by Lizzy Ford
“What exactly did he say?”
“I’m uncertain. My information comes indirectly from those who encountered him. They said a group of bears,” he replied. “And he asked if you were safe.”
“That was kind of him.” Warmth bloomed in her cheeks. She had always thought Warner was handsome, and Arthur boasted often of the fighting prowess of his closest friend. “Is he well?”
“His fingers and toes are frostbitten, and he had not eaten in some time. He was dehydrated and sickly, but your father’s physician believes he will recover with rest.”
“Good.” Tiana did not say what she wanted to, that she wished she could see Warner and speak to him herself about what happened. The desire melted as soon as it formed. She had been confined since she was a child. Her surroundings were different, but her father’s intent to keep her hidden had not changed.
How, then, did she help her brother? Her father would never let her leave, and he was not likely to grant her request to speak to him either. She saw him only during the official events the family attended.
“Your father has already sent soldiers to the Hunt site to find Arthur,” George added.
They will not find him. “Thank you for letting me know.”
George bowed his head. “If I learn more, I will inform you immediately.”
Tiana waited for him to leave before she crossed to the spacious closet, where she had hung the partially completed project she began as a child: the map disguised as a lavishly embroidered tapestry. She studied it, reviewing what she had pieced together of the outside world over the years.
Arthur had explained to her the general location of where the Winter Hunt occurred, and she touched the spot on the map, wishing she could touch her brother. The territories of at least two Native tribes ran between the city and the popular hunting spot, which was on the border of one of the tribes – the Diné – that declared eternal war on the city and its inhabitants. The danger every year came from this tribe. Their lands bordered with a people that wanted nothing to do with war, the Kutsipiuti, and which valued peace over alliances with anyone. It was out of respect for this peaceful tribe, whose members often negotiated with the city and its enemies, that the war between two ruthless enemies had stopped years before.
Her finger slid across the uneven threads of the tapestry to rest on the symbol Arthur had drawn in the ground. He had somehow wandered several days eastward from the hunting fields, past two villages, past the blue threads of a river, and along the territory of the neutral Natives neighbored by the city’s enemies.
He had drawn a waterfall in the dirt, a plot of land that traded hands often between the neutral Natives and the city’s enemies.
With the final gust of winter blanketing the world in snow, and stuck with a Cruise, Arthur was not likely to survive long, if he were forced into the territory of their enemies or worse – captured by them. In any circumstance, her father’s men would be too far away to help Arthur before he was killed or starved or died of exposure.
The sense of urgency in her breast was not new, but knowing what she did now, that her brother was exposed and alone, too far for those dispatched by her father to help him, she could not help hating herself more for being so helpless.
Aveline had told her many times that she would never survive a day in the city, let alone outside Lost Vegas.
Thinking of her friend, Tiana gripped the pendant dangling in the middle of her chest. It was identical to the one Aveline wore, and she touched it absentmindedly whenever she thought of her guardian.
Tiana had spent the better part of her days in bed reviewing how to circumvent her own weaknesses. Her conclusion: she needed Aveline, or perhaps, now that he had returned, someone like Warner, to help her navigate the great world beyond the city to find Arthur.
Her greatest challenge, though, was not one she could puzzle through. How did she escape her room, which was always locked, without anyone noticing, long enough for her father not to catch her? And what would she do, if she did escape? How did she free her brother, if he were imprisoned?
If she could escape her room, would Arthur’s longtime protector be well enough, and willing, to venture into the forest again to find her brother? Or had his near-death experience soured him on trying?
I cannot talk to him to ask, she realized.
Her whole life, she had fantasized about running away to the mythical Free Lands to the north, without experiencing the frustration unfurling in her breast.
What had changed, aside from her room? Had murdering Matilda, or meeting Aveline, altered her perception of remaining hidden away for the rest of her life? Was Arthur’s danger so great only someone with nothing to offer could help him? She was useless here – she would be less than useless trying to help him.
With her birthday looming, and the visions of Arthur as well as those detailing her death the night of her eighteenth year fresh in her mind, she felt the urge to try, no matter how useless everyone thought she was.
Tiana dropped her hand from the tapestry with a deep sigh.
For the first time in her life, she was not able to accept her fate with her normal grace and resignation, not when her brother’s life was on the line.
Tiana dragged a satchel out of a trunk at the foot of the map. She chewed her lip, torn between subsiding into the helpless girl she always felt she was and the woman who wanted her freedom. She pulled the contents of the satchel free and studied them. Based on what she knew of the world outside the city, she would need a change of clothing, basic medical materials, a second pair of boots, a map she had drawn, and the money she had found in Aveline’s belongings.
It did not seem like enough, though, and she puzzled over what else she was missing. She dared not ask George or the slaves. After a moment, she shoved everything away, tears of desperation in her eyes.
Why did she bother planning to escape, when she knew she could never survive on her own? Was the world, and Arthur, better off without her in it at all? What purpose did her life hold, except to be an inconvenience to everyone around her?
