First Blood

by K. Gorman

  “Apart from the massive immigration of demons, dislocated magic, and broken gates, you mean? No.” His voice slid in the air like water over river stones, curling around his words in a dark accent. He studied Prince Nales for a few more moments, then turned his attention back to her. His dark eyes lingered on her tattoos before flicking back up to meet her gaze. “Where do you travel?”

  She barely heard the question, her brain having latched onto his first sentence.

  Broken gates?

  “Ulchris,” she said, distracted. No use lying to a fey, especially ones such as these—they could sense honesty like a batch of warmly baked bread. Plus, giving a tidbit of information would most likely warm them to her. “The Cizek suspected something had happened to the gate. Wanted to check up on it.”

  Okay. That was somewhat the truth.

  The hunting party rippled around her, and she caught a snatch of whispers—a dialect, like wind through leaves. A touch of magic buzzed in the air as they exchanged looks.

  The fey prince looked down at her again, his gaze lingering for a few seconds, then seemed to come to some sort of decision. After a moment, and an even longer look between him and his heartsworn, he loosened his reins—he had claws, she noticed, pale, thin ones cutting his nails into sharp points, like thorns on a tree—and leaned forward.

  She stepped back as he dismounted, careful to angle herself away from the front of one of his clansmen and well aware of the steel that curved in the sheath over the man’s thigh.

  “Forgive my rudeness. I am Volaon li Naine. These are my heartsworn, Jorire, Caracel—” A fey with a thick scar through his cheek and eyebrow nodded at her. “—Ryane, and Loreux.”

  He offered her his forearm, in the Clemensi style of greeting. She took it and tried not to stiffen, aware that fey had a different idea of personal space and greeting customs. The calloused pads of his fingertips scratched against the soft skin of her inside elbow, his claws making only the lightest of pricks.

  She returned his grip, carefully matching his strength.

  “May the morning bring you strength,” he added, pulling his arm back.

  The greeting sounded oddly formal, especially considering the sun was well up in the sky by now, so she just nodded, glad he was no longer touching her.

  “And to you. I am Catrin li Ternadon of the Raidt, currently of Pemberlin. My companions are Doneil li Argent, also of Pemberlin, Matteo, and Nales Cizek of Pristav.”

  A rustle of cloth and leather caught her attention—Nales, apparently, had had enough of waiting. After some murmured discussion between him and Doneil, he leaned forward on his horse, dismounted, and handed his sword, her rnari blades, and the reins of his horse over to Doneil and Matteo.

  His boots crunched in the gravel as he approached.

  She turned to him.

  “This is Volaon of Naine,” she said in Janessi, using the Teilanni of instead of the traditional li—but, to her surprise, Nales answered in Fey.

  “I know.” He glanced to her, then, to the prince. “Your reputation precedes you, Summer’s son. I had hoped we would meet in brighter times.”

  Volaon eyed him. Then, after a moment, he took the offered arm, gripping it in the same Clemensi style he’d just given her.

  “And I, too.” The words had an edge of stiffness to them, as if he wasn’t quite sure how to react, but a coil of tension loosened inside her as he leaned back and took on a relaxed posture, glancing over them.

  “One of our companions went missing that night. We are looking for them.”

  “You think demons took them?” she asked.

  “That’s our guess. They were having—” he struggled with the word, then inserted the High Fey variant, ipsa, which she remembered as a root for ‘meditation ritual.’ “We found traces of the ipsa, but the site was interrupted. Wolf prints, boot tracks, and signs of a much larger force. The earth was rent—not by claw or machine, but magic. The whole area was buzzing with residue. No sign of where our people have gone.”

  He blew out a frustrated breath, tension cording visibly through his chin and neck. Quietly, she took another look at the party and horses.

  Yes, they did have signs of hard use.

  “The hellhound in Pemberlin wasn’t on a mission,” she offered, echoing her conversation with Doneil last night. “If it had been, it would have killed half the hall, not just stood there.”

