Death's Dancer

by Jasmine Silvera

  “It’s up to you to protect this family now.”

  She smiled, thinking of her coven-leading mother and three wolf-brothers.

  “I’m serious,” he chided. “And you know it. Those boys are all Gilman. You got the Vogel good sense.”

  She coughed a little laugh at the thought of where her good sense had landed her. “Papa—”

  “I know you will,” he said. “You and that nice man of yours.”

  How could she judge him, when she had lied to protect them all the same. “Gregor is not—”

  “You take me for a blind fool,” he said impatiently. “The one you came in with pulls the strings all right. The coat, the book that arrived for your mother—why she would want some dusty old thing she can barely lift is beyond me.”

  His laugh turned into a wheeze and a long inhale. “Forgive me, Issy, for keeping this from you. And the truth about your brothers.”

  “You knew?”

  “Your mother warned me about what she was,” he said. “But the boys were a surprise. . . and their lives will always be different because of what they are. I wanted your life to be normal—as normal as possible, under the circumstances.”

  She thought about the long argument between her parents when she had been offered a scholarship to the Praha Academy. She could have continued to live at home while training to dance. But the resident program meant she would live in the dorms as other students who came from farther away, and she would have her regular education at the Academy in addition to dance training. Her mother had been reluctant, but her father had pushed. Though she was only a short distance away, the intensity of the education made trips home increasingly infrequent. Gradually the Academy took its place.

  “I understand, Papa,” she lied. “Can I get you anything?”

  “Not a thing,” he said.

  “Let me get Mom and the boys.” She started to rise, but he caught her hand.

  “Bleib bitte hier.” Stay here, please.

  And she did, listening to the soft rattling of his chest and the quiet beating of his heart. The beats slowed until she strained to hear the next. He took a breath and, for a long moment, nothing, then exhaled. She waited. They came less and less frequently, the pauses between growing longer and longer.

  “She’s beautiful,” he breathed at last.

  “Who, Papa?”

  “Your shadow.”

  A chill raced up her spine. “You see her?”

  “She’s waiting for me,” he said. “But she has a message for you and your necromancer.”

  Another exhale, this one so final she was sure he was gone. He inhaled again, and the words were so soft she almost missed them.

  “Find the place of the martyr’s rest among the multitudes.”

  With that, Lukas Vogel was gone. She felt his departure as surely as she felt the touch of the golden shadow on her skin, comforting her as she realized she was alone in the room. She buried her face in his chest and sobbed until her voice gave out.

  Isela rose slowly, the ache in her hip pronounced now, and folded his hands on his chest. She would grieve later. They had a job to finish.

  Outside, the family waited. They knew. Azrael stood slightly apart. She touched each of her sisters’ hands, and hugged her mother. Christof could barely stand, Ofelia holding them both up, but he squeezed her so hard she thought her ribs would crack. Toby made a space for her head under his chin, as their father always had, and her control wavered. Mark paced, the hurt clear on his face. She reached out a hand, but he didn’t meet it. Evie caught her fingers before she let them fall, gripping her hand.

  Isela nodded, accepting this too, and turned to Azrael.

  “We have to go,” she said.

  He didn’t question. They were almost at the elevator when her mother’s voice rang. “Necromancer.”

  Azrael turned.

  “You have only to call,” Beryl said. “And the Vogels will come to your aid.”

  He froze, and only Isela stood close enough to see the way his jaw clenched and jumped. He took a hard breath, and she recognized the husky edge of his tone.

  “You have my thanks, Vogels.” He bowed his head, a timeless gesture of an ancient system of honor. It spoke of respect earned and alliances newly formed. In the midst of her heartbreak, Isela could only wonder at what the future might bring.

  “I think I know where the Queen of Diamonds will be casting her spell.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “It’s a trap,” Gregor pronounced.

  Isela rubbed the back of her neck with her palm, closing her eyes as the argument resumed. At some point on the ride back to the castle, she’d split herself in two. She’d cordoned off the raw, grieving ache in her chest with the promise that one day it would have its due. The rest of her owed it to everyone she loved to see this through.

  It would not have been possible if she’d gone home with her family. There, in the building her father had turned into a home, his absence would have been inescapable. But high in the castle on the hill, among a conference of immortals, she could forget for a moment about the most human part of herself. Here, she was just a dancer, a tool to be used to stop a killer.

  Except she wasn’t just that anymore. Not under the constant, warming gaze of the necromancer. No matter where he was in the room, or where the conversation went, Isela felt the heat of him, pulsing quietly under the ache in her chest. Azrael’s presence kept her heart from turning to ice when she would have allowed it to go so cold it might never thaw.

  She forced herself back into the discussion. She owed it to her father—and the golden shadow that had come to ease his transition—to make the message heard. She’d repeated it twice for Azrael in the car, and again here, among the core members of his Aegis.

  “She warned me in the bookstore,” she said. “It was the only reason I got to Azrael before the demon did.”

  “A shimmering shadow of gold,” Gregor repeated, nodding. “And the blade that stabbed him in the In Between was also gold. Who is to say she isn’t playing both sides?”

  Azrael shook his head. “The blade was like ice.”