Tiana wiped away tears and left the closet to rest, think, and plan.
*
Dozens of floors below, Aveline sat in a cell little larger than Tiana’s former room. She had been paraded through the prison that existed beneath the servants’ floors of the great pyramid, and then deposited into a cell with no windows and a solitary light that flickered annoyingly, when it worked at all.
Two weeks after being caught by the Shield, she could not stop berating herself for behaving in a way no professional assassin ever would. The guards had followed a trail of blood to her location within the walls and arrested her, while she lay on the floor, floating between consciousness and the dark unknown, dwelling on her nonexistent chances of taking Tiana to the Free Lands.
“Tiana would make a better assassin,” she mumbled ruefully and rested her head back against the cool wall. She absently toyed with the pendant around her neck. It glowed, an indication Tiana was relatively close. As long as the two were not across the city from one another, a tiny light remained deep within the center. “I’ll figure something out, Tiana. I don’t think we’d ever make it to the Free Lands anyway.”
The room was heated to a comfortable temperature, the bed unusually cozy, and her three meals a day heartier than what she had eaten on the streets but not quite to the quality reserved for Tiana and the other privileged members of the outer city.
Her prison was better than anywhere she had lived, even when her father was alive. They had slept under piles of furs during the winter to combat the dreadful drafts in his cabin. More than one winter, she had awakened to find her weapons frozen together.
Smiling, Aveline closed her eyes and recalled the simpler days with her father. The Devil of the inner city was feared by everyone – and loved her as the night did the moon.
Her warm memories slid away as she recalled her last night sitting beside his body. She had not had the chance to mou
rn him in private. Now that she did, she experienced only … fury towards Karl, who betrayed them, and towards herself for not being more aware. Not sorrow or anything else she expected, but anger so intense, it left her sweating and her clothing too tight, while the Devil’s blood within her demanded to be sated.
Her father had always warned her against releasing her anger. Aveline recalled his stern words and could not help wishing she could hear him say them aloud again, one last time. She would happily listen to him lecture her, if it meant he was still alive.
His loss consumed her anger, and she slumped, defeated by the battle within her. She was sweating again. For the past week, she had begun to sweat profusely for several hours a day and blamed the poor circulation of the air in her cell.
She stretched out her legs and rubbed her eyes before fanning her face. Between meals, she worked out in what ways she could in the confined space and took naps out of boredom. The only way she could tell how many days had passed was by counting how many times she was brought eggs for her breakfast.
She counted the marks she had etched into the wall.
Thirteen days. She had not spoken to anyone, and knew nothing of what had happened to Tiana. Screaming at the guards, begging them, throwing her food – nothing had made any difference, and she had sunk into general apathy around day five.
The window on the door – where guards pushed her food through to her – slid open. Aveline obediently rose and placed her breakfast tray on the table, so the soldier outside could reach it. She sat down on the bed and watched the window slide closed, prepared to spend another day in solitary confinement fighting her boredom.
To her surprise, the window opened again. She waited, wondering if they had brought her more food for some reason, only to hear the soldier outside her cell speak.
“Place your hands through the window.”
Aveline remained where she sat, uncertain if she had heard him or if her mind had finally snapped after her days of silence.
The soldier repeated the order.
She rose and obeyed, sticking her hands through the window. Cool, metal cuffs encircled her wrists.
The soldier opened the door, and she pulled her hands back through. The metal cuffs were heavy and connected by a thick chain. Two heavily armed soldiers stood ready outside her door.
“Overkill for a little girl like me, don’t you think?” she asked, trying to portray herself as not a threat. The second she spotted a viable exit, she was taking it. If the soldiers were caught unaware, her chances of escape were better.
Neither spoke, though one motioned for her to walk down the hallway.
Aveline did so, frowning when she saw the hall ended in a dead end, some three meters ahead, and only one door was located between her cell and the dead end. She paused in the doorway of the second room and peered in. It was three times larger than her cell and consisted of two chairs and four lights dangling from the ceiling.
“Enter and be seated,” one of the soldiers ordered.
Anxious to leave her cell for good, Aveline welcomed the change from her normal routine and entered the room. She chose the chair facing the door and sat, gazing around. There was even less here to keep her attention than in her cell.
She jingled the iron chain between her hands and sank down into the chair until the base of her skull rested on the chair’s back. Gazing at the light overhead, she waited to see how much less interesting her stay in the prison could get. Were they cleaning her cell, and that was why they placed her in this room? Was she to be interviewed? Executed?
Something! She thought, out of her mind with the need for fresh air and freedom.
She sat quietly for some time, until the chair became too hard to be comfortable. Shifting, Aveline sat up straight just as the door swung open. A tall man with reddish hair stepped through. Well-dressed in tailored clothing and custom boots, he smelled lightly of weapon oil, walked with a carriage stiff enough to look painful, and wore the trimmed goatee that was currently in fashion among the men of the outer city.
Within seconds of his entrance, she had no doubt as to his elevated status, even if she did not know exactly who he was. Warden? Wealthy patron?
