"The rain is letting up, but it grows dark," Midori said when the silence stretched on. "From what I have learned from the locals, even with my guide and full daylight, the Azul Mountain will be hard going. I think it best if we wait until first light to depart."
"Who is this guide?"
Rather than Midori, it was a soft, familiar hiss that replied to his question. Dario stared in surprise, then laughed and stretched out a hand to greet Ruisenor. She curled and coiled up around him, warm and solid and heavy against his body as she rested her ponderous head on his shoulder. "Hello, Ruisenor. It's been a long time since I've seen you, huh? You're looking well."
She hissed again, rubbed against his cheek, then uncoiled herself and coiled instead around Midori. Dario sighed in frustration to know she approved of Midori as well.
"Shall we go back inside?" Midori asked, giving Ruisenor one last stroke before she slithered completely away, clearly unperturbed by the water that had half-drowned the field all around them. "Fidel said he would fix dinner and that his cooking wouldn't kill people?"
Dario laughed reluctantly. "He's been ill from bad food. Not enough of a sailor's diet."
Midori smiled in comprehension. "I see. Well, come on. I'm afraid I'm out of dry clothes, so we'll both have to be wet and cold for a bit, but I've a flask of brandy that should take away the worst of it."
He walked off, leaving Dario to follow. Dario begrudgingly admitted to himself that he was starting to like Midori—but he definitely did not make note of the way the wet fabric clung to a well-formed body.
Inside, the smell of cooking meat and vegetables made Dario's stomach growl. Sitting by the fire and retrieving the blanket he'd abandoned earlier, Dario inhaled the smell of the food again and sighed. "When will it be done?"
"Soon," Fidel said. "Are you two done fighting over his highness?"
"There was no fight," Dario said.
Fidel rolled his eyes. Midori joined them a moment later, taking a swallow from a leather flask before passing it to Dario. "Whatever you say."
Midori spoke to Fidel before Dario could reply. "So who are you in all of this, if I may ask?"
"I am the man who was kidnapped to force Cortez to kidnap your prince," Fidel said. "Now they are both being hauled up the mountain so they can be reunited with the last piece of their divine powers."
"What?" Midori asked.
Dario shot Fidel a disgusted look before taking another swallow of brandy from the flask. "There is much more going on here than a simple kidnapping, I'm afraid. Pruebas' soldiers are, quite honestly, the least of my concerns right now. If we do not get to Culebra and Cortez before Jorge finds the Lost Temple, I am afraid that he will finish the destruction that almost destroyed Piedre nine hundred years ago."
"I think you had better start at the beginning," Midori said.
"Food first," Fidel said firmly and went to rinse out bowls so they could eat.
Dario avoided looking at Midori, still not certain what to make of him and really wishing that hating him was easier. There was nothing worse than feeling threatened by a man who seemed by far the better choice. For one, he was of high enough rank to court Culebra properly. Dario would never be more than a lowly bodyguard, one step up from an ordinary soldier.
He was handsome, kind, and clearly not afraid to do whatever was necessary for what he felt was right. Dismissed from the navy or not, he was a fine soldier. And he'd been there when Granito died, had been the one to comfort Culebra through his grief. Dario had not even been able to manage his own grief, had bungled everything to the point Culebra had dismissed him.
He startled when a hand fell on his shoulder and jerked his head up to stare at Midori. He had, Dario noted irritably and helplessly, the prettiest eyes. Kundouins were fascinating anyway, with their sun-gold skin and vibrant hair. But Midori was stunning beyond and above that.
"Please, I know you cannot consider me a friend under the circumstances, but I am no threat to you. He told me of you and Granito, and his feelings for you were as obvious as the sea, and I daresay as deep, no matter how silly that sounds. I only want to help."
Dario nodded then shook his head. "His highness makes his own choices, and it's not my place to like or dislike them. Whatever we were ended when Granito died."
"I do not think that is true, but it is not for me to say," Midori replied. "I think a love as complicated as what you three shared is not as easily defeated as that. You overcame much just to love your brother, yes? And for both of you to love a prince ... you do yourself a disservice to give up so easily."
