First Blood

by K. Gorman

  Cold shame squirmed in her gut.

  The entire world was burning, and she was trading insults with a prince.

  Slowly, she became aware of Geneve, still standing by the door, her dress so normal in the courtyard, her face so full of concern, trying to get her attention. Some of the guards were still staring. They, of course, had witnessed the exchange. And had likely heard every single word.

  Elrya. I’m a gods-damned moron.

  She ignored Geneve, instead turning to follow the scouting party with her gaze, wrestling a mask back over her emotions.

  Treng broke off when Stanek pulled up near the castle steps and dismounted. The lordship began jogging up the stairs, officials collecting in his wake like blackbirds in a flock.

  One of the guards came to Treng’s side. He leaned down to listen to the man. Then, he glanced up, his sharp-eyed gaze quickly finding her. He gave the man a pat, twitched his reins against his horse’s neck, and began to head their way.

  The inside of her skin crawled as she watched him approach.

  Hells. Why didn’t I just go to bed?

  “Is there a problem?”

  His voice wasn’t loud, not like she’d expect an army captain’s to be, but it was deadly, and it cut through the air like a slow, fire-heated blade.

  “No, sir,” she said, hiding her cringe. “No problem.”

  His eyebrow slid up an increment, telling her he saw straight past the neutral mask she’d thrown over her face. He turned away for a few moments, pulled his horse up to the next hitching rung, twisted the reins together, and adjusted a piece of his swordbelt. Splashes of mud marked his riding breeches, and the smell of wet soil and sweat came to her. His horse had begun to steam. When he dismounted, he ignored them for a few moments, busying himself with tucking a catch rope through a secondary strap on the horse’s noseband to the hitching ring, then removing the saddle and handing it to a stablehand, who took it away for cleaning.

  Finally, he turned back to her.

  “That’s not what I heard.”

  She resisted the urge to tighten her jaws. Her face was a blank mask—she knew it—but a flash of memory caught her mind, the eyes of the Raidt Council, hard and judging, apathetic, looking at her like a bawdy wine stain on their chamber silk.

  She braced herself, already feeling the shame as Treng’s attention lingered over her.

  To her surprise, Nales spoke instead.

  “I’d thought to go out, hunt more of those things, but Catrin wisely convinced me otherwise.”

  Her eyes almost bugged out of her skull. She resisted the urge to turn around and stare at him.

  Was he covering for her?

  Treng stopped. His eyebrow twitched. “Convinced?”

  The prince shifted. “She was very earnest.”

  “And wise, too.” The edge of Treng’s mouth curled up—amusement. She dared a breath when Treng’s attention slid off of her and onto the prince, his eyes lazy as a cat’s. “You’d do well to bear her counsel, even when it’s so earnestly given.”

  She flinched. Yeah, he definitely knew.

  “Stay for the night. Go in the morning. There’s a vigil to attend, and we need to organize our supplies.” Treng’s gaze slid to the horse’s pack, his words and the tilt of his expression confirming he read the same conclusion from the empty saddlebags as she had. “Where are you planning to hunt?”

  The prince hesitated. “Ulchris.”

  Interesting—Ulchris, not Brighton, the town closest to the temple. Treng would know they were going for the gate.

  And, indeed, his eyebrows arched. He considered Nales.

  “Catrin will accompany you. A rnari of the Twelfth Circle is the best I can offer.”

  Anger burst, bright and hot, and her eyes flashed—but she shoved it back under her mask, mind whirring.

  This was too big to be a snap decision. No, he’d likely come to it shortly after Bellfort died.

  And a backtrack of his words only proved it.

  The best I can offer.

  Had he been the best guard in the castle, he would have offered himself. Instead, he offered her.

  It was like winning a trophy only to find a pile of scat underneath the gold.

  “Problem?”

  Treng didn’t look to her. Didn’t need to. He knew her mind well enough, at this point, to know what she was thinking.

