by Jon Sprunk
The night came alive.
One moment the mace was sailing toward Calm's head, and then he was gone, wrapped in impenetrable shadows. Red stains blossomed on the Brother's uniform, at his side, his arm, his chest. Slack-jawed, the soldier collapsed and did not move again.
Josey sighed as Caim emerged from the darkness.
"Bloody Phebus." Ral yanked Josey sideways. "Not another step! The princess and I are leaving. You'll stand aside if you don't want to see her insides splattered all over the yard."
Caim stopped a dozen paces away. "I don't think so, Ral. Without Josey you're just an upstart with dreams of grandeur."
"I've got important friends, people who want to see me on the throne. Princess or no princess, I will rule Othir."
"Then prove it." Caim took another step. "Kill her."
Josey shuddered as she looked into his eyes. He wasn't bluffing.
"Stay back!" Ral shouted.
But Caim took yet another step, closing the distance between them.
Ral shifted his grip, and Josey felt herself slipping. Her bare feet scrabbled on the slick tiles. Caim leapt for her. He had dropped his knives. Pick them up! she cried inside her head even as she reached for him.
They slid down the slope, both of them straining to reach the other, but all she could think about was Ral, lurking above them, ready to pounce at any moment. A scream lodged in Josey's throat as the roof ended and empty space yawned beneath her feet.
Their fingers missed by inches.
Then, she was falling. Josey closed her eyes, the cry forgotten, and resigned herself to a swift death.
Something seized her arm and jerked her plummet to a halt. She looked up through the pouring rain, thinking Caim had somehow managed to catch her, but what she saw instead brought the scream rushing up her throat. Black as coal, so dark she couldn't make out its outline at first, it perched on a stone rainspout like a gargoyle. It looked like an overgrown wolfhound or a great jungle cat, with deep black holes for eyes and huge fangs like sooty icicles. Though the thing looked monstrous, it held her arm gingerly in its massive jaws.
Josey shook with body-jarring sobs as she hung from the mouth of the beast. Choking on tears of joy and fear, she contemplated the stones of the courtyard below. With firm resignation, she reached up around the creature's neck with her other arm. Rough bristles scraped against her wet skin.
With a rumbling growl, the creature shook its head and let go. Josey's piercing wail sliced through the storm as she fell, but her scream was cut short when her heels landed on firm footing. Shivering, she clutched at the wall. Her fingers found purchase on an entablature of ornamental scrollwork below the building's cornice.
Josey looked up. The beast was gone, vanished like a phantom, but the silhouette of a head peered over the edge of the roof above. She cried for help, but the wind snatched the words from her mouth. Lightning split the sky, followed by an epic crash of thunder that shook the palace walls, and the head disappeared.
Eyes squeezed shut, Josey tightened her grip and prayed.
Thunder rattled the roof tiles as Caim attacked.
He had recovered one of his suetes-a small miracle-but his thoughts were on Josey, dangling below. He didn't know what she had managed to grab onto; he couldn't see five strides in front of him through the storm's gloom. Whatever it was, he didn't think her grip would hold for long. He had to finish this fast. He feinted and cut low.
Ral beat the strikes aside and countered with a jab of his slender blade, but Caim was already moving. He slashed for the head, but the bastard jumped out of range. Something else was bothering him as well. When Josey had fallen over the side of the roof, he panicked. She was going to die and it was his fault. He deserved to die with her, but when he reached the edge, time had slowed to a crawl. In that instant, the shadows had scattered and he'd felt the presence again-the same presence he had felt in the Vine and again in Josey's cellar. The sensation had jangled his nerves like a splash of ice water. He'd stopped himself as his feet started over the side, but the feeling was gone.
Caim wiped his face with his free hand. The bizarre presence might have left, but his situation had deteriorated. The shadows were gone, back to wherever they came from, and his side ached worse than ever.
Ral adopted a casual fencing stance, sword arm halfway extended, feet apart. The gleaming point of his weapon wove small circles between them as he glanced to Calm's shoulder.
