Court of Shadows

by Miranda Honfleur

  Marfa’s dark eyes darted to him, and she crossed her arms as she squinted at him.

  “Maritu di maestru?” Marfa tilted her head, tapping the space over her heart. “Un lupu?”

  “Maritu,” Rielle repeated, nodding and bringing their joined hands to her heart. She cleared her throat—then that lupu must have bothered her as it did him. “Yes—my maritu.”

  “A dialect of Old Sileni?” he guessed quietly.

  Eyes on Rielle, Marfa cocked her head to Jon. “E ellu?”

  He pulled Rielle closer. Ellu? Why should ellu be anything to her?

  Rielle shook her head. “My… my king.” She bowed to Jon, low, prolonged.

  “Vostru maestru.” Raising her eyebrows, Marfa turned to Jon and bowed respectfully, a graceful, practiced act. Perhaps werewolf culture hadn’t been so farfetched a claim. “Un unori, mo signore.”

  With the requisite courtesy, Jon inclined his head in acknowledgment.

  If Marfa had only just awoken with the Rift, she was learning quickly, although there was so much more she didn’t know. Teaching her the ways of a world far more advanced than she’d remembered would be a hassle. An enormous, tedious hassle.

  “Come,” Brennan said, nodding to Rielle and Una. “We’re leaving. Your Majesty.” With a parting bow to Jon, he turned, his hand at the small of Rielle’s back, and ushered her away, with Marfa following, their newest problem.

  Rielle hadn’t yet asked him about the Archives—no doubt their audience had affected that—but he’d have to tell her what he’d decided.

  She wouldn’t like it, not one bit, but she’d support him in this. She would. He’d chosen their family over the nebulous good she wanted to do, and the truth, but the choice was self-evident. She’d agree. She had to.

  * * *

  Marfa followed Maestru and her husband from the depths of the mad Coven’s castle.

  Maestru herself was human, of course, but in the fighting circle, her scent had distinguished her from the other humans. A human lover to one of her kind, to a werewolf. Perhaps his mate. Perhaps even mother to cubs.

  Perhaps even a potential friend.

  Maestru had stood between her and that vile silver witch, as no human would ever do. Saved her life. Earned her service, until such time as her generosity could be repaid.

  On the way out, they passed human extravagance so overwhelming, it was almost laughable. Gold shimmering everywhere, frescoes and wall reliefs, tapestries and elaborate rugs, architecture designed to evoke grandeur.

  The humans hadn’t changed much. Not in this, nor in their cruelty, judging from most of the humans in attendance today. The humans had always believed themselves apart from the Immortals, superior despite their short lives and weakness. They didn’t even have the strength of most werewolf cubs.

  But Maestru didn’t share in that typical human cruelty, and neither, it appeared, did her friends. The other witches in the fighting circle had stood with her, too, inexplicably, in support of her decision to defend an Immortal.

  They stepped out into the night, and she paused to inhale the free air, fresh and open, the scents of cypress and grass and earth and imminent rain, and even the innumerable humans. Horse and rabbit, fox and rat, lark and nightingale.

  A carriage awaited, but beyond it glittered an entire human city, with countless rooftops fading into the distance, torches and candlelight winking in the night’s sable cloak.

  Maestru grazed her arm, nodded toward the carriage, and with a smile she hoped was grateful, she boarded.

  Inside, Maestru’s husband, Brennan, pinned her with a penetrating gaze, every inch of him ready, coiled, prepared to strike. He was large, even for a werewolf, and without a doubt, strong. And, it seemed, young. Born in the last few decades, he had somehow avoided the spasm that had claimed her and Lisandra.

  She scented no pack on him. He was alone, but for Maestru, whom he claimed with an arm about her shoulders. His blood relation, the young woman, had elected to depart with her human friends—and she, too, was human.

  Perhaps Brennan had been bitten?

  Maestru reached across the carriage and rested a hand on her knee, giving it a pat, and said something in the new tongue. Something comforting, affectionate. She would have a home with Maestru. Food. And no more Erardo.

