*
Despiris charged after him into the maze, catching only a glimpse of his fleet black form as he darted down an adjoining passage. The vegetation might as well have been stone walls in the darkness, save for the way it snagged the flare of Des’s skirt as she ran. More than once, the snapping of branches and tug of silk brought her to a lurching halt, and she tugged free again, stumbling after her prey.
You knew it might come to this, she thought, resigning herself to the trick she still harbored up her sleeve – or lack thereof – as a last resort. The slit had freed her considerably, but she still felt like a runaway horse towing a bumbling carriage behind her with this monstrous ballgown train, and it just wouldn’t do. Frustrated, she reached for the hidden clasps at her waistline, tearing the entire skirt from her form in one ferocious motion.
She’d raised eyebrows, to be sure, when she asked the seamstress to fashion the gown as two separate pieces – a bodice/leotard combo not unlike the skimpy, flashy outfits seen on female circus performers, and the voluptuous, detachable skirt to seal around her waist on top of that. For all intents and purposes, it had appeared a normal gown.
But, parading through the gardens in the reduced, leotard version of the ensemble, Despiris became keenly aware of the scandalous alterations. The cold winter air was a shock against her bare legs, the freeing effect a little too freeing.
There was no time to balk at her sudden feelings of nakedness, however. She’d already lost ground. Embracing her liberated state, she took full advantage, her feet barely seeming to touch the garden path as she surged to full speed. The towering hedges flew past, their twisted throes dappled now by moonlight.
Clevwrith zigged and zagged ahead of her, cutting through the intricate layout seemingly without fear that he was running headlong toward any dead-ends.
I should have memorized this maze long ago, Despiris chided herself, already uncertain of her whereabouts. It could have been something straight out of a nightmare, she thought, as she breathlessly lost herself down the never-ending twists and turns until it seemed there was no way out. She imagined the manicured shrubbery becoming suddenly overgrown – lush, crawling vines sealing the path behind her, wicked thorns unsheathing from the hedges to narrow the path before her.
Not to mention losing articles of clothing along the way.
Soon she’d be lost and naked and torn to bloody shreds, a prisoner of the labyrinth.
But hopefully with a fellow prisoner to show for it.
Flying around the next bend, she caught up with Clevwrith at last. But it became instantly apparent he’d intended as much. Having slid to a halt in the middle of the pathway, he turned to receive her.
She barreled into him, unable to rein in her momentum. But he was ready for her, catching her as they both went down.
They spun over one another, a flurry of limbs and Clevwrith’s cloak, before tumbling to a tangled halt.
Coming out triumphantly on top, Despiris clamped her knees tight on either side of him and shoved his shoulders down against the ground.
With some surprise, Clevwrith noted the very bare legs she straddled him with. “I see you came prepared for every scenario, this time,” he observed breathlessly.
Despiris huffed a loose lock of hair out of her face, a vicious, carnal thrill flashing through her. She pushed harder against his shoulders, grinding him into the ground. “Watch yourself, Shadowmaster,” she panted in warning. “There is a whole world of intrigue you know nothing of.”
He chuckled. “Oh, Des. Liberation is adorable on you.” Quick as a flash, he snicked his head off the ground to kiss her cheek, using his greater strength and weight to flip their position and pin her under him. Seizing her arms, he put a quick end to her struggling and secured them against the ground above her head. “Please, enlighten me,” he pleaded darkly. “I do so love learning new things.”
Refusing to become flustered, Despiris measured her breathing, quietly gathering her strength. “For one thing,” she said, “all the glitz and glamor, the sinful cling of satin that men ingest as ‘seductive’ is actually strategic.… A distraction. A trick to make you see before you an object of desire, rather than a weapon.” It was her turn to leverage her head forward, but instead of planting a harmless kiss on his cheek, she smashed her skull hard against his.
Stunned, Clevwrith was momentarily easy to overpower once more, and Despiris flipped him back underneath her. Clearly, he hadn’t expected her to exact real harm against him.
“Underestimation will be your downfall,” she warned, surprising herself with her slip into ruthlessness.
Clevwrith shook the stars from his vision. “It was you, wasn’t it?”
“What?”
“The gargoyle I returned to the palace. Then the gryphon. Most recently, the dragon.”
Despris felt her eyebrows knit together. “The gryphon? The dragon?” What are Khawthe and Sulkan doing at large? She’d thought them effectively contained.
Clevwrith took advantage of her grip loosening in her newfound bemusement to tug the collar of his shirt open, revealing a puckered slash he had stitched closed. “Gave me this.”
Surprise, then irritation, moved through her, quelling her erstwhile vigor for the chase. Clearly, Lady Verrikose had started taking liberties again. How did I not notice? It would seem she had overestimated the noblewoman’s concern about collateral damage. Lady Verrikose had seemed truly horrified that Shangar had hurt a little girl as a direct result of her influence, but, well…obviously the obsession with catching the Shadowmaster had won out once again.
Clevwrith seized the moment as she grappled with the implications, reversing their position once again. “Not you, then? Well, this is intriguing.”
