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  “Here lies Catherine Xeniathus, wife of Andrei the Second, Queen, Mother, Wife, Sister. May Celine grant her eternal flight,” I read from one of the marble coffins. “I read about her in one of Father’s books. She had her own brother hanged for treason because she thought him a threat to the throne. Andrei the Second was an idiot, apparently. She did most of the ruling.” Her features are captured in the marble; strong, high cheekbones and a large nose. I look for a resemblance to Cas—she is his ancestor after all—but I find none.

  “These people are prominent members of the royal families of old,” Sasha says. There is a trace of excitement in her voice as the words rush out, breathy and fast. “There may be kings here, too.”

  We walk a little further along the still room. At the end of the room is a dead end, blocked off by the last wall. “Ethelbert and his wife. They married for love and then he went insane and cut off his wife’s finger with a dagger.”

  Sasha raises her eyebrows at me. “Do you know everything about the royal family?”

  “No,” I say, “Only as much as I learned from these five books on history that Father had. He traded them for wood once and taught me to read. He said I needed to better myself. We read those same five books over and over again. Look, Gregor the First.” I gaze down upon Gregor’s face. “He was ugly. And fat. Look at the size of him!”

  Sasha giggles. “Mae, you can’t.”

  “You’re right, this is serious,” I reply. Seeing the coffins of the royals has sent me giddy, in a strange, morbid way. “He is fat, though. Imagine being married to that lump. He beat every one of his five wives, and they all died in suspicious circumstances. This is for all the women you tortured, you great horrible old bastard.” In a moment of madness I kick the edge of the coffin, tripping myself and falling backwards, landing on the hilt of the dead man’s sword. To my surprise, the sword depresses into the coffin and there is a scraping sound, followed by heat at my ankles.

  “Mae, watch out!” Sasha cries.

  A jet of flames burst from underneath the sarcophagus. I leap over them, but the cuff of my trousers is on fire. I let out a scream and beat at my clothes until the fire goes out.

  “What in the Gods…” I mutter.

  Sasha comes over to me. “The burn is minimal. You should be fine. It will be uncomfortable for a while.”

  “Uncomfortable,” I repeat. “A straw mattress is uncomfortable, this is something else. Where in the name of Celine did those flames come from?”

  Sasha kneels down on the stone floor. “There’s some sort of pipe attached to the bottom of the coffin. When you leant on the sword it seemed to trigger the flames. There must be a mechanism inside that triggered the reaction. Do you think this could be a clue? I mean, we know that the laboratory is down here somewhere, but there isn’t a visible door. It has to be hidden.”

  “And the trigger to opening the door has been disguised as part of the tombs,” I say. “Yes, that makes sense. It must be booby trapped.”

  “Be very careful, Mae. We don’t know what else is down here.”

  I nod, and make my way around the room, lifting my torch into each nook and cranny, being especially careful not to touch anything, especially not the marble coffins. The pipe and the fire has Beardsley written all over it. What else has he modified in the palace? Spikes coming out of the floor? Moving walls? Whatever he has done, he has hidden it well. There are no obvious changes in stone patterns or bricks. The walls are normal. But there is one thing that catches my eye. Above the sarcophagi there are words chiselled into the wall. At first I thought it had been an epitaph, but now I realise it is the only poem written on the wall instead of the actual coffins.

  I read it aloud.

  Here lie leaders of men,

  Kings of the Realm,

  They gave their lives to protect,

  To serve,

  To honour.

  Watch over them, Gods,

  Celine of air,

  Ren of water,

  Endwyn of fire,

  Fenn of soil.

  May the light guide you through.

  “There’s nothing unusual about that,” Sasha notes. “It’s a tribute to the kings.”

  “But the fire came from Gregor’s tomb. Fire is in the poem.”

  “Yes, but it was a trap. I don’t see how they could create a weapon out of air, water or soil,” she replies.

  “I don’t know, Beardsley is very inventive. I’m sure he would find a way.” I read the poem again in my mind, searching for clues. Beardsley seems to like putting a fail-safe in his creations, a hint in case he or whoever else needs the code forgets it. “The Gods are in a particular order. I think we need to press on the sarcophagi in the order of the Gods.”

