The Unbound Empire

by Melissa Caruso

  A great rumbling shook the ground beneath our feet, jarring up through our legs. Zaira swore. I stumbled, my feet jerked out from under me; Lucia reached to steady me, but staggered. I caught myself on the cobbles with stinging palms as the rumbling grew to a terrifying, rolling crash, like thunder that didn’t end. A cloud of dust blew over us on a sudden wind.

  I scrambled to my feet with Lucia’s help and turned to stare, horror rising like bile in my throat.

  Brick and stone tumbled down in a cascading torrent of rubble. The great gates lay smashed into kindling, buried in a pile of wreckage; pebbles and bricks skittered across the plaza before coming to rest. The fountain we’d stood beside was smashed to pieces, the trunk of the statue sticking up akilter from the rubble. Screams and sobs lifted in the fog and dust that choked the air.

  “Oh, Hells,” Domenic moaned, bringing his hands to his mouth. “There’ve got to be people trapped under there. We have to help them.” He started unhesitatingly toward the shattered wall, even as shards of brick continued to clatter down the unstable pile. Zaira and I exchanged wide-eyed glances.

  “Your Grace…” Lucia began.

  A handful of figures came bounding over the ruins, black cloaks flowing behind them, bricks cracking and tumbling under their feet. Even through the fog, I could tell they moved too fast, their limbs bending in not-quite-right ways, their eyes catching the light like a cat’s or gleaming in the wrong places.

  Holy Hells. Chimeras.

  They spotted Domenic’s bright white-and-gold doublet and headed directly for him.

  “Exsolvo!” I cried, even as Zaira grabbed Domenic by the belt and jerked him to a halt.

  Lucia stepped in front of me, drawing her daggers. Several Ardentine soldiers threw themselves between us and the chimeras, blocking Zaira’s clear line on them. She hissed with frustration. A shot split the air, then another, and puffs of smoke rose from the soldiers’ muskets to merge with the fog.

  If they hit, the chimeras didn’t much care. They tore into the guards like cats onto mice. I recoiled, my stomach turning at the splashes of scarlet and the anguished screams. No. Not this again. Please.

  Domenic cried out in anger and drew his rapier, but Zaira hadn’t let go of his belt.

  “Don’t be an idiot! It’s you they’re after,” she shouted. “Don’t give Ruven what he wants!”

  He gave in to her tugging. We ran from the plaza, a few soldiers rallying to us as we fled to guard our rear. Lucia’s face had gone pale as cream; whether she’d seen death before or not, this had to be her first experience with chimeras. But she kept her daggers out and ready and ran with graceful efficiency, her mouth in a grim line.

  “What kind of duke am I, if I’m fleeing when my people need me?” Domenic demanded on ragged breaths, bitter anguish twisting his face.

  “A live one,” Zaira replied roughly. “You can’t help anyone if you’re dead.”

  The fog muffled everything in shades of gray, making it impossible to see more than fifty feet in front of us; I struggled to recognize the hazy buildings looming around us with darkened windows and night-doused lights. A shape lurched out of the fog, and one of the soldiers almost shot at it before realizing it was an old woman.

  “Careful,” Domenic warned, as she ducked away, eyes wide.

  But then another cloaked shape formed out of the fog, and the nearest soldier hesitated just long enough for it to lunge in like a striking snake and rip her throat out with inch-long claws.

  I couldn’t stifle a shriek. The young soldier gurgled horribly, her throat a red gaping ruin, and tumbled to the ground as the chimera moved to the next one. The guard got off a clean shot to its chest, but it didn’t matter; it knocked her to the ground and pulled back a claw to deliver a fatal blow.

  The fog lit up blue. Zaira stood with one hand extended, pale flames fluttering on her fingertips like leaves in the wind, as the entire top half of the chimera burst into fire.

  It fell off the downed soldier, writhing, emitting a terrible screeching sound; a tail lashed the paving stones, flailing free from under its cloak. Everyone scrambled away from it except Zaira, who stood staring at the creature impassively as it burned.

  “Grace of Mercy,” Lucia whispered, her wide eyes reflecting bright blue sparks of balefire.

