Bloodbound

by F. Wesley Schneider

  Her? We’d come all the way from Caliphas for her? This spinster who had more in common with a dried turnip than an adventurer? I’d been assured that this journey wasn’t just about stopping in on Trice’s wet nurse, but now that I was here, I wasn’t entirely sure. The very idea of my people’s deadliest fugitive wanting anything to do with this woman seemed beyond ludicrous. That I had let myself be at all curious—that I’d at all hoped …

  I didn’t leave my responsibilities undone. I crossed the room just far enough to drop the packet on the tea table.

  “Please let that be a death threat,” came a drowsy sigh as I turned away. “Anything but another tawdry manuscript.”

  I drew myself up and turned. “It’s from Doctor Trice of Caliphas.”

  She gave a bored glare, her eyes mere slits over her glasses. “Oh. That’s so much less interesting than more of the countess’s amateur poetry.”

  I didn’t understand and stood silent.

  One of her eyebrows rose archly, tightening lines across her face. She beckoned with her fingertips. “Well, give it here, child.”

  Ignoring her sharp tone, I circled in front of the fire and handed her the packet. She took it, but before she did, something slid into her sleeve. What did she have, a knife? I almost laughed.

  She ran a bony finger from one corner to the other and slid the contents onto her lap, ignoring the folded letter and flipping open the folio. For a long moment she stared at the record’s first page. She offered the remainder no more than a quick glance before closing the cover. With a jerk of her wrist she sent it sailing to land squarely atop the logs smoldering in the fire. Curious flames batted at the document’s corners, then set to swift work consuming every page.

  “Good riddance to that.” She looked up at me. “Anything else?”

  “Only that.” I nodded to the letter left ignored on her lap.

  “I thought it’d be rude to burn your venture-captain’s note in front of you—it looks like you’ve had some trouble getting it here.”

  She might have just meant my stained clothes, or the fact that I’d broken into her home, but the swelling beneath my upper lip seemed suddenly conspicuous.

  “I’m not one of Trice’s grave robbers, so I don’t much care what you do with it. Delivering the doctor’s letter was only a courtesy.”

  “You broke into my home as a courtesy?” She made a bemused squeak. “Should I start expecting this from all proper ladies? How will they keep from wrinkling their gowns climbing over the eaves?”

  I left her chuckling behind me.

  It wasn’t until I was at the door that she called after. “If you’re not a Pathfinder, why did Beaurigmand send you with his letter?”

  I didn’t pause, passing into the hall where painted eyes and hollow sockets asked the same question.

  “He thinks I’m your daughter.”

  26

  CONDOLENCES

  JADAIN

  It’s lighter than I expected.” Rarentz, Miss Kindler’s gardener, gave Tashan’s bronze sword a few lifts. They were on the porch, but I could hear them plainly through Miss Kindler’s parlor window.

  “It used to be heavier,” Tashan said, “back when the blade was full. It shattered not long after I arrived in Caliphas and no one knew how to repair it in the traditional fashion.”

  “What, was it longer?” Rarentz had turned out to be quite an affable gentleman—after Miss Kindler shouted for him to put his crossbow away and let us inside.

  “Yes, much. It had a curve like this.” Tashan made some gesture I couldn’t see.

  “Huh. Like a sickle.”

  “Similar. We call it a khopesh.” His voice turned wistful. “My parents gave it to me when I left Wati. It was my grandmother’s, the one she used while serving as one of our pharaoh’s Risen Guard.”

  He’d never told me that. Of course, I suppose that even after traveling together for over two week, I never asked much about his home. Now it seemed like a missed opportunity.

  “That’s quite a title.” Rarentz sounded honestly impressed.

  “It’s a great honor.”

  A respectful beat passed between them.

  “You just can’t trust city metalsmiths,” Rarentz said. “All they know is jewelry and how to sculpt angels onto bedposts. If you’re planning on being around for a while, there’s a smith named Foxthal who lives in Silversheaf—it’s just outside the city, not an hour away. He’s done good work for my family in the past. I’d bet he could reshape the blade there any way you like.” The gardener interrupted himself with a surprised grunt. “I bet we could even find a proper picture of a—of your sword in Miss Kindler’s library.”

