But it’s no wonder Ivrilos warned me against killing my tutor. I don’t hate the captain merely because he didn’t like my father, or even because he treats me with a bloviating condescension that makes me want to stab him in the eye. It’s because he was the one to expose me as a bloodmage. He hit me, cut me, set my blood alight like pitch in the Hall of the Wards, and he felt self-righteous about it.
He’s self-righteous about everything, turns out.
Marklos is the rare bloodline within the palace who isn’t female, due to the fact that he’s a commoner. And yet, because of the captain’s skill—according to him—he teaches all the new royal bloodmages, which now include me as Kineas’s betrothed, along with Japha, Lydea, and two younger girls, cousins who have yet to inherit their bloodlines but who need a solid base in sigil work before then. A base that I’m sorely lacking, Marklos is happy to point out. Already this first lesson, he’s gleefully reminded me several times of what I already know: Despite my incredibly long bloodline, I don’t understand how to use the half of it—most of it, more like—and what I’ve managed to tap into has been through instinct alone.
I smile at him. “I’d say the bare minimum is being able to tell your ass from your face and to teach a class without constantly passing wind. Because that’s all I hear from you.”
Lydea chokes on laughter, half-heartedly concealing it with a slender hand. Japha raises an eyebrow, but keeps their expression otherwise neutral. I haven’t really seen them since the night of the ball. They never came to visit me, unlike Lydea, and their last words to me, I didn’t know, still echo in my ears. Maybe they think I blame them. I’m not entirely sure I don’t, even though I know that’s foolish.
I’m the most to blame.
The two young cousins, girls with sandy blond hair, stare at me aghast after my insult.
To be fair, Marklos has taught me a few things. I’ve learned the sigils most commonly used for opening magically sealed doors, and gleaned that a few of the sigils in the strange string my father left me have something to do with channeling life energy and shielding. Others the captain didn’t recognize, and warned me that writing out mysterious sigils whose meaning I don’t yet know could result in my early death and the loss of a nigh-legendary bloodline.
Despite seeming to care more about my bloodline than my life, he’s shown he isn’t a complete idiot. Though he does make an easy target.
Marklos scowls at me. “If you think all I’m telling you is wind, how about we practice dueling. Japha, come spar with me. Lydea and Rovan, you two are together. You girls,” he says to the cousins, as if he hasn’t bothered to learn their names, “pair up. Remember: No using fire to attack. And sigils as external weapons only! Nothing internal. If one of you causes so much as a headache or a muscle cramp, you’ll regret it.”
Using sigils to harm a body’s insides is something I’ve never considered, although I do remember seeing my father rip open someone’s neck. Healers exist, so why not the opposite? It follows, even if the thought makes me shudder. I could just as easily have torn Bethea’s blood out of her instead of gently lifting it.
Before Japha steps forward to join Marklos, they whisper in my ear, “I’m going to knock him on his ass. Or is it his face?”
It feels like a hand extended to me. I stifle a giggle, which earns me a relieved smile from Japha. Then their expression grows serious. “Rovan, I’m sorry. I accompanied you to the ball, and knowing how I felt after losing my sister and my mother … if I’d had someone to blame, I might have done it. And I didn’t know if I could face that, with you. Also, I’m shit at comforting people when they’re truly sad. Pouting and hungover like you were before, no problem.” They shake their head gently. “This was something else.”
My throat squeezes tight. Japha understands me so well. I appreciate their acknowledgment, and there really is nothing to forgive. I manage a shaky nod before Lydea slides between us, capturing my attention like a cat snagging a bird out of the air. Today, the princess wears a red peplos that matches her bloodline and offsets her black hair. She’s a glorious, deadly thing. Something in my belly clenches in anticipation. Or nervousness.
The perfect distraction.
“He paired me with you because I’m positively evil at dueling and merciless in sparring sessions.” Lydea folds her sigil-lined arms and smiles. “He probably thinks I view you as a threat and I’ll happily put you in your place. Ah, Marklos and his ilk, always trying to stuff others into their own meager understanding.”
