Nights of Sin

by Matthew Cook

  "Rath,” I say, too stunned to say more. Somehow his presence feels as inevitable as it is shocking, as if some inner part of me were expecting him here.

  "It is good to see you again, milady Kirin,” he acknowledges with a nod. “Although if I'd known you were coming I would have shown you better hospitality."

  He nods to the man from the carriage house. “Allow me to introduce my servant, Eddard. I see you've already met the lads. Boys, be nice now, and don't crowd our guest."

  The sweetlings shamble back. Their milky, dead eyes never leave me. Hunger radiates from them in waves.

  "Come. It's not safe out here. You may have been followed.” He moves aside, gesturing for me to step through the open door. I hesitate.

  "Oh, please,” he scoffs. “We both know if I meant to do you harm, you'd be lying on those stones, watching the lads rip out your entrails. Please come inside, where it's warm, yes?"

  He is right: I can't resist, or even flee. If he orders the sweetlings to attack, my death will come swiftly. I may wound or kill Rath or Eddard with my blood magic as they drag me down, if I am lucky, but the end result will be the same.

  And I must know.

  Without another word, I sheathe my useless knife and ascend the stairs. The door closes softly behind me.

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  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  "Please, won't you take your ease? May I offer you some refreshment?” Rath takes my arm, as if this is nothing more than a social engagement, then leads me deeper into the house. The sweetlings remain outside. In their absence, I feel a measure of confidence returning.

  It is dim inside the house, but it is not as run-down as its exterior would suggest. Many of the gas lamps are dark, but a scattered few shine brightly in brackets of polished brass, throwing steady yellow light into the many rooms. Heavy drapes cover the windows, blocking the drowned blue light of the winter sky. As he leads me inside, he lights more of the lamps, pushing the shadows back into the dusty, cobwebbed corners.

  This place was grand once. Dark wood furniture fills the drawing rooms and salons, shrouded now with cloths to keep off the dust. The air is thick with the smell of age and mice. Gilded mirrors adorn several of the walls. Their reflections make the cavernous rooms seem even larger than they are. As we move past, they throw back unexpected reflections, flickers of motion that snag at the corners of my eyes.

  I realize I have not answered him. “Refreshment? No, I ... no thank you, sir. I require nothing but information, if it please you."

  "I insist,” he replies. “I have the most lovely black tea, brought here all the way from Dorlund. You really must try a cup.” He steers me towards an empty dining room, then to doors in the rear. Beyond is a kitchen, immaculate and shining, large enough to prepare a feast for fifty. He gestures for me to sit, then releases my hand.

  One of the stoves is lit. He walks over to it and picks up the kettle, then fills it with water from a stone basin. “I hope you will excuse my deplorable lack of staff, but it's just me and Eddard. And the lads, of course. I'm sure you of all people will understand why I prefer solitude."

  I drop into a chair and nod. I do understand. I have endured the prejudices and fears of the ignorant; I know that particular sting. I think back to our last meeting, in the market, and about the attraction I felt towards him. Was that my body's way of telling me something I was not ready for?

  Still, I sense there is more to Rath's invitation than a desire for comradeship. My knife hilt presses into the side of my knee. I cross my leg so that it rests near my hand; I can have it out in a heartbeat if I need to.

  "Please, Kirin, relax. You're safe here,” Rath says, softly, like a horse trainer trying to calm a skittish foal. His unctuous tone grates against my frayed nerves.

  "That may be true, sir, but I prefer to be cautious.” I smile sweetly as, inside, the tendrils of my magic shift and slide. Let him be amused by my wariness if he will.

  Rath inclines his head, acknowledging my words with a wry smile. He busies his hands with the tea. The crushed leaves go into a silver strainer, then into a simple ceramic tea pot. Even from across the room I can smell it: a tang reminiscent of mint, on top of a deeper odor, thick and musky, like wormwood.

  "I'm so glad you found your way here. Thank you for accepting my ... invitation,” Rath says, pouring the steaming water into the pot. He puts the pot on a tray, then fetches cups and spoons.

