Home > Soul of Cinder (Heart of Thorns #3)(7)

Soul of Cinder (Heart of Thorns #3)(7)
Author: Bree Barton

“Cutthroats?”

“Don’t know where they come from. Band of thieves and murderers calling themselves the Embers. Tried to get me to join up—said I’d starve if I didn’t. I told them I’d rather starve than spill more innocent blood.”

“So the Embers are the ones carving the symbols,” Quin said, putting two and two together.

“Don’t know about that. But I know the Embers aren’t to be trusted.” He leaned back in his chair. “I’ve heard rumors of the young king. That he might be alive in Luumia. If he came back, I think he’d find many of us loyal.”

Quin tried to downplay his interest.

“Seems to me the prince never did much of anything for anyone.”

“I heard he spent time at the orphanage in Killian Village. He might be a bit wet behind the ears, but I wager he’d grow into a fine king. At least he’d never be his father.”

The farmer gathered the stew cups, leaving Quin to unpack his complicated feelings.

“I’ll say this for the young queen: at least she opened the borders. People can run to the west, find something better in the glass kingdom. Half the ruins you see around here are the Embers’ doing, not the queen’s.” He shook his head. “When a gap in power opens up, only power-hungry fools try to fill it. My wife used to say that.”

“May I ask why you have not run west?”

“Because this house is full of her.” The farmer’s grizzled voice had gone soft. “She’s in every room. If I leave home behind, I leave her, too.”

He touched the tarnished metal band around his finger.

“Twelve years. I still miss her every day.”

Something flickered in Quin’s chest. A memory of Mia Rose in the Royal Chapel arose unbidden. A fragment of his wedding vows echoed through his mind.

Flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone,

I give you my body, my spirit, my home.

He’d once thought those words were romantic, even beautiful. What a powerful act: to give yourself so fully to another person.

Now they horrified him. Marriage was a capitulation. Mia had enthralled him, a fateful harbinger of all to come. He had not given his body, his spirit, or his home.

It didn’t matter. They’d all been taken from him anyway.

Quin walked deeper into the brothel. He hadn’t eaten a real meal since the farmer’s stew, and that was days ago. His stomach growled in protest.

In the front parlor, he came to a halt.

A piano stood in the corner.

He felt a powerful urge to touch it, and a commensurate urge to turn away. Music—the piano in particular—symbolized the feeble, mewling part of himself he sought to eradicate. He had no desire to remember his own cowardice.

His gaze lingered on the polished bone keys. He couldn’t help it. He thought of his music teacher.

Tobin was barely older than Quin, a musical prodigy with an inimitable gift. The first time Quin saw him play, he decided Toby had the most beautiful hands he’d ever seen on a boy. The most beautiful hands he’d seen on anyone, though to be fair, Quin had seen very few girls’ hands ungloved. Tobin’s fingers were broad yet elegant, nails cut to the quick. “Any musician who lets his fingernails grow long,” Tobin was fond of saying, “loves himself more than his instrument.”

Watching Toby’s hands fly over the piano keys had stirred something deep inside him. His teacher loved the piano fiercely, the way a drowning man loves the rowboat come to save him. Quin sometimes wondered which he fell in love with first: the piano, or the boy who taught him to play it.

Under the plums, if it’s meant to be. You’ll come to me, under the snow plum tree.

The image darkened, blood seeping into the frame.

He pushed farther into the brothel. In the kitchens he found salted pork and a loaf of oatnut bread. No maggots this time. His mouth was watering. He carved off a sizable slab of pork—salty and delicious—and devoured three slices of sweet, yeasty bread. He even found a slug of goose milk in a leather flask and swilled it, smacking his lips in pleasure.

With the flask gripped firmly in hand, Quin found a stone staircase in the back corner. He took the steps two at a time—easy with his long legs—and trod lightly down the upstairs corridor, where he passed door after open door. In the brothel’s chambers he spied mother-of-pearl screens and sumptuous beds strewn with lush velvet. An array of silks and satins dripped from the walls, garments so pretty you’d never suspect the atrocities that had surely befallen the women wearing them.

Another memory emerged. The night it happened, Quin had been silly enough to fret over what to wear. White linen tunic or blue silk? Jacket or no? He knew the crypt was apt to be freezing. He also knew the royal buttons were a pain in his royal ass. Every night, when all he wanted was to disrobe and go to sleep, he instead had to muscle twelve gold knobs through twelve rigid loops.

Not that Tobin would have any interest in disrobing me, he’d thought at the time. Not that Toby’s given any thought to pushing each button through its stiff hoop, one by one, inching slowly down my chest from top to bottom.

Quin exhaled audibly, as if he could breathe the memory out. He pitied the fifteen-year-old version of himself, the boy so preoccupied with buttons he hadn’t seen what was coming.

But he was smarter now. Stronger. His powerlessness had sparked powerful magic inside him. For the first time in my life, he’d written in his letter, I feel no fear. I have always known myself to be broken. But finally, after so many years, I understand my brokenness is a gift.

In order to reclaim the throne, he would need to prove his newfound power. Especially if a gang of bandits was running wild, savaging what remained of his kingdom. Quin spent hours every day honing his magic, learning to direct his molten streams of fire. The first step was to retake Kaer Killian. If he met with opposition, he would need to perform far better than he had with Tristan.

As for what—or who—awaited him in the Kaer itself? Quin had no idea. The farmer hadn’t known, nor had any of the beleaguered Glasddirans he’d met. With Zaga dead and Angelyne gone, was the castle empty? Were people like Dom still under the enthrallment? Would Quin be warmly welcomed, or swiftly killed?

A piano note echoed down the empty corridor.

His fingers tightened around the flask. He waited for a second note to warm the air, but there was only silence. Had he imagined it? Sometimes when he closed his eyes, he could hear the melody that had haunted him for three long years. It was the first song Tobin had taught him—and the last song Toby ever played.

Quin had nearly convinced himself it was only in his head when a second note rang out. It lifted into a third, then sank into a fourth.

A chill shot down his spine.

Under the plums.

He descended the stairs with one hand gripping the banister.

The brothel was not abandoned after all.

A band of people stood in the shadowy front parlor.

They formed a tight half circle, as if they were guarding something. At least half a dozen of them. They were mostly young, his age or a bit older, both women and men. None was smiling.

Quin’s gaze settled on the tallest. He recognized the broad muscular shoulders and close-cropped hair, the smooth brown skin and hint of dimples.

“Domeniq?”

His heartbeat kicked up a few notches. Dom had survived Zaga and Angelyne. He was alive.

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