The Unbound Empire

by Melissa Caruso

  Verin folded her arms, staring off after her lord. “Normally, I’d say yours, since he needs cheering. But I think if you talk to him right now, he’ll leave you stuck in a tree.”

  Glass laughed. “Come now, I’m the soul of tact.”

  “Mmm,” Verin said noncommittally.

  “But you’re no good, either.” Glass scratched their head. “You’re too much of a scold.”

  “Only because you all need scolding so often.” Verin shook her head in disgust. “It should be Hal, but he’s the one person who can’t handle this.”

  “Excuse me,” I put in tentatively. “If you’re discussing who should go talk to Kathe, I can do it.”

  The two Heartguards turned assessing looks on me. I felt rather like my mother was deciding whether my outfit would pass muster for meeting with the doge. Finally, Verin gave a sharp nod.

  “If you think you can keep this from becoming a mood, you have my blessing,” she said.

  “Better you than me,” Glass agreed.

  I had none of Kathe’s grace as I struggled through the knee-deep snow. Chunks of it fell into my boot-tops at once and melted to frigid ice water, seeping through my stockings. I tried to remember the high-stepping gait my Callamornish cousins had used on the few occasions that I’d visited them in winter and we’d gone out into the hills; we never had snow like this in the Serene City.

  I couldn’t believe how exhausting it was to move through the stuff, especially when still weak from the ravages of poison. Soon I was huffing like a bellows, my legs burning. I had to put a hand on a tree and stop to catch my breath after an embarrassingly short distance. I closed my eyes, trying to block out the knowledge that Verin and Glass were probably watching me.

  A warm touch stirred my hair, brushing it back from my face.

  “You’re so excessively Raverran,” Kathe said, a laugh in his voice.

  I opened my eyes to find him beside me, his feathered black cloak stark against the snow. He wore a quizzical smile, but the pain shone sharp as ice in his eyes.

  He was in his element here, a creature of winter, all gray and black and white. If he wanted to stalk off and brood gorgeously in his own forest, it felt more than a little ridiculous for me to stumble after him in my brocade and velvet and gold-stitched embroidery, my nose pink from the cold. Yet here I was.

  “You’re worried about Hal,” I said quietly.

  Kathe shrugged, feathers rustling. “Do I look like the type to worry?”

  He started to pull back his hand from my hair, but I caught it in my thick, clumsy mittens instead. “Frankly, no,” I said. “And yet, you do.”

  He didn’t retrieve his hand, but he stood silent, shadows passing through the gray of his eyes behind the mage mark. Finally, he whispered, “Ruven will kill him. You know he will.”

  I swallowed. “He’s not known for his mercy. But he’s just as likely to incapacitate him, so he can use him against you.”

  Kathe let out a humorless bark of a laugh. “That’s some consolation. You’re as bad at this as I am.”

  “Sorry.” I pressed his hand between mine. His strong, bare fingers curled around my mitten, squeezing back. “My mother taught me many things, but gentleness was not one of them.”

  “That’s all right. Vaskandar isn’t a gentle country.” He let out a steaming cloud of breath. “I hate this.”

  “What? Having to send someone into danger?”

  “No.” His mouth crooked. “Being powerless.”

  “I can imagine it’s something a Witch Lord doesn’t have much opportunity to get used to,” I said.

  He released my hand, turning to stare off through the trees. “You know how my mother died,” he said, so softly I almost didn’t hear it.

  Hell of Nightmares. I did. I nodded, words fading from my tongue like a letter dropped in the rain.

  “Trapped and endlessly drowning far beneath the sea, with all the weight of the ocean pressing her down into darkness.” Kathe closed his eyes. His lashes were nearly as pale as the snow around us. “We were very close, and I was her heir, and she reached for my help in her panic. For days and days I felt a shadow of what she felt—the terror, the utter darkness, the water filling her lungs like blood. And there was nothing I could do for her. Nothing.” He met my gaze then, a bitter fury in his eyes that I knew must be for himself. “I can’t bear to sit back and watch while Ruven kills or maims my friend, and do nothing again.”