  “But how do we know which king relates to which God? I would never have picked Gregor as relating to fire.”

  “No, it makes sense. There was a fire in Cyne during his reign. It destroyed most of the market square and hundreds died. That’s why he’s fire. See, the king, or any future king, will know the history of his ancestors. He will be able to figure out the clues on the walls,” I say.

  “You wouldn’t think anything of it unless you were looking for it,” Sasha says. “And it’s disrespectful to kick the coffins of the dead.” She shoots me a narrow-eyed look. “Which means it’s unlikely anyone would accidentally come across the room. Who would come down here anyway? Except for members of the Royal family.”

  “We need to figure out which king goes with which God, and then activate the levers. Gregor is fire, and he comes third. We need air first. Do you remember any abnormal storms? High winds that made history?”

  “History lessons aren’t much of a high priority in the Borgan camp. We’re too busy hunting for food and staying alive.”

  I ignore Sasha and think. “Ethelbert sent ships towards the Southern Archipelagos once. High winds caused a huge tidal wave to wipe out the entire fleet. But that could be water as well as air. Or I think there may have been tales of a hurricane coming from the Sverne mountains and destroying villages in the North when Alfred the Third ruled.”

  “Choose carefully,” Sasha warns.

  I stand between the two coffins in thought. “It has to be Alfred.”

  “Are you sure? You said it was rumours.”

  “Yes. That’s the beauty of it. I think the king would like that people outside his family would be unsure of the real truth. I think he would choose Alfred.” With my palms sweating, I move over to the coffin. I swallow and move my hand gently towards the marble.

  “Get ready to run,” Sasha calls.

  My muscles are wound tight. My nerves are jangling. My hand hovers over the hilt of the marble sword resting on the chest of the chiselled statue. Alfred died young, and his effigy is thin, delicate almost. I lower my hand until there is barely a hair’s breadth between my skin and the cold surface of the coffin. The burn on my ankle is sore enough to send me a warning, but I must brave myself against the nerves, and believe in myself, just like Avery told me to. I take a deep breath and press down, ready to dart back if anything comes towards me.

  The marble grinds together as the hilt depresses. I brace myself for the unexpected, perhaps an axe swinging above my head, or pressurised air jetted towards me, but instead there is silence, and the brightening of light behind me.

  “Mae, look!”

  I move back from Alfred’s coffin and turn to face Sasha. She grins and points down to the ground beneath her feet. Around the stone flag glows a beam of light, highlighting the cracks between the stones.

  “Let the light guide you,” she says. “It worked! You chose correctly.”

  As I exhale through my teeth I’m momentarily stunned. I hadn’t, until that moment, thought it would actually work.

  “You need water next,” Sasha says. “Didn’t you say Ethelbert lost a fleet of ships?”

  “Yes, but I’m not sure if it’s in the same theme. The oth
ers were disasters that happened in and around Cyne. This was part of military action.”

  “It was still a natural disaster though,” she points out. “It was a tidal wave.”

  “But there was also a great flood. It came in off the Sea of Solitude and flooded inland as far as Cyne. Thousands died, but I don’t remember the king.” I walk up and down between the sarcophagi. “It wasn’t Gregor, Ethelbert or Alfred the Third. It might have been Andrei or maybe… yes, maybe it was Alfred the Second. No, I think that’s right.”

  “Are you sure?” Sasha says.

  “I think I remember now. Alfred the Second’s son was killed because he was visiting whores near the coast.”

  “Where in all of Aegunlund did your father acquire these history books?”

  “Oh, it didn’t say that. It said he ‘frequented a tavern for gambling and sport’ but I’m not stupid.” I stride over to the coffin and lift my hand to depress the hilt of the sword. Beads of sweat break on my forehead, and I imagine myself lost in a tidal wave, drowned beneath the palace. No, I must believe. I press down on the hilt with less hesitation than before. This must be correct.

