Black Heart

by Christina Henry

  Sakarian better watch his back, I thought. Litarian was smart, way smarter than his brother. For now Litarian seemed content in the role he had, but I doubted it would stay that way. Fae lived a long time, and there was a limit to what a smart person would tolerate from a stupid one.

  “Why not allow her to go?” Litarian said. “We have nothing to lose and everything to gain.”

  “Because if we allow her to leave this place, she will try to escape,” Batarian said. “She will not continue to aid her captors. It is only logical.”

  “Except that I told you that I, too, need to defeat the Cimice,” I said.

  “I am not certain I believe this tale of the creatures in your world,” Sakarian announced. “It all seems too convenient. And impossible. Our borders are closed.”

  “For the love of the Morningstar,” I swore. “You are being deliberately obstinate. The fact that I am here is proof positive that your borders are not as secure as they seem.”

  Batarian’s face took on that brooding look again. “I must think on this. Litarian, return her to the platform and guard the ladder until I make my decision.”

  “No,” I said. “I’m not going back up there.”

  “You are still a prisoner here,” Batarian said.

  “Let’s be real for a second,” I said. “As of this moment I’m only a prisoner because I don’t feel like destroying your whole village. So don’t act like you have some kind of dominion over me.”

  “I am the ruler in my own kingdom,” Batarian said through gritted teeth.

  “Sure you are,” I said. “But I am not a member of your kingdom. I’ll go in some other room, and you don’t need to waste a man guarding me. I’m not going to run away. My proposal is this—you let me kill the Cimice. And then you release my wings and I go home.”

  “You will return to the platform. That is where the prisoners go,” Batarian said.

  I could tell he was trying to reestablish his sense of authority when his world had been turned upside down. But I wasn’t going to spend another minute on that platform. I sighed.

  “Don’t make me prove a point,” I said. It would be nothing for me to set this place on fire. But I didn’t want to burn down the whole tree house unless I had to.

  “You are a prisoner,” Batarian said.

  “Father, I don’t think that—” Litarian began.

  I shot nightfire at Sakarian. I didn’t like him anyway.

  The bolt deliberately missed any vital organs. The blue flame struck the fae’s upper arm, then danced along his limb and down to his wrist, stripping away the flesh as it went.

  Sakarian screeched in pain and fell to his knees. Batarian and Litarian stared at me in shock. Neither of them made any move to help Sakarian, who was whimpering.

  “Quit that noise,” I said. “I didn’t even give you the benefit of my full strength.”

  Batarian moved toward me. I don’t know what he intended to do. Litarian grabbed him by the shoulder, pulling the king away from me.

  “I am not going to the platform,” I repeated. “Think all you want on my offer. I’m going to wait in another room.”

  Litarian stepped forward, his hands up to show that he was no threat. “I will show you,” he said.

  We left the room without another word from anyone.

  It was possible, even probable, that I’d misplayed this. I’d bruised Batarian’s pride by demonstrating I did not have to do as he wished. I’d quite literally harmed Sakarian by using him as a demonstration. He hadn’t liked me to begin with, and he doubtless hated me now.

  On the positive side of the balance book, maybe Batarian would conclude that I was more of a threat to him as a prisoner and would just let me go, which was all I’d wanted in the first place.

  Litarian led me to a much smaller room across the hall that looked like a little parlor. He nodded and then left me there—unguarded.

  Regardless of the outcome of their meeting, I was going to find a way to get to the Cimice and destroy them. If I had to sneak away in the middle of the night, then I would.

  At this point killing the creatures before they arrived in Chicago was my priority. If Batarian never released my wings, then I could probably find another way to do so. Surely Lucifer—or one of his brothers—could overcome the magic binding the ropes.

  It would be annoyingly inconvenient in the meantime, but I couldn’t wait here much longer for Batarian to get his head on straight. I’d already been more than polite.

