Altor tilted his head. ‘Harry. Of course I’ll do that,’ he murmured with rare sincerity.
Mia watched Harry haul Jack out of the tavern. She had a sudden pang of regret that she hadn’t helped get him home. At the same time she just wanted to be able to go out and not have to worry about someone else. She and Jack had been together for so long, and they were only seventeen! Most of her other friends hadn’t had a boyfriend before. Jane had never even kissed anyone!
Mia checked herself at the mistake. No, Jane
had
kissed someone. A prince. And Anna had fallen in love with a man who had betrayed everyone. Luca had had a girlfriend who’d sung to save the world and then fallen into a coma.
How could you come to a new world and still want the same things you did in the old one?
Altor stood with her again, telling her about the activities around them. The musicians were apparently famous. He explained what sort of music they played and their stories, and about the dancers and what went on after hours in the city. This was where the hearts of the people could be found, he said.
‘In their misbehaving?’ Mia smiled.
Altor shook his head. ‘This isn’t misbehaving. It’s real life. It’s how we live amidst so much fear.’
‘So this is more real than sitting down with your family and eating a meal?’
He shrugged. ‘That’s not the point. The point is, we need to be allowed to behave as we please. There has to be freedom to want what the heart wants.’
‘And does your heart want to come here to drink and gamble the nights away?’ she asked.
He smiled. ‘You’re forgetting the women. Drinking, gambling and women.’
Mia laughed. ‘What more could one want?’
He handed her another shot and she took it. Without waiting for her to drink it, Altor leant in and kissed her on the corner of her mouth. She was so shocked that she froze. His lips were soft and warm, and when he moved away Mia felt cold again.
‘Drink up,’ he smiled, gesturing to the drink in her hand.
Numbly Mia drank. She shouldn’t have enjoyed that kiss so much. Not nearly so much.
‘Relax,’ Altor said. ‘You haven’t committed a crime. You can say I forced you to kiss me. You can pretend you didn’t like it.’
He moved closer, and Mia stiffened. ‘You can lie,’ he whispered, his breath hot against her mouth. And then he kissed her properly. Mia’s body erupted into shivers.
‘That wasn’t so bad, was it?’ he murmured.
She looked at him. His smile was predatory. ‘This is a game to you, isn’t it?’ she asked.
He blinked. ‘Of course,’ he replied, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. ‘Isn’t it a game to everyone?’
‘No,’ she whispered. ‘It’s not. Can you take me home, please?’
He looked at her for a long moment. Then he smiled. ‘My pleasure, Lady Mia.’ He led her outside and into a carriage. Mia stared out the window the whole way home, walking to her room without saying a word.
‘Mia,’ Altor called and she turned back to look at him, standing on the front steps of the castle, wreathed in moonlight but still so dark, and still so amused. ‘It is a game. You’ll realise that sooner or later, or else you’ll keep losing.’
And the simple cruelty of his words cut straight inside her.
Instead of heading to her own room, Mia went into Jack’s and locked the door behind her. She lay down next to him, staring at him for a long time. She watched the steady rise and fall of his chest, looked at the fine hairs on his chin, his dirty fingernails, the crease in the middle of his forehead, even when sleeping. She knew that crease, those fingernails, hairs, and breaths well. For a while, she’d known them as well as she’d known any part of herself.
Now, she thought, she knew them far better.
Ever so slowly, Anna’s body was degenerating. A long, painful death that loomed ever nearer.
The doctors on Earth had told her she had only months to live. She’d survived over three years since then. There was something about this world that had slowed the cancer down. Or maybe she was just stronger than anyone had thought.
Most days Anna forced herself not to think about her condition. Some days, though, it was too hard to ignore the weakness in her body, so she slept, claiming exhaustion from her patrols. It was the perfect excuse—no one suspected that her constant weariness was from anything but her demanding job.
