by Megan Derr
"All I need is unremarkable clothes, so these are perfect," Midori said with a smile. "Thank you."
She flushed and bobbed a nod and set the saddlebags on the bed. "Food for two weeks, as well as water for a couple of days. My brother is readying a horse for you."
"Thank you," Midori said again. She turned her back and he quickly changed into the clothes she'd provided. They were cheap homespun and rough wool, so different from the fine clothes he normally wore, but it was not the first time he had been stuck in cheaper garments. Sailors improvised, and he'd sailed more than a few stormy voyages.
Sitting down, he pulled on and laced up the boots she'd provided. They were a trifle big, but not too terribly. "All set," he said when he was ready. Picking up the saddlebags, he slung them over one shoulder and said, "Lead the way, my dear. Thank you again for your help. I promise I will do my best to save him. I'll tell him of your faith."
"Yes, my lord," the maid murmured and gathering up her skirts, led him through the back halls and stairs of the enormous palace, weaving a path that rapidly confused him. If he had to find his way back, he doubted he would manage it.
At last, however, they reached a small, desolate looking courtyard where a young man waited with a sturdy-looking black stallion. He smiled shyly at Midori. "My lord, I've got you a good horse. Not afraid of anything, him. He'll take you all the way to the top of the Azul and back, if you wanted."
Midori smiled. "I take the Azul is a bad thing, whatever it is?"
"The Azul Mountains are where he died—the Basilisk, I mean. Nobody goes there unless they want to die. Cursed, they are."
"I see," Midori said, wondering if perhaps that might have been where Culebra's captors had taken him. But Pruebas had said there were several locations and there was no real way to know who had actually taken him.
"It's that time of year, you know," the brother said. "When the Holy Basilisk died."
That definitely sounded ominous. "Then I think I am headed to the Azul Mountains. Thank you both for the assistance. If there is ever anything I can do for you, you've only to name it. Take care of yourselves."
"Thank you, my lord," the maid murmured and swept him a deep curtsy while her brother bowed. Midori bowed to them and swung up into the saddle and rode off. He paused in town long enough to obtain a crude map and directions to the Azul Mountains and then quickly rode on.
He stopped only when the combination of dark and the dense Black Woods made further travel impossible. By the light of a small campfire, he ate tack bread and dried meat and studied the map he'd obtained.
The map he'd been fleeced for, rather, but he little cared. He only hoped he was not hying off in the wrong direction. If he trekked all the way to the Azul only to realize it was the wrong course then any chance of actually finding Culebra alive vanished. A pity he did not have someone along who understood all this cult nonsense.
That led him to thoughts of Dario, the remaining brother that Culebra had sent away. Midori still could not believe what Culebra had told him: that he had been lovers with brothers who had willingly—eagerly, was his impression—committed incest.
But he'd meant it, too, when he said if the gods practiced it then it was not for him to judge. It was strange, and he could not picture it, but mostly he was jealous. Unreasonably jealous, given that he and Culebra had spent only one night together and it was obvious they were both in it just for the pleasant distraction, a small slice of hot defiance in their otherwise weary lives.
Which made it all the more puzzling, no doubt, that he was camping in the woods trying to read the saddest map he had ever seen. It was his fault Culebra had been taken, however, and it had been the first time in a long time that he'd felt like himself again. He would like a chance to be more than an amusing dalliance; he would like a chance to prove he could have been a real lover.
Could have been, because if his entire mad scheme succeeded then he was certain he would be thrown out on the streets, if not outright executed for his continued defiance.
But it would all be worth it if he saved Culebra.
He finished eating and studied the map a bit more, but the scale was terrible and gave him no real idea about how long it would take to reach the Azul. The man with whom he'd spoken had said it would take several days, but Midori was not certain how much he trusted the man given the dubious map.