  Nales stiffened, a tendon in his neck tightening, but quickly hid it and nodded. “That’s true. And the others—”

  “No immediate pattern,” she said. “They’ve all, as far as I can tell, been random.” She turned to Volaon. “Pemberlin received many reports from all over, from Lorka to the Simeen Vale; there’s likely been others, as well.”

  “It isn’t just the demons,” said one of the heartsworn—Jorire, a lean woman with her pale hair in an easy, practical braid. “There are others. Strange things. Disruptions.”

  “Disruptions?” she asked.

  Jorire nodded, then lifted her hands from her lap to demonstrate, butting her fingers together. “Like two places running together. We saw new rocks, buildings, an odd metal construct—not goblin, we’d know.” She took a breath, giving her head a shake. “There were things that looked like they were melted together—”

  “And bodies,” said another, his Common Fey blunter than the others. “Human bodies, but foreign. Not Zemiari.”

  Zemiari. An old Janessi term for something that came from their specific dimension, as opposed to fey or demon. Few used it anymore, which made her wonder how old, exactly, this fey was.

  “We came across a stretch of what looks to be demon land. Heavy with sulfur, stinking of blood and death.” Volaon grimaced. “It was as if the land itself had been sliced and transplanted, and not kindly. We tracked our companions to its edge.”

  “Historical records have the area around Ulchris under the control of a demon lord named Grobitzsnak,” Nales said, avoiding Catrin’s gaze. The demonic name spat from his tongue like metal nails. “If that is still true, he is capable of the rending you mentioned. Mild necromancy, too.”

  Catrin fixed him with a stare.

  Was this part of the information he was withholding? And, if so, how did he get it? Did he know this demon lord?

  No, that was impossible. Demons had been locked away for two hundred and fifty years, no contact. The spell had been done specifically to prevent his family access.

  But then… how did he know so much about demons? Was it all really just from records, as he’d been telling them?

  She resisted the urge to clench her jaw, forcing her muscles to remain relaxed, her features smooth.

  Volaon looked at him with renewed interest. “What else?”

  “Mind control, usually over lesser demons.” Nales glanced to her. “Similar to woodcraft, except infernal rather than divine in origin. Through pain rather than ascension. He takes a humanoid form with a stag skull mask—”

  “Tall?” one of the heartsworn asked. He lifted a hand to indicate head-height on a mounted rider. “Like this?”

  “Most likely.”

  The heartsworn—Loreux, with broad shoulders and a spattering of mud across his leather-clad thigh—turned to Volaon. “I saw him, night before last. In the fire.”

  The other rider spat something she didn’t understand, the dialect tripping around her ears, and the drone of magic tightened against her skin.

  “If he is the one who took your people, you’ll likely find them in his hold,” Nales said.

  Volaon didn’t respond immediately. His face had gone stern, rippling with thought, brow furrowing.

  After a few long moments, he glanced up and exchanged a few looks with his heartsworn.

  He gave a sharp nod. “Then we must go.”

  “It will be dangerous,” Nales warned as Volaon turned back to his horse.

  “Undoubtedly.” The fey swung up into the saddle easily, the horse barely taking a step to accommodate his weight. When h
e was up, he turned back down to them. His black-eyed stare moved over them, expression turning grim as he met Nales’ gaze.

  “The one who was taken is a cousin of mine. Yena li Vaness. I fear…” He shook his head, one hand flexing into a fist. He met Nales’ gaze again, then hers. “She is very dear to us, a high priestess of her sect. Thank you for your help.”

  “We will take her in if we find her,” Catrin assured him.

  He nodded, then turned his horse.

  Hooves ground into dirt. They began to move off.

  All except the rider behind her, the one with the scar on his face.

  Instead, he moved closer.

  She stiffened as a hand clamped on her pauldron, then slid down to her bicep. Calloused fingers curved over the ink of her mercari. Every inch of her felt his breath as he leaned forward to speak into her ear.

