The Defiant Heir

by Melissa Caruso

  “Would you like my coat?” he offered, his hand going to his buttons.

  “Thank you, but I don’t think that would be wise.” His warmth and scent enveloping me would hurt too much, right now.

  Marcello nodded and leaned against the parapet at my side, leaving exactly the right amount of space between us for a close friend. No more, and no less.

  He was too good. He would make a wonderful father, damn him. In a flash that took my breath away, I could see it: Marcello, with lines of silver in his hair, shepherding our children upstairs to play a game while I received the doge and the Council in the drawing room. Marcello helping our tiny daughter, raven-haired like her father, climb into a boat by herself for the first time. Leaning back into Marcello’s arms to rest, cuddled up with him before a merry fire with a good book and a cup of mulled wine. Laughing with him after only a glance, crinkles of age and mirth around his green eyes, because we’d known each other for so many years we didn’t need to say the joke aloud.

  It was a future so real I could reach out and touch it, living and breathing before me in Marcello’s strong shoulders and sincere green eyes. This was what I stood to lose. This was what I would sacrifice, if I played my games too long.

  I swallowed a hot, messy knot in my throat. What kind of idiot was I, to think of something like that? I might as well sit around stabbing myself in the face with a table fork.

  “Your button kept me company in Vaskandar,” I told him, slipping a hand into my pocket to feel its familiar curves. It had felt wrong to leave my room without it, after all we’d been through together. “I’m not sure it talked me out of any bad ideas, but it made me feel like you were with me.”

  “Then take it with you to the Conclave,” he said. “I don’t like the idea of you going back there alone.”

  “With Zaira,” I corrected him. “Zaira is like at least ten people, in a variety of ways.”

  He laughed. We stood in silence, side by side, then, watching the wind blow withered leaves across the melting remnants of snow in the meadow below. Mount Whitecrown reared up above the shadowy lesser mountains in the distance, its glaciers forming stark streaks of white against the clear blue sky. Only one small puff of cloud clung to its southern face, near the summit, drifting up and away on the wind.

  Out of a fold in the mountainside, another wisp of white cloud peeked, slowly rising into the air.

  I grabbed Marcello’s elbow. “Look,” I whispered hoarsely.

  That wasn’t cloud. It was steam.

  With all the slow grandeur of a sleeping dragon rising from its bed of centuries, the volcano was beginning to awaken.

  A tense mood settled over the castle as Mount Whitecrown continued to emit innocent-looking, fluffy puffs of steam. It might well not mean anything; Mount Whitecrown was an active volcano, after all, and didn’t sit with the proper immutable stillness one might reasonably expect from a mountain. But I kept glancing out windows at its snowy peak, ghostly with distance, all too aware of the magical forces even now building up a terrifying pressure within its fiery heart.

  It was hard to focus on my books that evening. I’d left Zaira and Bree drinking together in Bree’s room, throwing knives at a crude drawing of Ruven’s face. I needed to take advantage of this moment of rare quiet and solitude; I only had a week to prepare for the Conclave. I’d had a long follow-up conversation over the courier lamps with my mother, half explaining my rash actions in Vaskandar and half trying to convince her that I needed to go back. She’d seemed to see the opportunity but had warned that the doge and the Council of Nine would need to agree if I were to attend with any authority to negotiate for Raverra.

  I was staring at Lavier’s Chronicle of Vaskandran Expansion without comprehension when Istrella knocked on my door, then bustled in without waiting for a reply, carrying a tray piled high with a tangle of beaded artifice wire and two steaming mugs.

  “Hello,” she said cheerfully, kicking the door shut behind her. “Mind if I show you what I’m working on?”

  “Of course not.” I pushed my book away with some relief. “Is that chocolate?”

  “Coffee!” Istrella plunked the tray down on the table between us. “I remembered how much you like it.”

  I stared dubiously at the sloshing cup of evil black liquid. “It smells nice,” I said politely, and nudged the cup away. “What have you got?”

  The tangle of wires and beads on her tray appeared to be two separate devices: one a crystal that probably stored energy, from the look of the runes carved into it, and the other a complex little wirework basket wrapped around an irregular lump of copper.

