by Devin Madson
‘He says what?’ a muffled voice demanded.
‘That he walked through the wall, Captain.’
‘Ridiculous.’ Heavy steps passed the door and I tried not to breathe. ‘You. Have you seen anyone go in or come out?’
‘No, Captain. His Majesty’s orders were that no one was to go in until morning.’
‘Open the door.’
‘But, Captain–’
‘Do it. I will see Laroth for myself.’
I hissed a curse beneath my breath.
‘I hoped it would take them longer,’ I said. ‘Let’s go before we’re overrun with guards.’
Adversity’s fingers were nestled comfortably in mine, and she nodded, pulling me through the wall.
‘He’s gone!’
The Keep rang with a chorus of shouts. ‘Close the gates! Man the stairs! I want every single room in this blasted castle turned inside out. No one is to leave. No one is to sleep until he is found!’
Running steps dragged the night from its peaceful slumber. All we needed now was for them to wake Katashi, letting him loose to burn everyone with his fury.
‘Quick,’ I said. ‘This should be the armoury.’
I looked away as Adversity stuck her head through the wall. ‘Clear,’ she said, drawing it back out. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Do you have to do that?’
Her lips twitched into a smile. ‘Something the matter?’
‘Not at all. I am quite used to people putting their heads through the wall.’
‘Then I see no cause for complaint. Shall we?’
She winked, and taking my hand, pulled me through thin wood and dusty cabinets. A mouse squeaked, scurrying away from our ethereal steps.
The armoury was a long, low room at the front of the Keep, a dusty space owning no windows. Hardly used for its original purpose, it had first become a storage room, then a quiet place for serving girls to keep barely secret assignations. From the walls old war masks kept watch, their empty eye sockets stuffed with red silk.
The shadows of half a dozen men flitted past the door, their hurried steps fading into the shouts of men determined to pin the blame on one another.
Slow steps drew closer.
‘Check in there,’ someone said, another shadow appearing beyond the thin screen. ‘I’ll go in here.’
The door slid. Blinding light shone through the dust, and gripping my hand, Adversity thrust me back through the wall. I felt the tingle surge up my back and wash over my head, then I was staring at the wall in the previous room. I tried to step back through, but I was solid, my palms flat against the panelling.
‘Who are you? What are you doing here?’ The voice was muffled. I pressed my ear to the wall.
‘I’m just a maid, my lord,’ came Adversity’s demure reply. ‘Versity’s my name.’
‘A foreigner? You don’t look like a maid. Are you waiting for someone?’
The wall would not part for me. More scuffing steps sped past the door, the shouts of repeated orders growing more distant. It seemed the whole castle was awake now.
‘I’m just cleaning, my lord.’
The guard snorted. ‘Shivatsa you are. All the same you foreign girls, wetter than a well. You don’t look half bad. I’ll have you.’
A roar shook the castle, sending the paper screens trembling. Out in the passage pottery smashed. ‘You let him escape? Fools! What a waste of flesh and blood!’
Katashi.
I clenched my fists, watching the door.
‘Come on then, no need to be shy,’ the voice coaxed from the armoury. A cabinet knocked the wall as someone leant against it. Adversity could retreat no further without resorting to her skill.
Let me through, I begged the unyielding wall. Let me through.
Heavy steps strode past my hiding place. Katashi’s shadow passed, closely followed by another. ‘Lord Kita says he walked through the wall, Your Majesty. I–’
‘Walked through the wall?’
‘Yes, that is what Lord Kita said. He said–’
‘Kasu!’
‘Your Majesty?’
‘The Vices are here. Don’t waste time searching every room if he can walk through the wall, you fool! I want the grounds full of men. Surround the castle if you must. Don’t let so much as a rat escape unseen. Is General Tan still here?’
‘No, Your Majesty, he left just after sunset with his men.’
This information elicited another snarl. ‘A waste of time,’ Katashi snapped. ‘The bloody Vices are still here. Go on, get moving!’
