Daughter of Dusk

by Blackburne, Livia

  Santon grabbed her arm and shoved her to the ground. Pain lanced through Kyra’s shoulder as she hit the cobblestones, and she rolled away from him. Before he could come closer, she unfastened her cloak and pulled her tunic over her head, shivering as the icy wind blew through the thin shift she wore underneath. The small voice of restraint inside her whispered one more warning, and she thrust it savagely into a far corner of her mind.

  Santon slowed, staring at Kyra as she stepped out of her boots and onto the frigid ground. For a moment, he was uncertain, his wine-addled mind trying to make sense of her actions. Then his smile took on a different tone. “Well, this is new. Is this how you actually managed to rise through the ranks? Maybe Sir Malikel has better judgment than we gave him credit for.” Douglas and Dalton circled behind her. Kyra’s skin crawled, but still, she didn’t move.

  Footsteps sounded from around the corner. A Red Shield, a guard on patrol, stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes going from Kyra, huddled on the ground in her shift, to the brothers surrounding her.

  “Continue on your rounds,” Santon ordered. “Stay clear of this space for a while.”

  In an all-too-familiar routine, the guard backed away and left. Kyra couldn’t keep the fury from her face as she stared after him. Coward.

  Santon’s lips curled, and he bent down to her level. “Don’t be so naïve,” he said. “And try to smile a little. This is better than you deserve.” He grabbed a fistful of her collar, pulling her face close to his.

  And Kyra let her anger explode.

  T W E L V E

  Santon didn’t seem to realize what was happening at first. He was too close to see her clearly, and his mind was slow from drink. But soon enough the leer on his face turned to confusion, and Kyra could tell by the exclamations behind her that his brothers had noticed something wasn’t right. Santon lost his hold on her as her bones lengthened and her limbs stretched. She pushed him away and kicked off her trousers as her shift began to tear and rip away. Santon hit the ground with a grunt. Kyra climbed to her feet and settled herself onto all fours.

  In hindsight, it had been a mistake to wait until the wallhuggers were so close before changing. If they had been thinking clearly, they could have killed her right then and there. But thankfully the three of them stood paralyzed even as Kyra’s vision took on that newly familiar clarity and her thoughts faded into instinct…and rage.

  “What by the three cities…” Santon whispered.

  Footsteps pounded behind her, growing more distant, and Kyra turned just in time to see Douglass rounding a corner. The sight of him fleeing brought an intense desire to run him down, though she hesitated—the other two were right here. Then Santon and Dalton also turned to flee, and she no longer had to choose between staying or giving chase.

  Santon was laughably slow, hardly a challenge at all. She knocked him off his feet; he rolled and jumped back up with his sword drawn. The blade glinted in the moonlight. Kyra hesitated, and Santon took that opportunity to charge. His sword came down on her shoulder, but it felt like a bludgeon instead of a cut as the edge glanced off her fur. Kyra batted the weapon out of his hand.

  There was a shout behind her, and Kyra turned to see Dalton running at her with his sword raised. This time, she was faster. Kyra sprang to the side as he swung, and bit down on his sword arm. He screamed, and the sound thrilled her. His blood, warm in her mouth, fueled her growing battle fury. She threw him to the ground with a quick jerk of her neck. He was a large man, but she tossed him around as easily as if he were a child.

  Pain exploded in her back leg. Kyra screamed and looked back just as Santon raised his dagger again. She kicked out with her hind legs, catching him squarely in the chest. The dagger clattered to the ground, the clank of metal harsh in her ears. As Santon skidded across the dirt, Kyra felt a wave of disdain. She slashed at him with her claws, opening four ribbons of red along his torso. His cry of pain brought her some satisfaction, and she moved in for the kill. His screams broke off as her jaws closed around his throat. She held on as he struggled, but that didn’t last very long at all, and soon he fell still. It had been too easy, and her blood was still hot. Kyra let go of his throat and tore at the now lifeless body, venting her frustration. Then she remembered there were two more. She raised her head and pricked her ears.

  “Kyra!”

