The Storm of Life

by Amy Rose Capetta

  I leapt to my feet and crossed to the trunk, on fire with the knowledge that if I did not leave now, I would spend the entire day in this room, vigorously forgetting about Beniamo, the future of Vinalia, anything but the way Cielo stroked his lips as if they were newly lined with gold.

  After pulling on a linen shirt and woolen skirt, I added a man’s half cape and sturdy leather boots. If people were going to stare at the streghe no matter what, I figured I might as well dress however I wished.

  We ate the rest of the supplì in a rush, and Cielo led me onto the streets to find a bottle of wine.

  “How can we be worried about our appetites when Vanni, Mimì, and Xiaodan are missing?” I thought of them climbing down the iced slopes of the Neviane with Beniamo—and his stolen army and his penchant for killing streghe—not far behind.

  “I promise I will fly back north and find them soon,” Cielo said, tucking his arm through mine with little care for the looks that followed us. “There is a small matter to deal with first.”

  It was one thing to swirl over Prai at a great height, and another to be cast into the froth of people and horses and carts on the street. Piazza after piazza burst forth, each with its own fountain. They were adorned with a dizzying array of statues: animals, angels, naked men and women, God in the flesh. It felt a bit as if Prai had gotten drunk and pointed wildly at everything it wished to have.

  Once we had found our wine, a white from the central provinces that bloomed in my mouth like flowers, Cielo let me take all of three sips before he grabbed my wrist and kept moving. “Why am I starting to think we’re not in Prai only because of the safe house?” I asked.

  “Because you are always trying to assign slippery motives to people, even ones you know and trust,” Cielo said. A smile threatened his features. “And because we are not in Prai only for the safe house.”

  We turned the corner and entered a neighborhood where a new blend of spices scented the air, and carts sold everything from blessed oils to fried artichokes. I’d heard of this place, a ghetto in Prai, home to believers of the Evracco faith. I watched them closely as they went about their days, taking comfort in the fact that their religion was older than the empire, as old as streghe, proof that some in Vinalia had never been converted to the church of Prai.

  Cielo smiled at everyone we passed, but the face he turned to me was drawn in straight, somber lines. “When I spoke to the soldiers of Erras in the Capo’s camp, they gave me assurances that Veria’s Truth was real.”

  “Apparently, it’s a shard of magic,” I said, tired of being two steps behind in Cielo’s search for a way to change the death inheritance. “Did they also tell you that the old gods were streghe, or have you always known?” I would have tossed in the disgrace of learning such a fact from the Capo, but his death dampened my outrage.

  I thought of his body: muscle exposed, blood spreading, steam rising.

  “I’d heard rumors, but I had no way of knowing if they were true,” Cielo said. “Think of the strega stories Fiorenza told you as a child. Streghe have turned out to be gloriously real, but does that mean you now believe every detail of those tales? Or are you slowly picking the flowers of history from the weeds of myth?”

  “I always liked weeds,” I said stubbornly. “They grow without anyone giving them permission.”

  Cielo gave me his best smile then, one that was not a flourish of script but a simple, quickly jotted truth.

  “So we are in Prai to find Veria’s Truth,” I said as we passed out of the Evracco neighborhood and into one that seemed to be composed entirely of bakeries. From every direction, the smells of butter, chocolate, and toasted nuts crowded in.

  “It’s not that simple a dance,” Cielo said. “Dantae can tell us where to look, but I have to provide her with payment first. As you rightly pointed out, the soldiers of Erras didn’t care for the Capo nearly as much as they appreciated what he was willing to give them.”

  “The Bones of Erras,” I said. “But they already have those, don’t they?”

  “Dantae wants the full set,” Cielo said. “She knows that a time of open magic means that her people are in danger from all sides, and she wants them protected. According to legend, the magic of the knives is strongest when they’re united. Turning people’s worst fears against them is a powerful weapon, and in the end it means less killing. Dantae is brilliant and brutal, but she’s not bloodthirsty.” Cielo’s tone wobbled, as if he wasn’t quite sure he believed that last bit. “The soldiers of Erras were getting a bit desperate since the Capo had cut them off until they supplied a military victory.”

