Not that Leah believed in the empire, of course. The only reason anyone else did was that they thought the emperor’s placement was ordained by God. But Leah didn’t believe that. Not anymore. No, she wasn’t even convinced that God was real. She was fairly sure that someone had made him up, long, long ago—before the Scourge even. It was easier to live if you had a God to blame things on. If things went bad, you could always say it was because God was displeased.
Bad harvest?
God thinks you’re all sinners, said the holy men. Repent and work harder.
That way of living kept all the common people making food for the nobles, and nothing ever changed.
Of course, she’d managed to change things for herself. She should never be allowed to be the first wife of the emperor’s son, for instance, and yet here she was. Sometimes nobles married common women, but only as third wives. Still, even that would never have happened to her, because she was pregnant out of wedlock. Once her bastard-filled belly had been discovered, she would have been exiled from the community, cast out to wander and fare for herself. The only chance she and her child would have had would have been to meet up with one of those traveling gypsy bands.
Ah. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad after all. Maybe if she could have found the right gypsy band…
But she didn’t know where they’d gone, so it was useless thinking about it. No, what she needed to do with herself right at this moment was to improve her current situation, and that meant getting the chance to leave this wing every once and a while.
The servants had told her that Gabriel had a study in the lower levels of the mansion, and that was where he spent a lot of his time. But they said that servants were severely punished for ever disturbing him there, so they wouldn’t carry a message to him for her. And they were ordered not to let her out of the wing, so she couldn’t go herself.
She only had one window of opportunity to get out of the wing, and that was during midmorning every few days when the sheets were stripped and washed, when there was a high turnover of servants. There weren’t enough to take away her breakfast, clean up the bed linens, remake the bed, and all the other morning chores. There was a period of a few minutes when there was no one there because everyone had carried something off from her room—a teacup, a pillowcase, a coverlet.
She had to time it perfectly, or else she’d run into someone coming up the stairs in the wing with new bed linens.
In her first attempt last week, she hadn’t been quick enough, and had barely made it halfway down the staircase.
But today, she was successful, and she found herself hurrying through the castle in search of Gabriel’s study.
By luck, however, she never had to go that far, because she ran into Gabriel in the halls. He was storming away from the emperor’s study, muttering swear words just loud enough that she could hear them.
She planted herself in his path. “We have to talk.”
His eyes widened. “I told you not to be out of the wing. I gave the servants strict orders—”
“Don’t blame them,” she said. “I snuck out. Listen, Gabriel, this is ridiculous. I’m a prisoner in that wing, and I can’t stand it.”
He sighed. “Listen, can’t we talk about this at another time? Right now, I’m very busy trying to help out Ezekiel from Caroly.”
Leah smirked. “Ah, yes. The man from yesterday. You’re ‘helping’ him are you?”
Gabriel gave her a withering look. “Not in the way you’re implying.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Really? Because the way he looked at you—”
“All right, all right.” He took her by the waist and began to lead her down the hallway. “Maybe there’s a little bit of that as well, but the truth is that I really do want to help him with his sister. And until I figure out where her body is, I simply can’t concentrate on anything else. So, how about if I promise you that the minute this little mystery is cleared up, you and I can have a nice chat—”
“No,” said Leah. “And don’t think you’re just going to walk me up the steps back into my wing. I went to a lot of trouble to find you this morning.”
He sighed. “But Ezekiel’s sister’s body is still missing.”
She pushed away from him and stopped walking.
He turned and glared at her. “Don’t be difficult, Leah.”
She narrowed her eyes. So that’s what all of this was about, then? The body of that girl? Well, Leah knew what had become of it. But she didn’t think that Gabriel would like the truth once he knew it. Still, no one in the mansion seemed to know the emperor had a hand in Honor’s death, and spilling his secrets would destabilize the empire, which could only be a good thing.
But she couldn’t just come out and tell him. He’d want to know how she knew.
And she didn’t want to be brushed off either.
She took a deep breath. “You know, actually, I overheard some of the servants talking about her body. I might have an idea what happened to her.”
“Really?” Gabriel grabbed both of her hands eagerly. “Tell me what they said.”
“Not so fast,” she said, pulling her hands back. “If I tell you, are we going to work something out about the wing?”
“What did you have in mind?”
“I want to be able to explore the mansion,” she said. “I want to meet people. I take all my meals alone, you know.”
Gabriel sighed. “All right, well, perhaps it would be okay if you did some exploring. And I’ll talk to my sister Michal about having you included in the young noblewomen’s luncheon.”
Leah smiled. “Thank you, Gabriel.”
“Yes, yes. Of course. But about Honor? What did you hear?”
“They said there’s a chamber off of the dungeon, a secret chamber. They think the body might be there.”
“A secret chamber? What are you talking about?”
Leah shrugged. “It’s got its own staircase, and it opens up near the end of my wing. I can show you.”
“There’s no secret staircase, Leah.”
“That’s just what I heard,” she said. “I didn’t check to see, of course. It’s down on the lower level, and you don’t like me down there. Besides, it’s locked up tight, and no one has the key but the emperor.” There, she thought. That’s the best I can do without giving myself away.