Luca was the only person who knew about her cancer, but he had long ago sworn silence. They hadn’t discussed it for some time now, as she refused to enter into conversations about it. It didn’t actually seem like it was on the top of Luca’s list of worries. He had become like a wraith, a shadow of his former self.
The dark secrecy had started when he began training with Kha~dim. Anna had no idea why they needed to train so thoroughly, morning and night. She could think of only one reason for this obsession, and that was that Luca must be planning to join the guard. Essentially, a suicide mission. Men only
lasted a short time patrolling the ground against a sky full of shadows.
They were losing Luca, but to what she didn’t know.
Locktar was Anna’s perfect companion. With his silence he promised everything she wanted from what was left of her life—no questions and no pity.
In that moment, Luca sat atop a cliff, watching waves break below him. The darkness of the water reminded him of the night Jane had been washed out to sea.
He never knew what it was that brought such thoughts. He’d become so melancholy, only able to think about the past. It tormented him, and when it started he had to make sure he was alone.
He had been ordered to take a job in Cynis Witron, the place that held a woman he desperately wanted to see. But what would he say to her? Would he tell her what he’d become? The place deep inside him writhed and broiled. He couldn’t tell Ria what he was. He couldn’t tell anyone. All he could do was try to control his horrific urges, and keep the beast at bay.
It was growing nearer to twilight. Time to get inside. He was full of despair, but he was no fool.
He began the walk back to the city by climbing down the steep cliff face. He had no harness, but his body was skilled enough to scale the jagged rocks easily.
At the halfway mark he stopped for a moment to gauge the best path to the sand, when, from the corner of his eye, he glimpsed a smudge on the beach. Squinting against the setting sun he tried to make out what it was, and realised, suddenly, that it was a body.
Luca reached the bottom as quickly as he could and began to run. At this altitude he could run fast, and by the time he reached the figure, only about a minute had passed. Only a minute. But those sixty seconds plagued
him. What if it was too late? What if this person died because he was too slow? It didn’t enter his mind that he’d made it down the length of the beach much faster than anyone else could. He expected more of himself.
His anxiety intensified when he realised the slumped figure on the beach was a woman. It increased beyond measure when he realised who the woman was.
Anna looked small and weak, dwarfed among the oversized clothes she wore to hide her thinness. It took him only a moment to check that she was still breathing, and to shake her into consciousness. Her eyes were glazed and pained when she looked at him.
‘Oh, Luca,’ she whispered. ‘I’m sorry, I just got a bit dizzy...’
‘It’s okay sweetheart, I’m taking you home now.’
‘I need to get to Locktar, it’s nearly night time ... I need to start my patrol...’
‘You’re not going to help anybody in this state, An.’ Luca lifted her effortlessly into his arms. Her bones felt so fragile in his strong grip. ‘What were you doing all the way out here at this time of day?’
‘I just ... I just wanted to walk along the beach before I left again.’ Anna was limp and cold in his arms. Luca picked up his pace.
‘Anna,’ he murmured as he jogged, trying not to jolt her too much, ‘I’m really worried about you.’
‘I’m worried about you too,’ she murmured tiredly.
Luca’s jaw clenched and he made it the rest of the way back to the palace in silence.
Once Anna was safely in bed, after a healer had made sure she wasn’t in any immediate danger, Luca took a seat next to the window and turned his eyes to her.
‘Get some sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up.’
‘I don’t want to sleep too long. I need to get away.’ Anna didn’t open her eyes to speak.
‘You don’t need to go anywhere. You’re not well enough, and I don’t want to argue about it. The world will be okay without you for a few weeks.’
‘Weeks? Luca, I—!’
‘I said I don’t want to argue about it.’ His tone was firm. ‘Besides,’ he added more gently, ‘I think it’s best if we both wait here to see Jack and Mia before we leave.’
‘We? Where are you going?’
