by Carol A Park
The pain he had wrought in her had been the reason she had sought refuge in in the idea of Sweetblade to begin with.
At the mere mention of his name—at the present possibility that he might show up at the ball at any moment…
Perhaps it was a good thing, after all, that he wasn’t here yet.
Gildas led her out into the midst of the floor and pulled her smoothly into the proper hold, but his grip was unnecessarily tight.
Fear, anger, or something else?
“So. Serina,” he said. He looked down at her, and though a smile was on his face, his eyes were hard.
“Dal,” she said, favoring him with a sweet smile in return.
His eyes flicked around them once, and then looked back at her. “I don’t know what you and the demonspawn have planned, but it isn’t going to work.”
She tilted her head and fluttered her eyelashes in an obviously exaggerated manner. “My only plans are to marry and bed him as soon as possible.”
He looked as though he had bitten into raw starleaf.
“I’m so sorry. Did I scandalize you?”
He snorted. “We are surrounded by dozens of guards and priests, and may I remind you that I am no stranger to a fight myself.”
She let her smile grow just a bit more sinister. “I’m aware. And I can assure you, I won’t make the same mistakes next time.”
“You obviously didn’t take my message to heart.”
“Have you ever been bitten by a bloodbat, Dal?”
Confusion flickered across his eyes. “Ah…no?”
“Like most common bloodbane, what they want most is to get away, but if you get in their way, they bite and don’t let go until one of you is dead.” She leaned a little closer. “Your fatal error will be that you think you’re the bloodbat.”
At that, he finally looked just a little rattled, but he just frowned, trying to shrug it off for her benefit. “I hope you do bed him,” he muttered. “He always was a bit of a prude.”
Prude? Prude? The thought of Vaughn as a prude was so hilarious that she lost control and laughed—sort of. It came out as a choked sound as she tried to hold it back.
She pulled away from him, fanning her face. “Oh,” she said. “I—” She coughed again, this time in earnest, having sucked some saliva down her throat upon inhaling. “I’m so sorry. A fit has come upon me. Pardon me. I could use something to drink.”
She moved away from him, and he trailed behind. She poured herself a drink, and then gave him a saccharine smile. “May I get you something as well, my lord?”
His jaw twitched, and he stalked away.
Vaughn found Ivana standing alone near the drink table. He hadn’t intended on having to leave her alone with one of the men who had ruined her life, but she didn’t seem any worse for it. In fact, she seemed uncharacteristically amused.
Ivana drew close to him, and he instinctively put his arm around her waist, holding her near as he bent down so she could put her lips to his ear. “He’s terrified,” she whispered. “And he’s convinced we’re here to kill him.”
“Good,” Vaughn said.
He led her out onto the dance floor himself, tired of talking to people. Next, it would be a cousin, or some other person to congratulate him on his return from the dead, posturing to see if striking up an old acquaintance would help or hurt them politically. Had he actually enjoyed this, once?
“What mischief have you gotten into?” he asked her. Ironically, he felt as though she were the only genuine person in this room.
She raised an eyebrow at him.
“You didn’t poison his drink, did you?”
A wistful look passed over her face. “A splendid idea, but he wouldn’t take one from me for some reason.”
“Sometimes,” he said, “you frighten me.”
“Only sometimes? Clearly you need an object lesson,” she said, now cheerful.
Well, cheerful wasn’t the right word, but compared to her normal moods…
He felt himself warming at her pleasure. At her proximity.
“All right,” he said, feeling emboldened by her disposition. “I confess. Sometimes when you ought to frighten me, you simply…intoxicate me.”
“There’s something wrong with you,” she said.
“Probably,” he admitted. “But you can’t deny that you look rather ravishing.”
She snorted.
“I mean it,” he said. “You do know you’re beautiful, don’t you?”
She looked out across the dance floor, silent for a while. When she spoke, her voice was cool. “I obviously pass muster for enough men that I’m able to use them.” She looked back to meet his eyes, all joviality gone.
Was that supposed to be a reference to her earlier remark? That, apparently, all he had been was a tool?
The words of the companion floated back to him. “Perhaps a talk would be better than other ways of dealing with your frustration.”
Impossible. He couldn’t talk to her. She had made it clear that she wanted nothing to do with him. And frankly, did he even want to talk to her? What did it matter?
Yet, he simply could not let go of the brief period when he had seen her, known her, and then he had ruined it, and Sweetblade had returned from her respite. Could he somehow bring Ivana back?
His heart started pounding. This was the perfect opportunity. He could try talking to her now. She was trapped. She couldn’t run away, it would be too obvious. They were stuck here until the plan was ready to be set into motion.
“Ivana,” he began.
“Don’t.”
She knew. She knew. “But you don’t even—”
“I’ve said all I want to say on the matter.”
He forced the words out. “But I haven’t.”
Her jaw twitched, but she didn’t say anything else, so he pressed on. “Look. Let’s not play games. You know I want you. I can’t deny that.” His eyes traveled down her throat, to her chest, and beyond. A familiar ache began in his groin.
Focus, Vaughn. He looked back up at her face. “But that gives me no right to…what I mean to say is…” He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”
She lifted her eyes to his, and they were dark and unreadable.
