For the second time that night, Milo was flattened by the impact of Rihyani’s body striking him, and they both went down in a pile.
Zlydzen gave another bestial roar, but it was matched by the Rollsy’s engine as Ambrose drove the vehicle through the broken gates into the courtyard.
The dwarrow’s black eyes glared with utter venom at Milo as he lay soaking wet and panting with Rihyani, but then the huge mouth spread in another queasy smile made all the worse by the recent mutilation.
“Until we meet again,” Zlydzen said in a well-deep voice, then turned to run at a dead sprint for the columned vestibule.
The Rollsy skidded to a stop in the fountain water as the dwarrow leaped and began to clamber with apelike agility up the pillars and onto the roof of the Parliament building.
“We need to go!” Ambrose shouted as he stood up in the cab. “We’ve got to go now.”
Rihyani, on top of Milo once more, smiled down at him, her face smeared with the dwarrow’s metallic gore.
“Don’t tell me,” she whispered with coppery breath. “You want another kiss, don’t you?”
Milo stared at her, then his mouth hitched up in a smile.
“Would that make us even?”
25
The Arena
“Do you think you can raise one more toast to your victory?”
Milo turned from staring around the marquis’ ballroom and saw Rihyani approaching with a pair of crystal flutes. An amber liquor rolled gently in the vessels as she stalked toward him, flecks of gold sparkling within to match her eyes.
“I’m not sure you can call it victory,” Milo said, hating how sour he sounded. “But I don’t think it’ll hurt to have another drink.”
He knew he wasn’t being honest with himself about that.
Ever since they’d escaped Tiflis and headed north for shelter in the Lost Vale, it had been nothing but intoxicating celebrations. He thought the first time he’d had a drink shoved into his hand, he was still damp with fountain water, and everything since then melded into a blur of cheering, drinking, toasting, drinking, feasting, drinking, and even more drinking.
He’d crept off a few hours ago after realizing he was sobering up, and he had no idea how long it had been since he’d been in that state. Since then, he’d wandered the ever-shifting halls of the fey manse until he found his current perch. The overindulgence of elven wine and fair folk spirits hadn’t left him with the physical maladies such excess should have entailed, but they made him merrily forgetful, and now he wasn’t sure that was always a good thing. They’d need to be on their way soon, and he wanted his head clear and his memory intact.
Seeing Rihyani standing there with a glass in hand, her dark garments exchanged for a gown of blue velvet, he thought little harm could come from one last sip. After all, in his bleary recollections of the recent revels, her face featured not a little.
“Not a victory? Nonsense,” the fey chided lightly, a smile on her dark lips. “You set out to capture a dangerous enemy from the midst of his followers, and you not only succeeded relatively unscathed, but you even captured one of his most useful subordinates.”
Milo shook his head, torn between escaping the scrutiny of her gaze and longing to savor the sight of her.
“That last one just fell into our laps, so I don’t think I can take any credit for it.” Milo sighed and realized she was standing in front of him, arm extended with glass in hand. “Oh, sorry, I’ll take that.”
He took the flute, and they raised their drinks together. Rihyani’s eyes locked onto his and he felt her will brush against his, as intimate as though she was whispering in his ear.
To your conquest of impossible odds, she thought, her will gliding across his like fingers across his cheek. Both on the field of battle and in far more important arenas. May you always show such courage, determination, and cunning in whatever lies ahead.
Hear, hear, Milo managed, not so practiced that he could casually commune in the Art as effortlessly as the fey.
The flutes chimed against each other and they both drank deep, each watching the other.
The amber liquor was cool on the tongue but warm in the throat and tasted of smoked honey and cloves. The warmth of it became a low fire in his belly, and with a sudden intensity he didn’t quite trust, the hazy lethargy of the last few days of celebrating melted like fog in the summer sun.
Rihyani saw his eyes widen as everything came into sharp clarity and gave one of those laughs that made Milo’s heart sore with longing. Up to this point, he’d never been sure what he longed for, but whether it was the liquor or a revelation, when he looked at her, he thought he might know now.
“S-so,” he began and nearly cursed himself for the stammer, “now that you helped us, what is the plan? Will the Shepherds reassign you?”
Rihyani’s eyes slid down to the dance floor, where the fey cavorted as the marquis sat at a vast table at the head of the chamber. The lord of the manor watched the proceedings with a venerable patriarch's assured ease.
“It doesn’t quite work like that.” The contessa sighed as she eyed the tall, goatlike fey. “But I do need to pass the word among our circles that the marquis has joined our side. I’m sure he’s already made it known to some, but I’ll need to verify the reports before he can be brought in on our operations.”
Milo nodded, knowing he needed to say something. He also needed to stop bobbing his head up and down like an idiot, but standing there watching her, he didn’t seem capable of anything else.
A smirk curled a corner of Rihyani’s mouth, and for a second, he thought she was going to laugh at him. He wondered if he’d find that enchanting too, but then he saw her nod at the banquet table.
“They look like they’re having fun.” She giggled as Milo followed her gaze and then shared her smile.
