Only the Guilty

The bridge sagged between them, old timber and fraying rope. A hundred feet of empty air yawned beneath it. Beyond that lay darkness, where the ravine swallowed the afternoon sun.

Maera waited on the mainland. Kairn faced her from the island.

Behind him, demons crowded the black cliffs shoulder to shoulder, claws gouging the earth. Some wore bodies that were almost human—parodies of flesh, skin stretched too tight or too loose. Others had too many limbs, too many teeth, too many eyes, and none where they belonged. They snarled and snapped at one another, held back only by the man standing between them and her.

Kairn. Her Kairn.

No. Not anymore.

Black iron crowned his head. Nine narrow swords curved upward from a circlet pressed so tightly against his brow that their points seemed to grow from his skull. Black ichor leaked beneath it, streaming down his temples in glistening veins.

The Black Crown of the Fallen Demon King.

He had found it. Gods damn him, he had actually found it.

His hand rested on the pommel of his sword. Maera’s rested on hers. Selene’s dagger weighed against the small of her back beneath her cloak. Beside it sat a firesteel and a strip of oil-soaked tinder cloth, wrapped carefully against the damp.

She had prayed she would need neither.

Kairn looked at her for a long time. “It didn’t have to come to this.”

Maera said nothing.

“Maera.”

Still nothing.

Kairn’s face twisted—not with anger, but with deep, aching pain. “This is not what I wanted.”

He stepped onto the bridge.

The demons shifted behind him. Maera drew her sword.

Kairn stopped.

“You can still join me.” The shadow of the boy she had loved touched his smile. “How lovely it would be to share the Black Crown with you.”

Maera spat onto the bridge planks. Then she charged.

Kairn swore and drew his blade. Their steel collided in the middle of the bridge.

The ropes snapped taut beneath their combined weight. Timber pitched and groaned over the ravine.

Kairn’s blade arced high. Maera caught it, the jolt shooting up her arm. He twisted his wrist—she was already shifting her weight, bracing for the move she’d seen a hundred times. There—a shallow breath. He was about to reverse his grip; she almost smiled at the old habit. His right shoulder dropped, and she pivoted, reacting out of memory more than thought.

And he knew her just as well.

He’d memorized the way her left shoulder dipped before a lunge, how she leaned heavier on her right leg when fatigue set in. He could read every feint—fear or anger, shown in the smallest shift of her stance.

Once, their closeness had meant tangled sheets, her legs hooked around his, laughter ghosting against his collarbone while pale morning crept through cracked shutters.

Now, every shared secret became a weapon.

Maera steadied herself as the bridge shifted beneath her boots, the boards creaking loud enough to make her flinch. She kept her eyes on Kairn, listening for a trace of the old softness in his voice, searching his face for the man she’d loved—and finding only someone she almost recognized.

“This isn’t what Selene would’ve wanted,” Maera said.

Kairn’s blade slammed against hers in answer. “Don’t.”

“She would hate this.”

“Don’t say her name.”

“She was my family too.”

“Then you should understand.”

He drove her backward. Maera caught herself on the rope.

Behind him, the demons shrieked, a sound like slaughtered animals and breaking bones.

Kairn swung his fist. She knew that move too, and she was still too slow. His knuckles crashed into her jaw. Blood filled her mouth in a hot rush of copper. His sword followed. Maera ducked. His blade severed a strand of rope above her head. The bridge lurched sideways.

“You’re doing this for her?” Maera demanded.

“I am doing everything for her.”

“By slaughtering a city?”

“Not the city.”

Their blades locked. His face hovered inches from hers, black veins pulsing beneath his eyes.

“Just the upstanding magistrates who signed the warrant,” Kairn spat. “And the holy priests who so eagerly branded her.”

His voice roughened into a snarl. “The executioner who lit the pyre.”

Maera shoved him back, breath uneven. “And what about the others? The people between your demons and those men?”

He let out a brittle laugh. “The others?”

“Yes.”

“The crowd? The ones who pressed closer for a better view?”

Maera faltered. Kairn saw it.

“Our neighbors who stood in the street while she screamed?” Kairn’s voice was hoarse, jagged. “Greedy merchants who sold the kindling? The ever-obedient guards who took her from our home and kept us back?”

The questions lashed at Maera, each one dredging up the heat and stench of that night.

Steel rang.

“Tell me where innocence begins, Maera.”

She parried another blow.

“The women who brought their children to watch?” Kairn said. “The men who cheered when the fire caught? The hundreds who went home afterward and slept soundly?”

Selene’s screams rattled through Maera. She saw the priest again beside the flames, grinning as if he’d been given something to celebrate. That grin stayed with her—the bare gums, the pleasure in it. She imagined a demon’s claw closing over his face and wiping it away.