There’s no trace of sympathy for me in her voice. Though, after she came to hold me in the darkness while I cried, there doesn’t need to be. Lydea is so strong. But it’s a brittle strength, and I realize I never want to see her crack. She doesn’t have to show me what’s behind all that armor that she’s so carefully built, living in this place—because I think I already know. I would never want to strip her, leave her naked.
Well, at least not figuratively.
I can’t help grinning, despite the darkness still ready to swallow me, despite the bloodline staining my skin, despite Kineas—no, I can’t think about him yet—despite everything. Lydea and Japha make me oddly happy, in the face of all odds. “So you’re not going to knock me on my ass?”
“I didn’t say that.” Lydea assumes a position a few paces away, raising her hands, fingers slightly spread. “Besides, you need to be ready for what’s coming. My brother doesn’t play nice, either.” Her voice drops. “As I’m sure you’ve heard. You’re more than a match for him, Rovan, but … one can’t help worrying.” Before I can get too distracted by this revelation—she’s worried about me?—she asks, “Are you ready?”
I doubt it. I’ve never dueled before, in practice or in earnest. Especially not with a princess who wants to kiss me or stab me—I’m not entirely sure which is the stronger impulse.
Marklos shouts, “Begin!” and Lydea pulls every wooden practice sword off a weapon’s rack under the colonnade and hurls them at me.
I barely have time to slam them aside with a wave of flame, the pathway of sigils in my mind telling me how. Fire is the first thing to come to me, maybe because the weapons are wood, or maybe because I have the urge to burn things lately. The countermove works, and they clatter to the ground in a charred and smoking heap.
“No fire!” Marklos shouts.
I spin on him, where he’s in the middle of his own duel with Japha. “I wasn’t attacking, you b—”
But then I can’t talk, because I’m underwater. Or at least my head is. From the shoulders down, I only feel the warm air of the courtyard, but my eyes can barely make out anything through the shimmering curtain of bubbles that rises from my gaping mouth. I can’t breathe. I claw at my face, as if to tear off a mask, but I merely get my hand wet. The water stays put.
I manage to curse myself through my rising urgency. Sigils, use sigils, not your hand, you idiot!
My bloodline provides an answer once again, but as soon as I swipe at my face, parting the water and dragging in a ragged breath, the water closes over my head again. When I scatter it into mist, more water, flowing from its ample source in the troughs, covers back over my face … but not before I glimpse the princess’s wicked grin.
I have to stop Lydea, not the water. Stop Lydea. Another pathway opens in my mind, and I follow it in a panic. Before I know what I’ve done, I’m thrown off my feet. I land hard on rough ground, bruising my tailbone and scraping my palms. But whatever I did must have been enough, because the water enclosing my head bursts apart, soaking my shoulders and chest. When I sit up, coughing and mopping wet hair from my eyes, I see that the patio tiles have erupted. Thick roots from the trees in the garden are lashing through the cracks like tentacles, seizing Lydea’s arms and twining around her fingers. The princess manages a few more sigils, however, and a massive root whips around my neck, dragging me flat on my back and choking off my air.
But I don’t need air to pull the same trick on Lydea. Soon we’re both on the gro
und, being strangled to death. The only sounds are from the two of us thrashing, and breath trying to wheeze through my constricted throat. The others must have quit their sparring to watch.
“All right, that’s enough!” shouts Marklos.
I suck in a rasping breath as the root releases me. I remain on my back, battered, soaked, and covered in grit, staring dazedly up at the gleaming, veil-covered sky through the stars in my vision. I actively appreciate the air in my lungs.
Lydea appears above, leaning over me, smiling. She isn’t too much the worse for wear, only a few streaks of dirt and early bruising visible on her neck and wrists.
“If I’d known you wanted to tie me up, I would have approached you differently,” she says with a smirk, offering me a hand.
Wincing, I lift myself onto my elbows first. “Now that I know what you’re into,” I croak, “I’m a little reluctant to tangle with you again.” I rub my throat, where I no doubt have blossoming bruises of my own.
