Carnival of Souls cos-1

by Melissa Marr

  If anyone could pull off miracles though, it was her. She had been one of his biggest threats in the past year. He’d watched her eliminate fighters who should’ve gutted her. She was savvy in ways that he didn’t understand, and at the same time, she was dispassionate as she slit throats and took kill trophies. Breeding seemed like such a small thing for her to allow it to stand in the way of the future of wealth, comfort, and safety.

  For him, being safe enough to have a large family was a goal. The desire to create a pack was innate for some curs, but Kaleb hadn’t ever felt it until he found Zevi.

  At the thought of his sole packmate, Kaleb looked at the lightening sky and realized that Zevi was still out somewhere. He should’ve been back by now. This close to morning, the only real action was at the Night Market — which wasn’t somewhere Kaleb liked Zevi to go alone.

  He pulled a jacket on and winced as one of the knives inside it bounced against his ribs. When even small actions made him hurt, he really had no business fighting Sol, but there were plenty of threats at the market that he could still handle just fine.

  AYA WAS UNSURPRISED TO find Sol following Zevi through the market. If she hadn’t seen how fast the cur could move, she’d be more alarmed, but she suspected that Zevi was far more capable than Kaleb seemed to believe. The bigger surprise was that no one had attempted to injure Zevi yet. Or maybe there had been attempts and Zevi resolved them. It wouldn’t be wise to underestimate Kaleb’s packmate, but it also wouldn’t be advisable to ignore the dangers to him. She needed to keep Zevi safe.

  “Aya? For you.” A young girl slipped a folded note to her and then vanished back into the shadows.

  The urge to read the message vied with the need to protect Zevi. If Zevi died, Kaleb would be useless. He was likely to suspect her of treachery as well.

  Aya saw movement out of the corner of her eye and stepped to the side — just in time to see Kaleb lunge at her.

  He caught her arm, but with the quick reaction that had served her well in the fight circles, Aya extracted herself from his grasp.

  “Why are you following Z?” Kaleb started.

  Aya shoved him toward the doorway of a stall and whispered, “I’m trying to keep watch on him.”

  Kaleb pushed her away from him with a growl.

  Aya caught his arm and tugged him farther into the stall. “Sol is out there. Stay.”

  One of the brokers approached and bowed. The movement didn’t quite hide the avarice in his eyes. “We have special rates for fighters.”

  “I’ll be right back.” Aya shoved Kaleb onto a mound of pillows and stepped outside. She glanced at the note that she had crumpled in her hand and read: Ready. ~E.

  Aya dropped the note into a fire and scanned the immediate area. The flickering lights of the Night Market cast dancing shadows, but Aya had spent enough time here that she knew where to look for the street scabs who wandered those shadows. None of her usual resources were lurking nearby, but a scab she’d used a few times for small jobs looked up. Better still, the girl was a cur.

  Aya beckoned her closer. “You know Zevi?”

  “Kaleb’s Zevi?” the cur clarified. “Sure. He went—”

  “Find him.” Aya pulled out a handful of coins. “I need him kept safe and brought to me here. Now. Hire help if you need. I’ll pay fair price.”

  The cur nodded once, whistled some sort of pattern that brought three more scabs running toward her, and then the four scabs all took off into the market. That issue resolved, Aya returned to the pleasure stall. She’d have preferred to save her coin and keep Zevi safe herself, but Kaleb was more of an issue at the moment. They didn’t need him approaching Sol and revealing the extent of his injuries.

  Back inside, Kaleb gave her a look of relief, but before he said anything, Aya held out a blank marker to the vendor. “We’re expecting a cur to join us. Aside from him, no one disturbs us.”

  The vendor started, “We have several packages to enhance your enjoyment of the pleasure quarters. The rate for fighters—”

  “I’m not interested in bartering. Private room. Another cur will join us. Let me know when our third party arrives.” Aya grabbed Kaleb’s hand and led him to one of the rooms. Inside, she took a handful of salt and chalk and closed the privacy circle. Once that was done, she released Kaleb’s hand and said, “If I intended to kill Zevi, I would’ve done it before I sought you out.”

