Authors: Marie Lu
I tense. Nothing happens.
Then, out of nowhere, rushes of wind. The beating of wings. Suddenly there are thousands—millions—of them, squealing little creatures with fleshy wings beating against me, whirling around me in invisible circles in the blackness. I scream, then fall into a crouch as they swarm. My arms cover my head. Bats. They’re bats. Their tiny claws cut at my skin. I squeeze my eye shut.
Someone large shoves me violently backward. I go flying, then fall hard to the ground. The blow knocks all the wind out of me. I gasp for air. A sharp metal edge slices across my upper arm—I cry out, my arms flying up in defense, but another cut slits open the skin of my other arm. Warm blood trickles out. I turn my head frantically from side to side. Where is my attacker? I can’t see a thing. Someone kicks me in the back. I arch at the sharp pain. Another kick—and then the feeling of rough hands grabbing me by my robe, hauling me up in the air. I grasp desperately for my power, wishing I could pull it from deep within. But nothing happens. As I struggle, a low growl of a voice comes from somewhere in front of my face.
“What
wolf
?” Spider snaps. “She’s a little
lamb.
”
I clench my teeth and struggle, kicking out with my legs. I strike only air, and collapse to the floor.
“She has a bite,” someone says elsewhere in the cavern. It sounds like Raffaele.
One lantern flickers on in the cavern—its glow catches me off guard—and I squint in its direction. The millions of bats flutter fiercely in the new light, screaming, then they swarm into a cloud and disappear down one of the cavern’s dark tunnels. As if they’d never been here in the first place. I glance around. A short distance away is the hulking boy, who must be Spider, and the girl with the eagle. Elsewhere, standing by pillars and walls in the shadows, I notice others. One of them snickers. Thin trickles of blood drip down my arms. The cuts look smaller than I expect, considering how much they sting.
They’re not even trying,
I think feverishly.
They’re toying with me.
How had Spider even been able to see me in the darkness?
The light vanishes. My vision adjusts faster this time—and in the darkness, I can see the faint silhouette of the Spider crouching. He attacks again. This time, he rushes at me with terrifying speed and disappears from view right before he can reach me. I look around for him, cursing my missing eye and poor peripheral vision.
He materializes on my weak side. Then he catches me around the neck before I can stop him. His arm tightens, choking me. I struggle.
Sight.
I realize abruptly that his powers must give him the ability to see where others cannot. “I’ll have a sheepskin decorating my floor tonight,” he says.
I throw an elbow as hard as I can. He must not have expected me to fight back, because I hit him hard in his throat. He gags, releasing me again. I fall to my knees, gasping. Spider whirls around, his eyes narrowed at me in rage, and I brace myself for another attack.
“Enough,” Enzo says quietly. The word is a low, disapproving command that emerges from the shadows.
Spider steps away from me. I crumple in relief, sucking up air in the darkness. The torchlights all flicker on again. We stare at each other—the young Dagger’s eyes green and gruff, mine wide and stricken. I don’t feel anything in my chest except for the pounding of my heart.
Then Spider straightens and sheathes his blade. He doesn’t bother helping me up. “One-eyed weakling,” he says, his voice full of disdain. “Should’ve left you to the Inquisition and saved us all the trouble.” He turns away from me.
A spark of anger shoots through me. I imagine what it would be like if I strangled him in return, my dark illusions flowing down his throat and blocking his air. Can my powers do that? The whispers hiding in my mind nod, hungry and eager.
Yes, yes.
“Coward,” I whisper to his back. He doesn’t hear me, but the girl with the eagle—Star Thief, I suppose—does. She blinks.
Enzo studies me with interest as Raffaele whispers something in his ear. Do they approve?
A moment later, Enzo raises his voice. “Windwalker.”
Windwalker? I look around the cavern, searching for my next opponent. Finally, I catch a glimpse of her. She’s the tall, pale girl, the one who doesn’t look Kenettran. She chuckles as she steps toward me, sleek and menacing, and I take a step back. “With pleasure, Your Highness,” she says to Enzo.
