Shadows of Ivory

by T L Greylock

  But the trees also provided an opportunity.

  And Eska seized it the moment the gardens were obscured behind them.

  With a quick slashing motion, Eska brought her riding crop down on the wrist of the man holding her horse’s bridle, at the same time giving the mare a hard nudge with her knees. The man let go and Eska’s horse surged forward. One stride, two, three, and then Eska heard a crack in the air and suddenly she was falling as her mare’s momentum was arrested with bone-snapping intensity. Eska twisted free of the stirrups as she went down and landed just out of range of the mare’s kicking legs, one of which, she saw, was caught in the tight coil of a long black whip held by the other man.

  The first man, already dismounted, leaped toward her, landing on top of Eska hard enough to push the breath from her lungs. She fought, kicking her knees up into his abdomen and earning a reprieve that allowed her to scramble to her feet—just in time to dive out of the way of the oncoming whip.

  She made it, mostly. The tip of the whip seared against her shoulder as she fell. Eska cried out, pressing her fingers to the place. They came away bloody, but she was already running. The first man hurled himself after her and Eska heard the whip crack a third time. A gurgled cry told her the whip-bearer had caught his partner instead. She didn’t look back.

  She couldn’t outrun the man still on horseback. Her only hope was to weave her way into the thickest part of the grove where his pursuit would be hampered by low branches and heavy underbrush.

  She didn’t make it that far before the horse caught her. She braced for the crack of the whip and the pain that would follow, but to her surprise, the man pulled up his horse in front of her and vaulted to the ground instead. He dropped the whip, a smile spreading slowly across his face, and reached for the sword on his hip.

  “I’ll be sure to give him your message, my lady,” he said. “I’ll tell him you put up a good fight, too.”

  Eska reached down to her boot and withdrew the knife stashed there—Perrin’s knife, preferred now to the glorified letter opener she had carried before the Iron Baron’s attempt on the banks of the Alencio—just as he slid his blade from its scabbard. She tried not to see how her hand shook.

  The man laughed and gave a lazy flick of his sword in her direction.

  He likely expected her to lean back. That is, after all, what anyone trained in the ways of sword fighting would do.

  But Eska wasn’t trained. She had a mere two lessons with Perrin under her belt. She didn’t even see his sword coming until it was too late—or it would have been had her momentum not sent her tripping over her own bootlace, narrowly avoiding his sword and stumbling directly into him, her dagger somehow finding its way into his chest.

  Eska jerked back. The man’s eyes went wide. He reached for her, his mouth working silently. And then he dropped to his knees. He stared up at her until he died and Eska could not have honestly said, as the dead man toppled over, who was more shocked at the turn of events.

  She needed to alert the authorities. She needed to claim it was self-defense. She needed to see her lawyer and protect herself from further action by the Iron Baron. These thoughts came to her—and then vanished just as quickly.

  Eska leaned over the body and pulled her dagger free. It came out with surprising ease and she watched the blood drip from its point for a moment before wiping it clean on a patch of moss. Her hand was no longer trembling as she returned it to her boot.

  She went back for her horse. The other man lay face down on the ground, a deep gash carved into his neck by the whip, the grass under his head soaked with blood. She took a moment to peer through the trees, her gaze roaming the wide lane and the terrace maze. There—the boy, the woman no longer in sight. The woman was quite possibly searching for her—but with any luck she had assumed the men had finished their work. The boy, at any rate, seemed safe.

  Eska collected her riding crop, checked that her mare was sound enough to ride, and then mounted and rode back through the trees.

  She emerged on the far side of the grove onto a wide and sunny boulevard lined with food stands and fresh fruit and flower stalls. Vendors shouted about their flaky, cheese-filled pastries or rare varieties of roses, but Eska heard none of it. She guided the horse methodically back to the de Caraval complex, and the moment she was able, she shut herself in her chambers and closed the shutters and curtains.

