Amber & Dusk

by Lyra Selene

  The idea sent nerves stitching up and down my arms. I shivered, and smiled.

  I found him in the covered pergola where he had wagered upon my virtue. I thought he was actually sleeping, this time; his lean frame was once again draped along the curve of the couch, but his hair was mussed, his fine features slack. His gleaming boots were kicked off, and his shirt was open, baring the pulse leaping in the hollow of his throat.

  The servant made a nervous sound behind me, so I turned to her with a seductive smile and laid my finger gently across my own lips, hoping she’d assume this was a tryst. She hesitated for a moment, then curtsied and left the arbor.

  I stepped closer to Sunder. In sleep, without his courtly mask of hauteur and sneering politesse, I could almost picture what he must have looked like as a boy. His lips were slightly parted, and his burnished brows slashed together in an expression both anxious and vulnerable. His pale hair drifted in the genévrier-scented breeze, and I imagined what it would be like to run my fingers through it, to smooth it away from his forehead and smooth away that frown with it.

  Stop. I clenched my hand until my nails bit into my soft palm. The burst of pain cut through the absurd fantasy. He’s Sunder. Even if he actually is trying to help you, he’d just as soon hurt you.

  I uncurled my fist, reached for the half-empty goblet at his elbow, and dashed it to the ground in a shower of brazen prisms.

  Sunder’s eyes flew open. He jerked back against the chaise. For a long moment there was nothing but shock and fierce confusion in those sharp eyes. Then they narrowed, shuttering against emotion, and he was the Sunder I knew, cold and haughty. A smirk tugged at the corners of his mouth.

  “Hasn’t anyone ever warned you?” Sleep made his voice dark and husky. Cool fingers latched around my wrist, sending a whisper singing toward my elbow. “Never wake a sleeping tiger, unless you want to be bitten.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” I made my expression scornful, and raked my eyes up and down his lithe body, lingering at his pale hair. “I’ve heard the white snow tigers of your precious Meteor Mountains are all born without teeth. I’m not particularly worried.”

  “I don’t need teeth,” he said, his smile sharpening into a knife, “to make you scream.”

  I snatched my hand from his grip and stepped away, willing my pulse to slow.

  So much for the upper hand.

  “I need to talk to you,” I muttered, rubbing at my wrist.

  “No,” Sunder said. He dragged a hand through his sleep-mussed hair. “I don’t talk.”

  “I’m serious,” I hissed. “Something’s going on in this damned palais. Everyone knows about it but me, but they refuse to tell me about it.”

  “That’s because you don’t belong here,” said Sunder, without expression. The words were Thibo’s, and they sent a streak of pain to bleach the colors swirling around my heart.

  “But I am here.”

  “Unfortunately.”

  “Stop!” I clenched my jaw, battling against the ember of fury Sunder’s needling words invariably kindled within me. “I know what you’re trying to do, and I know why you’re trying to do it.”

  “Oh?” Sunder leaned down to retrieve his boots, and his shirt fell open around his torso. I caught a glimpse of a lean, muscled chest and a hard stomach before I jerked my eyes to the floor, fighting the surge of heat climbing my cheeks. When I finally dared look up, he was watching me. Amusement glinted deep in his shrewd eyes. “A glass of wine.”

  “What?”

  “Fetch me a glass of wine,” he ordered, gesturing toward the shards of broken crystal glittering on the tile. I opened my mouth to retort in anger, but he added, “And get yourself one too, if you must,” before leaning back on the couch and examining his fingernails.

  I did as he asked, fighting to extinguish the slow burn spewing flames in my belly. If acting like his servant bought me some answers, I was willing to pay that price.

  I sloshed what I now recognized as Belsyre ice wine into two glasses, then marched them across to Sunder. He accepted his glass without thanking me. I sat across the room with a huff of annoyance, and sipped gingerly at the crisp liqueur.

  “Do you know what Severine’s legacy is?” he asked.

  The sudden change in subject paired with the casual and familiar use of the empress’s first name rocked me off-balance.

  “No,” I said, remembering Lullaby’s bright flare of panic when I alluded to it that first day in the Atrium. “No one does.”