CHAPTER FOUR
“And I think she’s right,” said Gabriel, pacing in Ezekiel’s room at the inn. “I looked everywhere, talked to everyone I could think of, and I couldn’t find a key to open it. If my father does have the key, I know where he’d keep it. I think I can get it. Tonight, after he goes to sleep. I’ll sneak into his bedchamber and—”
“No.”
Gabriel turned to face Ezekiel, whose expression was stony. “I don’t think you understand. This is the best lead that we have. My father wouldn’t tell me anything this morning.”
“I don’t think you understand. I specifically told you not to do anything on my behalf, didn’t I?” Ezekiel’s voice was ice.
Gabriel chuckled. “You said things, sure. But your actions were, um, a little contradictory.”
“Well, that’s exactly why I don’t want to see you anymore. You confuse me. You distract me. I was hardly able to conduct more investigating today, because I was so consumed with guilt—”
“I was investigating. You didn’t need to. And why on earth would you be guilty?”
“You know why.”
Gabriel sighed. “What’s it going to take for you to get over this, Ezekiel? It’s really very unattractive.”
“Good. Then stay away from me.”
Gabriel stepped closer to the other man. “I don’t want to stay away from you. I’m not sure what it is about you, but I find you…” He paused, searching for a way to describe it. Nothing came to him, so he reached up and ran his fingers over Ezekiel’s upper arm.
Ezekiel seized him by the wrist, his teeth clenched. “Keep your hands off me.”
Gabri
el grinned. “Sorry. I just can’t seem to help myself.”
Ezekiel took Gabriel by the shoulders and drove him backwards until his back collided with the wall.
Gabriel’s grin widened. This was part of his fascination with this man. Ezekiel had everything bottled up, but at moments like this, he started to bubble over. Gabriel liked watching the push and pull within the man—the way his muscles tensed his forearms, the sneer of his upper lip. It made Gabriel hard.
Ezekiel’s nostrils flared. He put both arms against the wall on either side of Gabriel, trapping him. Then Ezekiel leaned close. His voice was gravelly. “When I say for you to stay away from me, I mean it.”
Gabriel eyed Ezekiel’s arms, one on either side. He arched an eyebrow. “Seems like I’m stuck.”
Ezekiel gritted his teeth. “Stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Smiling.”
Gabriel had to laugh.
Ezekiel grabbed him by the throat.
Gabriel stopped laughing. He stopped smiling. The hand at his throat wasn’t tight enough to choke him, or to hurt him, but it was plenty strong. He could feel the restraint in Ezekiel’s grasp. It turned him on even more. He licked his lips.
Ezekiel slammed his eyes shut. For a second, his grip tightened.
Gabriel couldn’t breathe. Fear shot through him, laced with elation and sex. His cock throbbed inside his breeches.
But then Ezekiel’s squeeze turned into a caress, his fingers tracing the outline of Gabriel’s throat.
Gabriel gasped.
And Ezekiel’s mouth was on his, hard and hot and demanding.
Gabriel pressed his body into the other man’s.
Ezekiel pressed back, pinning Gabriel against the wall. He moved his lips to Gabriel’s jaw.
Gabriel groaned.
“I don’t need your help,” Ezekiel whispered against his neck. “I don’t need anything from you.”
“Right,” said Gabriel. “I can tell how much you don’t need this.” His fingers danced over the other man’s thigh to cup his erection.
Ezekiel slammed him into the wall. “Don’t touch me.” But he was breathless, his voice unsteady.
“Fine,” Gabriel murmured. But he didn’t move his hand.
* * *
Darius could ride a horse now. He could stand and speak and move. Everything had come back to him quickly, and then the nobleman had taken him on the road. The nobleman’s name was Simon. He’d told Darius that grudgingly when Darius had wondered what to call him. Simon rode ahead of Darius.
Darius was chained to his horse.
Simon said that was because Darius hadn’t been tested yet. “Can’t be sure you won’t try to eat me.”
Eat him.
Darius’s nose twitched, even now. He could smell Simon ahead of him, the horse below him. The flesh smelled divine. The horse flesh wasn’t quite as tantalizing—but it smelled like food. Simon, however… well, Simon’s flesh smelled so tempting, it was enough to drive Darius mad.
He had been confused, but Simon had explained.
He had been bitten by revenants, but Simon had intervened. He had given Darius an ancient treatment, one no one had attempted in over fifty years. He had made Darius into a necromancer. Now, they were traveling back to the capital city of the empire, so that Darius could be tested. If he passed, Simon said Darius would never have to be in chains again.
Darius didn’t like it. He had heard stories of necromancers, of course. He remembered his mother telling them as a little boy. The necromancers could control the revenants, speak to them and keep them from harming anyone. But the necromancers were half-dead themselves—dangerous monsters that might turn on the humans at any moment.
Now he was a necromancer. It was like being a revenant, but he still had his wits about him. The revenants were dead inside. Only their bodies were animated. They functioned only on primitive instinct. Darius was alive inside a revenant body. He could think and feel and reason. But… he hungered. Oh, how he hungered.