  “Oh, are you not going to drink the coffee?” Istrella sounded relieved. “That’s just as well, really. I don’t think I made it right.”

  “I’m not that fond of it anyway,” I admitted.

  “I know,” she said. Then she added, in a strange tone, “Last chance!”

  I glanced up from her device to her face, startled. Her eyes bugged earnestly at me, as if she were expecting something. “I’m sorry,” I said, “last chance for what?”

  Istrella sighed with evident exasperation. “Never mind. Here, hold this, and I’ll show you.”

  She plunked the device with the copper lump into my hand, trailing loose wires. I scarcely paid attention; I was staring at the shadows under her eyes. “Istrella, is something wrong?”

  “Oh, nothing really.” Quick as a wink, she twisted the dangling wires together with more loose wires that hung off the power crystal, connecting the two halves of the device. In my hand, the copper lump hummed with energy; the vibration traveled up my bones and all through my body.

  I couldn’t move.

  Every nerve buzzed with a heavy numbness. Every muscle locked precisely in place: not with tension, but exactly as it had been when she’d connected the wires. My body felt far too normal, far too relaxed, for the white-hot alarm building in my chest.

  Istrella peered anxiously into my face. “Still breathing? Heart still beating?”

  I couldn’t move my lips to reply. All I could do was stare at her in horror.

  “Oh, good! I wasn’t sure this would work.” Istrella sank back into her chair with apparent relief. “I had to throw it together overnight when I got the command. I was hoping you’d figure out the coffee hint, but you missed it, like all the others. You and Marcello can be really oblivious when you’re distracted, you know.”

  Hells. She was under Ruven’s control. She’d been under his control since Lady Aurica’s dinner party. That assassin hadn’t been trying to kill her at all; she’d knocked her out and given her the potion.

  Istrella was the traitor.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Istrella picked up my coffee cup in both hands. “I’m sorry about this,” she said anxiously. “I know you don’t like coffee. And I know you don’t like Prince Ruven. I feel terrible about the entire business.”

  I tried to scream for help, but the only sound I could make was a breathy wheeze. I stared at the coffee cup with more revulsion and terror than if it had been full of blood and Black Malice. I didn’t need my ring to know it was tainted with Ruven’s poison.

  There could be no greater torment in the Hell of Nightmares than falling under his dominion. I’d rather jump into a pit full of vipers, or take a bath in Zaira’s balefire. Panic exploded in my brain, cascading like a spilled oil lamp setting off a room full of powder kegs.

  Istrella leaned across the table with the cup, her tongue between her teeth in concentration, her brows furrowed with worry.

  I struggled to move, but it was as if some invisible wall lay between my mind and my body. The hum of Istrella’s device filled me, and I sat just as I had been, cupping the copper lump in my open hand. There was nothing I could do to fight her; I was going to become Ruven’s tool, and betray my friends and my Empire.

  Blisteringly hot coffee sloshed over my lips and dribbled down onto the table. I couldn’t even flinch at the scalding pain. But n
ot a drop made it onto my tongue.

  Istrella blinked. “Oh, right. Your mouth is closed.”

  Is she doing this on purpose?

  Istrella fumbled at my lips, prying my teeth apart with her slim fingers. “I am so sorry,” she said. “Really, I can’t tell you how much I’d rather not be doing this. I mean, I literally can’t. If I try, I’ll probably start babbling about the research I did into human nerves to create this device instead, which is actually quite interesting.”

  No matter how hard I strove to struggle and thrash, to make even the tiniest movement, the only thing I could control was my breath. And now Istrella was tipping the coffee cup toward my lips again, her hands trembling as she fought against her compulsion.

  I blew out all my breath at once, as hard as I could.

  Hot coffee sprayed over my lips, my chin, Istrella’s hands. She yelped and jumped back, dropping the cup. It shattered, splashing coffee everywhere; the table jerked as Istrella bumped into it.

  The lump of copper fell out of my hand.

  I leaped to my feet at once and made a grab for Istrella, my heart still pounding violently in my chest. She let out a squeak of surprise and bolted from the room.

