Maledicte

by Lane Robins

  Beside him, Janus nodded. “Uncle.”

  “I would speak with Maledicte,” Aris said. “Janus, I owe Psyke this dance. Please take my place.”

  Janus bowed and left, Psyke on his arm once more; Maledicte stood as still as a wild creature unexpectedly cornered. His heart pounded. Inside him, Ani stretched Her wings, whispering. His fingers itched for the sword hilt, for its cold security, with a desire not his own.

  “Be easy,” Aris said, settling himself onto a bench with visible weariness. “You are in the fortunate position of the king requesting a favor.” Aris patted the bench.

  Maledicte slipped over to him, sat on the very edge of the stone, among the carved vinework. “You want me to marry?”

  “All men should marry, if only to see themselves through others’ eyes. Wedding Aurora changed the way I saw my kingdom and myself. Under her tutelage, I saw my court as it was—decadent, violent, concerned more with matters of style than of state. We have chosen to mirror Itarus, but we have chosen to reflect only their surface. Their courtiers vie and kill, but they further the kingdom as a whole, whereas my court—cares only for entertainment.” He sighed, breath loud in the night; frosty clouds carried his words away, scented with the sting of wine.

  “Aurora was a queen to be revered. She knew we had to change, and I did so. I have attempted to make the court do so as well, and failed on that count.”

  “Such foolish heads can be led,” Maledicte said. “Make them bend to your will.”

  Aris laughed. “I am merely a king and not a god.” His laughter faded into bitterness. “And while some kings can ape gods, make their will and their people’s one and the same, I am all too aware that I am only a man. But I understand Baxit, who looked on His own court and despaired, who forced the gods into oblivion. Were it not for Adiran, for other innocents who would suffer, I could do the same. Stop the struggle and let us fall—”

  Maledicte shivered. Aris’s face, so like Janus’s in structure, might have been uncarved marble for all that Maledicte could learn of his mood in it.

  “Were it not for love—” Aris said, his gloved hand touching Maledicte’s chin, his voice thinned by exhaustion. Then his mouth claimed Maledicte’s, his lips not tentative like his words, but so fierce that Maledicte felt Ani dwarfed beneath the sensation. It wasn’t simple desire that Maledicte felt in Aris’s hunger, but bleakness, a desperate attempt to quicken the blood.

  Aris’s tongue touched his, wine-rich, and Maledicte shoved him away, panic racing in his veins. It was done without grace or subtlety, but all he could think was what if the belladonna lacing his mouth was enough to kill a king? He fell off the bench, awkward in fright and dismay.

  Maledicte knelt on the cold, damp stone, silent and waiting, his agile tongue gone dry along with his bravado, tracing the tangling lines of the stony vines.

  “It is bewitchment,” Aris said, “that feeds this fascination. But I think one of my own making.”

  His voice, empty of any emotion but despair, wicked some of the dread from Maledicte’s spine. “Aris,” Maledicte breathed.

  “Shh,” Aris said, laying his hand over Maledicte’s mouth, then taking it away as if desire would spill over again. “I will be done with this nonsense, and ask my favor of you. The Lady Amarantha fears you. Fears your eyes on her belly, beyond all reason. I would have you avoid my court until her child is born.”

  “Exile?” Maledicte said, striving to put some flippancy in his voice, striving to restore himself. He was Maledicte, the unflappable, dark cavalier. Why should a weary king and a despairing kiss have had the power to over-set him so? “On a woman’s whims—you are a gentle man indeed.”

  “It is my brother’s child,” Aris said. “Antyre’s future.”

  “I will do as you ask,” Maledicte said, rising to his feet and stepping toward the balustrade. “But you know, Aris, you needn’t have asked my compliance. You could have demanded it.” Without waiting for leave, Maledicte dropped down the few feet to the garden and fled back to the stables, to Gilly, who was fiddling with harness straps and buckles.

  “Done so soon?” Gilly asked, without looking up from his hands.

  “Yes,” Maledicte said. He leaned against a mossy wall and closed his eyes, stopped fighting the belladonna; it took him into the dark clouds above, a raven’s-eye view of the city wheeling and spinning beneath him. He wouldn’t want to be in any coach driven by a man hallucinating the way he was. “Poor Aris,” Maledicte murmured, thinking of the king with distant regret. “If only I could trust it to be a girl—”

  “Are we waiting for Janus?” Gilly called back, busy with the harness.