The guard’s voice came from the armoury. ‘Come on then, let’s see what you’ve got, little girl.’
‘Touch her and you’ll get my fist,’ I hissed, the anger catching me off guard. For five years I had controlled my every impulse, but now that rigid hold was crumbling fast.
The cabinet hit the wall again. Feet scuffed; a grunt, a cry, then Adversity’s hand appeared through the thin woodwork.
‘There you go again with that worried expression,’ she mocked as I stepped back into the lantern-lit armoury. She was cleaning a knife on an old parchment map. The guard lay on the floor, clasping ineffectually at a deep slice in his neck. Blood ran over his fingers, every attempt to draw breath ending in a violent gag.
‘Not very clean,’ I said.
‘Men like that don’t deserve clean deaths.’ She knelt and waved the knife in front of his rolling eyes. ‘You want to know what I have?’ she spat, but the man had gone, slipping away into the hands of death. Blood ran slowly across the floor.
‘You’re very protective of your virtue,’ I said, following the sound of footsteps in the passage.
‘Not my virtue,’ she returned. ‘That’s long gone. But I still have my self-respect. Would you really have hit him?’
‘You hardly needed my help.’
‘You’re right, I don’t need anyone’s help, but it’s always nice to know someone is willing to give it. Do you think that’s the last of them?’ she added, listening at the door. ‘Did you hear Katashi? We’ll be lucky to get out of here.’
‘Giving up?’
‘No, but we need to go now. The stairs are across the hall.’
She went to slide the door, but I gripped her wrist. ‘Wait.’
‘What is it?’
I shook my head, nodding toward the door. Outside, a footstep made the boards creak. ‘Mearan? Where are you?’
‘Shivatsa,’ I hissed. ‘We’ll have to find another way. Fade, quick!’
We gripped each other’s hands and made a dash for another wall. Behind us the sound of the door sliding faded behind the wood.
The Keep was thick with guards. They thundered up and down the stairs like herds of beasts on the hunt for one man. Their movements forced us to go the long way, tracking back through the outer rooms. Each wall was traversed with ease, though we always stopped to listen, to check, to be sure we were safe. Sometimes we could move at speed, wall after wall, room after room past silently sleeping lords and ladies and empty beds, through music rooms and audience chambers, entertaining rooms and dining hollows, but at other times we would have to wait long minutes for a guard to move on or a voice to fade.
At the first flight of stairs, Adversity resorted to tears to move the guards. She ran to them, sobbing, words tripping over themselves. ‘He came through the wall like a ghost,’ she said, her words echoing around the passage. ‘He tried to grab me and I ran. Hurry. Hurry! Catch him.’
I stayed hidden while both guards rushed off, but when I emerged Adversity stood at the head of the stairs with a smile of triumph parting her lips. The next pair of guards proved harder to persuade, and she was soon weaving a story about the Monstrous Laroth carrying his lifeless heart in his hand and wai
ling. Others were told that I had burst into her room and tried to rip her throat out.
Some of the men would not move. With failure came death; each lifeless body thrust into the stone walls of the stairwell. Flashes of remorse, but no apology. I must obey, she had said, and I had felt the pain crushing her soul.
‘You can’t pass through the floor?’ I asked, as a guard’s sandal vanished into the stone.
‘No. Malice said it wouldn’t work.’
‘No doubt he has seen someone try. What else did he tell you?’
‘Only that I had to think of something sad. Always. He quoted some poem or other.’
Following her into the lowest bowels of the Keep, I said: ‘“And so you leave me lingering, a shade of wretched fear. E’re long I’ll feel the sadness, it my wont to disappear”.’
She had been holding out her hand, but drew it away at this. ‘You know it?’
‘I know Malice. It’s from Qu Saptambre.’
‘You’re a surprising man, Darius.’