  "I'd hardly call sending your pet monsters to stalk me a proper invitation,” I reply.

  Rath shrugs. “And yet here you are. Would you really have accepted if I'd asked you politely to join me for tea and conversation? I think you would have thought me a rake and declined, lest I bore you with some tedious plan to seduce you."

  "I suppose I would have at that,” I admit. “When we first met, I did think your intentions were more ... base. Nor did you try very hard to change that impression when we met the second time."

  "Such is the life of a courtier,” he replies with a laugh. “I have a reputation to uphold, and certain people would have noticed if I hadn't taken note of your very impressive physical charms. By doing so, I risked losing your good impression of me, but avoided drawing attention to myself. I do apologize."

  I nod, accepting his explanation. For now. “Tell me,” I say, “where did you learn to call them?"

  "Direct; I like that. Very well, if that is how it's to be. I learned everything I know from my aunt."

  He pours the tea into the cups, then asks with raised eyebrows if I want cream or sugar. I shake my head. Rath stirs a dollop of cream into his tea then takes a small bottle from his coat. “Medicine for my stomach pains,” he says with an apologetic shrug, before adding a few clear drops to his cup.

  "When I was thirteen,” he continues, “I nearly died. An infection of the blood. The physicians my parents hired tried to help me, but nothing helped. Despite their treatments—some of which were only marginally less harmful than my malady—I continued to waste away. Eventually, the priests of Shanira were summoned, but by then I was little more than skin and bones."

  "Why did your parents wait to call them?” I ask.

  "They didn't want to incur the debt such aid would cost them. I do not fault them for it; I would have made the same choice."

  "Debt? I don't understand. The priests of Shanira are charged with ridding the world of sickness and death wherever they find it."

  Rath snorts dismissively. “Yes, I have heard that charming fiction before. It's amusing, is it not? Perhaps out on the frontier that is true, but not here in the City. Here the promise of healing is, for many, the ultimate gift, and the priests know it. They trade that coin for earthly riches and power.

  "In any case, even after the illness was finally banished, it still left its mark on my body. I was frail and sickly, no longer fit for the games my brothers played. Instead, I turned to books. It was my aunt, Sete, who helped nurse me back to health, and who showed me the vast world contained within their pages."

  Rath sips his tea and I follow suit, to be polite if for no other reason. The cup feels wonderfully warm in my cupped palms. The fragrant steam wreaths my face. It is bittersweet on my tongue, tasting of herbs and its own unique musk. Inside, I feel the first hesitant stirrings of ... something. A hesitation; an uncertainty. Not for the first time I wish my sister would return to me. She would know its cause.

  "Aunt Sete was family by marriage, and was something of an outcast. My uncle was an officer and mapmaker, assigned to His Majesty's Exploratory Corps. He met her in some gods-forsaken village on the far side of the great southern jungles. He ran afoul of a hurduk while mapping routes through the great Southern Range. The beast's venom nearly killed him. Would have, without Sete's ministrations. Even so, his recovery took over a year, during which time my aunt nursed him. When he returned to the City, he brought Sete with him. They had fallen in love and been married while he recovered.

  Rath smiles slightly. “It was all very sca
ndalous, for prior to his journey, he had been betrothed to another. My grandmother, gods rest her, never quite recovered from the incident, and never truly accepted Aunt Sete as her daughter."

  He pauses, then lifts his cup. “But I see that all of this family gossip bores you,” he says. “It has been so long since I spoke to anyone about anything of consequence. As the youngest son, I enjoy a certain freedom of action compared to my older brothers, but even I spend far more time than I would like in courtly functions."

  "It's all right,” I say, taking another sip of my tea. “So, your aunt was a wise woman?"

  "Indeed. Versed in all of nature's wisdom. Toxins and anti-venoms were her specialty, and the serpents who provided them were her most beloved companions. With her knowledge and exotic southern looks and ... other unique features ... is it any wonder that polite society shunned her?"

  "No, it isn't. I know what it is like to be different. So, she taught you?"

