by Lizzy Ford
*
The electricity flickered out, as it did often, and was replaced instantly by the warmth of candles.
Tiana set her pen down beside the journal in which she wrote. She reread the brief history of the world – as she had come to understand it – with dissatisfaction. How was it possible to sum up five hundred years of history in two pages? How were there so many missing parts? Starting with why the world fell into Darkness in the first place. How her ancestor displaced the savior of Lost Vegas and seized control. Why the isolated city had survived the Native Wars when no other city for a thousand miles did. Where the records for most of the five hundred years were, because she couldn’t believe there were so few.
Her questions were endless, and so was her headache. She had had it since the horrible day when she accidentally murdered her stepmother.
Candlelight danced on the desk beside her journal, and a happy fire blazed in the hearth. Both helped to dispel the gloom of late winter, when the sun set far too early. The door to her new apartment – which used to belong to Matilda – opened. Tiana tensed instinctively and ducked her gaze, going still.
“Your dinner,” announced a familiar voice.
She sneaked a glance at the blind woman standing in the doorway to ensure she was alone. Tiana rose and crossed to her, accepting the tray and pausing to pat the guide dog accompanying the blind woman before turning away.
The fallout from the Matilda incident continued two weeks after it happened. Three slaves were ordered blinded by her father and reassigned to her. They were led through the pyramid and apartments by specially trained dogs whose leads were attached to the belts of the slaves. But several days blind did not give the women the chance to understand their new limitations, and Tiana had taken pity on the slaves several times a day. If she did not meet them at the door for her food, there was an almost absolute chance her tray ended up on the floor by accident.
The slave entered her chamber and took up a position near the door, four feet out from the wall she could not see. The awkward distance drew Tiana’s glance more than once as she sat at the dining table where Matilda used to sit.
Her meager belongings fit on one nightstand, whereas it had taken a dozen slaves three days to strip Matilda’s possessions out of the spacious apartment that now belonged to Tiana.
I hate this room, she thought and looked around at the garish wallpaper, heavy drapes, and bright bedding. She could almost feel Matilda’s presence here when she was alone. While Tiana did enjoy some of the modern comforts long since absent from the closet where she was trapped her entire life, she would gladly trade the trappings for her old room back. At least there, she had felt safe in her own private space.
“What news is there?” she asked to distract herself from the unease present since she set foot in this room.
“Your father burns the last of the Cruises today. The riots among the outer city earlier this week are gone. He burnt those who protested his treatment of the family that founded Lost Vegas.”
Tiana’s appetite fled. Her father’s solution to the Matilda crisis: burn the Cruises, under the guise Matilda had first enslaved and then used magic to try to kill his daughter. Word had spread too fast for him to contain. From the Shield members who discovered Tiana, to the slaves who were watching, to the physicians who helped save her life, all the residents of the outer city knew by dusk the same day.
Her father could not burn the hundreds of people who knew or heard about Tiana’s living conditions, and the circumstances in which she was found. But he could force his council of advisors, who Arthur often referred to as political prisoners, to sanction the destruction of those who tried to murder a Hanover.
Tiana suspected a greater truth. This was vengeance, political and personal, and nothing more. Her father bore the Cruises a grudge long before Matilda’s death. As always, the Hanover leader had managed to spin crisis to his advantage and come out on top. Her father’s ruthless political sense of survival never failed to impress or scare her.
With a lineage honored more than her own, the Cruises were respected in both the inner and outer cities. Tiana was not surprised to hear of the protests, or of her father’s decision of how to handle the Cruises. How many people had died, because Matilda had a bad day, Tiana reacted with her forbidden deformity, and the two of them forced her father’s hand?
“What of my slave Aveline?” she whispered. “Is she alive?” She held her breath as she waited for a response.
“The Shield has her. Your father has not made his wishes public, but she has not been burned.”
Tiana sighed, grateful yet confused as to why her father hadn’t burned Aveline, unless he was too busy with the Cruises. He had never had a problem finding extra wood and fire with which to burn someone before, though. Did he sense what she did about Aveline? That the slave was special? Did he know his own heir had hired the teenage assassin? Her father respected Arthur more than anyone. Was this why he hesitated?
Not knowing Aveline’s fate made Tiana ill.
“You may go,” she whispered, distraught. “I do not wish to be disturbed again today.”
The slave left, and Tiana listened for the door lock to click into place before she moved. Pushing herself back from her table, she gazed out the window to her left, which looked out over the city. Fresh snow carpeted the roads and roofs as far as she could see but did nothing to disrupt the normal flow of people through the streets. The city seemed unaware of her father’s latest purge or perhaps, feared lifting their eyes from the ground long enough to acknowledge what was happening. No one who challenged her father lived.
Dusk, as well as the low clouds gathering for a snowstorm, prevented her from viewing the mountains she longed to see again. Locked in her new prison, without her brother or the friend she’d come to adore, she couldn’t help feeling … trapped.
A light tap at her door was followed by the slide of the bolt. She braced herself, afraid of discovery, and exposed without her secret hiding place between the walls.