  I watched Zaira’s face, tense, waiting for her expression to go remote as a statue and the leaping flames to spread out of control. But only the chimera glowed with the wicked blue light, until in a matter of mere seconds the screaming stopped and the writhing stilled. The sickening scent of burned meat clung to the misty air.

  The flames winked out, as if they’d never been. A charred and twisted thing lay on the cobbles, all blackened bones and ashes. Zaira turned her back on it, jaw tight. “Come on.”

  Domenic stared at her in awe. The two remaining soldiers gave her a certain space as we started forward again.

  I was mustering the calm to compliment her on her control when one of our guards stumbled, choking.

  Everything seemed to slow down. As I turned, far too slowly, panic rising up in me like an indrawn breath, a dark cloak whipped past my face. Lucia slashed at it, her knife catching nothing. Then the last remaining soldier fell against me, knocking me into Domenic.

  A wet warmth soaked my coat as I grappled with the loose weight slumping on me, a scream building and building in the back of my throat. Dead. The two soldiers were both dead, or dying, in the space of a few rapid beats of my terrified heart.

  An inhuman face loomed before mine, slick white with gaping black eyes like a skull. I couldn’t move quickly enough, still grappling with the body in my arms. It was too close, and I was going to die.

  Something metallic clinked on the ground. And then the chimera staggered sideways, blood flowing from its mouth, as Lucia pulled her daggers from its chest and kicked it aside.

  Domenic and Zaira stepped up beside me, the former with his sword out and the latter with her hands raised and threateningly empty, as the dead soldier slid down out of my grasp to lie in his blood in the street. I gripped my flare locket and drew my dagger, pulse shooting through my veins like lightning. The four of us fell into a loose arc facing the wounded chimera and a second one that emerged, its joints making insectile clicks, from a mist-shrouded alley.

  But something was wrong. A faint ruddy light teased my eyes from below, and my balance felt off.

  I glanced down and found an artifice circle glowing on the ground around my feet.

  How the Hells did that happen? But a rune-marked ring lay on the cobbles beside my shoe, similar to the ones Istrella had made for me.

  “My lady?” Lucia asked sharply.

  I tried lifting my feet, but they wouldn’t budge. “I’m trapped,” I said, my voice coming out thin and uneven. Despite the fear trembling in my legs as the chimeras circled us, my mind couldn’t stop working. Ruven shouldn’t have artifice rings like that. Certainly not enough of them to equip random chimeras, anyway.

  “Then we’ll have to protect you until it wears off,” Lucia said, raising her bloody daggers in a guard position. Zaira’s fingertips kindled. Domenic pointed his rapier at the chest of the unwounded chimera; it hissed, forked tongue flicking, and drew a sword of its own to face him.

  Then the wounded chimera moved, so quickly I could have blinked and missed it. Domenic seemed ready for its attack, and slashed a deep cut across its skull-like face with his off-hand dagger. But it still closed with him in a swirl of black cloak and darted out again, blood dripping down its face. Domenic’s rapier clattered to the ground; he clutched a bleeding thigh, crying out in pain.

  The chimera lunged at him again, bloody claws slashing; I closed my eyes and flipped open my flare locket, pushing it at the creature with enough panicked force that the chain dug sharply into my neck. An intense flash reddened my eyelids, and the chimeras hissed in protest.

  I opened my eyes to find them staggering back, clutching at their inhuman black orbs. Domenic and Luc
ia blinked fiercely, blinded; but Zaira, who knew me well, lowered a protective arm from her face. Her dark eyes gleamed clear and sharp as a spark of fire kindled in them.

  Balefire furled out from her fingers like a snapping blue sail, catching both chimeras. They shrieked as flames enfolded them, alien faces stretching in agony. I winced away from the searing heat and the scent of burning flesh. Graces help them, they’d been human once, and I could still hear traces of it in their voices.

  Zaira made a slicing motion, and the flames winked out, the harsh blue light gone from the foggy air. It had been enough; the chimeras collapsed, smoke rising from their fire-ravaged bodies. Her breath came quickly, as if she’d been running, and her eyes were strained around the edges, but she stood poised and ready to do it again.

  But no more chimeras appeared. Silence fell, save for our uneven breathing and the distant cries of distress still coming from the gate. The fog closed around us in a smothering cloud.