  “Really? That would be a true blessing. Thank you.”

  Boys and their swords. I shook away a smile and turned my attention back to the business inside. The scrap of robe I’d been using as an eye patch slipped for the thousandth time. I retied it tighter, more than aware that it was the cause of a dull headache.

  When I looked up with my good left eye, Miss Kindler had just shuffled back into the room where we sat. She focused on pouring water from a kettle into a porcelain tea set. Wingless dragons and herons circled the delicate cups, each inked in blue as faint as the veins on a princess’s wrist. She’d forgone the convenience of her library’s wheeled chair to serve us here in her parlor, despite our insistence against the bother.

  Soon two cups were steaming on the low table, one within reach of my place on the sofa, the other just in front of Larsa, who leaned from a faded floral chair. She wrinkled her nose and sat back, looking no less ready to leave. The swelling along her lip didn’t look any better.

  Miss Kindler lowered herself into the chair next to Larsa, bringing her own cup to the table without the slightest clatter. She sipped deeply, picking up Doctor Trice’s letter from the table and rereading it.

  “You saw my sister after the attack on her home,” the old woman said without looking up, her voice level.

  Larsa nodded.

  “How is she?”

  “She’s unharmed and resting safely,” I said when Larsa didn’t answer. “Doctor Trice is ensuring she receives the best care.”

  Miss Kindler’s eyes lifted from the letter. She knew Havenguard wasn’t just any hospice.

  I relented. “She was obviously confused. She mistook Larsa for you.”

  “It threw her into a panic,” Larsa added.

  “I can see why.”

  “It wasn’t just the trauma playing tricks on Lady Thorenly,” I said mildly, meeting Larsa’s darkening look.

  “No, I shouldn’t think so. I can see how our resemblance could have startled poor Ellishan. Especially,” she nodded at Larsa, “if those gaps in your smile are fresh.”

  Larsa straightened in her chair.

  Obviously she suspected that Larsa’s incisors weren’t just missing by happenstance. Even without them, the paleness of her skin, pointed ears, and tells I wasn’t perceptive enough to notice could have betrayed her dhampir nature to a scholar like Miss Kindler.

  “The wonder is that Ellishan noticed your vampiric heritage, too,” Miss Kindler went on. “She used to be a smart girl, but that knife dulled years ago. She never had much of a mind for things more unsettling than politics.”

  She folded the letter sharply and set it back on the table. “But as unsettling as this is, I’m even more surprised by this visit. A state accuser, an emissary of the royal cathedral, and my most fretful former student all seem more interested in a coincidence of hair color than in who stormed my sister’s home and murdered my brother-in-law.” Age certainly hadn’t stolen any metal from her voice. “There’s something more here.”

  Larsa didn’t hesitate. “When was the last time you encountered Rivascis?”

  Neither did Miss Kindler. “I’ve never heard the name.”

  I caught a look from Larsa and took up our shared question. “That’s a surprise. Doctor Trice said he remembered you mentioning him.”

&n
bsp; “Then he’s mistaken. That’s a rather distinctive name and I’m not prone to forgetfulness.”

  I nodded, uncertain whose memory might be at fault. This would have been a long way to travel if Doctor Trice had misremembered a detail.

  “So who is my supposed acquaintance?” Kindler asked.

  “The one responsible for killing your brother-in-law,” said Larsa. “A vampire.”

  Miss Kindler considered Larsa. She took a long draw from her cup—I noticed the old woman’s drink wasn’t steaming like ours. “A vampire.”

  “His slaves were the ones who attacked Thorenly Glen.”

  She accepted it with a slow nod, not questioning the outlandishness of the claim. “Blake wasn’t the reason—too dim to be involved with anything like that.”

  “No. No one at the estate seemed to have anything to do with the vampires’ business.”

  “Why, then?”