“Your slaves said you wished not to be disturbed, but I have news.” George, her brother’s most trusted slave, entered.
Tiana faced him without looking up. Twice he had come to see her before her incident with Matilda, and since then, he had visited several times. He would never look directly at her, but she sensed in him what she had in Aveline: someone she could trust. If her brother trusted both, then Tiana would as well.
“Forgive me for intruding. If you prefer I return later …” he said when she didn’t move.
Tiana turned to face him, her eyes on the ground as well. “No, please remain,” she said quickly. “Have you news of my brother?”
“Your father sent search parties. No word has been received,” the slave reported.
To make matters the worst possible, Arthur’s message about the Cruises trying to attack him had reached the city two days before, further supporting their father’s impetus to burn the Cruises. Adding to her father’s fire: yesterday, a Native had come to the leader of the Lost Vegas and claimed to have found what was left of Arthur’s base camp – with every last one of its occupants brutally slaughtered.
If there was one thing their father cared about, it was his heir. To lose Arthur now, in the midst of political unrest, would see the Hanover’s toppled after ruling for four hundred and fifty years. Tiana had no memory of ever hearing of any Lost Vegas leader being a woman. The Hanover’s had always produced heirs.
“Your father is being pressured to name an additional heir, if Arthur is not found soon,” George reported.
Tiana’s thoughts went down the list of cousins who lived on the floor below theirs in the great pyramid. “Who has he chosen?” she asked.
“It is believed he will name you, his natural daughter, along with the name of the Hanover cousin you are to wed on your eighteenth birthday.”
Tiana said nothing, not wanting to dwell on a world without Arthur. Her father’s shrewd political move was what she ex
pected: enough to keep the family in power.
“You have become useful to him now,” George added more quietly, as if afraid someone would overhear.
“At the expense of my brother,” she replied.
“Your brother’s sole concern lately has been finding a way to keep you alive past your eighteenth birthday. If your father betroths you to a cousin, he will ensure you are alive to wed, even when your brother returns. After Arthur’s disappearance, your father would be foolish to believe anything other than you are needed to live to produce heirs.”
“My father is many things, but he is not a fool,” she agreed, while keeping her own opinion private. “I can think of nothing but my brother’s safety.” Tiana did not care about her own life or what happened in three weeks, when she turned eighteen, or what her father’s true intentions were, because he never revealed them. To assume one knew, or to underestimate the head of the Hanover clan was a recipe for being burnt at the stake. Her father might keep her around for a while, but if Arthur feared for her life, she would not doubt their father’s original plans – whatever they were – remained in play.
“You and Arthur share rare gifts. If anyone can survive, it is him,”
To speak of such deformities, even in private, was to tempt fate. Tiana did not respond to these words and asked instead, “Can you help Aveline?”
George released a sigh, and Tiana hid her smile. His reaction to the slave’s name left her no doubt as to his feelings for her. “She is beyond my ability to help. Your father has his personal guards monitoring her,” George replied. “For what it’s worth, I do not believe he intends to burn her. If I hear more, I will inform you immediately.” With a bow of his head, he turned and strode towards the door.
“Wait,” Tiana called after him. She fiddled with the bracelet she wore once more, debating whether or not she should ask him of an additional favor.
George obeyed.
“Do you know what this symbol means?” she asked and held out her arm to display the bracelet.
He turned and approached but stopped six feet from her. His eyes stayed on the bracelet.
“It appears to be a Native rune,” he said. “But I have too little experience in dealing with them.”
“Can you find out?”
“Of course.”
She lowered her arm.
“If I may ask, was this among Matilda’s belongings?” he asked, puzzled.
Tiana almost smiled. They both knew Matilda would never own something as simple or inexpensive. “No,” she replied. “But I will say no further.”
George bowed his head again. “I will make inquiries. Quietly, I imagine?”
“Yes,” she replied.
“Very well.” George left her alone.
Tiana looked down at the bracelet. She had found it among Aveline’s meager belongings, which were lumped in with Tiana’s when the slaves moved her things from her old room to this one. Her guardian had possessed assassin tools, a medicine pouch – and the bracelet, sealed within an envelope. Tiana had opened it out of curiosity and then worn it to feel closer to the friend whose condition she knew nothing of. She hoped to be able to return it personally to Aveline one day.
The wooden cabochon framed in brass at the center of the bracelet was old enough for its surface to be scuffed and the brass to display a colorful patina. It was supported by a soft length of braided leather. It had felt too large at first, but had then shrunk to conform to Tiana’s wrist. Carved into the wood was a symbol Tiana had never seen before, even in her history books about the Natives.
The symbol had to have meaning, and the bracelet personal value to Aveline, if the assassin had kept it and nothing else from her past life.
Restless to know more about Aveline and Arthur, Tiana was about to return to the window when a trickle of energy, resembling a draft of cold air, brushed her skin. She closed her eyes to better view the faint vision she knew was coming and prayed she saw Arthur alive.
*
A man, hiding in the brush. But not a man. This was … a beast …
Or …
Present in the vision, she squinted to see better. Whether it was dusk, or the vision was dim, she could not tell. The skies were cloudy but not dark, and … voices hummed in the air around her. She was not alone, wherever she was.