  She heard the words as if from far away. She turned to the sound, teeth bared, but the speaker wasn’t one of the wall­huggers who had attacked her. Kyra recognized Tristam even in the midst of her rage, and he was walking slowly toward her, speaking gently, though she couldn’t quite make sense of the words. She growled deep in her throat. Even if she didn’t want to fight him, he was keeping her from her prey. She turned away, but he said her name again, and his voice pulled at her, calm but insistent.

  He kept talking, his hands held placatingly out in front of him. Kyra backed up as he came closer, puzzled at why he was neither fighting nor running away. Slowly, her blood cooled just enough so that Kyra understood she should change back. She gathered the heat, the feeling of her fur, and pushed it back inside, letting out a sigh as her body melted in on itself. Tristam was ready with her clothes as her skin became smooth and she started to shiver. Her nails were covered with blood.

  “Kyra?” Tristam searched her eyes as if he was afraid he wouldn’t find her there. “Kyra, what happened?”

  She shook her head, trying to focus her eyes. It felt as if all the blood in her skull was pounding to get out. “Lord Agan’s sons. They came upon me while I was leaving.…We fought…I…” She broke off as she took in the destruction around her. Dalton was on the ground, moaning and cradling his arm. Douglass was nowhere to be seen. And on the ground behind her…

  Kyra’s stomach reacted instantly to the sight. She jerked away from Tristam and retched, though there wasn’t much in her stomach. She could sense Tristam behind her, but he didn’t touch her. As her gut stopped spasming, she wiped her mouth and forced herself to look again.

  Santon’s body was barely recognizable as human. The arms and legs were splayed at awkward angles. The face was covered in blood, the neck torn open. Kyra looked away, unable to reconcile her exultant memories, the bloodlust that still echoed in her veins, with the mangled corpse in front of her. She’d done that to Santon. She’d heard his screams and she’d…She couldn’t think it.

  Tristam grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. The fear in his eyes was very, very real. That more than anything brought her mind back.

  “Kyra, listen to me.” He was looking around. Shouts echoed nearby. When he looked back at her, some of the fear was replaced by determination. “You have to go,” he said. “Leave the Palace. Leave the city.”

  Leave the city. Just like that? But they’d had plans in place. When the Palace finally found out, Kyra was going to convince Malikel that she posed no threat. That even though she shared blood with the Demon Riders, she wasn’t a danger.

  A bloodcurdling scream rent the air. It was Dalton. He had turned over onto his side, and his eyes were fixed on Santon’s remains. A dull heaviness weighed down Kyra’s chest. How could she think of convincing anyone that she wasn’t a danger now? Tristam was right. Fleeing was the only choice left to her.

  “What about you?” she asked Tristam.

  “Don’t worry about me. I’ll tell them you ran off.”

  Tristam wasn’t a good liar either. He couldn’t quite look her in the eye, and even with her mind muddled as it was, she knew that he was wrong. Tristam was too closely associated with her. They had to convince the Palace that he’d tried to capture Kyra, or he’d take the fall for her.

  “Fight me,” she said. Even as Tristam was making sense of her words, she reached for her dagger and realized it was somewhere on the ground with her boots. She thought to go back for it, but there was no time. Instead, she tackled him.

  Kyra caught him off guard, and Tristam fell backward as she pummeled at his face. He grunted in pain—her blows landed
harder than she intended. Fight back, you idiot, she thought, even as she struck him again across his cheekbone. That blow split his lip, but her blood still ran hot from the kill, and it was hard to pull back.

  Finally, he started to defend himself, raising his hands to block her. A flurry of blows and stinging parries passed between them, then Tristam caught one of her wrists. When she tried to pull away, he captured the other. For a moment, they were locked together, Kyra quivering with battle rage as she leaned into him, both of them breathing in deep, painful gulps. She saw uncertainty and resolve in his eyes, and Kyra realized she didn’t know when she would see him again.

  “Go, Kyra. Now!”

