Ingla raised her hand, and both Fenrir and Hane dropped their weapons. Still without even a splash of emotion, she reached into the weapon barrel and tossed out two spears. Two fucking six-foot-long practice spears with dull wooden tips.
Fenrir caught his breath for a moment and picked up his new weapon a few moments after Hane. The big Rafónese boy spun his spear a couple of times, the thing looking like a twig in his hands. The pointed staff felt awkward in Fenrir’s hands; he’d spent years leaning on spears, at least during ceremonies at the Plateau, but he’d never learned to fight well with them. Ingla knew that, of course, from their training sessions.
She’d timed this nicely.
Hane darted forward with a couple of jabs, probably hoping to finally score a point lest he suffer the embarrassment of losing to the disgraced guardsman who wasn’t even a real Adder. Fenrir managed to evade both with quick sidesteps, a bit surprised to find that training and muscle memory were taking over.
He struck back, finding only firm resistance from Hane, whose eyes showed a steely focus that belied his age. The boy probably saw his employer and wanted to impress. Fuck, everyone felt that way about Darian de Trenton. Even Fenrir himself, as he approached forty years of age. Even though he hated the fucker.
Hane and Fenrir continued to spar, neither landing a solid blow. Fenrir’s hands were aching and growing numb, his fingers pinched and stubbed. His arms felt as heavy as thick, sodden ropes and it seemed he wore stone shoes that were pulling him down and slowing his movement. But, by the gods, he would not let Darian see him lose.
Fenrir leapt inside Hane’s guard with all of his waning speed, accepting a blow to his aching shoulder in order to crack the boy in the face with the butt of the spear. Blood sprayed out from the boy’s face as he kicked out at Fenrir, who turned his hips to deflect the wild kick. Hane lurched backward as Fenrir pulled back to jab the boy’s chest, to finish the contest.
He happened to glance up for just a moment, catching his father’s near-black, soulless eyes.
And then he was sprawling to the hard-packed dirt, ribs bruised or broken from Hane’s last, powerful swing.
The gathered Adders probably cheered or hissed at the result, and maybe some paltry money changed hands at the outcome. Fenrir, though, could hear nothing but the sound of rushing water, and see nothing but hazy memories of a disappointed father.
Then he was lifted up and set on unsteady feet.
“Well fought, Coldbreaker,” Hane said, a great smile creasing his bloodied face. He was jubilant in victory, of course. Any man would be.
“You, Hane, are the bastard offspring of a black giant.” The boy gave a booming laugh that matched the width and breadth of his chest. Fenrir, despite everything, joined him. Several other Adders approached, smacking his shoulder and jibing him, mocking his appearance, moves, and personality. His ribs ached like he’d been kicked by a horse, and he overall felt like a three-day old corpse.
By Yetra’s warm embrace, though, he liked being a surrogate Adder. If only, after the Adders cleared, he didn’t have to deal with the king of all snakes.
“I sometimes wonder, boy, if I will ever be able to find you not covered in blood or filth,” grated his father’s voice once the others began to clear. Ingla stood by his side, hazel eyes flashing as she observed Fenrir.
“It is a bad habit of mine.”
“I prefer conversing with cleaner individuals, but time is not with us. You will walk with me.”
With that, Fenrir found himself two paces behind his father, hating that he had to do a quick shuffle to catch up. Now that the adrenaline had worn off, he felt like a tenderized hunk of chicken.
“I see that you are finally fit to do more than guard some meaningless hallway for some minor noble,” Darian said, his eyes straight ahead as they marched through the compound. Ingla fell in five steps behind them, an angry ghost haunting their footsteps.
“It was usually the Enlightenment.” The library, spanning most of the fourth story of the Plateau as well as the northernmost tower, used to observe celestial bodies. Fenrir had often been punished in this fashion, condemned to guard Scholars and Savants as they waxed ecstatic about philosophy and history.
“It is amazing, then, that you spent a dozen years guarding dusty books without accidentally learning something.” Fenrir had, in fact, accidentally learned a great deal from the Scholars and Savants. The Enlightenment was far more like a university than a repository for old tomes. But, he supposed that argument was lost.
