Penelope either doesn’t hear him or pretends not to have as she threads her way through the crowded tables. The bejeweled guests part around her and Crisea, leaving plenty of room for us in her wake.
I feel as if I’m stepping into a gilded trap that will close around me at any moment. I should be screaming, at the very least. Instead, I’m supposed to smile and greet people.
Penelope steadily makes her way toward a table near the central dais where a tall, dark-skinned man stands. He’s older than my father, perhaps in his later forties, though he looks younger. His black braids are streaked with silver, but his arms are powerful, his back straight. He’s handsome in a hard-cut way. I don’t need the sword at his hip or the ceremonial bronze breastplate and gold-tipped pteryges over his red chiton to tell me he’s a warrior, and a high-ranking one at that.
“Princess,” he says to Penelope with a bow of his head. His eyes are warmer than the formality sounds on his lips. He gives Crisea a crease-eyed smile.
“You know I prefer my military title,” Penelope says. She’s come in armor herself, though Crisea wears a lavender peplos, which I have to admit looks great on her. “Rovan, this is my late sister Princess Maia’s husband and the leader of Thanopolis’s armies, General Tumarq. Tumarq, allow me to introduce my stepdaughter, Rovan Ballacra, only recently reunited with her father. It was a joyous occasion.” Her tone communicates anything but joy.
Nonetheless, the general gives me a respectful nod. “Greetings, Rovan.”
I don’t know what else to do, so I nod ever so slightly back, swallowing my emotions with questionable success. The man is being polite enough, and at least he isn’t a ward. Still, he’s another obstacle in the path of my escape. Although … I wonder if he knows where my mother is being held, and if I can somehow ferret the information out of him.
If the general has noticed my tepid response, he’s unperturbed. “You have a name that sounds unfamiliar in these halls, like my own. My ancestors originally heralded from a kingdom north of Thanopolis, but my parents, their last rulers, were driven here by the blight. Even if the wards and their guardians try to make us soldiers obsolete, it is now my greatest honor in life to protect this city’s walls.” He lifts a strong, calloused hand. “But I remember what it was like to feel the stranger, as I’m sure your father once did and you do now.”
“My mother, too, no doubt,” I say before I can think better of it. “She’s supposedly a guest behind these walls, as well.”
My father clears his throat. He sounds slightly strangled.
Tumarq remains impassive. “Indeed, the palace is unparalleled, and it can be disorienting. But you might find something in common with my offspring, Japha, as a ward.”
Word of me has already spread, then, if he knows I’m a newly warded bloodmage. I reluctantly turn my attention to the person lounging in a chair next to the general—the only one yet seated, as far as I can tell.
“I do not call them either my son or my daughter, since they insist they are neither.” The general smiles.
Japha languidly stands to take my hand in greeting. They’re in their late twenties, with slightly lighter skin than General Tumarq. A bloodline patterns their warm brown arms. They’re taller than me, flat chested and slim limbed under a deep purple, green, and silver chiton that falls to the floor, artfully woven with peacocks. Their short-cropped hair is near black, and kohl lines their dark eyes. A perfect wreath of angular twigs and iridescent green feathers crowns their head, like a bird’s nest but less messy. Somehow, they pull it off exquisitely.
“Then they are neither,” I say.
Japha gives me a surprised—and appraising—look.
It’s not a strange concept to me, but I’m impressed the royal family allows Japha to be who they are when there’s such an emphasis on gender roles here in the palace. In the wider polis, no one would complain much. Just as men sleep with men and women with women without creating an uproar, so long as they’re not shirking any childbearing duties, there are men and women who were not called such at birth—as well as those who are called neither. I once knew a street actor so skilled at playing either man or woman that I wasn’t the least bit shocked to find that offstage they were in fact sometimes a man, sometimes a woman, and often neither, like Japha.
“I don’t fault Japha for that, either,” Penelope says, surprising me. “Goddess knows I would be a man if I could.”
“So declare yourself a man,” Japha says without hesitation, in a smooth, cultured voice that doesn’t sound particularly masculine or feminine.