"Pick up a new toy, Caim? Watch out. You might pick up a little style and ruin your reputation."
Knees bent, knife held low, Caim slunk toward his prey. "Worry about how you're going to get away."
"Get away?" Ral laughed. "This is exactly where I want to be. You and me, the winner takes all."
Caim couldn't believe the man's hubris. Ral was no slouch with the sword and as cold-blooded as any killer on the street, but even he couldn't hope to defeat Caim in a fair fight. "Do you really think you can-?"
A sudden motion cut off his words. Caim dropped flat to the rooftop as a steel sliver sailed from Ral's off-hand. The throwing blade spun over Calm's head to strike the wall behind with a metallic clink. Caim ground his teeth together, pissed at himself for forgetting Ral's penchant for dirty tricks. Ral didn't give him time to browbeat himself, but rushed in behind the throw.
Caim pushed off the wet tiles. He blocked the first thrust and spun away from the follow-up. In turning, however, his foot slipped on a loose tile. Pitched off balance, he parried a swift slash, but the impact knocked him on his back. He grunted as a tearing sensation ripped through his side. A trickle of warmth oozed down his ribs. He rolled back to his feet on the unsteady surface and scuttled sideways. All the while, Ral hounded him with cuts and jabs. Somehow during the exchange they had traded places. Now Ral backed him toward the precipice above the bailey. Caim kept low and made himself as small a target as possible. He reacted a split second too late to an attack and paid the price with a slice down his right biceps, not too deep, but it bled with a vengeance. Caim switched the knife to his left hand and responded with a riposte to create some space between them.
"How does it feel?" Ral advanced on light steps. His sword cut lazy figure eights in the air. "Knowing you're about to die at my hands? It has to hurt. I know you've always considered yourself the better man."
Calm's breath came in shallow puffs as he gazed into the eyes of his enemy. Behind the arrogant twist of Ral's feature dwelt a frightened man, a man who had lived in Calm's shadow for so long he couldn't imagine a future without him. Caim tilted his head to let the cool rain patter on his face. He and Ral were two edges of the same blade, more alike than he had ever realized. With a momentous effort, Caim let the anger pour out of him, and he smiled.
Ral's lips twisted into an ugly frown.
When Ral glided forward behind a long thrust, Caim didn't retreat or dodge the attack. Instead, he leapt to meet it straight-on. Ral dug in his heels, but he couldn't curtail his lunge before Calm's blade caught the outthrust sword and twisted it away. A stiletto came up in Ral's other hand for a swift stop-thrust, but Caim grabbed the wrist. They grappled, chest to chest, both heaving for advantage. Caim drove with his hips, and the suete knife punched into Ral's navel like a blade returning to its sheath.
Ral convulsed against Calm's shoulder. His breath wheezed in Calm's ear. "You aren't… better… than…"
Caim pushed.
Ral sprawled on the tiles, one hand pressed to his abdomen, the other stretched over his head as if reaching for something that wasn't there. A livid welt pulsed on his open palm.
Caim left the man to gasp out his final breaths alone. He went over to the roof's edge. The storm had intensified. He couldn't see anything. He called out to Josey. If there was any response, he couldn't hear it over the wind.
He was searching the face of the building for a way down when a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold skittered up his spine. The queticoux flashed through his mind, and the voracious shadows he had f
aced in Ral's suite.
Calm's fingers tightened around the hilt of his knife as he moved.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
aim toppled toward the roof's edge as a line of fire sliced across his lower back. His hands slipped on the wet tiles; his right leg was dead weight beneath him. With a frantic heave, he lurched sideways and saved himself.
A black-robed shape perched on the roofs peak. Amid flashes of lightning, the sorcerer's stoic features emerged, glistening like alabaster under his gaping cowl.
Caim took stock as he watched his enemy through the haze of rain and mist. He was hurt. How bad, he couldn't tell, but every movement sent rippling talons of agony clawing through his body. The twinge in his chest returned, pulsing under his heart, whispering its seductive call into his ears. Just surrender, it said, and the pain will be gone. Part of him wanted to give in. It would be easy to let the power take over.