  “You promised them another bone knife,” I said, the words cutting against the sugary sweetness of the bakeries.

  “Three, actually.”

  “Did you think that was a good idea, considering what those knives can do?” I asked. “To us?”

  Cielo’s silence formed a rickety bridge between us. The soldiers of Erras weren’t the only desperate streghe in Vinalia.

  “Besides, how are we meant to find three tiny godly bones in a city this massive?” I asked. “We’ve walked through a string of neighborhoods, and we haven’t come to the center of the city or even glimpsed one of its edges. We could spend the rest of our lives searching for them and never—”

  “They said the Capo was given his information by a priest,” Cielo muttered.

  The Capo had only one priest to call his own. He had been told the location of the bone knives by Oreste, Cielo’s father.

  We turned a corner, sharp as a caught breath, and the Mirana came into view. Its dome was colored grayish blue in a striking match with the air above Prai. The gilded lines that segmented it ran in seams down the sky, as if showing that it, too, was a construction of God. The white marble body of the great church was lined with fluted columns and ornate pedestals, bolting heaven to earth.

  “My father will never tell me a thing without . . . coercion,” Cielo said. “And seeing as that is on the menu of di Sangro specialties . . .”

  Cielo believed I would do anything to help him, but I still hadn’t told him what I’d seen on his father’s face in the square in Amalia, when Cielo and I left with a rush of magical flame. “Oreste remembers your mother.”

  Our steps had pulled us across the great open circle in front of the Mirana where crowds gathered on holidays. When I reached the building, I dropped to my knees and hung my head, a motion that came as thoughtlessly as breathing.

  Cielo knelt beside me. “Of course Oreste remembers my mother,” he said. “He hates her.”

  “I believe your father remembered the truth of their love, at least for a moment,” I whispered. “When he tried to kill the kitchen strega, her magic overcame Oreste and gave him back the rightful memory, the one that Giovanna had pasted her magic over.”

  “My mother’s magic couldn’t have made my father believe he was tricked into loving her without his help,” Cielo said, pushing up from his knees. “He provided all the raw materials.”

  My magic hissed at me, angry that I’d done the same as everyone else, pointing a finger toward a strega’s magic instead of where it should have been aimed—at human failures, fears, and weakness.

  “You’re right,” I said, to the magic as much as to Cielo. “But perhaps he can still be won over.”

  “If that’s true, it adds to the list of reasons you must come with me,” Cielo said. When I did not move, he sighed viciously. “You gave your word that we would seek to change the death inheritance after the Capo was unseated.”

  “He wasn’t unseated by us,” I said. “He was torn apart by Beniamo. You have to see how that changes things.”

  As much as I wanted to believe in Veria’s Truth, the story paled when I thought of the pain Beniamo had heaped on me in the Neviane. It would spread to all of Vinalia if I did nothing to stop it. I paused on the steps of the Mirana, hoping I looked li
ke a hesitant pilgrim instead of a nervous strega. “My brother . . .”

  “You think this is different, Teo, but it’s the same terrible story,” Cielo said. “Beniamo is one more man who wants to rid the world of us.”

  On a quick heel, Cielo turned and stormed into the heart of the church of Prai, abandoning me to an impossible choice.

  To follow or to leave him.

  * * *

  Inside, the Mirana was even grander than I expected, the painted ceilings split with gold, each curved section decorated with a riot of saints and angels and God in his many forms. It looked as if a church had coupled with a palace, and the Mirana was their child, dressed in finery and made to put on a show for visitors.

  “Where do you think they keep the priests?” Cielo whispered as we passed through yet another archway. “Are they cowering far away from these paintings? Perhaps having God grimace over them in twenty different strains of agony inspires them to keep those vows of celibacy.”

