by Cara Witter
Now Kenton’s blood ran cold entirely. The Drim. The children. So many children, taken from the streets, found in a cave. Drained and used for blood magic rituals, or so the accusation went.
“You think that’s what the Drim were doing, when they were accused of taking all those children?”
“Of course!” Dez slapped at his arm playfully; it took all of Kenton’s willpower not to step away from her touch. “Everyone knew it. Well, any blood mage with an ounce of intelligence. Why else would they take such a risk other than to make a homunculus? I mean, it’s one thing to keep a place like this out of prying eyes—all it takes are some well-placed bribes and a vial or two of blood from some powerful people—but something like that? It would only be worth it if they’d found a way to make something truly astonishing.”
Or if you had enemies to take the fall for you, Kenton thought. Diamis had planned the perfect trap for the Drim. He needed people to hate them to take their power, needed a way to pin his evil doings on someone else.
But could he have used those children to create Daniella? The dates lined up. The children were killed in the same year that Daniella was born, now that he thought to put the two together.
Blood magic made flesh, flesh made tides of blood. Mists of souls.
“What would it be able to do, this homunculus? You say it’s powerful, but how?” Kenton’s voice was razor sharp, and even Dez seemed taken aback, her long lashes fluttering as she blinked rapidly.
“Well, I’d hardly know, would I?” She frowned at him. “I’ve never made one. No one’s ever made one that did anything.” She folded her arms, glaring at him petulantly.
Kenton tamped his frustration down enough to ask more calmly, “Then why risk making one at all?”
Dez continued glaring for a few heartbeats longer, then giggled so hard she made a snorting sound. Preeta just blinked at him, and then pulled a knife from her belt and slit the rabbit’s throat in one fast motion. Blood drained from the body into the bowl.
“I can’t be mad at him, can I, darling?” Dez said. “He’s just so utterly perfect! Why, indeed.” Dez shook her head. “Because it would be blood magic incarnate! Power without needing to acquire all that sticky, messy blood from someone else. Blood is hard to wash out of good silk, I’ll tell you that.” She wrinkled her nose at Preeta, who was wiping her blood-stained fingers along the linen cloth of her dress. “What kind of power, what exactly it can do, well, that’s anyone’s guess. And there have been lots of guesses!” She shivered, as if her small body couldn’t contain the excitement of the possibilities.
Kenton wanted to shiver, but for an entirely different reason. He knew at least some of what Daniella was capable of, and that was enough to make her a weapon like the world had never seen.
He had his answer now, but it only brought up more questions.
What else could she do? What else did Diamis intend to use her for?
Kenton took one step back and then another, keeping both mages in sight. “I have to go.”
Dez put on a show of a pout but couldn’t hold in a smile. “Well, you know where to find us when you think of your next question.”
“I think this will be the last time we meet,” Kenton said.
Dez and Preeta looked at each other and back at Kenton. Then, in unison, one with a voice flat and cold as a sheet of ice, the other bright and cheerful: “They all say that.”
Preeta blinked her glassy, empty eyes, and Dez’s hand fiddled in her pocket. No doubt holding a vial of blood.
Kenton knew the sick truth at that moment.
There weren’t two blood mages at all. Just one mage, and her puppet.
He ran his fingers over the hilt of his dagger, and Dez’s smile grew wider than he’d ever seen it, her small white teeth biting at her lower lip.
“Wave goodbye to the nice man, darling,” Dez said, and Preeta raised her blood-stained hand, waggling her fingers like Dez had the last time he’d been there.
Kenton didn’t waste any time leaving the kitchen, back through the room filled with the bodies of her next victims, enjoying their snap for whatever time they had left.
He paused, though, when he saw something twitch in a small beam of sunlight from a crack in the curtains. Something long and striped in bright yellow behind an overturned table. He pulled his dagger from his belt and peered around, seeing what he feared.
A woman’s body splayed out on the ground like so many of the others, but with a dried frothy crust around her mouth. Unmoving, already dead, a long pike snake curled around her neck.