The princess blinks. “My father would never accept that.”
Tumarq smiles fondly at her. “I would … Lieutenant.”
She rolls her eyes but can’t help sparing him a smile in return. “I know, just as you accept Japha. But my father expects us all to do our duty.” She gives Japha a look as she says this.
“Ah, yes, my grandfather likes people in their very particular places,” Japha leans toward me to say confidentially, though everyone can hear. “Until it suits him otherwise.”
I’m only partially paying attention because, with everyone grouped together, I can suddenly see the similarities: Crisea looks a lot like General Tumarq and Japha. Crisea must be Tumarq’s daughter, Japha her half sibling. Penelope’s lover is the man who was married to her sister, Maia. That sister is now dead, having passed on her bloodline to her child Japha, but Crisea was born while Maia was still alive. That strikes me as awkward, never mind that Penelope is still married to my father, if only in words. But neither he nor Penelope nor the general seem bothered.
Japha smiles at me, their eyes sharp, as if they know what I’ve realized. How they feel about what lies between their aunt and father I can’t begin to guess … and I don’t really care. All I want to do is get out of here.
“That makes you something like my cousin,” Japha continues. “We have other dear cousins in attendance. Tonight’s feast is in their father’s honor nearly as much as our grandfather Neleus’s. Crown Prince Tyros is to be king, after all.” They mean Tyros’s children, then—and Cylla’s. The children that are the result of their mother’s capture and abuse. Japha sweeps forward and loops their arm through mine before I can protest. “I have been tasked with introducing you, so we can leave those who think and speak as unsubtly as clashing swords to have their own little chat. Are you coming, Silvean?”
My father looks tired and reluctant, but he says, “Of course. That’s the point of dragging Rovan here. I’ll be right behind you.”
And beside him, I see the dead man.
“No one needs to drag me anywhere,” I say. “Let’s get this over with. Who knows, I might even enjoy it.” I glare for a moment at the silver embroidery on the shade’s right shoulder, refusing to meet his steady gaze, before facing forward.
Japha’s clever eyes don’t miss it. “Still not used to him yet? I’m not, either.” They toss their twig-and-feather-wreathed head. “Mine is right next to me. Even less of an entertaining conversationalist than my father or aunt, that one.”
I peer over their shoulder, unable to see much of anything in the soft light of the banquet hall. But then I blink at Japha. “Wait. How could you not be used to your guardian? Didn’t you get your guardian long before your bloodline, when your gift was first … you know … discovered?” I’m still not used to openly talking about such things.
“My dear, I got my bloodline only three years ago at twenty-four and my guardian at the same time, because I wasn’t meant to have either. My sister, Selene, was.”
I nearly stumble over the long folds of my peplos. “How were you not meant…?”
“I was supposed to be a warrior,” Japha says, with a conspiratorial wink. “So they assumed I was until I proved otherwise.”
I still must look confused, because my father asks me, “Do you know the mandate of threes, as it applies to the noble families of this city?”
I shake my head. I only know three is an important
number because of the tripartite goddess.
“If you’re born noble or royal in this city, then you don’t have the burden of manual labor. Therefore you must do something with yourself, because goddess forbid you indulge in idleness and excess.” My father scoffs at the absurd crowd around us, drinking and lounging before the no-doubt extravagant meal about to take place. “And if your parent has a bloodline, then there are only three proper paths for you: a bloodmage, a warrior, or a priest or priestess in the necropolis.” My father says the latter with marked distaste. “It’s a practice that echoes the maiden with her blood sacrifice, the mother who will defend the flesh of her flesh at all cost, and the crone who has grown acquainted with death. Those are the three faces of the goddess, symbolizing the three parts of us: blood, body, and spirit. That’s why three is the number of noble children said to be most pleasing to the goddess, to serve all forms of her with either sigils, sword, or death magic.”
“I’m impressed, Silvean!” Japha crows. “You know the doctrine better than I do, and I was born here.”
