Since I’m trying to stare beyond him, Kineas misreads my meaning. “Your guardian?” he asks, at the same time the dead man says, suddenly standing at my side, “The crown prince?”
Of course Kineas can’t hear the shade. I give a short nod, which Kineas assumes is for him, though I meet the dead man’s black eyes as I do. “I don’t know what I’ll do if I have to look at him for much longer.”
I mean that for my guardian, as well, but Kineas says, “That must be a bother.”
The dead man’s eyes widen ever so slightly. “You’re in a highly public place, and you need to maintain appearances. Whatever you do, stay calm.”
“Telling me that doesn’t help,” I say through gritted teeth. My hand tightens on Kineas’s enough to make him glare at me.
“I don’t care if it helps,” he says. “I don’t care about you at all, as long as you stop crushing my hand like a barbarian.”
I don’t respond, but the look in my eyes, which Kineas doesn’t deign to notice, must be enough for the dead man. He vanishes and reappears right over Kineas’s shoulder.
“Focus on me. I’m right here, and you hate me more than you hate him, yes? Concentrate on that.” His tone is still calm, but rushed, like the surface of a deep, fast-flowing river. There’s a lot of weight, warning, in those words.
“I’ll try,” I say, and the answer works for both of them.
“Try harder,” Kineas snarls, without even meeting my eyes. He’s more attentive to everyone watching us, keeping his face smooth for the crowd.
“What does it matter if I slip up?” I whisper.
“You’ll embarrass yourself,” he says, at the same moment the dead man says, “Think of your mother.”
Thinking of my mother makes me want to scream. “This isn’t working.”
“Obviously,” Kineas mutters. “You’re still strangling my hand.”
“You’re not focusing on me,” my guardian says.
“Because all I see is him,” I grind out.
“Stop looking at him,” both the crown prince and the dead man say in unison. It could be funny, under other circumstances. “Look at me,” the shade emphasizes, while Kineas adds, “I should be novel enough for you.”
Perhaps it’s because Kineas’s words are the most infuriating that my eyes lock onto his—clear, silvery, and entirely cold. I want to do more than scream. I want to burn.
Kineas appears mildly alarmed by my expression, but the dead man’s head cocks to one side. His eyes can certainly be cold, too, but there’s calculation in them.
It’s then I realize the shade looks more alive than the crown prince. The dead man is, well, dead, and Kineas very much breathing—too much. But my guardian has more feeling in him, despite all expectations. He looks especially alive now.
“I’m going to try something,” he says, and then he sidesteps … into Kineas, taking up the crown prince’s exact position, except a hair’s breadth closer to me. He covers over Kineas entirely, dark curls and eyes masking the pewter and silver I hate. My guardian’s pale left hand looks as if I’m holding it, and his right hovers just over my waist. His face is only inches from mine.
And then I’m dancing with the shade and not the crown prince, moving through the crowd with a black-clad, unearthly figure as if he were flesh and blood.
The dead man’s lips twitch at my sudden amazement, a slight slyness touching his flawless face. “Is this better?”
At least I want to kill him slightly less than Kineas. I can almost, almost feel him through the pressure of Kineas’s hands on my body, and it’s a surprising relief. I study the details of him. He looks like a king again: a silver circlet on his brow, a long robe of black velvet and silver embroidery belted at the waist with his usual, starkly elegant swords, and a ruff of black fur around his strong, graceful neck.
“This is better,” I say, and the shade’s expression shifts into something with fewer edges.
I don’t get to wonder at that for long, because the crown prince answers, his voice coming disconcertingly from right behind the dead man’s face, “I would imagine so. You haven’t experienced much like this.” Much like me, he means.
“Keep talking,” I say hurriedly.
Kineas sighs. “I’m not here for your amusement. That’s your role to play for me.” A suggestive leer comes into his tone that I blessedly can’t see. But it’s still enough to make my blood boil.
“It’s nice to be able to talk face-to-face,” the dead man starts somewhat hesitantly, as if he doesn’t know where to begin, “without you throwing things at me.”