  The glow behind me indicates that I am. I turn to see a grinning Sasha.

  “And now, Gregor,” she says.

  “Yes,” I reply, but I take a moment to check through the facts in my mind. I have to be certain.

  The third stone lights up when I press the hilt. There is now only one stone between us and the far wall. If I guess the next king correctly, we will make it into the secret laboratory.

  “Soil, Mae. Has there been some rift in the ground, or a landslide?” Sasha asks.

  I think back to the five books in my father’s hut. “There was a snow slide on the Benothian ranges. That was during the North and South divide, when Aldrych the First ruled. But then there was also a quake that split the ground near the Haedalands when Andrei ruled. I remember it now. Father said that his grandparents were born in the Haedalands not far from where the quake occurred.”

  “Well it must be the quake,” Sasha says. “It’s soil. The snow slide is frozen water. Everyone knows that.”

  I chew on my bottom lip. “But Aldrych is our current king’s father. It would make sense to end the puzzle there. Snow isn’t the same as soil, though. It can’t be. It has to be Andrei.”

  “Mae,” Sasha says. “Do you think Beardsley has rigged all the coffins? There are more than a dozen down here. What if you get it wrong?”

  “I have to take the chance.”

  “So which king are you going with?”

  Aldrych is close to the far wall where I suspect the entrance to the laboratory is, and Andrei is further back, near the poem. I turn to each, one after the other. There is a part of me that is drawn to Aldrych, even though the memory of the disaster during his reign is only partially related to soil, somehow I can imagine our king wanting to involve his father. A snow slide is more like a landslide than it is a tidal wave. I turn from Aldrych and head towards Andrei. No. The poem stated soil—I must go with the logical choice.

  My palms are slick with sweat as I reach towards the hilt of the sword. I suck in the stale air of the underground crypt, and it is as though the walls are looming down around me, closing in tighter and tighter. My stomach clenches. I’ve been right so far. I press down on the hilt and it depresses into the coffin just like the others, and behind me there is the scrape of stone, as though a heavy door has been dragged open.

  I spin around to Sasha in excitement. “I did it.”

  But Sasha’s mouth is hanging open and her eyes are fixed on the ground. The sound of the scraping stone was not from the secret door at all. The final flagstone by the far wall of the crypt is pulled away, leaving a gaping hole in the ground. From inside that hole comes the sound of something scuttling and scraping.

  “What is it?” I whisper.

  Sasha shakes her head. “I don’t know.”

  I take a step forward, hesitant to see what lies beneath the ground. There’s a twist in my stomach that tells me this isn’t the door we’ve been looking for. And as my heart pounds against my chest, a brass coated creature bursts from the opened trap door.

  Chapter Fourteen – The Secret Room

  It happens in a flurry of gold limbs. The creature leaps out towards me and I have barely enough time to summon wind to knock it back. As it staggers away I grasp hold of my sword and wield it in front of me, using both hands to steady the blade.

  “What is it?” I shout to Sasha. But she is as still as the sarcophagi, staring at the mechanical beast.

  It climbs to its feet and faces me. Ruby red glass eyes stare at me through the darkness. It has a long snout, a broad chest, four legs and a jaw full of sharp teeth. This time Beardsley has excelled himself, he has managed to create the most frightening dog I’ve ever seen. It snaps its jaw open and shut, imitating a dog gnashing its teeth, and even though it makes no such noise, I can imagine the growl at the back of its throat.

  Sasha snaps out of her trance. “It has pieces of glass stuck on the end of its paws like claws, and there’s a tail like a metal whip. It’s very flexible and long, so be careful.”

  The dog scrapes its paws along the stone flags, as though waiting for the perfect time to pounce. In turn, I keep wind close to me, and hold my sword aloft. I’m limited in the amount of the craft I can use without endangering our lives down in the crypt. Water could end up drowning us, plus it would do little against the brass of the dog, flames would barely hurt the thing—not that I can create them anyway—and soil could end up in us buried alive. My best bet is to remember what Beardsley said about the spider—the weakness is in the eyes.

  “Beardsley, for the love of the Gods, how did you make these things?” I mumble.

