Dark Rise: Dark Rise 1

by C. S. Pacat

  Tom took her upstairs to her room. Alone with him, she found her heart pounding, her mind crowding with all the things she wanted to say. How much she had missed him. How scary it was to have found out he was a Lion … and that she was one too. He was the only other Lion that she could talk to, and she had a thousand questions. About Rassalon, about the Dark King … all of them stopped in her throat.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ It was Tom who spoke, the words a blurt, the moment they were alone. ‘I’m so sorry. I kept thinking that I was the one who had told you to go down into the hold. You wouldn’t even have been on the ship if it weren’t for me. You saved my life, and the last thing I said to you was—’

  Go home. It had lodged in her like a knife.

  ‘You were trying to protect me,’ said Violet, taking in a shaky breath. ‘You tried to make me leave. You knew it was dangerous – that’s why you said—’ You’re too old for this. Following me around. Wearing my clothes. It had hurt. Now she saw his curt words in a different light: Tom nervy, watching the horizon, knowing what was locked in the hold.

  Tom said, ‘You’re my sister.’

  She wished suddenly, painfully, that she could just tell him. That she could tell him all of it and have him believe her. Looking into his open, honest face, she thought, surely if he knew what their father was planning – what he really wanted to do to her – if she could just tell him—

  ‘I thought about you every day,’ she said. ‘There was so much I wanted – to tell you—’

  ‘You can tell me now. I want to hear all of it,’ he said. ‘Violet, I thought you’d died. I kept replaying the attack, trying to imagine a way that you’d survived.’

  He couldn’t know, could he? He couldn’t know that she was the sacrifice, that he was meant to kill her?

  ‘I—’ she said as he reached out to put his hand on her head as he’d always done.

  She almost reared back. The black, curling S burned into Tom’s wrist. Her breathing shallowed at having it that close to her. The Dark King’s sigil. Did Tom know what it really meant? Did he know what Simon was trying to do, what he was trying to unleash, a shadow that could not be fought? As she looked at the dark swirl of that brand, she felt the painful gap between them, how utterly she could not come home.

  ‘We’ll talk in the morning,’ she said with a smile. ‘Hot rolls with currants, like we always do.’

  ‘All right. But I’m here if you need me.’

  ‘I know,’ she said.

  He ruffled her hair, a gesture as familiar as breathing. ‘Good night, Violet.’ And he was gone.

  She stayed in her bedroom doorway for a long time after he disappeared down the hall. He looked just like she remembered, young, handsome and tall. She’d only ever wanted to be like him. He was the image in her mind that had always made her strive.

  ‘You.’

  Violet jerked around and saw the cold eyes of Tom’s mother. Louisa Ballard was a woman of forty-one years, too thin, but very well-dressed. She wore her dark hair in a respectable dropped bun, and her well-styled dresses were proper for a woman of her age. Her lips were narrow as she frowned. The look she gave Violet was one of inflexible hostility.

  ‘How dare you come back here.’

  Violet drew in a painful breath. For a moment, Violet had thought … but any ridiculous fantasy that Louisa’s words might be a ploy – cruelty to force her out for her own safety – was gone. This was no ploy. This wasn’t Tom trying to get her off the ship because he knew she was in danger.

  She doesn’t know. She just hates me.

  She wondered what would happen if she told Louisa the truth. Your husband brought me to England to kill me. He raised me so that when I was old enough your son could slit my throat. Louisa thought Simon was a respectable gentleman who oversaw his father’s trade company. She didn’t know anything about Lions or ancient worlds.

  ‘The only good thing you ever did was leave,’ said Louisa coldly. ‘But you were too selfish to stay away.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Ballard,’ said Violet, keeping her eyes on the floor, while her nails bit into her palms.

  Inside her room, she closed her door and pressed her back to it. This was just life, she told herself. Just life. She looked around at the room, alone among all these objects that she’d thought meant she belonged.

  As soon as the house was dark and quiet, she pushed back her bedding, quickly donned her shirt and trousers, and padded on socked toes into the hall.