  “No. He’ll have to chase Amarantha away. I’ve been banned,” Maledicte said, sliding down the wall, pressing his back against it until the stone’s dampness sank through the layers of silk and linen, touching his skin with the intimacy he had denied Gilly and Aris. Gilly spoke but Maledicte heard only the comforting sound of his voice, watching as coaches came and went in the spaces of his blinking.

  “Come on now,” Gilly murmured in his ear, pulling him to his feet. “You’ve dozed enough to miss Amarantha on the move. Best we leave before her coachman spies us lurking…. Mal, you’re shaking,” he said, his calm slipping away.

  Maledicte’s thoughts tangled in his mind, strangling the words of reassurance in his throat.

  “The antidote is working?” Gilly said.

  Again, Maledicte’s response died stillborn. That the belladonna was more potent than he had thought, that the antidote was less effective than he had been led to believe, that Ani sulked and shirked Her aid.

  Clutching the hilt of his sword, Maledicte staggered to the coach. Gilly caught him, his words lost in the rushing murmur of Maledicte’s blood. Gilly bundled him into the coach, tucked him round with heavy warmth, and shut the door.

  “Ani,” Maledicte whispered. Inside his heart, his belly, his bones, the whisper of wings stirred and rustled, sounding their susurrant reassurance. Maledicte sprawled across the seat, wrapped in the rough leather of Gilly’s greatcoat. Rocked by the movement of the coach, he slipped into waking dreams.

  Ani pressed out through his ribs, sending out long feathers to row through the air. Rising, She soared above Maledicte’s coach, the cold winds parting beneath Her strokes. She rose above the wide streets of the palace surrounds, the smooth cobbles glistening like scales beneath Her. Circling above the palace, She watched the coaches moving like bright beetles, finally spotting Her goal—the glossy blue coach, its color robbed by darkness, trundling slowly along the cobbled road out of the city.

  How afraid Amarantha must be, She gloated, to brave the overnight journey to Lastrest with a weary coachman. Flanking the coach, four kingsguards on gray horses and Dantalion on a blood-colored bay insured her safe passage.

  As She neared, the coachman yanked on the reins, frightening the team into arrhythmic canters. His face blanched. The kingsguard wheeled their mounts and wheeled them again, confusion and concern written on their faces.

  “She’s there!” the coachman screamed, his voice spiraling into the sky like a prayer. She reveled in it, dropping closer. The kingsguards gaped at the road, at the sky, at the trees alongside; Dantalion kept his eyes where it mattered—the coach. He drew his steed nearer the door, preparing to dismount and climb aboard. But the coachman snapped the reins, lashed out with the whip, and set the horses to a panicked gallop, leaving Dantalion still reaching for the frame.

  Caught flat-footed, the kingsguards milled for a moment, a tangle of reins and stirrups and pistoning hooves, then they streamed after the swaying coach. Dantalion was a length ahead and gaining when She opened Her wings to their fullest extent, spreading the stench of carrion fields, the sweet rot of the grave. The horses reared and frothed. Two kingsguards were thrown, rolling hastily to avoid being trampled by their maddened horses.

  Dantalion savagely held his horse to his will, but he lost ground, and the coach hurtled away, Amarantha’s sc
reams trailing in its wake. The coachman still peered over his shoulder, panicked, trusting the horses to stay on the road. Their hooves pounded out the cadence of a frantic heart.

  Her feathers sliced the air, driving Her over and beyond the coach. The coachman’s head swiveled, his mouth slackened. She wheeled, soared, and came back at the coach. The coachman’s face, seen head-on, was that of a ghost, gibbering and hollow-eyed.

  He sawed on the reins and the stressed leather snapped. Kicking their heels, heads flat out and flecked with foam, the horses bolted. The coach tipped to the left, putting one edge in the dirt, skidding, rolling, broken wheels crashing through the enamel and gilt, and coming to a shuddering halt. Lying in the road, the coachman whimpered, “Ani.” She devoured his prayer, his worship.

  Dantalion gained the scene, his mouth taut with rage. He dismounted his chastened horse, tied it to a piece of the wreckage, and started sorting through the remains of the coach. Lifting the door, he found Amarantha, her eyes staring at the sky, her belly huge. Dantalion knelt….