“I’m only cooperating because your face is preferable, at the moment,” I say. “That could change quickly.”
“I don’t care about your preferences in the slightest,” the crown prince says. “And if you insist on misbehaving, I’ll be happy to train those feral tendencies out of you.”
“Wow, lucky me.” I stare hard at the dead man. “Who could have guessed someone in my position would end up here?”
“A true oracle couldn’t have predicted it,” Kineas mutters behind the shade’s somber expression.
“I hadn’t known it would come to this,” the dead man says, “you and the crown prince, betrothed. I would have warned you, which was perhaps why I wasn’t told.” He seems disquieted by the thought. “But it doesn’t have to be the worst of fates.”
“Oh?” My voice comes out high and brittle.
Fortunately, Kineas ignores me. And the shade realizes it’s wise to change the subject, though he pantomimes spinning me in a circle before he does.
“I haven’t danced in a very long time,” he says quietly, “though it’s nice to know I still can. I can’t feel your body, of course, but it’s easy enough to anticipate how you’ll move.” His dark eyes dart over me. “I’ve spent lifetimes studying exactly that in order to counter an attack.”
To counter an attack against his ward or to defend someone from his ward, I wonder?
Perhaps the dead man realizes he’s moved us back into dangerous territory, because he adds, “I don’t mind doing this. I’ll keep doing it, if need be. To make it easier.”
“Will you do this even when we’re in bed?”
“I’ll do whatever I want.” Kineas’s voice is like a splash of cold water on my face. I can’t help shuddering.
“I can’t imagine my face would be more welcome to you in that situation,” the dead man says, and then pauses. “But I’ll do anything to keep you from burning down the palace. Anything you want.”
His vow is in direct contrast to Kineas’s.
“Why?” I ask.
“Because I’m the crown prince, and you’ll do whatever I desire,” Kineas declares.
The dead man briefly closes his eyes, not long enough to lose the dance but long enough to look as if he regrets Kineas’s pronouncement. “Because,” he says, “we both need something that the other has.”
I blink. “What?”
“You heard me,” Kineas grates, squeezing me so hard I flinch.
A muscle in the dead man’s jaw clenches. “Dear goddess, won’t he shut up? I’m about to kill him.”
I can’t help it; I giggle, and that’s the last straw for Kineas. Fortunately the song is near its end, because he breaks away from me, appearances be damned. His body splits from the shade’s abruptly, making me stagger. My hand passes straight through the dead man’s chest. He blinks down at it, as if surprised to find himself a ghost, as well.
I stare at my guardian, marveling at the impossibility of him. Our eyes meet and hold for what feels like a very long second. There’s something between us that wasn’t there before. I just have no idea what it is.
“Th-thank you” is all I have time to stammer, before …
“Rovan?”
My father’s voice. The dead man’s eyes fly wide, his alarm mirroring my own. As he spins toward the voice, he vanishes.
My father is standing right across from me, no longer hidden by my guardi
an. His hair is an untidy mess of blue and gray, his himation crooked. He looks to have come in a rush, and has probably seen the tail end of my dance with Kineas.
And he’s drawing conclusions as to what it meant.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “No.”
He shouldn’t be here, I know he shouldn’t, but I can only stare at him, tears forming in my eyes. I should tell him to leave, but I want to fall on him and weep. I want to scream.
“I think it’s too late,” I manage, choking on a despairing laugh. “We just had our betrothal dance, after all, witnessed by both Thanopolis’s and Skyllea’s finest.”
“Skyllea?” My father blinks golden eyes in shock, and then his gaze shoots to the dais, to the delegation of colorful-haired people gathered there. “What are they doing here?”
“I don’t think they’re here to help,” I say as gently as possible. “Lydea was just engaged to one of their princes.”
“What?”
He takes a step, as if he’s about to march on the dais. Before I can try to stop him—or before the dead man can, once again alongside us—the king sidles in front of him, having stepped off the dais to head my father off. He places a strong hand on his shoulder.