  She suppressed the thought. No, he wouldn’t disturb her here, now, when she was free of that cage and safe with a maestru, but she, most certainly, would disturb him. And soon.

  There was still so much she needed to know besides.

  How much time had passed since she’d last seen Lisandra? Where was she? Where was the Ciriaccu pack? Why had the Dragonlords allowed the humans to come to power? Why did no one speak the common tongue any longer?

  But therein lay the problem.

  Even if Maestru wished to answer those questions, there was no way to ask. It would be some time before they could communicate in anything but the primitive methods.

  She’d have to learn… whatever this tongue was that Maestru spoke. But bit by bit, she would. Among the Ciriaccu, she’d always been known for her skill in mingling with the humans—learning their news and their plans, bartering for supplies, even taking a human lover or two from time to time.

  She could learn again, and as she caught Maestru’s warm smile from across the carriage, she was certain Maestru would help her. And the first thing she’d tell Maestru, as soon as she learned the new tongue, would be all about the mad Coven, their human cruelty, and the Erardo she would soon kill.

  * * *

  Leigh punched the trunk of a white pine in the twilight, while the others made camp.

  They’d been tracking the horde for two days, on the mountainside, in the caverns, in the woods, and although they’d found straggling undead, there was still no sign of Ava. She had to be farther south along the mountain. She was getting closer to the Forgeron Coven’s territory, and time was running out.

  A firm warmth rested between his shoulder blades, and he glanced back to find Ambriel, unwavering, his eyes soft. “I wouldn’t do that, dreshan. A dryad guards this forest.”

  Just what they’d need. Another dryad to wreak havoc.

  He stepped away from the tree with a sigh.

  “Come,” Ambriel said. “I’ve pitched our tent, and you could use a rest.”

  Rest. He didn’t want to rest. Not until they found Ava.

  But his entire body was sore from another day of riding, and he was dead on his feet. He nodded and followed Ambriel to the tent. Katia and Della sat by a small fire pit; here, in a clear stretch of land in the shadow of the mountain, Ambriel had assured them they’d be beyond the dryad’s reach, as long as they didn’t venture into the forest.

  Ambriel held aside the tent flap, and Leigh ducked inside, descending to a bedroll with a groan. Nothing was going according to plan. Nothing.

  “We’ll find her, dreshan. We’ve been scouring the area for days, and we have leads. It’s not as bleak as it seems.” Ambriel lowered to the bedroll next to him, sitting cross-legged.

  With a sigh, Leigh glanced at him. Ambriel had his own children, but he didn’t understand. Not this. Not how every second mattered. “I’ve… I’ve lost before. I need to find her, Ambriel. Yesterday.”

  Ambriel curled an arm around him, only the crackling of the fire and the whispers between Della and Katia disrupting the silence. “You’re strong, and together, we’re stronger. She’s your only child, and of course you’re worried. But you have to have faith.”

  Ava wasn’t his only child.

  “When I was sixteen,” he began, “my parents arranged my marriage to a young woman from a neighboring farm. I’m the son of a Pryndonian merchant and a Kamerish mother. Grew up farming in Ren. So it was a perfect match, really.”

  “You’re married?” Ambriel asked softly.

  “I was,” Leigh said, with a bitter, wistful breath. “We had two children, sons, in short order.” His shoulders slumped. “After only two years, Ren was the
target of a pirate attack. Every able-bodied man, myself included, was summoned to defend the city, but when we failed, I knew the farms on the outskirts were next. Our farm, and my family. Wounded, dying, I staggered to Ren’s Temple of the Divine.”

  The temple in Ren famously housed a Vein, one of the few places in the world where one could commune with wild magic and become a wild mage.

  Where he had.

  When Ambriel only watched him attentively, he continued. “Of course, when I survived, I helped repel the attack on the farms and made haste for home. You see, my dear, I was a natural enforcer, if rough as a novice.” Firelight peeked in from outside. “Mages came from the Kamerish Tower afterward, inviting me to join the Divinity of Magic. I turned them down, even though my family was welcome to come along. I wanted to stay home, keep our farm, our way of life.