  I pulled my mitten off and reached out to lay my palm tentatively against his chest. The tingling energy of his power coursed up my arm. Beneath my hand I could feel his heart, fluttering like a crow’s wings. “You did do something for your mother,” I said softly. “You did what she wanted most. The same thing Hal wants from you, and that Jathan wanted.”

  Kathe flinched at Jathan’s name, and I wondered if I’d gone too far. “Is this a riddle, then?” he asked, his voice harsh as one of his crows’.

  “If you want it to be.”

  He watched me warily for a moment, still as a wild animal on the brink of spooking. Then, slowly, he raised a hand to lay it over mine on his chest, covering his heart. The beats reverberating beneath my fingertips slowed, their pace less agitated.

  “To live and be happy,” he said.

  “It’s what we all want, for those we love.” I tried a smile, uncertain and tender.

  “That’s odd.” Kathe reached out and cupped my cheek, his hand almost painfully warm against the numbing winter chill.

  “Oh? Why is that?”

  He tipped his head like a curious bird, a smile ghosting across his lips. For a moment, a word hovered there, unspoken, so real I could almost hear it reverberating in the air. But then he shook his head.

  “I’m glad you didn’t die before you got your elixir,” he said. “Let’s leave it at that, for now.”

  But the words he didn’t speak caught in the branches of the trees, and seeped down into the earth. And my blood was in the earth, too, mingled with his, so I heard them.

  That’s what I want for you.

  The forest cottage might have been quaint and cozy with a different occupant. Its log walls were neatly cut and sanded smooth, its shutters lovingly painted red. The fieldstone chimney was in good repair, with inviting woodsmoke wafting from it. Bumps in the snow and the occasional spray of winter-bare sticks suggested a garden.

  But what crawled up the walls and in and out the tidy windows was not ivy. Spiders of varied sizes scuttled across the logs, from tiny dots the size of a pinhead to leggy black monstrosities larger than my hand. One the size of a dowager’s lapdog and nearly as hairy waited faithfully on the front steps, quite still until it made a tiny motion that turned my stomach with the realization it was real.

  Zaira froze. “Hell of Nightmares. I’ll just stay outside.”

  “I’m afraid she asked for you specifically,” Kathe said.

  “She, ah, didn’t ask for me, did she?” Glass asked.

  “No,” Kathe confirmed. “My Heartguard can wait outside.”

  “Pity,” Verin sighed, staring in fascination at the house. “I actually like spiders. They’re so elegant.”

  “Elegant,” Zaira said flatly. “One of us is wrong about what that word means.”

  I drew in a steadying breath. “All right. Let’s get this over with.”

  We let Kathe go first. Zaira put me firmly between her and the puppy-sized spider on the doorstep, and I, in turn, stood as far from it as I could. Kathe strode up to the red door without any apparent unease whatsoever, gently brushed a few spiders off it, and knocked.

  “You’re late,” a smooth, resonant voice responded. But the door opened, and there stood the Lady of Spiders.

  Her long silver-gray hair trailed to the ground, but she was no withered crone. She might almost have been beautiful if it were not for the dead look in her round dark eyes and the mirthless predatory line of her smile. She wore a Raverran-style corset, faded with age and at least fifty years out of fashion,
over trailing skirts slimmer than anything I was used to. I had braced myself, this time, for the beadwork: beautiful, intricate designs in subtle, shining colors that constantly shifted in mesmerizing patterns—because every bead was actually a live spider.

  Zaira swayed at my side. Despite all my mental preparation, I still had to swallow an undignified noise.

  “My apologies, my lady,” Kathe was saying, with a gracious bow. “An incident on the road to Let delayed us.”

  The Lady of Spiders stepped aside, inviting us in. “You must learn not to apologize in your own domain, young crow. Enter, if you do not fear the truth you carry like poison inside you.”

  I couldn’t help it; my hand stirred toward the satchel slung over my shoulder, where my new elixir bottles nestled.

  Zara swallowed. “Out of curiosity, what if we do fear the truth?”

  The Lady of Spiders’ grin broadened. “Then enter anyway, but be afraid.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  I stepped into the cottage too close behind Kathe, clinging to the shadow of his feathered cloak like a child. I expected the floor to be crawling, and was relieved to find scrupulously clean-swept boards and cheery, spider-free rag rugs. But Zaira sucked in a breath behind me, and she gripped my wrist.