“Now, Silvean, you were supposed to be resting,” Tyros says, as if speaking to a child. “You’re in no fit state to meet guests. You wouldn’t want to give them the wrong impression, would you?”
“Fuck impressions,” my father spits, shrugging off the king’s grip. “What are they doing here? And what is this about Rovan’s betrothal to Kineas?”
“They’re here to celebrate new alliances,” Tyros says smoothly, “as should you, if you won’t return to your apartments. Rovan has been graced with the highest honor. Her mother would be proud.”
Yet another veiled threat.
The king leans forward to whisper in my father’s ear. I don’t hear what he says, but whatever it is, the effect is immediate. My father jerks back, his golden eyes bulging, nostrils flaring. I see the dead man’s eyes widen at the same time. There’s no other warning.
The many windows in the great ballroom shatter all at once. Their white wooden frames twist like tree branches lashing in a gale. Their panes explode inward in a glittering cloud. Bigger shards rain down from the ceiling. People scream, sheltering their heads and ducking for cover as glass and spatters of real blood join the red rose petals on the pale floor.
But my father hasn’t flinched. A sword of fire appears in his hand. He shoves me behind him, stronger than I could have guessed, and swings the blade at the king’s neck.
The dead man hasn’t flinched, either. He’s there, stepping between the king and my father, catching the fiery sword on crossed half-moon blades. He moves like air. Like shadow. Like dancing. Then one of the ghostly blades vanishes, and his empty hand shoots out to seize my father’s neck. And it’s over, just like that. Because this is far more than a pinch. The shade not only touches him, but holds him in place. And it’s not just me who can see the both of them. So can everyone else, based on their surprised, frightened reactions. Everyone leaps away, crying out.
My guardian is here now. And it’s not good; it’s terrible.
The sword of flame vanishes from my father’s hand. The window frames stop twisting. The quiet is suddenly deafening. I can hear people’s isolated sobs along with my own panicked gasping.
I’ve wanted my father to act, but never something like this.
The dead man seems to agree. “I thought you knew better,” he tells his ward, sounding disappointed.
My father can barely respond. “Couldn’t … help it. And if there was even a chance…” His golden eyes speak of pain and murder as they wander over the shade’s shoulder to find the king—but then they roll back in his head, and his knees buckle. The dead man lets him fall to the ground in a tinkle of glass.
I can only stare in horror at my father’s unmoving form, lying on a bed of rose petals and gleaming shards. Kineas belatedly draws his sword, the steel ringing awkwardly loud.
King Tyros turns slowly to face the Skylleans, grouped in a protective huddle on the dais. “We hope that Skyllea had nothing to do with this assassination attempt, or else we may need to revisit our negotiations for peace.”
A woman with purple hair and what looks like a pair of white doves nesting on her head straightens and steps forward. “You have our word that we played no part in this. We wished to visit with Silvean Ballacra as we’ve had no contact with him for two decades, but we’d yet to arrange it. We’ll take this opportunity to formally disavow him. His fate is yours to decide.”
“Good,” the king says, and then nods at my father. “Get this man out of my sight.” Armed guards rush forward. “The next time I see any trace of him, I want it to be on her skin.” He stabs his chin at me.
“My apologies once again, Rovan,” the dead man says. His anger would be preferable to this … sympathy?
Before I can tell him not to call me that—never to call me that—or to throw whatever I can at him or to flee from him, he reaches out and brushes my cheek with a fingertip. Shockingly, I feel his skin against mine, like his pinch, but lingering, cool, and light.
And then I can’t remember anything else from that evening. But I can remember after.
13
I dream I’m burning alive, and it’s a dream I can’t seem to wake from.
When I finally do, cracking tear-crusted eyelids, my throat is hoarse like I’ve been screaming. I remember fire pouring over me, coating my skin like burning oil. Or was it somehow blood? Wherever it is I’m lying now—my surroundings are too dark to see—I feel tight and tender, as if sunburned. Maybe I have actually burned, and someone has healed me …
Then I remember the ball. The windowed walls writhing. Glass falling like rain. My father collapsing to the ground. The king’s sneer. The dead man touching my cheek.