My breathing is too rapid.
Calm down. Focus.
But the force of the last attack has left me trembling, and the anticipation of what might come next sends prickles of terror down my skin. Spider has the power to see in complete darkness. What can the Windwalker do? Fly, perhaps?
Then—a piercing scream shatters my senses. I flinch. My hands fly to my ears in a vain attempt to shut out the sound, but it only grows worse. The sound destroys everything around me, turning the world into blinding streaks of red and piercing every corner of my mind. I can’t see. I can’t think. It goes on and on, a razor-sharp knife digging into my ears. I must be bleeding. I feel the dull sensation of cold stone against my skin. Tears stream down my cheeks.
I’ve fallen,
I realize dully.
Something stirs faintly in the depths of my body, but I reach out for it and miss. What kind of power is this? How do I fight it?
How do you shut out a scream that comes from inside your mind?
I try to struggle to my feet, but the scream overwhelms me. It ripples through the air again and again, threatening to drown me.
Somehow, through the chaos, I hear Windwalker’s voice against my ear. It sounds like she’s right beside me. When I jerk my head to the side, I see her.
She laughs. “Watch your step, little wolf,” she taunts.
Suddenly I feel myself lifted off the ground by an invisible curtain of wind. Windwalker’s arms are stretched out in my direction. She lifts me higher, then makes a cutting gesture with one hand. Wind rushes past my ears—I fly across the chamber. My back hits the wall hard. I crumple to the ground like a broken doll. All around me, the screaming continues.
I can’t do this.
I curl into a ball as Windwalker comes closer. She kneels before me—all I can make out of her now is her sly smile. The scream in my mind is shattering my soul, and the pain of being thrown makes my breath short. The scream sounds like my own. I see myself being dragged through the rain by my hair, my father’s face staring straight into mine. Behind us, Violetta screams at him to stop. He ignores her.
I can’t take it anymore. My anger rises—I reach for the energy just out of my grasp. My father’s ghost hovers before me, and my sister’s shrieks surround us. Disoriented, I let out a strangled cry and claw at the open air.
My hand strikes something. Suddenly the shrieks around me stop, and my father and sister vanish. This time, I don’t hear any more snickers. To my shock, Windwalker is hunched several feet away, holding her neck. A thin trickle of blood runs down her hand where I’d raked her with my fingernails. With a start, I realize that I must have struck her when I thought I was striking at my father. The rage inside me still churns, a black, seething fury, almost within my reach.
I grit my teeth at her. “Is that it?” I suddenly snap. “Attacking me while I’m defenseless?”
Windwalker stares at me in silence. Then she removes her hand to show me the gash I’ve caused. “You’re far from defenseless.” Several thin lines are scored into the skin of her throat. Without a word, she walks over and helps me onto my trembling feet. “Not too bad,” she says, without a hint of malice in her voice. “You like being provoked. I can tell.”
Gradually, my anger fades into bewilderment. Did she just compliment me? “What,” I manage to say, “is your power, exactly?”
She laughs at my expression. She seems completely unconcerned about her scratched neck and is, somehow, friendlier to me. “Whatever the wind can do—whistle, scream, howl, uproot you from the earth—I can do too.”
She leaves me. All around the cavern, the others whisper among themselves, their voices echoing in the empty space. Finally, Enzo steps forward, his hands folded calmly behind his back.
“Better.” He tightens his lips. “But not enough.”
I wait there, swaying on my feet, regaining my breath. His eyes sear me to the bone, bringing with them a wave of terror and excitement.
“The problem, Adelina,” he says as he approaches me, “is that you simply aren’t afraid.”
My heartbeat quickens. “I
am
afraid,” I whisper. But my words sound unconvincing. What is he going to do to me?
“You
know
your life is not at risk,” he continues. “You don’t embrace your darkness unless you are staring straight at death. Therefore, you cannot connect with your fear and your fury.” He unfolds his hands from behind his back. “Let me see if we can correct that.”