Huffing out a sigh of irritation, Dario demanded, "Why must you be so likeable?"
Midori stared at him in surprise, and then burst out laughing and damn it if that laugh, the way he looked as he laughed, did not affect Dario in ways that just maddened him further. "I promise you are one of a very small number of people who think me any such thing. You may be the only other beside his highness. But I am glad that you do not hate me. As I said, I do not expect to be friends, but I would like to be allies."
Dario nodded, gripped Midori's shoulder. "Life is too short not to take a friend where one might be found. Let other matters lie until they must be woken and let us be friend while we may."
"As you say," Midori said and smiled in a way that made Dario want to beat his head against the floor. Granito's smiles had always been his undoing as well, though Granito and Culebra had both later learned far more evil and pleasant ways to get him to do their bidding.
Fidel, clearly having waited until it seemed suitable to return, smoothly slipped back into the room and began to dish their food into bowls, and as they ate Dario began to explain to Midori all that he had missed and needed to know before they faced the Azul Mountains in the morning.
Midori had always quietly sneered at mercenaries and soldiers—anyone who walked on land and claimed their lives were too hard for just anyone. He was not often an arrogant man, but he doubted most of those braggarts could last one day at sea. The oceans were the heart and soul of the Dragons of the Three Storms; they were the very center of Chaos. To survive at sea for years, especially back in the very recent days when the seas were far more turbulent and mermaids might attack at any moment, was a remarkable feat.
Anyone could learn to survive dry land, but he had seen more than one hardened soldier succumb to sea madness. Surviving years at sea took learning to trust instincts, to trust senses—things that people too often ignored. Years upon years of waiting for the dreaded appearance of mermaids left Midori acutely aware of his surroundings at all times.
Until he had been too enthralled with a certain prince to pay attention the way he normally would have. Let that be his lesson in arrogance.
His well-honed senses had not failed him entirely, however, because his training alone was what alerted him to the uninvited guests lurking outside the farmhouse. Leaving the others asleep, not certain how they would react if suddenly woken, Midori grabbed the sword lying alongside his bedroll and rose almost soundlessly to his feet.
He moved to the front door, crouched beside it, and waited.
As close as he was to the door, he could pick out the voices. No words, just rough, deep voices that indicated men, accents that reminded him of the palace or the city—polished accents, not like Fidel's or the softer tones that occasionally slipped into Dario's words.
His focus fractured, briefly, as Dario flitted through his mind. How compelling he was, how fierce. Somehow, the few other times they'd crossed paths, Midori had never made real note of Culebra's bodyguards. But then again, he had still been infatuated with Nankyokukai and consumed with the sea and had very little interest in anything else.
Midori ruthlessly shut the distractions away and scarcely dared to breathe as the door softly creaked open. Seven men crept into the dark house, quiet for land walkers, but nowhere near as quiet as a single mermaid hoping to slit his throat in the dark and brag to her sisters about her skill and daring.
He waited until they were all well past him and creeping toward the fireplace where Dario and Fidel still slept. Rising to his feet he walked slowly toward the man taking up the rear. Grabbing the man by his hair, Midori pressed his sword to the man's throat and called out, "Halt or he dies!"
The remaining intruders whipped around, and in the next breath Fidel and Dario both had moved from their bedrolls. They moved quickly—Dario, with the neat, precise movements of a well-trained soldier and Fidel ... Fidel moved more like a dancer. A very lethal dancer, the blades of his daggers flashing in the firelight as he knocked one man out.
Dario took down two more, and Midori knocked out the one he had taken prisoner. That left three.
Before any of them could move, a long, sinuous black shadow struck with frightening speed: once, twice, hissing before each bite, but moving too quickly for the warning to serve any real purpose. The two men bitten by Ruisenor fell with soft, pained cries. Midori watched, horrified and fascinated as ever, as the blood leaking from the large fang wounds turned black.
That left only one man. Midori and Dario watched him, blades drawn, while Fidel slipped away to light the lamps.
"Who are you and what are you doing here, corpse-eater?" Dario demanded.