  She changed out of her bloodied shirt and dirty clothes, then washed her face and the small slash the whip had made in her shoulder. She dabbed a thin salve over it, gritting her teeth against the sting, and then dressed in fresh clothes.

  Emerging from her bath chamber, Eska pulled the porcelain jar of harrow root powder from a cabinet with sharp, angry movements and added two spoonfuls to a cup of hot black tea a servant had delivered while she had washed. She hesitated before stirring, then dipped the spoon in the jar once more, adding a third and then a—heaping—fourth. Killing a man seemed to necessitate such things, and besides, she still had the Varadome ahead of her. She needed to be at her best, her strongest.

  Sinking into a couch, Eska leaned back and propped her feet on the opposite armrest, the tea balanced on her stomach. She took a sip, relishing the lung-expanding first swallow, the sudden force imbued into her heartbeat, both telling her she could face down whatever mercenaries Thibault de Venescu would send for her next—and that if only she had taken the powder the day Gabriel died, she could have altered the outcome, changed his fate.

  “No one can be fated for such a death,” Eska heard herself say, as though speaking the words might push out the thoughts of how the dagger had felt in her hand, how the man had stared at her as he died. She focused all her attention on Gabriel. The sheer swiftness of that death was what had stayed with Eska, the way he had existed and then disappeared. “Who could create such a vile substance?”

  She knew the answer. The Alescuan kings and queens had created horrors wherever they went. There were stories of war hounds bred to monstrous size and raised on the blood of humans, of torturous experiments conducted on disabled children to fix what could not be fixed, of poisons so foul they need only be breathed in. The worst of the stories, if any could be categorized as such over the rest, revolved around the dynasty’s insatiable drive to achieve immortality. It was said they had been close, it was said Persea, the second-to-last Alescuan ruler, was murdered by her son, Varin II, for the sake of the secrets the mother had been stockpiling, secrets which were thought to include the path to immortal existence.

  When the Seven Cities rose up under the Tribunes, when the shining palace Elysium was razed, and when Varin II was executed—drawn, quartered, and fed to a savage panther—the people had held their breath, waiting for Varin to defy the very meaning of life. But the last Alescuan king, though he ranted and raved his way to death and promised vengeance upon the rebellion that had deposed him, died as all women and men die, leaving behind nothing but a smear of blood on the panther’s jaw.

  The second clay jar, as small and seemingly innocuous as its sibling, sat on Eska’s writing desk across the room. Whenever she opened her eyes to take another sip of tea, her gaze, without fail, fell on it. She would visit Albus at the Lordican the following day, provided her afternoon appointment at the Varadome went well enough to permit it. In the meantime, she didn’t intend to let Thibault de Venescu continue to terrorize her or the rest of Arconia.

  Eska scribbled off a quick note and summoned a servant to deliver the message to Firenzia Company lawyer Pierro Gustini, then returned to her couch to finish her harrow-infused tea.

  A distant commotion on the first floor of the house—voices, one of them raised, the other nearly indistinct—made Eska sit up, frowning. She drained the rest of her tea, stood, and went to her door, putting her ear against it as the disturbance grew louder. Unable to make much out, Eska opened her door and stepped out into the hall. She glanced down the hall to her right, toward where Perrin slept in a guest chamber, then made her way to the b
alcony surrounding the first floor entry hall.

  Valentin de Caraval was taking the wide marble stairs two at a time, his steps dogged by poor Nonetta, who was fruitlessly trying to collect his cane and hat. The maid was not the object of his anger, that much was obvious, but she was bearing the brunt of it.

  Eska stepped away from the railing and into the middle of the hall just as her uncle rounded the top of the staircase and froze at the sight of her.

  “Where is he?” Valentin growled. “Where is this thrice-damned Barca you’ve let into my company?”

  So that was it.

  Behind Valentin, Nonetta dipped a curtsey to precisely no one and disappeared. Eska resisted the urge to put her hands on her hips or cross them in front of her. Better not to look too defensive.

  “Our company, Uncle. And don’t forget it.”