  "After a fashion,” Rath says. “I had tutors aplenty, of course, but their wisdom seemed trite and dull. What boy would rather study sums or dry, dusty histories when they could learn to milk venom from the fangs of a snake or read about how root toxins can be used to stun fish swimming in a river?"

  "And it was your aunt who taught you to commune with the spirits of the dead?"

  He nods. “There are places in the south where such skills are not feared, but are praised. The women and men who master those mysteries are highly valued, for they allow the dead to speak again to the living. I would love to see such a place before I die. Perhaps, one day I will."

  My tea has grown cold. I grimace at its bitterness, then put the cup down on the table.

  "I was fifteen the first time she showed me how to call forth the spirit of a dead man,” Rath continues. “He was a beggar, one of the thousands who die, unnoticed, every year. Sete paid the corpse-handlers’ guild to bring him here, to our family's old estate, rather than bury him in the pauper's grave that was his intended resting place. I remember the feeling of wonderment, of power, I felt seeing the cold flesh twitch and stir. Her wisdom was so great that even death was no match for it."

  I nod. I remember that feeling. The power of it.

  A cramp ripples across my belly, and the warm glow of recollection shifts, pushed aside by growing unease. Phantom whispers spiral through my head, like echoes of my sister's voice. I feel a hot tightness behind my breastbone, different from the stirrings of the blood magic. Even as I consider it, the tightness increases, twisting in my vitals.

  I flinch as unexpected agony ripples through me, stomach muscles cramping. The pain seeps into my chest, stealing away my breath. I look up at Rath, at the teacup between us. His tiny, satisfied smile shouts his guilt. The ghost voice in my head buzzes, a fly trapped against a window.

  "What ... what did you do to me?” I whisper. It turns to a whistling groan as a fresh cramp racks me.

  "Amnunthol extract,” Rath says, putting down his own cup. “When pressed from the petals of the mature flower, it makes a most wonderful poison. Completely lethal once it is imbibed. It paralyzes the lungs and eventually the heart."

  "But ... you drank ... the same tea...” I wheeze. The burning cramp drives deeper into my chest. I feel my heart skip a beat.

  Rath smiles and holds up the tiny vial of medicine. “This counteracts the poison,” he begins, then moves to block me as I lunge forward towards it. The toxin robs my limbs of all coordination, and I stagger half to my feet before he pushes me back down.

  "It only works if it is mixed with the extract before consumption. Once the unadulterated poison is taken, there is no antidote. Death will be slow, I'm sorry to say, as your lungs slowly fail. Provided your heart doesn't give out first, of course.” He is calm, almost detached, as he recites the details of my death.

  "But ... why?” I gasp out.

  In response, Rath rises and walks to me. He reaches into his shirt and draws forth a cameo. I recognize it: it was around his neck on the night we met, sparkling against the snowy linen of his shirt.

  He snaps it open, and inside I see a portrait of an exotic, bronze-skinned woman. He holds it close to my face, turning it so that the gaslight falls across the picture.

  Her eyes are black, two pools of ink set into her brown face. I know with perfect certainty that their appearance was no mistake of the painter's.

  "Yes,” he breathes. “You have her eyes. Of all things she knew, this was the only thing she refused to teach me. I asked her ... begged her ... to share it with me, but she would not be swayed. Sete said the price of such knowing was too great, and would not accept that I was ready for such wisdom. In the end, she took it with her to the grave."

  "I ... I don't...” I try to say, but the creeping paralysis is inside my lungs now, robbing me of breath. My heart skips another beat, sending a fresh wave of excruciating pain through me. It squeezes tears from my black eyes; I feel them on my cheeks.

  "Truthfully, I don't mean to hurt you, but I must know something,” Rath says. “She had a marvelous ability, you see. She could see into a living body, hers or another's, and could command its very blood to do her bidding, healing, or destroying, with nothing more than a thought. Such power. Such power!

  "This wisdom gave her the ability to ingest any poison, any toxin, and suffer no ill effects. She often allowed snakes to bite her, precisely so that she could know their venom and prepare antidotes from her own blood. I believe that her power was what made her eyes, and yours, such a dramatic and unique shade. If I am right, it should be an ability you share."

