She closed her eyes.
He held her close. “You’ll do fine. You’re a natural.”
“A natural what?” she asked.
“A killer. I’ve known people who were better swords-men, but they didn’t have that thing inside that let them kill. They hesitated, they thought about it, and I killed them. You have it. You’re good and you’re fast. I’ll be there to keep you safe.”
“I don’t want to be a killer, William.”
“You don’t get to pick.”
She pulled away from him. He didn’t want to let her go, but he did.
Cerise hugged herself. “On the wall to your left.”
He turned. Two photographs waited at eye level. The first showed three men standing close. The middle one was Peva Sheerile. He had one arm around an adolescent kid with the face of a spoiled child and the other around a tall blond man with mournful gray eyes.
“The Sheeriles. That’s who we’re killing tomorrow.” Cerise sounded bitter.
He looked at the second photo and stopped. Cerise and Lagar danced silhouetted against a bonfire.
She was dancing with her enemy.
Why?
Was he better than me? Did she like him?
Did she want to dance with him again?
“Did you think of him while we were dancing?”
“What?”
He wanted to rip Lagar’s head off his shoulders. Instead he turned and went down the stairs.
CERISE watched him leave. The door closed and she slumped into her chair. So there he was, Lord Wolf. He might have been a bear, for all she knew, but somehow wolf just suited him better. He was predatory, fast, and cunning. And made ninety-degree turns that made her head spin. One moment they were dancing, the next he took off snarling under his breath.
She looked at Lagar on the wall. William didn’t understand the pictures. Lagar would, though. He would know exactly why she kept him on the wall. It was a snapshot of what might have been but could never be.
Cerise sighed and drank the wine from her glass. If things were different, if their families hadn’t been in a feud, if Kaitlin, Lagar’s mother, wasn’t a raging ball of hate, if Lagar was his own man, he would’ve courted her. She was sure of it. She’d seen it in his eyes that night by the fire, that look of desperate, hopeless longing. If things were different, she might have accepted his courtship. He would’ve been a good match: handsome, smart, with the strong magic of an old Legion family, and enough money to make sure she would never need to hustle again. She didn’t love him, but who knew, maybe if things were different, she might have given him a chance.
That snapshot on the wall showed Lagar’s wistful thinking for all to see. Her grandparents’ picture showed hers.
She’d wanted so much to have been born out of the Mire. The swamp had its savage beauty, but it was no place to live. No place to build a family and raise children. Half of the people her age couldn’t read and didn’t want to learn, which was the sadder still. But everyone from the age of twelve and up could fire a crossbow and wouldn’t hesitate to shoot a person with it. There was no hope in the Mire. No way to improve their lot. Even Lagar, with all of his money, still dragged the same mud on his boots.
She thought of her grandmother, standing delicately behind her husband and sighed. She didn’t want to be Grandmother Vienna. She didn’t want wealth. She could live her whole life without wearing a single gold ring, and it wouldn’t make a bit of difference. She just wanted to know that there was light at the end of the tunnel. That they could send Lark to a school, a real school with actual teachers, and to someone, a therapist, a doctor, who could help her, because the family didn’t know how. That they could earn enough to clothe and feed everyone without resorting to stealing. That they wouldn’t have to look over their shoulders, knowing any minute they might have to fight with another family like two rats snapping at each other in the muck. That they could live somewhere else, not in a place where her parents got kidnapped and nobody did anything about it.
Cerise shook her head. If they were slowly crawling out of the mud, she could live with it. But they were sinking deeper and deeper. Her children wouldn’t know her grandfather, and her grandchildren, if she were to have any, wouldn’t even know he existed. All his knowledge would be lost. Already she was forgetting things, and the books didn’t help, because half of the time she was too tired to read them.
It was wrong. Cerise clenched her teeth. The whole point of working so hard was so her children and their children would be better off than she was. But they wouldn’t. They would be worse. The more time passed, the more exiles Louisiana stuffed into the swamp, the more vicious it would become.
No matter how hard she tried, no matter how hard the family worked, they made no progress. They just slid backward into the swamp, and all she had as a consolation were useless dreams of “what if” filled with pathetic self-pity.
And then there was William. She should’ve known that nothing in life came without a catch. He was everything she could ever want in a man: smart, strong, funny, handsome, a hell of a fighter … and he turned into a monster. Gods damn it.
She picked up the book she had been reading before William came in. The Nature of the Beast. It was an old text from Louisiana. She knew it was biased, but it was her best resource at the moment. She’d taken it out of the library a few months ago to read to Lark, to try to convince her that there were real monsters out there and she wasn’t one of them. It’s not that she didn’t trust Aunt Murid, but since Uncle High was involved, her aunt wasn’t exactly objective.
She wouldn’t have guessed that her uncle Hugh was a changeling. Would’ve sworn on her life he wasn’t. So not all the stories were true. Yes, her uncle was a murderer, but it wasn’t out of bounds for the Mire.
Maybe William was a wolf like Uncle Hugh. They were supposed to be noble creatures … She set the glass down. What was she thinking? He’s a murdering beast but that’s okay, because he is a noble murdering beast?