My father measures his breath with the tap of his cane as he continues. “In the royal family, the eldest boy—the heir—most often trains in combat, the eldest girl is often the future bloodline, and the third child, of whatever gender, is for the shadow. Unlike where I come from or within the lower classes here, where the chance to possess the gift is equally distributed, royal women usually inherit the bloodline. Someone in this family, somewhere along the line, decided they made better bloodmages.”
Japha snorts.
“Yes, well, Japha and I prove the lie there,” my father adds.
“For that reason, many of us nobles stop at two children,” Japha says, waggling a pair of bejeweled fingers, “when a bloodmage has probably been born, if indeed the parents are capable of turning one out. If they aren’t, they’ll still have one child to train as a soldier for the polis. Even if the second child only amounts to spouting poetry or whatever frivolity, their parents will still rejoice they don’t have another child. Because who wants their offspring to live among the dead?”
Japha’s mother must have stopped at two—even if their father continued with Crisea.
My father says, disapproval still plain, “The problem is—which isn’t a problem to anyone here—the necropolis is then forced to recruit from the lower classes.”
Bethea, I think, with a stab of pain. I haven’t known Bethea for long, but I still hope that the threat to send her to the necropolis was an empty attempt to scare us both into confessing, and that the wards simply let her go after they found what they wanted in me.
“The royal family sometimes flouts tradition even further,” Japha says. “Case in point: my lovely aunt Penelope. My mother, Princess Maia, received her mother Rhea’s bloodline at twenty, and so Penelope was supposed to have served in the necropolis as the third runt of the king. But as a child she was allowed to train in combat alongside her brother, Crown Prince Tyros. Then Penelope became pregnant at eighteen to avoid her fate. Rather than strip her child, Crisea, of her mother, King Neleus allowed Penelope to continue her martial studies. She’s now a high-ranking military officer. The mother is the warrior indeed, in her case.”
“Which was why the princess was as yet unwed when I was brought to the palace,” my father mutters.
“Good for her,” I snap, and then turn back to Japha. “So what happened with you and your sister?” They’ve been cleverly steering us away from the original topic of conversation.
“That is a story for another day,” Japha says, and then they announce theatrically, “For we have arrived!”
I look up and nearly gasp.
The three who stand before us are beautiful. Beyond beautiful. The crowd gives them a wide berth out of respect—or perhaps fear—where they stand before the dais. They all wear white shrouds in differing materials, and crowns of black roses with tiny skulls set in the center of each.
The twins are obvious, but only because of their age and the shape of their faces. Otherwise they’re like night and day. The young man has hair like glinting pewter, his skin tanned and lightly freckled from the sun, and silver-gray eyes as sharp as gleaming knives. His broad shoulders and muscular build, as well as the gold-sheathed sword at his hip, tell me exactly who received the warrior’s training … and who’s to be the next crown prince. His twin, and the one who received Cylla’s bloodline, is equally stunning, but she has hair like a raven’s wing, skin as luminous and pale as the moon, and countless blood-red symbols tracing the lines of a lithe body barely concealed under white gossamer even thinner than mine. The third child of Cylla’s, a girl a little younger than me, has a mass of curly hair as white as snow, complete with a light blue sheen as if reflecting the sky, pure silver eyes that nearly glow, and a smile as sweet as a songbird’s trill. Somehow, I know she’s the spitting image of her mother. Her looks are simply too Skyllean.
As striking as she is, it’s the elder, dark-haired sister who is undeniably the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. I distantly hope I’m not staring.
“My dear cousins,” Japha continues, “may I present Rovan Ballacra, the newest addition to our most esteemed family. Rovan, this is Kineas, Lydea, and Delphia.”
Lydea. The name sinks into me like claws.
“Prince Kineas,” Kineas corrects, squaring his muscular shoulders in a subtly aggressive stance. His cold steely eyes carve me as if I’m a slab of meat at the butcher’s. Not in a lecherous way, more methodical and categorizing. Breasts—slice—stomach—slice—thighs … I try not to squirm. “So you’re the one we’ve all been waiting for,” he says in an exaggerated drawl, as if I’m not living up to anyone’s expectations, let alone his.