“I found your snake,” he called back.
Dez’s mad giggle followed him as he crawled out the window and into the sunlit day.
Forty-four
When Kenton returned to the castle, he wanted only to go back to bed. He didn’t want to see Perchaya and have to explain what in all hells he’d been thinking at the ball. He didn’t want to see Daniella and have to decide whether or not to tell her what he now suspected she was, how many must have died for her to live. He especially didn’t want to see Jaeme, as his mind now spun with worries that Greghor, rather than being a blood mage himself, might instead be controlled by one who found it convenient for the safety of her experiments to have the local duke in her pocket. And possibly communicating through him—or one of the castle guests—with both Tehlran and Diamis.
Kenton didn’t know what to do about any of it. For the first time since he’d heard the voice of Maldorath all those years ago, he questioned whether or not the bearers might go about their business more effectively without him. Yet here they were, having remained in Grisham for days, and Jaeme seemed no closer to finding the damned stone than he had when they’d arrived. Kenton had half a mind to think that Jaeme himself was the traitor and had been reporting on them all along.
And while Kenton had always felt that his work was far too important to take up a habit of drinking in the morning, the only way he talked himself into staying awake was to tell himself he could find at least one stiff shot of brandy before facing whatever new curse the others had in store for him today.
He returned to the barracks to change from his street clothes, which had absorbed the sickly-sweet scent of snap, glad there weren’t any guards lingering around to notice the smell as he entered the small room he shared with Nikaenor. The boy had already scampered off for the day, no doubt in search of more of the tarts that he’d declared to be his actual favorites, and which were largely to blame for his rapidly expanding waistline.
Kenton was mostly dressed when a knock came at the door. He finished tying the laces on his shirt, and then pulled open the door to find Perchaya standing there. She wore a simple pale pink high-waisted dress with cream-colored gloves, and her hair hung loose in soft waves. She looked up at him with resolve. “I hadn’t seen you up this morning,” she said. “I was concerned you might have fallen ill.”
She could have asked Nikaenor, of course. Though Kenton was inexplicably relieved to see her.
“Not ill,” he said. “At least not in any life-threatening way.”
Perchaya gave him a beseeching look, then, and Kenton gathered that this was not at all what he was supposed to say.
There was nothing to say. He’d behaved like an utter ass, and probably ruined things for her that he clearly shouldn’t have meddled with in the first place. He had nothing to offer her but danger and death. For a moment he’d been selfish, and he hated himself for that.
“How’s Hugh?” he asked.
Perchaya took a long moment in answering. “He’s well. That’s what I came to talk to you about. At the ball—”
“Have you talked to Jaeme about the stone?” Kenton said.
Perchaya blinked at him. “No. Why?”
Kenton knew he sounded like a mad man, or at very least a man who wanted with a desperate passion to change the subject.
He’d already let Perchaya down on more than one occasion, and if he had to do it again, he really was going to take up drinking in the mornings. “The stone,” he said. “That’s what we’re here for. We need to find the damned godstone.”
“Yes,” Perchaya said. “I’m well aware. But—”
“You should help me,” Kenton said. “That’s what we’ve been doing wrong. We were so successful because we were working together.” He put a hand on her shoulder, then immediately thought better of it and removed it. “Come on. We’ll start from where I found the body. We’ll look for clues, places where Kotali might be buried or encased in the stone of the foundation. Jaeme, with his power, I bet he could—”
“Shouldn’t we be involving Jaeme in this?”
Kenton would have loved to, but Jaeme had proven less than willing. “You and I worked together in Foroclae,” he said. “And in Tirostaar and Drepaine and Peldenar.” Sure, she’d been captured in Peldenar and he’d been in Ithale, but they always managed to turn it around. Together.
Perchaya eyed him for a long moment. “So that’s what you want to do. You want to work together.”