“What do you want?” Fenrir said bluntly.
“Can’t a man simply speak with another for the sake of it?” Was that humor? From Darian?
“Some men might be able to.”
“And I thought that you were a lackwit. Perhaps, in training your body, you have also been training your mind. Tell me, how do you find it, living among my Adders?”
It was better than being a guardsman, where the long, tedious hours were rarely broken by anything more exciting than a brief wardrobe malfunction by a visiting lady. Training at the Plateau had been rote and monotonous, a chore only to be completed. With the Adders, training was dynamic and purposeful, though far more dangerous. With both, there was companionship. But, whereas at the Plateau the relationships were more those of coworkers and acquaintances, the Adders had a deep brotherhood. No matter a person’s background—son of a noble Rostanian, daughter of a Sestrian weaver—once they were an Adder, they had a new family. A new life.
“There are other things I would be doing,” Fenrir said, voice carefully neutral.
“Of course. Drinking and whoring. Living the life of a wastrel. But it is not to be.”
They were approaching the Furnace, Darian’s laboratory and the best-guarded building in the compound, crawling with vigilant Blue Adders. Some were in full mail in case of a melee and others were in blue leathers in case of a pursuit. The Furnace itself was a huge slab of granite without a single window, steam always being emitted from great pipes atop the building, lending the monstrosity its name. Fenrir had sometimes wondered whether the steam was for show—what could possibly be going on in that building that caused these constant misty emissions?
He had never been inside this tower of scientific mystery, this place that inspired periodic infiltration attempts by de Trenton competitors, all seeking the secrets of burning ice and other de Trenton innovations. Invariably, these spies were caught, killed, and dismembered, if perhaps not in that order. Fenrir’s brothers, Ethan and Aiden, had bragged about their visits to the Furnace, rubbing in the fact that Fenrir was never taken into their father’s confidence. They’d given very few actual details, however.
“Tell me, boy. Have you happened across your daughter?” Darian asked, glancing at Fenrir ever so briefly.
“We haven’t spoken.”
“Hmm. If you were to speak, what would you say? Would you tell her of your life? Of your infidelities? Of your disgrace? Of your criminal dealings?”
Gods, what would he say to her? ‘Sorry I forced your mother to leave by embarrassing her with extramarital affairs?’ ‘Sorry I didn’t write?’ ‘Sorry I drowned thoughts of you with hard liquor and soft whores for these past ten years?’
‘Sorry I didn’t bother to be a father?’
“I’d warn her away from you, my lord,” Fenrir answered. Darian looked at him then, just as the Adders swung open the weathered oak doors. Darian’s abyssal eyes considered his son for a long moment before running his hands through his still thick, gray hair.
“That would have been good advice,” he said, still meeting Fenrir’s gaze. “It is a shame you did not give her that message sooner.” If Darian were another man, Fenrir would have thought he heard a tinge of sadness in the man’s gravelly voice. But Darian was barely a man at all, so Fenrir must have been hearing things.
“Come with me.”
They entered the mythical Furnace. Fenrir didn’t know what to expect. Viles of strange chemicals and jars of ground-
up poisons and herbs? Well-guarded scientists laboring over mixtures as they added substances together to unpredictable results? Monsters roaming the halls? The reality was far less exciting. They entered into a bare reception room containing little more than a security checkpoint, this manned by a beefy Rafónese in de Trenton blues.
“Principal. Will you want an escort today?” asked the woman in a surprisingly mousey voice.
“No, Anna. We will not be in observable corridors today. Besides, Ingla will surely keep us safe.” Fenrir had almost forgotten that Ingla still shadowed them. Dangerous thing to forget. He shot her a quick glance, but she didn’t meet his eyes. Or had she looked away?
“Of course, Principal. I will open that door for you.” Anna fumbled with something behind her desk and a small, blended-stone door on the far wall slid open. Darian had always loved his mechanics and his hidden passageways.