  “But only a year later, there was a second attack. The pirates had arcanir this time… and they killed my wife. Only minutes before I returned.”

  Ambriel stiffened, staring at the ground in the dimness. “Dreshan, I… I’m so sorry.”

  It had been the worst failure of his life. “I went into fureur, killed all my friends and neighbors who had gathered at my home for safety. My own sons.” Leigh shook his head slowly, rubbing his eyes with his knuckles, but his shoulders tightened, trembled, and even now, seventeen years later, he felt as raw and broken as he had that day.

  Ambriel’s embrace tightened.

  “I was taken down with an arcanir arrow, and when the Kamerish army defeated the pirates, they surrendered what was left of me to Magehold’s judgment,” he said. He’d been ready to die that day. He should have. “The Grand Divinus left me in the hands of Magister Shiori Kagami at the Kamerish Tower, and she convinced me not to end my life, but to devote it to preventing such large-scale atrocities from ever happening.”

  The only thing that had given his life meaning.

  Just one mage could save the lives of millions. He could. And he had, in the decades since.

  Ambriel’s eyes watered, and Leigh welcomed him to the warmth of his chest, rubbed the nape of his neck.

  “I didn’t know,” Ambriel whispered. He squeezed his eyes shut, but tears escaped anyway.

  “I kept it from you, my dear,” he whispered in Ambriel’s ear. “I never want anyone to see that side of me.” He rested his chin lightly on the top of Ambriel’s head. He hadn’t told anyone—not even Rielle. “But now… Now that Ava is out there, in fureur, struggling… I want to do my all for her. I want to do better for her. Save her from the fate that had claimed Hana, Takumi, and Yuki. And save her from the fate I’d suffered.”

  Hana. Who’d hummed as she worked. Who’d ridden horses as if she’d been born in the saddle. The wife he’d loved, whose fate had ended at his hands. Takumi, who’d followed his every footstep with a happy smile, and Yuki, who’d only just begun to walk.

  His flesh and blood, whose faces were there every time he closed his eyes. Whom he would have died for. Whom he now lived for, hoping to spare others what the pirates and he had done to them.

  Ambriel crumpled, but Leigh descended with him, his embrace firm. It was too horrible, too terrible for most people to consider. Most would only see him as a monster. Maybe even Ambriel would.

  Tremors snaked through Ambriel’s hands, and he clasped them.

  “All is the Divine,” he whispered. “That is what the Divinity says. And as much as I hate them, it’s a worthy thought. There was never enough goodness in the world to balance the iniquity mankind has wrought. It is said the Divine has filled us with the violence of our race, has given it to us as magic, and has challenged us few to save mankind.” The Divinity had sent those pirates to Ren the day Hana had been killed. He knew it. And although the Divinity didn’t live up to its worthy stated purpose, he still could. Mages still could. The Covens still could. “We were tested when we weren’t prepared, but we are now. And we must sacrifice.”

  If that was true, he had already sacrificed. Far too much.

  But he wouldn’t let Ava be sacrificed. He’d find her, save her, if it was the last thing he did.

  Chapter 46

  While Rielle took Marfa to new quarters—with all the food she could handle, and a whole new wardrobe—Brennan entered the antechamber to their own quarters and shrugged off his overcoat.

  It had been a long day, and it would only be a longer night with what he had to tell Rielle about the Archives. She’d understand, wouldn’t she?

  With a deep breath, he paused at a table. She’d been angry over the lies, and she wouldn’t like this, but she’d see it was to save the family. She’d fume, but in the end, she’d support him in this.

  A lone envelope lay on the surface. Correspondence. He grabbed it and headed to the desk, where he cracked it open to Kehani’s written curls and sworls.

  …your father discovered the truth, but he has not cast me aside. He is deciding whether he wishes to raise your son as his own and…

  Footsteps, soft but confident, approached—Rielle’s. He swept his hand behind his back, along with the letter, then pulled open the desk drawer.

  She burst in right as he slammed it shut, a moment of wide-eyed glancing about the room before she frowned at him. “What are you doing?”