The man … beast … man … shifted to his feet.
Puzzled, Tiana drew closer, struggling to see what hid in the brush beside a tent. The image fluctuated between man and large animal several more times, before she saw them at the same time. A man inside the animal. He was … hiding inside the great bear. Or perhaps, he was representative of the great bear’s spirit? She was unable to determine exactly what was before her.
The great bear towered twice her height, but the man … he was as tall as her brother. She came up to his chin. Rather than peer into the eyes of the animal, Tiana concentrated on the man. His face was blank, aside from dead, empty eyes. His upper body bore tattoos, and his long, dark hair – much like Aveline’s – gave away his Native birth. Sensing her, the man inside the beast lowered himself as if to pounce, and the creature bellowed loudly and swiped at her. She had experienced enough visions to know it could not harm her. Its claws passed through her, and she stepped closer as the beast and man merged then separated again.
“I see you,” she said to the man, ignoring the beast.
Rather than run, the man started towards her. Sensing danger for the first time in the vision, Tiana stepped back quickly. He reached for her with one hand …
*
The image vanished, and she opened her eyes, alarmed. Never in any of her visions had anyone else been aware enough to try to touch her! It was as if he saw her, the real her, not the person in the vision, which was impossible!
Tiana shivered. The sensation of a chilly draft left her, and she returned to the window, unable to explain what she had seen, where she had been, or when except …
“I was … will be outside the city,” she whispered, surprised. Facing a bear-man held no appeal to her, but sometime, in her own future, she was going to leave this forsaken city! Who was with her? Certainly Aveline, even if the slave claimed she had no desire to leave Lost Vegas. Tiana would go with no one else, except her brother, who – as their father’s only male heir – was not about to give up his family name to escape with her. He was also currently missing, unless the vision meant he would return and take her out of the city.
Why, and more importantly, how, had she left? Her glimpses of the future occurred far less frequently than her brother’s. They were nowhere near as detailed or long as his, but to date, all of them had come true.
Even the one about Matilda.
Tiana’s excitement faded. Despite everything, she had never hated her former stepmother. Matilda deserved better, and the memory of what Tiana had done to her left her disgusted at herself.
Murder. She had murdered someone! Familiar distress crept through her, and tears filled her eyes. Although she could hear Aveline telling her she would never survive outside the city if she did not stop crying, Tiana was not able to stop whenever she thought of how right Matilda had always been about her.
What if Arthur were permanently lost outside the city, and Aveline was burnt at the stake? Who could Tiana trust? How would she ever see the Free Lands or escape her father or survive her eighteenth birthday?
She huddled up in the middle of her new bed and sobbed.
Chapter Twelve
“I see you,” the whisper was distinctly female and so soft, it could have been breathed by the air itself.
The Native bundled in furs, down, wool, and leathers spun, his skin pricking with the awareness of a hunter accustomed to prey that sometimes fought back. The wintery forest behind him was silent, blanketed by snow that seemed to have chased all the animals into hiding and rendered the trees lifeless.
Normally, when this voice spoke to him, he was asleep. What did it mean that this spirit sought him out when he was
awake? And what exactly did it see? This lost spirit was not one of those whose lives he had taken, and it followed him too closely for him to believe the encounter was a coincidence. It had begun to speak to him several weeks before, when he entered the territory shared by the Sutai Cheyenne and Lakota.
He was invisible among men and beasts alike, a creature of neither world and of both. He did not fully exist, and he could never die. Neither night, nor light, nor anything touched by either, he was flesh and blood, and yet, he did not fully exist.
“You see nothing, spirit,” he said gruffly to the trees whose branches were frosted with a foot of snow, “for I am nothing.”
The errant spirit that often haunted his dreams did not respond.
The padding of his guide brought him back to his senses, and he faced the direction he was headed. A black wolf – with a belly swollen from the pups she would bear in a matter of days – waited for him, a stark contrast against the white world. Her golden eyes lingered on his face, as if she sensed what he felt.
It was dusk, but the coming of night did nothing to slow his progress.
“Go,” he ordered her.
The wolf trotted forward, her belly swaying from side to side with her movement.
He sensed people long before he saw them. A faint scent or sound in the air, the shift of wind as it parted around manmade structures in its path. And of course, the faint sounds of heartbeats tapping the base of his skull, a warning he would momentarily be upon others, and soon be in pain.
The wolf paused at the edge of a small village at the last point possible before it became unsafe for her to proceed among those who would harm her.
He stopped beside her. Already, the tap in his mind had turned to a steady pattering. There were too many heartbeats to count in the village, which put its population over a hundred. If he did not need supplies, he would bypass this place and wait to stop until he found somewhere smaller.
His eyes examined the wounded leg of his guide quickly. The skin around her injury was infected, and he did not have the medicines needed to prevent a fever from afflicting her. Time was not on their side, and with the additional burden of the pups she carried, she was slow to heal. He dared not put her life, and the spirits of her pups, at risk by waiting too long to treat her.