  Kaleb shook his head. “So if it was more advantageous, you’d kill Zevi.”

  Aya resisted the urge to smack Kaleb, but he wasn’t Belias. Striking Kaleb wouldn’t be a harmless act; it would have repercussions — and not the sort she liked. “I needed to come to the market, and while I was here, I’ve been watching Zevi so Sol didn’t hurt him.”

  Apparently willing to believe her, Kaleb nodded. “Were you here to kill Sol?”

  “If I do, we waste an opportunity. When you fight him and win after you were so severely injured, it will make you look invincible.”

  “Right now, I doubt I would win,” he interjected.

  “I told you: I’m going to change that.” Aya opened a pouch and filled it with the chalk she’d just used to close the circle. “I’m going to make it so you are able to eliminate him.”

  Kaleb opened his mouth to speak, but a red ripple went through the circle around them before he did so.

  Aya shoved her boot-clad foot across the circle, lowering it and revealing a tense-looking Zevi. The vendor stood beside him with a grin that Aya would have loved to knock off his face. Instead, she gave him her most disdainful look and directed, “I don’t want to be disturbed. Raise a locked circle, and then close the stall for the rest of the night.”

  “The rate for a circle like that and closing the rest of the stall—”

  “Did I ask rates?” Without looking, she reached out for Zevi’s hand and pulled him into the room. All the while she stared at the vendor. “Go home early, or enjoy the market.”

  “The wall will stay intact until the Night Market ends.” The vendor raised a locked circle, bowed hastily, and then fled.

  Once he was gone, Aya turned to face the two curs. “You can trust me.”

  Kaleb looked at her warily, but Zevi shrugged and crawled into a silk-and-velvet basket that was suspended from the ceiling. He curled up and watched her. “Are you buying us?”

  “No,” Kaleb snarled.

  “It’s probably for the best.” Zevi swayed so the basket began to swing slightly back and forth. “Kaleb was stabbed pretty high up too, so I’m not sure if he would be of any use.” He paused and glanced at Kaleb. “If she did buy us, could you—”

  “Z, stop,” Kaleb snapped.

  Aya shook her head. “I’m not buying you, either of you. You will stay here and rest. It’s safe, warm, comfortable, and clean. There’s food and drink.”

  “And what are you going to do?” Kaleb asked. “You reserved a pleasure stall so we could all sleep? I have a home. So do you. Explain.”

  No one in The City knew what she was about to reveal to the two curs staring at her. It was the secret underlying her choice to enter the competition, to refuse to wed Belias, to struggle not to have children. If Zevi and Kaleb were untrustworthy, she would die. It was that simple. Every choice she’d made the past two years had been to protect the secret she had to now reveal.

  She looked at Kaleb and asked softly, “Are we partners, Kaleb?”

  “We blood-oathed,” Kaleb said.

  She tucked the pouch of chalk into her pocket. “I would rather not show you this, but I can’t see any way around it.”

  At that, Aya stepped through the circle as if it weren’t there. The circle didn’t waver or fall. The room was still securely sealed. The circle was — to their eyes — an impenetrable barrier. From outside the circle, she watched their mutual expressions of shock. It was with no small relief that she saw that they didn’t look horrified or frightened.

  Zevi leaped out of the basket.

  Aya stepped ba
ck across the still-intact circle.

  “Daimons can’t… you shouldn’t…” He turned to Kaleb and announced in an awed voice, “She’s not all daimon.”

  Kaleb said nothing. He hadn’t moved either; he stared at her with an expressionless face. She tore her gaze away from him as Zevi came to stand as close as he could get without touching her. “Can I smell you?”

  “Not everywhere,” Aya cautioned him.

  He, at least, was not disturbed by what she was. Zevi already had his nose on her throat before she finished her answer. He sniffed her everywhere but her crotch and buttocks. All the while, Aya stood motionless, watching Kaleb watch them.

  “She smells fine,” Zevi announced.

  “Which is how she’s avoided exposure.” Kaleb didn’t stand. “Your father wasn’t your blood father.”

