But the moment he started thinking like that was the moment he became truly vulnerable. That was when archangels would see their moment to strike, and leave nothing but a bloody stain on the satin bedclothes where their master used to have been.
So he looked into those seductive eyes, and tried to pretend that he deserved to be seduced by angels. That they would be so lucky as to find themselves invited into his bed. “Says the beast who has been alive less than a season.”
It felt good, for a single moment, putting an archangel in her place. Then her pupils dilated, and she grinned – and he saw that she had fangs.
His loins shriveled up into raisins, his mouth going dry.
“You really have no idea what you have awakened, do you?” the archangel asked. But it was more of a taunt, really. A threat, thinly veiled by mind-numbing seduction and the fragile hierarchy that connected them. “I may only have been breathing for a season. But I have watched the world for a millennium. Whatever you think you know about the world, I have studied beyond what you can imagine.” Her voice was somehow breathy and husky at once, her voluptuous, perfect lips enunciating every word like it was poetry. Ophelious struggled to focus, his senses overwhelmed by everything about her. His fleeting moment of confidence paled, scurrying back into the shadows.
The coward returned, trembling beneath the archangel’s strong body.
“And yet,” Asborea said with a sour down-turn of her mouth. “By an ill-humored stroke of fate, you are the master. And we must yield to your command. But therein lies the solution.”
“The s-s-solution?”
“You are our master. Not the king, or the beastress, or the shadow-woman. You. So command us, master. See to our needs, lest we reach our breaking point.”
What…what did she want from him? To override the king’s orders and send her out hunting anyway?
Whose wrath did he fear more – the archangel’s or the king’s?
Then all at once, he had an epiphany. His eyebrows scrunched together in a hideous frown. She had said it herself, about three times now – he was the master.
It was the beasts who should fear his wrath.
“I command you,” he said, voice steady for the first time, “to kindly remove your molting hide from my bed and go back to the balcony from whence you came.”
Though it would be too much to say her impassive features registered surprise, her sultry confidence faltered. She blinked her long, flaxen lashes, her lusty lips sealing in a firm line of displeasure. Seemingly unable to ignore a direct order, she slowly withdrew from the canopy, giving him one last, withering glare before stalking from the room.
She nearly caught her own wings in the door as she slammed it behind her.
Emboldened, Ophelious didn’t stop there. Throwing the covers off himself, he swung his legs over the side of the bed, tugging his robes down over his bony knees as he dropped to the floor. Nearly tripping over his too-long hem as it came unfurled, he stumbled across the rug and ripped open the door in the angel’s wake.
A freezing gust of snowflakes and feathers caught him in the face. Sputtering, he spat out the plumage, and with a disdainful glare that rivaled the angel’s, screamed, “And don’t ever come in this room again!”
And then he slammed the door for good, catching his robe in the process and falling flat on his face as he turned to retreat into the room.
10
The King’s Crest
“Beware the thief of obsession, lest it blind you to what lies just before you and rob you away from all else that matters.” – Wayward words of wisdom.
*
To keep herself busy while the last of her wounds scarred over, Despiris decided to rally her Urchin Pack for a training session. It was overdue, really. She’d missed the last two weeks.
Too busy chasing shadows. A shimmer of guilt went through her, and in the back of her mind came that whisper that warned if she wasn’t careful, this obsession with besting the Shadowmaster would consume her just like everyone else. I hope it’s worth it in the end, Des.
She pushed the flicker of doubt aside, telling herself there was nothing wrong with taking a week off from other obligations now and then. She was here now, wasn’t she? Sometimes priorities merely needed to be shuffled around.
Trudging through the slums, she crept around to the back of her first stop, where she tapped the usual pattern on Po’s window. Stuffing her hands in her pockets to stave off the chill while she waited, she leaned back against the crude siding of the shack and looked up at the sky, trying to gauge the likelihood of snow tonight.
When Po didn’t respond to her summons, she tried again, a little louder. He’d probably stopped waiting up for her after she didn’t show for two weeks straight.
The silence congealed around her, nothing stirring inside the house. Chewing her lip, Despiris debated trying again. She’d hate to wake the whole house, and if he was sleeping this deeply…he probably needed it.
Having a growth spurt, are we, Po?
Just to make sure, she tried once more, softly. When still no one came to the window, she left off, backing wistfully away from the quiet domicile before turning to seek out her next stop.
Leera responded to the summons, appearing bleary-eyed to push open the window. “Des!” she whispered, smiling groggily. “Are we meeting tonight?”
“I hoped to,” Despiris replied. “I stopped at Po’s before coming here. He didn’t come to the window. Do you know how he is?”
Leera’s smile slipped, and Despiris immediately felt her stomach drop. “You haven’t heard?”
Dread slid through her. “Heard what?”
“Remember when his sister was sick, a while ago?” Leera bit her lip ruefully. “She…she never got better. And his mum – she caught it next.”
Oh, no. Oh, no… She should have known something was wrong when Po didn’t come to the window. He’d never missed a training session, always so eager to join her, awaiting that tap on his window with wide-awake anticipation.
He’d never been a heavy sleeper.