  “No, sir,” she grit out. “No problem.”

  “Good.” He turned back to his horse, giving it a quick scratch by the top of its neck before reaching over to untie the catch rope and hand off the reins to another stablehand who stood nearby, waiting to take the animal for a cool down. “I know you can keep him safe.”

  She dropped her gaze from the back of his shoulders—he’d feel her staring, especially when her anger was this hot—and let out a breath. “Sir?”

  “Yes?”

  “I request to take Doneil with us.” She didn’t bother to explain why, gleaning some dark satisfaction when Nales’ gaze turned to her with a question unsettling his expression—Treng was head of castle security. He knew all about Doneil’s abilities and threat level.

  Hells, the two of them had even sparred together before her arrival. It was how Treng had been so shockingly good at countering her rnari base moves.

  “Granted. I’ll leave you to tell him.”

  He made a small gesture with his hand, not bothering to turn her way.

  She was dismissed.

  She gave him a short bow, and turned to leave, then realized that Nales was still looking at her.

  She hadn’t missed the fact that he hadn’t mentioned his suspicions of a greater demon to Treng.

  Irritation flashed through her.

  Gods, I should have just let him walk out the gate with the horse.

  Her eyes met his. Blue shaded with silver, grayed out by the morning haze.

  They reminded her of Kodanh’s ice.

  Unbidden, the runes on her bicep prickled with pain, a ghost of a sensation with his absence. Then another as the memory of Bellfort’s came to her mind.

  Grief drew a raw cut on the inside of her chest. She clenched her jaw, immediately regretting her thoughts.

  She was Nales’ protector. At least for the time being.

  He wouldn’t be going anywhere without her.

  Chapter 7

  “You look like you could use a drink.”

  Catrin twisted, squinting up at Doneil’s tall, lanky form. The fires from below lit him askance, touching his chef whites with the thinnest glow of yellow. He’d removed his apron and tucked the shirt’s tails into his dark-colored trousers, giving him a lean profile that blended partially with the castle rooftop behind him. A half-filled bottle of triskan wine glinted in his hand.

  She eyed it.

  “You keep trying to get me drunk. It’s not going to work.”

  “One of these days, it will, and I will win a lot of money betting on you in a barroom brawl.” He tilted his head. “Are those new braids, or is it just really dark and I can’t see the blood?”

  Catrin snorted. As forest elves, very little was too dark for their eyes—not under open sky.

  “They’re new braids. Geneve did them. She’s good, isn’t she?”

  She only tensed a little when Doneil reached for her hair—he was a very touchy person, she’d found, but it didn’t carry the same weight to it as it did others. Maybe it was something in his personality, or maybe it was all the healings he’d done on her, but he was one of the few males who didn’t put her on immediate guard.

  Plus, she’d seen him do a similar touch to pastry dough to assess it—light and finicky, like a sparrow.

  The braids weren’t the only thing Geneve had done. She’d also helped ease Catrin out of the death-soiled ceremonial armor, treated the few scrapes and aches Doneil’s healing powers hadn’t bothered with—her knees, shins, and shoulders were practically burning with witch hazel—and brought her a mid-morning nightcap of warmed water and benga
n berry loaf to help her sleep.

  Last she’d seen, Geneve had wrapped the soiled armor in a large cloth and had directed two servants to take it for cleaning.

  By the determined cant to her chin, Catrin suspected she meant to do it herself—or at least to help.

  “I think she likes you,” Doneil said

  Her thoughts ground to a halt.

  By the tone of his voice, he didn’t mean ‘as friends.’

  She frowned. Then, slowly, she backtracked.

  Geneve had been doing a lot of things for her lately. She’d thought it a symptom of grief—busy hands make for less time to focus on a hurt-filled heart, and helping Catrin could have been Geneve’s way of contributing to Bellfort’s memory.

  But her first set of braids had come before the attack. Now that she thought of it, she doubted Lady Stanek would have come up with the idea alone.