  “The shadow isn’t cold,” Isela agreed. “Every time I’ve made contact, it’s been warm.”

  “Róisín was—is—a creature of ice,” Azrael said.

  It was the first time Isela had heard her named. A shudder raced the length of her spine.

  “Incidental.” Gregor dismissed them with a hand.

  “She knows we’re right behind her,” Rory said, shrugging his mountainous shoulders. “We can assume everything from here on out has barbs meant for you, Azrael.”

  “Is there a chance her dancer survived?” Lysippe asked carefully, without looking at Isela.

  Azrael strode to the window. It was the first time she felt his heat waver. “He was sent to the final death.”

  “Her dancer?” Isela heard herself echo. “The one that helped her summon a god?”

  The room went quiet for a long moment.

  “We have two nights until the moon is new,” Azrael said resolutely.

  “You mean to wait.” Lysippe looked dismayed. “Why not move now?”

  “I won’t be able to locate her until she begins to cast,” he said. “It’s luck and fate she’s chosen to exact her revenge here. I can’t risk her seeing us coming.”

  “That doesn’t leave much room for error,” Gregor said.

  Azrael relented. “Two on surveillance, but do not be detected. If she goes to ground, we’ll lose her.”

  Lysippe, at least, seemed pleased.

  At last they were alone in the enormous study. Isela exhaled her body into the nearest chair. Her head had begun to throb. She looked up only when the door opened again, and Tyler entered bearing tea and a tray of food.

  “Welcome home, Miss Vogel,” he said before catching himself. “Back. Welcome back.”

  He set the tray down, retreating under Azrael’s dark glare. When he was gone, Azrael dragged an ottoman i
nto place in front of her. He offered a bowl that sent out aromas of garlic, onions, and tomatoes. She shook her head wearily, drawing her heels beneath her.

  “You need your strength,” he insisted. “It’s almost done now.”

  “You like to give orders.” She resisted, without heart. “Bossy.”

  “Eat.”

  The contents tasted as good as they smelled: little tender chunks of stewed meat and veggies dissolved on her tongue. She took the bowl and a hunk of bread when it was offered.

  It turned out she was ravenous. She cleaned the last of the broth from the bowl before Azrael took it away. He handed her a cup of tea.

  “How is your hip?” he asked, settling a hand there.

  “It hurts,” she confessed. “But I’ve been pushing harder than usual.”

  Isela sighed when heat soaked into the soreness. She bit her tongue on the knowledge that the pain had gotten exponentially worse in the past few days. Something had changed in the ache; it was growing sharper and more insistent every time she moved.

  “I cannot fix this,” he said.

  “I don’t feel it when I’m dancing, that’s all that matters.” She opened her eyes when he remained silent. “Dancing takes a toll on the body. I’m old for an active dancer. Most of the others have retired—gone into teaching or other performance.”

  “Old.” His exhale betrayed his amusement. “At thirty years.”

  “In August,” she said. “And after this job, I’ll take a long vacation.”

  If they survived.

  Azrael stroked her hips, the lengths of her thighs. She sensed the passion in him caged, contained in the same way he leashed the predator in her presence.

  “Why do they call her the Queen of Diamonds?”

  His silence deepened, and for a moment she thought he would try to change the subject again. But at last he spoke.

  “Paolo called her that first.” A wry smile twisted his mouth. “The Queen of Diamonds. Róisín was beautiful and hard. She was the most powerful of all of us. We came together under her hand to take over when you—when the godswar began. She rallied us.

  “When it was discovered the dancers could boost our power, some necromancers cried for all the dancers to be slaughtered, to keep war from breaking out between us as it had among humans. Róisín was the one who figured out the key to manipulating the gods using dancers. She devised the bargain that would remove the power of gods from human hands and end the war.”

  “No one expected her to fall for her dancer,” he finished. “They thought her blinded when her dancer joined with the god. It rocked the allegiance. It was so young, newly formed. They saw the possession as a threat to their own power, and they undermined her.”

  Isela’s heart pounded against her ribs. “What happened?”

  “She killed him, her dancer,” Azrael finished. “It broke her mind.” He paused, as though considering adding something, then thinking better of it. “Or so we believed. She abdicated the allegiance and was never heard from again. The allegiance scrubbed the memory of her union with the dancer from the records.”

  “Until now.”

  “She’d been missing for so long some were convinced she was dead.”

  “And she wants to make the whole world pay.” Isela finalized.

  “It was her union with the dancer that saved the world from the godswar,” he said. “So destroying it would only be fitting.”

  “You said it’s luck and fate she’s here. . .”

  “This was her territory, from the start,” he said carefully. “Her absence left a void—Vanka wanted it, the others feared the advantage so much territory would grant her. I ascended to make sure that would never happen.”

  “How could they do that to her, Róisín,” Isela said, shuddering. “How terrible.”

  “So human,” he said, and for the first time, it held no derision. “So willing to empathize.”

  “And you don’t?”

  He shook his head. “Róisín was no innocent. She carved up the world with the rest of the allegiance. And when, out of their own fear, they began to whisper that her loyalty to him was a liability, she chose to listen. They convinced her that her dancer would one day become more powerful than she and she would lose herself to the god inside him.”

