The Pyramid Waltz (45 page)

“I have tasks I need to perform!” Crowe shouted.

“Do them as we work,” Dawnmother said. “You’ll live. You’re louder than any dying man has a right to be.”

Crowe sputtered until he sighed, his face resigned. “The central capstone is Fiend magic, and it holds Yanchasa in his prison. You’ll need to create a conduit between it and the pyramid that we used to suppress the extra Fiendish essence Katya absorbed. Once we’ve done that, we’ll put that extra essence back where it belongs.”

“Then she’ll be herself again?”

“If we get it in time.”

Starbride bent over Katya, tucked the necklace more firmly around her neck, and kissed her, a gentle brush of the lips. With a hand over her own seeping bandage, she helped put everyone to rights.

Katya was falling. Or was she floating? Difficult to tell; life had become a great haze. Pain arced through her body, making her nerves sing. A lovely face hovered in front of her. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” it wailed. That didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. She would kill every thrice-bedamned one of them.

Silence. Pain was gone. Rage, gone. A silver sea spread out before her, through her. “Focus,” someone said. Someone she knew well? Brutal? No. “Focus.” Crowe, it had to be Crowe.

“I’m trying,” another answered, soft and feminine. Terrified. “I don’t want to hurt her again.”

Crowe’s voice, calm and steady. “If you can’t do this…”

“I’ll do it. I love her. I’ll do it right.” Starbride’s will. Starbride’s determination. Ah, love. Katya loved her, too, but she couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything with the silver sea covering her. When it drained away, the rage would come again. They’d drown in seas of blood. She’d smile as she watched. Maybe she’d taste them. She’d—

White light and then nothing. Nothing and then a sky full of stars. Something was taken from her, and she couldn’t even make a grab for it. She was hypnotized by the stars. She had such a little bit left.

“Watch what you’re doing,” Crowe said.

“I don’t know how to stop!”

“Spirits above.” Had he been whispering the entire time? Had his voice always been so small? “What have you done?”

“I fixed her. Did I fix her?”

Soft hands held Katya’s face. Was she broken? Something was missing. Where had the stars gone?

Katya awoke with the certainty that there was a rock in her back. Without opening her eyes, she maneuvered a hand under herself until she felt the wad of bandages just smaller than a croquet ball.

A flood of memories rolled over her. Her uncle Roland, her transformation, which usually took all memory with it, but this time her awareness had returned, and she remembered Starbride’s stricken face and her family’s plight. She opened her eyes.

Cots and bandages and bowls of water dotted the room; she wasn’t alone in the makeshift infirmary in her apartment. Crowe lay on a cot beside her bed, his bare chest swathed in bandages. Brutal sat up in a cot against the wall, one side of his face purple, with a bandage around his head. Averie sat on a settee next to him, a bandage around her arm and a bruise on one cheek. When Brutal turned in Katya’s direction, he nodded slowly.

“Good to see you awake,” he said.

Katya eased to a sitting position. “I touched the pyramid. I communed with Yanchasa, but then…” She’d done something, but what? She only hoped she hadn’t turned on her friends and forced them to stab her in the back. “What are you all doing in here?”

“We thought it best to keep all the wounded together.” Brutal eyed her, a little warily to her eyes. “You yourself again? Sure?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“It’s fine,” Averie said. “Starbride took the Aspect out. She’s sure she got it all.”

Katya touched her chest but felt no necklace beneath her shirt. There wasn’t a pyramid in sight. “You mean the extra essence? That I siphoned off Yanchasa?”

“No,” Brutal said. “She didn’t know when to stop. She says she got it
all
. She put it back in the capstone.”

Tears hovered in Averie’s eyes. “You almost died so many times. We…I was so worried.”

Katya stared at her. No Aspect. No Fiend. That which her parents had passed to her, that which all Umbriels possessed, gone. What did that make her?

The door cracked open, and Starbride stepped inside. Dawnmother held her elbow. “Slowly, Star. You’ll open your stitches.”

