“Minara,” the lady said, “show us what was found clutched by Mother Pepperfire.”
The other bridesmaid did as she was told, maybe. The lord wasn’t threatening her.
The lady asked, “And did Mother Pepperfire say anything before she died, Minara?”
Her eyes darted to the Bleeding Maiden. Minara hid her face behind her mirror, but her fountain of fear answered for her.
Had the Bleeding Maiden really gotten their sisters nailed? Celaise forced another foot forward.
“The Feaster spoke to us,” the Bright Palm said in her dead voice. “She told of the caravan, how many of you with how many swords, when they’d be there. She was certain because she’d been told by the Lord of the Feast.”
“What?” The lady’s chin twitched toward the Bright Palm. Dread exploded from the lady like spiced fruit chunks from a burst cornmeal wrap. Her jewels lined up above the Bright Palm and spun. “What did you say?”
The Bright Palm stayed slumped in her chair, looking helpless and unafraid. “The Feaster told us the Lord of the Feast had commanded her to come, that he’d betrayed her.”
“How could you, father?” The Bleeding Maiden turned on him, and so did everyone. Good, when they joined together to eat him, Jerani would be safe.
The Bright Palm wasn’t finished. “And that he smelled of dead roses.”
Oh no, it had been the Bleeding Maiden. She had stolen his shape, pretended to be the lord father. She’d broken every rule.
“Brother killer,” a Feaster knight said.
“Why would you believe that?” The Bleeding Maiden’s scent sweetened to freshly uncorked rose wine. “They all want me dead.”
“For good reason.” The lady was beaming. She lifted a hand alight with gems.
The gold key amulet tightened around the Bleeding Maiden’s throat. It cut into her. She choked, couldn’t breathe. Still, she could speak into everyone’s mind. Can’t you see they’re all lying?
No, it was her. Celaise spread the wings of her cape. Her feathers sliced through the air. “Traitor.”
Save me. Blood sprayed from the choker clamped around the eldest sister’s neck. Or the lord father and his glowing friends will kill us all.
“You’ve been a bad guest,” the lady said. The key snapped from its chain and flew into her hand. “You’ll have to leave early.”
The Bleeding Maiden’s skirt folded upward. Her slipper and one bare foot lifted from the sleekness of the glass ceiling. She began to fall.
She started to cast. Her lips parted, and out sprayed boiling blood and a scream to melt souls. Celaise knew this would be her sister’s last Feast, and she would eat everyone.
Celaise plugged her mouth with feathers.
The falling Maiden twisted. Her skirt split. Her blouse soaked with a rose pattern of blood. It steamed from her in a red mist that would seep into Jerani’s skin and leave him mad.
Feathers of Celaise’s dress folded around the Bleeding Maiden. The quills locked together, hiding her. Their softness muffled her screams. Celaise wouldn’t let her be heard again. Never seen. Never felt.
Never. Never. Never.
The blood spraying from the sister turned black.
Celaise blanketed her with dark wings, constricting smothering killing. A pendulum of candles swept past, chopping at Celaise’s cape feathers. Below, guests dove out of the way. Celaise tipped the Maiden head down.
Blood erupted and smashed through the feathers, to shred, to rip, to ruin. But the dress was empty. Celaise wasn’t inside, and she was safe back on the ceiling. She had shadow-stepped away and left the Bleeding Maiden in the last twist of her fall.
She mind-shrieked. You’re all—
The Bleeding Maiden hit. The sound was a wet crackling, then the roar of released black wine.
Celaise’s True Dress reformed around her. She dove down. She pooled the power in the bowl of her new wings. She drank, and she tasted the vast, the bottomless. It was too much to swallow, so she breathed it in. Her lungs filled with black wine. She drowned and was reborn. Again and again, for years, for a moment of ringing time. The lands stretched around her. She pulled away, beyond the reach of mortals. She was in paradise.
Rose petals rained around her like a gentle autumn. They caressed her skin and soaked inward, blooming inside her as warm friendship, sweet passion, and cooling peace.
