The Unbound Empire

by Melissa Caruso

  “You must surely be curious what I have to say to you, here in your place of power,” Ruven inquired. “Yes?”

  I couldn’t reply. But damn him, he wasn’t wrong, and he could read it in my eyes.

  “When I release you, you could make a great outcry, I suppose, and I might have to kill some number of guests here and then leave.” Ruven sighed, as if this alternative bored him. “But would it not be far more productive, my lady, for you to hear me out? I could have killed you a dozen times over where you stand, if I wished you harm. What say you?”

  My mouth went dry and coppery with fear. Hundreds of revelers milled around us, laughing and gossiping in their carefully chosen masks and finery, completely heedless of the danger they were in. Any of them could be seconds from death. All Ruven had to do was reach out and touch them with a careless hand.

  These were my people. Some of them were family friends I’d known since I was a child; others were workers from the Tallows who’d saved up for good cloaks and made their masks themselves, giddy with the excitement of the one night no one could distinguish them from royalty. I had to protect them, somehow, from this predator in their midst who would snuff out their lives simply to laugh at the anguish on my face.

  Ruven relaxed his magical hold on my voice enough for me to scrape out a raw whisper. I couldn’t show him how much he’d rattled me. “There are politer ways to request someone’s attention.”

  He laughed, throwing back his head. “Indeed, my lady! A fine point.” He swept into a half bow, never releasing my arm even as he flourished his other hand. “Well, then, will you do me the honor of accompanying me to the garden? You might learn something of interest, and besides, I am certain things will go much better for everyone here if you do.”

  An angry refusal leaped to my lips, but I stopped it before it could escape. I needed to keep Ruven in the mood to play games rather than to unleash violence. And besides, this might be my only chance to find out what he was up to.

  He could have tipped some of his command potion into my paralyzed mouth before anyone knew what was happening. He could have killed me where I stood, or put me to sleep and dragged me with him. He didn’t need my permission. Which meant he truly wanted to talk—and if my enemy wished to speak about his plans, I would be a fool not to listen.

  I didn’t dare cede him complete control of the situation, however. “Take your hand off me,” I growled, forcing the words out past the sluggishness still laid upon my tongue.

  “Do I have your answer, my lady?” he asked, tilting his head so the crystals in his mask caught the light.

  “Hand. Off. First.”

  His cool, hard fingers lifted from my arm. The numbing current of his magic faded from my bones, and I could move again. Ruven watched me warily, poised and ready. I had no doubt he would lash out and begin killing at the slightest provocation, just to punish me for embarrassing him.

  “Fine,” I said, my voice still husky from whatever he’d done to my throat. “I’ll grant you a moment of conversation. But if you threaten my people again, our talk is over, and I’ll rouse the Empire to hound you all the way back to Vaskandar.”

  A smile curved Ruven’s lips, and he offered me his arm. “Of course, my lady.”

  I ignored the gesture and headed for the glass doors that ran the length of the ballroom wall, from which steps descended to Lady Hortensia’s famous gardens. In the daytime, the wall of glass provided a glorious view; now it looked out into a darkness barely alleviated by the festival lanterns strung from the branches of the winter-bare trees. I brushed past fellow guests who had blurred to a rush of sound and color, a nightmarish swirl of empty-eyed false faces and silk that rustled like demons’ wings. Ruven paced at my side, too close, too pleased with himself.

  I didn’t know whether I was the hostage, or everyone else at the ball was. But either way, by the Graces, I’d find out what I could from him while he was willing to talk. If Ignazio had gotten him to share his plans, perhaps I could, too.

  I tried not to think about how that had ended for Ignazio.

  We stepped out into the night. Chill air hit me like a plunge into water. Ruven started down the steps at once, wandering past ornamental trees and trellises, into the winding series of sheltered nooks and shrub-walled rooms that formed Lady Hortensia’s cunningly designed gardens. I glimpsed one or two couples who had clearly come to the gardens for privacy, their passion or drunkenness inuring them to the cold; as I caught up to Ruven, we looked like just another couple, save for the two black-cloaked companions trailing after us, whose presence prickled the back of my scalp.