‘I’m going to Cynis Witron, too. Accolon wanted someone to meet with Cornelius about the fortress of Karangul.’ He might have asked for a lift with Anna if her dragon didn’t hate Luca so much. Anna couldn’t understand why this was so, but Luca knew the dragon sensed the darkness inside him.
‘He knew I was going. Could he not entrust the job to me?’ Anna frowned and sank further into the bed. ‘That man has nothing but contempt for me,’ she said angrily. ‘He never shows gratitude or respect for anything I do.’
Luca didn’t say anything.
‘I’m fed up with it!’ she went on. ‘He can’t keep taking me for granted. Maybe I’ll stop reporting to him and go live with Satine. She would treat me properly...’ Anna trailed off as she realised her complaints were falling on deaf ears. ‘Luca ... I can’t wait to see them.’
He looked at her and saw that her anger had evaporated. Now all he could see in her face was excitement. Luca’s own smile was easier in coming than usual. ‘I know. Harry said they haven’t aged. They’re exactly the same. Lucky things.’
‘But don’t you think it’ll be strange? Being older than them?’
Luca shrugged. ‘Two years isn’t much. Plus they always acted younger than us.’
Anna laughed. ‘Say that to their faces.’
‘I wouldn’t dare,’ he said with a smile.
‘You spoke of revenge,’ the red-haired man called Adon said. ‘What do you seek vengeance for? Yourself?’
It was a question he had obviously wanted to ask for some time now.
They’d been riding for hours, and it was well and truly dark. They’d slowed their tired horses to a walk, watching the skies warily. Ria found that she couldn’t really be bothered avoiding the question.
‘Sabre-tooths killed my parents. I was young and foolish when I vowed revenge. I actually believed I could do it—I had no idea of the enormity of what I was vowing. But sometimes the oath keeps me going.’ She shrugged. Bayard nodded, looking upwards. He ran a hand through his hair, creating more havoc there.
‘Did you fight?’ she asked.
‘Didn’t we all?’
‘I nearly didn’t,’ she said.
‘Then thank the gods for whatever force changed your mind,’ he muttered and Ria looked away. The moons were high overhead, allowing them some light in which to keep vigil. Ria was beginning to understand how stupid she’d been to think she could ride out on her own. There was a vastness to the world in darkness that was not so frightening during the day. Looking at the thousands of stars above she felt tiny, and unsafe.
‘You are a soldier then,’ she said, finding that words helped her forget how vulnerable they were.
‘Yes. A mercenary.’
‘That explains why you work for such a man. I take it he pays you handsomely?’
Bayard flashed her a sideways look. ‘Not why I work for him. I know most hate him for what he did.’
‘And why shouldn’t we?’
‘Because he has changed. He seeks to make amends for all his wrong-doings. I support what he strives for.’
‘And what is that?’ Ria snapped angrily.
Bayard shook his head. ‘You don’t understand. He wants to help our country. Turn it back to what it once was.’
‘By overthrowing the rightful king?’
‘Cornelius was good once, but now his mind suffers. Cynis is a mess of poverty and destruction.’
‘But isn’t Vezzet involved in the slave trade?’ she pressed.
Bayard frowned. ‘Rumours only.’
Ria tried to swallow her anger. Vezzet had betrayed them all—he’d let his friend and colleague Tomasso take his place on the guillotine, and then he’d waited until they were on the battlefield to announce that he’d been a spy for Leostrial all along! But clearly Bayard was delusional, and wasn’t going to listen to her. Besides, part of what he was saying was true—Cynis Witron was in a bad way. She just couldn’t believe that Vezzet was trying to better their country; he was so deceptive that she didn’t trust a single thing he was involved in. And yes, it was only rumoured that he was part of the slave trade, but rumours had to come from somewhere, didn’t they?
Sighing, she clenched her jaw. ‘I can see we are not going to agree on this matter. Whatever his intentions,
I will never set foot in his fortress, not after what he did.’
‘I’m aware of that,’ he said. ‘It’s why we are very likely to die out here tonight.’