  Larsa told her what there was to know, adding a few particulars she hadn’t shared with me—her visit to the manor, slaying the lesser vampires there, a grisly message. The old woman listened politely. Neither she nor her tea set seemed particularly scandalized by the gruesome talk.

  “Where’s this Rivascis come in?” Miss Kindler asked after Larsa finished.

  “So far, he hasn’t. Yismilla Col was important to Ardis’s vampire underworld—her murder is tantamount to a coup. Sending her head to my superiors was a blatant insult. If Rivascis isn’t involved, someone else in Ardis is. Since his name’s come up, though, Trice sent us to you.”

  “Mistakenly,” Miss Kindler noted. “Who are your ‘superiors’?” Before Larsa could answer, she added, “Aside from Diauden.”

  The Royal Accuser’s mouth tightened. She didn’t seem used to the Royal Advisor’s name tossed around as an afterthought. “I’m not permitted to say.”

  The old woman hummed through a little smile, nodding. “Well, it’s a fascinating story, ladies. If I were even ten years younger, I’d be tempted to help you turn over every tombstone in the city to find my sister’s attacker. As it is, though, I don’t see how I can be much help.”

  “Well, there’s another matter …” I trailed off. It wasn’t really my place.

  Both women stared across the table. The same cold blue steeled both their gazes—though Larsa’s carried more of a warning.

  “You mean my resemblance to Miss Larsa.”

  I nodded.

  “I’m sorry to disappoint you again, ladies, but I don’t have a daughter,” Miss Kindler said with a shrug.

  I blinked, taking a moment to compare the women’s faces and frames. Wrinkles, the weight of age, and a prim dress disguised many of the similarities, but it was hard to ignore them—especially around the prominent noses and strong cheeks.

  Miss Kindler noticed. “I don’t deny a resemblance, and I’m not discounting the possibly of our relation, but if it’s there, it’s a distant one. Ellishan only has a son, and no other children. A branch of the family also lives in Taldor, so maybe there’s some relation through them.”

  Larsa didn’t look convinced. Miss Kindler’s explanation was possible, I supposed, but it seemed fantastically unlikely—of course, no more unlikely than the woman simply having forgotten about having a daughter.

  My eyes strayed to the painting over the mantel. I stood to take a better look.

  “This is you?” I pointed at the five confident-looking travelers posing in a rose garden: a dark-haired man with a starknife and the symbol of the goddess Desna, a bald woman leaning on a pack dangling with bottles, an armored woman with a shield marked with a howling wolf, a blond man smiling as he posed with a crossbow, and Larsa, outfitted in a rider’s duster.

  Miss Kindler nodded. “And some of the best people who ever lived.”

  I leaned in. Even in oil, the resemblance was unmistakable. “Because it looks so much like her.”

  “I promise, no one is more aware of the similarity.” Miss Kindler gave a less-than-subtle glance toward the seat I’d vacated. “It’s been the better part of a century since I’ve seen that face, and then only in mirrors.”

  I took her suggestion and reseated myself. Both she and Larsa seemed to be going out of their ways not to look at one another.

  “I don’t know what else I can say. I don’t have any explanation.” Her expression hardened. “And I’m sorry if this insults you, Miss Larsa, but frankly I’m repulsed by what you’re suggesting.”

  Larsa straightened, suddenly not shy about looking at her elder doppelganger. “What are we suggesting?”

  “I hunted terrible things, I never laid with them. More than once during my career filthy-minded cowards tried to disparage me by conflating my enthusiasm with lust. It’s ridiculous and, frankly, I find the thought disgusting.” She turned to Larsa. “I don’t mean this as any judgment on you, child. I think we all agree that the living and the dead shouldn’t—”

  Larsa lifted her palm, giving a single sharp nod like she agreed—or, more likely, like she just wanted the woman to stop.

  “I had one other question.” I sounded like I was changing the subject, though I wasn’t entirely. “When we spoke to your sister, she said this was ‘happening again.’ What did she mean?”