  Pilgrims to the Mirana turned to gouge us with disapproving stares.

  My magic guttered like a flame in a strong wind, wanting to take this entire place down in one violent blaze of change.

  I thought of the brilliant death and the dozens of streghe whose power I carried. How many of those had been forced into hiding, hurt, or even hunted by the church of Prai? Were they pushing me toward revenge—or was my own anger at what the church had done to Cielo’s family enough to make me burn?

  They had killed a beloved teacher as Cielo sat there, bound. They had turned Oreste’s heart so completely against streghe that there was no place in it for his own child.

  “Do you think my father is hiding in the walls like a church mouse?” Cielo asked, his fear bubbling up his throat and coming out as endless chatter. It drew the stares of a solemn set of guards in white and gold, flanking a set of interior doors.

  Prai was within the bounds of the Otto territory, but a deal struck with the Capo had kept it independently ruled by the church. The Mirana was allowed to raise a small, mostly ceremonial army. Most of the men hailed from Prai, but some came from as far away as the island country of Celana in the north, which had been part of the old empire and still swore fealty to the church.

  “You might want to keep your thoughts inside your head,” I said, splashing into the stream of Cielo’s constant chatter. “Those men at the doors aren’t simply decorative. Those are soldiers. They protect God against blasphemy.”

  “We’re walking blasphemies,” Cielo pointed out. “What do they do with those?”

  That question seemed to draw the interest of the two closest guards. They looked back and forth between us, solemn faces betraying the smallest bit of excitement at finally having more to do than guard a door from eager pilgrims.

  “Who are you?” one of the soldiers asked, stepping forward. “Declare yourself and your intentions here.”

  The man’s eyes had just enough time to flash with true fear before both guards dropped to the ground, brightly painted spinning tops.

  “You couldn’t have made it something more showy?” Cielo asked.

  “You were just complaining about the gaudy nature of the Mirana,” I said.

  “Strega!” one of the pilgrims cried.

  Another set of guards rushed around a corner, their boots ringing on marble. They both had the pale-moon complexions, freckles, and light hair of Celanese.

  “Stop,” Cielo said, “or she will turn every one of you into a prayer bead and wear you around her neck all strung together.”

  “We wish to see Oreste,” I said. “Father Malfara.”

  “You are prisoners of the church,” the guard said in a curiously formed accent, although he did not take a step closer.

  “No, you are prisoners of the church,” Cielo muttered. “We are passing through on our way to more interesting places.”

  I picked at the cape on my shoulders, acting as if we barely had the time to deal with such trifles as being caught by the Mirana guards. “Tell Father Malfara the streghe from Amalia will see him in his private rooms,” I said. “Unless, of course, he’d prefer something more public. We could meet him at the altar if he prefers.”

  My audacity pulled gasps from the crowd.

  “Showy enough?” I muttered to Cielo.

  A field of silence stretched, wide and fallow, as we waited for the guards to rush away and back again. When the Celanese returned, they had gathered an entire flock of guards, which only turned the streghe from Amalia more impressive and dangerous in the eyes of the crowd. To be honest, I could have made them all into wooden playthings with a single command in the old language.

  Part of me longed to do precisely that.

  “Father Malfara says he will see you in his rooms,” the guard told us, his head bowed as if he didn’t dare to meet our eyes. Was he afraid that we would hurt him, or was looking at us a sin?

  The ring of guards opened to swallow us, a sort of living cage that we would be carried in, all the way to Father Malfara. “Here’s a bit of advice,” I told Cielo as the circle sealed around us, and the air filled with the threat of fearful men. “Family gatherings are always twice as disastrous as you think they’ll be.”

  * * *

  When I’d last seen Cielo’s father, Oreste, he had been carving a public spectacle out of the death of a strega.