“What I did was…you’re right. I sensed that you were vulnerable, and I used that to manipulate you, acting solely in my interest rather than your own.” His throat was dry, and he swallowed a few times. “I want you to know, whatever you may think of me, I respect you too much for that. I shouldn’t have acted that way and I…I’m sorry.”
He had no idea how she would take it. He hoped that a genuine apology would be received well, at least.
Her face was blank, and she made no reply.
“I visited a prostitute while I was in the city to meet Aleena,” Vaughn said. The words slipped out in desperation.
She raised an eyebrow, looking faintly amused. “What, do you want a reward? I don’t think they hand those out for being a man.”
“That’s unfair,” Vaughn said, feeling the need to defend his gender. “Not all men are—” He stopped short. Are what? Like me?
“No. I suppose you’re right. I have met a few decent men in my life, my own father being one of them.” They reached the side of the ballroom, and he stepped to the side, bringing her around in a smooth twirl. “What’s your point?”
His pounding heart beat even louder, until he was sure she would hear it. He hadn’t intended on bringing this up, but it was too late to take the words back now.
“I didn’t get far. I’m embarrassed to admit that I had trouble…ah…performing.”
“I’m still waiting for the point.”
“Do you know why?”
“No. And neither do I care.”
“Because all I could think about was you.”
She wasn’t looking at him. She was looking beyond him, at the ballroom. Probably attentive to what they were supposed to be doing here, unlike him.
She didn’t say anythin
g for a long while, leaving him alone with his pounding heart and squirming stomach, wondering if, in an attempt to prove his sincerity, he had alienated her further.
She finally met his eyes again. “Here’s the problem, Vaughn. Every woman deserves your respect, not only one that you happen to be infatuated with at present.
“In fact, perhaps you should consider the possibility that you deserve to respect yourself more than that.”
He stared at her, not knowing what to say.
She didn’t look away, holding his eyes in a vice.
Who was this woman who had reached into his soul and bared it so completely?
The room hushed, and they both turned toward the front, where a priest was holding up his hands for attention.
Vaughn’s heart started pounding again, for a different reason. This was it.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The False Prophet
“Blessed guests!” the priest said, smiling. He gestured to the king, who was reclining on the dais behind the priest. “On behalf of the crown and the Conclave, I welcome you to the annual Harvest Ball!”
The guests, well-relaxed by good food and wine by this point in the evening, cheered and clapped without reserve.
“Let us begin with a prayer for endurance.”
Vaughn scanned the room with half-lidded eyes while the priest began his chant, taking note of the doors, looking for his people. Of course, they weren’t all visible, but by now, they should have all carried out their various tasks. If any had failed or had been compromised, this was going to go sour, fast.
Between common knowledge, non-so-common knowledge from Gan Barton’s spies, and the information Aleena had provided, they were able to piece together a map that went all the way down to the door to the Conclave’s underground facility. There were, of course, more entrances than the one Aleena had entered through, but they were all guarded. They couldn’t have any old person wandering in.
He saw Danton standing near one of the doors leading to the kitchen. Not as Danton, of course, but as a pre-agreed upon illusionary disguise so that no one would recognize him as someone who had come with Vaughn. A full body appearance change was difficult to pull off, but Danton had always been exceptionally skilled at using his powers—and unashamed in doing so—and could do it for a limited amount of time.
He met Vaughn’s eyes and nodded.
Vaughn licked his lips and bowed his head with the others. Everything was in place, then. This was going too smoothly. Something was going to go wrong.
It was like Ivana had prepped him. “Never count on Plan A working out to your expectations. There are always unexpected events getting in the way, no matter how hard you try to control them. Always have a Plan B, and a Plan C if you can manage it. But in the end, be ready to improvise.”
When the prayer was finished, the priest called on the king.
The king was largely a figurehead at these balls. It was a religious event, in theory, so he merely presided. But it was with the king’s approval that they chose the Harvest Hunter.
The king smiled broadly as he announced, as Vaughn had expected, his father as the Harvest Hunter. There were cheers of anticipation as Vaughn’s father mounted the dais. It was customary for the Harvest Hunter to give out additional boons.
The ceremony surrounding the naming of the Harvest Hunter was irrelevant to Vaughn. Vaughn’s father said some prayers, received a gift, announced some boons. He didn’t mention his resurrected son; he probably didn’t want to draw attention to him.
Then came the most important part of the ceremony. Together, about a dozen priests joined hands and made a circle on the dais. They chanted while another priest made ablations at an altar of incense. With a snap of his fingers, the offering went up in fire, causing the predictable murmur of appreciation to run through the room.
The smoke turned to a face before their eyes—the face of Yathyn, the head of their pantheon. At least, so they said. Vaughn had no doubt, now, that it was done with lightblood aether. An illusion. It was a symbol that their offering had been accepted and their prayers for safety in the coming year had been heard.