  I didn’t dare admit the barest spring tendril of relief. I licked dry lips, staring around in the deep gray twilight at the looming shadows of buildings and the damp gleam of cobblestones, surrounded by bodies and the scent of burning. Too many of Ruven’s chimeras had already found us; they had to be tracking and targeting Domenic specifically, which meant more would come.

  Domenic still clutched his bloody leg, making no move to pick up his sword. “I think,” he said, his voice alarmingly vague, “I think I feel a bit strange.”

  He fell to one knee, listing like a broken ship. Zaira swore and dropped to his side. “Let me see that leg.”

  I strained against the circle that held me locked to the bloody street. “Grace of Mercy. Its claws could be venomous.”

  Zaira’s breath hissed through her teeth. “Oh, that is not a good color. What do I do, Cornaro? Suck this demon’s piss out of the wound?”

  “No! Don’t touch it.” I tried to pull my foot from my boot, but it wouldn’t budge; the magical force ran through the soles of my feet and up my legs. “Zaira, Lucia, quickly! My satchel is back in my bedroom at the Serene Envoy’s palace. I have a vial of Ferroli’s Tincture of Purity in there—it’s bright blue and smells of lemons. It’ll cure him. Just don’t give him my elixir by mistake, and hurry! Go!”

  “Right,” Zaira said, and hauled Domenic to his feet, pulling his arm over her shoulder.

  Lucia, however, shook her head. “I can’t leave you, my lady.”

  “This should fade in a few minutes.” I waved a frustrated hand at the circle around my feet. Zaira wasn’t waiting, thank goodness, moving off as quickly as Domenic could limp. “It doesn’t have a good power source. I can catch up; Domenic’s the one they’re after.”

  “We can catch up,” Lucia said firmly. “It’s my duty to stay by your side in a dangerous situation like this. Lady Zaira, protect His Grace! We’ll come after you in a minute.”

  “Got him,” Zaira confirmed, already fading into the fog. “Don’t die, Cornaro.”

  “Grace of Luck be with you!” I called.

  Then I was alone with Lucia and a handful of bodies in the gray predawn light. The buildings around us were mostly workshops, their windows black and empty; the street lay cold and deserted as a dream from which the sleeper has awakened, fog softening the angles of the brick and plaster walls around us. My heart began to slow down at last as eerie silence fell over the city.

  Lucia let out a trembling breath. “That was a lot different than the bodyguarding I did as an apprentice,” she admitted.

  “More chimeras?” I asked sympathetically.

  “More everything.” She rolled her shoulders uncomfortably. “I stopped an assassin, once. He had a knife, like a sensible Raverran. Nobody trained me for—”

  A gunshot called sharp echoes from the walls, and Lucia staggered.

  “Lucia!” I screamed.

  She seized my arm, but there was no strength in her grip. “My lady,” she wheezed, blood bubbling on her lips. “Get… down…”

  She sagged to the ground beside the dead soldier, her knives clattering on the cobbles. Blood stained the edges of a small round hole in her coat, over her chest.

  I dropped to my knees beside her, barely aware that for me to do so the binding circle must have faded. She dragged in desperate, shallow breaths, her eyes glassy and distant. Graces help me, she was dying, and I didn’t have my satchel, and it came crashing down on me like the crumbling north wall that I wasn’t a physician and had absolutely no idea what to do.

  Boots sounded on stone behind me, hard and slow and echoing. And then a sleek, cultured voice, awful in its familiarity.

  “Now, that’s much better. I do wish to talk privately, after all.”

  I rose and turned, covered in other people’s blood, to face him.

  A tall shape emerged from the fog, stepping into the gradually warming light of dawn. His high-collared black coat swirled around his ankles, and his blond ponytail hung over one shoulder. The mage mark gleamed violet in his narrowed eyes.

  “Ruven,” I growled. “I don’t have time to talk to you right now.”

  “Because of your friend?” He glanced at Lucia and laughed. “She has life in her yet. She’ll last through our little chat, I promise.”

