The King Is Dead, Yet He Won’t Stay Dead

The first thing I did was touch my forehead, half-expecting my fingers to come away bloody. Falling through an open manhole was bound to leave a person with a concussion or a broken bone or two. But there was no blood, not even a tender lump. I pressed harder — thinking maybe the shock had delayed my ability to feel pain before realizing I was kneeling on cold stone instead of lying at the bottom of a sewer.

Firelight flickered across the floor. When I lifted my head, I found a man crouching in front of me, close enough that I could see the green of his eyes and the crease between his brows. His long ash-brown hair fell over one shoulder, catching the yellow glow of a torch behind him.

I recognize that face. Not in the normal, embarrassing way of recognizing a stranger who waved at you but you cannot remember their name. I knew the shape of his nose — the pointy and high nose he inherited from his father, King Aethelred, the severe set of his mouth, even the exact shade of green his eyes were. I’d spent enough hours staring at him on the cover of The Crown for the Undead to recognize him anywhere.

The problem was that the cover was supposed to be a drawing.

“Come with me,” he whispered. “Tell me what you have witnessed, Lady Alix.”

I barely registered the request. Lady Alix? I looked down at my hands and the unfamiliar crimson bell sleeves covering my wrists. An enormous skirt spread across the floor around me, the sort of thing I’d once admired in illustrations without considering how anyone actually moved in it. Shit. Of all the people I could have become in my favorite medieval zombie-apocalypse novel, I’d landed in the body of Alix de Vaucroix, the queen’s younger sister. A minor villain whose life ended rather unpleasantly beneath the keep — as zombie fodder for the very creatures her own family had imprisoned.

“Where is she?” A woman’s voice rang down from above, sharp enough to make me flinch. “You are all incompetent! I will have your heads if you do not bring me my sister this instant!”

Queen Mahaut. My new sister, it seems.

In the novel, Alix had run toward that voice. Leofric had offered her protection, but she’d refused him and gone straight to the queen, who later had her fed to the undead to keep her quiet. I remembered being furious when I read it. Now, with footsteps sounding somewhere overhead, I found the whole situation considerably less entertaining.

“Lady Alix?” The man glanced toward the stairs, then back at me. He looked as though his patience was running out, which was unfortunate because I still hadn’t figured out what to say.

I opened my mouth. Was this a dream? Had I cracked my skull in the manhole after all? Neither question seemed particularly useful, and before I could settle on something to say, he stood.

“Very well. I see you are exactly like the rest of your family. Vipers who dare to usurp what is not theirs.”

He turned away, and my stomach dropped. I knew that line. In the book, Leofric disappeared into the royal passage right after saying it, leaving Alix to her sister.

“Wait!”

I scrambled up and caught his sleeve. He stopped, but I was already staring at my right hand. My fingers had closed around the fabric without hesitation. I tightened them experimentally, then loosened my grip. All five obeyed. My hand hadn’t worked like that in years. I’d lost the control I needed for professional archery after an accident, and no amount of rehabilitation had given it back. Yet here I was, gripping a prince’s sleeve as easily as I used to hold a bowstring.

“Lady Alix,” he said, looking pointedly at my hand.

Right. Miraculous recovery later. Survival first.

“Please. I’ll come with you.”

He studied me for a moment before hauling me to my feet. I nearly tripped over my skirt as he led me along the corridor — never mind the fact that I was barely holding on, carrying the heavy gown — then he stopped before a portrait of a crowned man with the same green eyes. Leofric, First of His Name, the founder of Nethmarch. I recognized the portrait from the book, including what was hidden behind it.

The prince pulled the frame aside, revealing an iron door set into the wall. He fitted an ornate key into its lock while I glanced back toward the stairwell. The queen’s shouting hadn’t stopped, and I could hear other voices answering her. Only House Hartham was supposed to have keys to the secret passages.

I’d once tried to have a friendly discussion online that the palace servants should have noticed doors hidden behind enormous portraits, and several fans had considered that criticism worthy of death threats and gatekeeping. Saying that I am not a real fan for having valid criticisms.

The lock clicked open. Leofric took a torch from the wall and nodded towards the totally dark passageway.

“Inside.”

I obeyed, gathering my skirt to keep from falling down the narrow steps. The door closed behind us, muffling the voices upstairs. The passage smelled damp, and the torchlight made our shadows crawl across the walls as we descended. My slippers scraped grit from the stone. Even my knees still ached from the landing.

If this was a dream, it was doing a distressingly good job of feeling real.

“Lady Alix.”

I looked up. Leofric had stopped a few steps below me, his torch illuminating half his face.

“Are you listening to me? I have saved you from your sister. The least you can do is tell me what I wish to know.”

It was irritating how handsome he was. The Harthams were rumored to descend from the fae, and I could see why people believed it. Unfortunately, his looks did nothing to soften the impatience in his voice.

He wanted to know what Alix had witnessed. I remembered the scene from the novel: the king, dressed in his nightgown, crouched over Alix’s personal maid with blood dripping from his mouth. He’d torn into her neck while she struggled to get away. It was the secret that had cost the original Alix her life.

I hadn’t actually seen it, of course. I’d read about it. Try explaining that to a medieval prince.

“Your Highness,” I began, “your father has turned into some kind of monster.”

He stared at me, saying nothing, so I continued.

“I believe the king is dead.”

“Dead?” He turned so sharply that I almost walked into his torch. “What do you mean, my father is dead?”

I caught myself against the wall, trying to decide where to start. The king had died of smallpox weeks ago. Queen Mahaut and my father had concealed it, hoping to keep Leofric from the throne until the queen’s child was born. I knew all of that. I could have explained it in order, like a sensible person.

Instead, I blurted, “Because the queen used some magical mushroom to revive him!”

The words echoed through the passage, and I slapped a hand over my mouth, wishing I could somehow shove the entire sentence back inside.