The hunger was like nothing he’d experienced ever before. He remembered hunger as a human. The growling in his stomach, the weakness in his limbs. This wasn’t like that. This was overwhelming desire. He didn’t need the flesh to survive. He could sense that. But he wanted it. He ached for it. He smelled the scent on the air, and he salivated for it.
He wasn’t sure what he would do if he were released from the chains. Part of him thought he’d be a crazed animal. That he’d leap on Simon and tear his flesh from his bones, sink his teeth into that deliciousness.
But he also was disgusted and horrified by the thought. He didn’t want to eat the flesh of other humans. That was the most abominable thing he could conceive of. To be tempted to do something so horrific…
No, he wouldn’t let himself.
He wasn’t an animal. Wasn’t a revenant. Wasn’t a monster. He was still a man.
He could sense the revenants. They were close by. As they traveled, he felt the touch of their tiny, primitive minds. They were sleeping. They had lain down in swamps, in forests, and in creek beds and waited for the smell of flesh to wake them. Even before his transformation, Darius had known the revenants were capable of this. They would go dormant for long periods of time. Decades, centuries. But when a human came close, they would smell it, and they would wake.
They were always perfectly preserved. So beautiful. So dead.
Now, as Darius traveled further south, the revenants awoke as he went by. He felt them as he passed. They smelled him somehow, and they ambled to their feet. They followed him.
They weren’t visible, because Darius kept them back, but there were a lot of them. A small army of revenants, following behind him. And Darius could make them do what he wanted.
No. He wasn’t a man, after all.
He was a necromancer.
He was the monster after all. But he mustn’t give in. He mustn’t let the hunger, the temptation…
Ah, God. The way Simon smelled. Darius wanted nothing more than to taste him.
When darkness fell, he and Simon stopped to make camp. He sat near the fire while Simon warmed himself, even though Darius no longer felt the cold or the heat. He watched Simon eat, and marveled at how dead the meat smelled. It wasn’t so long ago that Darius would have been quite happy to eat it. Now, he couldn’t imagine putting it in his mouth. The thought made him want to retch.
In the distance, his army of revenants gathered. He had forced them to halt as well, and they obeyed. They were waiting.
“How many of them do you have now?” said Simon.
He turned sharply to the other man.
“You thought I didn’t know?” said Simon. “I’ve seen them behind us.”
“You are not afraid?” asked Darius.
“You’ve got them under control, don’t you?” Simon smiled.
Darius nodded. He peered up at the sky, at the stars.
“It’s good,” said Simon. “There are revenants waiting for us, waiting in the capital city. But the more we have with us the better. They’ll be useful after you have passed the test and become a full-fledged necromancer.”
Darius closed his eyes. Except for the bright points of starlight, it was the same with his eyes open or closed. “How could revenants be useful, sir?”
“Well, you’ll join your revenants with the ones waiting for us. And you’ll allow them to attack the city. Just when everyone starts to get worried, I’ll bring you forward as my necromancer. You’ll get the city back under control. And then everyone will see that I should be the next emperor and not my brother, Gabriel.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Ezekiel left Gabriel asleep in the bed at the inn. He extricated his body from the other man’s and dressed in the darkness. He was ashamed of himself, but he had to admit that this flirtation with the emperor’s son was somehow different than his other dalliances. Ezekiel had never met someone so self-possessed, so sure of himself, so unashamed.
He stared down
at the sleeping man, and he wondered what he was getting himself into. He didn’t seem to be able to fight Gabriel off, not even physically. He had tried with every fiber of his being to stop himself, but he hadn’t been successful.
There was only one thing he could do.
Stay as far away from Gabriel as he could.
It would be better if the other man wasn’t still in his bed. After all, when Ezekiel returned, there was a chance that Gabriel would still be there, and Ezekiel didn’t want that. But he couldn’t risk waking Gabriel. It was better to let him sleep. This way, Ezekiel could find Honor’s body on his own. And once he had that, he could head back home—away from Gabriel, away from court, and away from this horrible temptation.
He wasn’t entirely sure where the key that Gabriel had spoken about might be, but Gabriel had said that it was in the emperor’s bedchamber, so that was where Ezekiel would begin to look.
Before he left the room, he took one last look at Gabriel’s body, at the man’s shoulders, his arms, the trail of hair from his chest to his belly button.
And then he left.
When he arrived at the mansion, there was only one guard on duty at the gate, and the man recognized him from the last time he’d been there. So, he was admitted to the castle without any questions asked, even though it was quite late. Servants didn’t ask questions of noblemen, though, not unless they’d been ordered to do so.
Inside the mansion, it was dark except for a few torches on the walls, which cast a faint, flickering glow over the empty rooms and hallways. Ezekiel’s footsteps seemed loud in the silence and stillness. He found himself crouching and creeping, trying to make himself as small and as quiet as he could while he made his way through the hallways.
Above him, paintings of previous emperors peered down disapprovingly. They were lit by the torches, and they seemed all the more ominous in the shadowy half light.
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