He smiled a true smile, grim and malevolent. “Bellamont happened,” he said.
Unable to resist, Lenora smiled slightly. “Unfortunate,” she murmured, sipping from her glass.
Viccole sat up against the cushions, eyes bright and feral. “It has been months since you’ve visited me in the night, Lenora. What do you want now? There is no more king to kill.”
Her smile held, widened even; the expression felt fixed and hard. “The leash you hold on Cleric Rinaldo is slackening,” she said. “Eight youths have gone missing from the Alley.”
“A shame,” Viccole said softly.
“An avoidable shame,” Lenora snapped. “I will not have it in my domain.”
Viccole shrugged. “What am I to do? Rinaldo is valuable to me. I do not see the problem in allowing him his appetites.” His voice lowered, became dangerously mild, “I do not see why you should mind, either, Mistress di Salvatoré.”
Lenora rose, leaving her glass on the low table between them. “You will stop him, Viccole, or I will stop him myself.”
The High Cleric straightened, his sudden fury palpable on her tongue. “How dare you, a common whore, tell me what to do?”
She turned near the door, eyes half-lidded and glinting. “If you have a care for your own health, cleric, you would do well to heed my words. Or have you forgotten the many times I’ve poured your drinks?”
A flash of comprehension, followed by fear, entered his eyes. Involuntarily, he glanced at the glass in his hand. Then his expression relaxed, arrogance returning. “You wouldn’t,” he said softly, lips curling in a sneer. “Not while our causes align.”
She smiled slightly. “Who is to say they align any longer?” she asked, voice a silken whisper. “Good evening, your Eminence.”
“Lenora!”
She paused, halfway through the door, and looked back. Knowing, as he did, that she had won this round. Viccole nodded once, and she bent her head in return. “Good evening,” she said again, and departed.
Following the private, concealed route from the High Cleric’s chambers to the city, Lenora fought the impulse to quicken her steps. Instead she walked slowly, shoulders straight and head held high. She passed Church Soldiers, who upon recognizing her, choked down their catcalls and backed swiftly away. Through silent residential streets, windows shuttered against what evil prowled the night, she walked, unhurried, until finally the scent and sense of Thieves Alley closed around her.
Allowing herself a quiet sigh, she entered the most notorious tavern in the city, the Pirate’s Den, and signaled Marius for a glass of her preferred vintage. Cool and crisp and rose, the wine had a taste like memory and a color for lost love. She sat at her usual table and stripped satin gloves from her fingers.
Marius procured her drink and left her alone.
Several minutes later, Astin appeared on the landing leading to their apartments. He met her gaze, and only she, who knew him so well, could see the relief on his face. He joined her at her table, settling gracefully in his chair, eyes keen and steady. She was reminded with a tug of nostalgia that when they were children she’d called him Stalker, in remembrance of her first pet, a giant and sleek black cat.
Knowing her as well as she knew him, Astin waited for her to finish her wine to speak. Then he asked, “What says the Tyrant?”
She set the glass gently on the table. “It is well he was never trained in the power he wields, brother, or I do not think we would be sitting here now.”
Astin blinked slowly, his hazel eyes still reminding her, after all these years, of a predatory feline. “Perhaps we ought not delay longer,” he said meaningfully.
Lenora waved a hand, both for caution and dismissal. “It is not time,” she said, gaze lazily roaming the near empty tavern. A lone man sat in a booth near the entrance, hat slung low as he cradled a hot mug.
“The enchantress—”
“Be silent,” she snapped. “I say again, it is not time.”
There was slow, deliberate movement from the booth as the man sitting there straightened and lifted his hat, revealing a face swathed in veils. Only his eyes were visible. He stood slowly and met Lenora’s pointed gaze. For a moment, stars danced at the edges of her vision, then she remembered to breathe. It was sheer pain, that first breath, like dragging ice into her lungs.