  Aya gave him a tight smile. “Neither of my parents is blood. The witch who placed me with my parents had spelled them to think I was their own, and to tell me the truth when I was old enough. They had no idea.”

  “But you couldn’t hide it if you married,” Kaleb said, pointing out the truth she wished she could’ve told Belias.

  It hurt, hearing it said so bluntly. She’d agonized over telling Belias, but he — like many ruling-caste daimons, including her parents — hated witches. They didn’t even sanction marriage out of their caste, much less out of species. She forced herself to sound as calm as she could, and said, “I’m not suited to marriage anyhow, but yes, I learned that it would be dangerous to breed. A child couldn’t hide this — and I have no way of suppressing another’s magic as my birth mother did mine.”

  “So you murdered your betrothed? Was that because he knew?”

  Her temper flared, and the temptation to show Kaleb how easily she could kill flared with it. Instead, she said, “I won my match. I did not murder my former betrothed. There is a difference.”

  “Not to Belias,” Kaleb pointed out.

  Aya did not tell him he was wrong, that Belias was alive. There were few lives she’d put before her safety, but Belias was one of them. She knew it was stupid, dangerous in ways she didn’t want to consider, but she couldn’t kill Belias. He won’t escape. He won’t return and expose me. She wasn’t sure anyone but her would understand how much she loved Belias. He certainly wouldn’t, and it wasn’t Kaleb’s business. Rather than address that topic, she merely shook her head. “I could have killed Bel or a lot of others without touching if I needed to, but I didn’t. I didn’t use the fight to kill him, and I didn’t use magic to win my fights. With one exception, I fought with the same resources as every other daimon in the competition.”

  “So is that the plan? You’re going to use witchery to heal me or something?” Kaleb asked.

  “Yes, but to do so I need to take the health from someone else. I need you in a circle while I do the next step. I was going to come to the cave, but this will work fine. Rest or whatever. I’ll be back before the circle drops.”

  And then Aya left them in the pleasure stall and went to get the supplies she needed to even the match with Sol.

  CHAPTER 18

  BELIAS LOOKED UP, EXPECTING to see the witch who held him in her summoning circle. Instead, he saw his former betrothed. Aya had come for him.

  “Hurry before she gets back,” Belias urged. “I don’t know how you got here… or how I got here but—” His words died as the witch came in the door behind her, carrying a tray of tea and sandwiches.

  “I trust you can handle… everything. I’ve brought food,” the witch said.

  “Thank you,” Aya said softly. She took the tray and stood silently for a moment until the witch departed. Once they were alone, Aya asked, “Will you promise not to hurt me in any way if I bring you food? She said you won’t eat.”

  “How do I know it’s safe?”

  “You have my vow, Bel.”

  He watched her warily. He had no intention of hurting her, not without knowing if she was trapped somehow too, but he wasn’t going to stand here and let her re-erect the circle. Once she dropped it to give him the food, he’d be at the door. A flash of guilt came over him at the thought of leaving her there. He stepped to the edge of the circle. “Are you a prisoner here too?”

  “No,” she admitted. “I came to see you.”

  “You knew I was here?” He’d thought he’d had his fill of betrayal when she poisoned him, but he felt the flare of renewed despair when she admitted that she’d known where he was. “You knew this whole time and you’re just now… Why?”

  Her hands tightened on the tray she held. “Do you, Belias, vow not to harm or attempt to trap me?”

  “I do.” He waited for her to add something about trying to escape, but she didn’t. He had already studied the room, and aside from the ritual knife on the edge of the witch’s desk, he saw nothing worth grabbing as a weapon.

  Instead of lowering the circle, Aya caught and held Belias’ gaze as she stepped into the circle as if it wasn’t there. The look in her eyes wasn’t one he’d often seen there. Fear. He backed away, and the fear in her eyes was replaced by her regular unreadable expression. She put the tray on the floor and left the circle with as little effort as she’d used to enter it.

  Belias put his hand up, pressing on it, testing the barrier as he had done so often since he’d woken up in it. “You stepped through a containment circle. You’re…” His words faded as he couldn’t speak the terrible truth.