  And she doubted Raidt elf warrior braids were usual curriculum for human ladies-in-waiting.

  Geneve would have needed to think about it, and either order a book or get someone to teach her.

  Hmm.

  “She did give me a sticky dumpling last night,” she admitted.

  “Oh? Really?” Doneil’s grin was a savage slash in the dark. “Did you follow it up with a poem?”

  “Ah. Is that what I’m supposed to do?”

  Was there something more to Geneve? She’d heard of woman-on-woman relationships, but hadn’t given it much thought herself.

  Her frown deepened. This wasn’t the first time she’d thought this about Geneve. She’d considered it once before, after the woman had first given her that sticky dumpling. And then, there had been that encounter in the hallway this morning.

  Geneve had seemed so fragile. Trembling. On the verge of breaking.

  And yet, it was Catrin who she’d sought out.

  Maybe there was something more to her actions.

  “Well, you’re certainly not supposed to hole yourself away on some sad rampart. I mean, what the fuck is this?” He made a wide, flamboyant gesture to the crenellations and rooftop that surrounded them—she’d picked a rather awkward place, a small niche space next to the back of the stable. “You know people can see you, right? You look like a gods-damned… what are those things called, the statues the humans put on churches? With big sharp teeth, bulging muscles, and a constantly angry expression? Really ugly—”

  “Gargoyles,” she said flatly. “They’re called gargoyles. And they’re meant to scare demons away.”

  “Ah, so there is a similarity—”

  “If you finish that sentence, I’ll push you off the battlement myself.”

  “Yeah, but I’d just heal myself and come back up. You can’t be rid of me that easily. And I’m not a prince, so I’d appreciate it if you left my hands alone.”

  He snatched them away from her, as if she were a feral dog.

  She said nothing for a moment, her expression flat as she studied him. “Does Geneve like women?”

  “Why don’t you ask her?”

  “Because you’re here, and you get all of the gossip.” She raised her gaze to meet his. “I know she talks to you. Everyone talks to you.”

  “And they wouldn’t keep doing so if I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.”

  “They talk to you because you can’t keep your mouth shut.” She snorted and shook her head, then lifted her hand and made a gesture to the wine bottle.

  He passed it over with a crow of victory. “Yes! Finally!”

  “I’m not getting drunk,” she warned. “This isn’t a party.”

  “You don’t even get drunk at parties.”

  She tensed a little as he sat next to her, his shoulder brushing hers before straightening out. He smelled like the kitchens. Bread and stew, moisture, more than a little wine—by the dark, liquidy glint to his eyes, he’d been imbibing with the staff on the ground below before coming up to check on her. She’d seen him, in fact, doing just that. Checking up on others, just as he was checking up on her.

  It took a few moments for her shoulders to relax back down. She took a sip of the wine, and the pungent bitterness of the triskan transported her back to last night. Her jawline locked as fresh grief gnawed through her throat. She slowed, mulling it over her tongue as the wine’s dark, cutting undertaste took over.

  Below, the soft sounds of grieving threaded into her mind.

  Eighteen dead. Over two hundred in a neighboring town, more elsewhere. Pemberlin wasn’t connected to the burgeoning wire system the goblins had developed, but they’d received birds from the nearest castle that was. Lorka was under attack, too, and there were reports of demons in every county they had received messages from. When she’d woken that afternoon, Treng had been distributing weapons and supplies and dispatching small messenger parties to affected areas. Doneil, too, hadn’t slept. He’d been in the courtyard when she’d awoken, healing with one of the human scribes who’d held a stack of kimbic healing markers on the table beside him.

  He hid it well, but she could tell he was tired. There was a darkening around his eyes that wasn’t normally there, the whites tinged with little lines of red. She suspected he’d used a few ranger stimulant spells throughout the day—he’d have that experience, and the rune to go with it.

  Another reason she wanted him with them. Although she was the much-deadlier fighter, he had the road experience she lacked.