Then the others came easily. The magistrate, suddenly begging. The executioner reaching for a weapon he could no longer hold. One after another, she gave them to the dark.

And found, to her shame, that she did not want to look away.

“You understand.”

Maera’s gaze snapped to Kairn.

His expression had softened.

She had said nothing. Hadn’t moved. Yet he looked at her as though he’d watched the priest disappear beneath those claws with her.

Maera hated him for saying it. Hated herself because part of her did.

Then something roared behind him.

Maera looked past Kairn to the horde clawing at the earth. One creature had the body of a man and the head of something boneless, its jaw splitting open in four directions. A smaller demon skittered beneath its legs.

Small enough to be a child.

Maera looked back at Kairn. “And them?”

His jaw tightened. “They obey me.”

“They’re demons.”

“I wear the Crown.”

“That doesn’t mean you control them.”

“I have so far.”

“So far.” Maera glanced toward the horde. “And when that stops being true?”

“I can hold them.”

“The Crown is already holding you.”

Black flashed across his eyes. “No.”

“You knew what it was before you put it on.”

“I knew what it could do.”

“And you wore it anyway.”

Kairn’s grip tightened around his sword. “They burned Selene.”

“That doesn’t make the Crown less dangerous.”

“No.” His voice dropped. “It made any price worth paying.”

There it was.

Not the Crown speaking. Him.

Maera felt something inside her go cold. Kairn had known—perhaps not how deep the iron would sink, not how eagerly it would feed on grief—but he had known enough to wear it anyway.

“When this is finished,” he said, “I’ll send them back.”

“Send them back now.”

His eyes flickered. Maera lowered her sword an inch.

“Take off the Crown.”

“Maera—”

“Come home with me.”

For the first time, his sword dipped.

“We’ll find them,” she said. “Every magistrate. Every priest. Every bastard who condemned her. We’ll drag what they did into the light. We’ll make them answer for it.”

Something moved behind his eyes—something familiar.

“Together,” she said.

His mouth parted. Then the Crown pulsed. Fresh black ichor spilled down his cheek.

Kairn closed his eyes.

Hope rose before she could stop it.

Then he opened them, his expression hardening. “No.”

Maera’s heart broke again.

He attacked. She barely caught the blow.

“Do you think the Republic will let us take them?” he demanded. “You think its magistrates will condemn themselves?”

His next blow jarred Maera’s arms to the shoulders.

“You still believe there’s something worth saving in the Republic.”

Another blow drove Maera back.

“That’s how they use you. They know you’ll hesitate. That you’ll look for some reason not to strike.”

His blade crashed against hers again.

“They count on your mercy, Maera. They count on you giving them what they would never give Selene.”

Maera caught his sword against hers. Their faces were inches apart, his breath hot against her cheek.

Then his anger vanished.

His free hand rose. Black-stained fingertips brushed her cheek. She froze. His touch was achingly gentle, just as she remembered.

“They use your kindness against you,” he said. “They take your greatest strength and make it something they can hide behind.”

His thumb caught a tear beneath her eye. “I won’t make that mistake.”

Kairn stepped away. Behind him, the horde roared.

Maera stole a glance at the creatures, then back at him. “I watched too.”

His gaze shifted toward the demons.

“I was there when they lit the pyre. I heard her screaming.” She swallowed. “Selene was my family. I loved her.”

Kairn turned back to her.

“You condemn everyone who stood in that street and let it happen.” Maera held his gaze. “I stood there, too.”

His face changed.

“So tell me, Kairn. Am I guilty?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re different.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You are to me.”

“That’s the problem.”

Kairn closed his eyes, and the Crown almost vanished.

She saw the boy who stole pears from the abbey orchard. The young man who kissed her for the first time beneath Selene’s window while Selene loudly complained that some people were trying to sleep.

The idiot who had pressed his forehead against hers and promised—Together. Always.

Kairn opened his eyes. “Join me.”

The words crossed the space between them—a promise from another life. Maera’s heart stumbled in her chest, caught between memory and grief.

“Always,” Maera said.

Hope broke across his face.

She stepped toward him. “Take it off.”

The hope died.

“Take off the Crown,” Maera pleaded. “Send them back, and we can still—”

Kairn’s hand lowered. “No.”

Maera shut her eyes; tears slipped down her cheeks. “I can’t let you do this.”

“I know.”

She lunged.

Their swords clashed once. Twice. Three times.

Kairn caught her blade, twisted, and ripped it from her hand. Maera’s sword spun over the railing and vanished into the ravine.

His blade came to her throat.

Everything stopped.