  “Mal?”

  The voice distracted Her, and the scene faltered. Strong hands confined Her, dragging Her away, Her feathers dwindling, Her sight gone. She protested.

  “Easy, Mal,” Gilly murmured in his ear. “Or you’ll have us tumbling down the stairs.”

  Blinking, Maledicte pieced the details together. That steady rush and thump was not the downbeat of wings, but Gilly’s chest beneath his cheek, the swaying sense of flight nothing but Gilly’s slow ascent up the staircase, cradling Maledicte in his arms. The shattering of wood and wheel was the damage done by Maledicte’s trailing scabbard against the delicate ornaments in the railing. “Put me down.”

  “Two more steps,” Gilly said, tightening his grip.

  Maledicte tensed, uncomfortable with such proximity to Gilly, too aware of secrets, Janus’s potential arrival, and his own weakness that urged him to slide his arms around Gilly’s neck.

  At the top of the stairs, Gilly set him down, patiently making sure he had his balance before stepping back. Throughout it all, his eyes never met Maledicte’s. “Are you well now? Your shaking has stopped.”

  “Yes,” Maledicte said.

  “I thought you were immune to poisons.”

  “I’m not dead, am I?” Maledicte croaked; his throat felt stiff, as if it wanted to voice words not his own, to finish Ani’s triumphant cry.

  Gilly nodded, eyes sluing toward the stairs and the front hall.

  “Thank you, Gilly,” Maledicte said, touching his cheek.

  Beneath his fingers, Gilly flinched. “I’m going out,” he said.

  “Are you well?” Maledicte asked.

  “No,” Gilly said. “I killed a man tonight. You nearly poisoned yourself, and all the way back, I listened to Ani ranting in your voice. All I want is to be someplace far from death. I know Lizette won’t ask me to kill anyone.”

  “Gilly,” Maledicte said, “don’t—”

  “Don’t what? Don’t feel guilt? Don’t dream of them? The coachman, Amarantha, the babe? My head is already full of Vornatti, Kritos, that assassin, Love’s man, and poor Roach.”

  “I need you,” Maledicte said. “You agreed it had to be done. I didn’t ask you to kill him.”

  Gilly sighed. “I know. But tonight, I didn’t kill for you, in your defense. Tonight, I killed to make Janus’s path easier. And I can’t think of a single reason I should let myself be used by him, the way he’s using you.”

  Maledicte shoved him, despair replaced with something stronger, hotter, more palatable. Gilly stumbled backward, missed the top step, and fell. He caught the railing with one quick hand before he fell more than a few risers. He righted himself, looked up at Maledicte.

  Breathing quickly, Maledicte waited, aching for the fight. For something he could win. Once, he would have been able to use words to sway Gilly, but he found nothing to say now, all churned under Ani’s wings.

  “And you worried that Ani would hurt me,” Gilly said. “That was all you.”

  “Gilly,” Maledicte said, voice a thread of sound, forcing words through the rage that choked him.

  “Think about what you want and need of me. I will not kill for Janus. If that’s what you want, you’ll have to find a new ally.”

  “No,” Maledicte said. He stretched a hand out, but Gilly had already turned and finished going down the stairs. The door shut with a bang.

  His hands fisted. Gilly just didn’t understand. He would apologize, explain that so close to their goal, he was unsettled, make him the promise he’d made before: that Gilly wouldn’t have to kill for him. This time, he’d make sure it was kept. If Gilly returned. If the blood on his hands hadn’t been too much for his honest nature.

  Blond hair gleamed in the light and Maledicte’s breath caught. “Gilly?”

  “No,” Janus said. “What are you doing on the stairs? Come down, let’s wait out the night and see death in with the morning.”

  Maledicte stretched his hand out, and Janus tugged him to his feet, kissed his temple, driving away his moodiness, his anger and fear at Gilly. “What did Aris want of you?”

  “Nothing,” Maledicte said, then laughed. “He asked me to stay out of the court while Amarantha was attending.”

  Janus smiled. “You promised, of course.”

  “Knowing what I know, how could I not?” Maledicte leaned against Janus, and they went down the stairs, through the quiet house, hand in hand.