The man, old and rough looking, but with dangerous eyes, said nothing. "He is Father Yago," Fidel said, drawing his daggers once more. "Head Priest of the city of Amador. He is also—"
"Don't!" Yago snarled.
Fidel ignored him, eyes cold as he finished, "He is also High Priest of the Brotherhood of the Black Rose. Father, what brings you here this evening?"
Yago's dark eyes were filled with fury. "You have no business revealing me."
"I may have been the more faithful longer," Fidel said coldly, "but you and I both know that when I left it was because I realized you were nothing of what you claimed. The true Brotherhood died and rotted a long time ago; only the corpse remains. I mostly left because I could not live without Cortez, but also because of the rot I could no longer deny. But Cortez—Cortez still trusts you. She left because she feels she betrayed the Brotherhood because she grew weary of blood. But she does not hate you, and I don't think she ever could. She was always very blind where you are concerned. What are you doing here?"
"Looking for Cortez."
"Try knocking," Midori replied and clubbed him on the back of the head, knocking him out. He stared at the prone figure sprawled at his feet. "So that is the head of one of Piedre's notoriously bloody cult. I expected something more ominous. So you were a Black Rose?"
Fidel laughed. "Do you know it is only foreigners who call us by the flowers? We call ourselves by Brotherhood or Order. But yes, I was a brother. I was called the Dagger, which is not nearly as ominously dramatic as 'Black Princesa'. I was always happy to be Cortez's shadow." He smiled sadly. "I wish I had gone with her when she left, but I was still too much a brother. When I finally left, I thought Yago just wanted rid of me. Now I wonder how long I have been caught up in this scheme."
Dario shook his head. "I don't even understand what is going on anymore."
"Then I think it is time to get some answers," Midori said and bent to grab the nearest man under his arms and haul him across the room to the storage room where Fidel and Dario had been kept for several days. The two Ruisenor had killed they hauled outside and into the trees. When Ruisenor followed them into the woods and lingered possessively over her kills, they quickly returned to the house to leave her to do whatever she wanted.
"I am grateful that snake is on our side," Midori said.
"Yes," Fidel and Dario agreed. Returning to the house, they grabbed Yago and secured him to one of the rickety chairs.
Fidel slapped him, and Yago jerked awake, staring at them wide-eyed before realization set in. Then they narrowed, went cold. "I should have killed you when I had the chance."
"Probably," Fidel said idly. "I am amazed you did not, but then again, you could not ever risk your precious Princesa finding out who did the deed—and she would, because it's me."
Yago said nothing, but the set of his mouth spoke plenty.
"What do you have to do with the kidnapping of his royal highness?" Dario asked, folding his arms across his chest and regarding Yago with the sort of patience Midori associated with a circling shark. "Why are you collaborating with a shadow child to destroy Piedre?"
"Destroy?" Yago echoed, shaking with anger. "Destroy? I have spent my entire life trying to save Piedre! The longer the Basilisk Prince lives, the more dangerous he becomes. The world is better off without the gods! It was they who nearly destroyed it nine hundred years ago, especially here in Piedre! Every day the Basilisk Prince lives the greater the danger grows. I am going to succeed where all my predecessors have failed. Simply killing the incarnations is not enough—it is the power that must be destroyed, the eternal soul that must eradicated. If I must align myself with the Shadow of Licht to do it, then I will!"
Midori shook his head. "I barely understand all this complicated doctrine of Piedre, but even I know that one should never betray his own gods—and definitely not by siding with Lord Teufel. Dark tales come from the Jagged Mountains of Pozhar, of beasts with black scales and violet eyes that poison men slowly and eat them while they still breathe. Occasionally bodies wash up on the beaches of Kundou, or we see them out sailing—but never whole bodies. A head, an arm, or a leg. One time, I saw just a torso, and it was clear it had been devoured before the ocean got to it."
Yago just sneered, and Midori recognized the gleam in his eye: it was the sort of light that seared away all reason. "I will save Piedre, rid it of that terrible snake once and for all."
"Strange," Dario said softly. "I always took the cults as preaching the evils of the Basilisk, but assumed that was just their public facade to hide much dirtier, private motives."