A ring of fire bursts to life around us, turning the dark cavern into an illuminated space. The flames stretch to the ceiling. I jump away in terror at the heat against my skin. A scream threatens to bubble up from my throat.
No. No, no.
Not fire. Anything but that. All I can see are Enzo’s eyes locked on mine, dark and determined. So much fire.
I’m not tied to the stake. I’m okay. I’m okay.
But I don’t believe myself. We are back at my burning—the Inquisition is going to kill me in front of everyone, happy to watch fire consume me in punishment for my father’s death. The gods save me. Suddenly, the attacks from the other Elites pale in comparison. The flames feel like they’re closing in. They
are
closing in. I can’t breathe.
He is forcing me to
relive the feeling
of staring straight at death.
Enzo reaches me. As flames roar all around us, he leans close enough for me to feel the heat of his body through his robes, the sheer power hidden underneath. The fear that has been building in my chest since Spider first attacked me now rushes through me in an unstoppable current, turning my limbs numb. One of his hands touches the small of my back. A violent, irresistible wave of heat emanates from his touch and pulses through my body, scalding me. The flames around us lick at the edges of my sleeves—I watch in terror as the fabric curls, blackening. Everything about Enzo whispers of danger, of murder in the name of righteousness. I’m desperate to pull away. I ache for more. I tremble uncontrollably, caught in the middle.
“I know you crave the fear.” His breath scorches the skin of my exposed neck. “Let it build. Nurture it, and it will give back all of your care tenfold.”
I try to concentrate, but all I can feel is the heat. The stake, the pile of wood at my feet. The eyes of my dead father, forever haunting my dreams.
You are a killer,
his ghost whispers. But how many have the Inquisition killed? How many
more
will they kill? Wouldn’t I have been one of the Inquisition’s victims, had the Daggers not come to my rescue?
With the fire all around us, with Enzo’s hand hot against my silks, with his words in my ears and my body still trembling from the others’ attacks, the combination of my fear, hatred, anger, and desire finally fuse into one. I can feel the uncontrollable darkness growing inside me, millions of threads that connect everything in the world to everything else, the badness inside Enzo, the wickedness inside everyone around us, growing until I’m able to reach down and close my mind around a handful of those threads and
pull
on them. The darkness bows to me, eager for my embrace. I close my eye, open my heart to the feeling, and soak in the delight of vengeance.
Show me what you can do,
my father’s ghost whispers.
Black silhouettes rise up out of the ground, their shapes demonic and their eyes scarlet red, their fangs dripping blood. They gather around us, growing taller and taller, until they reach the cavern’s ceiling. They wait patiently for my command. I’m swept away, both giddy with joy at the feeling of power and terrified that I am completely helpless to it.
Enzo removes his hand.
The sudden lack of contact distracts me, and in a flash, my silhouettes disappear. The demons shrink into the ground. Enzo’s columns of fire vanish. We’re back in the heavy silence of the cavern, as if nothing had happened. My shoulders droop from the effort. Without the fire, the space has returned to its eerie green glow. The others aren’t laughing anymore. I glance at Raffaele. He looks stricken, his brows furrowed in a tragic line.
Enzo steps away from me. I sway on weak legs. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he seems surprised himself.
All I know is that I want to do it again. I want Enzo to touch me. I want to feel that flow of power, and I want to see the other Daggers’ intimidation.
I want something
more.
It is pointless to believe what you see,
if you only see what you believe.
—“The Admiral,” from
The Requiem of Gods Vol. XI
,
translated by Chevalle
T
wo days after my testing, a mob of drunken gamblers burns a
malfetto
in the middle of a market square. Several days later, another murder. As if killing us will somehow make the city prosperous again. From the hidden courtyard that overlooks Estenzia, I glimpse the second victim dragged, sobbing, into a main street by a mob of shouting people. Inquisitors stand by and pretend not to notice.
I need to learn faster. The world is closing in on us.
