“So you’re saying you left Caliphas without his leave? That’s part of what saw me branded a betrayer.” His eyes drifted back to me. His voice was louder—the magic had clearly reinvigorated him. “You know how they obsess over blood. The traitorous daughter of a traitor—it’s a story they’ll want to believe.”
I knew it. It was the reason Considine was out there somewhere, watching and judging, his own fate hinging or whether or not I remained loyal. “Damn them, then. I don’t care.”
“If not your grandfather’s orders, then you’re here on my invitation?”
I spat. “I’m here because I want to put a stake in your chest.” It took a moment for his words to seep in. “What invitation?”
“My dear—”
The point of my blade reinforced my sneer. “Don’t you dare.”
His apology was a slow wave of an open palm. I was tempted to strike the fingers off.
“I assume you received my men at Thorenly Glen.”
“The thugs there were yours, then. You sent them there deliberately?”
His small gesture suggested a bow.
“They butchered the residents—a bunch of old folks.” My sword’s tip jerked between us, punctuating my disgust. “Brave.”
“Not all of them, I hope.”
“No.” I glared. “One survived.”
“Lady Thorenly.” He nodded. “Good. I made it clear that I wanted no harm to come to her.”
My blade drew back defensively.
“My coachmen were merely conveying Luvick’s agent home,” he said, as though such were a common errand.
“Yismilla Col’s head.”
“Indeed. But she had a message nonetheless. One you appear to have received.” His eyes strayed toward the painting. “How is your mother?”
Could he have known I’d be ordered to Thorenly Glen? Undoubtedly both Siervage and Diauden would have interest in Rivascis’s messengers. If Ellishan Thorenly was purposefully meant to be the only survivor, was our meeting and her reaction so predictable? And from that meeting, Kindler?
A thread certainly ran from one to the next, but that didn’t mean much. Things like Rivascis too often claimed responsibility for coincidences.
“I have no idea,” I said. “Why don’t you tell me who she is and I’ll tell you if I recognize the name.”
“Do you really need my reassurance? You’ve just come from her home.” He took a slow step toward me.
My grip tightened, lifting the point of my drooping blade. I didn’t like the idea of him knowing where I’d been. “The lady doesn’t seem to think so.”
“Memories are fleeting things. Once you lose them they’re very difficult to get back.”
“Are you saying she just forgot?” I laughed. “She didn’t seem senile to me.”
“Did you tell her who you were?”
“I told her who everyone thinks I am.”
“And?”
“And nothing. She insisted she doesn’t have a daughter.”
He nodded. “She recognized herself in you, though.”
“Coincidence.” I knew it was a hollow explanation, but I didn’t have any better.
“I visited her.” He glanced back at the portrait. “It was some months ago. She didn’t recognize me, either.”
I wasn’t catching whatever he was hinting at. I didn’t especially care, either, but so long as he was talking he wasn’t ending my life. “Maybe she forgot you.”
He leaned toward me with a slow smile, exposing one of his vicious canines. “Can you imagine forgetting me?”
The footlights’ glow flickered across my steel, a broad swipe reminding Rivascis of its territory. “I’ve been trying to ever since Grandfather told me your name.”
He seemed to take it as a compliment, smiling wider. “If you’ve been unsuccessful, then how could she just forget me—how could she just forget us? You may have only met her, but I promise, you’ve always been her greatest question. Even without proof of your parentage, you’re too close an answer to simply ignore.”
“It could just be a coincidence.” I tried that explanation again, but knew those were more Kindler’s words than mine. The painting hanging in Thorenly Glen, the portrait in Kindler’s own home, the face staring across the stage, they all could have been me—but none of them were. Every one of them honored her with the face I wore.
“But you know it’s not. And I’m telling you it’s not. So is she lying?”
I shrugged. “You seem to know her so well. Is she?”
“You’re a Royal Accuser, you deal with counterfeits every night. What does your experience tell you?”
“She convinced me.”