  “Exactly,” said Sunder. His eyes flicked left, right, and up. He gave a tiny shrug, as if to say, You never know who might be listening.

  I narrowed my eyes on his face. Was he trying to tell me something about Severine? Or was he trying to tell me that he thought he—or I—was being spied on? I couldn’t see past the courtly mask.

  An idea occurred to me. I shut my eyes, and dreamed up a thunderstorm: the drowning thrum of ponderous rainfall, the hissing splash of a million raindrops striking parched earth.

  A phantom tempest roared down, drowning out the whisper of leafy branches and the twitter of unseen songbirds. Surprise flickered across Sunder’s face. He held a hand out between the dashing droplets, but the rain passed through his flesh, ghostly and insubstantial.

  “Indiscreet, demoiselle,” he shouted over the grumble of the storm. “Unspeakably so.”

  I huffed, and dissolved the illusion. I chewed my lip, dredging the lucid swirl of fantastical visions for something more appropriate.

  “Go on,” said Sunder, with half a smile. He ran one long finger around the rim of his goblet. “Impress me.”

  I imagined the sound of a soirée: voices raised in merriment, a trickle of laughter, the clinking of glasses, a strain of distant music. The pergola sang with it.

  “You may be irritatingly loudmouthed,” Sunder laughed, “but even you don’t produce this much noise.”

  “Fine,” I snapped. The ghostly party disappeared. I wasn’t fond of these straightforward fancies, these fleshless daydreams. They reminded me of my early lessons with Dowser: pale copies of paperweights and leather-bound books drifting like ghosts in flat vermilion light. Worlds bound by terrestrial rules, the rules of reality. Control. I longed for oceans blazing with fire, armies wrought of diamonds and dust, clouded worlds cracking open like eggs.

  I sighed, and surrendered to a world identical to our own in all but a few ways. The chirrup and warble of birdsong amplified. Sunder frowned upward at the arbor, searching for birds that weren’t there. The slow trickle of the fountain splashed louder, almost distractingly so. A brisk breeze disturbed the lush foliage surrounding the veranda, and the leaves’ whispered gossip grew louder. I imagined thick cotton blanketing the space between Sunder and me—a density of space where sound didn’t carry.

  Sunder blinked. I saw his mouth move, but the words were too muffled to hear. He rocked back in his seat, smirking as he beckoned me closer. I approached, dropping gingerly onto the edge of the chaise. The curve of the seat deposited me nearly in Sunder’s lap. He didn’t seem to mind, leaning closer so his mouth was at my ear.

  “Better,” he said. Even this close, his voice was distorted, as though we were speaking underwater. “Now, to sell the illusion. May I?”

  I found myself nodding. Sunder reached up and yanked a few pins out of my coiffure, tumbling my hair around my shoulders. His fingers threaded through the locks, spreading them to drape around our faces.

  “There.” His cheek brushed mine, and he glided his hand around the base of my wrist. A frisson of energy raised the hairs along my arm, and I suppressed a shiver. “You wanted to talk. So talk.”

  I tried to focus on the reason I’d come in the first place, but it was hard to think with Sunder’s cool fingers drawing zinging circles against my pulse. I swallowed, focusing on the edges of the illusion and ignoring his hands on my skin.

  “What’s happening?” I thought of Lullaby’s friend, whose room I now lived in, and Vida’s tears. Gone.
I thought of Thibo’s dour expression when he thought no one was looking. “People are frightened. Why?”

  “Don’t you remember the Gauntlet, Mirage?” Sunder’s sardonic laugh was chilly on my cheek. “We are more than just legacies. We are weapons, wielded by our empress.”

  “Weapons?” I jerked with surprise. His arm tightened around my waist.

  “Don’t,” he whispered. “Where do you think my sister is right now?”

  I tensed. “How should I know?”

  “She is with the diplomatic delegation from the Sousine, in the arms of the Compte du Verre.”

  “But—”

  “Yes. He’ll be dead by Matin. No one will dare question why. But without his vocal opposition, the Aifiri embargo will be signed by the remaining Senat, and Severine will have her alliance. Do you see?”