I fling myself out of bed and crash violently into something—a chair—and find my way to a crack of light. It’s peeping through window curtains, and I throw them wide. Light spills over me.
My arms are traced in unfamiliar red sigils, from my palms to my shoulders. So are my feet and legs. I tear off my shift. They line my belly and breasts and even my ass, when I twist to look, so likely my back as well. There’s a mirror—I’m in my room in the palace, I now realize. I stumble over to my rose desk and the mirror entwined in thorns above it … and freeze. My entire body is covered, the sigils climbing like a high red collar all the way to my jawline. Not even my face is entirely free. One red sigil streaks my cheek below my left eye—a half circle like a bowl, with three lines of varying lengths dropping from it like red tears.
I don’t know what else to do. I scream.
“It’s all right.”
Spinning around, I find the dead man standing near the window. He’s less solid than usual, washed out by a beam of sunlight.
“It’s not all right!” I screech at him. “Look at me!”
“I … see you,” he says, nearly sounding awkward, and I secrete his discomfort away like a dagger up my sleeve. “You have a bloodline now, a very long one. It’s normal to feel disoriented by the changes.”
“To hell with disorientation. To hell with these changes. And to hell with you. I didn’t want this!” I pause, chest heaving. “Where is my father?”
I know before he speaks, from the too-still expression on his face.
“I’m sorry, Rovan, he’s—”
I scream again, and the sound splits open a pathway in my mind. This path jumps sigil to sigil, like stepping stones across a raging river. As I follow them, sketching them out with my fingers, the chair behind me breaks apart, splintering into daggerlike shards that rise up and fly like arrows at the dead man.
All they do is pass right through him, bouncing and clattering off the marble wall behind him.
He holds up a hand. “I don’t want to put you to sleep again, so please don’t make me. You’re very powerful now. You have
access to magic you couldn’t dream of before. Calm down—”
“To hell with calming down!” I sense it, along the stepping-stone path in my mind: the fire all around me, burning in candles, lanterns, chandeliers. And I can seize every bit of it, hurl it at him, at the wall behind him, at the entire palace, watch it all burn … I raise my hand to trace the path with my fingers, to bring it all into being.
I feel a gentle ghost of a touch at the nape of my neck. The dead man’s sigh—behind me now—is the last thing I hear.
* * *
When I next awake, everything is fuzzy. A candle flickers in the gloom nearby. I’m in my bed with its treelike posts and leafy living canopy. Blankets are cool against my skin and lightly scented with a soothing mix of herbs. I’m wearing a new night shift, and the chair has been replaced. The dead man is sitting in it.
The sight makes my head drop back onto the pillows. Maybe it’s the futility of trying to escape him. Once again he knocked me unconscious with a brush of his finger. I suppose I should be grateful he didn’t hurt me.
“It doesn’t have to be like this,” he says quietly. “But it will be, over and over again, until you can control yourself.”
I squeeze my eyes closed. A tear leaks out. Because he’s right. As many pathways as I now have, branching in my mind like a tree—a thousand trees in a forest—he still holds this strange power over me. Why? How? No matter the cause, it’s a leash.
My father possessed this strength, but he was as trapped as I am. And now he’s dead, and it’s my fault. Not because I received the bloodline. Crisea was right—I should have kept my head down. I’ll never regret saving Bethea, but I was foolish enough to get drunk and climb on top of the gazebo with her in the first place. And then I pushed my father to a breaking point by resenting him for the life he had no choice but to live these past twelve years. I as good as accused him of being one of the enemy, and forced him to prove he wasn’t. I don’t know what the king said to finally shove him over the edge, but it doesn’t matter. My father stood up to him because of me. And now my father is gone, and I’m in his place, in his prison, with his bloodline, and with his guardian.
In the Ravenous Dark Page 13