Katya remembered that, a hidden pyramid under Starbride’s skin. Starbride sat down carefully on the bed. “How are you feeling?”

“Did I hurt you?”

“You saved us. Better still, no more Fiend! I don’t know how I did it. Crowe’s not sure, either, but just think, you don’t have to worry about it ever again.”

“Yes.” No more Fiend, maybe no more Umbriel. How could she lead the Order of Vestra if she didn’t have what the original leader of the Order had possessed?

The rest of Katya’s family came through the door, minus Brom. Katya winced. She remembered that part, too. Ma hugged her gently, kissing her on the temple. Da squeezed her hand. “Vestra herself would be proud.”

Katya shook her head. She wasn’t so sure. Reinholt stared at the wall and said nothing. “How’s everyone else?”

“We’ve done what we can for Crowe.” Brutal bent to inspect Crowe’s bandages. “But he’s going to need the healer again. I’m good for a quick patch-up, but this needs more herbs and such, and he’s had a busy few days.”

“I’m perfectly fine,” Crowe whispered, his eyes closed.

Dawnmother sighed, and she wasn’t the only one, but whether they were exasperated by Crowe’s stubbornness or his deteriorating condition, Katya didn’t know.

“Rein.” Katya didn’t know what to say but needed to say something. “I’m…”

He glanced at her, his face white and pinched. “She’s in the dungeon. She knew what would be asked of her when we got married. Maybe I should have married her a year earlier than I did. She could have Waltzed right away then, instead of four years later.”

Da patted Reinholt’s shoulder. He looked older, the world heavier on his back. He stooped and touched Crowe with more gentleness than many expected from him. “You’ll be up and around in no time, old bird.”

“Don’t lie to me,” Crowe said, his eyes still shut.

“You will live,” Brutal said, “but you’ll never regain your strength entirely.”

Crowe opened his eyes. “That’s closer to the truth.”

“It
is
the truth,” Dawnmother said, “but only if you want it to be. Darkstrong sought death, and so he found it. You must
want
to live. For now, you need rest.”

“We all do,” Averie echoed.

Katya shook her head. “My back aches, but I don’t need to sleep.”

“I can sleep on my own,” Crowe said. “I don’t need more of that healer’s foul-smelling draughts.”

“You rival Starbride’s parents in difficulty,” Dawnmother said.

“Who made you the healer, anyway?” Crowe glared at her with one eye.

“The same person who gave me so much sense.” She glared back at him. Crowe had met his match when it came to being pushy. And unlike everyone else, Dawnmother seemed to have no interest in tiptoeing around Crowe’s feelings.

Ma leaned over to pat Crowe’s hand. “The royal physician has agreed with her on everything so far.” Dawnmother nodded and crossed her arms.

Crowe shut his other eye and mumbled something unintelligible.

Dawnmother shrugged. “Mulestubborn will have his way.”

Crowe opened both eyes to glare at her that time.

“How’s your wound?” Katya said to Starbride.

“Hurting but healing. Luckily, the pyramid was small and not that deep.”

“I’m sorry all of this happened to you.”

“It was worth it.”

Katya smiled, and she tried to mean it, tried to lose herself in love, but she kept searching for something inside herself, something she’d never been without, something she’d never find again. In the sudden silence, she frowned as she noticed the gaps in the room. “Where’s Maia? And where’s Pennynail?” They threw nervous glances like bolts. “Where are they?”

Reinholt answered first, maybe not as aware of others’ pain while lost in his own. “Maia went with Roland. She chose him over us, just like…her.”

“Oh, my poor cousin. What are we doing to look? Where—?”

“She’s not in the city,” Brutal said. “That’s where Pennynail is. He’s looked everywhere. It’s like they vanished.”

“He left us a parting gift, though,” Reinholt said, and the smile on his face was anything but friendly.

Starbride gave him a nervous, agitated glance before she looked back to Katya’s face. “He saved me, Katya. He’s done everything he could to help.”

“You don’t need to appeal to her,” Da said. “We’re not holding the boy at fault.”

