Dark Ascension: A Generation V Novel (19 page)

Prudence and Chivalry’s needlelike fangs slid out, delicate and precise. I had nothing like that, so it was my mother who did what she’d always done for me—drew one of her sharp nails across the inside of her elbow to split the skin for me. I cupped her elbow in my hands and started to lean down, and I paused for a moment to look at her. Her eyes were focused on mine, and, even as my sister leaned down and bit her neck, my mother’s lips widened into a smile as she looked at me. Across from me, Chivalry was already feeding.

I leaned down and began to drink at the wound.

I’d been dependent on my mother’s blood for my entire life, but her blood tasted different this time. It was thinner, for one thing—instead of it being so thick that I had to suck hard to get any into my mouth, today it flowed freely, easily into me. The taste was saltier, and there was a faint hint to it that reminded me, very strangely, of roses—of the smell that cut roses have just before they begin wilting. That bond, the tie between me and my mother was winding tighter as I drank, and it felt like my whole chest was compressing, and that awareness of my parent was a throbbing certainty that blacked out my vision, my hearing, and anything that existed beyond the blood that I was swallowing.

The blood began to thin, and I drank harder, not letting go. Then it was one last droplet on my tongue, and as it slid down my throat, I felt the bond shatter, like a fluted sugar sculpture that has been spun out like stained glass and is dropped to the floor. The death of the bond, and the death of my mother, cut through me, and the pain was unimaginable, as if a heated knife had been drawn across every nerve ending in my body. I opened my mouth to scream, and it was gone, leaving only an empty well of loss.

Inside me, somewhere in my head or my soul, whichever I was more inclined to believe in that day, there had been three strings that tied me to my family, that let me know that they were around. Chivalry had once told me that those had existed before I had even been born—that from the moment I’d quickened in my host mother’s womb, he’d felt the beat of my heart, and the bond between us.

Now my mother was gone, and only two ties remained. They felt fainter, more delicate, as if the loss of my bond to my mother had changed them from the heavy ropes on a ship to strands of a spider’s web.

She was really dead, really gone.

*   *   *

Madeline had left her orders, and they were carried out.

A funeral pyre had already been built on the back lawn, in full view of the ocean. There were large logs, and hundreds of pinecones of many different varieties, from the tiny ones that littered the forest floors around us to huge ones that must’ve come from the sequoias in California. There were braided wreaths of pine boughs, rosemary, sage, and things that I couldn’t identify by scent or sight, beautifully woven together. The pyre had been built within a frame of black wrought iron, the design showing birds, and flowers, and the ocean waves. Beneath the pyre was a flooring of bone-white tiles, something that I knew hadn’t been there yesterday, sitting on top of the recent snowfall. Strings of delicate white lights in the shape of lilies had been strung around the backyard between recently erected posts swathed in white silk.

My mother’s body had been wrapped in a red shroud of some heavy fabric and was now carried on a board of polished rosewood, covered all over in more carvings, and around the edges ran the inscription—Madeline, mother of Constance, Prudence, Chivalry, and Fortitude, sister of Edmund, daughter of Blanche. It repeated a dozen or more times, each time the lettering subtly different, the spelling and presentation shifting from the modern all the way back to what the carving might’ve looked like on my mother’s own cradle, back in 1387.

We followed behind the body, the chief mourners in a procession that consisted of us and the staff of the house. There were no representatives from any of the races that my mother had ruled—perhaps it was tradition, or maybe she just hadn’t cared to include them in her plans. She was no longer there to give us an answer, if she’d felt inclined to do so.

There were no clouds in the night sky, and the moon was barely a sliver, leaving the stars to gleam perfectly and coldly above us in all their winter glory. The board that carried my mother was placed gently on top of the pyre, her feet facing the ocean.

Three torches were produced, and lit, each a masterpiece of wood carving, each with our name set into the sides, entwined with delicately rendered leaves and berries. The tops were dipped into a small container of kerosene, then lit and handed to each of us in turn. We stood at three corners of the pyre and waited for our cue, as one final item was produced. This was a carved wooden candle, this one marked for my dead sister, Constance. It was lit, then gently placed just above my mother’s head, the flame flickering and building in strength.

Then Loren Noka gave us a subtle nod, and we each brought the flaming tips of our torches down onto the wreaths, letting them catch and the fire spread. Then we slid our torches farther down, completely inside the intricately built nest of wooden logs, the fuel that would allow the pyre to burn long enough to break down bone to ash. The flame built greedily, catching in a fierce and immediate blaze on the pine and the herbs, more sluggishly on smaller pieces of kindling, until finally it built into an inferno that caught even the thickest pieces of wood and wouldn’t go out until everything was consumed. There must have been little pockets of chemicals tucked into the pyre, because the fire was many colors—brilliant scarlet red, a rich purple, sullen green, and even a sapphire blue. The smell was a cacophony—some pleasant and deliberately aromatic, some undeniable as the scent of burning flesh.