Celaise drank the last drop.
She opened her eyes, and she was back on the ceiling. The strength to topple nations frothed inside her.
“In the end,” the lady said, spinning downward on her strand of spidersilk, “the Bleeding Maiden was neither.”
A woman lay broken on a splintered table. In death she was forgettable. Her skull had cracked and splattered, but any blood was lost amid the grey gore. Slaves were already sweeping up her mess.
“Deliciously done, Lady Celaise,” the lord father said. He nudged a youth toward her.
The young man said something. Who was he to speak to her? He stank of common fare. Celaise could tell his fears were meager. He still caught her eye. The red in his hair itched her memory. Oh, he was Jerani.
Why had she ever bothered with him? At best, slaughtering him might frighten the Feasters. She didn’t need to ferment fears anymore. She could guzzle black wine straight from her brothers and sisters. They couldn’t stop her. Their minds were too little and too frightened. Much like children.
“Lady Celaise,” the lord father said, “as you are the most perilous dressmaker in the lands, the Lady of Gems will have need of you for her last wedding gowns.”
“Three more,” Celaise said. “One to freeze, one to summon, and one already made.”
“Savory! For now, do have a seat. This place was always reserved for you, Princess of Plummets.”
Slaves lifted up the Bleeding Maiden’s table setting of a wilted rose. They replaced it with one with a new design, a dress of open sky and sunset clouds. Celaise’s first dress.
She plumed downward on the pillow across from the Talon. Her black feathers faced his fiery greens and burning blues.
“What a scrumptious menagerie,” the lord father said. “Do be unkind to each other. Everything in life can be borne except politeness.”
“Feasters care for nothing.” The Talon mashed ice treat into his mouth. His hasty eating would give him a cold headache. His eyes teared. “You kill without spilling any precious water. You dim the sun.”
“Now you flatter us,” the lord father said, “and flattery is never welcome, except when it’s insincere.”
Beneath the lord father was an underground lake of black wine. Celaise might kill him to get it, someday. For now, she had all she needed, and he had been the one to urge her to greater appetites. He had saved her. He’d named her. The lord was a good and terrible father.
“Once the body cools,” the Talon said, “once the heart stops, blood becomes worthless.”
“The dead would sadly agree.” The lord father rested a fanged hand on the frill of Celaise’s shoulder. “Might we lessen the Talon’s fears? As meaty as they are.”
“We won’t kill your slave folk,” Celaise said to the Talon, “only frighten them. Us in shops, you blood soaked on your temples.”
“Why have you ruined the evening, Lady Celaise? Now it’s clear our interests don’t conflict with the Talon’s. We’ll have not the least to argue over, and the rest of the night will be a dreadful bore.”
The Talon cupped his knife between his hands and tapped fingers together on both sides of the blade. “You’ll keep your own from striking down the gods’ people?”
“Yes,” Celaise said. She’d had some reason for it, not killing people. The lord father had forbidden her to, but it was more than that, something she was forgetting.
“Then the days of future dawning might not be doomed,” the Talon said.
“As long as I rule the night,” the lord father said, “or Lady Celaise does.”
The points of his fingers sent her
feathers shivering. What bliss she might feel to mix her vintage with his. She had tasted the sharp gust of his wine before, but just a sip, glittering and potent. A full swallow would be worth more than a thousand screaming souls.
“Celaise.” His shadow slid over her, slipping between her gown and her skin in a soothing smoothness. He was close. His words were only for her. “After the ritual, I will have one final task for you. Only a single last duty for the sake of the wedding. Nothing at all, really.”
The lady came to glint beside him. Her gems looked cheap. She would overhear.
“You must take my place as the lord of nightmares,” he said.
Darkness thudded through her, spreading its silky peace from her chest to her fingertips. Yes, the title would go to her. The lord father would step down. Jerani had told her something about purging power with wild magic.
“You will rule the Feasters,” he said, “to the end of your nights.”