  “These won’t work, little sister. The gate-paths are broken.”

  After a moment, she realized that his attention had only been to point out her specific runes.

  It took a large effort to unclench her jaw and answer him.

  “Thank you, brother,” she said, the words stiff and narrow to her ears. “I am aware.”

  Still, he lingered. Her teeth ground together, every inch of her straining from the effort to keep still. She didn’t breathe as he leaned even closer, switching to a broken, dull elven.

  “Be careful of that one,” he said, his low tone quiet, the words murmured for only her to hear. His dark gaze slipped toward Nales, needing no clarification as to who he was talking about. “He has devil’s blood.”

  The hand lifted from her arm, and his presence retracted.

  “Fair hunting.”

  The hooves of his horse ground into the sandy dirt of the road and followed the rest.

  Slowly, she forced her muscles to relax—and noticed Prince Nales watching her.

  The tension returned, along with the hot burn of embarrassment.

  She shoved them both back, shot him a heated look, and strode back to where Doneil and Matteo were standing.

  Doneil was grinning.

  “Gods be damned, Catrin,” he said, his grin so wide, his canine teeth flashed past his lips. “Did we manage to find a prince you won’t attack?”

  “I will hit you,” she reminded him.

  “Last I checked, we have all the weapons.” His grin flared, canine teeth practically beaming at her now. “And I have a new soldier friend.”

  She didn’t even bother to glance at Matteo. Keeping her eyes on Doneil, she simply walked up, halted in front of the man, and held out her hands.

  A second later, Matteo pressed the hilts of her rnari blades into her palms.

  “Damn.” Doneil mock-scowled. “I’m going to have to train him better than that. Oh, look—they’ve done their vanishing thing again.”

  She glanced back. Sure enough, the fey had disappeared from the roadway.

  There was no trace of thickness in the air, this time, though. By the rate they had been trotting, she guessed they were out of range.

  Besides, they had bigger problems.

  She pinned Nales with a look. “So, this greater demon has fire-rending, necromancy, and mind control. When were you going to tell us?”

  “What, now?” Doneil balked, eyebrows shooting up into his forehead. “Mind control?”

  “It only works on lesser demons. We are out of its range.” Nales glanced over his shoulder as he prepared to mount. “I was going to tell you. Later. Tonight.”

  She pinned her stare to the back of his shoulders as he mounted, a familiar, ringing heat rising in her blood.

  Guess us underlings just don’t need to know some things.

  She blew out an angered breath.

  Princes. How did she get involved with so many of them?

  Sheathing her blades, she swung up on her mare.

  “Never mind,” she said, nudging her into the front. “We can deal with this later. Let’s find camp.”

  Chapter 12

  “Tits,” she hissed, gritting her teeth as a rumble rose in her throat at the pain. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!”

  The mercari lanced her skin in stabbing waves—as if a hundred tattooists were hot-pinning her at the same time. Her knuckles whitened where she gripped the hilt of her left-hand blade, spine stiff as she fought to continue the connection beyond the pain.

  “What do you feel?” Doneil asked. “Anything?”

  “I feel like I want to slice your head off. With something rusty.”

  “Huh. Well, that’s an escalation. Normally, you just want to hit me.” His tone was light, tinted with shades of his normal humor, but distracted. He frowned down at her bicep, where blood was welling in the mercari lines.

  Gods, what has happened to them?

  Was it just that the gates were broken, as the fey had said?

  She hoped so. If that were the case, then they could be fixed. What was done could be undone. They could shut the demons back in their world, and she could call Kodanh’s power again.

  But, until then, she had to keep trying.

  She shut her eyes, blocking out the fleeting remnants of sun beginning to close the day on the forest, focused on her connection, and tried to block out the pain. The moist, heady smell of leaf litter came to her, along with the salty tang of sweat—both the dense, wet-hair smell of horse and the distinct sharpness of humanoid. They’d put the horses on long tethers among the trees, trusting they knew not to trip themselves. Beneath that, the undercurrent of soil and bark made a cool, damp impression.

