My father looks at me with a level expression. A practiced cover, I realize, for eyes that are deep wells of pain. “They have your mother. She’s safe, but they’re holding her to ensure our cooperation, both yours and mine. And of course they hold you over me as well. They’ve never had this kind of leverage before. I can’t put one toe out of line.”
My heart turns into a cold and painful lump in my chest. My mother. This is all my fault. But at least I want to do something, anything, unlike the man in front of me. “Why didn’t you already burn this place down, long before they had her or me? I’ve seen what you can do! It’s been almost thirteen years, and you’ve just been sitting here, eating at the same table as these people?” I sneer unabashedly at the two women, ignoring the deepening scowl on Crisea’s face. “Why didn’t you come back?”
Here it is: the accusation. It bubbles to the surface like pus from an old wound. Because I was wounded that day my father was taken. And now I’m realizing he could have healed me.
It isn’t just that I lost my father. I’ve blamed myself bitterly for what happened, for once wishing he would join the wards. I know it’s not entirely logical, but I’ve felt like that wish brought them down on his head. I’ve nearly drowned myself in wine trying to forget. I’ve wanted to escape the past so desperately that I planned to leave everything and everyone I’ve ever known behind.
And yet my father has been here, living in the palace all this time.
“You don’t understand, Rovan. I—” He grimaces. “I can’t say much, but know that I am little more than a glorified prisoner here. You’ll find out soon enough that guardians watch over their wards in more than one way.”
“Silvean,” the dead man warns.
“So they’re our captors as much as our protectors,” I say. “Do they hurt their wards?”
My father doesn’t respond, only stares at the dead man with a tight expression.
After a second, the dead man sighs and answers me. “Only those who resist. I don’t advise making a habit of it.”
For a moment, I consider using my favorite sigil to throw the entire table at the dead man to show him how I feel about that, but then a wave of dizziness overtakes me. I stumble over to a chair and sit down hard. I can’t remember when I last ate or had a drink of water. The most recent thing to have passed my lips was on its way out, sometime yesterday morning.
My voice cracks. “So that’s it? We just give up, roll over like dogs, and have breakfast?”
“Lunch,” Crisea corrects.
“Who cares which meal it is?” I erupt. “I don’t even know where I am, I don’t know where my mother is”—I toss my head at my father—“and I don’t even know you. Not anymore.”
He flinches. “I know.”
“You’re in the palace, silly child,” Penelope says in her no-nonsense tone that makes me want to scream. “There are worse places to be, such as the dungeons, so I don’t see why you’re complaining. And you have a busy day ahead of you, so I recommend you conserve your strength and eat something.”
Goddess. So I am in the palace, that spiraling white structure rising like a seashell to dominate the center of the city. I’m about to tell the princess where she can shove her recommendation when my attention snags on two words. “Busy day?”
“Didn’t you hear about my dear father, King Neleus?” Penelope asks. It doesn’t sound like he’s very dear to her at all.
I shake my head. I don’t give a flying fig about the king right now.
“How could you not have?” Crisea scoffs.
“Cris,” my father begins.
As much as my father and Penelope don’t seem to like each other, he still has a pet name for her daughter. Fury burns through me again.
“No, I hear nothing down among the plebeian rabble,” I snap. “We’re too busy putting food on the table or looking out for our families to care whether or not the king’s morning shit went well.” Although there was that pageant the day before I was caught, where everyone dressed up in clay skull masks and flower wreaths …
“King Neleus is ill,” my father supplies quickly. “Too ill to live much longer, but at least he’s in his seventy-somethingeth year, so excuse me if I lack sympathy for his plight.” He drags himself over to a chair next to me. He’s in his early forties—too young to look like this, to talk like this, to move like this. “As with all the kings, he has the choice of falling on his sword or drinking hemlock before he becomes unfit to rule. That … event … will happen within the week, and will only be attended by Crown Prince Tyros in the necropolis, whose duty it is to perform the final rites and inter his body. I know you wouldn’t have heard much about the rest of the royal family, but the king, especially his passing, is another matter. There are celebrations in honor of him across the polis, most notably a commemorative banquet this evening here in the palace. Our presence has been … requested.”
I seize a pitcher and a goblet, fill the latter with water, and begin gulping. It’s only after I slam down the empty vessel that I say, “I must decline.”
“I don’t think it’s optional,” my father says gently.
“Why, will he force me to go?” I don’t look in the dead man’s direction.
“Your presence could be assured in many ways,” my father says. “You’re expected to meet the rest of the royal family. It would be best to play along at this point, for your mother’s sake.”
In response, I tear into a loaf of bread with my bare hands. I alternate bites with stuffing grapes and chunks of melon into my mouth, chewing it all indiscriminately and ignoring the fact that it’s delicious. Penelope and Crisea both watch with marked distaste. I couldn’t care less. They want me to eat to regain my strength? Fine. The better to find my mother, wherever she is, fight whomever I have to, and get out of here, with or without my father’s help.
My father waits for a few minutes, not touching any food, while Penelope and Crisea finish their own meal. I relish the awkward silence. Let them choke on it, I think.
