by Carol A Park
“You know you’re working with a notorious assassin, right?” the man said to Yaotel. “Her real name is Sweetblade. Don’t know what agenda she has, but—”
“You don’t think I’m that stupid, do you?” Ivana asked. She knelt in front of him and took a clear, finger-nail-sized disc out of her pouch. “If it’s any consolation, you got mixed up in the wrong job this time. There was never any other end for you.” She handed him the disc. “Dissolve it on your tongue. It won’t hurt, and you’ll be dead in less than a minute.”
The man took the disc, but then he leered at her again, his eyes lingering on her breasts. “So. Is it true what they say? That you’re as sweet as you are sharp?”
She gave the man an icy look Vaughn well remembered because he had received plenty of them himself during his initial acquaintance with her. “I think you misunderstand the name. The two aren’t meant to be separated.”
He held up the disc to her, as if to make some sort of morbid toast, and then put it on his tongue. A few moments later, he stilled, dead eyes still on her chest.
Ivana closed his eyelids and stood up to face Vaughn and Yaotel. “Well. It looks like your traitor is in your own camp.”
Yaotel didn’t say anything. He just opened the door, and the three of them filed out, leaving the corpse of the assassin behind.
“Do you need me for anything else?” Ivana asked.
Yaotel pressed his lips together and waved her off with nary a word of gratitude for her help leaving his lips.
“I’m done with your translation,” she said to Vaughn. “So if it still matters…you know where to find me.”
He nodded, and she retreated down the tunnel.
Then he looked at Yaotel. “How many icebloods do we have here in Marakyn?”
“Three,” Yaotel said immediately. “But only one who’s Setanan.”
Vaughn was afraid that was going to be the case. It made it incredibly easy to identify the culprit, but not easy to accept.
Dax.
A rap on the door to Ivana’s room at the inn made her start awake, echoes of whore still playing in her mind. She rose to her feet and retrieved her dagger before going to the door.
She cracked it open, and Vaughn’s eye peeked back at her through the crack. “It’s just me,” he said.
She was clearly on edge; she knew he’d be stopping by. She let him in.
Vaughn was unnaturally subdued once she closed the door behind him. He glanced at the rumpled sheets on her bed and then at her clothes—the same she had been wearing earlier, not a robe or nightshift. “Did I…wake you up?”
She glanced at the clock. Only nine o’clock. It felt later than that, but she had no desire to return to her troubled dreams, so his presence wasn’t wholly unwelcome.
She shrugged and laid the dagger on the desk. “I hadn’t gone to bed,” she said, which was true. She had fallen asleep lying on her bed, staring up at the ceiling, rehashing the scene from earlier that day. Remembering how easy it had been to slip back into that role, and yet somehow different—because her internal monologue about it had changed.
Sweetblade was dead. And yet.
He sat down on the bed and ran his hand through his hair. “The translation is done, you said?”
She walked over to the desk and picked up her clean copy of the translation, and then she turned to face him. “You’re still planning on trying this?”
He gave a short laugh. “After everything I went through to get to this point? Yes. Absolutely.”
“I’m surprised Yaotel is letting you go after today.”
He grunted. “Yaotel isn’t letting me do anything. I’ll damn well do what I want.”
Ivana had a feeling this had less to do with his actual belief that he would accomplish something at that shrine and more with his last fling with self-determination before he had to submit to Yaotel’s command. “And that’s why you’re going to overthrow Airell and become Ri of Ferehar? Because it’s what you want?”
Vaughn pressed his lips together and scowled at her.
A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, but she tamped it down. “So, do you know who the traitor is?”
The scowl melted off his face, and once again, he just looked worn. “There’s only one option. It must be Dax. Doesn’t help his case that no one now recalls having seen him since just after the attempt on Yaotel’s life failed.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think I know him.”
Vaughn sighed. “He’s helped me a few times. He’s also the one who found the evidence that corroborated what was in that journal.” He waved his hand in the direction of her desk, where the object in question sat. “As well as a ton of other manuscripts, codices, and scrolls over the years. Seventeen years, Ivana. That’s how long he’s been with the Ichtaca. Way longer than me.”
Even Ivana could appreciate the wound of that betrayal. For Yaotel, especially. “Yaotel have any idea why?”
Vaughn shrugged. “Best guess? He hates non-Banebringers, without exception,” he said simply. “He didn’t try to hide his opinion that the alliance with Donia was unwise. He told Yaotel they’d use us to accomplish their goals and then turn on us when they were done.” He looked down at his hands. “Honestly, he’s not the only one with reservations. But I had no idea Dax would go to such an extreme to try to stop it. None of us did.”
“And what does Ri Tanuac think of all this?” Ivana asked.
“He’s relieved it wasn’t one of his own advisors and glad to be able to get back to the task at hand.”
“Not worried about the apparent fragility of this alliance?”
Vaughn snorted. “There’s nothing apparent about it. And, anyway, Yaotel said he warned Tanuac from the start that we were hardly a unified group. Perth—remember him?—he’s still out there doing the gods know what. Never came back after the Harvest Ball.”