  The smell of incense came to her, cinnamon and myrrh, tinged with offerings of cedar bark and needles. A trail of smoke lifted from the temple near the other side of the castle, with two more fires set in the courtyard. Half the crowd from last night had either stayed or left and returned, joined by others—children, mostly, brought both to participate in the Vigil and to keep them under the protection of the castle’s guard for the night. Though most of the bodies had been laid out within the temple itself, three former staff, including the young woman and the stablehand she’d found on the way to the terrace, were in the courtyard, laid in a place of honor under the main tree and surrounded by friends. They’d been washed and wrapped, only their heads visible, eyes closed and faces relaxed, as if in sleep. Offerings piled up on the table between them—things they’d used in life, prayer cloths and papers, things they might like in the afterlife.

  Elves had similar rituals. Incense to honor the body, gifts to honor the soul. Most in the courtyard would believe in some form of reincarnation, but for her and many in the Raidt, the dead passed through Death Veils and into the darkness beyond, a line no one could cross back from again. Even now, sitting apart from the gathering, she could hear them whisper, feel their nearness.

  The newly dead always drew them closer to this reality.

  She watched as another person came to lay a flower on the stablehand’s chest, and on the chest of the girl next to him. The candle in their hand undulated with the rest of them, touching the wraps on the boy’s body, and the sallow skin of his face, with a gentle gold.

  Numbness ate a hole in her chest.

  “How did this happen?” she asked. “Demons are supposed to be locked away.”

  The tips of Doneil’s canine teeth showed as he twisted his lip. “Clearly, someone found a key.”

  “A deliberate attack?” She mulled it over, the same way she’d mulled the wine on her tongue. It had been well-timed, occurring on the only day in the entire year that the Teilanni would be vastly unarmed—Abiermar was their holiday, mostly—and if anyone had dealings with demons, it would be them.

  Plus, Nales had recognized the marker.

  But… who would do this? And why?

  The last part, at least, was easy. The Cizeks weren’t well-liked. Tolerated, yes, but in the same way a pack of wolves tolerates a family of bears—because they had to.

  “You think someone’s making a move on the Cizeks?” she asked.

  “The timing is suspect,” Doneil said, echoing her thoughts. “Which could be either coincidental or opportune. Abiermar is a Teilanni fête, and the Cizeks were
responsible for the sealing, but it is also on equinox day—lots of transitional power in that.”

  Power to draw magic on, he meant.

  Her bicep ached as she remembered what had happened the last time she’d tried magic.

  “One of them was responsible for the sealing,” she said. “The rest were happily subjugating away with their possessed sword.”

  “Such a strong opinion,” he said, drawling the words into a soft chuckle. “So it’s true—you and the princeling did have a fight.”

  “What?” She scowled. “No. This isn’t about me. It’s simple fact.”

  “It’s okay, ’Trin, you can talk to me. Everyone talks to me.”

  She skewered him with a look. “I will hit you.”

  “Oh, no, not that. Then who will come on your little three-day-sortie with the princeling?” His mouth split into a grin. “Unless you want to be alone with him?”

  Irritation bubbled up within her. “I will hit you.”

  He held his hands up in mock surrender. “Mercy, mercy, oh great rnari warrior, please.”

  She swatted his knee. “Focus.”

  “Yes, oh scary soldier ma’am.”

  She swatted him again, then swung her gaze back to the courtyard below, eyebrows drawing together in a frown. “Deliberate attack, or no?”

  Doneil shook his head.

  “I’m leaning toward ‘no.’ It’s too widespread for that, and there are far more effective ways to attack the Cizeks if one’s going to spend enough energy to smash through dimensional barriers.” His eyebrows twitched, and he glanced to her. “Plus, there’s a risk it would reactivate that sword of theirs. It was demon-powered, wasn’t it?”

  “I… think so?” She searched her mind, but what information she had on the demon sword was hearsay at best. “Powered by a demon king?”