“It seems she’s convinced herself—that doesn’t mean it’s true. As you said, it doesn’t seem likely she just forgot. I’ve known Miss Ailson Kindler for a very long time. If ever there was someone with a knack for defying the impossible, it’s her.”
“So what, then? So a woman I don’t know doesn’t know me. I’ll save my outrage.” I looked away, casually casting about for other ways out.
“You’re still so young, and have so much you want to lose. In time, you’ll realize how important memories can be—especially those memories whose burden we share with others. We’re not just who we are, we’re who we were, and who others remember us to be.”
I rolled my eyes. “You know, that’s the easiest way to tell your kind. You look young, but you always sound like old people.”
“There’s truth to that.” He smirked. “Do you know why mirrors refuse to show our kind? It’s because they only show what is, not what’s happened. We’re all just echoes of something past, memories stuck in time. Memories don’t have reflections.”
“Mirrors reflect me just fine,” I said.
“And you find them generous? Have you charmed them so that they don’t reflect your gap-toothed smile?”
My jaw tightened. Reflexively, my tongue worried one of the hollows in my mouth, releasing a dull pain. I tried to suppress a wince.
Rivascis noticed. From somewhere his voice stole a father’s concern. “What have they done to you?”
His tone surprised me. I glared a warning, shoving away his mock distress.
He tried another approach. “When was the last time you drank?”
“I’m not like you,” I fired back, hoping he believed the half-truth. Immediately I found myself trying to count the days since I’d tasted warm blood. Unbidden, I felt the pressure of Considine’s mouth against my own.
“Are you sure?” He took a step toward the stage’s footlights, their harsh glow dimming at his approach.
As the wall of light descended, the Mirage’s airy hall coalesced out of the dark. Grimy chandeliers, each caught in a different stage of collapse, dangled over broken rows of sloping benches. Much of the seating was missing, shattered by vandals or torn away to feed alley fires. Those seats that remained were occupied.
Corpses, dozens of them, silent and staring, packed the theater. Most were grimy, matted things, tramps and scroungers as threadbare as their infested blankets. Plumes, bits of lace, strings of silver, and other glints of finery marked wealthier sorts. Coin obviously hadn’t saved any of the assemblage from their fate. All sat propped in their places, unblinking eyes locked on the stage.
I’d never seen—never imagined—such a polite massacre. Even the crawling, scampering things I’d expect to revel in such a scene were completely absent. Not a chomping rat or buzzing fly interrupted the savage solemnity. In the entire crowded hall there was only Rivascis’s steps echoing upon the stage.
He stood before the assemblage like a conductor about to make his bow. Clearly, he’d been the architect of this atrocity, but I couldn’t guess at his work’s meaning—I was too busy counting. The sea of faces faded into a rising tally, the body count growing less and less precise with every dozen.
Rivascis knelt at the stage’s brink, reaching down to his attentive audience. My estimate shattered when a slender ha
nd reached back.
With delicate force and a flutter of white aprons, Rivascis pulled a young Qadiran woman onto the stage. The maid’s black-freckled skin did nothing to hide the pronounced red punctures high on her collar.
“What is this?” I took a step back toward the curtain.
“There was a time when I was an actor. I find I still do my best work upon the stage. Hence …” He gestured over the assemblage.
Leaning close, he cooed something into the maid’s ear. As though he’d blown the seeds from a dandelion, she drifted toward me. Her dreamy stagger-sway reminded me of the vacant wards wandering the grounds of Havenguard, only here, it was clear no orderlies kept cautious watch. She halted only a half step away from me, close enough that I could see the shallow rise and fall of her chest.
But she was breathing.
I looked out across the theater of eavesdroppers, a self-conscious weight settling in the back of my mind. “They’re alive?”
“Of course.” With the lights no longer obscuring the hall, Rivascis’s voice seemed louder, filling the theater. Clearly he noticed my rising irritation. “But don’t concern yourself with them. They’re mine to command, and they’ll remember nothing of what they’ve heard.”
