by Devin Madson
I said nothing.
‘And now,’ he went on. ‘You’re here, alive, and the man I swore my oath to is the reason why your mother is not.’
I put up my hand. ‘Don’t.’
‘Hana–’
‘I don’t want to talk about Kin. I don’t want to talk about my mother or my father or my brothers. They are gone, but we are here and so is Kisia. It is the empire we must fight for now.’
We walked the rest of the way in silence, my head once again filled with troubles. Ryoji made no attempt to reopen the conversation or reignite the desire that had hummed between us and for that I was grateful. With every pool of light we passed my pace increased. It was only a matter of time before Katashi marched his men across the plain to another set of old gates and another city incapable of defending against him. I would have to meet with Kin’s council and convince them retreat was the only option.
Eventually the tunnel rose. There were more light wells. More turns. Then a rumble of cartwheels overhead.
‘We’re beneath the city now,’ Ryoji said, breaking his long silence.
‘Where does the tunnel come out?’
‘Another tavern, in the Westcourt District near the silk market.’
‘Why there?’
Another rumble overhead. ‘My guess is because to go further into the city would risk breaching the walls of the Waterway.
The tunnel levelled out and my foot caught something in the darkness. I hissed as I fell against stone steps, losing one overlarge sandal.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Fantastic,’ I said, picking myself up. I rubbed my knees, spreading damp soil across my breeches. ‘I think I have found the stairs.’
He went past me up the shallow steps. The light was dim and he had to duck his head, but he seemed to know what he was doing and set his shoulder to the ceiling. The sound of stone scraping on stone filled the passage and light seeped in through widening cracks.
‘Who’s there?’ someone demanded from above. ‘Answer before you stick your head up or I’ll cut it off.’
‘It’s General Hade Ryoji of the Imperial Guard, and Lady Hana Otako.’
‘My lady!’
It was Tili’s voice, but though I heard her scramble through the opening, I held up my hand for silence. ‘Wait,’ I said, looking back along the passage.
A murmured thank you. A grunt from Ryoji still holding the slab on his shoulders.
‘Quiet. I can hear something.’
The soft scent of Tili filled the space beside me, but I did not look around. ‘Put the stone back,’ I said.
‘But Hana—’
‘Put it down,’ I said. ‘I think there’s someone coming but I can’t hear anything over the noise up there.’
‘Probably some of the wounded men, or Father Kokoro,’ General Ryoji said.
‘You said you found Endymion?’
‘Yes. He went on ahead.’
‘Then put the stone back down.’
He did so, and as the scraping of stone died away the distant voice sounded again. It was a voice I knew all too well.
‘Draw your sword, General,’ I said, taking a deep breath of damp air. ‘We’re about to have a visitor.’
Chapter 20
I woke, sucking a breath of old opium. Sick splattered the floor, filling my mouth with the sour bite of self-contempt.
‘How pleasant a companion you are, yes?’
A slow breath failed to calm my shaking limbs. The stump of my incomplete arm burned.
‘We seem to be making a habit of this,’ Malice went on from somewhere nearby. ‘Where you almost kill yourself and I am left to pick up the pieces.’
The room wavered as it came into focus. Dim light. Musty old reeds. Faded grandeur. A silk screen so finely embroidered that a myriad of tiny stars peered through the dust.
‘Where are we?’ My voice croaked.
‘Somewhere safe. Your Vengeance has flown the nest. I think enraging him was not the best decision you’ve ever made, yes?’
The room contained a meagre flock of surviving Vices. At the window Hope was engaged in wrapping a bandage around his forearm. Avarice hovered close and silent, while Conceit was using his sickle to cut reeds in the old matting. A tapestry covered three others, its dusty, undulating form unsettling.
‘Where’s Kimiko?’
‘What?’
I propped myself up, wincing. ‘Kimiko was there,’ I said. ‘Where is she?’
