“Doesn’t ask questions, but he watches and learns. He takes orders and the others listen when he gives them. It’s in his blood.”
Azrael sighed. “You remember how hard it was to break Aleifr of his damned Nordic prince-ness once he left Róisín?”
“I don’t have a mind to break him of it,” Lysippe said. “Rather the opposite.”
Azrael stilled, studying her carefully. “My Aegis already has a first.”
She didn’t flinch from the frankness of his gaze, but after a long moment her eyes slid to the cooling desert over his shoulder. With the heat of the day behind them, it began to stir with life. “I have done as you asked, Father. There is no Aegis that will rival yours.”
“A Herculean task,” he admitted with a laugh. “Admirably conducted. Now the bill comes due?”
She canted an eyebrow at him.
“If you want release from your vow,” he began.
It was her turn to laugh.
“You earned it centuries ago,” Azrael finished. “Of all my Aegis, your presence is by your will only. I’d have it no other way. Your freedom is yours to take—”
“Why is it all or nothing with men, eh?” She put down her cup, stretching her arms over her head and rolling her head on her neck in the familiar gesture that signaled the end of a battle well fought. “My freedom? What greater freedom is there than this life? I only want to let go of the reins. Enjoy the ride and let someone else fight for the bit.”
Something Azrael hadn’t realized was clenched in him released. For a moment he had been certain she would walk away from him, and he wasn’t sure how he would honor his vow if she did. He raised his cup. “You train him.”
She lifted her own. “I always do.”
“Only when I am satisfied will he lead,” he said as their cups met with a solid thunk. “And then you can drop your reins.”
Two centuries later and a thousand miles away, Azrael and Gregor stood side by side on the tarmac. Waiting on the ice-crusted ground beside the runway, a Land Cruiser idled with headlights shining a beacon against the coming dark.
“Is all this necessary?” Azrael hefted the second bag. Knowing Gregor, it contained a small armory.
“She said to come prepared.” Gregor bared his teeth and shivered, hunching his shoulders in the cold. “At least she didn’t bring horses.”
Azrael laughed. He couldn’t help himself. Their diametrically opposed opinions on transportation remained one of the many areas in which his eldest and youngest were polar opposites. And yet.
He clapped Gregor on the shoulder. “Remember that bay mare? The toothy one?”
“As if I could forget.” Gregor shuddered with recollection and allowed himself to be drawn toward the vehicle. “She nearly broke my arm with those teeth. If she hadn’t carried me halfway across Morocco on a skin of water and a prayer, I would have fed her to the dogs myself.”
The mare had spent the rest of her life as the pampered princess in a stable of the fleetest Arabians for her feat. Gregor had seen her buried among the legends of the stable. He might have even shed a tear.
A lean figure in a fur-lined parka and tall boots strode past the illuminated headlights to meet them. She finished a call that sounded terse and impatient as only Slavic tongues could and pocketed her phone with a wild grin. “Father.”
“Lys,” Azrael said. “You made it.”
“As if I would miss this.” Lysippe grinned. She always looked more herself after she’d had a few good weeks of strong sun. In that respect, the mission in Crete had been good to her. Short black curls escaped from her woolen cap when her furred hood slid down as she grabbed the bag. She opened the tailgate.
“Good thing you got in when you did,” she said, glancing at the departing plane. “Storm’s coming—you would have had to jump.”
“My jumping-from-plane days are over,” Gregor drawled from the front bumper.
Azrael’s eyebrows canted. “Tempting fate?”
Gregor popped the hood and peered inside the battered Toyota. “What is this piece of shit?”
Azrael appraised the stocked vehicle—gas, food, camping gear. This was going to be an expedition.
“Crete’s a dead end,” she said before he could ask. “Whatever information was there is gone now. We’re not the only ones looking, not anymore. I was headed to London when you called.”
Something in her voice made him pause. Beneath the fresh color and the dangerous grin, she looked weary. Most of his businesses could run themselves, and few required Lysippe’s direct intervention. Sending her to Barcelona to attend to shipping enterprises had provided good cover for her real mission.