She tried to cover her surprise. “What? The fact that those obsessed with hunting you are still as obsessed as ever? They revived the Mystical Ages, overturning an entire generation’s legacy, for the sole purpose of hunting you, Clevwrith. You think they’re going to let an army of priceless, legendary beasts go to waste? You will never be able to stop running.”
He appeared to consider the weight of her words for a moment, but that cheeky grin returned all too quickly. “Well, then it’s a good thing I do so love running.” And with that, he planted another kiss on the cheek opposite from the first, and hopped up abruptly to dart away again.
Despiris scrambled after him, pursuing those taunting, flourishing snatches of his cloak through the maze until, rounding the last bend, she came to the heart of the labyrinth. It dead-ended in a tranquil nook, a solitary stone bench offering a quiet platform to rest and reflect away from the hubbub of the palace. And the only sign of Clevwrith, despite her confidence that he’d vanished down this corridor, was the black rose waiting for her on the bench.
Reactively touching her bodice, Despiris glanced down where the rose he’d already bequeathed to her should have been. It was missing. He must have stolen it back sometime during their intimate trade-off of custody.
With wry resignation, Despiris approached the bench to retrieve the rose. Twirling it in her fingers, she glanced back over her shoulder, carefully studying the empty pathway and the lush walls that rose up all around her. Familiar with the Shadowmaster’s trickery, Despiris knew he hadn’t actually disappeared into thin air; more likely, he occupied one of the hedges, watching her with great amusement from the shrubbery.
The question was – did she really want to go poking through the hedges when it was too dark to distinguish anything within their snarled reaches, and when her quarry could at any time slip through to the next pathway and be on his merry way?
No. No, she did not. And that troubling business regarding the gryphon and dragon had her distracted, now, in any case.
Letting it go for the night, she turned to find her way back out of the labyrinth, hoping Clevwrith had at least had the decency to resist snatching her skirt from the garden path on his way out. It would be tempting, she knew, for the lord of mischief to ma
ke off with the better part of her outfit, and leave her to return half-naked to the ballroom.
Alas, she discovered momentarily that she knew him too well.
22
Blizzards and Biscuits
“As often as intricacy makes a scheme brilliant,” Clevwrith had once advised, “you will find that the most elegant solutions are just as often the simplest.”
*
All it took was a night spying on Ophelious’ balcony to witness the new treachery afoot. Every few hours, one creature returned from a secret trip into the city, and another one went out.
Recalling Lady Verrikose’s reservations about staying too long in the mind of one beast, Despiris divined quickly what seemed to be the new approach. It was a simple, if inefficient, solution, really.
How does one eliminate the risks of pressing too long into the mold of one mind? Hop from mind to mind before anything can stick.
How was she going to thwart the beastress this time?
Perhaps it’s time you tested your abilities, Des. She’d had just about enough of the noblewoman skirting the rules, and in that moment she was prepared to summon her powers and bring down a blizzard on all of Cerf Daine if it meant keeping those meddling monsters out of the sky.
Be serious, Des. You’re a novice elemental at best. You can’t control a city-wide blizzard.
But maybe…maybe she didn’t need to.
A memory came to her. A memory wrapped in the warm rosiness of the Huntsman’s Lounge, that night the king had granted her leeway to make moves against the beastress. She had wandered to the window to think, surprised to find it snowing outside, the interior atmosphere creating a bubble that made her ignorant to the elements without.
She didn’t have to blanket the whole city in a storm. All she had to do was create a bubble, an illusion of bad weather. Who would think to check? It was no one’s first instinct to strap on their protective gear and go out in a storm to measure its reach.
No. Everyone’s first instinct would be to hole up, don their coziest cloaks, and wait it out.
Seeking a platform for her own experiments, Despiris climbed to the highest peak the palace had to offer – the roof of the Observatory – and tried to compose herself for the task. A jolt of nerves went through her.
It’s no different than the tricks you’ve played in the garden, she told herself.
But it was different. A blizzard big enough to encompass the palace was a momentous undertaking.
A small voice in the back of her head warned that if a seasoned sorceress like Lady Verrikose could lose control of her gift with disastrous consequences, then she could just as easily find herself in over her head with unforeseen complications.
What if she accidently formed a storm of icicles, and it was too heavy to hold? What if she dropped a pall of frozen spears on the royal estate, impaling everyone in the king’s employ?
You always did have a wild imagination, Des. Just focus.
She was not going to cause a massacre. It was just a thin veil of snow.
Of raging, writhing snow.
She surveyed the city briefly, imagined herself a goddess above it all. Then she let her eyelids fall shut, breathing deeply to calm her nerves, searching for her center.
For a long time, she searched. Poked and prodded for a way into herself, peeled back the many layers of herself she’d painstakingly woven around her core over the years.
Hers was a guarded soul, an intricately tangled identity, so much of the truth hidden somewhere in the darkness she’d gathered around her since letting the night possess her.
For the first time, she pushed at the darkness. Pushed through the darkness. Denied it as her birthright, dismissed it as her identity. And as the darkness lifted, something else came to light. Deep inside herself, there lurked a quiet supply of watery essence, like a stagnant pond in a secret glade.
Inside herself, she walked to the pond’s edge, wading into those still, dark waters.