  There was a long sort of sofalike thing made of branches that stretched out against a wall. I lay down on it. My mind was racing, and I was still pumped full of energy from using my magic during the battle with the Cimice. I didn’t think I would be able to sleep, but almost immediately I drifted off. My body knew what it needed even if I didn’t.

  My baby fluttered inside me. My son. The last tangible evidence that I had of my beloved. In my mind were Gabriel’s eyes, Gabriel’s mouth, Gabriel’s touch. Gabriel’s voice whispering in my ear. For now and forever they would only be in my mind, only in my memory. Since he had died, I’d had only fleeting moments to remember.

  I chased monsters. I battled demons. I felt the shadow on my heart growing larger and larger with each passing day. But the grief was always there, the pain that was unyielding and unending. Even when I tried to hide from it, to find solace where I could, my sadness chased me down and overtook me.

  I woke with the wetness of my tears on my cheeks, salt in my mouth, and Litarian standing above me, an indefinable expression on his face. He held my sword in one hand.

  I sat up quickly, scrubbing my cheeks. “What did Batarian decide?”

  “Despite my arguments to the contrary, my lord feels you cannot be trusted,” Litarian said. “He has ordered me to bind all your limbs, heedless of any possible harm to myself, and remove you as far from the village as possible so you can do no damage here in retribution.”

  “Under normal circumstances I would consider that a threat,” I said, studying him carefully. “But I don’t think you’re going to carry it out.”

  “No,” he said. “I am not.”

  “You don’t agree that I am a threat to your village?” I asked.

  “I believe that you could harm us all greatly if you so chose,” Litarian said. “However, I also believe you would not choose to do so unless necessary.”

  “I don’t want to hurt you at all,” I said. “I just want to be free.”

  Litarian nodded and indicated I should turn around. I did so, hoping he was going to release my wings and not slit my throat with my own sword when my back was turned.

  He murmured low in his native language, and the bonds were released. My wings stretched, unfurled—and immediately cramped from being held in a fixed position for so long.

  I eased them out slowly, until they were at their fullest extension, arching my back like a cat as the blood flowed though the tight muscles. I felt a touch on the silver feathers and closed my wings, turning to Litarian in surprise.

  He drew his hand back, his cheeks coloring. “I’m sorry,” he said. He handed my sword to me to cover his embarrassment. “They are just so beautiful. It must be an incredible feeling, to soar above the trees.”

  “It is,” I said, thinking of how free I felt when flying. “Well, listen, thanks for letting me go.”

  “You go to destroy the Cimice,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

  “Yes,” I said. “I can’t let them get to my city.”

  “I will go with you,” he said.

  “Um,” I said. I could travel a lot faster without him, especially now that I had my wings back.

  “I can show you precisely where the colony is located,” Litarian said. “My life is forfeit, in any event. My lord will certainly take it hard that I released you.”

  “I could knock you out,” I offered. “Make it look like you tried to hold me here but I escaped.”

  Litarian shook his head. “Batarian would see through such a fic
tion. I argued too ferociously in your favor.”

  I didn’t want to bring Litarian with me. But it seemed a poor repayment for my freedom to leave him here to be executed.

  “All right,” I said finally, although I had no idea what I would do with him once I’d taken care of the Cimice. “Take my hand.”

  Litarian hesitated.

  “If you want to come with me, you’re going to have to trust me,” I said impatiently. “If I wanted to hurt you, I could have done so a hundred times over.”

  Litarian nodded and took my hand. There was a supple strength in his fingers, honed from years of pulling a bowstring. I spoke the words of the veil that would cover us, and heard him gasp.

  “You disappeared,” he said, his voice full of wonder.

  “Yes,” I said. “And so have you. We’re more or less invisible now.”

  I kept a firm grip on his hand so he wouldn’t go wandering off.

  “What is ‘more or less invisible’?” Litarian whispered.