  When Kyra didn’t react, Tristam set his jaw, curled his legs between them, and kicked her off. He wasn’t gentle. The kick knocked the breath out of her, and she rolled over twice before she came to a stop. Kyra coughed, then slowly pulled herself to her feet. More shouts. Three Red Shields were pointing and running toward them.

  Tristam raised himself to a crouch. One of his eyes was already starting to swell. He launched himself at her again. She dodged him, grabbed her boots, and ran, pushing through the pain in her ribs and her injured leg, hearing his footsteps behind her grow fainter even though she knew he was a faster runner than she. Kyra ducked her head and bent all her energy toward getting away.

  Tristam watched Kyra disappear into the darkness. It wasn’t hard to feign shock as Red Shields swarmed around him. His jaw ached—Kyra had hit him hard. And he was still reeling from the scene around him.

  Red Shields surrounded him and pointed their swords at him. He raised his hands.

  “I’m unarmed,” he said.

  One soldier came closer and patted him down. Tristam winced as the Red Shield hit another spot that Kyra had bruised. She’d been half-wild when she’d changed back into her human shape, more feral than he’d ever seen her. He saw her again, eyes flashing, a hint of a snarl still on her lips. She’d been out for blood, and it scared him more than he cared to admit.

  The Red Shield finished his search and nodded to the others, who lowered their weapons. “You were a witness to this?” asked the soldier.

  “Yes.” Every limb felt heavy. His ribs complained when he drew breath to speak.

  “Come with me, then,” said the Red Shield, leading him back to the scene.

  Santon’s mauled corpse lay on the cobblestones. Dalton screamed incoherently, though Tristam could pick out the words “monster” and “girl.” He slumped down and rubbed his jaw again, waiting for his mind to clear.

  A crowd was gathering now, mostly nobles and guards, though a few brave servants also stopped to stare. A soldier knelt next to Dalton and called for bandages. Nobody came close to Santon’s body.

  “Make way.” The crowd parted, and Tristam’s heart skipped a beat as Malikel strode through. The Defense Minister took a long look at Santon, and then at Dalton and Tristam. “What happened?”

  “A monster,” croaked Dalton, his voice hoarse. “The girl changed into a demon cat.” He sounded delirious in his pain, and for a moment Tristam wondered if he could still cover this up. But no, there had been a third brother who’d run.

  “What’s he talking about?” Malikel directed his question at Tristam.

  “There was a demon cat in the Palace, sir,” he said. “I was outside my quarters when I heard screams. I came running and saw it attacking these two and their brother.” Actually, he hadn’t simply been outside his quarters. He’d run out after Kyra, unwilling to let the conversation end the way it had, when he’d stumbled upon that scene.

  “And what is he saying about the girl?”

  This was it, then. Tristam sent a silent apology to Kyra. “It was Kyra, sir. She…she’s a Demon Rider. I saw her change back into her human form after the attack.”

  Malikel’s face clouded over, though he didn’t look as surprised as Tristam would have expected. “You saw this with your own eyes?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Tristam.

  “And you had no idea of this. No suspicions.”

  Tristam hesitated. It was bad enough to lie to any commander, but this was Malikel.

  “You knew nothing of this, Tristam. It caught you by surprise,” continued the Defense Minister.

  Only then did he notice the way his commander looked at him, and a subtlety in Malikel’s inflection, as if he was telling Tristam something rather than asking. “Yes, sir,” he said hesitantly. He thought he caught a glimpse of approval in Malikel’s eyes. “I tried to stop her from escaping, but I couldn’t.”

  The crowd’s energy shifted again, and a new voice spoke. “A Demon Rider attack in the Palace? Do I hear this correctly?” Tristam felt the color drain from his face as Malikel squared his shoulders. The people gathered around parted for Willem.

  “You heard correctly, Willem,” Malikel said.

  Willem gave a passing glance to Dalton, who was only semiconscious. “What do I hear about Kyra of Forge being one of the Demon Riders?”

  “That is what the witnesses claim,” said Malikel. The Defense Minister stood with his feet braced and back straight. He’s preparing to take a fall, thought Tristam. There’s no good outcome for Malikel here.

