by Kayleigh Sky
Rune froze for an instant before recovering and followed Camiel to the other room. The honorific had surprised him, not because Camiel had recognized him, but because nobody used it except Uriah occasionally. But maybe it meant nothing and was only Camiel’s way of throwing him off guard. He sat in the chair he had vacated a few minutes before. Camiel sat half a room away on a loveseat.
Rune grinned. “Don’t you trust me?”
“You broke into my house. Even a commoner like me has rights.”
“Are you a commoner?”
“I am not royal, though my father was a much closer cousin to the royal family than your friend Uriah, who is also a Nezzarram, I believe.”
“One who came to my father and pledged his loyalty.”
“But he did not stay loyal,” Camiel pointed out.
“Your father stood against mine.”
“I was orphaned before I was born. My father lost his home and died with his brothers to save his queen.”
“My parents were still together during the last war. My mother was in no danger then.”
Camiel cocked his head. “Are you sure?”
The question stole Rune’s words. His brows dug deep as he frowned. “You have no reason to be truthful, Nezzarram.”
“Yet I am, sire.”
Rune lowered his chin, staring for a moment, before he took a swallow of his coffee, set it on the table beside him, and sat forward. “Your hands are in something very ugly.”
Surprise lit Camiel’s eyes with a spark of interest. “I hope so. I do try.”
“Murder, Nezzarram.”
That drowned the spark like a bucket of cold water. “I’ve had my fill of murder.”
“I watched one of us die a brutal death. He came from you.”
“Many people come from me. My business involves the public.”
“Telling fortunes?”
“Like your mother. And it pays my bills.” Camiel’s nerves showed in the way he tugged at his tangled hair. “Will you excuse me for a moment?”
“Don’t run. I’ll know the minute you do.”
“Yes,” Camiel said. “You are very strong.”
After Camiel disappeared in the back of the house, Rune sat back and finished his coffee. He had time to make another cup and place the card he’d taken from Thomas on the coffee table before Camiel returned in jeans and a striped sleeveless shirt. His long hair was still damp but knotted on the top of his head. “I am many things that no one wants to be, but I am not a murderer.”
Rune waited until Camiel’s gaze snapped to the coffee table. His brow furrowed, mouth tightening, his attention returning to Rune. “What is that?”
“Yours.”
He stepped over, snatched it up, then sat on the sofa perpendicular to Rune’s chair. He chewed his lip.
“You don’t give cards like that away to your customers,” said Rune. “It’s hand-painted.”
“I know. I don’t give them away to anyone.”
“Then why do I have it?”
“It was stolen from me. Look at it. It’s a wrinkled mess. I don’t know how you got it.”
“Perhaps. But you know who gave it to me.”
Camiel sank onto the sofa and stared at the ceiling with a smile. “So much intrigue. What is wrong with us?”
“You’d know when it was gone. You felt it the minute you came in here.”
“It’s a calling card but special. I don’t use it for regular readings. In fact, I’ve never used it at all. I know who stole it, but I don’t know why. I am bound to secrecy.”
“He’s dead.”
“I mean my hands were tied. I couldn’t report it. There are such things as privacy laws.”
“Noble, but most people think what you do is a joke.”
Camiel smiled. “Until I read for them.”
“You were my mother’s protégé. She refused to call herself a fortune-teller by the way, though it’s what she did.”
“I know, but she wasn’t even close to being just that. She was a witch, and she taught me spells, but I never saw her sell any or even give them away. It wasn’t a game to her.”
Like a painter who never paints, or a glassblower who never blows glass. What was the point to anything she ever did?
“It’s always a game,” said Rune. “Parlor tricks, as the humans say.”
Camiel guffawed. “Hardly. I was lucky to study with her.”
“She wasn’t lucky though, was she?” She’d died in the Upheaval. Maybe she’d still be alive if she’d been home with him and Mal. “Kolnadia was destroyed.”
Camiel nodded. “Yes. I definitely remember now. I saw you there before it happened.”
“I don’t remember you.”