“Both were
malfettos
accused of having powers, of being Elites,” Raffaele tells me today, as we sit together before my bedchamber mirror. “Neither were, of course. But their families turned on them anyway. The Inquisition pays well for such information, and gold is hard to pass up in times like these.”
I look at the array of creams and powders scattered on the dresser top, then glance at my reflection in the mirror. My maid took me this morning to a private bathhouse in the court and washed me until I gleamed and glistened. My skin now smells of rose and honey. I’m surprised at how quickly I’ve become used to such luxuries.
I turn my gaze back to Raffaele. “Why didn’t the Daggers save them?” I ask.
Raffaele’s reply is one that answers nothing. He picks up a tub of cream. “These hunts happen too often. We react when necessary.”
I try not to look bothered by his answer, but secretly, I dwell on his real meaning.
We didn’t risk saving them, because they were not Elites.
“What are you going to do to me?” I ask.
“You stay at the Fortunata Court. You will need to look the part.”
I recoil at the thought of transforming into a consort. Raffaele must have sensed the sudden shift in my energy, because he adds, “Would you prefer to be recognized by an Inquisitor?” He dabs a touch of the cold cream on my face. “No one will touch you, you have my word. But looking the part will give you some freedom.”
The cream tingles. I watch, amazed, as it brings the warmth out in my olive skin. He runs an ivory comb through my hair. Occasionally his fingers brush the base of my neck, sending shivers of pleasure down my spine. There is a precision to his gestures that speaks volumes about his talents as a consort. I have a fleeting thought of what being his client must be like, his skin warm against mine, his lips soft on my neck, his hands smooth and experienced, roaming.
Raffaele lifts an eyebrow at me through the mirror. “What you’re thinking will cost you at least five thousand gold talents, mi Adelinetta,” he teases gently, tilting his head in a subtle movement that sends blood rushing to my cheeks. Five
thousand
gold talents?
“A night?” I breathe.
“An hour,” Raffaele replies, still working his way through my hair.
Five thousand gold talents
an hour.
In one night, Raffaele can fetch my father’s annual salary.
“You must have singlehandedly turned the Fortunata Court into the wealthiest court in the country,” I say.
He smiles shyly . . . but behind it, I sense something sad. My grin fades.
Raffaele rubs a fine oil into my scalp, and then finishes combing. He turns his attention to other details—touching my eyelid and lashes with a black, shimmering powder that hides the strands’ silver color; rubbing an ointment on my nails that makes them gleam; smoothing my brows into perfect brushstrokes. I tremble again as his finger runs across my lips, painting them a color of rose that accents their fullness. I wonder if any of his clients are Dagger patrons, nobility enticed by the riches Enzo can reward them with once he’s on the throne. Maybe all of them are. Or maybe they have no idea who the Daggers’ leader is—only that they are supporting an expert assassin who will dethrone the king.
“How did you learn so much about energy?” I decide to ask as he works.
Raffaele shrugs once. “Trial and error,” he replies. “We are the first. There is no one before us to learn from. With each new Elite we recruit, I learn, experiment, and record. Someone needs to leave the knowledge behind for the generation after us.
If
there is another generation.”
I listen in quiet fascination. He’s a Messenger in more ways than one. “Do you know where it came from? I know it began with the blood fever, but . . .”
He reaches for a slender brush. “It did not begin with the blood fever. It began with energy, the link between the gods and the mortal world they created.”
“Energy.”
“Yes. It forms the land, air, sea, and all living things. It is what breathes life into us.”
“And what gives us powers?”
Raffaele nods. He dips the brush in a shallow dish of sparkling powder, then touches it to the edge of my good eye. I frown as he works, trying to imagine this strange, invisible energy.
His brush pauses for a moment. “When you close your eye, you see sparks of colors, do you not?” he says.
I close my eye to test his theory. Yes. In the blackness float sparks of faint blues and greens, reds and golds, blinking in and out of existence. “Yes.”