  Her father’s office was at the end on the left. She made straight for it. If there were papers, contracts, ledgers, anything that might help the Stewards find Marcus, they would be in that room.

  She had snuck out at night before. She knew to avoid the creaking third floorboard and to keep to the far wall so her shadow wouldn’t be seen below the door. She moved swiftly and before long was outside the office door, putting her hand on the doorknob.

  It was locked.

  A lock wouldn’t usually have stopped her. She could break a lock. She could break the door. But if she did that, there would be no more pretending. Her father would know right away what she had done. And what if the information she was looking for wasn’t in the office? She couldn’t give herself away before she learned where to find Marcus.

  She was grudgingly turning from the door to filch the housekeeper’s set of keys, when she heard a low, male laugh from the opposite end of the hall.

  She froze. It was coming from Tom’s room. He was in there with someone.

  With who? Tom doesn’t have visitors this late at night …

  She approached silently, not wanting to be discovered. The door was ajar. There was a crack of light visible, and she could glimpse a sliver of the bedroom interior. She held her breath and peered through the crack of the door.

  A handful of lit candles and the flickering embers beneath the mantelpiece provided the light. Tom sat in the armchair by the fire, and there was another boy relaxed on the Axminster rug at Tom’s feet, his head resting on Tom’s thigh.

  Devon. Violet recognised him at once, one of Tom’s friends, whom she disliked. Devon was the clerk of ivory merchant Robert Drake, and sometimes worked as a runner for Simon. A pale, unpleasant boy, he had the look of ivory that had faded, an old lady’s dusty cameo brooch, all one colour. Lank white hair hung down over his forehead. He usually wore a cap, but tonight he’d taken it off, revealing a grimy bandana that held his hair in place. His white eyelashes were too long.

  Violet stared at Devon’s sallow complexion, his eyes that were only one shade darker than translucent water. Devon was often lingering around on Simon’s business, a colourless parasite. It was how Tom had met him. He attached himself to people as he’d attached himself to Tom, and now he was talking in that unpleasant voice.

  ‘—I wouldn’t tell anyone that she’s back. Simon likes his Lions loyal. If he thinks for a moment that your family can’t be trusted—’

  ‘Violet’s not a liability. She’s my sister. Simon will see that she’s an asset. She saved me on that ship.’

  ‘If you’re wrong again, James will fit you with a collar and a little bell.’

  A snort. ‘I’m not worried about James.’

  ‘You should be. He’s the golden boy. The only Reborn Simon has in his pseudo-court. More than a Reborn. He was the Dark King’s favourite, and now he’s following Simon’s orders … you think that doesn’t give Simon a thrill?’

  ‘You’ve got a head full of intrigue,’ said Tom, sounding amused. ‘You think there’s a spy behind every curtain and a dagger in every sleeve.’

  Devon turned, kneeling up between Tom’s legs and facing Tom directly. ‘And you’re a Lion; you think everyone is loyal. I have something you can use for leverage. James is coming to see Robert at dawn. Alone. And he’s never alone. Simon must want something kept utterly secret, to send James out by himself. We can find out what it is.’

  ‘If Simon wants it kept secret, it ought to be kept secret,’ Tom said.

 
; Devon leaned forward, sliding his palms up Tom’s thighs. ‘You’re not the slightest bit curious what Simon has planned?’

  ‘Violet.’

  She spun. Her father was standing at the end of the hall, a raised candle in a holder in his left hand. He gave her a warm smile.

  ‘My dear. What are you doing up?’

  ‘I couldn’t sleep,’ said Violet, smiling back at him. Her heart was pounding. Very deliberately, she did not look towards her father’s office door, only a few yards away. ‘I thought I heard voices.’

  James, she thought. Simon’s planning something and he’s sending James out alone.

  I have to tell the Stewards—

  ‘Tom’s doing some late-night work with Robert Drake’s young clerk,’ her father said. ‘Nothing to worry about.’

  ‘Oh! Of course. I was just—’

  ‘I thought you might be sneaking out,’ said her father with another smile before she could finish. ‘The way you used to, down the hallway, then out of the side window in the scullery.’ She felt cold hearing that he knew her secret route. ‘I’d hate to see you leave when you’ve only just come home.’