She would.
“Your every evening will be a banquet, and your table will span the world.”
It would.
“Do you desire this?” He asked it, but he had to know.
She did.
Something in Celaise pulled the other way. It was nothing. No more than a twinge from the stomach settling around a great meal. Each night had built her toward this, ever since she had almost died but been saved by her hunger for another chance, for new life, for flavors few could imagine.
“There’s my plum pudding,” the lord father said. He cast a glance to the lady. What was he whispering into her mind?
“It is time for a change.” The lady lifted her arms and whirled in shades of gems. The glass palace groaned, creaked, echoed with pings. “The blood moon is nearly here.”
Guests swayed to their feet and started smelling anxious.
“Not to alarm you,” the lord father said, “but if you leave your seats just now you’ll die.”
Each of his breaths came out as wine fume. That’s how he always got his way, but Celaise had never seen it before. She should seal his lips to bottles and not let anyone else drink in his presence.
“It is we who’ll leave.” The lady swung her feet overhead to land on the ceiling.
It and the whole dome shifted upward an inch. The Talon gripped the table. Celaise pressed her gold key safe around her throat. Her heart didn’t beat. It hummed.
“I thank you for attending.” The lady waved down to the common guests with silver keys. “Goodbye.”
“And goodnight,” the lord father said. “We hope that on your deathbeds, tonight will be your most pleasing memory.”
Whatever would soon happen, the Chef first climbed to the ceiling. He nodded his thick chin to Celaise. A few slaves followed carrying ebony chests. Then came the bridesmaids in her dresses.
“Celaise.” The lady’s fingers twinkled when she gestured. “I’m ready for my next gown.”
The lord father was wasted on the lady. She could never appreciate him to the depths of his power, but Celaise chose to help her anyway. Weaving the dress would be a pleasure.
Celaise passed the youth Jerani. He gave her a goofy smile, tried to meet her eyes. That jaguar medallion on his chest, she had given it to him. Strange that she would have. She had done so much for his sake, and now he was like a stranger. Looking at him meant nothing. He wasn’t anything, and once he had been.
Should she feel something for him? She didn’t, and that absence opened in her like a pit pulling her heart downward in a sickening fall.
Black wine shimmered through her. It embraced her from the inside, and she was right again.
She brushed past the youth. The lady needed Celaise’s mastery. The night was hers to command, and her rule would be long and delicious.
53
Who is that Man
Who Lies Submerged?
The Lady Hiresha brought the castle down. Six steps, six slamming leaps, and all its crystal crashed. Only the oval dome flew free.
First the ceiling had turned. The upper tables had flipped upright. The guests had gasped. They swung up with surprise and cheer. Stomachs slewed to the side. Hearts soared. The view tipped up from ballroom to fog, from mist to night, from starscape to gleaming moon. The thief’s light had risen full as a silver sun.
The ballroom’s center pillar now pointed up. Those killed at the wedding then hung overhead. Tapestries unfurled around them, down the crystal column. They were sails, and this the prow.
“A sky ship,” the empire man said. “Think it’ll carry us to the moon and back?”
The king with savage eyes asked, “Is it farther than your Empire?”
“The ritual will be held at sea,” the Lady Hiresha said. “The wedding palace has served. We must set our sights higher.”
She dipped down through the tide of mist and landed on a pillar that had once held up the dome. It shattered at its base. Its facets flew apart, crumbling upward to her. The crystal castle shuddered.
She leaped, flew, and stepped onto the second column. It splintered. Cracks bolted through the walls. The towers swayed, and their bells tolled. They gonged their ringing hollowness. They broke free.
“She’s really smashing it down?” The empire man peered through the glass dome, now the glass hull.
“Just a building,” the king said.
A tower cracked and began to fall. The Lady Hiresha smashed down on the third pillar. Crystal crumbled. It sprayed and glittered. It flew and flashed. It rained and tinkled, but not on the lower guests. They huddled together. They hid under tables. They danced and cheered, but none were hurt.