“Rovan,” he says eventually. “Would you accompany me on a walk? I can show you some of the palace, such that I can, and there are important matters we must discuss.”
“Don’t be gone too long,” Penelope says before I can open my mouth. “The royal tailor is coming in soon. He’ll alter one of Crisea’s dresses to fit the girl for tonight.”
“Will there even be enough material to cover her?” Crisea mutters, raising an eyebrow in my direction.
“Must we do this?” I burst out, spinning on her. “Are you worried I’m going to take him from you? Since your real father doesn’t seem to be around anymore, you must be desperate not to lose this poor substitute.”
Hurt cuts across Crisea’s face.
“Rovan—” my father starts, but Crisea interrupts.
“He’s been my father for all these years, not yours,” she spits. “I actually care about him. He was supposed to have been safe, but then you had to show up and start all of this. You should have kept your nose down in the mud, you worthless pig.”
Penelope sighs. “Crisea. No need to insult her breeding. She is technically your stepsister, and a part of this family now.”
I gape. “You people are nothing to me. You’re not my family. And you conniving royals are the ones who did this to my father in the first place, so it’s your fault if he’s in danger. And you know what? You can keep him, if you both want each other’s company so badly. And you can keep your damned dress.” For good measure, I add, “At least I have breasts.”
Never mind that Crisea is perfectly fine, if thin and muscular like she’s boiled all her fat off in martial exercises—and if also a bitch.
The girl twitches like she wants to go for a sword. “I should gut you for speaking to me like that.”
I stand abruptly, causing them all to jump. “Try it. I am a bloodmage, and I will throw the next person who—”
I feel a hand on my arm and fling myself around, alarmed that I might find the cold, pale skin of t
he dead man’s against mine. But it’s only my father, reaching out from his chair, and I realize he’s done it more to warn me than to restrain me.
Because the dead man is standing right behind me, a looming black figure that looks entirely too substantial, as if he was about to do something to me. I jump an involuntary step back and bump into the table, knocking over a glass. I hear it shatter. I don’t take my eyes off the shade. I glare at him as if daring him to come closer, and he gazes implacably back.
Apparently he doesn’t approve of threats to the royal family.
“I need to get out of here,” I say into the tense silence that follows. “And I need answers.”
“How about that tour?” my father reminds me quickly.
“Sure. As long as he stays behind,” I say, raising my chin at the dead man.
“I’ll be just out of sight,” the shade says, as calm as ever. “You won’t even know I’m there.”
My hand gropes behind my back, seeking a knife or a plate or something else to throw at him, but he vanishes before I have the chance.
My father stands slowly. “Let’s go. I’ll be back, don’t worry,” he adds to Crisea, who sits with her arms folded, giving me a deadly stare.
I tug my shawl tightly around my shoulders and follow him out into this strange new world.
“Keep it quick,” Penelope says.
I slam the door behind us.
6
I follow my father out into a pale marble hallway lined in columns and lush tapestries depicting scenes of hunting, dancing, and other recreational activities of the wealthy. Two guards—normal flesh-and-blood humans, not guardians or their wards—stand outside. They don’t attempt to stop us or even look at us, although one frowns when I slam the door.
Nonetheless, my father pulls his himation over his gray-streaked blue hair and waits until we’re out of earshot before saying, “This is the royal family’s wing. King Neleus’s children live here and their children as well, along with their spouses if they have them. The king has an entire wing to himself, which the likes of me has never been allowed to enter.”
He says it as though trying to distance himself from all of this. Never mind that this is where he lives, he’s married to the king’s daughter, and I’ve never seen three paces’ worth of this hallway’s wealth in my entire life. Lines of what look like real gold thread the creamy marble all around us. Flowers and vines grow entwined around each towering column, blossoming in a profusion of color and perfume. The tapestries are no less alive—actually moving, I realize as I look closer at the tiny figures and scrolling leaves. I’ve always been forced to hide my magic when weaving, to make it look as though it has come from hands and loom alone, no matter how skillfully done. These palace artisans certainly have no such restrictions.
“I’d prefer other accommodations, of course,” my father continues. “To live in the palace, you still need some drop of royal blood in you or association by marriage. But an arcade and a lovely garden connect this wing of the palace to the Hall of the Wards, where every bloodmage is allowed, even if they’re common—though warded and registered of course. I keep my office within view of it, but I’m not allowed to fraternize. It makes me feel a little less of an impostor to be near there, if no less a prisoner.” He’s speaking too quickly, nervously.
I don’t have the time or the inclination to put him at ease. “I don’t actually want the grand tour. I want to talk about what the hell is happening with you and me and my mother, and what this bloodline business is that everyone keeps going on about.” I eye him sideways for any hint in his expression of what I fear—what will happen if he gives his bloodline to me.
But all he says is, “Consider a bloodline a store of magical knowledge, recorded within the very body of a bloodmage. It can be passed on, but only to an heir of their blood who possesses magical ability. It’s common enough for a bloodmage to have a child—but only one—with a gift of any potency, although they could hand it down to a grandchild of similar or greater strength.”