  "Enough ... talk ... Give me the antidote,” I manage to say. This time, my magic suffuses the words, bridging the space between us. I see Rath flinch and move to rise, then stop himself.

  "I wish I could help you, I really do, but I did not lie. Once the amnunthol is taken, there is no way to stop its course. There simply is no antidote."

  Rath stoops and slides his arms beneath me, then lifts. I dangle, a sack of miscellaneous helplessness, unable to strike back or even draw a proper breath. He assiduously avoids my eyes; even in my weakened state I think I could hurt him badly, perhaps even kill him, if my gaze were allowed to meet his. He knows this.

  "Look at ... look at...” I wheeze. He shushes me and carries me into one of the manor's sitting rooms. Rath lowers me, gently, to one of the shrouded couches. A pillow, smelling of dust and age, is slipped beneath my head.

  "There now. I'll give you some privacy. I hope you can forgive me, but I find it unsettling to watch someone suffer. I'll return in an hour: by then, you'll have rid yourself of the amnunthol, or you'll have slipped into final sleep. I hope you'll believe me when I say that I wish you well."

  Rath reaches down and relieves me of the Mor knife, sliding it carefully through his belt. He sketches a courtier's bow in my direction and walks back into the shadows. The footfalls recede, headed back towards the kitchens.

  I lie on the dusty couch, struggling for every breath. I feel my laboring heart, its beating even more ragged and uneven now. Even the ghost whisper has gone. All is silence. I am totally alone.

  * * * *

  I'm going to die here, I say to myself. Instinctively, I feel for my sister's presence, some hint that she is with me, but there is none. The tiny buzzing, the strange echo of a voice I heard before, is gone again. Was that her, trying to warn me?

  I cannot think of this; I do not have the luxury of time. I don't know how long it will take the amnunthol to completely stop the pumping of my lungs or still my heart. Already black spots hover at the fringes of my vision. My face feels hot, then cold, alternating waves of discomfort. Sweat sheens my body.

  He said she could stop any poison. And her eyes were black; as black as mine.

  I have seen the blood magic heal. I know its destructive force, but I have also witnessed its power to make whole. Haven't I been temped on so many occasions to call upon it, as I did for Lia, and for Captain Garrett?

  I must try. If I do not
, Rath will return to find only my dead body. Afterwards, he will doubtless summon a sweetling from my cooling flesh.

  The thought sends a bolt of undiluted panic through me, momentarily pushing back the awful pressure tightening in my chest. I take two deep, shuddering breaths before the steel bands once more bear down. My heart pounds in my chest, rhythmic for the moment. The dark spots recede from my vision.

  I must try. Now. Before the poison steals away the last of my strength.

  Silently, I call out to the tendrils of crimson magic roiling in my belly. I feel them responding, hesitantly. I command them to seek out the poison invading my body and drive it out.

  The power shifts, as if it is uncertain what to do. The tightness in my chest redoubles, momentarily cutting off all breath. Panic beats about me with midnight wings.

  I try to remember exactly what I did when I healed Lia, and Garrett. Then the power was assured, responding to my knowledge and my desires, traveling just where it was needed. What was different then? What was it?

  I close my eyes and imagine the structures of my lungs. I have seen the organs in cadavers, as well as in my mistress's healing atlases, and the memory comes easily. In my mind's eye I picture the twin sacs, expanding and contracting in response to the muscled bellows beneath them, drawing in life-giving air. I recall the thick arteries and veins running in and through them, mighty rivers of blood pushed there directly from the nearby heart.

  I feel the blood magic responding, uncoiling from its usual place in my belly and moving up, past my chest. In my mind's eye I see it: translucent tendrils of rose-tinged force, terrible yet subtle, reaching up, then slipping down the other opening in my throat.

  They descend, forcing their way gently into the crimson cathedral of my lungs. My inner sight travels with them, riding along as they burrow deep. The vision they give me is exquisite and strange, imparting a sensation of falling, as if I am shrinking, tinier and tinier, until a field mouse would seem larger than the mightiest leviathan.