Waist deep.
Chest deep.
Chin deep.
The water closed over her head, its cold, all-encompassing embrace as natural and comforting as a womb to a babe. Her sudden weightlessness brought with it a sense of euphoria, a release that freed her very soul.
She sank into those seductive depths, losing all sense of the surface, of up and down, as she completely let go.
And it was there in that directionless abyss – floating, spinning, suspended – that she found her center. The full sense of her powers.
The source was all around her. Inside of her, yet all around her. It filled her. Encompassed her. Bent to her every movement, saturated her senses, caressed every hair follicle and nerve ending.
She opened her eyes underwater, no longer questioning herself. She realized without surprise that she did not need to breathe, immersed in this depth. The water itself nourished her, was its own source of life. She was utterly balanced here. Transcendent. Whole.
With that sense of pure tranquility, she swished her arms through the water, effortlessly directing the current.
Outside of herself, the winds changed, a flurry of snow swirling around her on the rooftop.
You have peaked, Clevwrith. But I…I am evolving.
It was almost frightening how easy it was, once she found her center, to feel the pulse of the elements all around her. It only took a tug, as if each snowflake had a thread attached and she was the puppet-master of those threads, to bring the flurries flocking to her.
Her eyes flashed open in reality, surveying the currents she’d summoned. She toyed with them for a moment, testing her control, finding her rhythm.
A childlike giddiness flooded her, flushing her neck and face. She could do this.
She just needed to make sure all the beasts were on palace grounds when she brought the storm to fruition.
And so back to her spy-perch she went, watching until the gryphon returned and the archangel stepped up to the balustrade to take her shift.
Oh no, you don’t. Reclined almost too casually in her precarious nook, arms crossed and one leg dangling from the curling precipice, Despiris called her newfound powers. The resulting gust of snow caught the archangel unprepared. She stumbled sideways, one wing flailing and feathers ruffling in a cringe-worthy wave against the grain.
The skies are mine, ladies and gentlemen. Building on the first gust, Despiris channeled every snowflake she could sense into a growing, revolving current around the palace. Before it became a completely opaque barrier between her and the balcony, she noted with satisfaction that the archangel folded her wings against the onslaught and stepped down from the railing.
Sit. Stay. Good beastie.
Trying not to let it go to her head that she’d achieved the desired effect, Despiris dedicated a portion of concentration to maintaining the current, and dared the feat of multitasking as she carefully climbed down from her perch. She’d know soon enough if she could keep it up, or if the whole thing would unravel at the slightest distraction.
She let it go to her head a little bit when, hours later, the blizzard still held, and she’d managed light conversation at lunch and an afternoon half-absorbing the passages of an economics volume.
She let it go to her head entirely when it held through the night, and she even got an hour or two of sleep.
The next day, the king cancelled the ball that was supposed to take place that evening.
All subsequent balls were cancelled over the week that followed.
*
It seemed a side effect of constantly-engaged powers and divided concentration was a voracious appetite. Despiris was stuffing her third biscuit into her mouth at breakfast one morning when Lady Verrikose remarked with overly-casual repose,
“Ghastly weather, isn’t it?”
Despiris paused chewing, but caught herself before it became obvious. Playing it off as simply working around an extra-large bite, she chomped on indifferently, allowing the king to answer.
“Q
uite.”
For her own, secondary contribution, she merely grunted through her doughy mouthful, “Winter.” As if to say, What can you do?
“Mm.” Drawing another sip to her lips, Lady Verrikose slurped quietly. A quick glance at the beastress across the table showed her staring back over the rim of her teacup.
Two could play that game. Grabbing her goblet of cider, Despiris slurped competitively and glowered back at the noblewoman over her own silver rim.
Tiring of the stare-down, Lady Verrikose placed her cup back on its saucer with a delicate clink and turned toward Isavor at the head of the table. “Not ideal conditions for a city recovering from a plague. I’m curious – have you detected any weather mages or elementals among the gifted recruits? It might be worth attempting to lessen the blow of winter for our feeble citizens.”
Despiris perked up toward the conversation, but tried not to let on that she was interested. What myriad of magic did the palace have growing in the wings? Once upon a time, the king had offered her a recruiting position among the Mystic Movement, and as intriguing as seeking out gifted individuals had been, she’d turned it down in lieu of the other compelling angles demanding her attention. But now, her curiosity was piqued once again. She’d almost forgotten the operation had been coexisting alongside the Shadowhunt all this time, somewhere unseen in the vast royal vestiges.
“None that I’m aware of,” lamented the king.
Thinly veiling her displeasure, Lady Verrikose reached for the butter knife. “Pity.”
Pity indeed, Despiris thought dryly. You’d like a little pet elemental to deal with this hindrance to your secret agenda, wouldn’t you?
Then it occurred to her – what if Lady Verrikose had asked for a different reason?
What if she suspected an elemental in the palace had indeed been the cause of the storm to begin with? She was smart. It would seem a little too convenient for Despiris that a raging storm descended to thwart the woman’s beasts right as she sought to defy Despiris’s latest move to ground them.
Game of Towers and Treachery (The Shadow's Apprentice Book 2) Page 18