A rustling sound drew his attention, and Midori reached for the dagger in his boot, flipping it to hold the blade so he could throw it should the sound prove to be a source of danger. But what slithered out of the shadows was a much more ominous shadow: the beautiful, wicked form of Ruisenor. Midori still felt awed and almost afraid looking at her; in all his travels he had neither seen nor heard of a snake of such size and color. She looked as though she was made from ink, the way her black scales gleamed wetly and seemed to hold a rainbow of colors deep within.
She hissed softly at him as she slithered by the fire and began to coil herself up beside him. Several lengths long and half again as wide as the full span of his hand in width, she was big enough to devour a dog if she felt like it. "What in the dragons' names are you doing here, beauty?" he asked and tentatively held out a hand the way he had seen Culebra do.
To his astonishment, she butted against it and then rubbed against his thigh before resting her head in his lap and hissing softly. He kept petting her scales, surprised at how warm she felt. "So are you here to be my guide, beauty?"
Ruisenor hissed again and lifted her head to look at him, and Midori smiled. "Somehow I think you understand everything I say, and that is a very strange thing for a snake. But I know when the gods are giving me their assistance. Thank you, Ruisenor. I hope we find our prince quickly."
She hissed again and settled her head in his lap once more, and Midori was surprised to realize that, despite everything, he was, for that moment, content.
Chapter Nine: White Rose
Culebra woke to somebody shaking him roughly, calling to him.
"Highness! Highness!"
"What?" Culebra gasped, reaching up to stop her and shove her back. "Is something wrong?"
"You were screaming," Cortez said. "It sounded like somebody was murdering or torturing you. It was disturbing, even to me, and I have seen men killed and tortured. Are you all right?"
Culebra nodded. "I am fine."
"You keep saying that, and I keep not believing you," Cortez said, sounding annoyed and amused all at once. "What are these nightmares that keep plaguing you, highness? What would make a royal prince suffer so much?"
His entire life, Culebra thought bitterly, but he knew he was being unreasonable. He did not really mean it. "What would make anyone suffer so much? Bad things happen, whether a person is poor or prince has little bearing."
"Spoken like a true prince," Cortez said. "I doubt you know what it is like to starve for days, for weeks, for months. I doubt you know what it's like to have your own mother sell you just to be rid of the burden of you. To never know your father or why he never bothered to stay around and take care of you. I doubt you know what it is to be forced to whore yourself for food and clothes and a roof over your head. To let men and women do things to you that you prefer not to think about. I doubt you know what it's like to choose to kill people because anything is better than spreading your legs for money one more time."
Culebra's mouth tightened. "You're right, I do not understand any of that, and I'm grateful. But I doubt you know what it's like to have people confuse you on purpose just to see you stumble around helplessly. I doubt you know what it's like to be hated and feared and worshipped all at once, yet never seen as a real person. I doubt you know what it's like to—to hear your lover die as he is gutted and then eaten by mermaids, to hear hundreds of men dying around as a ship slowly sinks. And I doubt you know what it's like to be kidnapped in the dead of night and be forced to trust your captor because you have no hope of finding your own way home."
They both fell silent. Around them the
night was quiet. He could smell the air, clear and sharp with no hint of a storm at all. It would probably be clear weather for days. He could smell the fire, the remains of their dinner from earlier, and brandy as Cortez opened her flask to drink it.
He almost jumped when Cortez spoke. "I always thought you would be ... different, highness. You're the incarnation of a god, but you seem more like a mere boy."
"No boy, but not a god either," Culebra said. "If I remove my bandages, I can kill with a glance. I can taste death. Snakes adore me. My skin is the color of bleached bone—but that means very little to me, because my eyes have been bound since I was born. It is hard to see me as a god, I think, when I do not even know what 'blue' and 'green' mean. I am neither special nor ordinary, and that leaves me somewhere in the middle. Then you have the Orders: the Brotherhood of the Black Rose want to see me dead, all chance of my ascending to true godhood erased; the Order of the White Rose wants my power restored, though as much for themselves as for Piedre. The only people who have ever treated me kindly are the servants and the peasants, but I seldom get to interact with them."