She felt its edge against her skin. One movement. That was all it would take.

Kairn stared at her.

“Don’t make me,” he pleaded.

His voice trembled, but Maera held his gaze, refusing to look away from the man he’d become.

Maera stepped forward.

The blade bit. Warm blood spilled down her neck.

Kairn flinched.

She stepped closer and kissed him.

He went perfectly still. Then his sword lowered. His hand found her waist, and Kairn kissed her back.

It was not gentle.

It was desperate.

Grief and fury and years of soft-spoken promises crushed between their lips. Everything they should have said. Everything they never would.

An apology. A confession. A goodbye.

His forehead pressed against hers. Maera reached behind her cloak for the familiar hilt.

Selene had forged the dagger when they were seventeen.

For when my idiot brother isn’t around to protect you, she’d said.

Maera drew it.

Kairn heard the whisper of steel.

His eyes opened.

Too late.

She drove Selene’s dagger between his ribs, straight into his heart.

Kairn gasped. His sword fell. Maera’s hand remained locked around the dagger.

Then Kairn looked down at the silver hilt, at the tiny crescent moon Selene had carved into the pommel.

Recognition dawned on his face.

“Selene.”

Maera caught him as his knees buckled. They sank onto the bridge together.

Black ichor streamed from beneath the Crown. Then slowed. The veins beneath Kairn’s skin faded. Darkness receded from his eyes.

A broken laugh escaped him. “I thought I could hold it.”

“You gambled everything on that.”

His eyes found hers, brown again.

“I thought I could come back to you.”

Maera pressed his hand against her cheek.

“You did.”

Behind them, the demons writhed against the cliffs.

“I’ll make them answer,” she said. “I promise. Everyone who did this to her.”

“Not like me.”

Maera shook her head. “Never.”

He watched her for another moment, as if making sure she meant it.

His fingers caught weakly at the front of her cloak.

“Together.”

Maera bent until her forehead touched his. “Always.”

His hand went limp.

Then the Black Crown went dull.

The demons screamed, suddenly masterless.

Every creature on the island surged forward at once.

Maera stared at the Crown. Nine black points. Black iron slick with Kairn’s blood. She could pull it free.

Wear it. Command them. Finish what he began.

Maera recoiled as though the Crown had spoken aloud.

No.

She would rather face every demon on the island than put one finger against the thing that had fed on Kairn’s grief until vengeance was all he could see.

The first demon lunged. Another followed. The horde surged toward the bridge.

Maera ripped Selene’s dagger from Kairn’s body.

“I’m sorry.”

She kissed his forehead, then ran.

The bridge bucked beneath her feet. Behind her came claws, howls, and splintering wood.

Maera would not look back.

She reached the mainland and threw herself onto the earth.

Her hand plunged beneath her cloak for the tinder cloth and firesteel—a grim preparation she’d dreaded from the start.

Maera struck the firesteel. Nothing.

A demon skittered onto the bridge.

She struck again. Sparks scattered across the wood and died.

Claws hammered closer.

Maera swore and dragged the steel hard across the flint.

This time, the tinder caught.

She shoved the burning cloth beneath the rope and wood.

Fire climbed greedily.

The first demons reached the flame.

And there among them—Kairn.

His body disappeared beneath clawed feet, dragged forward by the rushing horde. The Black Crown still sat upon his head.

Maera lurched toward him.

Then stopped.

Kairn was gone.

She had killed him.

The fire reached the rope.

Maera raised Selene’s dagger.

One strike and the first support snapped.

The bridge twisted violently. Demons shrieked.

Maera hacked at the second rope. As it frayed, a demon burst through the flames toward her.

Maera screamed and struck again.

The last support broke.

The bridge fell.

Fire, monsters, and blackened timber plunged into the ravine.

Kairn fell with them.

For one impossible instant, Maera saw him suspended among the flames. The black sword-points of the Crown caught the light.

Then the darkness swallowed him.

The screams faded.

Maera stood at the edge of the ravine, ash and blood thick in her mouth. Smoke rolled upward, stained black by what burned below.

There was no bridge anymore. No path back to the island.

No Crown.

No Kairn.

Her fingers tightened around Selene’s dagger.

Beyond the mountains behind her, the Republic waited. The magistrates who had signed Selene’s death warrant. The priests who had bound her hands. The executioner who had lit the pyre.

The people who had watched.

Maera remembered the priest smiling beside the flames. She remembered wanting the demons to find him.

Maera wiped the tears from her face, the salt mingling with the blood on her fingers—the last of Kairn lingering on her skin. She could still feel his touch, burning and cold.

She turned toward the Republic.

Only the guilty, she promised herself.

Only the guilty.

And Maera started walking.