  “Most things can’t see us. Some can,” I said. “It kind of depends on how magical the being is that’s looking.”

  I didn’t know whether the spell would actually hide us from the fae on this world. I figured if it didn’t, I could always fall back on my usual crash-and-burn routine.

  “Lead the way,” I said. “And remember, you’re invisible but people will still be able to feel you if you bump into them.”

  “I will be cautious,” Litarian said.

  I put my hand on his shoulder so we would stay close together, and followed him out of the room. There was no one in the hallway, which was a surprise. Either Batarian completely trusted that Litarian would follow through on his orders without question, or else he didn’t care about the possibility that his son might be killed by me.

  It seemed foolish to have sent Litarian without a guard to back him up. The whole settlement seemed unusually quiet. I must have slept longer than I realized. Still, why was Batarian not more vigilant? He was so concerned that the Cimice would send the horde down on their heads.

  There was something strange going on here. The more I considered it, the more I realized that Batarian’s response to my aid during the battle didn’t make any sense. I’d just been too tired and out of sorts myself to realize it.

  We moved out of the hall and onto the walkway. Some guards were posted at intervals, but not nearly as many as I thought there would be. I wanted to ask Litarian about it, but first we needed to get away. The guards would still be able to hear us even if they couldn’t see us.

  Litarian led me to a staircase that went to the ground. The stairs were narrow, and I hoped that we wouldn’t encounter anyone on the way down. I would be able to fly out of the way, but I didn’t think I would be able to lift Litarian. I was stronger than an ordinary human, but not strong enough to lift a man twice my size. But there was no one on the staircase, and only a few guards posted at the perimeter at ground level. The guards seemed preternaturally still, almost like dolls or statues.

  We slipped easily out of the village and into the dense forest. Once we were out of sight I dropped my hand from Litarian’s shoulder and lifted the veil.

  “Something isn’t right,” I said, keeping my voice low in case it carried back to the village.

  The light was faint under the trees but I could easily read Litarian’s troubled expression. “I agree,” he said.

  I sensed the tug that pulled him back toward the village, toward his people, but he seemed to shake it off.

  “First, the Cimice,” he said.

  He started through the forest, moving with the smooth stride of an experienced woodsman. I grimaced and followed as quietly as I could.

  Litarian looked askance at me when he heard me clomping through the woods like a team of horses, but he didn’t say anything.

  We walked in (relative) silence for some time. “How far is the colony from the village?” I asked.

  “Several hours’ walk,” Litarian said.

  “Do you think Batarian will raise the alarm and send men after us?”

  “Perhaps,” Litarian said. “Perhaps he will not consider my safety a priority.”

  “Your relationship with your family is more confusing than mine,” I said. “It seemed like Sakarian had to obey you when you came to arrest me. Batarian seems to have given you a lot of power, as well. But you’re saying he wouldn’t come after you if he thought you’d been kidnapped or thought you’d disobeyed him.”

  Litarian was silent for a while after this. We continued moving through the forest. I figured Litarian wasn’t going to comment, and I wasn’t going to push it. I didn’t need to get involved in anyone else’s weird family dynamics.

  Finally, Litarian said, “My father has mixed feelings about me.”

  I could sympathize. “Yeah, so did my father.”

  “Did?” Litarian asked. “What happened to him?”

  “I, uh, blew him up,” I said.

  Litarian paused, his gaze assessing. I could almost hear the calculations in his head, his rapid reconsidering of both my ruthlessness and my abilities. “I will be very cautious around you.”

  “He was gathering an army to destroy humanity at the time,” I said. “Also, he was really, really mean to me.”

  As in trying-to-kill-me-multiple-times kind of mean.

  “I will certainly make every effort not to be ‘mean’ to you,” he said seriously.

  I laughed, but it was without mirth. People who were mean to me had an unfortunate tendency to die in horrible ways. Chloe had said something to that effect once, when we were arguing about my methods. I’d told her I wasn’t a monster.