“Your father was rumored to be the Devil,” he began.
She blinked, not expecting him to know her exact identity, or to confront her about it in his first breath.
The man drew the second chair towards him and sat facing her, his posture straighter than the chair. At this distance, she became aware of an odd, familiar tingle in the air around him, almost too faint to notice, except that it made the hair on her arms lift enough for the movement to tickle.
“You were hired to protect Tiana Hanover, were you not?” he asked.
Aveline shifted. From her short time as Tiana’s protector, she had discovered more duplicity about the circumstances of her job than she ever thought possible. She definitely knew better than to trust anyone in Tiana’s inner circle, except maybe Arthur.
“Let me rephrase,” the man said when she remained silent. “I know you were hired to protect her.”
Aveline glared at him, not caring for the dismissive way he talked to her.
“And you no doubt discovered her … deformity.”
Aveline did not respond.
“I know you are not mute,” the man said. “Just as I know you are the daughter of the Devil and why you are here.”
Was it bait? He spoke too confidently for her to believe him to be lying about her circumstances. “How?” she asked. As far as she knew, only Tiana’s brother – who had hired her – had any idea who her father was.
“It is my duty to know.”
An awkward silence dropped between them. His charged air became powerful, and she shifted in her seat. She recognized the sensation from when she dealt with an agitated Tiana, who somehow managed to fill the air around her, and throughout the entire apartment belonging to the Hanover’s, with the strange charge, whenever she was upset.
Tiana had claimed her brother was also deformed in this way, capable of seeing future events in the manner of a clairvoyant. The sheltered girl had claimed their mother possessed the deformity, which was why she was burned.
Instincts whispering, as they did often around Tiana, Aveline leaned forward, interested suddenly in the man before her.
“You’re Tiana’s father,” she said.
“I am.”
“How is that possible?” she pressed. “I thought her deformity originated in her birth mother.”
The Hanover ruler’s gaze cooled even further. “You are sharp. Like father, like daughter.”
Aveline frowned, uncertain if he referred to her or to his own daughter. She dismissed the thought, doubting her father had ever met the man in front of her, who had issued a large bounty for the chief assassin’s capture long ago. “What do you want?” she asked instead. “Me to admit I murdered your wife, so you can burn me?”
“Is that what happened?”
“Sure. Knocked her head clean off,” Aveline said without hesitation. Tiana openly feared her father, a tyrant known for burning dozens every week. Aveline was not about to give him ammunition to murder his daughter.
“And…” he prodded.
“That’s it.”
“You did it to protect her?”
“Of course. That’s why I was hired, right?”
Tiana’s father gave nothing away. His features were calm and colder than the newly fallen snow. With a receding hairline and pale blue eyes, he radiated control, from the careful placement of his hands on one thigh to his rigid posture. Her father had possessed his own game face, his public persona, which was similar to this man’s.
“We both know you didn’t do this,” Tiana’s father said finally. “I know what my daughter is.”
Aveline studied him. Once again, she sensed he was not trying to bait her. He had either figured out what Tiana did or confronted his daughter, who did not have the sense to lie.
“Is that why you lo
cked her up in a cell worse than those in your prison?” she snapped. “Punishment for being different?”
“My relationship with my daughter is complicated.”
“You don’t have one!”
“She is alive, is she not?” he countered softly.
“You massacred her twin and mother. Tiana would have been better off burning as an infant than imprisoned her entire life,” Aveline snapped. “If that wasn’t enough, you let Matilda starve and drug her.”
“In this, we agree. Had I not spared her, or entrusted her care to my deceased wife, I would not have my current problems,” he agreed. “Tiana should have been burnt at the stake as a child, and I regret not following through with my instinct.”
Aveline stared at him. He said the words with the same matter-of-fact tone with which Tiana spoke about her mother’s barbaric death. Aveline’s father would never have spoken about his late wife or daughter in this manner, and it was beyond Aveline’s ability to understand how any man could. Her father was the Devil, but Tiana’s father was the real monster.
“Here we are,” he continued, unfazed. “My son hired you, but I did not think he believed her danger to be from Matilda, or he would have warned me before he left the city.”
“Then you are both fools. It was obvious to me the day I met Tiana,” Aveline replied. “Matilda was poisoning her slowly every day.”
“I have dealt with the Cruises,” he said. “What I am uncertain about is how to handle you.”
“I’m surprised the solution isn’t to burn me like everyone else.”
The Hanover patriarch was quiet for a moment before he leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Seventeen, almost eighteen years ago, a man from the streets did me a favor. Not because he cared for me or for what I wanted. In fact, he loathed everything I stand for. But he understood inaction to be … dangerous. Not just to himself but to those he cared about.”
She frowned. “What’re you talking about?”
“Discovering you in the center of my household, and understanding who and what you are, as well learning my own son sought you out, I am left in a position where I cannot simply burn you,” he continued, ignoring her question. “The Devil’s blood you carry makes you valuable.”