To the marquis’ immediate right and left were the seats reserved for Milo and Rihyani, while on opposite sides, Ambrose and Bakbak-Devi were engaged in yet another competition of consumption. That the half-human bodyguard had managed to win a few times against the many-headed giant was certain to be a matter of folklore among the fey for some time to come.
“I’m glad Ambrose is enjoying himself,” Milo said and felt his grin buckling under a grim realization. “It’s probably going to be a long time before we get a hero’s welcome again. We’re headed back north, and if we’re both not thrown into the stockade on sight, it will be a mercy.”
Rihyani turned back, studying his face, her smile giving way to pensive concern.
“You don’t think your captives will be enough?”
Milo shrugged and shook his head.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “They have vital intelligence about the Guardians and the Ewiges Reich, and they both seem practical enough to talk.”
And that wasn’t the only thing at least one of them knew. Milo felt a sudden urge to race out to the dovecote where Stalin was chained and ask him why he’d said a name scrawled on a tarot card in Milo’s pocket.
“But?” Rihyani prompted, and Milo realized he’d trailed off.
“Um, but, uh…” He floundered for a second before seizing on the thread he’d left dangling. “But the military loves hierarchy, and I pretty much threw the book out not once, but twice. I’m not sure anything short of winning the war can guarantee I’ll be spared.”
Rihyani nodded and finished off the last of her flute before making it vanish with a flutter of her fingers.
“I still need you to teach me that one,” Milo said. “If we ever get the time.”
Rihyani turned back to the dance floor as she folded her arms in front of her. A smile tickled the corner of her lips as she gave him a sidelong glance.
“We could have the time,” she said quietly, then he felt her will, faint and silken against him. If you wanted it. If you wanted me.
Milo stared at her, his mouth working for a second or two without making a sound.
“I mean, I didn’t, not that I wa
sn’t hoping,” he babbled, then stopped himself and drew a steadying breath. “I mean, you’re immortal, beautiful, wise, and pretty much everything I’m not.”
Rihyani’s laughed gently, and that familiar ache in his chest throbbed.
“Are you trying to talk me out of it?” she asked, giving him another quick glance out the corner of her eye.
“I guess I’m trying to say…” Milo began, then had to take an embarrassing few seconds to decide what exactly he was trying to say. “Well, I guess it, um, I mean, you just seem too amazing. It’s like I’d be a fool to dare to hope for something so out of my reach.”
With a smooth sideways step, Rihyani slid up next to him.
“Do I seem out of your reach now?” she asked, eyes fixed on the dancers below.
Almost without knowing what was happening, Milo’s arms wrapped around her. Once the embrace began, it seemed to have a life, a gravity, a force all its own. She contoured to him and he to her. She raised her eyes from the hall beneath them, their foreheads resting gently against each other’s.
It’s not foolish to hope, Rihyani whispered to his soul. Only the hopeful can know real triumph, and even when they fall, they do so daring greatly. I’ll strive for you and you for me, and together we’ll be valiant enough for whatever comes.
Milo felt something new and potent burning inside him, and for once, it was not a matter of eldritch knowledge. It was a far simpler, far more potent power, and it shone inside him such that he thought he might begin to glow like the beautiful creature in his arms. For a single instant, he felt as though the long shadows and cold depths inside him were gone, banished before the light, and he couldn’t decide if he wanted to laugh, sing, or cry.
He looked into Rihyani’s eyes and decided he wanted something else altogether.
“Here’s to hope,” he said, then kissed her deeply.
Epilogue: Adversus Solum
Petrograd was not what it once was, and it was whispered on some nights that the fires of the Red Revolution still burned in a city that was now little more than a ruin, inhabited by bandits, scavengers, and more of the same with grandiose ambitions.
“Yet those souls still need saving,” Father Bunin would say. “And as long as the Lord grants me strength and the saints grant wisdom, I will be here.”
The fact that those souls had sacked his little chapel on the road into Petrograd and had more than once cruelly mistreated the priest did little to discourage him.
“Everything is dark apart from the light of Christ,” he would remind himself as he set about putting right what could be and clearing out what was broken beyond repair. “If our Lord could forgive the worst of these, how much more should I?”
From there, it was a matter of finding out what needed replacing, though the Orthodox church had abandoned the area nearly a decade ago. As such, the furnishings, decorations, and even the icons were of his own crude making. Unlike the teacher to whom he devoted his life, Bunin was no carpenter, but he did the best he could. The wood he hewed from the forest down the road, while nails and fastenings he collected from the crumbling outskirts of the city.
It was on one such scavenging expedition that Bunin discovered an odd sight.
A small, lumpy form huddled inside a burnt-out home.
This in and of itself did not seem strange since Bunin was regularly finding old, moldering corpses on such excursions. In fact, two-thirds of the bodies laid to rest beside his chapel were those he’d found in such a state. Father Bunin was no stranger to the sights and smells of death, living so near a cursed place like Petrograd.
What was strange were not only the proportions of the figure but also the fact that it seemed to still be alive despite what seemed to be a horribly disfiguring disease. Ragged breaths wheezed out through the ragged holes where a nose had been, and the whole body seemed swollen, most particularly the head. The poor wretch’s beard was streaked with sour, crusted bile.