  I stopped before Ruven could lead us too far from the blazing wall of glass and light. “This is private enough,” I declared.

  He looked about and gestured to a stone bench in a quiet nook flanked by twin lines of narrow cypresses. It stood in full view of the windows, but the trees cut it off from the rest of the garden and gave it a sense of seclusion.

  “What do you think?” he asked, sounding delighted as if he’d designed the garden himself. “Perfect, is it not?”

  I stalked to the bench and settled on it, spreading my skirts around me to claim the entire space for myself. Icy cold seeped immediately through my legs from the stone, and I regretted my choice, but now I was stuck with it.

  “Talk, then,” I said shortly. My throat still ached, and I couldn’t manage to speak much louder than a whisper; it didn’t help my mood.

  “My, my, so blunt! Very well, Lady Amalia, to the point.” I’d left him with nowhere to sit, so Ruven stood squarely in front of my bench, crossing his arms. “I am here to offer you an alliance.”

  “An alliance.” I lifted an eyebrow. “Forgive me, Lord Ruven, but that’s a strange offer coming from the one who declared war upon us.”

  “You misunderstand me, Lady Amalia. My offer isn’t for the Serene Empire, though certainly it could mean peace between our domains. I want an alliance with you.”

  With the light behind him, I couldn’t read his face. “I am uncertain what you would hope to gain from such an alliance,” I said carefully.

  “That’s simple,” Ruven said. “I wish, my lady, to survive.”

  “And you think I can help you with that?” I forbore from mentioning that I had every reason to desire the opposite. The longer I could keep him talking, the more he would reveal.

  “You’ve left me in a precarious position, Lady Amalia.” An edge came into his voice. “Once, I had hoped to forge an alliance in Vaskandar strong enough to bury your Empire like an avalanche. But after your interference at the Conclave, my tradition-bound peers among the Witch Lords have balked at my innovative methods, and some of them seem to have taken the notion into their heads that I’m too dangerous to live.” He gave a short laugh, but there was no humor in it. “Now I need to acquire enough power that they don’t dare challenge me, and quickly. For a Witch Lord, power means land, and the lives within it.”

  “So you seek to seize territory from the Empire.” I shook my head. “It’s difficult to comprehend how you could expect me to help you with such plans.”

  “But, you see, the land doesn’t have to come from the Empire.” Ruven spread his arms, the diffuse light of the festival lanterns catching in the silver of his mask and the crystals on his coat. “You have enemies in Vaskandar, do you not? The Lady of Bears, the Serpent Lord, the Lady of Thorns’ daughter…”

  “Your allies,” I pointed out.

  “Hardly.” Ruven flicked a dismissive hand. His two Demons of Death loomed behind him, silent as shadows. “I owe them nothing. Their land will serve as well as yours to fuel my power. The only reason I turn against your Empire instead is because my fellow Witch Lords’ domains are already claimed, blooded and bound by stone, and therefore too difficult to conquer.”

  “And you think an alliance with the Serene Empire would let you defeat your fellow Witch Lords?” I kept my voice neutral, as if this were an entirely reasonable proposal.

  �
�No.” Ruven stepped closer; the power of his presence pressed against me like a sickening miasma. “I think you can help me steal their domains out from under them without needing to fight a single battle.”

  The chill of the winter air settled deep into my bones. “Because I hold the lineage of the Lady of Eagles.” The waters of Vaskandar threaded her magical mark through all the land, seeping upstream from the great lake at the heart of her domain. “But her claim on other Witch Lords’ domains through the rivers is passive. Secondary. It can’t overpower the claim of the reigning Witch Lord. Can it?”

  “Oh, she took my half of Mount Whitecrown from me easily enough.” Ruven’s voice held a bitter note. “That was your doing, as well, if you recall. If two vivomancers have a valid blood claim on the same land, and both choose to contest it, it’s the stronger that wins.”

  “But I’m no vivomancer,” I pointed out. “And you have no blood claim.”