  It was, perhaps, not the best thing to say, but Eska could not even blame the harrow root for it. It was long past time Valentin remembered they were equal partners in Firenzia, had been for three years.

  “Not for much longer, niece, if you keep this behavior up.” He started toward Eska, his long strides eating up the ground between them.

  Eska held her ground and squared her shoulders. “I’m not a child to be threatened. I am your equal. You will not speak to me this way.”

  That stopped him in his tracks, his anger mingling with surprise to form an ugly shade of resentment.

  “You chastise me for my actions, uncle, but I could do the same for you. Or have you forgotten that the Seven Cities recently instituted a strict policy regarding the exchange of goods and services with our neighbor across the sea? Somehow I don’t believe your arrangement with the prince of Anderra has been approved by the necessary authorities.” The steadiness of her barrage turned that resentment to shock. But then she went a bit too far. “I don’t think providing aid to a sick man, no matter his name, is likely to be as detrimental to this company as violating the law—the law agreed upon by all seven of our esteemed rulers.”

  She had provided Valentin with a means to return to the topic at hand and he seized it with fervor. “He’s a Barca, Eska! You know his father made it his personal agenda to sabotage this company—this family. How do we know he hasn’t been planted here by his sister to learn our secrets? How do we know he isn’t going to claim credit for something our company discovered?” Valentin began to approach once more and made to move past Eska—presumably to begin searching rooms—but she stepped sideways to block his way.

  They stood face to face, his chest heaving with fury, Eska hardly daring to breathe.

  “Uncle, do not bring yourself to Julian Barca’s level. It demeans you.”

  Valentin’s face went white and he made to speak, but Eska cut him off.

  “Perrin is my guest. He has lost everything. His sister, his only remaining family, abandoned him in Toridium. He has done nothing but support my work in Cancalo, for which he was rewarded with a devastating illness that he has not yet recovered from.” Eska took a breath. “And though it may be more than your limited prejudice can comprehend, Perrin is my friend. He saved my life. You will not touch him. You will not even see him.”

  Her uncle was not a violent man. And yet in that moment, though he would never have acted on it, she saw something in his eyes that longed to be set free. It did not frighten her—it broke her heart. There would be no going back from the words said that day. And she had not even had the chance to tell him of Gabriel’s death. Another thing he would hold against her later.

  Valentin turned on his heel and walked away without a word. Eska lingered long after the front door closed behind him, so long that she was still standing there when someone rapped on the door.

  Eska stirred from her thoughts and walked down the stairs, waving away Nonetta, who appeared from the servants’ wing.

  “I’ll get it,” she said, looking over her shoulder as she hauled open the heavy door. Eska turned, prepared to send away the unexpected visitor—after all, she had an appointment to keep and making the Archduke wait was not advisable—and came face to face with Eden San-Germain.

  Her surprise must have been evident—her lack of words certainly was—and yet there was no change in the Regatta Master of Lake Delo’s expression.

  “May I come in?” he asked.

  “Eden,” Eska said, taking in the armed men and women behind him.

  Eden looked away from her face for the briefest of moments, then fixed his gaze on her and waited for her answer.

  “Come in,” she said, stepping to the side so he could pass. The escorts watched him enter, then turned their attention away from the door as she closed it. Eska stood a few paces from Eden. He held his hands behind his back and his expression was more sober than she had ever seen it. “I confess, I am surprised.” The harrow root was swirling inside her, clamoring—but for what, Eska was not sure.

  “I am here on behalf of the Tribune of Cancalo,” he said, the picture of formality. “This is an official visit.”

  “Very well,” Eska said in the pause that followed, because it seemed expected. She was quite unsure what would follow.

  “Is there somewhere we may speak in private?”

  Eska frowned and looked around. The entry hall was empty. Indeed, the house was empty. Any servants in the vicinity knew to make themselves scarce. But there was something—at last—in Eden’s eyes that made Eska think twice before questioning him.