“Believe it or not I was shy. And only ten. But even then I couldn’t resist a party.”
A flood of memories returned, and a smile pulled at Rune’s lips. “My birthday.”
“You don’t wear the bracelet.”
His smile died, and his heart gave a painful squeeze. He’d gone decades without thinking of the bracelet until suddenly her voice was in his head. “I lost it in the Upheaval.”
“I’m sorry.”
He picked up the card. “Why is this special?”
“It was made in Kolnadia. It was my birthday present from Abadi.”
“A whole deck, I assume.”
“Yes.”
“I want to see it.”
Camiel narrowed his eyes at him. It was his first show of anger and the first inkling of trust Rune experienced for him. Camiel was powerful, not a forceful wave, more like an aura pulsing steadily. But Rune was… something else. Something different. He had no idea the extent of his powers, and sometimes little control. And after several days of rest, he was strong again. Someone it was unwise to anger. Camiel’s shoulders sank, and he pushed himself up. “It is important to me.”
Rune said nothing.
With a sigh, Camiel turned away and headed down the hall. He turned into the room across from his bedroom. Rune entered. “I meditate here,” Camiel said, as though answering Rune’s unspoken question.
The room was close to empty with only a small short table against one wall displaying a collection of crystals and incense pots and a magnificent chest against another wall. The chest was made of a deep, rich red wood embedded with multicolored jewels and carved with scenes of Fantasia, a small resort a day’s train ride outside of Celestine. When he’d looked in here earlier none of the detail had been visible.
Rune hid his surprise. “Were you ever there?”
Camiel opened the doors and glanced over his shoulder. “Where?”
He gestured to the chest. “Fantasia.”
Camiel shook his head. “No. I commissioned the artist to carve something from the cities. I didn’t know if it was a real place or her imagination.”
“It was real.”
Waterfalls splashed in multi-colored droplets, each a twinkling jewel, with a depiction of the Fantasia Lodge in the background.
The doors on the chest hid several drawers. Camiel opened the top one, removed a box, and turned to Rune. “It’s in here.”
Amusement danced with challenge deep inside Camiel’s eyes. Rune liked his mouth, the way the long lips twitched and curled like a graphic example of who he was inside. Quicksilver, hard to grasp, and maybe never what he said he was. He didn’t hide that he was, in fact, hiding something. Rune growled, a low hiss following. “What’s going on, Nezzarram?”
Camiel flashed a smile. “What do you mean? You are a demanding king, sire.”
“You’re keeping something from me.”
“What I have is right here.”
Camiel turned again, set the box on a shelf inside the chest, and lifted the lid. Inside was a bed of scarlet cloth, a gold coin, and a deck of cards. Camiel removed the deck. “These are special to me.”
“I won’t hurt them.”
Though he had no idea why he wanted to look at them. It was barely on the lev
el of compulsion. More curiosity, driven by his artist’s heart to examine something beautiful and interesting, because when Camiel gently set the cards on his palm, the saturated colors and fine design awed him. On the back of each was a gilded medallion on a brown background spotted with gold flecks. The design on the medallion was the Nezzarram family’s letter—forgiveness. Geli’lith. Good love.
It was beautiful, and when he turned the cards face up, a breath of admiration stuck in his chest. The artwork was fine, the brushwork exquisite. These were the kinds of paintings Jessa could do if he’d only believe it possible.
Rune flipped the first card over and back again, then did the same to the second. “There’s no artist’s mark.”
“There is. It’s in the design, but I’ve never found it.”
“Huh.”
Rune shuffled through the deck, pausing at a painting of Celestine, the cliff dwellings of Abbatine, and the jeweled tunnel between Joppo and Demaria. There were also renderings of people, most of whom he didn’t know.
“My home,” he murmured when he’d gotten near the end of the deck. He stared at the depiction of Senera Castle and tapped a window in the corner tower. That part of the castle, minus the outer wall of his room, had still stood the last time he’d seen it. “That was my room.”
“I’m sorry, sire.”