Poor William. She’d gotten a shock to the system, but it was nothing compared to what he got. Here he was, hunting his enemy. He met a girl in the swamp that made his head spin. And then he realized that the girl came with a clan of insane relatives, an eighty-year feud, and a horde of the Hand’s agents. That was a hell of a price tag. Being related to Kaldar alone would make most men run for their life.
Cerise toyed with her glass. William was hers. The way he looked at her, the way he held her while they danced, told her that better than any words. When she’d seen him come up those stairs, her heart had sped up, and it wasn’t because she was scared he’d rip her to pieces. She wanted him. But want alone wasn’t enough, because he was trouble. Aunt Murid was right—when William loved, he would love absolutely, but when he became jealous or angry, he would be uncontrollable. Life with him would never be dull. It wouldn’t be easy either.
She had to decide yes or no. To let him love her or to cut him loose.
All of this was useless speculation, she decided. In the morning they would attack the Sheeriles, and she had no guarantee she would make it out of that fight alive.
WILLIAM burst onto the balcony. She had a picture of another man on the wall.
He swung onto the rail and crouched there staring into the swamp. He needed a fight. A long exhausting brawl.
“What are you doing on the rail, child?”
He whipped around.
Grandmother Az stood next to him, smiling. “It’s not good to stare too long at the Mire. It might look back.” She reached over and patted his hand with her tiny wrinkled one. “Come on down off that rail. Come now.”
Snapping at sweet old ladies was beyond him, no matter how mad he’d gotten. William jumped off the rail.
“That’s it,” she told him. “Come, help an old woman to a chair.”
He followed her around the corner, to where the balcony widened and three wicker chairs sat facing the Mire. William held the chair out for her. Grandma Az sat. “S
uch a well-mannered child you are. Come sit with me.”
William sat. Everything about the old woman was soothing, but he didn’t trust her any more than he trusted the rest of them. She knew what he was, too, and kept it to herself. The question was, why?
Grandmother Az reached to a narrow wicker table on the side and picked up an old leather photo album. She flipped it open. “Look right here.”
A tall man stood next to a young woman. The man was dark-haired and lean, the woman looked like Cerise, but her features were harsher.
“This is me and my husband. Henri was a good man. I loved him.” Her eyes sparkled. “My father didn’t like him. My father was a great swordsman. In the old way.”
“Like Cerise?”
“Like Cerise. Do you know of the old way, William?”
“No.” The more information he got, the better.
“I’ll tell you. Once the New Continent of the Weird was filled with people. They built a great empire.”
That he’d heard before. In the Broken, the Europeans settled the Americas, killing the native tribes. In the Weird, the history had been almost completely turned around. The tlatoke had built a great kingdom, fueled by the magic born in the forest and jungle, and they had raided the Eastern Continent for years until they built a world-destroying weapon, which predictably destroyed them. When the Easterners finally scraped enough courage together to cross the ocean and make landfall, they found an empty north continent and a huge wall that sealed off the southern landmass.
“They called their kingdom the Empire of the Sun Serpent,” Grandmother Az continued. “They were great warriors, with a long tradition and great skill in magic. Their magic was their undoing. They brought about their own destruction and had to flee. Some of them fled here, into the Edge, and here they remained, secure in the swamps for centuries to come. That’s where we take our root. We keep their arts of sword and magic alive.”
“So that’s what Cerise does?”
The old woman nodded with a serene smile. “The path of the lightning blade. Very old art. Very hard to learn.” She picked up a small letter opener from a narrow side table and raised it straight up. A thin streak of brilliant white dashed down the blade.
Damn it all to hell.
Grandmother Az smiled. “Who did you think taught her?”
“Her father.”
“Spoken like a man.”
The old woman turned the blade sideways, and the flash danced across her fingers. “She was a good student for me. This art takes much practice and discipline. You have to be chosen from childhood, the way Cerise was. You have to give yourself to it and practice and practice and practice. Long hours every day. When you work that hard, you start thinking that you should be rewarded for your efforts, so when you decide you want something, you fight tooth and claw to get it.”
She had some sort of purpose for this conversation, but for the life of him, William couldn’t figure out what it was.
“My father was a great swordsman. I told you that. My husband …” Grandmother Az moved her wizened hand from side to side.
“Not so much?” William guessed.
“No.” The old woman smiled. “He was from the Broken, from a place called France. Very handsome. Very valiant. But not that good with his sword. My father didn’t want me to marry him, so he told Henri they had to fight.”
“Did Henri win?”
She shook her head. “No. But when my father put his blade against Henri’s heart, I put mine against my father’s throat. I told him that I only lived once and I wanted to be happy. Do you understand what I am saying to you, child?”
“No.”
“That’s all right. You will. Think on it.”
He had no idea what she was talking about. “Tell me about the monster.”
Her face fell. “Stay away from him. He is a terrible thing. Terrible, terrible thing.”
“Who is he? Why is he here?”
“He senses trouble. It will all be over soon. Things are coming to an end.”
William hid a growl. She would tell him nothing.
“What happened to Lark?”
Grandmother Az shook her head, that same serene smile plastered on her face. William exhaled frustration.