  “Follow me,” she said, trying to match his stiffness though she did not feel it.

  Eska led him to the smaller of the two libraries, the one she liked best, and offered her visitor a chair while she closed the door. When she turned back to him, he was still standing, and he had dropped whatever mask he had been wearing, replacing it with a searching expression that seared into her.

  Eden took a halting step toward her, pulled up, took another. “Eska,” he said, his voice soft.

  They moved at the same time, reaching for each other, her hands sliding up his arms as his went around her waist. The kiss that followed was long and necessary, rain after a drought. When Eden pulled away, he finally smiled that smile Eska had seen when she first met him.

  “Are you all right? Your journey was untroubled?”

  Despite the harrow root, Eska felt something inside her sag. She lowered her gaze, unbidden tears threatening. Lest she dissolve entirely, she stepped out of his embrace and paced away.

  “Gabriel,” she said at last, unable to look at Eden for fear she might reveal what had happened in the Lordican gardens that morning. “He died.” She told the story of opening the reliquary with Perrin, of discovering the small clay jars, of the way the honey-like substance turned Gabriel to dust. Eden let her talk without interruption and to Eska’s relief she was able to keep her emotions in check. When she finished, he took her hand in his and simply stood by her side.

  “I blame myself. I was responsible for him.”

  Eden squeezed her fingers. “The blame lies with those who created such a thing.”

  His words nearly penetrated the wall the harrow root had built up inside Eska. Nearly, but not quite. She wasn’t ready to let go of the need to fault herself. Not yet. And she could not shake the memory of the way life had drained from a pair of blue eyes in a grove of beeches.

  Eska took a deep breath and looked up at his brown eyes. “And what of you? The Tribune was lenient?”

  “That remains to be seen. And that’s why I’m here. Also why I needed to be sure the friends I’m traveling with couldn’t listen to our conversation.” It was Eden’s turn to pace. “The Tribune and his councilors came to the consensus that whatever was in the sunken vault is the property of Cancalo, no matter its origin or that they have never cared to know what might be in the vault before now. As such, they want to see it returned. That is my task.” He looked at Eska, a crease in his brow. “If I complete it, I am free to live my life, though no longer as Regatta Master. My companions are here to assist me in that endeavor.
” Eden stepped close to Eska. “Believe me, I have no intention of completing that task. But I must be seen to try.”

  “But if you were to succeed, what did they promise you?” The question belonged to the harrow root, Eska realized faintly, but echoed her own mind.

  Eden blinked. “Things that I don’t need or want or care for.” He took a step backward. “You don’t believe me.”

  “Eden, the last time we saw each other, you learned that I am accused of murder and I saw the confusion, the need to understand, in your eyes. And yet not a word about that has passed your lips.” The thoughts were forming as quickly as she spoke them, but Eska felt strangely confident in them. “Instead you insist you are here as a friend and you speak to gain my trust. Forgive me if I find that odd.”

  It was only then that the hurt bloomed in Eden’s eyes. “Would you rather I believe you to be a murderer?” he asked. “Would you rather I just accept someone else’s word? I have chosen to believe the last thing you said to me.” He shook his head in confusion. “Is that not what you would have wanted?”

  Eska heard him, but she could not shake the image of him in the moment she opened the door, the indifference and distance etched into his features—and she could not reconcile the two.

  Eden took half a step toward her. “I came here to warn you, to see if we might devise some means of foiling the Tribune and his efforts to claim what isn’t his.”

  She looked away. “I must go. I am expected at the Varadome,” she said, taking refuge in the summons to avoid answering Eden. “We can speak of this tomorrow—if,” she added, bitterness creeping into her voice, “if I am a free woman tomorrow.”

  He accepted her dismissal with resignation and a hint of the steeliness she had first seen in his face returned. The harrow root whispered inside Eska, reassuring her she was doing the right thing. The truth was, she knew Eden San-Germain only a little. Perhaps it was time she replaced some of the boundaries he had spoken of in Cancalo.