The princess laughs. “I’m not so cruel as all that. I can prove it to you if you’ll let me.” The look in her eyes dredges up heat in my wet cheeks—along with carefully buried hope in my chest. Maybe the princess can help me. But trust is so much harder than doubt. She waggles her hand again, and this time I take it, struggling to my feet.
Japha steps daintily across the overturned tiles of the courtyard to join us. “Not one for subtlety, are you, Rovan, dear?”
“I’m impressed,” Lydea says. “I might have years of practice on you, but you were still a match for me.”
“I suppose you could call that a draw,” Marklos growls from where he stands between the two cousins, as if he’s been shielding them, “though Rovan’s technique is sorely lacking. All brute force and absolutely no finesse. She’d be a danger to others on a battlefield.”
“You’re no fun, Captain,” says Lydea dismissively. “Who cares how she fights, if she puts on a good show?”
“Who cares? Who cares about their comrades?” Marklos shakes his head in disgust and begins sketching sigils to start clearing the mess. “Her father didn’t, but I’m hoping Rovan can be taught differently.”
Taught, like a dog. Trained to sit, stay. How to eat, how to talk. Made to be their pet bloodline and marry Kineas.
The thought reminds me that I have to focus, not indulge in distractions. I can’t get caught up in their plans for me, or even with Lydea. And maybe I can glean information about more than just sigils today.
“Have you heard from your sister?” I ask the princess, as we both begin straightening our clothes and attempting to brush the dirt from our skin.
“No, but that’s rather the point,” she says, smiling sharply. The mask is convincing. “To cut off all communication with the living so as to better commune with the dead.”
“Poor Delphia,” Japha murmurs.
Indeed. Delphia, the youngest and kindest one. The one who looks most like her mother with her cloud of white hair and bright silver eyes. Is this newest injustice an echo of the one against Cylla?
“I don’t see why such extremes are necessary,” I say. “We bloodmages have no problem communing with the dead.”
“Yes,” Lydea says. “But to form a connection with all the dead, you have to be … well, dead, or very much like it.”
“I wonder what the nature of our guardian bond is,” I muse, as if merely curious.
Surprisingly, it isn’t Lydea but the younger of the cousins, Namae, who speaks up, having drifted closer. “I think it has to do with royal blood,” she says as haughtily as only a twelve-year-old royal brat might.
Japha rolls their eyes, but I force myself to ask patiently, “What do you mean?”
“My guardian says he was a royal living in the palace like me—that he is still royal, in the underworld, so of course that’s why he chose someone like me. Aias died young. He likes me.” She sounds very proud of this fact.
“You need some lessons in logic, because that says nothing about the connection,” Lydea says. “There are commoners who are wards, like our esteemed tutor—”
“And like me,” I put in, sounding waspish, but my mind is preoccupied. The girl’s guardian is royal. Ivrilos certainly looks royal, with that circlet he’s so fond of wearing, and he intimated that he’s surrounded by well-bred people—though few of them women—in something like a palace in the underworld, and they likely serve someone like a king. Are all guardians the shades of dead royalty?
Lydea carries on, “And everyone, even commoners, can be elevated to heroic immortality in the afterlife, so no doubt there are common guardians as well.”
I scoff, hoping I’m not overdoing it. “The afterlife is probably just as unfair as life, meaning only dead royals are awarded the highest honors. That’s even how it goes in the stories: The kings and princes who wage the bloodiest wars or slay the biggest mythical beasts or steal away the prettiest maidens get to be immortalized as heroes.” Quick and nonchalant, I add, “What about you, Lydea? Do you think your guardian is a royal?”
“Graecus?” She shrugs. “He’s very stuffy, so he may have been. Who knows? I try to avoid conversation with him as much as possible.”
“I’m nearly positive Damios was,” Japha says, “though he won’t tell me precisely.”