  I ran after her, chasing her down the keep’s stone corridor. “Istrella! Wait!”

  “You know how it is!” she called back over her shoulder. “Sometimes you just have to run!”

  I was gaining on her, despite the tingling that lingered in my nerves. She rounded a corner only a few steps in front of me—

  And ran directly into Lord Caulin, the Chancellor of Silence.

  Whatever he did was so quick I couldn’t follow it. He stepped neatly to the side, moving with swift precision, and caught Istrella in his arms as she suddenly collapsed. His calm expression never wavered.

  “Istrella!” I cried.

  “She’s quite all right,” Lord Caulin said. He lowered her carefully to the floor and offered me a deep bow. “This is most fortuitous, Lady Amalia. I’ve just come from Raverra with new evidence about the traitor. I’m here to place this Falcon under arrest.”

  “What is the meaning of this, Lord Caulin?” Marcello demanded as he strode into my sitting room, anger in every tautly controlled line of his face.

  I had insisted that Istrella be brought to my rooms rather than a holding cell; Lord Caulin had insisted on guards. This had led to Istrella awakening groggily in a chair at my dining table, with two soldiers standing watch on either side of her, just as her brother burst in.

  Relief and anxiety swept over me at the sight of him, both from a single source: there was no way Marcello would let anything happen to his sister.

  But he had no idea who Lord Caulin truly was, or how much danger Istrella was in. And I couldn’t tell him.

  Lord Caulin spread his hands disarmingly. “Good evening, Captain Verdi. As I was just telling the Lady Amalia, my investigation has finally borne fruit, and I regret to inform you that it incriminates this Falcon.”

  The harsh laugh that erupted from Marcello held nothing of humor in it. “My sister, the traitor? Your investigation couldn’t be farther off base if it led you to the bottom of the ocean.”

  Istrella grimaced, blinking as if she couldn’t quite pull her vision into focus, her artifice glasses askew on her forehead.

  “Oh, dear,” Lord Caulin sighed. “Do you want to tell him, Lady Amalia, or shall I?”

  Marcello spun to stare at me, green eyes wide with shock.

  “She’s under Ruven’s control,” I told him, my voice wound tighter than a violin string.

  “What?!” Marcello stepped back as if I’d struck him.

  “No, I’m not,” Istrella piped up. “I can’t possibly imagine what you’re talking about. Surely if I were under a malevolent Witch Lord’s control, my dear brother would have noticed the many hints I would have tried to give him over the past few weeks.”

  Marcello flinched.

  “The evidence is rather conclusive,” Lord Caulin sighed. “The Mews clerks helped us assemble a list of people who might have accessed all the relevant papers, and we compared it to those physically present at Durantain with the necessary knowledge to alter the wards. That left only a few suspects, so naturally we searched your sister’s tower.”

  “You’d better not have disarranged my projects!” Istrella cried, nearly lunging to her feet. One of the guards stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “Some of them are very delicate! And dangerous, for that matter.”

  “Yes, well, two of the searchers will likely take a few days to recover from their injuries, but no one died.” Lord Caulin flipped the idea away, with a motion like turning a page. “We discovered signs that your Falcon had been feeding the seagulls at her window, and, more damningly, found crumpled-up drafts of letters outlining Falcon leave schedules on the floor nearby. She clearly had been passing messages to the Witch Lords via the birds.”

  Istrella sighed. “I was hoping you’d find those,” she told us, “but nobody ever comes in when I tell them not to come in. You people need more native curiosity.”

  Marcello had gone pale as if he might faint. “You disabled the wards at Durantain,” he whispered. “When you told us about the weaknesses in the wards, you were trying to warn us.”

  “Well, I probably would have noticed those regardless,” Istrella said. “They were inexcusably sloppy.”

  “You see?” Lord Caulin shrugged. “She admits it.”

  “She’s under the effects of a potion,” I snapped. “I saw the same thing in Vaskandar. If we search her room, we’ll probably find it.”

  Istrella glanced at me in alarm, then suddenly snatched a flask from her pocket and began drinking great gulps from it. The guards beside her hesitated for a surprised moment, and then one knocked it from her hand. The remaining liquid spilled across the floor.