Ivana remembered him. Vaughn had gotten into a verbal sparring match with him about Ivana’s fate after that final bloodbane battle at Gan Barton’s estate. Too handsy for her liking.
Vaughn shifted. “Yaotel isn’t ever going to express his gratitude to you for helping us out, so I will. Thank you. I know it can’t have been easy.”
“On the contrary, it was quite easy,” she said.
He studied her with narrowed eyes, as if suspecting she was lying to him.
She wasn’t. As she had already reflected upon herself, it had been far too easy to be her again.
Sweetblade was dead. And yet.
“All right. Have it your way,” he said. “But I also wanted to—” He bit his lip. “That man. Some of the things he said to you. Insinuated about you.”
She raised an eyebrow at him. Where was he going with this?
“You looked at him the way you used to look at me.”
Ah. “Yes. Well. I’m certain some of his comments were similar to things you’ve said to me. What did you expect?”
He visibly winced. And then he seemed to find whatever reserve of words or perhaps courage he was looking for. “I don’t ever want to say or do something to make you look at me that way again.”
Amusement and discomfort warred in her. This felt far too intimate of a conversation for her liking. What in the abyss did he think he was doing? “As touching as your sudden display of contrition is, you can be comforted to know that I haven’t found you nearly as distasteful this time around.”
“Oh. Well that’s goo—wait, nearly as distasteful?”
She shrugged.
He let out an exasperated breath. “The point I was trying to get at was: I’m not perfect. So if I screw up, feel free to tell me.”
“Noted.” She moved over to the bed and handed him her translation. “I won’t pretend this is perfect, but I think it’s the gist of it.”
He took it and read it silently to himself while she also read it over again, upside down:
“When the serpent [v. ‘loose’ perhaps, ‘is loosed’?] upon the sky
All
who seek the favor [of?] the gods
Even those gifted of their blood
[Shall?] at the appointed [?]
By sacrifice of blood
[Be?] purified by the flames [of?] the serpent
And [?] divine [blessing?] and [?]
Beyond all mortal measure.”
He squinted one eye at the words. “There are still an awful lot of question marks.”
“I’m fairly confident where I’ve supplied a guess. If it’s only a question mark, it means I haven’t the faintest idea what the missing word is.”
“I guess that’s not so bad, then. Thoughts on what this might mean we need to do when we get there?”
She plucked it out of his hand and returned it to the desk. “My working theory is that the person wanting to travel to ‘the heavens’ stepped into the mouth of that serpent at the sky-fire, and fire and blood were used to activate it.”
“Fire and blood,” Vaughn said. “That’s still so…vague. What do we have to do? Sacrifice someone in flames? Set ourselves on fire? Or did the serpent just magically shoot flames out?”
Ivana shook her head. “This is the best you’re going to have by way of explanation. I think the only thing left to do is experiment.” She paused. “Do you not think it’s possible that even if you knew exactly what to do, it wouldn’t work because it needs this serpent door?”
“If this were a magical door that worked anything like our own magic, then it must have used aether to activate the door, which acted as a focus to tell the aether what to do. I’m thinking that’s what it means by ‘blood.’” He stood and paced the small amount of floor in the room—to the door and back to the bed again. “Xiuheuhtli—the deity that shrine was dedicated to—is the firebloods’ patron deity, so perhaps a fireblood or at least fireblood aether is involved somehow. Maybe there was a receptacle for it, in the same way we power some of our devices, like the qixli and light panels? At any rate, if it was only a focus, we should still be able to take advantage of the weakness in the veil at that place and time, even without the advantage of a focus.”
“Or,” Ivana said, “maybe the door has nothing to do with your magic, and the gods made it work. Or maybe none of it is real in the first place, including the gods.” She raised an eyebrow. “That’s my current theory.”
“Always the skeptic. But what if it does work?”
“I think you just want to get out of having to do what Yaotel tells you.”
He spread his hands. “I mean, having Zily on my side would change everything, right?”
She rolled her eyes.
“Look—I know you and everyone else think this is a lost cause—and I’m not saying it isn’t…but if by some slim chance, I can make this thing work—”
“And survive such a trip,” she interjected.
“Find Zily—”
“And he cares.”
“And get him to help somehow…”
“In a way that doesn’t destroy the world or kill half its population…”
He halted in front of her and crossed his arms. “You know, you could be more positive here.”
She almost laughed at that. And he could be reasonable. “Have I ever pretended optimism is an attribute of mine?”
He grunted. “That’s an understatement.”
“I prefer to be realistic.”
“Which is just another way of saying ‘pessimistic,’” he said.
She shrugged. Such was life. “At least I won’t be disappointed.”
He started to say something, then halted, then finally spit it out. “All right. You have a point.” He lifted a finger. “But that also seems like a terrible way to live.”
He assumed she was living. “Now you sound like Aleena.”
“I’ve always thought she was a pretty wise woman. Anyway, whatever the result, barring the Conclave moving before then, we’re leaving in about a week.”
“First-person plural pronouns seem to be a perennial problem with you. I hope your we is exclusive of me.”