  He paused, searching her face. “Do you know where she killed him?”

  Isela wanted to shake her head, to close her ears, but she had already gone too far. She had to know.

  “In the bed they shared,” he finished, his voice laced with disbelief. “There was no sign he struggled. He trusted her until the end. She violated her vow to him out of a craven desire to preserve her own power. If she had truly fallen, she would never have been capable of such betrayal. I won’t let her take the destruction to flames out of an undeserved sense of revenge.”

  The resolute tone of his voice was the slam of a door.

  Isela shivered, but she was not afraid. Not any longer. She knew him now. Not everything, but she could see the core of him. Azrael might act in ways that terrified her, but she would never fear him again. When their eyes met, his held a tinge of regret.

  “That was a terrible bedtime story,” he said, brushing a stray bit of hair from her brow.

  His fingers trailed a hot path down her cheek, tracing the line of her jaw to her lip.

  “Let me take you to bed.” His voice was the hum of a fire dissolving fuel in heat so intense it lacked flames.

  “The book. You sent my mother a book?”

  The slow curl of his lips. “An old witch’s grimoire I thought she might appreciate.” He drew her to her feet. “Among the many ‘threats’ the allegiance neutralized when it stopped the godswar were the witches. Covens were broken, books stolen or destroyed. Most of the witches went into hiding. Your mother is the first High Priestess brave enough to exercise her coven, the only one strong enough to have a chance against one of us.”

  Isela couldn’t help smiling at the thought of her mother in her bumblebee house shoes, facing down the Allegiance.

  “When the other necromancers find out?” Isela let herself be led from the room.

  Azrael made a sound that from another man would have been arrogance. But she knew what he was capable of. “This is my territory now. Let them dare.”

  Isela woke in a sweat. She’d been dreaming about a flickering gold glow and a woman who opened her chest and revealed an enormous chunk of fractured ice shaped like a broken heart. The woman screamed, but Isela recognized her own voice in the sound, and the shock brought her awake with a desperate gasp for breath.

  Azrael’s arms closed over her in the darkness, his body pressing the length of hers, calling her back into the world. His arousal pressed into the damp heat of her skin. Between heartbeats, the heat became a fire, molding them together.

  Isela wrapped her legs around his hips, feeling him resist. His hands tangled in her hair, and the silver coins of his eyes were alight.

  “Let me be your shield, Isela,” he said, his voice a tenuous rasp in the darkness.

  As the last cobwebs of sleep faded, she said the words she knew he needed to hear.

  “I accept,” she said. “I accept you.”

  Azrael plunged into her with a groan that tore her heart free from the restraints she’d placed it under. The gentleness was gone; he pinned her wrists above her head, maneuvering her thighs apart so that he could enter her fully. She matched him, stride for stride, straining off the bed and toward the fiery body claiming her own. When she came, it swept through her in a primal scream, leaving her sobbing and boneless beneath him.

  “Don’t fight it.” He pinned her cheeks between his hands as their breath began to return to normal. Well, his breath slowed. Isela couldn’t seem to stop gulping air between waves of emotion. “I’m here.”

  . Grief rent her heart into pieces, and she only knew one way to drive it back. Steam rose from her cheeks where he kissed the tears with lips like brands. Her nails scored his arms, leavin
g tracks that healed moments later.

  “Again,” she said, twisting her hips against his. “Again.”

  They didn’t rise until well after noon. Isela slipped from the bed first, relieved to find it still standing, although the metal frame was warm to the touch. She padded to the little square rug she had been using as a makeshift mat for her morning stretches. She lost herself in the simple rhythm of greeting the sun. She didn’t see the glimmer of gold, but sensing its presence just outside of her vision soothed her. No matter what Gregor feared, she knew it was not a malevolent force. When she opened her eyes again, Azrael was sitting up against the headboard, watching her.

  She knew the look in his eyes, and the recognition brought her a little thrill. This was it, the private language of lovers, and it was hers. Hers and Azrael’s. She crossed the distance to the bed in a flurry of spins and a gracefully executed backflip that put her just out of his reach. She gave a little curtsey, a mischievous smile on her face. His eyes burned, the silver heated to molten pools. He held out a hand to her, beckoning.

  “Come to me, my consort.”

  “You still don’t get to order me around,” she said.

  Azrael bared his teeth in the dangerous smile that used to make her knees quiver with the urge to run. Now she saw the true nature of this side of the predator: desire. His movement blurred, and the next thing she knew, she was leaning into the bed over his chest with his hand fisted in her hair, pinning her close.

  “If you will not obey.” He bit her lower lip, snaking out his tongue to taste her flesh. “Then I must learn to make the lure irresistible.”

  Isela purred at the promise in those words. She just couldn’t help it. The man was a lord of death, great and small.

  When they emerged from Azrael’s quarters, Isela feared she wouldn’t be able to dance that afternoon. Her body ached in a hundred subtle hidden places from the fierceness of their congress. About to mention it, she stepped into the hall and came to a stop.

  The heat of his body behind her flared. His forearm settled around her collarbones, drawing her close to his chest. She inhaled sharply.