“His sister didn’t make it,” Leera said, the words landing like stones on Des’s heart. “And his mum…she got too sick to stay in the home. She was coughing up blood, soiling the sheets…” Clearly uncomfortable with the gruesome topic, Leera glanced downward, leaving the rest to Des’s imagination. “Po couldn’t take care of her anymore. He went for help, and they…took her somewhere.”
The heaviness washed through her, stealing her breath with the undertow. Oh, no. “And Po?” she murmured, not sure she wanted to hear the answer.
“They took him somewhere too. To the orphanage, my mum says.”
A strange mix of relief and sorrow twisted up inside her. He was alive! But his sister was dead, his mother on the brink of death or unaccounted for. And he was suddenly all alone in the world. Alone, and heartbroken, and undoubtedly terrified.
“What orphanage?” Despiris knew of two, both in similar proximity to the slum Po and Leera occupied.
Leera frowned, trying to remember. “Saint…something.”
Saint Vlad’s House for Children.
Despiris nodded, swallowing a lump in her throat. “How long ago?”
“A week, maybe.”
The guilt returned. What had she just thought to herself? ‘I hope it’s worth it in the end, Des’.
Already, she’d neglected something dear to her. And it turned out it was at a time when she’d been needed the most.
She should have been there.
“Thank you, Leera. We’ll meet another night.”
Despiris hardly realized she’d wandered from Leera’s window until she stood in the middle of the street, numb. The fast pace of the previous weeks came to a grinding halt in light of this sudden, shocking tragedy.
But she only let it still her for a moment, and then she shook herself. Po needed her.
Spinning on a heel, she ran through the crumbling streets until she reached the orphanage.
*
Saint Vlad’s House for Children reared four stories high on Graywither Street, tucked between two buildings that had been abandoned to complete disrepair. It was at once a depressing, bleak sight, and Despiris’s heart sank even lower imagining Po stuffed somewhere inside.
She didn’t waste time with windows and walls this time, forsaking ceremony for what she was good at – a good, old-fashioned sneaking-in. Everyone was abed at this hour except a single night-watch on the first floor, making it easy to conduct a covert sweep of the place. Despiris checked each room, ghosting from bed to bed looking for Po.
At last she found him, crying himself to sleep on the third floor.
Knowing it was him before she was close enough to make out his features, she stopped in the doorway, her heart going out to him. She saw briefly in his featureless face herself, the day she went back to her home after Clevwrith had nursed her back to health and found the domicile empty. No sign of her own family.
She’d been an orphan too, essentially. Not with the same terrible resolution that Po was struggling to accept, for she’d never found out the fate of her family, but she’d mourned the loss all the same. Feared the future. Struggled to understand who she was without them.
It was one reason she’d thrown herself so completely into the role Clevwrith posed for her, hanging on his every word, ruthlessly committing to that new identity. She had desperately needed distraction and direction.
She’d made him the family that she craved. The family that she missed.
She quietly crossed the room to Po’s bed. He was a small, sniveling lump beneath the covers. “Po,” she whispered, and his shuddering breaths stopped. With a sniff, he pulled the blanket down just far enough to peek over.
“Des?”
She sat on the edge of the bed, and he hurried to sit up. “Hi, Po,” she said softly. Ruefully.
“Wh-what are you doing here?” He ran the back of his sleeve over his eyes, sniffling again.
“I heard what happened. I came to find you. I’m so sorry, Po.” She rested a hand atop his bony knees, hoping it lent him some small amount of comfort. She didn’t have much practice with these things. But he needed her. Of that, she was sure.
Po clasped his arms around his skinny body, as if trying to hold in the pain. “I just thought… We got medicine for my sister, and I thought… She was going to get better.” His lip trembled, and Despiris nodded in encouragement, letting him get it out. “And then my mum…” Face crumpling, he erupted into a fresh bout of sobs, burying his face in his arms to muffle the sound.
“Oh, Po.” Scooting closer, Despiris wrapped her arms around him, pulling him to her. Muffled sobs wracked his form, and she held him together as he silently convulsed with grief.
In that moment Despiris realized what it felt like to be truly helpless. She would have given anything to take his pain away, and yet there was nothing to be done. Nothing but to be with him while his world fell apart. Her heart clenched at his misery, a tear slipping out of her eye and streaking down her cheek. She took a shuddering breath to steady herself, knowing she needed to stay strong for him.
“I’m here, Po,” she murmured. “I know it doesn’t fix anything, but I’m here.”
He clung to her, the covers tangling around him as he twisted desperately into her lap. Shifting to free him from the snare, she covered him afresh and tucked his head under her chin.
“I don’t want her to die too, Des. I don’t want her to die.” He hiccupped, and she stroked his mess of dark red locks.
“Do you know where she is? Where they’re treating her?”
“There’s a place in the village. They call it the ‘Sick Ward’. But everyone knows it’s just quarantine. We don’t have any doctors.”
No doctors. Well, that was about to change.
“Po,” Despiris said seriously to get his attention. “Listen to me. I’m going to send a doctor to your mother. Which means I must leave you now, because time is of the essence.” She put him at arm’s length, brushing aside his unkempt hair to meet his gaze. “But I’m coming back for you. Do you hear me? Just be brave tonight, and I’m coming back for you.” Tear-streaked face glistening in the moonlight, he bit his lip to keep it from trembling and nodded. “What’s her name?”