With a deep breath, Caim pushed himself to his feet.
Sensation returned to his leg as he staggered away from the edge of the roof. His aches faded into the background when a small, almost innocuous knife appeared in the sorcerer's hand. Where did its matte black metal come from? The same metal as his father's sword. The answer was staring him in the face, so simple, and yet the implications reverberated to the core of his being.
"You killed the earl." Caim climbed the roof's sloped pitch. "You killed my friend Mathias. And sixteen years ago, you killed my father. I want to know why."
Levictus rose to his full height like an uncoiling serpent. His voice echoed in the darkness, as cold and forlorn as a tomb. "Before, we were an instrument; we went where bidden, unseen, unheard. To take those who were marked for death. Baron Du'Vartha was one of many."
Baron? His father was nobility? And I never knew. Red-hot anger flooded his thoughts as he brooded over all the things he'd never gotten the chance to know about his parents, but he tamped it down. He had to stay in control.
"Why? Of what value was my father's death to you?"
"Our masters commanded it. We obeyed without knowing the reason, but now we know many things that were mysteries before. About secret dealings. About the heir of House Tenebrae, born of a mortal father and a daughter of Shadow."
"What are-?" Caim swallowed the question before it passed his lips. His mind turned in a dozen different directions. "Daughter of Shadow. You mean my mother?"
The sorcerer took a step toward him, not threatening in itself, but Caim had seen the man move and felt the measure of his strength. Although thin of frame, this foe was more lethal than a dozen thugs like Ral. Something moved in Calm's peripheral vision. Dark shapes gathered in the gloom surrounding the rooftop.
"We considered allowing you to live." The sorcerer produced a second knife from the folds of his robe. "But the Lords of Shadow have demanded your extermination, and we must obey in order to be free."
Caim braced himself, but nothing could have prepared him as a thousand points of darkness swarmed from every direction. The shadows crawled up his boots, latched onto his cloak, and stung him with tiny needle-sharp fangs. He lashed out with his knife, but they came too fast, flowing like quicksilver around his attacks. Pain burst anew from his back, accompanied by the sickening sensation of things trying to wriggle into his wound.
Levictus glided through the mass of his pets, his knives glittering like black jewels in the night. Caim thrust to halt the advance, but the sorcerer shifted without moving and the suete's point met empty air. Caim jerked back just in time as the black knife traced a searing incision down his cheek. Two inches lower and it would have severed his throat. He spun and attacked from a different angle, but his enemy was gone. The shadows vanished as well, but Caim could feel their presence in the dark, stalking him.
He turned in place, all senses tuned for the slightest sign of the sor cerer. His face burned like he had been tagged with a hot iron. The knife dragged in his hand, almost too heavy to lift. He longed to close his eyes, just for a moment, but the sorcerer lurked somewhere in the darkness, watching him, waiting for an opening.
His ears caught a sound, a near-silent whisper of a foot dragging across wet slate, as black metal gleamed out of the corner of his eye. He closed his stance a moment too late. Two lightning-quick cuts left him disarmed and bleeding from fresh wounds across his injured side. Bile filled his mouth as his knife hit the tiles and clattered over the side. Again, Levictus vanished.
Tears of frustration burned in Calm's eyes as he limped in a slow circle. "What did you do with my mother?!" he screamed. "Did you kill her, too?"
A mocking voice floated in the wind. "You know the truth, but you cannot face it. Cannot embrace it, as I have."
"Stop talking in riddles and tell me where she is!"
The wind died down for a moment, making the sorcerer's next words resound like thunder crashing over Calm's head. "She dwells in the peerless realm of her ancestors, beyond the Veil in the Land of Shadow."
The words echoed inside Caim. In his memory he was looking up at his mother, standing on the widow's walk of their family home, her features framed in black tresses like the waters of a tempestuous sea. Her dusky skin glowed in the light of the setting sun as she faced the wild Northlands and the great dark forest beyond his father's demesne. Caim tried to swallow in a mouth gone dry. He hadn't been able to believe it before, but now, like a blind man feeling the surf on his toes for the first time, he couldn't deny it any longer. His mother really was one of the Shadowfolk. His father, a mortal man, had brought her home as his new bride, never guessing the Shadow would come to reclaim its own. He was a half-breed, a freak caught between two worlds, and now he was going to die without the chance to discover what he had lost.