As we stood in the darkness, the heat of the pyre enveloping us and melting the surrounding snow, music began to play. Somewhere, probably back on the patio, a string quartet played for hours—everything from modern pop to old chamber music that had been played for kings and queens.

The fire burned all night, and we all stood beside it. Once, out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw a white fox and the glitter of many eyes behind her, but when I turned to look there was nothing. Eventually, as the sky began lightening to a pale gray, the pyre began to gutter, even the thickest logs consumed, and the shape of my mother’s body had long since disappeared. And when the lines of delicate pink and orange appeared above us, reflected down onto the churning waves, it was finally over. The coals still winked with ruby lights, the mixed gray and white of the ashes still hot enough that a second fire could’ve started just by placing a sheet of paper or a few pieces of kindling down. I saw now that a few people stood off to the side with what looked like overlarge fireplace tools.

We hadn’t touched or spoken since our mother died, but we’d stood together, watching her burn. Now Chivalry’s hand closed around my arm, and he said, softly, “It’s over, Fort.”

“What do we do now?” I asked. Madeline was dead. She was gone, and we were left without her, to somehow move forward on our own.

There was no answer, just Chivalry tugging me around, walking back toward the house. Simone, his wife, had appeared on his other side, and Prudence walked ahead of us. The string quartet was packing up their instruments. Staff members had begun taking down the strands of white flower lights, as well as the posts. White silk was being folded, tucked away. Behind us I could hear the wrought-iron frame being disassembled. The new day, the first of my life without my mother, was beginning.

She was gone, but nothing had stopped, and nothing would stand still.

The next day,
I sat and ate breakfast with Chivalry and Prudence. The cook had been one of the fatalities in my mother’s bedroom, and the new cook was her niece, who had been her aunt’s assistant for almost twenty years. I was disturbed to realize, as I ate, that I could discern no difference in the taste of the food whatsoever. Had I not been told about the change, then my only hint that a new administration was in place in the mansion’s kitchen would’ve been that a vegetarian quiche had been served alongside the rest of the dishes, with zero fanfare, something that never would’ve occurred while my mother was writing the menus and waiting for my “experiment” in vegetarianism to come to an end.

“Stop pouting, Fortitude,” Prudence snapped at me.

“I’m not pouting,” I defended.

My sister pointed her parfait spoon at me. “You’re definitely pouting.”

“You’re sulking a bit,” Chivalry, the traitor, noted. “Just admit that Mother knew what she was doing when she put together her will. If you’d been given immediate access to your inheritance, you would’ve given the whole thing to Doctors Without Borders or something like that just to make a point.”

“And what a tragedy that would’ve been, if a worthy and selfless cause suddenly benefited from millions of dollars,” I said. My siblings shook their heads, horrified at the thought. Across the table, Simone gave me a sympathetic smile. Slightly bolstered, I continued. “Don’t think that I’m going to feel any differently when the trust finally matures.”

“I trust in Mother’s wisdom, little brother,” Chivalry said, putting another forkful of omelet in his mouth and eyeing the plate of bacon assessingly, clearly wondering if he was up for a second helping. Wordlessly, Simone reached out and put two more pieces on each of their plates, and they shared a smile. Chivalry turned his attention back to me. “Holding the trust back until you’re fifty will give you time to mature, to attain new thoughtfulness—”

“To conform to your values rather than mine?”

Prudence snorted heavily. “Mother knew what she was doing. You can play human all you want now, when you see no visible differences between yourself and your peers. Just wait until you’re fifty, brother, and all the people you went to college with are now checking in with their doctors about their cholesterol and worrying about how they’re going to pay for their children’s educations, and you still look exactly as you do today.” A somewhat smug look slid across her face. “Perhaps then you’ll be a bit more willing to embrace who, and what, you are.”

“And in the meantime,” Chivalry pointed out, “you are being given a perfectly appropriate allowance, which you are more than free to hand over to worthy causes at the beginning of every month, if that’s what you feel is best.”

“A monthly allowance that just happens to be in the exact amount as my half of the apartment rent,” I noted. “How amazingly convenient.”

“The amount will go up when you turn thirty.” My brother chomped down on a perfectly prepared slice of bacon with every indication of enjoyment. I nudged my glass of orange juice over to block my view of the serving plate. “And then continue to go up, a little bit every year, until you turn fifty and can touch the bulk of the capital.”

“Mother decided all this on her own?” I asked. Both of my siblings looked at me blandly. “Of course not.”