She appraised him, and Kenton knew in his heart that it wasn’t what she wanted to hear, but by the gods, at that moment it was the only thing he had it in him to do. “Yes,” he said. “Let’s get to work.”
Perchaya looked as though she wanted to protest, but she only trailed after Kenton as he went to find Nikaenor, who was predictably downing a platter of sweet-breads in the open parlor that Duke Greghor had set up for his guests.
“Nikaenor,” Kenton said, bending low to speak in his ear so that they wouldn’t be overheard. “I need you to get Mirilina.”
Nikaenor patted his belt pouch, which on closer inspection Kenton realized was stuffed to bursting. “I have her right here. I don’t like to be away from her. She gets lonely.”
Kenton didn’t know what that meant, but he also didn’t want to delve into a conversation about anyone’s feelings, and that included the god. “Bring her. We’re going back down to the foundation.”
Nikaenor swallowed the last of his sweet rolls and got up to follow Kenton, who swept by a very annoyed-looking Perchaya as fast as was possible.
On the landing at the bottom of the stairs, Kenton listened for footsteps, but heard only his companions catching up.
“All right,” he said to Nikaenor. “Pull her out.”
Nikaenor reached for his belt pouch, loosened the string, and took his time maneuvering Mirilina out through the opening. A pattern of eddies swirled lazily across her surface.
“So,” Nikaenor said. “What do I do with her?”
Kenton stared at him. “Last time you were down here you said you should have brought her. Can’t you . . . ask her where Kotali is?”
“Oh!” Nikanor said. “Sure!” He dropped to his knees right there in the hallway, cupping Mirilina in front of him, and began to pray in Foroclaean.
Over the top of Nikaenor’s head, Perchaya raised an eyebrow.
Kenton rolled his eyes and shrugged. This was a far cry better than the nothing they’d been able to accomplish so far in Mortiche, and a long stretch better than having conversations about their feelings that couldn’t possibly lead to anything but a further schism between them.
For the sake of the quest, they needed to get back on course. They hadn’t come this far to fall apart now.
Nikaenor finished his prayer.
“Well?” Kenton asked.
“She misses the ocean,” Nikaenor said. “She wants to know when we can go back.”
Kenton bit down hard on his own lip. She wanted to go to the ocean. Damn the gods. He wished the four people who had ascended to godhood all those years ago had had one single ounce of brains between them.
“Well,” Perchaya said. “I think it’s safe to say we won’t find Kotali there.”
“Fine,” Kenton said. “Come on. We’ll do this ourselves.” He turned and charged off through the stone corridors in search of gods or blood mage lairs or dead bodies or anything else that might give them anything at all to go on.
Nearly three hours later they ascended the stairs again. Kenton had broken nearly every door latch in the lower levels of Castle Grisham but had found no sign of bodies or blood, and especially not any hint of Kotali’s resting place. For all he knew, Jaeme was lying about feeling drawn here, only wanting to come home out of laziness. Kotali could be literally anywhere in the nation of Mortiche, with its twelve duchies and expansive forest and impassable mountains. Without Jaeme’s help, they were never going to find him, and as the three parted ways, even Nikaenor looked defeated.
“You should talk to Jaeme,” Perchaya said. Then she left, no doubt to go find Hugh. Only Kenton remained, standing in the corridor.
For what felt like the first time in his life, Kenton had absolutely no idea what to do.
The chapel to Kotali on the castle grounds stood almost as tall as the keep itself and smelled so strongly of wildflowers that Kenton sneezed twice upon entering. Now, unfortunately, it also smelled of the horse dung he had stepped in just outside the grand oak doors, but he hoped no one would notice over the cloying lilacs and spindle-weed.
Again, he asked himself what he was planning to do here. And again, as on the stone steps outside, he couldn’t come up with a clear answer. It was unsettling for Kenton, entering a place of worship to a god who had offered him so little help compared to Nerendal and Mirilina, a feat Kenton wouldn’t have thought would be possible.
