Toven said.
He’d chased her through a forest, toying with her, herding her like an
animal.
“Thirty-three five,” Reighven hissed.
“Thirty-four.”
“Thirty-four five.”
There was a saying in Evermore: The demon who has shaken your hand is better than the one who hasn’t. She didn’t know which demon would be better. Reighven was interested in possessing her body as well as her magic, but Toven...What had he said all those years ago when he’d asked her to dance?
I am accustomed to having the finest thing in the room, after all.
Could she hope that’s all this was?
“Thirty-five thousand,” Toven said, crossing his legs again.
“Getting a bit steep for you, whelp?” Reighven stood and faced the fourth row. “Hesitating?”
“Steep for me?” Toven laughed. “I’m surprised you can count this high.”
Reighven turned to the stage again. “Forty-five thousand gold.”
Briony swallowed as she listened to the hissing. She looked to Toven, still and silent.
“How much of that inheritance did Daddy give you to play with, boy?”
Reighven smirked back at him.
And Briony wondered the same. Orion Hearst was the richest man in Bomard, and inheritance laws would dictate that Toven would have access to some of it...but was it anywhere near this amount?
Mallow shifted, catching Briony’s attention. Her dark eyes were on Toven, assessing him.
Vein cleared his throat and said, “I hear forty-five thousand. Do I hear
forty-six?”
Toven’s hand lifted. Orange sparks.
“I can go all night, Hearst,” Reighven said, throwing his arms out wide.
“I’ve been making my fortune for a while now, and I just made fifty-two
thousand off my lots for this evening.”
“Fifty-three thousand,” Toven intoned.
Reighven laughed and turned back to Vein. “Fifty-five.”
“Sixty.” Toven’s voice cracked.
“Sixty-one.” Reighven grinned, yellow crooked teeth shining at her.
She wasn’t sure if it was the concussion, or the stage lights, or the future bearing down on her, but her lungs were begging for air.
She’d known that this would happen. That she’d be leaving with Reighven. She’d been mentally preparing for a week.
She didn’t know if she would truly be better off with Toven Hearst, but now, as he hesitated before stating, “Sixty-two,” she wished he’d never jumped in at all. Now she would always wonder.
“Sixty-five thousand,” said Reighven, chuckling.
Vein was white next to her as he waited. “I hear sixty-five thousand,” he
said at last. The crowd started twisting, buzzing with whispers. “Do I hear sixty-six?”
She didn’t dare look at him. Couldn’t bear the idea that if she looked, she might see indecision in the way he held his shoulders. Maybe she could guess his thoughts as she had in school, when he’d roll his shoulders back and reset his posture before diving back into a problem.
“Sixty-five thousand going once.”
Or the way he’d stare at the chalkboard in elixirs class, tilting his head to the side until suddenly grabbing for his pen, jotting his thoughts as if they’d
disappear if he wasn’t quick.
“Sixty-five thousand going twice.”
Or in year three, when suddenly he stopped paying her any attention, not even to aggravate her. When he’d simply shut off, and only the strangest of circumstances would get him to fight with her or even just make eye contact
with her.
A gavel banged.
The world cracked open, and a violent sound poured into her ears like lava.
Her eyes were on her feet as Reighven jogged up onstage and met Vein in the middle. The scroll. A burning on her left arm. And then a fist in her hair, dragging her head back. Reighven was there, grinning down at her.
She shoved at him, and the crowd loved that.
Mallow stood, applauding with the rest of them, as if asking for an encore.
Gains was smiling in the front row, like the cat who got the cream.
Briony couldn’t make out sounds anymore. Too much in her ears.
As the platform lowered, taking her down to the backstage area, she chanced one last look to see the crowd on its feet, one seat in the fourth row empty.