Adversity held out her hand again, but I did not take it. The smell of kiri wood clung to her hair, her scent uniquely beguiling. ‘Regretting your choice?’ she asked, subjecting me to another of her searching looks.
She could not know how I struggled to hold my Empathy in check. Every urge was to spread it, to engulf her, to learn everything there was to learn, but I had seen the look in her eyes when she spoke Malice’s name. I took her hand. ‘Honestly?’ I said, the smell of her beginning to fog my thoughts. ‘Not even a little bit.’
Adversity looked away. ‘We should keep moving.’
‘Yes, we should.’
Stepping through yet another wall we found ourselves in a long laundry hall where silver light etched wooden tubs from the shadows. A barred gate led to a paved courtyard, its dark walls rising into a hazy grey sky.
‘We’re too late,’ Adversity breathed.
‘Will it hurt you if we stay here until sunset?’
She tilted her head. ‘No, I don’t think so,’ she said after a time. ‘I was charged to keep you safe. Taking you out there now isn’t keeping you safe. But where can we hide? Katashi will tear the Keep apart to find you.’
‘Koi is old. There must be storerooms here so deep they’ve been forgotten,’ I said. ‘There’s another level below this.’ Dark and dank and filled with rats and spiders, I thought. A stone tomb, like the grave Katashi had waiting for me.
Adversity took a lantern from the laundry and we kept moving. The castle was waking, but as we penetrated the Keep’s foundations the sound of footsteps faded. Here, the passages were little more than tunnels carved from the bedrock, each heavy door barring the entrance to forgotten rooms.
‘This is like a prison,’ Adversity said as another door yielded to her hand. I tried the next, searching for one that would not give, one so stuck in its frame that no guard could open it.
‘I’ve seen worse places,’ I said. ‘But never in such good company.’
Adversity tried another door. It didn’t move. She set her shoulder to it and shunted hard, but it would not budge. ‘I think we’ve found our sanctuary.’
With a touch of sadness we traversed the door, entering a storeroom filled with old furniture, broken tables and forgotten chests, inlaid sideboards faded beyond the glory of an imperial palace. The whole room stank of mildew.
I sat on the edge of a threadbare divan, causing it to slump. It had a broken leg, the weight of one corner supported by a cracked lap table. ‘Charming,’ I said.
Adversity hadn’t moved from the door. Her eyes were bright, their intensity making my pulse race. When had my body begun to crave her? The need was like an ache, one forced into submission in the arms of whores, but never entirely vanquished. Men had so many weaknesses, so many needs; desire as hard to control as the Empathy I had long thought tamed.
She set the lantern down and came toward me with slow steps. My mind barely seemed to turn, barely seemed to work at all. All I could do was stare as she lifted the skirt of her black robe, legs spread to sit upon my lap.
‘I wonder what other expressions you are capable of,’ she said, shifting her weight in a way that made me draw a sharp breath. A pulse beat in the notch of her throat, beneath the taut covering of translucent skin.
‘What about Katashi?’ I said, digging my fingers into the divan’s tattered silk.
She touched the base of my spine, sending a shiver through my skin. ‘What about him?’
‘He’s your brother.’
Adversity leant back to better study my face. ‘Why would you say that?’
‘Katashi Otako, eldest son of Grace Tianto Otako, had a twin sister – Kimiko.’ Her expression did not change. ‘My father made me spend many hours studying Kisia’s noble families. Your eyes give you away. That, and you walk like a noblewoman, you bow like someone bred to grace, and someone had to sell you to Malice like a dog.’
‘Be nice, Darius,’ she said, fingers continuing up my spine. ‘I have feelings, even if I was born a lady.’
There was satisfaction in being right, but it melted fast as I hardened against her. She had to be able to feel it, but she neither blushed nor pulled away. There was no fear in her at all.
‘Kimiko Otako was born a lady,’ I said, sliding my hands up her thighs. ‘But Adversity wasn’t. Which are you now?’