“Don’t fuss, Fort. There’s too much going on at the moment.” Prudence deliberately leaned forward and nudged the serving platter of bacon back into my eye line. “The faction heads are all being informed about Mother’s death today, though heaven knows that they probably know about it already. They’ve been twittering about nothing else for the last two weeks.”

I moved the mimosa jug a strategic two inches to the left to block my view again. “Twittering as in your old-fashioned fancy-pants term for gossip, or actually tweeting, on Twitter?”

Prudence gave me an icy glare. “Loren Noka can show you the screenshots, I’m sure.”

“The cards are being delivered today by personal messenger,” Chivalry broke in calmly, giving his mouth a delicate dab with his napkin, “so we need to start having discussions about how we want to proceed. Mother was clear that these decisions needed to be made together.” He turned to Simone and gave her a melting smile. The worst part of the sudden radiation of charm that was emerging from him—as if clouds had suddenly parted to reveal the sun—was that he wasn’t even doing it on purpose. It was patently obvious that just being around Simone made him happy—of course, that had been the case with all his wives, before he’d eventually killed them. “My darling, I have the unfortunate inkling that this is not going to be a swift conversation, so would you mind terribly if I . . . ?”

Simone leaned over to give him a solid kiss. “I need to do some endurance training anyway, honey, and I know that jogging around Newport with sixty-pound weights strapped to you is something of an acquired taste. I’ll catch up with you at dinner.” She got up from the table with a cheery wave, more enthusiastic than any person should be at the prospect of hours of jogging while weighted down with the equivalent of a baby harp seal strapped to her back. Simone was a professional mountain climber and guide, though, currently training in the hopes of being included in a May expedition to attempt an Annapurna ascent in the Himalayas. I liked her, but I wasn’t sure that we really understood each other, given that my ideal day involved being wrapped in blankets and watching a
Doctor Who
marathon, while hers involved using nothing but an ice ax and belaying pitons to inch her way up a mountain while icy winds attempted to rip her off to her death. I waved back as she left. Prudence lifted one hand and gave a small wiggling of her fingers that managed to effectively convey her sarcasm.

“So, it’s just the cards going out?” I asked. “We don’t have to do a memorial service or something?”

“Mother didn’t see the point, I suppose,” Prudence replied, toying with the last drops of her parfait. “She set the pyre details herself in advance, and Loren Noka let me know this morning that her ashes were collected into the appointed box, but that Mother’s directions indicated that the spreading of the ashes should wait until Edmund arrives.”

“He’s coming?” I felt shocked, and more than a little disturbed. None of us had ever met our uncle, or even spoken with him. And after the last visit we’d had from a European vampire . . . well, it wasn’t something that was necessarily a good surprise.

Prudence shrugged carelessly. “Mother apparently thought so. As for when, who knows? A month? A year? Ten years? He dates back to the Battle of Bosworth, Fort. Time has a different meaning for the old ones. And his tie was to Mother, not to us. I’d be surprised if he shows up before the colonization of Mars.”

Chivalry gave a small snort. “Is that estimate including the defunding of NASA?” The space program was a sore subject with Chivalry. For all my own disappointments about the lack of emphasis given to exploration, he’d actually been present at President Kennedy’s speech at Rice University, and felt a personal affront whenever the NASA budget was cut. With a visible effort my brother pulled himself away from his usual diatribe and focused on issues closer to terra firma. “Well, this is my proposal—we need to start things off right, and move forward in the spirit of cooperation that Mother intended. Therefore, I believe that we should not move from this table”—Chivalry rapped the tabletop decisively with his knuckles—“until we can come to a unanimous consensus on one issue.”

There was one piece of immediate consensus, and that was the clear horror that both Prudence and I felt at the thought of that proposal. Clearly we had much clearer memories of the miserable afternoon spent debating the succubi petition than Chivalry did.

“Now, don’t look at me like that,” Chivalry chided, his voice laden with deliberate enthusiasm. “We can do this if we just work together. Now, what are some of the items on our agenda? The succubi? The request from the new
karhu
that was conveyed at the coronation? The kobold activities that Fort observed?”

If Julie Andrews had been male and a vampire who dated back to the Civil War, this was what sitting at the table with her would’ve been like. I could only count my blessings that Chivalry had always considered spontaneous singing outside an opera house to be incredibly vulgar; otherwise I could quite easily see him try to motivate togetherness through a Disney-style song and dance number.

After a long, horrible pause, where I mulled over the fact that the grieving process was clearly being expressed differently by all of us, I asked, “Are we going to be able to take bathroom breaks?”

Chivalry frowned at me. Apparently this was not the response that he’d expected. “What? Fine, fine.”

“Oh, good,” Prudence cut in. “I was worried that we’d end up resorting to the flower vase, and if there’s one thing I don’t miss about older and grander ages, it’s the chamber pots.”