She would have recognized him anywhere, despite the inhuman fluidity of his movement, the total lack of his being. Anywhere on the peninsula, she would have recognized her heart’s memory.
“Lenora di Salvatoré,” he said, sketching a mocking bow. “It has been many years. Your beauty shines as the southern sun, radiant and warming.”
“Great Gods,” she whispered.
Across from her, Astin was relaxed in his chair, fingers playing idly with the knife at his belt. Uncertainty radiated from him as he glanced between the stranger and his sister.
“I daresay you won’t need that, Stalker,” said the man, moving toward the light of a nearby torch.
Astin’s hand paused, eyes narrowing. “Who are you, to call me that name?” he demanded.
The man lifted his head and spread the folds of his cloak back from his arms. His torso and hips were laden with shining knives. Around his crystalline blue eyes were sketched whirling tattoos, black and sharp like the weapons he carried, like the heart of man himself.
“You would not recognize the dearest friend of your youth?” he asked softly.
All at once Astin leapt from his chair, swift and lethal. But Devlin al’Ven was faster, impossibly fast, and in moments Astin’s knife clanked to the floor and he was on his back on the filthy ground, a foot poised over his throat. His laughter rang loud and long against the tavern’s walls.
And Lenora, watching the men embrace a moment later, felt something in her chest that had been hollow for so long shiver and begin to ache.
Chapter Seventeen
It was a summer many years past, one year to the day before Lenora was to turn sixteen and visit the enchantress’ eyrie. She had awoken early to set about her chores, for the days were warm and glistening, and the cool blue waters of the South Sea hung like a promise in her young heart.
If her mother noticed her haste—the streaks not quite gone from the windows, the tiles of the kitchen floor left dangerously wet—she kept her peace that day, remembering herself at her daughter’s age, and the touch of the sea and sun on her body. By midday Lenora was gone, stealing out her bedroom window while her mother pretended ignorance, singing to herself a clear, wistful melody as she hung out laundry to dry in the warm breezes.
The air was humid, intoxicating, and the sun on Lenora’s head and shoulders felt like a benediction from the God. As she walked through a field of high grass, she gazed at the world around her through eyes attuned to innocence and beauty. She hummed her mother’s song as she memorized the clear, glittering sky, the playfully spiraling birds and whisperings of the meadow.
When she saw the great tree on its low rise of land, the high, sloping branches hung heavy with leaves and vines, she shouted with joy and began to run. Her long, coltish legs carried her to the side of the giant landmark, and as she passed, the wind lifted vines toward her, reaching out as if to catch her hand.
At the summit of the hill she stopped, breath catching, eyes wide and bright as they gazed down at her favorite cove. The waters were pale turquoise, sparkling with invitation. Far out, past the steep fingers of land that guarded and calmed the cove, the ocean was deeply blue, capped white by the wind.
If she had turned in that moment, or been standing just a little nearer to the tree, she would have seen or felt the vines that sought her. Instead, with a soft cry, she ran down the steep, grassy hillside and onto the warm golden sands. Her clothes formed a characteristic trail across the beach. Shoes, then blouse, and finally the long skirts, layer by layer, whose bright colors would beckon to th
e one who would soon stand where she had stood, by the tree, and gaze down at the cove.
She hit the water at a run and was submerged, swimming, before her body had the chance to be shocked by the transition. When she surfaced and turned to look back at the beach, she could barely see the tree, and saw not at all the young man who stood beside it.
She floated lazily for some time, letting the mild tide carry her parallel to the shore. Behind her closed eyelids the sunlight was rosy gold; her ears, beneath the water, absorbed the deep, wordless music of the ocean. When, finally, the sun on her exposed breasts began to sting, she opened her eyes and sunk beneath the water. With several powerful kicks she surfaced again and began to swim toward the beach.
The sand brushed her feet and she stood, smoothing her hair off her forehead.
“Lenora.”