She looked down at her hands guiltily.
‘Forgive me,’ Bayard said gently. ‘Bitterness is ugly in everyone. I think we’d best just focus on getting home.’
Ria looked across at him. Their eyes met and she thought she saw something in his. Perhaps not tenderness, but something close? Why?
‘I told you I’d protect you,’ she reminded him.
He broke into a wide grin. ‘You said you might, if you were feeling generous.’
Ria couldn’t help but smile too. ‘Well I am, Adon. I am feeling generous.’
‘I’ll thank my gods with every step we take,’ he told her and she looked away to stop herself from laughing. She hadn’t laughed in what felt like years.
‘We’ll be there soon,’ she said after a while. ‘Then you will be on your way, I assume?’
‘Yes ... I would say so,’ he replied slowly. ‘But can you do one thing for me on our way?’
She looked at him.
‘Call me Bayard. Only my mother calls me Adon.’
Ria frowned. ‘No. I like Adon better.’
Bayard chuckled. ‘I’ve never had that response before.’
‘You’ve never met me before.’
Their horses were walking close together, and she glanced across at his hands where they gripped the reigns. Another pair of hands jumped unbidden to her mind, a beautiful, musical pair. The memory of them cut deep, erasing her good mood instantly.
‘You’ll need to rest your horse and have something to eat,’ she said stonily. ‘You may stay at my house until
you have done so.’ Without looking at him or waiting for a reply she kicked her horse hard and cantered ahead.
They had been wrong. All of them. Lady Tzenna of Sair and Lord Willem of Amalia had not been in love. Or at least, the Lady had not been.
She had meant it to seem so, though. She had made it look as though it had been one of the very rare love matches. It suited her greater purpose.
His death, however, did not. Tzenna was able to show some real distress when she’d woken and found her fiancé dead next to her. That distress was almost a relief. Her life had been about acting, deceit, lies. It was a relief for her to be able to feel something.
What no one knew, or remembered, or
cared,
was that Tzenna’s entire family—her mother, her father, her grandparents, her brothers, and her baby sister—had been slaughtered like animals because they had been late in paying their taxes one month.
Slaughtered by the former King Gaddemar, and his traitorous wife Columba.
Tzenna only managed to escape a fiery death because the soldiers sent to Sair were fond of young girls. Tzenna had been eight that summer. This brought no lack of courage, as she proved with a knife in the neck of the man who was preparing to capture her. The other had been so shocked that he’d not reacted in time, and she had been able to hide in the village rubbish dump.
Even now she could remember that night. Crying the only tears she had cried for eight years, as small creatures crawled over her and bit her in the dark.
The other members of the village had been happy to shelter her as she planned her vengeance.
Then came the two deaths, one of a king and another of a queen, which had ruined the purpose of her life.
Accolon was not his father or his mother. But, she decided, he would do. And so she had come to Amalia, capital of the world, and through hard work had placed herself in a position of some rank. Having a nobleman fall in love with her had surely helped.
She had not known of his involvement with the slave trade, or else would have chosen some other nobleman, but that could not be helped. She had been elevated to a woman of stature in the court, and now she could start to lay out the finalities of her plan.
At that moment Tzenna of Sair, daughter of a dead family, sat in the chapel of Adar with a black veil over her face and hair, listening to the priest lead the funeral rites of her dead fiancé.
Perhaps she could have loved him, in a life where her purpose was not set wholly on one action. He had been kind to her, and she knew he had loved her. She let the tears fall in the church, the first since that night in the garbage dump so long ago. Not real tears. She didn’t know if she was capable of real tears anymore.
The High Queen was there, glittering in the candlelight, face calm and serene like the wondrous queen she was. Beloved, they called her beyond the palace walls. Just like her late brother. Tzenna had met Elixia only a few times before, but the admiration had been there from the first. The queen was not the object of Tzenna’s hatred.
She was very brave also, Tzenna thought suddenly—her husband was gone and she was here alone, facing a possible revolt over the death of this man.