  Keeping her voice light, she said, ‘I just couldn’t sleep.’

  Her father motioned down the hall towards the stairs, a friendly gesture. ‘The truth is, I couldn’t sleep either. I know you have questions. And you’re right … it’s time I answered some of them.’

  She told herself, He doesn’t know I was snooping. He doesn’t know anything. Her heart was still pounding. She had to keep behaving as though she were innocent. She nodded, conscious of the fact that they were walking away from the locked office as he led the way down the stairs, holding the candle. She was careful not to look at it or give any sign that it was why she was here.

  ‘I think you know already that what I’m going to tell you has something to do with our family,’ her father said. ‘Louisa doesn’t know about any of it, and Tom only knows a part.’ It was very dark; the candle made shadows leap out before them, then shrink back as they approached.

  ‘A part of what?’

  ‘Something like this can’t be told. It can only be shown.’ Her father stopped at the third door at the bottom of the stairs and gestured for her to enter.

  It was the India room.

  Violet had been four years old when her father had sailed with her for England, and she had few memories of her life before then. Tom, who was three years older, remembered India far better. He told stories about their home in Calcutta, not far from the arched gates of Government House. Violet didn’t like hearing them. She’d pushed them away, feeling a knot of unfairness that it was his to talk about, not hers. She didn’t like to think about that country.

  Her father often took guests through the room, pointing out the cabinets from his time in Calcutta, the large map of the city, the paintings of princes and ladies in gardens and under mango trees. Those were the times that she was most encouraged to make herself scarce. Her family’s pride in their connection to India was conditional on her not being there.

  Now she looked around at the paintings of nobility, the bronzes of deities, the hangings of delicately painted cloth, and saw a collection of faces staring back at her, displaced and unfamiliar. She took a step forward. Everything went dark, the light of the candle blotting out.

  Click.

  She knew. Even as she whirled around. The sound of the door locking was like the sealing of a tomb. No.

  ‘Father?’

  No.

  ‘Father?’

  She twisted the handle – nothing. She rattled the door – nothing. Feeling rising panic, she pushed her shoulder against it – it didn’t even budge. She was pounding on the door with her fists. ‘Father? Let me out! Let me out!’

  Not a dent, not a shift – even her voice sounded muffled. A lion cage, she thought, panic shoving into her throat. Her father had had this room built after his return from India. Months of construction – a room ready to hold the artefacts he’d brought home with him—

  A room ready to hold me.

  And she had walked into it, like a fool, and was trapped here.

  There had to be another way out. It was pitch-black; she realised with a chill that the room had no windows. She had never noticed that before. She forced down the rising panic. Think.

  She took a deep breath, moved back, and then ran at the door, hitting it with all her strength. The impact snapped her teeth together and sent a burst of pain through her shoulder. She gritted her teeth and tried again. And again. No effect. The door was papered to make it look like part of the wall, but under that, it was made of metal, thick as slabbed stone.

  She tested the floor – it was stone. She beat the walls, but there was no weak spot. She piled furniture to reach the ceiling, but her thumping fist made no more sound than a palm slapping rock.

  Panting with exertion, she dropped back to the floor. As she took a step, her foot hit a kitchen bucket next to the largest cabinet. Horror climbed into her throat. The bucket had been left for her. Proof of her father’s cold planning.

  She thought of the family upstairs. She was at the door again calling out ‘Tom! Tom!’ even as she could tell from the muffled quality of the sound that her voice would not be heard unless someone was right outside. When she cast about the room, the objects in it seemed suddenly menacing. Dark shapes loomed, outlines as if of fellow prisoners, a wall full of faces.

  Her groping hands found a painted vase, and she purposefully smashed it so that she could grip one of the shards like a knife. If she couldn’t get out, she could be ready when her father came in.

  It would be her father, and not Tom. She told herself that. She clung to Tom’s words that she’d overheard, defending her to Devon. Tom wouldn’t hurt her. Not of his own free will.