  So much for that evidence. “Do you have any more?” I asked her urgently.

  Istrella looked a bit woozy. “If I did, do you think I’d have swallowed all that down? Ugh, it tastes terrible.”

  Lord Caulin hooked a finger over his lips and stared at the flask, his dark eyes glittering. “If there is a potion, this is most interesting.” He paced over, picked up the flask, and slipped it into an inner pocket. “Either way, we need to learn more, which means taking this Falcon back to Raverra for interrogation and examination.”

  My insides went cold. If Istrella vanished into the care of the Chancellor of Silence, I held little hope we would ever see her again.

  “And why would you want to know more about the potion?” I demanded, seeking an angle to block him.

  Lord Caulin blinked, his face a mask of mild-mannered innocence. “Why, to find a way to counter it, of course, Lady Amalia.”

  I didn’t believe that for a moment. From what I’d heard of Lord Caulin, he wouldn’t hesitate to use a potion like that if he had access to one.

  Marcello straightened, a fire in his eyes to match Zaira’s. “It doesn’t matter. Istrella was controlled against her will; she’s innocent. You can’t arrest her.”

  “Ah, but I’m afraid I can.” Lord Caulin offered an apologetic smile. “The doge granted me the authority to apprehend the traitor when he placed me in charge of this investigation.”

  “With due respect, my lord, I don’t care.” Marcello bit off each word. “Istrella is a Falcon, and I am her captain and her Falconer. It’s my duty to protect her, and I don’t take orders from anyone but Colonel Vasante.”

  “I assure you, the doge himself—” Caulin began silkily.

  “Do you have written orders from Colonel Vasante?” Marcello pressed.

  “My orders were verbal, Captain. However—”

  “From the doge, then? Or perhaps the Marquise of Palova?” Marcello’s face was hard, his tone relentless. Istrella watched him with bright eyes.

  Annoyance flickered across Lord Caulin’s bland face. “Let me assure you, Captain Verdi, I have the authority.”

  I could imagine his frust
ration. Caulin and I both knew his true rank, but to Marcello, he was a mere legal adviser overstepping his bounds. And the secrecy of Caulin’s position prevented him from shattering that illusion.

  Time to tighten that vise. “It seems to me that Captain Verdi has precedence here,” I said. “The doge granted you authority to arrest a traitor. But Istrella isn’t a traitor; she acted under the effects of an alchemical potion. I can bear witness to that. Without a guilty party, you have no power to arrest anyone.”

  Lord Caulin considered me from narrowed eyes. I kept my face impassive, hiding the racing of my heart. I could almost see him calculating how much it would tip his hand to push further, and who would win if I pushed back.

  With Istrella’s life in the balance, I was willing to push as hard as necessary. Marcello stood at my side, stern and clear-eyed, back straight and proper in his Falconer’s uniform. There is no enemy more implacable than an honest man, my mother had once told me.

  Caulin looked back and forth between us. At last, he sighed. “Very well, Lady Amalia. I bow to your wisdom. But perhaps when you visit Vaskandar for the Conclave, you can attempt to learn more of this most interesting potion.”

  “Oh, I assure you, I intend to,” I said. I neglected to add that it would take some of the potion itself to compel me to tell him the recipe.

  “Then I leave the Falcon to your care.” Lord Caulin nodded stiffly to Marcello. “I recommend you quarantine her until this potion’s effect fades.”

  Caulin bowed to me and left, taking the guards with him. Once he was gone, Marcello’s shoulders slumped, and he blew out a long breath of relief.

  “Well, I’m glad that’s over with,” Istrella said, settling her artifice glasses properly on her forehead. “Amalia, I’m really sorry.” She opened her mouth and then pressed her lips together, staring at me intently, as if she wanted to say more.

  “It’s all right,” I said. “I know you didn’t have a choice.”

  She shuddered. “I can’t speak to that. But on an unrelated note, how long does it take a potion to wear off? If, say, you drank something really horrible by mistake. I’m just curious.” Her voice quavered slightly.