As ever, the realization that I was actually in agreement with my sister was a terrifying one, and something that made me wonder if a reappraisal of my life choices and value systems was in order.

Over the following four hours, I was at least reminded about all the ways that Prudence and I disagreed, as we moved through every prominent item on our collective agenda and managed to fundamentally deadlock on every single one. Our progress on the succubi was nonexistent, with forty minutes spent just disagreeing on whether or not we should even continue to support them as they hovered at the edge of the territory in red tape limbo. The only reason the food funding was still in place at the end of that conversation was simply that we couldn’t even agree to cut it—and any greater issue remained almost congressionally untouchable. Prudence absolutely hated the idea of agreeing to a
metsän kunigas
adviser on bear issues, which killed the whole thing, even when I pointed out that Gil Kivela had made significant compromises on what he’d actually wanted. The only result of that had been Prudence’s suggestion that we kill Gil, along with Dahlia for good measure, and institute a puppet regency for Anni Kivela. That, thankfully, died quickly, as even Chivalry agreed that that seemed like a bit of an overreaction (though his use of the term “a bit” had me more than a bit worried). Even the kobold issue was something that we couldn’t agree on—my sister actually liked the idea of allowing the kobolds to hunt the homeless population, provided that they were discreet about it and left no survivors.

“Can we at least agree to expel all the witches from the territory?” Prudence asked plaintively.

“Absolutely not,” I said, my forehead pressed against the tablecloth in despair.

“Maybe just some additional regulations?” Chivalry suggested. Prudence and I both disagreed in unison—though of course for entirely different reasons.

There was a long silence, born of exhaustion, fruitless arguing, and the sad realization that we’d all used our allowed bathroom breaks.

“Okay,” I finally said, breaking the silence. “This has been a complete bust. And if we stay here any longer, then we’re going to have to eat lunch, which is a depressing thought. So now we’ve also managed to ruin lunch, which I didn’t think was possible.”

Prudence nodded. “On this sole subject, Fortitude is right. Chivalry, my brother”—her voice became coaxing—“perhaps we need to adjourn this for another time.”

Chivalry’s expression was dogged. “Absolutely not. I refuse to believe that we are incapable of all agreeing on just
one
subject.”

“Despite all available evidence?” Prudence furrowed her brow, perplexed. “Really, I would think that you’ve been given a more than adequate sample set to draw conclusions from.”

I finally lifted my head off the table and really looked at my brother, at the grim set of his jaw and the strain showing on his movie-star-perfect features. He’d driven the conversation for hours, ignoring every completely predictable deadlock, and now he sat there looking incredibly disappointed in us. We were all grieving for Madeline, even as much as none of us wanted to show it, and this fixation of my brother’s to act out our mother’s last directive to us was clearly how he was trying to deal with the situation. I racked my brain for a long minute, trying to come up with something that could give Chivalry the unanimous agreement that he needed right now. After considering and rejecting half a dozen ideas, I finally just spit something out. “How about we change the staircase?”

Both Chivalry and Prudence turned to look at me, nearly identical quizzical frowns stretching across their faces. “. . . the staircase?” Prudence asked, clearly wondering if she could have possibly heard me correctly.

I was committed to this now. “Yes. Our sexually explicit staircase. I’m just going to say it—I find it kind of embarrassing whenever I pass by a female staff member when I’m walking up it. Between the toplessness and the bottomlessness, I’m kind of sure that we’re creating a hostile work environment. Also, it’s really weird.”

There was another long pause while we all took a second to picture our grand staircase, with its extravagant upward sweep of solid marble, and its depictions of human-mermaid sexual congress engraved with such clear detail that one was practically forced to entertain disturbing insinuations about the personal life and inclinations of the sculptor responsible. Especially when one also considered the clear voyeurism expressed on the parts of the carved porpoises. It was a staircase that had prompted hundreds of visitors to say, “Oh, how
interesting
,” in tones that left no doubt that “interesting” did not in any way indicate “good.”

“I . . . actually agree with that,” Prudence said, practically tasting the words as they came out of her mouth, her amazement clear. She paused, considered, then gave a decisive nod and returned to her usual clipped and confident delivery. “Yes, I agree. It makes for a very awkward moment when giving someone the full tour. Let’s replace the staircase stonework. Chivalry?”

I felt the kind of internal triumph that should probably only be reserved for discovering radium or teaching a cat to use a toilet. Chivalry was staring at us, his jaw hanging. “Look, Chivalry, it’s happened!” I said happily. “We’re all in agreement, and it didn’t even break the seventh seal and bring about the end of the world. Go Team Scott!” I extended a hand in perfect high-five position to my sister, which she met with withering scorn. I attempted to pretend that I’d actually meant to scratch my ear.