Malice crouched beside me, and there was real confusion in the lines of his blood-stained features. ‘Then one can only hope she’s dead,’ he said. ‘Katashi is capable of anything, yes?’
He was hazy through the sudden sting of tears. ‘I have been mad.’ Kin had been as much friend as emperor, Hana like a daughter, and Kimiko was the only woman who had ever seen through the façade to the pain beneath and found a man worth saving.
‘Stop crying, yes? We are not dead yet.’ His shock was a twisting, uneasy thing. ‘You should not have let him win. Must you always play the saviour? It ill becomes you, yes?’
From outside the window came shouts and running steps, but inside the musty little room there was nothing. The surviving Vices watched and listened.
‘Ill becomes me?’ I repeated, his words gouging deep. ‘Why do you want me to be a monster?’
‘Because that is who you are, yes?’
I had wanted Kin to suffer. I had wanted him to burn. I had manipulated every piece on the board because with control came freedom.
You stupid broken man.
All I had wanted was to be free.
‘Darius.’
Malice reached out. Our souls connected for a flash before I slapped his hand away. ‘Don’t touch me!’
‘What in the hells is wrong with you?’
‘Our father was right.’
Malice’s brows rose, crinkling blots of dried blood on his forehead. ‘Was he indeed? What about?’
‘The Sight. It needs to die.’
‘You would have had him succeed? You would have lain down and let the storm take you? You would have let our father bury a knife in my throat?’
My whole body ached. I wanted to lie down, to sleep, but behind my eyes the memory of Kimiko lurked. She had been my chance at freedom, I her poisoned knight.
‘We truly are monsters.’
He hit me, the flat of his palm stinging my cheek. ‘We are gods,’ he said.
‘No, we are men.’ I touched my smarting cheek. It was a weakness Minister Laroth would never have allowed, but what was self-control but fear by another name?
My poor, sad, Darius.
Malice began to pace, his slick ponytail slithering down his back. Still his Vices watched. Even Conceit radiated anxiety.
‘What is it you want, Darius?’ Malice said. ‘We could go anywhere. We could start again, yes? There are always more Vices. We could leave Kisia behind.’
I could well imagine that future. It was the past lived over, Malice unwilling, or perhaps unable, to change.
‘Wherever I went it would not be with you.’
An ornamental vase smashed on the floor beside me, its pieces scattering to every dusty corner. ‘What more can I do?’ he cried. ‘I have done everything for you. You made me what I am and still you cannot abide me.’ He sucked angry breaths. ‘Kisia was your dream, yes? To have everyone bow to the superiority of the Sight. In your own words: “we are gods and we will rule as gods are meant to rule”.’
He had been such a willing student. Together we had hunted, together we had tested the limits of our ability – Mastery and Malice, a shadowy curse upon the landscape.
‘You listened to my lessons then,’ I said, getting shakily to my feet. ‘Why not listen to them now? I am many years wiser than the boy you idolised.’
‘The boy with the violet eyes I found in a burning field,’ he said.
‘A romantic image. Did you save me? Is that how you see it?’
‘Our father never loved you.’
‘Our father did his best to crush me and when he failed you finished the job,’ I said. ‘That is what we do, Malice, we suck life.’ I spread my arms. ‘Look at what we have done. Look at these monsters we created.’
His hands clenched into fists. ‘You once thought them beautiful, yes? Concentrated emotion used to unlock lost abilities. And if we had succeeded in creating a Vice with two skills, or three, what then?’
Every mistake thrown back in my face. I had started it all, now Hope, Conceit and Avarice were the last slaves to our anger at the world. Malice, abandoned by everyone, had marked his Vices so they could never leave. Never disobey. I had just wanted everyone to suffer my pain. Now I was unravelling, no control left, only grief; no mastery, only anger.
‘I am tired,’ I said, swaying on my feet. ‘I am tired of you, and I am tired of me. I should have died in that maze and never known you.’