Anna handed Ingla a small gas lamp, and she led them into a dark, relatively narrow passageway, like those that were used for servants in the Plateau. Fenrir, having regained much of his bulk, felt entrapped by the cramped corridor. His father, a bit taller than Fenrir, had to stoop a little to avoid scraping his scalp.
Fenrir looked at the man’s back, viewing this man who’d sired him. A sudden urge pulsed through him—a violent need to grab his father’s head from behind and twist as hard as he could. With Ingla leading the way and Darian in between, she couldn’t stop him in time. Would it be worth his own life to end his father’s? Could he do it? Could he avenge his mother?
He clenched his eyes shut and shook his head to clear out these dangerous thoughts. He dragged a hand across his forehead, which had become sticky with perspiration.
After a couple of minutes, the hallway ended in a lift, similar to those found throughout the Plateau—they’d been added in the last thirty or so years so that obese nobles could avoid getting accidental exercise. Fenrir wondered whether there were workers locked in some dark room day after day, waiting for a signal to crank the mechanism that mobilized this rarely-used device. Must be a depressing job.
The three stepped into the cramped lift, its space so confined that they were touching each other, ever so slightly. The last time Darian had touched his son, he’d been jamming his fingers into Fenrir’s shoulder wound. The last time Ingla had touched her charge, she’d been kicking him, barefoot, across the jaw. Fenrir imperceptibly shied away.
Darian pulled a lever and the lift began to move smoothly downward. There must have been some modern machinery at work; the lifts in the Plateau jerked around like an adolescent alone in his bedroom. Aside from some creaking, though, the relative silence of this lift was oppressive.
“Where are we going?” Fenrir asked, avoiding eye contact. His too-loud voice seemed to echo through the shaft.
Darian raised an eyebrow. “We are going to ensure that I can trust you.”
“Isn’t being of your blood reason enough to trust me?” Fenrir smirked.
“Being of my blood is exactly the reason not to trust you, Coldbreaker. Or do you prefer I call you the Bull?” Darian’s sneer mirrored Fenrir’s own. The thin veil surrounding his exploits with The House seemed to have been pierced. “Besides, this is a rite of passage. Your own brothers…” Darian trailed off, his brow furrowing.
Fenrir felt a stifling lump in his throat. Did he know about Aiden? That Fenrir had killed him? Or that Aiden had somehow come back from the dead and put out a contract on Fenrir’s life?
After several minutes and an uncomfortable popping feeling in his ears, the lift came to a gentle rest with a discordant hissing sound, like the wind blowing through a thousand trees. They stepped out into another hallway, this one roughly hewn through the stone, coarse walls occasionally broken by strong wooden supports. Fenrir had heard that the Furnace was more below ground than above, burying the secrets of science within the earth itself. But he’d had no idea that the roots of this place ran this deep.
The tunnel emerged into a larger chamber, revealing the source of the hissing sound. An underground river was rushing through this chamber, dimly lit by gas lamps affixed to the wall. Several great waterwheels spun with the force of the water, turning gears and cogs, affecting nameless chains and pulleys that propelled various forces into the ceiling, likely powering the enterprises above. One wheel was sending barrels of water to the above, perhaps to be used as the source of steam in those great vents above the laboratory. Another was jammed with a bar of steel, being worked on by a small army of men wearing nondescript clothing. One noticed Darian, and shouted something to his compatriots over the roar of the water; all doubled their efforts.
“It fuels the Fullane, this underground river,” whispered Ingla into his ear. Fenrir jumped; she was standing very close.
“I, erm… I’ve never thought about it,” he replied, lagging a few steps behind Darian. He wasn’t sure how to respond; this was the only thing Ingla had ever said to him without an accompanying insult, order, or blow.
“Most do not,” she answered, her eyes on Darian as he paused to exchange a few words with an overseer. “Though the Fullane originates at Mount Limner in the Tulanques, there are many such underground rivers. It is said that you could follow them all the way to the center of the mountains, if you were strong and brave enough.”
“I’m at least one of those.”
“Or perhaps neither.” A smile played on her lips. A joke from Ingla? They must have truly descended into Pandemonium.
“Why do you tell me this?”