  Miss Kindler stood to refill her cup—not from the setting at hand, but from a crystal decanter on the sideboard. “No idea.”

  Larsa rolled her head. “You don’t seem to know very much.”

  Miss Kindler ignored her tone, filling her teacup to the brim with some chestnut-colored concoction. “I don’t know my sister’s business and can’t imagine what state she was in when you spoke with her. It could have been anything.”

  “I don’t know.” I couldn’t help but sound more delicate than Larsa. “The church’s records said …”

  I reached for the folio, having thought I saw it with Trice’s letter on the table. But it wasn’t there.

  “She burned them,” Larsa said.

  My look shot between them. “What?”

  Larsa nodded.

  “Why?”

  “I thought I’d gotten rid of Trice’s ‘observations’ years ago.” Miss Kindler retook her seat. I could smell the alcohol in her cup. It wasn’t subtle. “What’s in my head and how I’ve needed help are no one’s business but my own.” Her voice turned firm. “And when such details run astray, it results in situations like this.”

  “Be that as it may, they were documents from my cathedral. They clearly recorded your time there.”

  The old woman deeply considered her drink. “Miss Losritter, I’m not a religious woman, so I don’t know. Would you say your goddess protects her bookkeepers so well that no counterfeit could slip amid your cathedral’s shelves?”

  “Of course not.” I rushed to add, “But I don’t believe the records we brought were fake. I also don’t know why anyone would want to falsify a handful of pages about your convalescence fifty years ago.”

  “When you live as publicly as I have, you become used to certain amounts of manufactured scandal. I have little patience for such things, and find it best to dismiss them outright. Anyway, fifty years isn’t that long for some.”

  I snatched up her last words. “You understand how that sounds when we came to speak to you about something that refuses to die.”

  Miss Kindler looked out the window behind me. “The day’s gotten on without me, I’m afraid, and our visit’s put me behind on other errands.” Placing her cup—already nearly drained—upon the table, she stood, a blunt suggestion that we do the same. “Thank you for your delivery and concerns. I assure you I’ll keep them in mind.”

  Larsa and I shared a disapproving look.

  “Certainly, Miss Kindler, but I don’t know that we’ve made our intentions totally clear.” I stood. “We’ve been asked to see to your safety as well as to track down those responsible for your sister’s attack.”

  Laughter threatened to shake loose her tightly packed bun.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Losritter, but I
don’t need any protection. I’ve managed to look after myself this long. Anyway, I don’t keep Rarentz on hand for his gardening skill.” She gave a thin smile. “And even beyond that, we have our sign on the gate.”

  “Something here in Ardis seems to have an interest in you and your family. You’re going to need more than your gardener and an old gate,” Larsa said, still not having risen from her seat. “I got in easily enough.”

  Miss Kindler smirked. “I have several wards protecting my home, most magical, some otherwise, and all quite effective. You might have slipped in today, but you didn’t do so unnoticed. Had my protections determined you were an actual threat, you would never have gotten so far, and we certainly wouldn’t have the pleasure of your company now.”

  Larsa’s derisive puff went ignored as our hostess took a step toward the door. “Now, since you’re new to the city, do you have lodging arranged?”

  This had not at all gone the direction I’d wanted. Regardless, if we were being asked to leave, it was probably best to do so. We’d given Miss Kindler a significant amount to digest. Giving her some time to consider the situation might make her more receptive to more questions later.

  “No, not yet. We came here straightaway.” I followed with small steps. Behind me, Larsa stood as well.

  “Rarentz is a native. He’ll find you something suitable.”

  “Thank you, Miss Kindler, for your time and hospitality.”

  “Of course. And try not to worry so much.” She gave me a grandmotherly pat on the shoulder. “I know this all must seem terribly important now, but after a week things never seem as dire as they did in the moment.”

  I put on a flat smile. “I hope you’ll let us visit again soon. I know we both still have many questions.”

  She mirrored my polite smile. “We’ll see.”

  “Tomorrow perhaps?”

  “We’ll see.”

  Larsa was the first out the door.

  27

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