“You are actually seeing threads of energy.” He touches my hand carefully, and a chill of delight runs up my arm. “The world is made of countless threads that connect all things. These threads give the world both its color and its life.” He nods at the bedchamber around us. “Right now, in some small way, you’re connected to everything in here. The mirror, the walls, the air. Everything. Even the gods.”
His words stir my memory. I think back to the night of my father’s death. When I suspended everything around me, the raindrops and the wind, the world had turned black and white, and translucent threads had glistened in the air. During my burning, I’d seen the color drain from my execution stand before it all came rushing back.
“Most people don’t have enough energy to manipulate their connections to the world. We weren’t meant to. But when the fevers affected you and me, something changed in us. Suddenly it linked us to the world in a way that our bodies were never meant to be linked.” Raffaele turns my hand so that my palm faces upward, then runs his slender fingers along the inside of my wrist all the way to my fingertips. My skin tingles at his touch. I suck in my breath, blushing. “Every Elite is different, and pulling on threads in specific ways will do specific things. The Windwalker, for example, can pull on the threads in the air that create wind. Enzo pulls on threads of heat energy, from himself, from the sun, from fire, and from other living things. From the Sunlands come reports of an Elite who can change metal into gold. Another rumored Elite, Magiano, has escaped the Inquisition Axis so often that the word
magic
evolved from his name. There are countless ways energy manifests in us. I can only imagine what undiscovered Elites out there can do, those beyond the Daggers and beyond who I know exist. There are even rumors of an Elite who can bring people back from the dead.”
I wonder, for a moment, how many others exist outside of the Dagger Society. Are there rival societies? “And you?” I say.
“I can see and sense all the energy in the world,” he replies. “Every single thread that connects everything to everything else. I can’t do much, save to tug faintly on them—but I can feel them all.”
Here, he pauses to look me in the eye. I feel a sudden tug at my heart, as if the sight of him had set butterflies loose in my chest. My eye widens in understanding. This is why his touch along my wrist left me tingling. “No wonder your clients fall so madly in love with you, if you look like this
and
can literally pull on their heartstrings.”
Raffaele laughs his beautiful laugh. “Someday I’ll teach you, if you like.”
My heart thrills again at that, and I wonder if it has anything to do with Raffaele’s energy this time. “What about me?” I ask after a pause. “My power?”
“Of all the Daggers, you and I are the most alike. We sense the intangible.” Raffaele turns his eyes to me, and the sun catches the brilliant, shifting colors in his irises. “Think of the lesser gods—Formidite, the angel of Fear, or Caldora, the angel of Fury. Laetes, the angel of Joy. Denarius, the angel of Greed. Threads of energy connect not only physical things, but also emotions, thoughts, and feelings—fear, hate, love, joy, sorrow. You have the ability to pull on threads of fear and hatred. A powerful talent, if you can tame it. The more fear and hate your environment has, therefore, the stronger you are. Fear creates the strongest illusions. Everyone has darkness inside them, however hidden.” His eyes turn solemn, and I shiver, wondering what small darkness might lie within even
his
gentle soul.
“Was Enzo the first Elite you ever met?” I whisper.
“Yes.”
I’m suddenly curious. “How did you meet him?”
Raffaele starts putting away the powders on the table. “He bought my virgin price.”
I turn quickly in my chair to look at him. “Y-your virgin price? You mean, you and Enzo—”
“It’s not what you think.” He gives me a playful smile. “When I turned seventeen and came of age, I became an official consort of the Fortunata Court. So the court held a lavish bidding masquerade for my debut.”
I try to imagine the scene: Raffaele at my age, young and innocent, more beautiful than anyone else in the world, standing before a sea of masked nobility and preparing to give himself away. “The entire city must have turned out for you.”
Raffaele doesn’t disagree, which is confirmation enough. “Enzo came to my debut night in secret, searching for others like himself.” He hesitates for a moment, as if remembering. “I sensed him the instant he arrived, even though he stayed hidden and out of sight. Never in my life had I met another with the type of energy I had. It was the first time I could see the threads of his energy around him like a halo, weaving together and apart. He must have noticed my strange interest in him. His manservant bid on me for him, and won.”