Rune said nothing, suspecting his voice would betray him. Sorrow was useless now. He continued shuffling and when he reached the last card he remained still while Camiel’s tension rolled over him like a wave.
“Are you playing games, Nezzarram?”
“I didn’t know what it meant. I still don’t. Maybe it means nothing.”
Rune raised his gaze from the picture of his mother. “Yet I’m here. As you say, someone stole the card I found. A card in a room in a chest in a drawer in a box in a deck—and only that card. That is—” He grabbed Camiel’s neck, and shock flashed in the vampire’s eyes. Rune shoved him against the chest’s open door, the cards caged in his loose grip. He put his face close to Camiel’s. “Peculiar,” he murmured. “Wouldn’t you say?”
Camiel lowered his eyes and dipped his chin into the crook of Rune’s hand. “I am at a loss, sire. As curious as you.”
A hint of humor belied Camiel’s obsequious posture.
“I won’t be kind to you, Nezzarram, if you go against me.”
Camiel’s eyelids rose, his eyes somber now. “I am with you, sire. Let me help you.”
“How, and why?”
“However I can. Consider it repayment for all that the most powerful witch of her time taught me. Such power must pass on as it was meant to. That isn’t to the Adi ’el Lumi.”
“Interesting. I didn’t mention them. And who is the one to hold this power, Camiel? Would that be you?”
“I would be honored, but it isn’t me. I tell fortunes.”
Rune set him down and turned away. He shuffled through the cards again, looking for some kind of mark, a way to locate the artist if they were still alive. He hadn’t slept enough, and his head ached now. He rolled it to stretch his neck. “I need more coffee.”
“I’ll make another pot.”
Camiel scurried past, and Rune followed him.
“What was the coin?”
Camiel filled the coffee maker with water and turned it on. “A hypnotizing coin.” He gave Rune a wry grin. “I never got that far in my studies though, so I don’t know how to use it.”
“But you keep it?”
“It was a gift.”
“From my mother?”
“Yes.”
After the coffee was ready, Rune returned to his chair in the living room. By the time he finished his cup, he’d found the mark. The artist had broken it into pieces and scattered them throughout each design. He took his mother’s card from the deck, passed the rest to Camiel, who’d returned to his place on the sofa, and stared at the picture again. Was it real? Or an artist’s imagination? She sat on what appeared to be a throne, staring straight ahead, a small smile on her mouth. Stone surrounded her, arched over the throne, and made her look like a statue in a wall niche.
“Do you know where this is?”
“No.”
Rune’s head shot up, and he narrowed his eyes.
Camiel lifted his palms. “I don’t. I’m telling you the truth.”
“I found the mark. The artist was playing games or wanted to remain unknown. He broke his mark into pieces and buried them in each design.”
“Him?”
“He was a protégé of an artist named Protis. Kadian. I met him once.”
Protis hadn’t liked his work, but the cards were beautiful, though maybe too ornate. Protis had subtler tastes, like Rune. Dead in the Upheaval, and not one of Abadi’s fans, as far as Rune had known. But what had he known? Now he was not so sure. Qudim and Abadi had had their own agendas. Their own supporters and detractors. The Seneras and Nezzarrams had been enemies and the families had taken sides. Or had played both sides. For a moment, Protis’s voice rose in his memory. Rune had shown him the bracelet Abadi had given him, and Protis had frowned in disapproval. “A spell-catcher consumes good luck and holds it prisoner… Whose luck do you think that will capture? Yours? Or another’s?”
But it had only been a talisman, something to ward off other people’s spells.
Rune sighed. “The words on the cards are not in a language I know.” There were not many words, but they appeared over doorways or on plaques under statues. “It’s the same language on the map I found with your card.”
Camiel’s eyes widened, and his mouth made an O-shape before he closed it again. There was something about it not quite natural.
“Can I see it?”
“No.”
“Let me help you.”
“Do you know the language? Is it one my mother knew?”
Camiel shook his head. “Your mother spoke Celes. I noticed the words as well, and they aren’t Celes obviously. I know a little Maja and Ono.”