He drifted to the maid’s side. “You’re famished, and she’s yours. Drink as much as you like, however you like.”
The girl wore her hair short, exposing her long, naked neck. It wasn’t sympathy or stubbornness that kept me from opening one of her veins. I forced my tongue to keep its place, ignoring the feel of phantom fangs.
“No.” I raised my open hand, ready to push her away if he forced the matter.
He turned his eyes away, looking as though that—of all I’d said and done—had wounded him. I knew he was centuries older than me, but proud in his rags, he looked like some nobleman cast into the streets. He seemed suited for better things, but his tatters bore no hint of what they might be. For a moment, I wondered if I’d mistaken him. Was this truly the father I’d heard so much about? The betrayer—not of my people, but of that girl surrounded by dead things in the dark—that I’d been so eager to destroy? Could this frayed thing really bear the burden of all the blame I’d been told to heap on him?
“I know I have much to atone for.” His voice was soft. “But let me start by returning what you’ve lost.”
The enameled wand was back in his hand. It seethed shadows, its length seeming to waver like a grotesquely long worm. He repeated a noise, more hiss than word. The shadows surrounding the wand congealed, a thunderhead brewing along its length. He extended it toward me.
Resentment rushed back. “Why would I accept anything from you?”
“Because you’ve traveled all this way to find me. To see what I have to offer—even if it’s only my death.” He took a step toward me. “And because I need your help.”
My laugh surprised even me. “What can you possibly think I’d ever help you with?”
His earnest expression didn’t flinch. “I need your help to save the most dangerous vampire-killer our people have ever known.”
30
SIEGE ON BRONZEWING
JADAIN
Miss Kindler asks that you, Miss Larsa, and Mr. Essesh come immediately. It’s a matter of some importance.” Rarentz delivered his message from the frosty stoop of his own home. He looked serious, and his voice had lost much of yesterday’s friendliness.
“I don’t think Larsa’s here,” I said, pulling close the plum dressing gown I’d found upstairs. “Is everything all right?”
“I wouldn’t wait for her if I were you.” He turned abruptly and hastily made for the gate.
Light was only just starting to slip through the foyer’s high windows, but the house was still cold enough that every breath hung in the air. I didn’t have to wake Tashan, he was already perched on the landing overlooking the entry. He hadn’t been as bold as I’d been in raiding the Troidais’s wardrobes, wearing only his trousers and his bed’s paisley quilt like a cloak.
“Cozy?” I couldn’t hide my chuckle.
He grimaced. “You know, this is why they call you barbarians. If your people didn’t have to spend so much time inventing ways to keep warm, just think what you’d accomplish.”
“Who calls us barbarians?”
He looked like he wasn’t sure whether or not I was joking. “Everyone with the sense to live someplace warm.
Ignoring the wounded expression I pitched him, he changed the topic. “That sounded like Rarentz.”
“It was. Miss Kindler wants us, and apparently badly enough not to wait for a decent hour.”
He nodded and, with an unintentional flourish of his quilt, paraded back to his room to get dressed.
“Of course it’s not too early. You just drink it warm.” Miss Kindler stood on her porch, looking down at me as though I’d just asked the stupidest question in the world.
She looked like she’d been up for hours—or hadn’t gone to bed at all. The dusty lace radiating from her stiff collar had the look of cracking ice. Along with her wan complexion and the wintery shades of her tea dress, she looked in need of thawing out. I hoped her steaming teacup would help with that, but at the very least her tone seemed at no risk of melting.
“I’m hoping you can explain something to me.” She picked her way down the porch’s cracked steps, circling her teacup before her.
“I’ll do my best,” I said when she didn’t elaborate.
With a doubtful hum she tried to walk through me, following the walk to the drive, then continuing on toward the carriage house. Tashan and I exchanged frowns, but followed.
As we neared, Rarentz slid out from between the carriage house’s sizable plank doors, crossbow slung over his shoulder. His attention was obviously on whatever work he’d left inside.