They made a few more demonstrations of magic. They healed a few minor ailments of guests who volunteered and re-froze the ice sculpture that was melting on the main food table. Now that Vaughn was looking at it through different eyes, he saw clearly that everything they did had a counterpart Banebringer ability. They didn’t do anything a Banebringer with the right profile couldn’t do. The chanting, the incense? Unnecessary, designed to draw attention away from the similarities between what they did and what the Banebringers could do.
Then, the room quieted as two guards—their own men, of course—entered, holding a limp figure between them. The woman they held there was alive, but her posture was one of hopelessness.
It was Citalli, no doubt exuding her charmblood aura to the maximum. Vaughn tensed as the priest glanced toward the woman, waiting for him to notice the switch, but he didn’t. That part was going smoothly, at least.
Vaughn clenched his fists. Their annual demonstration of their power over the heretical gods: Sedation. No magic to it, Vaughn knew. It was science. And they didn’t know it wouldn’t work on this woman. At least…he sincerely hoped the syringe had also been switched as it was supposed to have been, or they were dooming one of their own to a terrible fate. He looked for Yasril, but of course Vaughn couldn’t see him. He would be invisible.
“Ri Gildas, would you do the honors?” one of the priests said, producing and handing the syringe to Vaughn’s father.
“Gladly,” Gildas said.
He felt Ivana press his arm. This was him. It was all him.
Damn, damn, damn. His entire body was thrumming with the frantic beating of his heart. He pushed his way through the crowd until he reached the front.
“Stop!” he cried, voice seeming to come from someone else.
He was going to die. He was so going to die.
The interruption was enough to cause the ceremony to halt, as every face turned toward him.
His father, for his part, was frozen. Vaughn could see the fear on his face, could almost hear his thoughts. What was his demonspawn son about to do? His father had no idea how he had made it past the priest administering the tests—likely assumed, as they wanted, that this was part of some elaborate plan to finally assassinate him—
He had no idea at all.
Vaughn forced himself up the dais.
“What is the meaning of this?” the priest demanded at last, finally realizing someone had dared to interrupt a sacred ceremony.
“Blasphemers!” Vaughn shouted. “Hypocrites!”
The priest stared at him, obviously nervous. They weren’t expecting this, which was, of course, the point.
Vaughn’s father just looked confused.
“Guards,” the priest said in a raised voice. “Take this man away. He’s obviously had too much to drink.”
No one came to his rescue. Vaughn smiled grimly. That was because all of their guards had been replaced with his own people or otherwise dealt with.
“Guards?” the priest asked again, to the two holding Citalli, as Vaughn came closer.
They didn’t move.
“Liars!” Vaughn continued to shout. “They have allied themselves with the very powers they preach against!”
A hundred murmurs swept the room. Curiosity. Surprise. Wonder at what Vaughn was talking about.
“But Danathalt has betrayed you,” he proclaimed, raising one arm slowly to point at Citalli.
Now the faces of the priest, and some of his comrades, paled visibly, while the crowd became more confused by the moment. He could hear the whispers. “Danathalt? Who is Danathalt?” “What does he mean?”
The head priest looked around wildly, then at the throne. Where are the king’s guards? his eyes seemed to ask. In fact…where is the king?
Called away, of course, on important business, Vaughn answered smugly in his head. They h
adn’t wanted to chance the king being caught up in this.
“Who are you?” the head priest demanded. “What blasphemies are you speaking?”
“So hear now the judgment of Yathyn: your power over this woman is void.” He looked meaningfully at his father, the Hunter, who held the syringe, unmoving, obviously still trying to work out how this was going to get him assassinated.
And no one else moved to apprehend Vaughn—not even one of the other priests. They weren’t battle-priests, though a few slipped toward the doors behind the dais, either to make a hasty exit, or to rouse more help. They weren’t stupid. They knew by the lack of guards that Vaughn had more going on here.
The rest of the room was riveted. Prophecy was mentioned in the holy texts, but no one had ever heard one. They might think him crazy, but they were too curious to do anything but listen.
Vaughn met the head priest’s eyes, issuing a challenge.
The priest made a sound of disgust. “Give me that,” he said to Vaughn’s father. With a flourish, he injected the Sedation formula into Citalli’s arm. Citalli cried out from the pain of the needle, which was no small size.
The guards held her firmly, and everyone waited.
Nothing happened, other than that Citalli raised her head and gave the priest a crooked grin.
The priest stepped back and looked down at the empty syringe in his hand.
Another murmur went through the room. Did this man really have the power to do this? Vaughn imagined them saying. And why was Yathyn so upset that he would even save a Banebringer?
Of course, no one but Vaughn and his party knew that the syringe had been replaced with aether that would be harmless to Citalli, a charmblood. It had been part of what they had been doing behind the scenes, while Vaughn danced himself into place. The crowd would think Yathyn was angry at the priests, and the priests would think—soon, anyway, if they didn’t already—that this was Danathalt’s new ‘tool.’
“I warned you,” Vaughn said.
It was Citalli’s cue to start laughing maniacally.
She appeared to throw off the guards with ease, and then lifted her hands in the air. There was a whisper of wind, and a far off hum, and then a hundred winged insects burst into the room and started swirling around Citalli’s head. She kept laughing, holding her hands in the air. “You thought I needed you?” she shrieked, eyes flashing wildly.