Despite its truly horrific state, Father Bunin squatted next to the creature and laid a gentle, callused hand on the clammy brow.
“Oh, my child,” Bunin said in a tender whisper. “What afflicts you so?”
Bunin started when one eyelid peeled back from a glittering black eye.
“A witch,” the wretch hissed between jagged teeth. “A fey witch.”
Bunin nodded slowly, understanding that such superstitions existed among the folk of Russia. Father Bunin believed from the Scriptures that there were those who might consort with spirits and demons, like the woman from Endor or Simon the Sorcerer, but the simple folk found it easier to blame the harshness of their life on such creatures in place of simpler, harder answers. He didn’t begrudge them this in their confessions, and he certainly would not begrudge a dying man such thoughts.
That he was dying was certain, the poor wretch. That he was still alive even now was a miracle of either divine or infernal making. With a silent prayer, Bunin hoped for the former as he unlimbered the waterskin slung across his back.
“Are you thirsty?” the priest asked, holding up the skin.
The diseased man’s other eye, as black and hard as its twin, opened, and he glared at the offering with open suspicion. Then a cough wracked his body, and his parched lips split in several places. The fluid that leaked from them must have been choked with disease because it looked and smelled quite unlike blood.
“Yes,” he croaked, and without hesitation, the priest raised the waterskin to the befouled mouth.
“Slowly,” he cooed, sliding his free hand behind the swollen head to prop the poor creature up a little. “There is plenty, and it’s not going anywhere.”
The wretch choked at one point, and a gush of water and coppery fluid sprayed out of his mouth. He had to be rolled on his side to keep from drowning in his own effluence. The fit passed, and Father Bunin rolled the creature gently back after placing his backpack as a support against the fellow’s spine. Using a clean rag from the bag, he cleaned the wretch’s mouth and gave him more water.
“What are you doing out here, my child?’ the priest asked as he took the waterskin away to give the man a chance to catch his breath. “I’ve not seen you around here before, but being in such a state, I can’t see how you could have come from very far.”
“I came from Georgia,” the wretch said with a gargle in his throat. “I had business there, and now I’m here, waiting for another business partner.”
Father Bunin supposed it was nothing but fevered rambling, but he nodded and dabbed the creature’s mouth with a clean corner of his rag.
“That is a long way to come, especially in your condition,” the priest said before looking out through the scorched door of the flame-scoured building. “Will your friend be along shortly?”
“Should be any minute now.” The poor man sighed, his blackened eyes sinking to half-mast as he leaned against the priest’s bag. “I sent word by one of his cronies when I arrived yesterday.”
Father Bunin, having endured so long in such an inhospitable place, had no illusions left about what kind of henchmen might be lurking around the outskirts of the ruined city. If the man hadn’t killed this poor creature in such a vulnerable state, he only did so because he thought further profit or sport could be had by returning with friends.
“Perhaps,” the priest said, resting a hand softly on the man’s malformed shoulder, “you would like to come with me back to the chapel and wait there? We can leave a note for your business associates. There will be some food there for you while we wait for them.”
The rattling rumble of a diesel engine put to death Father Bunin’s hopes as it growled its way toward them.
“No need,” the wretch observed in a small, unsettling voice. “He’s already here.”
A canvas-backed truck came to a stop before the husk of a house. Father Bunin could make out men’s voices speaking over the engine, then a strapping figure appeared in the doorway.
A deep, velvety voice came from the silhouetted figure at the
threshold. “Don’t bother with that one, Father. Jesus didn’t go to the cross for the likes of him, I think.”
“What took you so long?” the wretch snarled with a forceful will Father Bunin wouldn’t have thought possible given his condition.
“I came as soon as I could,” the apparent business associate said as he stepped into the house. “But it took some time to find a vehicle that wasn’t being used. That plan of yours is extensive.”
Emerging from the shadows was a shockingly handsome man with dark, smoldering eyes and tattoos crawling up either side of his neck. One ink-scrawled hand raked through wavy locks of golden brown grown long in the front but shorn to the skin on the sides. Instead of the rugged, homespun attire common to most of those dwelling around Petrograd, this man wore a fine suit like a businessman from a bustling metropolis might wear.
It took Father Bunin a moment, but he recognized the man as a leader of one of the legions of bandit bands plaguing the area. The priest had only seen the man at a distance during one of his scavenging expeditions, but the forces the man commanded, as best as the priest could guess, were more like an army than roving thugs—hard-eyed killers, united by one that even such men could respect.
“What happened to you?” the bandit chief asked with an amused chuckle. “You weren’t pretty before, but this new look is beyond the pale.”
“Shepherd harridan,” the wretch spat. “Her and that pet sorcerer. They didn’t just do this, but they turned the marquis against us, too.”
The chieftain, who’d begun to look at the burnt home with a mildly annoyed expression, perked up at that and turned an approving smile on the disfigured fellow.
“You limped all the way from Tiflis like that? I’m impressed.”
The wretch didn’t seem to appreciate the compliment.
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