  “A witch,” she finished for him. “I’m a witch, Bel.”

  Fresh disgust settled on him as the pieces fell into place. She had not poisoned him; she’d sold him to a witch. She was a witch. Belias dropped to the floor, trapped inside the circle where Aya had sent him. He stared at her. “I wanted to spend my life with you. I offered you everything I have. I entered the competition and have killed because of you.”

  “I know.” Aya’s expression was as unreadable as he’d ever seen it. She stayed still, spine straight and shoulders back. Her hands were held loosely at her sides, and he had the thought that she should be holding a weapon. It reminded him of the fights they’d had in the ring and in the sparring centers. The difference was that he was defenseless this time.

  He stared up at her, the witch he’d thought he loved, and couldn’t understand how he could’ve been so wrong. “You took everything from me.”

  “Not your life. I spared your life.” She gestured at the sandwiches beside him. “Eat, please. You’ll get ill if you don’t.”

  “Why does that matter?” He turned his gaze to her. “You’re not intending to let me return to The City, are you? This is it. Either the witch kills me or keeps me here.”

  “This world isn’t that bad, Bel. Evelyn says—”

  “Get out.” He slammed his fists against the circle. “Get out of my sight.”

  The usually stoic Aya flinched. “I couldn’t kill you,” she whispered.

  When he said nothing, she continued in a steadier voice, “There are very few things I wouldn’t do to have a future. If I breed, they’ll know what I am.”

  “So this was your solution? Take away my future, my home?”

  “You didn’t leave me a lot of choices,” she said. “You bribed them so you could fight me. I know because I’ve been bribing them not to match us. You trapped me. I couldn’t forfeit, and I couldn’t kill you. So I had Evelyn summon you here.”

  Her eyes flared witch-gold for the first time he’d ever seen, and on some level, he realized that she was letting down a wall. After years of trying to get her to share herself, to trust him, she chose now to do so.

  “Don’t do this to me, Aya,” he pleaded. “We can figure out a plan that—”

  “It’s not her decision,” Evelyn’s voice interrupted from behind him.

  He glanced over his shoulder to see the witch leaning in the doorway watching him. Instinctively, he started to move so that Aya was behind him, putting his body between the two witches, and immediately felt the fool. Aya was far more suited to d
efend herself against Evelyn than he could ever be.

  Evelyn walked past the circle to her desk. She paused beside Aya and handed her a sachet. “This will do what you need.”

  “Thank you.” Aya closed her hand around the sachet. She walked to the circle and lifted her other hand as if she would touch him. She didn’t reach inside the circle though. “For the first time, I am afraid to touch you. I’ve listened, Bel: I know what you think of witches.”

  “If you weren’t a witch, would you have broken our engagement?” It was a foolish question. She was a witch, and that was unchangeable, but he still wanted to know. “Was this the only reason?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t know that, but I don’t think so. I don’t want children. I want…”

  “Power,” Evelyn finished. She sat at her desk, hands folded together as if in prayer, appearance as stern as it had been every day he’d been trapped here, but that harsh demeanor softened ever so slightly as she watched them. “Aya wants to bend the world to her will. It is a consequence of what she is. Some witches are more driven than others, but it is always there. It is why the Witches’ Council exists — we simply can’t see our way clear to allowing things to be out of order when we have the skills, the knowledge, and the strength to correct aberrations of order.”

  Belias watched Aya’s expressions as the witch spoke. She didn’t speak to disagree with anything Evelyn said. The daimon he’d loved wasn’t real. It was just an act to disguise her true self.

  How could I have thought I loved a witch?

  “I would rather you had killed me,” he said quietly.

  Evelyn’s sigh was his only answer. “Enough of this. Aya, you’ve had your audience with the daimon. Now, I need privacy.”

  The witch lifted her hand with as little effort as one used to brush away an insect, and the circle became silent. Belias could no longer hear anything but the sound of his own breathing. Then, everything outside the circle became darker as he watched, until his entire world had been reduced to the few feet around him.