A Throne for Sisters. Морган Райс

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      But Kate was already running. She would probably find herself beaten for it later, but she’d been beaten before. It didn’t mean anything. Helping the one person in the world she cared about did.

      She ran through the orphanage. She knew the way, because she’d learned every twist and turn of the place in the years since that awful night they dropped her here. She also, late at night, sneaked out from the ceaseless snoring and stench of the dormitory when she could, enjoying the place in the blackness when she was the only one up, when the tolling of the city’s bells was the only sound, and learning the feel of every nook in its walls. She sensed she would need it one day.

      And now she did.

      Kate could hear the sound of her sister, fighting and calling for help. On instinct, she ducked into a room, grabbing a poker from the fire grate and continuing on. What she would do with it, she didn’t know.

      She burst into the courtyard, and her heart fell to see her sister being pinned down by two boys while another fumbled with her dress.

      Kate knew exactly what to do.

      A primal rage overcame her, one she could not control if she wished, and Kate rushed forward with a roar, swinging the poker at the first boy’s head. He turned as Kate struck, so it didn’t hit him as well as she wanted, but it was still enough to send him sprawling, clutching at the spot she’d hit.

      She lashed out at another, catching him across the knee as he stood, making him tumble. She struck the third in the stomach, until he keeled over.

      She kept hitting, not wanting to give the boys any time to recover. She’d been in plenty of fights in her years at the orphanage, and she knew that she couldn’t rely on size or strength. Fury was the only thing she had to carry her through. And thankfully, Kate had plenty of that.

      She struck and she struck, until the boys fell back. They might have been prepared to join the army, but the Masked Brothers on their side didn’t teach them to fight. That would have made them too hard to control. Kate struck one of the boys in the face, then spun back to hit another’s elbow with a crack of iron on bone.

      “Stand up,” she said to her sister, holding out her hand. “Stand up!”

      Her sister stood numbly, taking Kate’s hand as though she were the younger sister for once.

      Kate set off running, and her sister ran with her. Sophia appeared to come back to herself as they ran, some of the old certainty seeming to return as they raced along the corridors of the orphanage.

      Behind them, Kate could hear shouting, from boys or sisters or both. She didn’t care. She knew there was no way but out.

      “We can’t go back,” Sophia said. “We have to leave the orphanage.”

      Kate nodded. Something like this wouldn’t earn just a beating as punishment. But then Kate remembered.

      “Then we go,” Kate replied, running. “First I just need to – ”

      “No,” Sophia said. “There’s no time. Leave everything. We need to go.”

      Kate shook her head. There were some things she couldn’t leave behind.

      So instead, she raced in the direction of her dormitory, keeping hold of Sophia’s arm so that she would follow.

      The dormitory was a bleak place, with beds that were little more than wooden slats sticking out from the wall like shelves. Kate wasn’t stupid enough to put anything that mattered in the small chest at the foot of her bed, where anyone could steal it. Instead, she went to a crack between two floorboards, worrying at it with her fingers until one lifted.

      “Kate,” Sophia huffed and puffed, catching her breath, “there’s no time.”

      Kate shook her head.

      “I won’t leave it behind.”

      Sophia had to know what she’d come for; the one memento she had from that night, from their old life.

      Finally, Kate’s finger’s fastened around metal, and she lifted the locket clear to shine in the dim light.

      When she was a child, she’d been sure that it was real gold; a fortune waiting to be spent. As she’d gotten older, she’d come to see that it was some cheaper alloy, but by then, it had come to be worth far more than gold to her anyway. The miniature inside, of a woman smiling while a man had his hand on her shoulder, was the closest thing to a memory of her parents she had.

      Kate normally didn’t wear it for fear that one of the other children, or the nuns, would take it from her. Now, she tucked it inside her dress.

      “Let’s go,” she said.

      They ran for the door to the orphanage, supposedly always open because the Masked Goddess had found doors closed to her when she visited the world and had condemned those within. Kate and Sophia ran down the twists and turns of the corridors, coming out to the hallway, looking around for any pursuers.

      Kate could hear them, but right then, there was only the usual sister beside the door: a fat woman who moved to block the way even as the two of them approached. Kate flushed red as she immediately recalled all the years of beatings she’d taken by her hands.

      “There you are,” she said in a stern tone. “You’ve both been very disobedient, and – ”

      Kate didn’t pause; she hit her in the stomach with the poker, hard enough to double her up. Right then, she wished it were one of the elegant swords that courtiers wore, or maybe an axe. As it was, she had to settle for merely stunning the woman long enough for her and Sophia to run past.

      But then, as Kate passed through the doors, she stopped.

      “Kate!” Sophia yelled, panic in her voice. “Let’s go! What are you doing?!”

      But Kate couldn’t control it. Even with the shouts of those in hot pursuit. Even knowing it was risking both of their freedom.

      She took two steps forward, raised the poker high, and smashed the nun again and again across her back.

      The nun grunted and cried with each blow, and each sound was music to Kate’s ears.

      “Kate!” Sophia pleaded, on the verge of tears.

      Kate stared at the nun for a long time, too long, needing to ingrain that picture of vengeance, of justice, into her mind. It would sustain her, she knew, for whatever horrific beatings might follow.

      Then she turned and burst out with her sister from the House of the Unclaimed, like two fugitives from a sinking ship. The stink and noise and bustle of the city hit Kate, but this time she didn’t slow.

      She held her sister’s hand and ran.

      And ran.

      And ran.

      And despite it all, she took a deep breath and smiled wide.

      However short it might be, they had found freedom.

      CHAPTER TWO

      Sophia had never been so afraid, СКАЧАТЬ