The fourth pillar fell at the same time as a tower. It impacted. It exploded. The fog lit with shattered moonlight. The bell clanged once more as it broke in two.
The Lady Hiresha had more than the power to create. She could destroy. “If she can break a castle of crystal, one of stone would stand only a little longer.”
“You think she’d do it?” the empire man asked.
“She could,” someone said in a quiet voice.
“No land is safe from her,” the clerkish king said. “Even mountains may shake.”
“Let them all fall,” the savage king said.
The Lady Hiresha’s jeweled feet touched down on the fifth pillar. It burst. The castle’s ceilings whitened with cracks and fell in. The crystal thicket was uncovered. The glass thorns had turned red with blood. She might’ve saved it to hex her guests, but it too was smashed. Red dust burst upward. Crystal stormed.
The last towers flattened. Their bells clattered, cracked, and then fell silent.
The air shook and rumbled with the throat singer’s howling. He spread his arms and sang the song of wind, of earthquakes, and of bird shrieks. His voice matched the force of the demolition.
On the sixth column she stopped. On the final pillar she stood. It remained tall. In her new dress of glistening ice and steam she oversaw the wreckage. Glass spread down the hill in star-like rays. Everything had broken outward. Each guest below the Lady Hiresha lifted their honey drinks in salute.
“Hope they all have thick boots,” the empire man said. “Or they’ll have to fly out too.”
“Come dawn,” the same someone said, “they’ll find a path leading out of the shard fields.”
He gazed over the shining remains. “Guess a fortress of windowpanes wouldn’t have lasted long anyway.”
“The enchanted castle could’ve stood for a hundred years.”
“It’ll be remembered far longer,” the Lord Tethiel said. He appeared at the crystal ship’s balustrade, leaning in front of the empire man, who edged away. “What endures, we ignore. What is gone, we treasure.”
“By fracturing the castle,” came the quiet voice, “the Lady Hiresha recreated it larger in the minds of the future.”
“Just so,” the Lord Tethiel said. “And what’s the point of making something beautiful if you cannot destroy it?”
“She would disagree,” someone said.
; “That she would. And it’s past time I introduced you to her.”
The other man, Fos, had stomped away. Guests would see the lord speaking to himself and looking the foppish fool. No one else would notice whether or not someone stood beside him.
He chuckled and reached beyond the edge of the crystal ship. The Lady Hiresha spiraled up from the fog and clasped his hand. Gloves of water shimmered over her arms, crystallizing into ice at her shoulders. A cloak of steam rose behind. Like all her gowns, it bordered on the laughable.
Together, neither lord nor lady looked foolish. Their eyes shared secrets. Their folded hands were as intimate as an embrace. Seeing them together warmed the heart and needled the fingers. They would be a force, as inseparable as thunder and lightning.
“Hiresha,” he said, “this is Guile.”
The Lady Hiresha had a cutting gaze. The gemstone hardness of her eyes could grind through granite. She pierced the Mask, and she saw. What an impaling sacrilege to be seen, to be known, perhaps even to be remembered.
The violation passed. The eye poison stopped dripping as the Lady Hiresha lost focus. She blinked. She had lasted as long as a god. Pressing a hand to the interlocking ice crystals over her chest, she bowed. “I understand you will lead us through the ritual.”
“It would be a privilege. All doubts have gone,” someone said. “The lord and lady will be such a deft couple that people would weep at their coming and celebrate at their passing. Or should that be the other way around?”
“No, that’s right,” the Lord Tethiel said. He leaned closer to the Lady Hiresha. “My heart, I crossed paths with Guile when I was but a young Feaster with no appetite at all.”
“As he is now. My Lady Hiresha, you had made him young again.”
“Yes,” he said. “The only difference is that this time I’m wise with despair.”
“Then you agree you’re hopeless,” the Lady Hiresha said.
“Despair doesn’t get its due,” he said. “Hope can lead men endlessly toward misery, while a dash of despair can clear the eyes.”
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