  “Don’t look up,” she whispered hoarsely.

  It took all my willpower not to. I fixed my gaze on the Lady of Spiders’ face, struggling to ignore the flickers of movement on the ceiling, forcing my attention away from the shifting patterns on her gown.

  “Thank you for speaking with us,” I said, inordinately proud of my ability to make words.

  “You say that now.” She chuckled, a dark rich sound. “Sit, Amalia Cornaro and Zaira of Raverra, and tell me what cruel need has driven you here at last.”

  She settled herself in a rocking chair, her silvery hair and antique silk gown spreading out to transform it to a queen’s throne. A steaming cup of tea waited on a tiny table by her elbow. Zaira and I eased delicately into rustic wooden chairs by the fire; I wasn’t the only one who checked for spiders first. Kathe remained standing, leaning against the mantel behind us. He had arranged this meeting, but it was the Empire’s negotiation, which meant I was the one who had to attempt rational conversation in a room where I didn’t dare raise my eyes too far.

  “We’re hoping that the current extraordinary circumstances might permit us to make use of the Truce Stones,” I said.

  “An artifact created for peace, and you would use it in war.” She ran a strand of silver hair through her fingers, as if testing the pull of her web. Jewel-backed spiders glittered on her hands like rings. “You’re not the first to come to me seeking this, but I’ve never granted such a request. Do you know the history of the Truce Stones?”

  “No,” I admitted.

  The Lady of Spiders regarded me from her dark, dark eyes in silence. It was Kathe who finally spoke. “The Yew Lord and his mother created them together, in the early days of Vaskandar. Before then, Witch Lords wouldn’t meet and speak with each other peacefully, since to enter another’s domain is to place yourself in their power. It was the Truce Stones that made Conclaves possible.”

  “Power is a strange thing,” the Lady of Spiders said. “Ones like Ruven crave its strength, believing it will make them unassailable. Yet the more of it they gather, the more enemies and dangers they see.” She emitted a hissing noise that might have been a laugh. “The Truce Stones exist so that we ancient and terrible Witch Lords, the most powerful beings Eruvia has ever known, can feel safe. When you use them as a trap, that purpose is damaged, perhaps even destroyed.”

  Kathe smiled a charming smile. “Sorry.”

  “You are a nuisance, Crow Lord, like the screaming pests from which you take your name.” There was neither rancor nor affection in the Lady of Spiders’ voice; she was stating a fact. “I’ve barely managed to keep silent how you killed the Lady of Thorns. If you misuse the Truce Stones again so soon, hiding the truth and keeping the trust placed in the stones intact will be much harder. You would threaten the order that keeps all our domains from descending into blood and chaos.”

  “Doesn’t Ruven threaten it more?” I asked, leaning to the edge of my chair. “He’s a Skinwitch. He’s making human chimeras. He’s using up lives as if they meant nothing.”

  “Ah, Ruven.” The Lady of Spiders shook her head. A delicate golden spider caught the light, gleaming like a jeweled pin in her hair. “That poor boy.”

  “Poor Ruven?” Zaira exploded, throwing up her hands. “Do you seriously expect anyone to piss out one drop of sympathy for that pox-licker?”

  “Sympathy is for the warm-blooded,” the Lady of Spiders said dismissively. “He chose his road and walked it of his own free will. But there was a little boy, once, who could have become something else. Perhaps a healer, if someone had taught him to bind himself by rules and codes when he felt no spark of kinship with his own kind.” She curled a hand pensively over the great black spider perched over her heart like a brooch. “Instead, he faced a world that wanted him dead because of what he could do. Everyone that child met besides his own mother thought he should be exterminated like vermin. Of course he grew up twisted by fear.”

  Zaira snorted. “The world wants me dead because of what I can do, too. I’m no bastion of virtue, but I’m not a vile stingroach like him.”

  “Give it time,” the Lady of Spiders murmured. “Give it time.”