My brow furrows. “But wouldn’t that make them extremely rare?”
“Smart girl. Yes, bloodlines are always at risk of being lost through death or lack of an heir. Especially in Skyllea. There, bloodlines are only passed down to the strongest mages within the strongest families, preserving the most potent magic. We’re much rarer and highly valued.” He smiles slightly, with pride that shines like light through broken glass. “Which is why the creation of new bloodlines is encouraged if a mage without one is deemed strong enough. Think of it like being raised to magical nobility.” He frowns. “Here, however, establishing new bloodlines is more than encouraged. Four hundred years ago, the first king, Athanatos, made it mandatory for anyone discovered to have magical ability to start a bloodline. That’s why you see so many short bloodlines here, with only a few sigils marking the skin. The long ones are still rare and considered precious.”
“How do they get longer?”
“Before turning over the bloodline, each bloodmage adds sigils they have discovered or used in a new way, making them effortlessly accessible to their successor, and not requiring the use of fresh blood to access their potency—though of course blood never hurts. That way, each life is like a chapter in a growing magical record that’s handed down through the generations.”
“So then that’s … actual blood?” I ask, pointing at his red-lined forearm. The symbols, as always, mean nothing to me.
“Yes,” he says, “the red actually comes from blood, the blood of my ancestors. My own blood will add to it.” He mutters, “Sooner rather than later, I believe.”
“Penelope said it was a heavy thing to carry,” I say, prodding. “And maybe to pass on?”
He scoffs, clacking his cane more forcefully against the marble floor. “She wouldn’t know. She inherited neither her mother’s magical gift nor her bloodline, which is why she was still unmarried by the time I met her—but I can return to that unfortunate topic later. Many here don’t truly understand bloodlines. My people, on the island of Skyllea, started the tradition millennia past. I know they say the first king, Athanatos, did,” he says, heading me off as I open my mouth, “but actually he borrowed the idea four centuries ago. More like stole a sacred ritual, along with our sigil-based writing system, and bent them to his own ends. Not only did he make it mandatory to start a bloodline if you don’t have one to inherit, but you must pass it on to the child of yours with the most magical ability by the time that child is twenty.”
Twenty. That’s coming soon for me, but I still have time to figure out a plan before my father has to give me his burden. Maybe I only take his gift for blood magic, and he can retire in peace with my mother and weave cloth.
“Why so young as twenty?” I ask, still too afraid to press him about the other thing.
“There’s less risk of losing a bloodline to the perils of age, and the mind and body are still sharp and strong, able to train without flagging. I suppose the king wanted his bloodmages to be in their prime, of maximum use.”
“He wanted a magical army.”
My father gives me a knowing look. “Athanatos claimed it was to strengthen blood magic in general, for the sake of the polis and its future generations. The magical gift was and is still as rare as ever before, but now all of it would gradually build on itself over time, rather than within a select few families and individuals. Seems egalitarian, but yes, as you say, I suspect it was to increase Thanopolis’s magical power—in quantity if not quality. It also made it easier to keep track of all bloodmages in the city, since bloodlines were recorded in the Register from then on, their children closely monitored for the gift, and anyone with magic warded—to protect their bloodlines, supposedly, as if they were treasure troves belonging to the polis.”
“Or to keep them in line,” I finish bitterly. “They want to use our power, not have it used against them. But why not have normal guards watch over us, like the ones I see around this place?” I gesture behind me, a
t a pair we’d just passed. “You know, alive?”
“A shade can easily follow where many could not, and watch and listen without being intrusive. Those are the usual reasons given, anyway. They can also stop us more efficiently than any number of living guards could, and without violence. I also have other suspicions.”
“Silvean.” The name comes from nowhere, rising as if from the columns around us. The dead man. He’s indeed watching and listening, even if we can’t see him. It’s frankly creepy.
“Stay out of this,” I hiss.
But my father says, “He’s right to warn us. I’m not sure if he’ll let me tell you everything, but at this point, we should get behind closed doors.”
I frown. “Can’t he just float through them?”
“Yes, of course,” my father replies. And yet his tone isn’t concerned. It makes me curious enough to follow without question.
It gives me time to take in the palace, despite myself. It’s impossible not to, with the sheer amount of riches splattered on every surface. The hallway curves and slopes gently downward along the spiral structure. Gold-threaded pale marble gives way to dark gray veined with red, and life-sized statues stand between the columns like sentinels, with wreaths of living laurels and flowers growing atop their heads and twining their feet.
“Are these royals?” I ask, nodding at the statues.
“Famous wards. The royal gallery is restricted.”
Also curious. I’ve certainly seen plenty of statues of the first king, Athanatos, but perhaps the rest of the family isn’t supposed to compete with the city’s founder. He seems only to be in competition with the goddess for status. I remember how the wards called the fountain his instead of hers. Athanatos has definitely achieved something like godhood in the eyes of the people. Even his name—which I somehow doubt he was born with—means “immortal,” and Thanopolis was named after him.
“Why is the royal gallery restricted?”
“Now that’s a very good question. One worth asking, I daresay. But later.”
In the Ravenous Dark Page 6