  But then I’d destroyed every vampire in the city in one fell swoop. I’d tortured Bryson. I’d condoned and acted on morally questionable impulses. And Beezle had left, because I was changing.

  Maybe if Gabriel still lived, it would be different. But he was gone, and I was left to fend for myself, to muddle through, to do whatever was necessary to preserve my life so that I could keep my child safe. So first I would destroy the Cimice, even though they hadn’t invaded my city yet. But before that . . .

  “Someone’s directing the Cimice,” I told Litarian. “If we can, I’d like to find out who.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “It’s too much of a coincidence that they’re here and that one of them came through to Chicago. One of my enemies is giving them pointers.”

  “You make it sound as though you have many enemies,” Litarian said.

  “Probably more than I can count,” I said.

  “Then how will you determine who is leading the Cimice?” Litarian asked. “They do not speak our language. They do not feel pain the same way that we do. You will not be able to bargain with them, or torture them.”

  “They speak my language,” I said, remembering the metallic voice telling me that its brethren would descend upon me, destroy everything I loved.

  “They have never indicated such to us,” said Litarian, sounding vaguely insulted.

  “Maybe that’s because they don’t want to converse with you,” I said. “They want to kill you.”

  “Still,” he said. “If we had known they could speak with us, we would have tried to negotiate, to save—”

  “You couldn’t save them,” I said, cutting him off. “There is nothing you could have done. Just as no amount of fae fighting ability would have defeated the Cimice if they had chosen to advance. Your people are nothing but pawns in some larger game.”

  Litarian said nothing to this. I knew it was a bitter pill for him to swallow, to think that there was never anything that could be done to save his people.

  We passed through a particularly dense patch of trees and into a clearing. The moon had risen high while we walked, and the light danced on the surface of a sparkling stream. I pulled up short.

  “I’ll be flying over that, thank you,” I said. “Come on, I can hold you up for a few seconds.”

  Litarian t
urned toward me, a question in his eyes. “Why would I need to do such a thing?”

  “Because of the creepy, grabby water creatures that live in there,” I said.

  Litarian shook his head. “The gods in the water will not harm you if you show them respect.”

  To demonstrate, he walked to the water’s edge and knelt there. He spoke what sounded like a prayer in his own language, then stood and offered me his hand. “Come. It is safe to cross now.”

  “I think I’ll just stay and watch,” I said, waving him away.

  Litarian shrugged and stepped into the water. I tensed, expecting the creatures to rise up and grab at his legs. But he crossed without incident. When he was done, he turned back and gave me an expectant look.

  I rose up into the air, muttering to myself. “Of course. I should have thought to say a prayer in a language I don’t know. How stupid of me.”

  I didn’t care what Litarian said. I’d destroyed one of the water “gods.” I didn’t think any amount of respect from me would let them allow me to pass unharmed.

  Sure enough, as soon as my feet crossed high above, the surface of the water broke, filling with hissing faces.

  I landed beside Litarian, who goggled at me. “What did you do to them?” he asked.

  “It’s not worth getting into,” I said briskly. “Let’s go.”

  Litarian didn’t press. That wasn’t his way. I’d figured that out pretty quickly. I was again strongly reminded of Gabriel. Gabriel was never one to press, either. He just waited, with his infinite store of patience.

  I swiped at the tears that had risen to the surface, the unwanted proof of a grief that seemed to creep up on me more frequently since my arrival here. I was glad Litarian walked in front of me. He wouldn’t press, but I didn’t want to feel obligated to explain anything to him. Gabriel belonged to me. He had nothing to do with this place.

  Litarian suddenly held up a hand to halt me. “What is it?” I whispered.

  “The dragon approaches,” he said, very still.

  I didn’t see or hear anything. “How do you know?” I asked, moving up to his side. His eyes were closed.

  “Can you not feel him?” Litarian said, and his voice didn’t sound like his own.