  “You are a lady of scholarship and vision. Surely you can see how it could be done.”

  Ruven reached out to one of the cypresses flanking my bench; at a flick of his fingertips, half its branches bowed before him, splitting and twining rapid as slithering snakes to form a seat for him, closer to mine than I’d like. He settled on it, leaning toward me, the crown of his mask forming a pattern like bones against the light from the ballroom windows.

  “Your blood is the key to unlock every domain in Vaskandar,” he whispered, excitement quivering in his voice. “You’ve read the same texts I have. You’ve seen the boundary stones, the Truce Stones, even the circles I carved into the volcano. When you blend the patterns of artifice with the power of a Witch Lord, you can etch new laws into the land in a way you never could with vivomancy alone.”

  “I’ve seen this, yes,” I admitted cautiously.

  He flung an arm wide. “You can help me design enchantments to carve my mark into my rivals’ domains and steal their hoarded land and lives out from under them. To make new boundaries that will override theirs and swallow up their domains a piece at a time. I am a Skinwitch; I could merge your blood and mine to mark the circles, feed the rivers, blood the stones. Your claim and my power, fused together. You are the one person in all Eruvia who has both the knowledge and the blood to do it.”

  Hearing Ruven speak so avidly about my blood set my nerves crawling. I slid a few inches away from him on my bench. “I can see how that might work.”

  “Of course you do. You are a scholar. It’s why I admire and, yes, covet you, Lady Amalia.” Ruven reached out, offering me his hand, his eyes gleaming behind his mask. “If you help me seize the power I require from my neighbors, I will have no need of your Empire. I can turn my attention away from Raverra and toward our mutual foes.”

  He must take me for a fool, if he thought I believed that. The Serene Empire could give him much more than land; with its Falcons and its navy, its artificers and warlocks, its courier lamps and wealth and logistical efficiency, it excelled in many areas where Vaskandar lacked. Ruven, unlike his peers, could assert the dominion of his magic over humans as well as plants and animals; if he claimed a piece of the Empire, he could claim all the powers its people wielded as well. If what Ruven truly wished was an edge his neighbors couldn’t counter, the Empire would give him that in spades. And having my cooperation would only make it easier for him to get his fingers into all that imperial power.

  But I tilted my head, as if listening intently. “Go on,” I murmured.

  “Expanding my domain would only be the beginning.” Ruven’s fingers flexed, beckoning, entreating. “Magic runs through everything like blood in the veins of the world, Lady Amalia. You’ve studied the magical sciences enough to know this, yes? But together, we can tap those veins in ways no one has before. To drain them, to shape them, to scribe our names upon the blank page of Eruvia.” He drew a breath that shivered with anticipation. I couldn’t keep myself from recoiling from the sickening presence of his power hanging in the air. “Ally with me. Work with me. Together, there is no limit to what we can do.”

  I stared at his extended hand. And then I lifted my eyes to meet his, unable to hide my revulsion any longer.

  “Forgive me, Lord Ruven,” I said coolly, “but I see insufficient benefit to myself or the Empire in this arrangement.”

  Ruven’s mouth twisted through a brief flash of genuine disappointment to something crueler. “I was afraid you might feel that way.”

  His offering hand closed into a fist.

  Hells. I’d made an error, rejecting him too plainly, and now the night air came alive with icy menace. The ballroom suddenly seemed impossibly far away.

  “You realize of course, my lady, that I don’t need to ask.” Ruven smiled, his voice silky, and drew a flask from his coat. “You know what’s in here, don’t you?”

  His command potion. The chill from the stone bench beneath me seemed to penetrate my bones. More than being shot or drowned or burned alive, that was the stuff of my nightmares.

  “I would hope you’ve learned by now not to threaten me within my own domain,” I said, trying to keep my voice hard and strong. “I don’t need vivomancy to raise the Empire against you.”

  “Threaten you? Don’t be silly. Besides, you showed me the limits of this potion when you last visited my castle.” Ruven sighed with an air of great disappointment and tucked the flask away. “It would place you under my dominion, yes; you would be compelled to obey my commands. But your mind would remain free, and where my commands ended, you could do what you wished against me. It’s a flawed tool, no?”