  Now he stood in a small ornate box of a room, pouring espresso into tiny blue-and-white Ovetian cups, and laying out tea cookies. I had seen enough terrible men in quiet moments not to be fooled into thinking Father Malfara was harmless. It only proved that he could clothe his hate, hiding it from the world, and even from himself, before he stripped it back down.

  “Will you take a cup?” he asked me. Fingers of pale, luring steam rose from the liquid.

  “After you pour one for Cielo.”

  “Of course,” Oreste said. He managed to push a cup of the vivifying drink at Cielo without looking his child in the eye.

  I sat and poured the espresso down my throat in a single motion. Its bitterness stayed with me long after I glimpsed the bottom of the cup.

  Father Malfara sat, his charcoal robe wrinkling darkly. “Why have you entered the house of God?”

  I could see Cielo visibly restrain himself from making a thorny comment. He didn’t bother to take his espresso, or the seat his father waved at in a meager show of generosity. “You’ll be glad to know I’m not here to make some great, magical scene or shout the specifics of my bloodline. I need one thing, and it’s fairly simple. Then I can vanish from your life as quickly as I came.”

  “There is no need—”

  Cielo put up a hand to stop him from making any planned speech. “Tell me how to find the Bones of Erras.”

  “I can’t possibly,” Oreste said, as if those three words were the beginning, middle, and end of the matter. “What if the church knew I’d handed over such a powerful tool to . . .”

  “Streghe?” I supplied. “Or the child you fathered by one?”

  “Giovanna stole my reason from me,” he shouted, as if his excuses had been waiting years to burst from their cages.

  “I don’t know what happened between you and Giovanna,” I said, forming my words with the care of manicured hedges so I would not grow wild with loathing. “You do, though. That day in Amalia you saw the truth. You felt it.”

  “It’s useless, Teo,” Cielo said, collapsing into the chair across from his father, looking as surly as a small child. I clearly hadn’t done enough to warn him about the difficulties of having a father.

  “There is no reason the church needs to know that you’re helping us,” I said.

  “And how would I explain my meeting with the two most powerful streghe in Vinalia?” Father Malfara asked.

  Cielo perked at the compliment, even if it came snared in a web of disappointments.

  I p
oured another drink from the silver press, but as soon as I downed it, my thoughts leapt in every direction. “Tell them we forced you into it,” I said. “You have every reason to fear us, after all. We are able to change your form and your fate in a single moment.”

  My magic heard the opportunity in those words and slid through me, putting me dangerously off balance. I brought it to heel, knowing Cielo would never forgive me if I used my abilities against his father.

  Even if he would make a fine tasseled footstool.

  But Cielo’s family—even the dregs of it—meant far too much to him.

  “If I reveal the location, will you use the Bones of Erras to hurt people?” Father Malfara asked. “They’re grisly tools.”

  “Very different from the Order of Prai’s legendary chambers of torture,” I said tightly.

  Father Malfara raised an eyebrow at me. I drew back, burnt by his resemblance to Cielo.

  “We won’t use the Bones of Erras for any dark or magical deeds,” I chanted flatly. I neglected to add that I was unable to supply any such promise for Dantae and her leather-clad streghe.

  Oreste plucked a baci di dama from the tray. It passed through his mild tan lips, leaving a shine on his fingers. He let us wait as he chewed, scattered the crumbs from his lap, and wiped his fingers on his robe. “You’ve heard of the bone roads, I assume?”

  “Yes,” Cielo said, revealing far too much eagerness. I gave him a stern look cast in the mold of Niccolò di Sangro.

  “I thought all roads that lead to Prai are called bone roads,” I said.

  “After the name was coined, the use spread,” Father Malfara explained.

  “Vinalians do love a bit of death in their whimsy.” Cielo leaned forward over his crossed leg, giddy with interest now that we were getting somewhere. “Or maybe it’s the other way around. . . .”

  “The original bone roads were laid late in the empire,” Father Malfara continued. “They have fallen into disuse, but they are still there, hidden under dirt and stone.”