  I lifted a hand to my flare locket. “Why should I talk to you, after you shot my aide?” I forced confidence into my voice. I couldn’t show any sign of the frost that spread in lacy crystals through my veins. Ruven was like a vicious dog; if he scented fear, he would attack without mercy.

  Ruven’s smile broadened. “Why, because I’ll only guarantee her survival for as long as we talk. And because when last we met, we never finished our negotiation.”

  He beckoned toward an alley behind him, without looking.

  From it stepped another figure, blurred by the mist. But I would know that shape anywhere. The broad shoulders, the wavy dark hair, the rapier and pistol slung at his side.

  Marcello.

  He stopped behind Ruven, his head hanging, shoulders hunched, clearly struggling to disobey. Fury swelled in my chest until I felt as if I could unleash balefire myself.

  “If you think I’ll do your bidding because you shoot and poison my friends—”

  “Ah, but I never poisoned Captain Verdi.” Ruven spread pale fingers on his chest, all innocence.

  “What did you do to him, then?” I demanded, taking a step forward, my hands squeezing into fists.

  “Do you wish to know?” Ruven asked, smile broadening.

  Of course I did. But my throat locked against the words with sudden dread at the terrible glee in Ruven’s eyes.

  “Show her, Captain Verdi,” Ruven said softly, his eyes never leaving mine. “Don’t be shy. Come closer, and let her see.”

  Dragging as if he struggled against iron chains, Marcello took one step forward, then another.

  I didn’t want to see, after all. I didn’t want to know. But I couldn’t help staring anyway, paralyzed with dread, as he advanced toward me, the fog thinning between us.

  The growing light picked out the bloodstains that still marked the uniform he’d been wearing when he murdered the doge. One hand clenched his belt, white-knuckled; the other still held the smoking pistol with which he’d shot Lucia. Droplets of mist glimmered in his raven-black hair.

  “Look at her,” Ruven whispered, his voice a razor’s caress.

  Marcello lifted his face to me.

  One eye was the same as always, green and human and harrowed with pain. The other blazed orange, with a slit pupil like a lizard’s. Silvery scales surrounded it, covering half his brow and continuing in a sweeping path down his cheek and neck before disappearing into his uniform collar.

  No. Oh, Marcello, no. His name turned to dust in my throat.

  Ruven had turned him into a chimera.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Despite the crushing pressure in my chest that drove the breath from me, no trembling shook my legs. The fury that flooded me like hot magma rising in a volcan
o’s heart held me up.

  “You…” Words were my primary weapon, but my quiver was empty. No one had created words to express what I needed to say. I stepped forward, not sure if I was advancing to seize Marcello away from him or to attempt to strangle Ruven with my bare hands.

  “I’m sorry.” Marcello turned his face away, hiding the inhuman side.

  “You have nothing to be sorry about.” I wanted to touch his cheek, to let him know I meant it, but there was no gentleness in me right now.

  “Didn’t he turn out beautifully?” Ruven surveyed Marcello proudly. “He’s my first attempt at crafting a chimera without being physically present. Well, without more than a tiny piece of me being present, at least.”

  A tiny piece of me. My stomach twisted as memories connected in a horrifying cascade: Ruven pulling his bloody hand back from Marcello’s broken collarbone on the Night of Masks. Marcello claiming he could feel bone shards grating in his shoulder on the boat ride to the Mews. The waves of swarming pain Marcello had attributed to his healing potions. “You left a fragment of your own bone in his shoulder,” I realized with horror. “So you could use your magic on him from afar.”

  “See, this is why I admire you so, Lady Amalia! It took me weeks to come up with the idea, but you understand it immediately.” Ruven beamed at me, as if I were a clever student. “A finger bone, in fact, which I regrew at once. I wasn’t certain it would work; even a Witch Lord can’t reshape a creature on such a fundamental level without, shall we say, a certain personal touch, requiring us to be physically present. But it was quite effective!” Marcello squeezed his eyes shut as if in pain; Ruven laughed. “But making a chimera takes time, so I had to change him slowly, piece by piece. The subtle things first, to avoid tipping my hand: strength, speed, resilience. I left his personality alone and didn’t attempt to give him any commands, so you wouldn’t realize what was happening. Your pet here was already halfway a chimera for days before I took control of him, and you didn’t even notice.”