“What in the world are you talking about?” Katya glanced from one of them to the other.

“Lord H…just Hugo,” Starbride said. “Free of his father’s influence, he’s decided he wants nothing to do with Roland’s schemes.”

“Because he’s half in love with you.” Reinholt sneered. Starbride’s cheeks turned red.

Ma gave him a sharp glance. “That’s enough, Reinholt.” He turned away and walked across the room.

Katya touched Starbride’s cheek. “He’s still here?”

“Under guard for his own safety,” Da said. “Until we’re sure, Katya, but Starbride has used a pyramid on him under Crowe’s instruction. They found nothing.”

“He’s a good boy,” Crowe said.

Brutal nodded. “He almost broke Roland’s control when he saw his own sister. He said he’d had his memory hidden and a new one put in. Left to his own devices, out of his father’s control, he made his own decisions. And I thought he had a thing for Maia, but it was half-remembered recognition.”

“Family spots family,” Dawnmother said.

Across the room, Reinholt snorted. Ma glanced over her shoulder at him. “We’ve sent for the grandchildren,” she said, “to make sure…”

“To make sure they’re out of their mother’s clutches or those of her sycophants,” Reinholt said, not turning.

Katya nodded, guessing the rule about the entire family being in the same place at the same time had to be broken occasionally. Reinholt’s little children had hidden Fiends, more Umbriel than her. Clenching her fist, Katya told herself to stop being such a child. They were all alive. Gone as she was, Maia was alive, too, and they’d find her. “Is Hugo the only one we caught?”

Starbride’s brows turned down at that, but Katya couldn’t take anything for granted at the moment.

“Cassius is dead. And we, um, we found Layra,” Brutal said.

“The gray-skinned woman.”

“Hid her pregnancy from everyone, from what Hugo told us,” Da said. “When she was away on Order business, young Hugo stayed with her relatives in the country.”

Crowe snorted. “The year Hugo was born, she told me she had a sick relative to take care of, and I believed her. I should have known better. Now I know why she was gone for so long initially and why she had to make so many ‘family visits in the countryside.’ I assumed she and Roland were just sneaking away to tryst.”

“She’s dead?” Katya asked, trying to sort out the conversation.

“She’s been dead a long time,” Crowe said. “Roland used a pyramid on her somehow, to…preserve her? Control her? I’ve no idea how he did it. He’s gone beyond anyone I’ve ever heard of. He’s a mad genius.” He shook his head slowly. “If I had to wager a guess, I’d say she was an experiment. We’ll need to keep our eyes open.”

“A walking corpse?” Katya asked. “Well, I imagine that didn’t make Hugo too charitable toward his father.”

“It’s a damn lot to sort out, my girl,” Da said.

“No time like the present.” Katya swung her legs over the side of the bed. A jumble of voices assailed her as everyone protested at once. “I’m tired of lying here. I’m going to see Brom.”

“Why?” Reinholt asked.

Katya didn’t back down from his gaze. “I need to see how far she was involved with Roland, Rein.”

“I’ll come with you,” Starbride said.

“You’ll need someone with a Fiend or that I’ve specifically tuned the pyramids to recognize,” Crowe said.

Hurt and loss whispered through Katya’s mind. Ma said, “I’ll come, too.”

“No, I’ll go,” Reinholt said.

Katya shook her head. He turned away, his face thunderous. Da put a gentle hand on his shoulder and murmured something in his ear. Ma and Starbride helped Katya dress before they descended into the palace depths once more.

In the dungeon, Katya paused in front of the door to the cells. “I want to see her alone.”

Starbride squeezed Katya’s hand. “I’ll wait here for you.”

Katya felt her sense of absence lighten slightly. Ma pressed her hand to the door pyramid, and Katya let the sobs that echoed down the hallway guide her. When Ma opened the door to the first cell on the right, Brom leapt up, manacle chains jangling. Ma retreated without a word, and Katya stepped inside with a single lamp.

“Katya! Let me out of here. I don’t belong here!”