“Evelette.”
Clasping his neck, Despiris gave him a squeeze, hoping to transfer even a margin of strength to the boy. “I’m coming back for you,” she promised, and then she ghosted from the room
*
When she marched down the hall to the king’s private chambers, Hanzel skipping to catch up with her swift stride, the guards at Isavor’s coffered bronze doors snapped to attention. Clearly, they weren’t used to being engaged in the dead of night.
“Lady Despiris–” one began, but Despiris didn’t have time for formalities.
“Wake the king,” she commanded in a tone that brooked no contradiction. She halted before them, waiting impatiently.
Fortunately for her, the palace staff had been well briefed in how and when to indulge the infamous Shadow Woman. She had certain privileges, carried a certain clout when it came to Important Matters, and demanding the king be woken in the dead of night was one such instance that no one thought to question.
After all, it probably meant she had caught the Master of the Shadows.
Or at the very least, had made notable headway or required immediate backup or additional resources.
So the gold-clad sentries didn’t argue, the one who had spoken giving a curt nod and ducking into the king’s chamber to wake him.
While Despiris half expected to be asked to wait in one sitting room or other while the king roused himself to join her, she instead found the guard returning momentarily to admit her, saying,
“His Majesty says to send you in.” Returning to his post without, he held the door open so she might enter.
Taking a breath, Despiris swept for the first time into the king’s private bedchamber. Those secretive bronze doors gave way to a vast, dim room of masculine luxury, hues of burgundy and gray breaking from the tradition of violet and gold throughout much of the palace. An oddly long four-poster bed loomed against the far left wall, across what seemed like a mile of open rug. Rough-cut crystals from an obsidian chandelier gleamed in the dim light as the king himself lit a standing candelabra by the bedside. The candlelight was harsh against the ethereal, frosted moonlit pallor ghosting in from the far wall, where the biggest tassel Despiris had ever seen held open one side of a cascading, deep red waterfall of a curtain. The décor twisted and twined with vines or intricate knotwork, dizzying Despiris just inside the doorway. Blinking, she focused on the king.
And found him standing there in only a shimmery gold dressing robe over trousers, his bare chest on full display in the candlelight. He truly hadn’t had any reservations about letting her wake him if she had news of the Shadowmaster.
If she stood before him with anything less important than Po’s dying mother, she might have felt guilty. But there was no time for guilt tonight.
“I need a doctor,” she blurted before he could make any assumptions or inquisitions.
While surely not what he expected to hear, Isavor processed her words with the weight they were owed. “Are you ill?”
“Not me. A woman. She is…she means something to me. And she may not have much time.”
Striving to divine her cryptic explanation, Isavor’s brows pinched slightly together. No doubt there were many questions, but Despiris didn’t have time for this.
“Please,” she said. “Whatever payment or explanation is required, I can provide it later. But time is of the essence.”
“Then…our healers are at your disposal,” Isavor granted. Moving across the room to a desk by the window, he opened a drawer and withdrew a round, palm-sized crest. Crossing the vast rug to Despiris, he handed her the token, which was engraved with his sigil of a lion between an ornate pair of open gates. She accepted the token, trying not to look at the king�
��s naked chest. “Hanzel will escort you to the healing ward. This crest acts as my authority and will sanction whatever you require, there or elsewhere.”
“Thank you,” she said, meaning it, and then stole from the room without wasting another moment.
*
Armed with a healer, two guards, and a carriage, Despiris made haste back to the slums. A description from Po led her to the ‘Sick Ward’, which was a horrifying sight of crude tents strung all down an alleyway.
It was instantly apparent that it was indeed not a place to treat the sick, but a place to let them die.
Sickened at the sight – the sight, the smell, the utter despair of such a place existing – Despiris balked at the beginning of the alley. It exuded hopelessness, warning that it was the kind of place you went in and never came back out.
Which just reminded her why she weas there in the first place. If she didn’t get Evelette out, nobody would.
Hardening herself against the nature of the place, Despiris drew her cowl up over her nose and mouth and entered the alley.
Just as she’d promised, she retrieved Po’s mother. But the woman was grievously afflicted, and although she made it out of the Sick Ward alive, Despiris could not curb the dread that it would not last.
11
Doves and Ravens
“Like many, you speak of the Master of the Shadows as a fiend, a menace – a dehumanized figure, more shadow than man, with a mysterious agenda at best and a sinister agenda at worst. But I would be so bold as to suggest perhaps he is misunderstood. That in fact he has a heart.” – Despiris to the king, composed shortly after their first meeting.
*
With Evelette under the healers’ care, Despiris had one more request of the king. “The woman’s son is in a wretched orphanage in the slums. I intend to make him my ward, until his mother is better. I am not asking permission – however, assistance with any official documents would be appreciated, since, as you know, the official route is not what I would normally take. I am only doing so as a courtesy.”
Game of Towers and Treachery (The Shadow's Apprentice Book 2) Page 10