  “We had one of our enemies in our midst the entire time, working for the Ministry of Defense?” The Head Councilman spoke more loudly than he needed to, and the look in his eyes was one of a bird of prey who had spotted a rabbit. “This is grave news indeed,” he said. “A very bad mistake for someone in your position, Malikel. I’m very sorry, but this will have implications.”

  The Head Councilman’s eyes, however, glinted in a way that didn’t look sorry at all.

  Someone must have raised the alarm, because the air filled with shouts and the loud rhythms of booted feet. Kyra’s leg throbbed where Santon had cut it. It had stopped bleeding, but her trousers kept sticking to the wound. She didn’t dare slow down. It would only get harder to escape.

  She ran on instinct, too shocked to think out a coherent escape route, relying only on her reflexes to find her the safest way. She kept to the ledges as much as she could to avoid the Red Shields swarming the footpaths. When she had to travel on the ground, she darted from shadow to shadow, more than once diving into a corner to avoid being seen.

  Finally, she scrambled up the Palace wall and flung herself over the top. Once on the other side, she ran into a sheltered alleyway. It was as safe a place as any to catch her breath, and she took in gulp after gulp of icy air.

  She’d killed again.

  Kyra could still see Santon’s body on the ground, the angle of his ravaged neck. The memory kept shifting. It was as if she saw the body through two sets of eyes, one that looked upon it with relish and the other with horror. The emotions didn’t mix well, and she fought the sickening churn of her stomach. The first time she killed a man, when she’d slit a man’s throat in a failed Assassins Guild raid, that had been an accident. But this…

  A shadow crossed the alley’s entrance, and Kyra froze. It wasn’t a Red Shield. Just a man, and he continued right on down the street without stopping. But the shock reminded her of her danger. The Palace knew where she lived. There would be Red Shields at her door within a few hours—if not Red Shields, then an angry mob, and Idalee and Lettie were at home. A fresh wave of panic jolted through her. What had she done? The mob wouldn’t differentiate between Kyra and her family. She had to warn them. Kyra set off again with renewed speed, keeping to alleyways and rooftops since she couldn’t blend in with the evening crowds when her clothing was in tatters and her face smeared with blood.

  Kyra burst into her quarters to find Lettie, Idalee, and Flick playing a dice game. Flick looked up with a smile, only to have the smile freeze on his face.

  Kyra froze as well, staring at the three of them with wide eyes. “We have to leave,” she said. “Now. Take everything.”

  The three of them gaped at her.

  “Now!” Kyra said again, louder this time. She could hear the tinge of
hysteria in her voice. Giving up on them, she ran over to her chest and started pulling things out. She threw her spare clothes onto the ground and fished out a coil of rope.

  “Kyra, wait.” Flick crossed the room and took her by the arm. She let him turn her around, and he bent so their eyes were level. “What’s going on?”

  She was shaking. Even with the pressure of Flick’s hands on her shoulders, the tremors came through. She swallowed. “Santon of Agan is dead,” she said finally.

  “What happened?”

  “He—I—” Kyra couldn’t say it. “Not now, please. We have to go. The Red Shields will be here any minute.” She took a deep breath. “They know what I am. I changed.”

  Flick’s grip on her went slack. “People saw?”

  She nodded.

  Flick looked down at her scattered belongings with new understanding. “I need to go get my things.” The readiness with which he accepted this only served to intensify her guilt. If he’d yelled at her for blowing her cover and uprooting them all, she might have found the energy to defend herself. But perhaps it was better this way. They had no time to squabble.

  “Meet us at the spot by the south wall,” Kyra said.

  After Flick left, Kyra washed the blood off her face and changed into clean clothes. When she turned around, she saw Idalee watching her with a stricken expression.

  “Idalee,” Kyra said uncertainly. “We need to pack quickly.”

  The girl looked to be in a daze, but she moved to her own chest and started pulling out belongings with her non-splinted arm. Once Kyra was done with her own bags, she gathered Lettie’s clothes. She also jumped to retrieve a stash of emergency coins that she’d hidden in a hollowed-out roof beam. Then she rushed them all out the door.