Her body responded to my touch and she leaned into me, breathing a name upon my cheek. ‘Adversity.’
I gripped her waist, lifting her as I turned, and she landed on the divan with her dark curls spread like a halo. With heavy-lidded eyes she watched me loosen her sash, watched me spread the leaves of her robe to expose creamy skin. She parted her legs invitingly, her small breasts rising and falling with every breath, her nipples pinched taut in the cool air.
I let out a slow breath, the tip of my thumb tracing the silvery line of a crescent scar.
‘One of many,’ she said. ‘Show me yours.’
I untucked the tail of my sash, a quick tug all it needed to set it loose. And with a shrug, I shed both outer and under robes onto the floor.
In the flickering light of our single lantern, her expression grew grim, her small white hand reaching up to touch my infamous scar.
‘I’ve heard many stories,’ she said. ‘That you’re a monster. That your heart was taken out; that you don’t bleed; that you’re a dead man walking. I guess there is only one way to find out.’
A small blade nicked the inside of my arm. It stung, but I did not flinch, just watched her as the cut reddened.
‘He bleeds,’ she said, and running a finger along my scar, added: ‘But this one should have killed you.’
It was the work of a moment to take her hand and shift it to the right side of my chest. There, with her palm against my skin, my heart beat more strongly.
‘There’s nothing common about you, is there?’ she said.
‘Not much.’
Blood trickled down my arm. The cut would clot, but Adversity ran her tongue up its trail, licking me clean like a cat. Her curls danced under my nose as she sucked blood out of me, and I had to close my eyes. The tip of her tongue traced a line back down my arm.
Grasping her hips, I dragged her toward me. She weighed nothing, but the ferocity with which she gripped my hair belonged to a larger, stronger woman.
‘What are you waiting for?’ she said, drawing my head back.
‘Permission.’
She let go. ‘I already gave you that. We wouldn’t be here otherwise.’
The philosopher Misi said that anticipation was the greatest enjoyment, that instant before fulfilment that sent the senses tingling, but looking down at her – inviting me, desiring me – was torture. I had controlled myself too long.
I closed my eyes as I guided myse
lf inside her, the sensation so overwhelming that I gasped, digging my fingers into her skin. Adversity chuckled, and taking hold of my hips, she drew me deeper. A groan. A hiss. And I opened my eyes to find her arching her back, small breasts lifted toward me. Eyes gleamed beneath heavy lids, her smile mocking as she began to move. For a moment she had all the control, but I would not let her win.
The sound of passion filled the air as we fought, hissing, gasping, groaning. Her fingers cut into my skin, her teeth into my lip, and gripping a handful of her hair, I yanked it back hard. She moaned, and triumphant, I pulled harder still. I wanted to own her completely, but she fought, dragging her claws down my back.
All sense of time vanished. The day might have descended into night and I would not have cared. There was nothing but her, nothing but her strength and her pride; nothing but the way she purred and bit, burying her soul deeper inside me with every touch. She courted the animal inside me, unafraid, and I never wanted it to end. But my body yearned toward the finish, our flesh moving in unison, panting in time in the close air.
I had thought the end far off, but suddenly her grip tightened. She tensed, a pained cry breaking through her lips. I felt her pleasure, felt it fuel my own until our joint rapture shuddered through our flesh, shared through our skin.
Adversity screamed. Afraid someone would hear her, I pressed my hand over her mouth and she gripped my wrist, holding it there, each breath hot against my hand. Together our hearts beat a tattoo of fading pleasure, and when there was nothing left but a lingering glow, I lifted my hand.
Eyes still wide, she scoured my face. ‘You’re an Empath,’ she said, accusation in her tone.
‘Whenever I can’t help it.’
I drew myself out of her. There was horror in her eyes, disgust, her brows joined in a scowl that followed me.
‘You’re Malice’s brother.’
‘Half.’
‘And Endymion?’
I gathered my clothes from the dusty floor.