“Graecus.” Lydea glances off to the side, at the person the rest of us can’t see. “Were you a royal, like Namae’s guardian here?” She waits, and then turns back to the living. “He says he doesn’t remember.” Her mask is back in place. She’s trying to look bored by the topic, but something in her eyes tells me she doesn’t believe her guardian and finds it odd he would lie. She sighs theatrically. “Always so dull, the dead.”
At least Lydea and Namae have let slip their guardian’s names. I already know Japha’s. I don’t want to ask any more questions about royal lines so no one marks my interest, but I can’t help asking the captain, “Marklos, what is the name of your guardian?”
“Why?” He’s at the other end of the courtyard, still tucking roots back into the earth with sigils. “We’re going to have to get a shadow priest in here for the stone,” he grumbles half to himself.
“It’s not for my own interest. My guardian wants to know.”
Ivrilos suddenly appears at my shoulder. “Rovan, I know perfectly well who Klytios is.”
I ignore him, saying to the captain, “But I don’t want to do him any favors and I despise talking to you, so never mind.” I turn back to the others, leaving Marklos sputtering. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I need to get out of these wet clothes.”
Rather, I need to get into the royal gallery.
As I cross the destroyed patio, duck under the colonnade, and head down the hall leading back to my quarters, leaving everyone else blinking at my abrupt departure, Ivrilos keeps pace with me. “You tricked me. What are you doing?”
“Nothing,” I say without looking at him.
He’s scrutinizing me. “You’re up to some mischief. I can see it in your eyes.”
“No, I’m not. I’m upset. Tormenting other people, including you, makes my own torment less tedious.”
“That’s not like you.”
“You don’t know me very well at all, do you?”
“I—” Before my guardian can finish, another voice cuts him off.
“Rovan!” It’s Lydea, hurrying between the marble columns after me, Japha on her heels. “Japha and I were hoping you might join us for a glass of wine in my apartments. You know, unwind after our class.”
I have places to be and secrets to discover … but I’ve never been one to say no to a full cup. Besides, this little gathering might be about more than just wine.
And perhaps I’m finding it harder and harder to say no to Lydea.
16
Sometime later that evening, I lie on a couch in the princess’s parlor. The ceiling overhead is midnight black marble inset with silver stars and a glorious full moon at the center that actually glows. The couch underneath
me is more of a bed, wide enough to stretch out in either direction, upholstered in silver and white silk patterned like billowing clouds and strewn with black and blue pillows. Wine cups are now scattered across the low surrounding tables carved in red wood to look like poppy blossoms. Japha’s legs are tangled in mine—we’ve been trying something called “leg wrestling” that I lost at miserably and that ended in a fit of laughing—and my head rests on Lydea’s stomach.
She feels so good. She’s lazily running her fingers through my blue-tinted hair, while Japha rearranges the rings on their fingers and holds their hands up to admire them against the dark, starry ceiling.
A few weeks ago, I could never have pictured myself lounging in a place like this, entwined with people like this. And for once, it isn’t horrifying to find myself here in the palace with royals.
Because they’re not just that. They’re … my friends.
And maybe more, in Lydea’s case, though my stomach ties itself in nervous knots to think about the possibilities—and not all of them pleasant, if the princess isn’t trustworthy.
“What about you, Rovan?” Lydea asks. She’s been expounding on why she prefers women after we all soundly lamented our respective betrothals, as well as complained about Marklos, the king, our guardians, and pretty much anyone else on two legs who isn’t us or someone we currently find attractive.
We’ve all carefully avoided mention of my father.
It hasn’t all been idle chatter. They’ve warned me repeatedly about Kineas, even if none of us knows exactly how I’m going to avoid him. And, despite receiving reminders in no uncertain terms that access is restricted—that not even Lydea and Japha have been allowed inside—I’ve managed to find out exactly where in the palace the royal gallery is located, with the excuse that I want to see who among them is attractive or not. The silliness of my reasoning has hopefully allayed suspicion from anyone listening. But now I’ve had rather a lot of wine and the direction of my conversation has grown less focused.
In the Ravenous Dark Page 15