His chest contracted in a painful spasm.
Caim hissed as the breath left his body. Then he caught sight of a dark mass looming in the sky over the palace. He looked up, dreading some new attack, but a familiar voice called to him from the storm-shrouded sky.
"Caim!"
Kit.' Her voice sounded distant, as though she were shouting from the other side of the city.
"Kit, where are you? I need you."
"I'm trapped. He's blocking me."
"What?" Caim glanced up and around. The rounded dome of the palace was topped by a narrow steeple, but the dark cloud hovered above even that.
"Caim… Help!"
She sounded weaker. A gust tickled the nape of his neck and Caim spun around, only to be confronted with a wall of dense shadows. He could feel his death approaching on silent footsteps. "What can I do, Kit?"
But she was gone. Caim ground his teeth together. Just when he needed Kit most, she was beyond his reach. But something she said nipped at his brain. He's blocking me. What did that mean? Was she talking about Levictus? How could he…?
Shadow magic. The sorcerer must have detected Kit's presence and taken steps to separate them. But how could he help her?
Kit's words at the cabin came back to him. The blood calls to its own, Caim. You already possess everything you need.
The blood calls to its own.
The sorcerer appeared out of nowhere. Caim backpedaled across the slippery tiles as the black blades sought his flesh. He evaded their touch with a roll and came up on his feet perilously near to the edge. He was trapped. The rage returned, fiercer than before, burning away his fear. If he was going to die, he would do it as he had lived, on his feet and facing his enemies. As Levictus approached with firm, steady strides, Caim reached up over his shoulder.
An electric shiver ran through him as his fingers closed around the smooth hilt of his father's sword. A vision appeared before his eyes: his father's estate as it had been sixteen years ago. The villa in flames. Glowing embers fluttering into the night sky like a cloud of angry fireflies. Levictus standing over his father. Above the wrappings of long black robes, the sorcerer's pallid features shone in the moonlight. The blade pierced his father's chest and Caim cried out, pain bursting from his insides as if the weapo
n had pierced his flesh instead.
Caim blinked.
He ran through a field of wildflowers in every hue and variety. His parents chased after him, their laughter ringing in the summer air. He glanced over his shoulder, but they had fallen far behind. He could barely see them. Yet their eyes latched onto him from across the distance, watching him, waiting for…
Caim blinked.
He was back on the palace rooftop. The sword shimmered like a shard of black ice in his hand. Water danced along the temper of its razor-keen edges. It felt odd, holding it, and at the same time familiar, like coming home. His father's voice reached across the years.
Justice.
Levictus had stopped half a dozen paces away. The sorcerer stood there with raindrops streaming down the hard planes of his face. Watching. Waiting.
With a grim smile, Caim stepped toward his enemy, and the ache in his chest exploded. Kit appeared as a sensation of weightlessness enveloped him. Joy radiated from her smile like the dawn of the first morning. He had never seen her like this before. Gone was the girlish ingenue. In her place was a woman in full bloom, the woman Caim had always imagined she could be.
She bent down to him, and the darkness flowed along her body like a second skin, but it wasn't entirely black. Murky patterns twisted within the dark. As he reached up, they played along the flesh of his hand and arm like tiny vibrations, and then penetrated his skin, through the muscles and sinews down into his bones. Colors beyond description spun around him, striations of light and shadow cast into physical form.
"Trust yourself," she whispered.
Caim took a deep breath. He knew what had to be done, but could he do it? Could he release the bands of self-control that had held him together for so long? If he let go, would he lose himself? He took another glance over the side. The darkness parted around him like a veil of sheerest gossamer and he saw Josey, clinging to a stone projection. How she fought for life! She wouldn't give up, not as long as a single breath remained within her. Yes. He could do it, for her.