  · 31 ·

  P INK HAD JUST CREPT INTO the sky when the great bells of the palace began to toll. Maledicte, dozing against Janus’s shoulder, sat upright, anticipation chasing the last sleep from his face. Janus turned his head, smiling. “A sweet sound of funeral bells in the air. You’ve done it. Amarantha’s dead.”

  Maledicte didn’t respond, too caught up in the deep, slow voice of the bells. When they came to a stop, like a faltering heartbeat finding rest at last, Maledicte let out his pent breath in a languorous sigh. “It’s done. Finally done.” A bubble of lightness started in his belly, a seed of relief.

  Janus kissed his forehead, his mouth. “Thank you, my cavalier, my dark swordsman. Now you may rest your sword.”

  The relief in Maledicte’s belly refused to grow. Even as he murmured agreement, he wondered if Janus could sense his forebodings. Would Ani leave him now?

  When he closed his eyes and listened to the dark recesses of Miranda’s body, he believed Ani had taken root like a child not easily ridded by potions and poison. “What will I do?” he said aloud.

  “Anything you like,” Janus said. “We’ve won, Mal.” At the hushed velvet quality in his voice, a tone saved for long moments between the sheets, whispers in the dark, Maledicte let the last of his tightwire energy drain away.

  Were Gilly in the room, he might see past the disguise now, see beyond his expectations. In Maledicte’s softening limbs and giddy smile, in the way he folded himself into Janus’s arms…all these had more in common with Miranda than any courtier. But Gilly was still gone from the town house, though no longer closeted in Lizette’s sheltering embrace. Instead, he roamed the early-morning streets, seeking information the bells could not give him—was the coachman alive?

  What he heard, in whispers from servant to servant, from merchant to customer, and finally from the broadsheet criers, sent him home, running through the narrow streets.

  MALEDICTE RESTED HIS HEAD in Janus’s lap, let his eyes drift closed. Janus trailed his fingers through Maledicte’s hair, planning aloud. “I’ll need to attend Aris. There may be questions. Amarantha made no secret of her fears—”

  The sound made them both stiffen, made Maledicte raise his head, eyes flaring dark and wild. “What is that?” The bright carillon continued, ringing off stone and rebounding, filling the air. Tumbling off the chaise, Maledicte put his hands over his ears. Within him, Ani twisted, churned, waking to malevolence.

  Gilly burst into the room, and Maledicte looked up, near blind with nameless anxiety. “W
hat is that sound, Gilly? What is it?”

  Gilly panted for breath, his chest shuddering, too distraught to mince words. “A child has been born to the royal family,” he said, staring at Maledicte’s face, as white as milk or marble. “Dantalion cut him from her belly. The bells mean they expect him to live.”

  Maledicte screamed, the sound soaring up over the bells, ripping free of the confines of his maimed throat, beyond human range. Outside, the rooks burst into panicked flight, wheeling and setting dark flickers behind the window glass. Janus released him, face blank in alarm and chagrin.

  “Gilly, are you sure?” Janus said, but Gilly had no time for Janus, no time for anything but the swelling blackness in the slim form before him. Gilly stroked countercharms in the air with all the fervor of a country intercessor, but the empty wildness in Maledicte’s eyes remained unchanged.

  “The earl is dead…Long live the earl…I will not allow it.” The voice was barely recognizable as human; it raised hackles along Gilly’s nape, the rattle and rasp of it like old bones, like his dream of Ani brought to life.

  “Maledicte,” he breathed. “Please.”

  Sword drawn, Maledicte moved toward the door, inexorably dragging the shadows after him. “Stop him,” Gilly said.

  Janus reached out with alarming casualness and seized Maledicte’s arm, his face annoyed. “Mal, enough with the melodrama. We need to—” He sucked in his breath and lunged back as the sword sliced toward his belly. Gilly leaped forward, taking advantage of Maledicte’s half-turned body, taking that slim form in his rush and bearing it to the floor. Maledicte shrieked again, thwarted blood in his voice; the rooks crashed through the windows, shredding themselves on the glass, pelting them with bone and feather and blood.

  “The sword,” Gilly gasped, trying to keep Maledicte down, when it felt as if Maledicte was as muscular and as agile as a serpent. If the countercharms were worthless, removing the sword from Maledicte’s grip might be the only chance left. Sliding over Maledicte’s back, he pushed Maledicte’s arm out, spreading the sword hand farther away from himself.