  How would her father make Tom kill her? Would he be forced to do it? She couldn’t envisage it, an involuntary sacrifice out of a storybook, with her and Tom both resisting. Whatever happened, she would go down fighting.

  She dropped to her knees by the door, sharp shard of porcelain at the ready, and waited for the door to open, still believing that her brother would come to help her.

  A sound from the other side of the door.

  ‘Tom?’ she said, scrabbling up.

  Footsteps; they seemed to stop right outside the door.

  ‘Tom, please, I’m in here.’

  She put her palms flat against the door and pressed her mouth as close to the seam as she could get.

  ‘Tom, can you hear me? Tom, I’m locked in!’

  ‘It isn’t Tom,’ came the cold reply.

  ‘Louisa.’ Violet’s stomach plummeted. She let her forehead rest against the door, eyes closed. But she tried in a casual voice: ‘I’ve locked myself in. Can you let me out?’

  ‘You haven’t locked yourself in,’ said Louisa. ‘Your father shut you in there, and I’m certain you deserve it.’

  What could she say? If Louisa had already heard a story from Violet’s father, nothing that Violet could say would be believed. Especially not the truth. I’m Blood of the Lion. This room was built to hold me. He’s been waiting until I was old enough so that Tom could kill me and take my power.

  ‘It’s just a misunderstanding,’ said Violet. ‘If you open the door, I’ll explain.’

  ‘Explain?’ said Louisa. ‘If it were up to me, you’d stay in there. You’re a selfish creature who causes nothing but harm to this family.’

  She could feel the cold door under her palms and where her forehead leaned against it. She had been in here for hours, and was already feeling weak. Louisa hated her. Her father thought of her emotionlessly as a sacrifice. Her one ally in the house had been her brother, but Tom’s friendly obliviousness could not help her now. Violet drew in a breath.

  ‘You’re right.’ Violet made herself say it. ‘You’re right. I’m selfish. I came back thinking this was my home. But it isn’t.’

  The silence was deafening. She made herself keep talk
ing.

  ‘I don’t belong here. That’s what you’ve always said, isn’t it? I’m not wanted except as a kind of—’ She couldn’t say it. ‘It was all just pretend. I was never really a part of this family. And Tom—’ She thought of him holding her in the hallway, the way she’d felt safe in his arms. ‘Tom’s better off without me.’

  The silence continued. She forced out each painful word.

  ‘So I’ll go. I’ll go and I’ll never come back. It won’t be like last time. I’ll stay away. You’ll never have to see me again. None of you will. I’ll leave, I swear.’ She drew in a shallow breath. ‘If you just open the door.’

  This time the silence went on for so long that she realised there was no one on the other side of the door. Louisa had gone. She’d left Violet here, in this dark room, talking to herself. Violet stood back from the door and just stared at it, feeling the dark loneliness of the room sink into her.

  And then the door opened.

  ‘He should have left you in the dirt in Calcutta.’ Louisa’s cold eyes staring at her were full of dislike. Violet felt the clawing desire to laugh, but it probably would have been a croak. Instead, a bitter, transactional silence passed between them. It was the closest they had ever come to understanding each other. Violet ducked her head and hurried out.

  She couldn’t go out the way she knew – through the window in the scullery – so she slipped out a side window, dropping to the ground soundlessly. She had made it as far as the street when she stopped, a little breathlessly, to look back at the house.

  It was so familiar, a window light shining upstairs, and some smoke trailing upward from the stove fire chimney. Soon Cook would begin making breakfast, and her family would eat together. Violet’s last meal with them had passed without her even knowing it. Her final goodbye to Tom had been that ghostly feeling of his fingers in her hair.

  She remembered her first needlework lesson. Her governess had suggested she embroider the word Mama, which she had done with her crooked stitches, presenting it to Louisa. Louisa’s face had changed. She’d snatched the embroidery and thrown it into the fire, and the governess had been dismissed. Violet had told Louisa the truth. She wouldn’t come back. She didn’t have a family, just a dream that had existed in her head.