He seemed momentarily stymied, and then he spread his hands. “Aw, aren’t you going to come with me? I do need a small team…”
“Vaughn. I’m not a Banebringer. I couldn’t come with you even if I wanted to, at least if the inscription is at all accurate.”
“I just meant to the shrine. In case of a, uh, last-minute language crisis.”
She couldn’t keep a smile from breaking through. He was so ridiculous. “Last-minute language crisis?”
He looked at her. Just looked at her. That look she had once despised and yet at the same time longed to embrace. The look that sought to see her beyond what she wanted to show, even now. Then he gave her a lopsided grin. “All right. I confess. I just like having you around.”
Ivana wasn’t entirely sure what had happened. His smile, their banter, his company.
Whatever the case, his words did something to her. She had never wanted to be missed before, and yet his casual uttering of the words made her ache inside at the sure knowledge that once this was over, she would be alone.
Again.
She had been alone since she had left Ferehar, even when surrounded by her girls, even in the cautious comradery she had with Aleena. In shutting out the despair and darkness that fed off, in part, her loneliness, she had also shut out her ability to truly connect with someone else again.
That long-silenced part of her had been rattling the bars on its cage since Vaughn had stripped her outer defenses, and since he had pushed his way back into her life again, it seemed positively determined to escape at all costs—even her own sanity.
Right now, it sensed her weakness—her longing—and it reached out, as it had so long ago, to grasp what was right in front of her—that tendril of connection.
And so, yes. She looked into Vaughn’s eyes, and she wondered if it would be so bad to let go of herself just once. She looked at his lips, and she wondered what it might be like to give that part of herself a taste of anything that looked and felt like what she had lost, what had been taken from her, and ultimately what she had given up to become what she needed to.
Yes, it eagerly whispered, goading her on.
Why did she insist on holding back? Sweetblade was dead. What did Ivana want?
Vaughn was silent. He watched her, oblivious to her tangled thoughts, but that he sensed a change was obvious.
She reached out her hand, hesitant, and traced a finger down his cheek, across his jaw, over his lips.
He didn’t move, other than to softly kiss the fingertip she had placed there. The simple gesture set a fire burning in her.
To the abyss with it. She dropped her hand to his waist, pulled herself close to him, and kissed him.
The moment her lips touched his, he inhaled sharply through his nose, moved his hands to cradle her head, one on either side, and kissed her back.
She met his lips again and again, savoring the taste, then opened her mouth to find his tongue, drowning herself in the cascades of longing that washed over her body until finally she pulled back with a gasp, needing to come up for air.
Vaughn hadn’t moved his hands from her head. He leaned forward to put his forehead to hers and held her there.
She didn’t move, either. Her body was trembling like some young, untested virgin.
Fear, desire—she didn’t know what, only that it beat against her until she thought she would go mad.
Finally, Vaughn spoke. Only one word. A question. “Ivana?”
She swallowed. Ivana. Ivana. Who is Ivana? Sweetblade was dead, and in her place was a void, an emptiness in which memories and feelings and faces swirled and then disappeared, snatches of light in overwhelming darkness. The Ivana she had been was gone, and yet here she was, Ivana again.
She pulled away from him, and he let her go, his hands sliding down her face and then dropping to his sides.
She couldn’t meet his eyes. She didn’t know what to say, how to answer his implied question, because she couldn’t explai
n her actions in simple words.
She was both shocked and grateful that he hadn’t asked more of her, if not with words, than with his body.
After a few moments of silence, she forced herself to speak. “I’ll go,” she said. “Might as well see if all my work comes to fruition or not.” And put off answering the inevitable question of what to do afterward.
He rubbed his jaw. “Good. Well. I’m going to head back to our barracks. Let me know if you need anything.”
I need you to stay with me, wrap your arms around me, keep the darkness from swallowing me whole. “I’ll be fine. See you in a week.”
Vaughn closed the door to Ivana’s room, but he didn’t immediately move on. Instead, he leaned against the wall and stood there for several minutes, reeling from what had just happened.
Ivana had kissed him. He had kissed her back. And then he had let her go and left.
He couldn’t remember the last time an encounter with a woman had gone that way.
Had it ever?
It wasn’t that he didn’t want more; the gods knew he had wanted Ivana since almost the moment he had met her.
But it hadn’t felt right. And for once, he had listened to something other than the brain between his legs.
He hadn’t the faintest idea what had spurred her to kiss him, what had been going on in her mind—but for his part? He was terrified.
He was terrified because today he realized for the first time, in a concrete way, that he had changed. And having changed, he was terrified because there was no going back. He could have once claimed ignorance, but he would not be willfully ignorant. To do so would either make him egotistical or a coward, and he wanted to be neither.
He was terrified because his old defenses, his old vices, would no longer suffice to hide behind or find solace in, and he had nothing else.
But mostly, he was terrified because he had no doubt that he had fallen in love with Ivana, and he also had no doubt that loving Ivana would one day, sooner or later, leave him with a broken heart.
Well. There certainly were plenty of things to be terrified of lately, not least of which was the possibility of stepping through a portal into a world inhabited by seemingly capricious gods to beg their favor.