The cathedral—small in comparison to the massive structure at the south end of the city—was far from empty, even though there were no official recitations scheduled for the afternoon. Several people knelt bare-kneed in the dirt at the end of the chapel where the stone floor had been cut away in the shape of a square. By their humble tweed tunics, Kenton guessed them to be servants from the castle.
Three priests in slate-gray robes and head coverings woven of corn-silk bustled about taking care of the rows of wildflowers planted throughout the building. How they managed to keep flowers alive with only the sun coming in through the stained-glass windows was a secret Kenton would never know and didn’t care enough to ask. Besides, the pointed glare of the nearest priest, a twitchy-looking fellow with ferret eyes, wasn’t exactly friendly. Kenton took off his boots and stockings, placing them against the back wall with the others. The priest cleared his throat loudly, and Kenton sighed, placing his sword alongside his boots. If he was going to come in, he might as well do it right.
It had been a long time since Kenton had been inside a chapel. The people of Sevairn conducted no worship and hadn’t since long before Diamis came into power. Some families who had immigrated more recently still kept their faiths of origin, but it certainly wasn’t encouraged in the boys’ home—and outlawed outright for the last two decades.
Odd that in all his years spent searching for the bearers of the gods, it had never occurred to him to take the matter to the supposed dwellings of the gods directly. Probably because Kenton had always known they weren’t to be found there, not really.
He felt like even more of a fool now. But after the silent, commanding pulse of Nerendal in the Tirostaari throne room, after the aura of divine calm that cloaked Mirilina, Kenton knew he had to try.
And so he stood awkwardly just inside the doorway, observing the scattered worshipers for some clue as to how he should join them.
He knew the mechanics from his study. The three paths leading to the dirt-spread worship area at the back of the chapel were exactly as he remembered. At his right lay the Path of Honor, a long swath of lush grass over which a reed-veiled Sister of the Fields sprinkled water. This path was reserved for the knights themselves, who supposedly dedicated their every honorable action to Kotali. A lone priest stood with folded arms at the entrance of this path, blocking anyone else from attempting to take thi
s route. A pity, that. The grass certainly looked like the most comfortable way to go.
On the far left of the chapel, a portly man crossed the Path of Remorse, his face scrunched into a grimace of pain that tightened with each bare-footed step on the scattered rocks. In his hand, dice clicked furiously. Kenton guessed that his remorse, then, was for cheating. Kotali didn’t have anything against gambling, but weighted dice were likely to be a different matter entirely.
The middle path, a fairly plain red-stone affair, was the one Kenton eventually took, as he was neither a knight nor feeling overly repentant. More of the wretched wildflower arrangements lay to either side, and he realized too late that these were heavy on speedwell, which had always made him sneeze. He was able to ignore his running nose until he was caught again with a fit. A few startled worshipers eyed him warily, and the nearest Sister said something to him through her veil that he didn’t quite understand. Kenton swiped at his eyes and nose, nodding that he was fine. He was certainly having a less-than-pleasant reaction to Kotali’s personal herb garden—where all the pollens were contained by the stone and glass, leaving worshipers to stew in them—but otherwise fine. The Sister and worshipers turned back to their business, and Kenton reached the expanse of dirt without further disruption.
Once there, however, Kenton realized he wasn’t wearing the right kind of loose-fitting pants that Mortichean men wore to worship, able to be rolled over their knees for proper contrition. Kenton’s leathers didn’t have nearly enough give to them for such a feat. He held in a groan. He could barely take two steps into a holy house without sneezing himself thoughtless and scorning Kotali with his legwear.
He could still leave, of course. After all, he didn’t know what he was expecting to accomplish here. What he was expecting to feel, except . . . All this time, all he had seen. Shouldn’t he, a Drim, feel something?
He knelt in the dirt, hoping he wasn’t committing too much of a sacrilege. A woman kneeling a few feet away rocked back and forth, whispering to herself. The man in front of her traced symbols into the dirt with his finger.