“Tell me about Lagar Sheerile.”
“He is handsome. Rich. Strong in the old way.”
Great. “He can stretch his flash on his sword like Cerise?”
“Our feud is old, child. Do you think the Sheeriles would’ve lasted this long if they didn’t hold on to the Old Way?” The old woman heaved a heavy sigh. “But there is trouble in Lagar’s house. Good blood has gone to bad. The tradition will die soon.”
“What do you mean?”
“Kaitlin.” She spat the word like it was a poisonous fruit. “She came from a good family. We were friends once, back then, before she married the Sheerile. Her father was a hard man. Once her mother passed away, he never remarried. Kaitlin was his only child, his legacy. He had an iron grip on her, and nothing, not even his death, could break it.”
She flicked her hand in disgust. “Kaitlin’s done the same to her children. She drives them, steers them at every turn, like they are horses pulling her carriage.” The old woman snorted. “Lagar … He had promise, that one, but she killed it, smothered his will with hers. Kaitlin doesn’t understand—a swordsman must be free to carve his own path in the world, however long it takes him. Her husband understood.”
Her voice turned bitter. “Such good blood. They’ve stood against us for four generations and survived. And she spoiled it all, the old half-wit. Not even her magic will save her now.”
A vicious blaze flashed in the old woman’s eyes. Her fingers curled into claws. Her lips wrinkled, baring her teeth, and a specter of magic, dark and frightening, flared behind her. Alarm shot through William.
Grandmother Az stared through him, raised her chin high, her eyes afire. Her voice rolled, deep, frightening. “Gone will be Kaitlin, gone will be her children and her house. We’ll purge the memory of the Sheeriles from the world. Ten years from now nobody will recall their name, but we will still be here, watching trees grow from the ground watered with the Sheerile blood we spilled.”
William struggled to draw a breath. All around him the air hung thick with the odorous stillness peculiar to the swamp, fecund, violent, and primal. Rotting mud, the pungent scents of night flowers, the stench of wet dogs from the kennel …
A door bumped to the left, and a woman’s laughter, incongruously normal, sounded through the house.
The savage fury died in Grandmother Az’s eyes, and she patted his hand gently, her face wrinkled by a smile. “Well, look at me, rambling on and on, showing my age. Time to go to bed, I think.”
She rose. “I have a favor to ask of you. I need to borrow Urow’s youngest from you for tomorrow.”
“You can have him, if you don’t put him in harm’s way.”
Grandmother Az’s face split in a smile. “Silly child. He’s my own grandson. I wouldn’t harm my family.” She turned and went inside.
William slumped in the chair.
Insane woman.
Insane family.
And he was mad to think he could lure Cerise away from them. They would never let her go.
Lark climbed over the balcony rail and sat in one of the chairs. Her hair was filthy again.
“Are you going to chase me off to bed?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“I can’t sleep.” Lark gathered her knees to her. “I’m scared about tomorrow. Do you think Cerise will die?”
William crossed his arms. “Anything is possible, but no, I think she will live. I’ll be there and I’ll do my best to keep her safe.”
They looked at each other.
“What do you know about Tobias?” he asked. Maybe she would answer his questions. Nobody else would.
“It was a long time ago,” Lark said. “Like three years or more. I don’t know very much. Him and Cerise were
engaged. He was very nice. And pretty.”
Figured. “Why did he leave?”
“I don’t remember it very well.” She frowned. “I think Mom was doing my hair. And Grandma was there. Then Cerise came. She was really upset about some sort of money missing. I think she thought Tobias took it. And then Mom told her to keep calm and not do something she would regret for the rest of her life and that sometimes you had to let things go and give the person another chance. And Grandma said that in the Legion times death was not an improper punishment for stealing from the family. Cerise got this really crazy look on her face. And then Mom said that the Legion times were long over. And Grandma said that that was exactly what was wrong with the Mire, and if it wasn’t for the exiles, it would still be a proper place and that Cerise knew what had to be done. And then Cerise took off, and Mom sent me out because her and Grandma needed to have an adult conversation. I didn’t see Tobias after that.”
A hell of a story. “Do you think she killed him?” William asked.
Lark bit her lip. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. Cerise gets really calm before she kills somebody. Icy. I think she was too mad that time.”
They sat together and looked at the moon for a while.
Lark turned to him. “I’m coming to fight tomorrow. For my mom.”
William wanted to tell her that she was too small, but he’d seen his first fight by her age. “Watch yourself and don’t do anything stupid.”
“I won’t,” she told him.
TWENTY-ONE
CERISE raised her head and squinted at the morning sky. It was a beautiful, intense shade of turquoise that promised a gorgeous day. Except today, the family rode out to kill and die, and she was at the head of the column.
Behind her two dozen Mars rode on horseback. She had already sent the kids out to scout the road ahead. She’d glanced over her shoulder. Everyone was here. Richard, Kaldar, Erian, Aunt Murid, Uncle Ben … Her gaze snagged on William riding at the edge of the column on the left, next to Adriana. He scowled at her. Yes, yes, I see you scowling, Lord Bill the Jealous.
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