“How much?” I ask curiously.
“An obscene amount.” He lowers his eyes. “I was frightened, you know. I’d heard stories from the older consorts about their debut nights. But when he came to my chamber, all he wanted to do was talk. So we did. He demonstrated to me his abilities with fire. I confessed my ability to sense others. We both knew we risked our lives, talking openly about our powers.”
I suddenly realize that there is only one person Raffaele never uses his talents on. Enzo. “Why do you trust him?”
My question sounds suspicious and scathing, and immediately I wish I could take it back. But Raffaele, ever graceful, simply meets my gaze with a level look. “If Enzo becomes king,” he says, “I can step away from this life.”
I dwell on the moment of sadness I’d seen from him before, then on the endless parade of aristocrats he is paid to entertain, both inside and outside the bedchamber. The lack of freedom. No one
chooses
the life of a consort, no matter how lavish.
“I’m sorry,” I finally say.
Raffaele pauses to look over the broken side of my face. I tense. A hint of sympathy enters his gaze, and he touches my cheek with one hand. I feel a slight tug on my heart. My anxiety calms, my chest warms in trust. Everything about his touch soothes and caresses. There is something oddly comforting about this moment. We’re not so different, the two of us.
The maid returns with an armful of silks then, and our moment ends. Raffaele gives us privacy while she helps me change into the new garments—a beautiful gold dress cut in the Tamouran style. The loose silks feel delightfully cold against my skin. Clothing from the Sunlands has always felt more comfortable than the stiff corsets and lace that Kenettrans wear.
Before the maid leaves, she places a velvet box on top of the dresser. Raffaele returns. He nods in approval at the dress. “Amouteru,” he says, lingering on the exotic accents of my family name. “I can see the Tamouran blood in you.”
As I look on in wonder, Raffaele brushes my hair until it spills down my back like a silver curtain. He twists the strands into a smooth, glossy bun behind my head in traditional Tamouran fashion, picks up two long cloths of white and gold, and carefully wraps my head with them until all of my hair is hidden underneath an elaborate, intertwined series of gold and white silk, the cloth draping down behind me in a sheet of sun and snow. He pins jewels on the cloth. He ties the Tamouran headwrap so much more skillfully than I ever have. Finally, he places a thin silver chain on my head from which a single teardrop diamond suspends at my forehead.
“There,” he says. “You will hide your markings like this from now on.”
I stare at myself, stunned. My cheekbones and nose, the elegant sweep of my eye, all enhanced. I have never looked more Tamouran in my life. It’s a convincing disguise.
Raffaele smiles at my expression. “I have a present for you,” he says. He turns and opens the velvet box on the dresser.
My heart skips a beat.
It’s a white half mask, made of porcelain and cold to the touch. Diamonds trace along its edges and twinkle in the light, and trails of bright glitter paint elaborate patterns across the mask’s pale surface. Tiny white plumes arch at the point where it curves up toward the temple. I can only stare. Never in my life have I worn something so finely crafted.
“I commissioned this for you,” Raffaele says. “Care to try it?”
I nod wordlessly.
Raffaele positions the half mask over my face. It fits snugly, like a long-lost possession, something that has always been a part of my body. Now snow-white porcelain and lines of shining light conceal the spot where my eye used to be. The mask covers it all. Without the distraction of my marking, the natural beauty of my face shines through.
“Mi Adelinetta,” Raffaele breathes. He leans down close enough for his breath to warm the skin of my neck. “You are truly kissed by moon and water.”
As I stare silently back, I feel something powerful stir inside me—a buried fire, subdued during childhood and long forgotten. I have lived all my life in the shadow of my father and my sister. Now that I’m standing in the sun for the first time, I dare to think differently.
The broken butterfly has been made whole.
Faint voices come from the hallway outside. Before either of us can react, the door opens and Enzo strides in. I can’t keep my cheeks from turning bright red, and I turn my face partly away, hoping he doesn’t notice. His eyes settle first on Raffaele. “Is she ready?”