“Not those either.” Rune gazed again at his mother’s face. It was like Mal’s. Mischievous, playful, sensuous. But Abadi had turned as bloodthirsty as Qudim. “This is old. My sister is a history teacher.”
“Essie is closer.”
Rune looked up. “Essie?”
“Princess Esseline Orla.”
“Yes, I know who she is. Why her?”
Camiel stretched his arms across the back of the couch with a grin. “She’s old.”
Rune barked a laugh. “Is that all? I thought she might be a linguist or something helpful like that.”
“Allow me to introduce you. And she is closer.”
“Allow you? What makes you think you’re coming with me?”
“I have talent, sire, and loyalty. I have debts to repay your mother. And, more important than anything else—” His grin widened. “I love an adventure.”
Perhaps he did, but that wasn’t everything. Rune eyed him for a few minutes more. Whatever he hid, it danced with his smile like a sprite. Like an errant light in a dark tunnel begging someone to follow it. And Rune was his mother’s son and predisposed to believe in things he couldn’t see. Something had led him here—and for a reason.
He stood, startling Camiel into pulling his arms off the top of the sofa. Rune smiled too and dropped his fangs. Camiel dropped his chin to his chest.
“I do away with my enemies, witch.”
Chin still on his chest, Camiel tilted one eye up. It twinkled.
“Then allow me to be your friend.”
16
An Annoying Companion
“Let me out.”
Camiel shot him a quick glance before turning back to the highway. “Here?”
Here, countryside faded into the dusk. Bushes choked a river that ran beside them, and trees blurred the horizon, but light suffused the sky, rising above Essie’s estate. They would be on it soon enough, and Rune wanted to approach in his own time. Better for Camiel to arrive first. The Orlas were closer to the
Nezzarrams than to the Seneras. Not always, but after the war, the Orlas had paid only the obeisance they owed Qudim and nothing more.
The car slowed, gravel popping under the tires as Camiel pulled onto the shoulder and looked across the seat at him.
“I won’t be far,” Rune said.
Camiel made a frustrated sound. “Far where? Where are you going with my card? I can help you.”
“I doubt that, but I’m not going anywhere. My life is in danger.”
“From Essie?”
“Maybe from you.”
“You came to me.”
“Because of this.”
Rune patted the pouch he wore under his shirt. Camiel had given it to him. “So you don’t ruin my card even more,” he’d muttered. “It’s bad enough somebody stole it.”
Rune had taken the pouch and stored the map inside it too.
He exited the car, and a moment later, Camiel pulled back onto the road and picked up speed, his red taillights shrinking in the distance.
Essie’s estate was probably more than a mile away, but Rune didn’t plan to walk. He turned his face to the dark gray sky and the pale stars and let himself dim.
When he took form again, he stood outside an L-shaped house with squares of patio stacked at alternating heights in front of him. Shrubbery hid babbling water fountains, and the windows glowed with amber light. The sudden fall of dark inside startled him until the lights flickered back on with the rattle of a generator. He hung back in the shadow of the trees. It was still outside, without a tingle of danger. The air was scented with the dry tang of oaks and sweet summer flowers, no vampires or humans lurking nearby. He stared into the house, the rooms empty at first. One room resembled a foyer, another like a dining room, and yet another like an office or study. The softest touch, like a whisper or a feather, brushed against his cheek, and he closed his eyes.
Isaac?
But no, that… that made no sense.
Isaac…
His voice floated away from him. He moved to the edge of the tree line. In the room like a foyer, a vampire entered and turned back toward the hall. He was young and muscular, but not brute-like. Not like a guard. He held out his hand, and an old woman took it with a smile and stepped down to the floor. Camiel followed. Even from a distance, his face appeared stricken and bone white. He took a seat on the couch, sitting close to Essie. She projected the light and clarity of crystal, angled like the planes of a crystal too, spare and thin. After she’d taken her place, the other vampire moved away. Rune didn’t miss the agitated look Camiel threw him.