  And below that, below everything, her magic lay pooled. Waiting. Latently interacting with the forest around them.

  But not the right kind.

  When she summoned her ice, the connection tripped almost immediately—Kodanh’s power rushed into her like a northern lake, cold and enduring, filling her over the brim, intertwining his mind into hers. She became part of the ice when he connected with her.

  Now, her arm was nothing but hot, searing pain.

  She let out a short breath, feeling along the connection for something—anything—that might let her through.

  Nothing.

  She grimaced, dropped the attempt, and opened her eyes. The pain lessened immediately. “I think they’re right. No connection.”

  “Catrin—”

  “My magic is fine. I can feel that. It’s just not connecting. They’re right—anything with an otherworldly component just isn’t working right now.”

  Blood trickled down her arm in slow rivulets. She watched it go. The skin still throbbed—like it had gone through a thresher. Little pinpricks of sensation squirmed through the flesh like tiny, needle-sharp worms, but the shade was quickly soothing the area.

  This time, Doneil remained silent, but he did purse his lips.

  “Don’t give up. We’ll figure out what’s wrong and fix it.”

  She snorted. “Not even the Fey know what’s happening. What chance have we?”

  “Catrin, it’s barely been two days.” He flicked his fingers in her direction—as if he were giving her a light swat, but without actually touching her. “Let things settle a bit.”

  She sighed. He was right, of course. She knew that.

  Why was she so testy?

  That, at least, was easy to deduce.

  She didn’t quite glance to where Nales was sitting by his pack, writing something in a small, leatherbound journal, but Doneil sensed her intention, anyway.

  She felt more than saw his huff. In the next moment, he’d lifted his head with a hearty chuckle and turned his gaze toward the opposite direction with a guffaw and a clap.

  “Would you look at that? Our new pet human is still going!” The grin burst across his face in a flash of white teeth. “So that’s how he keeps all those muscles. You know, he’s going to give you a run for your money.”

  Across the camp, where the leaf litter was thinnest and the soil relatively firm, Matteo had been keeping up a regular rhythm o
f grunts as he pushed through a lengthy body-weight workout.

  It was impressive, actually. Especially since he’d been running or walking much of the day, only switching with her or Doneil a few times to ride.

  “Maybe you should go test those muscles, eh, Cat?”

  Cat.

  Slowly, she let her gaze drift over to him and pinned him with a slow stare.

  His hands went up with a mock-defensive wince, though the grin on his face belied it. “Or maybe I should go test those muscles. All right, all right. Eesh. Fine. I’ll go test the human, and you can watch and judge, if it’ll make you feel better. You drive a hard bargain, rnari.”

  She watched him walk over. Matteo stopped his push-ups, head snapping up. He pushed himself onto one knee as Doneil squatted down in front of him and began to speak. His voice rolled, low and quiet, unintelligible from this distance.

  After a few minutes—enough to give Matteo’s muscles a small break while still being warm, though not as long as she’d thought he’d need—they both stood.

  As they squared off over a patch of mostly-even ground, each shifting into fighting stances, she noticed that the prince had looked up from his book.

  She wasn’t the only one curious about their new human’s abilities.

  Irritation flickered up, brief but fresh. She shoved it down, smoothing her face into a mask, and turned her attention fully on the foreigner ahead of her.

  Matteo was strange—no argument there. Though he blended in well enough despite his odd clothing, moving with a careful, conscious confidence that belied the beyond-basic military training she suspected of him, a more careful study of him found more and more things off about him, from the way he walked and spoke to the way he looked around. It was as if he’d never been in a forest before, or at least not this one. More than once, she’d caught him staring at the mix of stones and brickwork that lined the road’s borders, and he never failed to study the distance markers when they came up. Ruins, too, received equal appreciation from him.

  And then, there was the surreptitious glances he kept giving them—mostly her and Doneil—and the way his gaze tended to linger on their ears.