They fell silent again, and Culebra wondered if his words had made things better or worse.
"I was in a unique position, back in the not so long ago days when I was part of the Brotherhood."
"As a killer, you mean?" Culebra asked. "I always thought the Brotherhood's purpose was to kill me. Why were you killing so many others?"
Cortez laughed, sounding tired and bitter. "Has no one ever explained all these things to you, highness?"
"They protect me from them," Culebra said quietly. "I think they also fear I might side with one or the other. In the past, my previous incarnations have."
"Oh," Cortez said, clearly startled. "I have never heard that, but then, as unique as I was, even I am not privy to the deepest secrets of the Brotherhood. Here, you look like you could use a drink, highness." She pressed the flask into his hands, and Culebra took a sip. It was good brandy, warm and soothing. He handed the flask back and murmured a thanks.
When the silence stretched on, he prodded gently. "You said your position was unique?"
"Ah, yes," Cortez said, and Culebra realized she had been lost in thought. "The head of the Brotherhood was the one who took me off the streets when he realized my talent for murder. He was very fond of me. He took care of me. I got away with much because I was under his immediate protection. It put me in a position where I was held in awe and fear and jealousy all at once. Until I met Fidel, I was close to no one."
Culebra nodded. "I was very alone until I was assigned new bodyguards when I was sixteen."
"Where were they when I took you?"
"Granito is dead. He was killed by the mermaids. I sent Dario away because it was not fair to keep him when it was my fault his brother was dead."
Cortez snorted at that, but only asked, "Who was the handsome man I knocked out?"
"Lord Midori Kawa of Kundou, the new ambassador. He was not in the country even a full day."
At that, Cortez laughed. "That will teach the fish to stay in the ocean where he belongs. He was very handsome. I hope you had fun with him before I took you, highness."
"You—" Culebra sputtered, torn between amusement and annoyance that he was finding her amusing. That he was beginning to like her, despite everything. He did not want to like the person who had kidnapped him. Someone who killed for a living. "That does not matter."
Cortez laughed again. "Oh, I see. You are right, highness. You are no boy."
"No, I am not," Culebra said hotly, refusing to be embarrassed.
Her laughter continued a few seconds more, then slowly faded away. He listened to her putter around the campsite, curious as to what she was doing but not curious enough to ask.
Then he smelled tea. When she finally pressed the cup into his hand, he said, "Why are you so nice? If I am not what you expected of the Basilisk Prince, you are not what I expected of a kidnapper. Or an assassin."
"I guess that at last makes things even," Cortez said. "I know you disapprove of my killing for money, highness, but I never killed anyone who did not deserve it. I only took the deaths that felt right."
That was a strange way to phrase it—the deaths that felt right. "Is that why you never killed me? You kidnapped me so easily. Why did no one else ever think of that trick?"
Cortez chuckled. "The faerie child bit, you mean? I would not have thought of it a few years ago. Like everyone else, I probably would have tried to kill you in your bedroom or while you were outside the palace, but after I left the brotherhood, I went to Verde for a time. Life there is very different. Watching the way they could control animals, to a certain extent, was fascinating. I remembered it while trying to figure out how to get to you."
"Why haven't you killed me?" Culebra asked. "Obviously you're very good at what you do, given all that you have told me. So why did the Brotherhood never make you kill me?"
At first only silence met his question. It stretched on and on until he finally gave up on hearing an answer. But finally, just as he was about to lie down and try to go back to sleep, Cortez replied, "As you said, highness, your death never felt right. It was a huge argument between the Brotherhood and me, between me and the man who took me in. But I only took jobs that felt right to me, and killing you never felt right—no matter what the price, no matter what the beliefs of the Brotherhood. I said I would do it if that feeling ever changed, but so far it has not. Honestly, highness, I would be happier if you and I had never met."