Malice stepped closer, his sandals making angry snaps. His fingers closed around my throat. ‘What a paragon I might have been.’ A sneer lifted his top lip. ‘Easy to forget that it was I, not Avarice, who was your first victim.’
The hand at my throat grew hot as his Empathy tore into me, hunting, caressing, smothering. Owning.
‘I want my brother back,’ he said.
‘I am here.’
His grip tightened, squeezing the sinews of my neck. The urge was to fight, to push him away, to throw him back with fear and anger and pain, but if I ran he would follow. So I tried to breathe slowly through my nose and did not move. His eyes darted about my face.
‘You would let me kill you?’ he said. ‘Do you really hate me so much?’
‘I don’t hate you.’ My voice came out strangled. ‘You are my brother and I love you.’
Still his grip tightened. ‘Then why? Why did you leave me? Why do you want to leave me again now?’
My violet eyes met his dark, and between us the years of pain and confusion and love and hate and obsession hung unacknowledged. Truth was the only thing we had never spoken.
‘Because I hate who I am when I’m with you,’ I said.
He threw me and I hit the dry matting, breath crushed from my aching body. It had always been weak and I felt it now in every joint, in the throbbing of my head and the endless pain of my useless stump. All I could do was grit my teeth and breathe, scratchy reeds against my cheek. And there in front of me the dead Vices covered in an old tapestry, the smell half dust and half death.
Malice growled, towering over me. ‘I will break you before you leave me again. You are—’
He broke off with squawk as his head snapped back. Dark hair sprouted from Avarice’s fist. ‘Don’t touch him,’ the oldest Vice said, holding Malice’s ponytail.
‘Let go!’
Avarice tightened his hold and dragged Malice’s head back still further until the tip of his ponytail touched the small of his back. ‘Don’t touch him,’ he repeated. ‘Do you understand?’
‘Call off your dog!’
‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘He was not made to obey.’
Malice dug an elbow into Avarice’s gut and his skin mottled with stone. Its weight dragged Malice’s head back further still. ‘Conceit,’ he said, the word clipped and strangled. ‘Get this rock off me!’
Conceit drew his sickle.
‘Avarice,’ I said, too tired to lift my head from the floor. ‘It will make no difference.’
Always closed, always wary, Avarice looked from me to Conceit, then let the stone fade back into his skin with a grunt. He let go. Malice lifted his head and stretched his neck side to side, feeling his throat with a tentative hand.
‘We will go to Esvar,’ he said, scratching his head where the hair had pulled. ‘And spend some time back in the family fold, yes?’
None of my words had made a difference and now I was too tired to care where I went, but if it ended in death so much the better.
‘We have to get out of here first,’ Conceit said, hooking his sickle back on its belt. ‘They’ll be looking for us.’
‘What about back out through the gate Katashi blew up?’ Hope said, and it was hope I felt on him. I had called him Malice’s toy and mocked his misery, but it was a misery I knew well. Malice had always owned me, though I had been blind enough in my youth to believe myself the master while I tugged and snarled at my chains.
‘They’ll be guarding that if they’re looking for us,’ Avarice rumbled.
‘There’s nothing to lead them here,’ Hope said. ‘We could lay low until they move on to Mei’lian.’
Mei’lian. Katashi didn’t know about the passage. He would have to march his men across the plain.
While they spoke Malice watched me. His eyes narrowed. ‘What are you thinking about?’
‘Nothing.’ I pushed myself up with my one good hand. ‘Merely that I am rather fond of the capital.’
‘Fond? You are not fond of anything, yes? That word is not in your vocabulary.’
‘It must be. I just used it.’
Once again he came and crouched in front of me, this time running a hand lightly through my hair. ‘You know something, yes? This was your city, too. Your empire second only to Kin. What is it you’re not telling me now?’
That there’s a passage out of the city.
The answer sprung to mind but I gave it no voice. Instead I held Malice’s gaze and wondered how long it would be before he looked away.