  “It’s evil,” I said stiffly.

  Ruven laughed. “Oh, Lady Amalia, you jest! You are not so simple a creature as to believe in evil. But you see how this potion is imperfect for when I wish to bring someone such as you to my side, who I value for the workings of your mind. I need you to serve me of your own will, do you understand? I need you to have motivation.”

  He turned a satisfied smile toward me, his lips curling in pure pleasure. A foreboding like the whispering of the Demon of Despair curled through the cold air around me.

  “Don’t you dare,” I whispered.

  Ruven rose gracefully, spreading his arms as if to embrace the night sky. “If I am not mistaken, your motivation should be arriving any moment now.”

  Marcello. The surety of it struck through me with the leaden agony of a musket ball. He meant Marcello.

  I surged to my feet, trying to cry a warning; my voice cracked, still hoarse from Ruven’s magic, and came out no louder than a whisper. I reached for my flare locket, but my panicked fingers tangled instead in Kathe’s necklace of black claws hanging on a string around my throat.

  One of Ruven’s demon-masked comrades darted behind me in a swirl of black cloak and seized my arms before I could flip open my locket. His gloved fingers bit into my flesh, sharp as talons, wrenching my arms behind my back. I tried to twist away, the raw energy of fear jolting through me, but he was too strong.

  I had to get away somehow, or call enough guards that Ruven wouldn’t want to fight them, or talk him into leaving—anything, so long as I did it quickly, before Marcello noticed I was gone and came looking for me.

  The unmistakable sound of a pistol hammer cocking back shattered my hopes.

  “Release Lady Amalia,” Marcello commanded, his voice hard as steel.

  Ruven closed his eyes, as if savoring the bliss of the moment, and turned to face him.

  Marcello stood in the open space between the rows of cypresses, silhouetted by the light of the ballroom doors behind him. He held a pistol leveled at Ruven in one hand, and pointed his rapier toward one of his cloaked companions with the other. He had torn off his mask, and pure determination shone from his green eyes.

  “Marcello, run!” I rasped. “Please!”

  But, of course, he didn’t run. He stood taking aim between Ruven’s eyes, with no sensible fear in his bearing.

  “If I blow a hole in your face, I can’t imagine that will be pl
easant for you, even if your powers will let you survive it,” Marcello said. “Leave now, and spare yourself the indignity.”

  “My, such strong words.” Ruven clicked his tongue. “I was just conversing with the Lady Amalia. I assure you, I have no intention of doing her any harm.”

  He reached out to casually brush the branch of a cypress, and the trees leaned together behind Marcello, weaving a rapid screen of branches to block us from sight. My guts twisted with apprehension as I strained to wrench free from the man who held me; Ruven was closing his trap.

  One of Ruven’s skull-masked companions moved, a blur too fast to track. In a swirl of black cloak, Marcello’s pistol went spinning from his hand. He swore and countered with a slash of his rapier up and across his attacker’s chest; its tip caught the man’s mask, which went flying off into the night.

  I tried to scream when I saw his face, but my throat could produce no more than a strangled whimper. Marcello staggered back from the sight as if he’d been struck.

  The man’s skin was dead pale, with a strange shiny cast like polished bone. His head stretched into an elongated, lipless snout like a lizard’s, and his wide grin revealed razor-sharp teeth. Above the human eyes that had peered through his mask sat six more, round and black, gleaming wetly in the festival lights.

  Chimeras. A burst of pure, nauseous terror drove me to strain and writhe against the one that held me, but its claws dug into my arms like iron, and I couldn’t escape or reach any kind of weapon. Both of them.

  Marcello had recovered from his shock enough to lunge at his chimera, spearing its shoulder. It recoiled, cloak billowing, but one clawed hand shot out and grabbed Marcello’s rapier blade before he could pull it back, closing heedlessly around the sharp steel edges. Marcello tried to yank it back and dragged a few bloody inches of blade free, but the creature only tightened its grasp.