"Me too," Culebra said, though the words did not feel quite right. More like ... he wished they had met differently. More positively. But that seemed a stupid thing to think, never mind say, and so Culebra just sipped at his tea until it was gone. He set his empty cup aside and lay back down on his bedroll, fumbling for his blanket and pulling it up high around him. "Goodnight."
"Goodnight, highness."
Closing his eyes and willing the nightmares not to plague him again, Culebra slowly drifted off to sleep again.
When he woke again, it was to the feel of sunshine on his face and angry voices hissing at each other. Cortez and ... he listened carefully, still pretending to be asleep. Outside, with two people and Cortez talking, it was hard to pick out all the crucial sounds and smells, but ...
He could smell horses and heard at least three different ones, maybe four. Two men were talking, but another one occasionally coughed. Definitely three men, but he was still not certain about the number of new horses.
No, definitely four. That shuffling sound was new and it hadn't come from the others. Then he heard the fourth man sigh while two were still talking and the other was still coughing. It was a faint sound, easy to miss if he had not been listening so closely.
He could smell cigarettes, sweat, the campfire and breakfast. One of the men smelled like incense, which was odd. Unfortunately, he could not understand what was being said. Cortez was speaking too low, and the other two had such a thick accent that Culebra could not follow it. He was far too used to court life and the polished accents of nobility. Though he had always wanted to learn the accents and dialects of the various regions of Piedre, there were too many reasons that he simply could not.
Suddenly the voices grew louder, and Culebra heard a pained grunt right even as he tasted death. His tongue flicked out to taste it from habit. "Cortez?" he asked, and then realized that speaking had been a stupid thing to do.
He heard her cry out, snarl a curse—and then a terrible, dull striking sound. She made a pained noise and dread dropped into his stomach, churning there like bad meat. "Cortez?" he asked again. "Cortez, what's going on?"
He tensed when he heard two sets of footsteps approaching him and jumped when hands touched him. He swung out, snarling when someone caught his wrist, and tried to tug free, but to no avail. "Cortez?" he repeated. "Where is Cortez?"
"Do not worry, your highness," the man holding him said. "We have taken care of the Brotherhood refuse. Come, we will
take you to safety and then see that you get home."
Culebra waited until the man had stood them up, then shoved him away and backed up. "What is going on? Who are you? Where is Cortez?"
"Your highness, please. I am sorry that we have alarmed you," the man said soothingly. Culebra did not like his voice, his tone. He knew that coddling manner, that simpering attitude. "We saw you and knew you instantly. We are here only to save you."
Drawing himself up and lifting his chin, trying to act as though he were not terrified all over again after finally becoming reasonably comfortable with Cortez, Culebra said, "If you are my defenders, then you will have no problem telling me your names and what you do for a living. Who are you that you found me here in the middle of nowhere?"
"Nowhere? Highness, we are but a couple hours west of the village Blanco."
Culebra almost winced at that, feeling stupid. "Who are you?" he demanded coldly. "You still have not told me that."
"I am Diego, your highness. We are brothers of the Order that supports you and wants to see you again rise to power."
Oh, wonderful. Cultists. Being found by the Order of the White Rose was only moderately better than the Brotherhood. It meant they would not kill on purpose, but they would have no qualms about keeping him and killing him by accident later.
Culebra wondered what it said about his life that if he had to choose between the Order of the White Rose and Cortez, he was more than happy to have Cortez and risk whatever fate awaited him at the end of their journey. "I see," he finally said. "How many of you are there?"
"Uh—four, highness. We were returning to Rosa City, anyway. It is fortuitous, no?"
"Indeed," Culebra said and decided he had best play along until he could figure something out. What, he had no idea. Bitter anger choked at him, but if he wanted to get out of the predicament himself he would have to remove his bandages and that was the one thing he would not do. He would not use a power he could not control. "Did you kill the woman who was with me?"