  The dog sets off at a gallop and I push back with wind. I need to keep my power in check, controlling my emotions. The dog fights through the wind, but I manage to at least slow it down to give me enough time to pull back my sword and prepare to attack. As I withdraw my sword, ready to thrust it at the creature, the dog leans back on its hind legs and pounces towards me, its jaw open, the jagged teeth bare. I duck, swinging blindly with my sword, somehow managing a hit on the underbelly of the beast as I drop down to the ground. It at least throws the dog off course and it falls onto Andrei’s coffin, knocking a chunk of marble from the corner.

  I stagger back, onto the first highlighted flagstone. The brass dog lies unmoving on top of King Andrei, and I hope to all the Gods that it will not get back up. Then its head twitches to the right. Its tail flicks up and slaps against the stone. It gets back on its feet and turns to face me, only now one of its eyes have been smashed.

  “Bash its head in, Mae,” Sasha shouts. “I think it has some sort of… brain there.”

  The dog rushes towards me and sure enough behind that broken eye it seems as though there is a glint of something, a flash of an amber jewel like the amulets worn by the Borgans. I use the same tactic, slowing it down with a short, sharp gust of wind and then thrusting the sword forwards, letting out a cry as I throw my shoulder into the task. The dog tries to jump at me with its metal teeth showing, but this time I am ready for it, and I bring the sword down in a crashing blow on its last good eye. The dog is stunned, staggering back as it composes itself. That’s when I ram the sword through its eye, managing to find a weak spot in the plates of metal at the back of its head. When I pull the sword back, it immediately goes limp. Sasha jumps up and down and cheers for me.

  I reach down and collect the broken amulet. “Beardsley must have used amber because he knows it will channel the craft. Half mechanics and half magic. No wonder they are so terrifying.”

  “Mae!” Sasha calls.

  I have barely enough time to face Sasha when three more brass dogs leap through the hole. I almost drop my sword at the sight of them. Sasha screams for me to go left, and at the last moment I’m able to move my limbs, missing the dogs by a hair.

&nbs
p; The three dogs are identical, with the same powerful hind legs and sharp teeth. I try to ignore the nausea in my stomach and regain my balance, lifting the sword to protect me. The dog closest to me is the quickest to change direction, and it chases me down with sweeping strides. Air pulses from me, knocking the dog back and taking the other two with it, but the effort of using my powers in such force brings beads of sweat out on my forehead. My legs begin to tremble. If I’m not careful, I will weaken.

  There’s no way I can fight all three with a sword. Instead, I need to think fast. I need to outwit them. What is their weakness? I can’t find any weakness at all. They are strong, fast, impenetrable. But then, I destroyed the first dog because it crashed into the sarcophagus. The dogs are not alive, that means they have no fear. They don’t see hazards in the way humans and animals do.

  With renewed energy, I position myself next to Andrei’s tomb, silently apologising to the long dead king for desecrating his final resting place.

  “I’m alive, Andrei,” I whisper, never taking my eyes from the red glassy eyes of the dogs, “and I plan to stay that way.”

  As soon as I plant my feet, the dogs race towards me.

  Sasha yells my name, but I do not look at her. Instead, I watch the path of the dogs, waiting. Waiting for the very last minute when all three have their legs lifted from the ground. And then I drop to my stomach. There’s the clash of metal on stone behind me as I slither across the ground away from them. Shards of metal fall on me, one cuts through the cloth of my tunic, grazing my arm.

  “Hurry, Mae. One of them is still functioning,” Sasha warns.

  I jump back to my feet just in time to raise my sword. The dog’s jaw clamps down over the blade, and its paws hit me on the shoulders, knocking me back. Somehow, I lift my feet and kick its belly, managing to make the dog lose its balance. The dog’s jaw loosens and I manage to retract the sword in time to make one last swing at its head. Something deep within me snaps and I hear a feral battle cry come from somewhere deep inside me. Primitive. Linked to fear and anger and the tenacity to survive. I haven’t come all this way to be defeated by a metal dog.