He didn’t.
‘Are we going to play this game again, brother?’
‘What game is that, brother?’
‘There’s a way out, yes?’
Still I held his gaze. ‘Through the gates.’
‘You want to get caught.’
My eyes did not waver from his, their stare a challenge. Go on, I heard myself goad. You’re bigger and stronger than I am, just take what you want, you always do.
He had taken my innocence while my Maturation cursed me to silence. After that first time I had been too proud, too angry, and I had become the master. He had liked that better, liked to feel wanted. Perhaps if I gave him my body now he might stall long enough for Katashi’s men find us, but too well could I remember Malice’s touch.
It was me that looked away.
The moment I broke eye contact Malice gripped my cheeks and squeezed. Through his Empathy he saw the intimate memories upon which I had dwelled and was gratified by their lack of context. I wanted him to stay there, to lose himself in the past, but the screams as Katashi’s men sacked the city drifted in through the open window.
Malice let go and I fell back, too weak to support my own weight any longer.
‘Pick him up, Avarice,’ Malice ordered. ‘We’re getting out of here, yes?’
‘How?’ It was Hope who asked.
‘Through the Imperial Cellar, child. If you don’t trust me, trust him, yes? Who should know these things but the Minister of the Left?’
Avarice came to crouch beside me, his leathers creaking. Tears prickled my eyes, but I would not let them fall again. Not now, though his care hurt more than Malice’s fury ever could.
He did not speak, but the pause before he picked me up was more permission than Malice had ever asked. I owned no strength to speak, no strength to do more than grit my teeth as he lifted me gently, hefting me over his shoulder as though I weighed no more than the sickly boy he had so often carried.
I must have faded, so little did I know of what followed. Snatches of low conversation; pain in my arm, my legs, my throbbing head. The smell of Avarice: part-horse, part-sweat. Blood. Smoke. Shouts. Once I woke to feel Malice’s hand gripping mine, hunting through me again, but th
ough I tried to pull free I was already sinking.
‘Who are you?’
The words wormed their way into my consciousness.
‘This is His Excellency Lord Darius Laroth,’ Malice said, his tone at its most humble. ‘Minister of the Left in the court of His Majesty Emperor Kin Ts’ai. He is injured, yes? We are his guards. We need to get him out of the city.’
‘Where are your sashes?’
‘You think we could have made it this far wearing our crimson proudly?’
The vaguely familiar voice agreed. With my cheek against Avarice’s sweat-stuck tunic my view of the world was narrow, but I caught a glimpse of Hope beside me, his expression no less grim for being upside down. The smell of blood hung around him. It stained his sickle and the hand that held it, while a contusion on the side of his head was slowly leaking crimson fluid into his dark hair and down his ear.
A door creaked. A bolt shot home.
‘How many others have come through?’ Malice asked.
‘Some three of four dozen,’ replied General Hadran, who seemed to have emerged fully functioning from my memory. ‘Many were so injured I doubt they have survived the journey. Even His Majesty…’
‘Does he live?’
‘He was alive when he went down, that’s all I know. Lady Hana Otako and General Ryoji were in rather better condition.’
‘I’m glad to hear it.’ Only I could hear the deadpan lie. Only I knew him well enough. ‘How long ago?’
‘I’d say near a full hour since.’
Far enough ahead we might miss them, which meant no one to stop us reaching Mei’lian, and once in Mei’lian I was lost. Malice knew the city too well. He would not let me go again.
Avarice kept walking. I faded in and out, cursing my body’s weakness. Voices. Shouts. Jolting steps. Dim blue light came to me between flashes of darkness. Then came a deep, oppressive silence as the earth held us in its hand. Footsteps were the only sound. Three sets. No, four, two of them remarkably in time. Four men. Conceit and Hope were still with us.
We kept moving. Time meant nothing.
It was dark when next I came to myself, and I turned my head, the cheek that had been pressed to Avarice’s back emerging damp.