  “Not really.” I closed my eyes, trying to shut out Sunder’s intoxicating closeness. I focused on the words he was saying, willing them to make sense. Sousine. Senat. Alliance. “The empress sent Bane to assassinate a political opponent?”

  “Eloquent as ever, demoiselle,” purred Sunder. “Now think of how many political opponents the empress of the most powerful empire in the daylight world has. Rulers of distant lands. Desert corsairs. Peasant dissidents. Her own unruly nobles.”

  “You’re saying—” Sunder’s words bloomed into realization. “We’re an army.”

  “A silent, secret army,” corrected Sunder, “beholden only to Severine herself. And not just the courtiers in Coeur d’Or. Most of the time, we are merely her insurance.”

  His words summoned up a conversation I’d had nearly two spans ago with Lullaby: We are her insurance, Lullaby had said. Our presence guarantees that our noble parents and families behave according to her wishes. Do you understand?

  I hadn’t then. But I thought I was beginning to. I shifted on the chaise to relieve a cramp above my knee. Sunder took the movement as an invitation, his hands smooth as quicksilver as he circled my waist and lifted me onto his lap. I yelped a protest, but it was too late; I was straddling him, my gown bunched around my thighs in a billow of floral chiffon. I glared down, my dark hair a curtain separating us from the world. His steel-edged eyes flashed with savage mirth.

  He’s just trifling with you, I snapped at myself. It’s all a game. Get your answers and get out.

  “Why now, then?” I hissed down at him. “If she’s been leveraging her court of favorite sons and daughters all this time, why are courtiers suddenly disappearing? Why is she taking legacies from Coeur d’Or?”

  “Skirmishes in the Dusklands: the shadows of Dominion, testing the strength of our borders. Zvar corsairs uniting under a single banner, threatening Lirian trade barges crossing the desert. Barges that are more valuable than ever before, because of the civil war in Aifir. Tensions rising between colonial government and natives in the Sousine.” Sunder’s face hardened, and the touch of his skin to mine vibrated with a stinging thrum. “We are on the brink, Mirage. The threat of war strains the empire’s bones and hums in its veins. Severine is clutching at weapons she dared not use before.”

  “But—” A grim thought chased my words away. Insurance. The word had been burrowing deep within me, and suddenly I realized why—

  I had no connections. No family, no relatives to keep in line or leverage as a weapon. I was just a penniless fantast who turned up out of the dusk.

  “Me,” I said, out loud, and the word resonated in my chest like a death knell. “She wants me. No one will care if I disappear. No one will weep when I’m gone. No one will threaten revolution if I die in the dusk or the desert.”

  Sunder’s eyes on my face were empty of menace, only calm pity.

  And that’s when I remembered the necklace—a fat amber gem nestled at my throat, a waterfall of kembric and rubies swinging between my breasts. Has the thought ever occurred to you …

  “You did help me,” I said, forgetting the bracelet of his cool, nettling palms. “You weren’t lying. You gave me that necklace to dull my legacy. To hide my abilities from the empress. So she wouldn’t steal me away to fight her battles. Yet.”

  Sunder’s eyes sharpened on mine.

  “Carrousel is a span away,” I whispered, and panic opened its eyes, a frightened beast awakening inside me. I clenched my hands into fists. “Like it or not, I’m going to have to perform for the empress. She’ll know how far I’ve come. What should I do?”

  “Do?” Sunder’s expression didn’t change. “I’ve been telling you since the Nocturne of the Gauntlet—leave.”

  “Leave?”

  “Yes, you stubborn half-wit,” he snarled. “Get out of this labyrinth of lies while you still can.”

  He shoved me out of his lap without ceremony. I stumbled backward, half falling before catching myself on the slick floor. Humiliation stirred my blood to a boil and sent flames to lick at my cheeks. The illusion shattered around us, birdsong and trickling fountain and stirring trees calming as the bubble of silence evaporated. I glared as Sunder crossed to his sidebar and sloshed out another glass of ice wine.

  “How dare you—” I breathed, but Sunder turned a gaze so cool and disinterested on me that I jerked back in shock.

  “Enough,” he said. “You may go.”

  I rocked back on my heels, searching for something appropriately scathing to say. But my chest and throat were empty of anything but a sinking bewilderment. I smoothed my rumpled skirt with shaking hands and turned away without a word.