“Go ahead,” Miss Kindler called, attracting his notice. Dutifully, he hauled the first of the heavy shed doors open.
He was just crossing to tug open the second door when we came to the end of the carriageway. He didn’t need to waste the effort. The reason for Miss Kindler’s impatience was clear.
A body sprawled amid the dust and shadows of the carriage house. The slight figure lay crumpled against a rear wheel of the wagon we’d driven from Kavapesta, slumped like a dozing stableboy. I might have thought he was just sleeping, except for the length of splintered board skewering his chest. I recognized his vest’s golden vines immediately. Larsa’s vampire compatriot, Considine.
Miss Kindler was looking at me rather than the body. My mind fruitlessly raced to find some delicate explanation. Tashan’s reaction shattered any hope of that.
“Sir!” His cry sounded honestly pained. He pushed past, sliding into the dirt next to the corpse. His hands went to the wooden spear skewering the vampire’s chest, but drew back just as fast. He was clearly unsure of how to help, if there was anything at all left to do.
Rarentz came up next to me, a finger resting near his crossbow’s trigger. He looked down on the other man without pity.
“You killed him,” Tashan said, a snarled threat.
“He was already dead—try to pay attention.” Miss Kindler shook her head. “Rarentz’s quick work with the board only paralyzed him. I want to know why he was creeping around my home before we drag him out and let the sun do its work.”
Tashan’s jaw clenched, biting back words his vicious glare already conveyed.
“Well.” Miss Kindler nodded, then turned to Rarentz. “Into the drive’s center, please. It’ll smell terrible, but at least he won’t burn the yard when the sun takes him.”
“No!” Tashan and I snapped at once. The Osirian had half regained his feet, his hand on the hilt of his sword.
But the old woman wasn’t looking at him. She arched a brow toward me, mimicking a sardonic look I’d seen dozens of times on Larsa’s face.
“I don’t know the whole story, but his name’s Considine.” I tried to piece together what I was certain of. I suspected more, but there w
as no reason to darken the scene further. “He’s a vampire who followed Larsa from Caliphas. He saved us in Kavapesta, when the inquisitors there imprisoned us. I don’t know what connection he and Tashan have …” I didn’t press the matter. “We knew he was following us, but had no idea when he might return.”
“And you didn’t think to mention this when I let you into my home?” Miss Kindler’s tone remained level, but her wrinkles accented her frown, making it even more severe.
I took a moment’s refuge in a long blink. Where the devil was Larsa to explain whatever this was?
“I apologize. I didn’t think he was a threat—he saved our lives. But it does look like you dealt with the matter.”
“Only thanks to a lifetime of being disappointed in what I can expect from common sense. My home’s particularly well guarded against intruders, but it seems the more precautions I take, the more fools mistake them for invitations.” She looked over the rim of her glasses. “And what sort of Pharasmin are you? ‘I didn’t think the vampire was a threat.’ Ha!”
I sighed. “I’ve been asking myself exactly that quite a bit recently.”
“Well, you have some heart, but not much in the way of sense.” She patted my shoulder. “Trust me, my dear. That’s a combination that ends in an early grave every time. Best to take care of this creature while we can.”
Tashan was on his feet. “You’ll not touch him.”
“Come on, friend. Is it really worth this?” Rarentz adjusted his crossbow. It wasn’t pointed directly at Tashan, but it would be with a twitch.
“He is.” Tashan’s words sounded like a promise. In the carriage house’s shade, his blade didn’t glimmer.
“Please.” I stepped between them, calling for calm. “Considine has some sort of control over him. He’s not himself.”
“Jadain.”
I looked over my shoulder. Tashan was shaking his head. “It’s not that.”
“Sensibility aside, I have to agree,” Miss Kindler said, nodding at the Osirian. “I’ve seen plenty with their wits crushed by a vampire’s will. That’s not a slave’s behavior.”
Tashan responded to my confused grimace with a shrug. “My grandmother used to say, ‘We don’t choose what we love, otherwise we’d all be saints.’”
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