  “Do you really want to see what Ruven will do to Vaskandar, if he’s left unchecked?” I demanded, frustrated. “If he expands his domain enough, even the combined power of the other sixteen Witch Lords might not be enough to stop him. He’s breaking all your rules, and he’ll keep pushing his power in new and terrible directions. Is that what you want?”

  The Lady of Spiders sighed. “Amusing as it might be to watch, no. Which is why I’m willing to allow you to use the Truce Stones.”

  I blinked. “You are?”

  “Why would I have come all the way to Let if I were not?” She exchanged a knowing look with the ceiling, as if sharing a joke at our expense. I barely checked myself from following her gaze, and caught a glimpse of a shifting mass of movement before yanking my eyes back down to her face. “I will, of course, require a surety.”

  “A surety?” I glanced at Kathe, uncertain. He grimaced and nodded, as if he’d expected this but was less than happy about it.

  “My price. There is always a price.” Her dead black eyes glittered. “The secrets you guard in the dark corners of your heart. The rot you’ve hidden and let fester. The empty places where life has cut pieces from your soul with its jagged knife. Your demons and your curses, your foolish hopes and bitter dreams.”

  “Why do you even want that?” Zaira asked, leaning as far away from the Lady of Spiders as her chair would allow.

  “Because aside from being lovely things, secrets hold power, my dear.” The Lady of Spiders lifted her teacup and took a tiny sip. “When I’ve drunk down the bitter dregs of your soul, I will know how to break you. To control you. To destroy you. And if you do not wish me to give this knowledge freely to your enemies, well, I can rest assured that you will never betray our agreement or turn your powers against me or my domain.” She set her teacup down with a satisfied clink.

  “And how would you, ah, obtain this information?” I asked, my throat dry.

  She reached up to her hair and took down the golden spider from it, holding it cupped in her palm with all the care of a collector handling a rare and precious treasure. “Aelie’s venom will crack open your mind. Then I can suck out the marrow.”

  Zaira and I stared at her in silence, and then at each other. Zaira shook her head, eyes wide.

  I turned back to the Lady of Spiders, fixing as polite an expression as I could manage to my face. “I must confess, I’m not certain I understand.”

  “You don’t need to. You will see.” The Lady of Spiders stroked Aelie’s golden abdomen as the creature’s reaching legs explored
her wrist. “Either of you will suffice. One of you is on Raverra’s Council of Nine, and the other is a fire warlock who has proven herself one of the few living beings who can kill a Witch Lord; you are both intriguing, both useful. I am content to wait for the other to come to me again in due time. These are extraordinary circumstances, after all.”

  Kathe cleared his throat. “Would you consider—”

  “No,” the Lady of Spiders said. “You’ve had your turn, Crow Lord. I want someone new.”

  Sweet Hell of Nightmares. The secrets you guard in the dark corners of your heart. The rot you’ve hidden and let fester. A swarm of possibilities coursed through my mind: the elixir that kept me alive. My father’s murder. The sweet smell of anise, and the sinking realization that my own kin had betrayed me. Drawing a rune in my own blood that condemned my cousin to death. The stink of thousands of burning corpses. The pleading look in Marcello’s eyes as he begged me not to leave him alone.

  But there was more to consider. The intricacies of the Empire’s magical wards and weapons, and how to subvert them. Passwords that could activate Raverran spies in deep cover. The thousand small crimes an empire hides from its allies. Troop numbers smaller or larger than we wanted Vaskandar to think. The soft spots in the steely armor around my mother’s heart.

  I could brace myself well enough to face my own inner horrors; after all, I lived with them every day. But I was on the Council of Nine now. All my secrets were state secrets. The murky shadowed places in my mind belonged to the Empire, and were not mine to give.

  The Lady of Spiders watched me, expectantly, waiting for a hesitating insect to step into her web. If we didn’t stop Ruven, there might not be an Empire left for me to protect.

  I took in a shaky breath. “All right. I—”

  “I’ll do it,” Zaira interrupted.

  I stared at her. “Are you sure?”

  Zaira rolled her eyes. “Oh, yes, I’m eager as a puppy to let some fanged horror bite me and poison me so that this Demon of Nightmares can poke around in my brain. I’m looking forward to it like the Festival of Bounty, let me tell you. But you can’t do it, and you know it.”