  I was nearly to the edge of the veranda when Sunder’s crisp voice halted me in my steps.

  “Demoiselle?”

  I turned, suspicion battling with a strange, sour hope. Sunder lifted his glittering goblet toward the elaborate chandelier turning lazy circles above his chaise. The low red light dappled one quivering teardrop of true ambric dangling from its base.

  “Shield enchanted that pendant,” said Sunder, naming a Sinister lady I’d never met, only seen from afar. “Its magic shields this room from prying eyes and ears. Anything said—or done—beneath its protection cannot be heard or seen by those without. But never let it be said I didn’t enjoy your company.”

  He drained his glass and turned on his heel, disappearing between the blooming lianas.

  My embarrassment was swallowed whole by fury. Images came thundering at me like a terrible tide. My lackluster joke of an illusion. Sunder’s guile in convincing me his fingers in my hair were necessary. His lips brushing my ear. His hands gripping my waist, sending lines of fire racing toward my heart.

  A game. A vicious game to take my trust and transfigure it into something else. Something that now nestled chilly against my heart, beckoning me even as I fought to shove it away. Something bleak and delicious and horribly, wonderfully tempting.

  I never should have trusted him.

  I stalked out of Belsyre Wing with desire seething in my blood and hate searing my heart. Nothing Sunder did or said was trustworthy. Even his words about the empress and her legacies could be nothing more than an elaborate ruse to drive me out of the palais. To win whatever sadistic bet he’d wagered on my failure.

  And whether I left or stayed, I knew I’d been outplayed. I thought suddenly of peine, the complicated card game Thibo had taught me. No matter how good my cards were, or how sure I thought my win was, Thibo always found a way to beat me. And sometimes, the only way to keep a bluffer from cleaning you out … was to fold.

  Scion damn him.

  Has the thought ever occurred to you …

  Something stopped me in my tracks. I stared up at an archway swathed in cold, undying flames, and reached for the notion teasing at the back of my skull.

  Dark trees tracing calligraphy against a backdrop of white. Frost. An ambric necklace skittering across a floor of ice.

  And I realized: I asked Sunder whether he gave me the necklace to protect me from Severine.

  I never thought to ask him why he cared.

  The bell for third Nocturne was nothing mor
e than a memory, and still I worried.

  Light burned through Blossom’s painted glass window, casting orange shadows on my face. I fingered the planes of my ambric amulet, throbbing in time to my hurried pulse. Its weight against my chest was unfamiliar, like a memory I thought I’d forgotten, only to recall when I least expected it. It was so different from the gaudy spill of Sunder’s Blood Rain gift, and yet I preferred its ancient contours, worn smooth by unremembered lives and time’s steady strum.

  The scratch at my door was so soft I almost thought I imagined it. I jumped to my feet. Reluctant hope untangled the knots in my chest.

  The door whispered open at my touch. A broad-shouldered man stood in the shadow of the doorframe, nothing but darkness edged in blood. He stepped closer. My lungs gasped for air.

  I saw a palais servant’s pewter livery. A mop of curling, dark hair. Brown skin kissed by the sun. And burnished eyes gleaming like kembric in the shadows.

  He wasn’t who I thought he’d be.

  “Luca?!” The name ripped out of me.

  He kicked the door shut and crushed me against his chest. I gasped, and curled my arms around his neck. The kiss he planted on my cheek was rough with stubble. He smelled of musk and incense and the city, a scent so different from the fine perfumes of the palais that I nearly wept.

  “Luca!” I repeated. I could hardly think of any other words. He set me to my feet, although he seemed reluctant to release me completely—his hands lingered at my waist. Heat climbed my cheeks when I remembered I was wearing nothing but my filmy nightgown. “Do you work here now?”

  “Of course not.” His smile was a flash of white, startlingly bright and achingly familiar. “I came to see you.”

  “But—” I paused. I hardly knew what to say. I never expected— “But I thought you were leaving the city with the convoy over a span ago! And how did you get into the palais? What if—?”

  “I get caught?” His smile, if possible, grew brighter. “I hoped you—the famous fantast the city can’t stop talking about—might be able to help with that.”