Contrary to the speculations of the human resistance, there was no conspiracy between gods and necromancers. The necromancers and witches knew about as much about their history as humanity understood of their own DNA. He’d been searching for their origin before he’d been called to help Róisín align the Allegiance, then to take over her territory when she’d disappeared. Since then he’d been kept busy—and grounded—in Prague. He’d let the search die. Until Isela did what was thought impossible for a mortal after Luther Voss.
Lysippe had eagerly taken up the search again at his request, following a lead to the Greek islands. Like all of his Aegis, he felt her presence like a phantom limb. She’d had to fight her way out of a few tight scrapes. Not for the first time he wondered if he should have insisted on sending Aleifr or Ito as support. But she’d fought him tooth and nail for the right to go it alone.
“It’s not too late,” he said anyway.
Her eyes on him were fierce.
“We need Ito where he is.” Gregor stepped between them as he finished his inspection. “And Aleifr stands out like a big blond sore thumb. Lysippe’s assignment stands.” He patted the Cruiser’s chassis with satisfaction approaching approval. “Good rig, Lys.”
As she climbed in the driver’s seat, she called, “The horses are waiting at the village.”
His groan became a laugh. “Of course.”
Alone with Azrael on the tarmac, Gregor’s next words were as blunt and unforgiving as a sheet of Baltic ice. “Lysippe is not the one who needs your protection.”
Lysippe had trained him well, too well it seemed. Not for the first time, Azrael wondered what Gregor’s history with the Vogel family was. Isela was wrong. Not everyone in his Aegis was an open book. When Azrael offered near immortality to Gregor, the young nobleman had been around long enough to understand that Azrael did not read Lysippe’s mind as he did the others and to ask for the same freedom in his Gift. Azrael granted it willingly.
He had seen the inside of Gregor’s head in their watery prison and used it to keep him alive in the darkest hours. The names Gregor had spoken—Heinrich, Rob, Lark—brought the young man back from the brink of despair. He’d seen the faces of those who meant the most to him. A woman’s face. He’d been wrong to accuse Gregor of having never known love. Whatever had become of it had cost him everything.
When he took his oath to Azrael, Gregor admitted he left no one living to mourn him. Azrael hoped that leadership would root him. But the Gift only honed both his skill as a fighter and the knife-edge of sanity he clung to. Gregor didn’t seem to concern himself with much of anything not immortal, or nearly so. Until Isela. Now there was a new edge and intensity in his demeanor, and the timing of its arrival could not be a coincidence.
The Land Cruiser might have seen better days, but the engine sounded as strong as the day it had rolled off the production line. Azrael climbed in the passenger side. Gregor closed the back door. Lysippe put the car in gear.
Azrael glanced at the closest members of his Aegis. Lysippe’s face fixed in concentration as she navigated the rough terrain in the coming storm, and Gregor pensive as he stared out the window into the growing darkness. He’d missed hunting with them. It would be good to spend a few days together.
It would give him a chance to assess how much danger Lys was truly in and
whether or not he could trust Gregor anymore.
Chapter Nine
Isela dressed warmly, sweats over leotard and tights, a thick wrap over her arms and shoulders, and fingerless gloves that rose nearly to her elbows. She packed a small speaker in her dance bag and an extra pair of shoes with a knit cap.
She’d spent all week being as unremarkable as possible. She clung to a routine, stretching in the morning, visiting the unconscious phoenix, spending time with Tyler or Dante in the lab, before heading to the ballroom to dance. The afternoons were for sparring with Tariq, who was a more forgiving instructor. It worked, and as the Aegis was busy on whatever mission Azrael had them on in his absence, she saw only Dory or Aleifr periodically. She could travel around the castle grounds without a constant companion. And she planned on staying on the grounds. Technically.