At the end of the service, Tzenna walked to the coffin and removed her betrothal ring, placing it on the chest of the man she had been going to marry. Then she turned and walked from the church, wrapping her cloak tighter about her in the cold winter wind.
‘Please accept my deepest apologies,’ came a soft voice from behind her. Tzenna turned to see the queen, and was once again confronted by her huge green eyes.
‘Of course, thank you,’ she replied, bowing low to the ground.
‘The gods are often unkind,’ the queen said, seeming truly sorry.
Tzenna nodded, keeping her anger hidden with well-practised ease. The gods, or
the king,
could be unkind?
‘You are a strong girl though, Tzenna—you will get past this.’
‘Thank you, my lady, you are too kind.’
‘Not kind, only truthful. Now, let’s go—it is far too cold to be standing outside on a day like today. We shall talk in my litter so that my bones may not freeze under this aged skin.’
Tzenna managed a smile—Elixia was radiant, and still extremely young. She had come to the throne when she was even younger than Tzenna was now.
‘The boys...’ Tzenna said, gesturing inside to where Willem’s sons were still sitting.
‘Have their own way home, I’m sure,’ the queen said.
The younger woman followed the queen to her litter, wondering what had granted her the right to ride with such a woman.
‘Tzenna, I take it you will be living in Willem’s house with his sons?’
‘Yes, for now,’ she said.
‘Good. They are good boys,’ the queen replied absently. ‘Are they of an age?’
‘Yes, they are young men. Hoping to follow their father into the king’s court.’
‘Of an age to marry?’ the queen asked, her eyebrows raised.
‘Oh!’ Tzenna said, hoping her cheeks were flushed. ‘I had not thought of such a thing. Yes, one is.’
‘His name?’
‘Élan.’
‘His line of work?’
‘He has been working with the librarian to become a scholar. He wants to one day scribe his own histories.’
‘I’ll have him promoted, then he may work his way up, if he can. That way you may keep your status and what wealth you had, and perhaps gain some.’
‘Thank you, my lady,’ Tzenna replied slowly.
‘This does not please you? Élan would be your own age, perhaps a better match for you anyhow. She sighed suddenly. ‘What am I saying? You and Willem loved each other, didn’t you?’
Tzenna dropped her head, letting a tear run down her cheek as she nodded. ‘Yes, but I am grateful, after his passing, to have a prospect to my life.’
‘It is of course up to you. But it would make things easier for you if you think you could bear it. Élan is a good choice. His father was highly thought of.’
In truth, Tzenna didn’t care in the slightest. As long as she could stay at court, it would be all right. If she had to marry damn Élan, then she would do it. Better than some man she had never met.
The queen was looking at her, so Tzenna smiled. Not a real smile, but something that reached back to that faraway place in her heart where she could feel.
Elixia finally knew what to do. At last she had figured out how to find her brother. She’d been thinking about it the whole time she’d been at the funeral, and now, finally back in her bedchamber, she dismissed the El~araih and locked the door. She stood, hesitating. She had a lot to lose now. A very great deal to leave behind. But, even
though her daughter didn’t have the love of her father, she had more wealth and privilege than any other child in the world. Not a fair trade, really, but at least if Elixia didn’t come back, Ruby would survive. Telling herself this was the only way she could possibly do what she was about to.
Knowing that every moment would bring Fern closer to eternal doom, she took a long-bladed dagger from her dresser drawer. Then, with a piece of coal from the fire, she made a circle on the floor around her. Elixia closed the window shutters, doused the fire and all of the lanterns, plunging her chamber into darkness.
It was freezing, but this was how it needed to be.
Finally, without hesitation, Elixia del Sitadel, last necromancer of a dying race, screamed an incantation. ‘I call upon you, Odin, god of war! My blood is on your hands! My death is yours!’
And with that she stabbed the knife into her chest, deep into her heart.