  There were a million different things he could say, but not a single one came to mind. Raise your son. He’d read that. Your son.

  His limbs lightened, and heat radiated through his chest.

  “Brennan?”

  Kehani is having my son.

  Great Wolf, was that what it had truly said? His fingers drummed against the drawer. He couldn’t read it again. Not with her here.

  He’d only bedded Kehani once. Normally he was careful, but it had been Kehani. Father’s mistress. The last woman who should ever desire to conceive another man’s child. She was smart, and she’d want to keep her villa, her household, her income, all courtesy of Father. Why wouldn’t she have been careful?

  Or maybe months of self-imposed celibacy had dumbed him that night.

  Rielle approached, brows drawn together. “What’s wrong?”

  He straightened. “I… was just about to deal with my correspondence.”

  The truth. He’d promised to tell her the truth.

  Every lie he’d ever told her had been unraveled. And this… He’d sworn he hadn’t been with anyone since Melain. And he hadn’t, not really—Kehani had been a manipulation, nothing more. Not a true lover. Why would he have counted her?

  But it had been a lie. A thoughtless lie. Harmless.

  Until now.

  If Rielle found out, she’d never believe a word he said again. And fathering a bastard? He’d be lucky if she didn’t break off the betrothal and leave him immediately. She’d been all he’d ever wanted for so long, and now he might lose her.

  His stomach turned hard as stone.

  She glanced around him, squinting at the desk. “What are you hiding?”

  Nothing, he wanted to say. But it wasn’t true, was it? Not only that, but there was no way to hide this. Kehani would give birth to the child. That was inevitable. And Rielle would find out.

  And she’d remember this moment. When he’d hidden it from her. When he’d lied.

  No. She’d hear the truth, and they’d move past this. She’d be angry awhile, perhaps, but they had history, had known each other for seventeen years; he loved her, she knew it, and what more was there? Would she throw it all away over this one little thing? And for what? Jon was dying and had nothing to offer her.

  No. She wouldn’t leave him. He could tell her. He could.

  A tremor quivered in his chest, but he repressed it and lightly grasped her shoulders. “Rielle… will you sit with me a moment?”

  Beneath that frown, her eyes searched his, but she nodded. He removed the letter from the drawer and then led her before the fire—to the armchairs—no, the sofa. Close-by. Together. Once she sat, so did he, and took hold of her hand.

  Hear me
out. Just hear me out.

  “We agreed to be honest with each other. I promised you that, and I want to keep my word,” he said, and by the second, she hardened next to him, her heart pounding faster.

  Only a tight nod was her reply.

  Great Wolf, he had to ease this, tell her as gently and calmly as he could. “I told you that I haven’t been with anyone since Melain, but before I arrived at House Hazael, there was… one night.”

  She closed her eyes, and her face fell. She pulled her hand free of his to rub her forehead. “Brennan…”

  “I didn’t mean to lie to you. It just… slipped my mind. Until now. It was one woman, one night, and didn’t mean anything. It wasn’t for love, or for lust even, but meant to manipulate my father.”

  She arched a brow. “Your father? How?”

  “The woman was his mistress, Kehani.”

  Her eyes widened, for just a moment, before she pulled back. “Oh.”

  Just oh. A surprised little parting of her lips.

  He waited, but she only stared, fell into a silent reverie, a sequence of expressions crossing her face. A confused frown, a contemplative series of blinks, an angry crease of her brow, a deep calming breath—

  And finally a slow nod. She swallowed. “Well, that explains some of the looks she gave me,” she said, drawing in a sharp breath, then exhaling it slowly, like a hundred years of age and exhaustion. “It was before we were even together. I can hardly be upset you were with a lover before then, even if you didn’t tell me.”

  Hardly can. It didn’t mean she wasn’t upset. She just couldn’t justify it. At least she was trying.

  There was no way to smooth over what he had to say next. “She and I were only together once,” he said carefully, then presented the letter. “And she sent me this.” He handed it to her. “Rielle, she’s with child.”

  Her fingers had only just brushed the broken wax seal when she pulled them away. “What?”