She warmed up at the barre, letting the repetitive sequence of movements calm her mind. When she was warm, she stretched, contemplating her choice in location. It would be a good spot, close enough but secluded. As far as she knew, no one went there but her. Next, her mind went to wondering about the intelligence of what she planned to do. And what Azrael would say if he found out, which he most certainly would if anything went wrong. She grit her teeth. She’d have to pay that piper later.
It was time she stopped being idle in all this, relying on everyone around her. She had to know what she could bring to the table. She switched off the music and swapped her dance shoes for thick socks and an ancient pair of Converse. She laced them tight and slung her bag over her shoulder. Her heart raced against the bones of her rib cage.
What’s this? Gold roused from the stillness she always assumed while Isela danced. That was when she was the most quiet, a gentle buzz in the back of Isela’s mind that never interrupted.
Something that’s going to get me in big trouble if we mess this up, she said. Can you tell if anyone is between us and the Powder Tower?
Gold was quiet, but Isela could sense her working.
I can, Gold said finally, a note of satisfaction in her voice, and now so can you.
The words came with knowledge. Isela did know. She could feel Azrael’s Aegis and the absence of life that were his undead servants—all linked in greens. Azrael’s progeny were all necromancers, and since their power was not bound to Azrael, bloomed in colors of their own—amber for Tariq, turquoise for Gus, and a deeper blue for Dante. The phoenix was a bright orange glow in the depths of the building. It was a dizzying sensation, and nausea swept her.
Okay, enough, she said. I think you’d better keep an eye on that, or I won’t be able to get us out of here.
Out of here?
Isela opened the ballroom door. The hall was as empty as the preview had shown. She tightened her bag on her shoulder and moved as fast as she could without running, ignoring any servants she passed. Except one. The tall, gaunt man who was the head of Azrael’s household. She knew him only as Azrael’s valet, but he seemed to be everywhere.
Now he appeared to be waiting for her at the external door. She paused.
Want me to zap him?
Not if we can help it, Isela said. I don’t know what kind of alarms that would trigger.
She contemplated what to say to him, but he swept aside as he opened the door, offering a long scarf.
“Thank you,” she said, plucking it swiftly from his fingers.
He closed the door behind her.
Outside, the crisp air stung her nostrils. She wrapped the scarf around her mouth and nose, tucking the ends under the strap of her bag. She wished she’d brought a bigger coat, but that might have called attention to her plan.
I can help with that, Gold said.
Instantly she warmed from within. Isela moved at a quick half jog along the north wall to the gates. She slipped between the gates and moved east along the path that led down to the stag moat.
Originally part of the castle’s defense, the moat stretched along the northern side of the fortress, bridged by a stone archway leading to the royal gardens and the winter palace. It had gained its name from King Rudolph’s herd of deer, kept for his private hunts. Once bears were kept as amusement for the royalty. Now it was a quiet, empty place, blanketed in snow along the long path that ran down the side into the ravine. She could hear the stream at the bottom, sluggish now in the cold. She moved along the trail, and birds and small animals stirred in the brush as she passed.
The soft light cast long gray shadows, filtering pale oranges and yellows in the treetops. She found a clearing and dropped her bag, unpacking her speaker. Her breath came in big gouts of steam, betraying her nerves. She turned on the music.
“Music and dance go hand in hand,” she said, pushing back her gloves and beginning to clap in time. “Rhythm and movement are thought to be the earliest human arts. Now it’s your turn. These are the rules. I stay conscious the whole time. And when I say it’s done, we’re done. You hand back the wheel. Agreed?”
What are you doing? Gold’s voice was hushed with eagerness.
“Letting you drive,” Isela said grimly. “Though it may be the biggest mistake I’ve made this week. We are going to have to share this body. And that means working together. Not trying to sneak off with my body and seduce my man.”
I’m sorry—
“Just skip it,” Isela muttered. “You’ve kept your word so far—mostly—and I want to give you this.”
The god was silent for so long Isela thought she’d changed her mind.
“Plus, if we can figure this thing out, maybe we can wipe that stupid smirk off Gregor’s face for once.”