She froze at the sound of her name, heart beating hard against her ribs. It was not the voice that alarmed her, for it was a familiar one, but the tone, so full of need and wonder. Sinking quickly into what concealment the clear waters offered, she blinked wide eyes at her brother’s best friend.
Devlin was sitting beside the last of her underskirts, the fingers of one hand resting against the soft, ivory folds. His pale linen blouse was unbuttoned, his trousers rolled up to the knees. Tanned skin and black hair, and his eyes… Oh, Gods, but his eyes were as blue as the sky.
“Astin expected you back tomorrow,” she said weakly. “He is in town, with father, if you were looking for him.”
His eyes, so unerringly direct, closed briefly. “I came straight here from the eyrie. To where I knew you would be.”
“Whatever for?” she breathed.
The question rippled in the silence that followed, in the answer in his eyes. The water, strangely warmer and thicker, seemed to move within Lenora’s body, leaving her tingling and weak. She opened her mouth and closed it again, frowning. Her hands moved of their own accord to cover her breasts. The gesture, diffident and unconscious, caused the blue of Devlin’s eyes to darken.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she gasped.
He shook his head. “No,” he said, voice low and hoarse. “But I cannot leave now.”
He moved as if to stand, and she shrieked, “Don’t you dare, Devlin al’Ven!” She gathered her legs beneath her and kicked off from the sand, body slicing the water as she put distance between them. He did stand then, walking into the shallows.
“I just want to talk to you, Lenora. Please.”
She shook her head, furious now. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but I want nothing of it! Find one of the girls in the town to play with.”
His brow furrowed with anger, shoulders bunching. “If you will not come back, then I will yell for all the world to hear,” he cried. “I am to leave tonight, with no goodbyes, and travel the width of this peninsula. To the north and then east, Lenora! I am bound for the desert of Dunak!”
She stopped kicking, sunk low for a stunned beat, then turned her body back to shore. Overwhelmed by the words, the bright day, the aching shifts in her heart and body, she swam until there was only a thin barrier of water between them. He stood now up to his waist in the water, the ends of his blouse floating on the calm surface.
His face, which had been in her dreams for three summers now, was a mask of anguish.
“Why now?” she cried, unaware of the tears on her cheeks.
“The enchantress spoke,” he said, soft and pained. “She dreamed my destiny, and told me of it. I will be a veiled-one, and will not set foot in Tanalon for another sixteen years.”
Lenora was undone by his words, which landed like a mallet on her chest. “No!” she screamed, and launched herself at him, nails scoring his shoulders, feet kicking, until he subdued her with his arms, holding her close and tight with his lips against her neck.
She wept against his chest, the skin sun-warmed and smooth beneath her cheek. And when he lifted her face and kissed her, she was emptied of everything but sensation, and a longing as vast as the ocean. He drew her from the water, sipping of her tears and salty skin, and pulled her down onto the soft folds of her white skirt.
He did not say he loved her, but it was alright. There was pain, but only for a moment and not again. What came after was a memory too sweet, too pure, perhaps, for her heart to hold.
Lenora tried, frequently in the beginning, then less and less as the years went by, to summon that memory and bring it close. And now, sixteen years later, it came back, as bright and sudden as that summer day, in a dingy tavern room.
*
“Lenora.”
She blinked, looking up into clear blue eyes. Astin was also looking at her, a little strangely, and remembering herself, she gathered her scattered wits and stood. If her heart trembled, it did not show. She offered their guest her famous smile, mild and unkind.
Devlin, who until that moment had wanted nothing more than to pull her into his arms, felt his conviction falter. He wished suddenly for the concealment of his veil, which he’d removed at Astin’s request. He wished even more so that he could see something, anything, of the Lenora he had known in this strange, sensuous woman. There was nothing of the brightness, the joy in life, she had once possessed. Here was a woman without emotion, cold and hard, with eyes full of darkness and a mouth to stir the most pious soul to sin.