“These places make me… uncomfortable.” That was a revelation. Ingla’s eyes lingered on his own in a strangely intimate way. For Ingla, an admission of weakness was likely the height of intimacy.
Fenrir wasn’t certain how to respond, instead fumbling his words. “Um… why do they bother you?”
She snapped her head back and shot him with a glare like a crank bow bolt to the face. “You will not ask me questions, trash. Move.” Ingla punctuated the command with a shove.
He shook his head. Yetra-damned women.
They followed the feeder river for a time, until they must have left the immediate vicinity of the laboratory. Fenrir thought they must be somewhere under the warehouse district, assuming the river was indeed heading straight toward the Fullane. They reached a small passageway guarded by two bored-looking Adders, older Sestrian men who didn’t exude quite the reference for Darian that oozed from the younger Adders like Hane. Fenrir hadn’t met these two. They mustn’t stay in the barracks, though living down here didn’t seem like a comfortable option.
“Principal,” said one of them, this the thick-necked bastard with a slight sneer, as if he knew a joke but wasn’t sharing the punchline.
“Lieutenant Yearon. All secure?” Darian had said the name with disdain. It was unusual for a man so clearly disliked by Darian to remain employed. There was a story there, certainly.
“All secure. It is time, again?” Still the sneer, though it bordered on open hostility.
“It is time. Ingla is with me.”
“I see that.” Yearon shot a look at Ingla, who seemed to shrink behind Darian. A story here, indeed. “Then, I will happily abdicate my place.” Yearon stepped slightly to the side, as did the other guard. There was just enough room for Fenrir to scrape through after Darian. As they passed, Yearon grabbed Ingla’s upper arm, whispering something fierce into her ear. She appeared to pale in the dim light before ripping free and following after Fenrir, who pointedly pretended that he hadn’t witnessed the brief altercation.
A couple of minutes later, Darian pulled out a key, working it at the lock of yet another door. With the click of the tumblers, Darian turned and locked Fenrir in a fierce, almost feverish gaze. He gripped Fenrir’s right shoulder, his powerful fingers digging into his shiny, pink scar. It hurt.
“I would spare you this, boy, despite everything. Despite what you think of me. But I need to trust you by whatever means, just like your brothers. So, I need you to know.” His vo
ice was low, as intense as his demon’s gaze.
“Know what?” Fenrir whispered, fearing the answer.
“I need you to know the price of betrayal.” With that, Darian pushed into the room. Fenrir hesitated, until he was encouraged by a sharp push from Ingla.
On a singular, wooden stool, a naked girl sat in the center of the small, fastidiously clean chamber. It wasn’t a cell, then, as it didn’t reek like Fenrir’s had, and there was no evidence of a chamber pot. The girl’s head rested in her hands, tangled brown hair shielding her from her visitors and providing a temporary refuge. She raised her head slowly, and Fenrir was suddenly sick upon seeing Astora’s face looking back at him, old tears having left streaks on her smooth, young cheeks.
No, but this wasn’t Astora…. This was an older Rostanian woman, probably a couple of years Fenrir’s senior. Gods, being near his father was fucking with his mind. Though, the woman’s eyes were a similar gray to his daughter’s. The resemblance was perhaps a coincidence, but Fenrir knew, from experience, that nothing was coincidental with Darian.
“Peribel de Annos,” Darian said, his voice as chill as his burning ice. De Annos–the woman must be of a merchant class, then, with his adding of the appellation “de” to denote new wealth. A younger Fenrir had tried to ditch the “de” from “de Trenton” to no avail.
“A woman with a brilliant mind. A woman with a bright future. A woman of unparalleled greed and stupidity.” The woman flinched at each word as if they were tiny barbs tearing through her body. “We have had this conversation twice now. There will not be a third time.”
“There is nothing to tell,” the woman whimpered.
“Nothing to tell. Of course, there is nothing to tell. You are simply a woman, attempting to steal my secrets, steal my chemicals, because you are interested in expanding your knowledge of the world. Do you think I am a dullard? Do you think that all of this…” Darian spread his hands wide, “…came from a stupid man who believed the lies of a manipulative traitor?”
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