I’m ready.
Isela softened her awareness of her body as she focused on her breath and the beat of her own heart. She became aware of a second beat, merging in time with hers. Her fingers rose without her control. They hovered in front of her face. Her hands turned this way and that, curling and uncurling, twitching. She heard her own laugh at a distance, pealing with delight. Now was the moment she’d feared most. Would the god participate or decide to go rogue? And if she did the latter, was Isela’s vow specific enough to stop her or would she find a way around it?
Her hands spread, fingers wide, and then came together. Once. Twice. After a few strikes, the god found the beat, and they were clapping in time with the music.
“What now?”
Now we dance, Isela said. Close your eyes. Feel the music. Now move, small, slow, side to side. Catch the beat again.
Her body swayed, jerkily at first, as Gold took over more of it from Isela’s control.
Good, Isela said. Now step-clap. Right leg first. Step, together, clap; step, together, clap
Gold was a quick student, Isela gave her that. She had them spinning, stamping, and clapping. Isela could no longer tell who was laughing. She taught her basic steps from a half dozen dances and let her experiment with each until she’d gained comfort. Then she called out corrections.
Step-ball-change, Isela called. Step-ball-change! Don’t transfer your weight!
They careened around the clearing, kicking up snow and spinning until even Isela was dizzy.
Gotta teach you to spot next, she said, hands braced on her knees as they waited for the dizziness to pass.
Gold didn’t speak, but Isela felt the delight race through her system as if it were her own. She remembered the first time she’d felt that way dancing. The first time she’d hit her grand jeté or executed a flawless pirouette. The first handstand.
Gradually she felt the weight of her own body again as the god retreated.
Don’t stop now! Isela laughed. You’re making progress.
“This body… It’s heavy,” Gold admitted. “I think it’s going to be a while before I can take on Gregor for you in the ring.”
I was afraid of that. Even after an hour, Gold’s coordination was rudimentary at best.
Isela couldn’t deny the relief she felt as her limbs once again came under her control. She was aware of the physical sensation of her body
in a way she hadn’t been before. She’d taken it for granted, feeling the strength in her limbs rather than their weight. What she didn’t expect was the sadness.
Thank you, Isela. You’re a good teacher. We have to convince Azrael that it’s safe for you to dance again.
Isela swallowed against the hot scratch in her throat. “Maybe it’s for the best at the moment.”
You can’t believe that, Gold said firmly. I don’t. Will you dance, just a little bit? I miss feeling you move. You’re much better at it than I am.
Isela nodded, wiping her cheeks. She swept through large, easy movements, becoming settled in her body again. The air burned her lungs. She jumped, then crouched, rolling her shoulders and shaking her hips and arching her fingertips to the sky. The cold faded and the dim light, leaving only her breath and her heartbeat and the sensation of her limbs moving through space. And when she was done, she sank to her knees in the snow, great billows of steam rising from her body.
Someone’s coming, Gold said.
Isela struggled to one knee, alarmed to find her body spent. She glanced at her bag and the knives tucked just inside. Shit shit shit.
Gold light crackled down her fingertips, dancing onto the snow.
Gus materialized from the trees like shadows taking shape. Her depthless black eyes narrowed, and a smile quirked the corner of her mouth.
“Nothing better to do but follow me?” Isela said in challenge.
“Pardón, señora.” She folded at the waist. “I’m told you have a propensity to wander. Given the last episode, the others thought it best if I do the honors.”
Isela rose, reaching for her bag, but Gus was faster. She shouldered Isela’s bag easily and offered a sealed stainless steel bottle.
“It is tea.” Gus sniffed. “Ginger with lemon. The kitchen sent it.”
Isela accepted after a moment.
“Did you learn anything?” Gus asked as they walked. “About your companion?”
Isela had never thought of Gold like that, but after today’s experience, she thought they might be a step closer. A sense of new loyalty formed the answer before she could even consider. “No.”
Dancer's Flame (Grace Bloods Book 2) Page 9