I suddenly wonder if Japha is being supportive, introducing me like this, or feeding me to the lions for sport.
Lydea’s dark gaze hasn’t left me, either, but the look in her eyes is very different from her twin’s. One corner of her red-tinted lips curves upward. “Oh, Kinny, I think she’s rather magnificent.”
So, I think, Kineas is the sword, attacking from the front, while Lydea is the dagger from behind.
Delphia smiles at me timidly. She looks as fragile as ice crystals under her cloud of white hair, as if one harsh word will scatter her. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Rovan.”
And she, the runt of this litter, must be hopelessly kind—a trait born of desperation. If she pleases the others, maybe they won’t eat her alive.
I’m not going to try the same tactic. If I’m in the lions’ den, I might as well bare steel.
“I see only one of you got your mother’s hair and eyes.” I give Delphia a genuine smile, then I turn that smile on Lydea, twisting it like a blade. “You must take after your father. In temperament, as well as looks, I wonder?” I eye Kineas speculatively, tapping my lip with a finger. He can’t help but stare at my mouth, which has been painted especially full. I don’t mind his attention if I’m the one directing it. Besides, he’s not going to be appreciative for long. “And you … you’re somewhere in between, like me. A little muddied.”
Kineas sputters. “I am nothing like—”
“Indeed, your gray hair makes you look a lot older.”
“I beg your—”
Lydea’s bark of laughter cuts him off. “I really like you,” she says, looking at me as if sizing up a competitor. And yet something in her gaze once again makes me flush.
“Isn’t she wonderful?” Japha nearly sings. “I can’t wait for us to become better acquainted.”
“Indeed,” says a disembodied voice to my left. I jump, turning, and there’s the dead man. I meet his eyes unintentionally, but then I can’t look away. It’s like staring down the bottom of a well, the black depths of his gaze. “Crown Prince Tyros is coming. Silvean is already aware of this fact, but the man can be … unpleasant. Please don’t do anything rash.”
The dead man retreats. Japha has noticed me twitch and watches me carefully as another man steps into view
, taking the shade’s place.
Everyone bows, even my father, and I belatedly follow their lead. When I lift my head, I’m facing the crown prince. Tyros is a man in his fifties, perhaps, his hair gray and black in equal measure. His stony face is lined, but less with age and more like his unyielding expression has simply … settled. Whereas Kineas’s eyes are like sharpened daggers, his father’s are the blunt iron of chisels.
“So you’re the girl,” Tyros states more than asks. “At least you’re something to look at.”
My lips part in shock, and my mouth nearly falls all the way open when Lydea says, “Now, Father, surely she’s more than something, but let’s not be crude.”
His lips twist the slightest bit. “It’s not for you to say. Come, Kineas, what do you think?”
“I haven’t thought much of anything about her,” Kineas says, not even looking my way.
“And why would he?” my father says at my side, his voice deadly quiet.
Crown Prince Tyros turns on him with patient relish, like the blight’s ice freezing the oceans. “Only that Kineas is a good judge of flesh—horseflesh, at least. He always knows where to match a good broodmare. We must decide what to do with the girl.”
Kineas smirks, Lydea gazes coolly at her father, and Delphia faces the floor as if trying to melt into it. I wonder if she learned that tactic from her mother. Japha, on the other hand, has a gleam in their eyes that I would almost call dangerous … but it’s nothing compared to the sound of my father’s voice:
“You will decide no such thing.”
“Oh?” Tyros says, utterly unconcerned.
“No.”
“That’s unfortunate. You see, I might already have plans for her.”
The words make me boil, both nauseating and infuriating. The dead man warned me against doing anything rash, but not necessarily against speaking.
“Those might conflict with my plans,” I say cheerfully, “which involve you choking at your earliest convenience.”
“Rovan!” my father croaks.
Lydea sounds as if she’s choking for a moment. Delphia actually gasps, while Kineas gapes like a fish, making him look far less attractive than he is, which I take a moment to appreciate. The crown prince, with his cracked-marble face, simply stares at me. I stare right back.
In the Ravenous Dark Page 8