He became aware of Astin standing stiff beside him, clearly uncertain of what dark, unspoken thing had entered the room. “Lenora,” he said gruffly, “you do remember Devlin, don’t you?”
“Of course I do,” she said, smile widening, but false all the same. “Welcome back from the desert.” She looked at her brother. “I am retiring for the night. Please offer our old friend the full hospitality of Thieves Alley.”
With a rustle of silk she turned for the stairs leading to the second level. There was a strange, quiet hum in her ears as she climbed the stairs, made her way down the dim hallway. Upon entering her room, she dismissed Alian with a short word. The girl bobbed a quick curtsy and fled, back to her nearby hostel room, where she would speak nothing of the tears she had glimpsed on the Dark Mistress’ face that night.
Lenora was still awake when, as the sky began to lighten with dawn, two sets of footsteps passed her room. Some time later, she heard the creak of a floorboard outside her door. She did not move from her chair by the window, not until she knew he had gone away again.
Only then did she kneel on the floor before the window. Her fingers hovered a moment, then reached down, gently prying up the false board. In the shadowed interior of the compartment lay not jewels or gold, but a small, nondescript package, which she removed and placed on her knees. With jerky movements not at all characteristic of her usual grace, she unfixed the knot of thin, coarse rope and lifted the edges of weathered paper.
For a long time she merely stared at the scrap of aged ivory linen, and the small, faded spots that were the blood of her innocence. Then she carefully rewrapped it and placed it back within the floor. The board fell into place with a soft click, loud as a scream to her ears.
Chapter Eighteen
Astin di Salvatoré watched his sister disappear up the flight of creaking stairs, and thought of how brave and elegant she was in all she did. He was not disillusioned by the way she carried herself, the coldness of her eyes, the careful speech and movement. Beneath the guise of the Mistress of Thieves Alley, she was as she had always been, his little sister.
They had walked a hard, long road together over the last decade and a half, and Astin felt nothing but pride and love when he thought of Lenora. For her road had been harder by far than his.
“She has changed a great deal,” Devlin said.
Astin nodded, turning, and looked at his friend’s face in the candlelight. Just as Lenora, the man before him echoed very little of the youth he had been. He stood so still, not blinking, as though all human impulse a
nd passion had been defeated. The thin black whorls fanning out from his eyes gave him an alien appearance, as though he were not a man, truly, but a vehicle of some greater cause. He thought of Lenora, and how strangely similar his sister and friend had become, despite their vastly different lives.
“So have you,” he said, smiling slightly. “Come, have a seat and I’ll pour us wine. We have much to talk about.”
Devlin did not smile, though his eyes warmed as he nodded. He sat in the chair Lenora had vacated, carefully thinking of nothing until Astin returned from behind the bar and sat. He uncorked a green bottle and poured the fragrant liquid into waiting glasses.
“It is my sister’s favorite, from Valta,” Astin said, offering Devlin a glass. Unaccustomed to causal speech, he merely nodded and sipped the wine. It was rose in color and the aftertaste was dry, though there was sweetness in its first touch, a hint of something pure and rare.
Astin was watching him. Not knowing what he should say, or whether anything needed to be said at all, Devlin nodded again. His friend leaned back, drawing hands through hair which was white at the temples though he was only older than Devlin by a year.
“The road has been hard, yes?” he asked at last.
Astin nodded, sighing with a swift glance toward the stairs. “How was the desert?”
Devlin sipped his wine. “Hot.”
For a moment Astin stared, dumbfounded, until he saw the twinkle in Devlin’s eyes. He chuckled softly. “So it really is you.”
Devlin smiled softly, and his gaze grew longsighted, staring into the past. “There were times in the desert, my friend, when I forgot where I came from. I forgot the enchantress’ words, that I would find destiny in the sands of Dunak.”
“Is that what she said to you?” Astin asked, and there was an old hurt in his words.
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