The Unbound Empire

by Melissa Caruso

  “You know dangerous information, too,” I pointed out. Like the Mews and its defenses, and the Falcons and their weaknesses, not to mention a fair salting of military secrets. “And as the sole fire warlock in Eruvia, you’re honestly more important than I am.”

  “Better looking, too. But I try to ignore the rest of you when you ramble about strategy, and I don’t sit in meetings with you nine pox-withered demons who run the Empire. I’ve got a thimbleful of secrets, and you have buckets.” She shook her head. “Don’t be a fool. One of us has to do this, and it can’t be you.”

  The rigid line of her shoulders and the wide white margins of her eyes betrayed the fear her casual tone denied. I touched her arm, gently. “I would never ask you to do this.”

  “If you’d asked, I’d tell you to go bugger yourself.” Zaira turned to the Lady of Spiders. “What do I need to do? Let’s get this over with.”

  The hollow eyes and savoring smile of the Lady of Spiders grew so unsettling I almost would rather look at the ceiling. “Choose who will stay, to be near you in your suffering and hear your buried truth,” she said. “Or would you prefer to endure this alone?”

  “You make it sound so cursed enticing,” Zaira muttered. Then she lifted her head. “Crow Lord, out.”

  Kathe bowed. “I would say good luck, but luck isn’t what you need. Be strong.”

  As he opened the door, I started to rise. But Zaira caught my sleeve.

  “Amalia,” she said sharply. “You stay.”

  “Really?” I couldn’t keep the surprise from my voice.

  “I need someone to make sure that crone doesn’t put spiders in my mouth as a funny joke or something.” Her grip on my sleeve was like iron. I sank back down beside her.

  “You may wish to seal your friend’s magic,” the Lady of Spiders said to me. “Lest you perish.”

  I gave Zaira a questioning glance, and she nodded. “Revincio,” I said.

  “Give me your hand,” the Lady of Spiders told Zaira, her voice deep and solemn.

  Zaira bared her teeth and gripped my hand so hard I felt something pop.

  “Or I could put her on your face,” the Lady of Spiders suggested, smiling.

  “No! No. Here’s my hand, Graces help me.” Zaira stuck out her thin, trembling fingers.

  “Oh, they won’t,” the Lady of Spiders assured her sweetly.

  She seized Zaira’s wrist. As Zaira instinctively tried to yank it away, the Lady of Spiders tipped Aelie onto the back of her hand.

  “Gently, gently,” she crooned. I squeezed Zaira’s other hand, my breath frozen with horror.

  The spider’s sharp fangs twitched, then sank into Zaira’s olive-bronze skin.

  “Holy Hells! Get it off get it off get it off!” Zaira cried, her voice rising to a higher pitch than I’d ever heard it.

  The Lady of Spiders scooped Aelie from Zaira’s hand and placed her in the window beside her chair with something like reverence. As soon as her wrist was free, Zaira shoved her chair back along the floor until it jerked to a stop against the hearthstone.

  She clutched her hand, eyes wide. “That hurts!”

  “I’m told it’s quite agonizing,” the Lady of Spiders said, calmly setting her chair to rocking. “Now, shhh. She begins.”

  A shadow fell over the room, as if clouds had covered the sun. I caught movement from the corners of my eyes.

  Like a wave creeping up the beach, an irregular tide of spiders scuttled down the walls. I bit my own knuckle to stifle a shriek as they descended with sinister, leggy grace like some horrid lacy curtain.

  They left an open circle at the bottom of Aelie’s window, all facing inward as if to watch her work with their excess of shining black eyes as the spider spun her web, working furiously. A dreamy smile spread over the Lady of Spiders’ pale round face. She rocked and hummed, like a knitting grandmother. My stomach clawed its way up into my rib cage.

  Zaira looked ready to faint; she doubled over, sweat glistening on her temples, and hissed out a string of curses. I offered her my hand, tentatively, and she crushed it in hers.

  The creaking of the rocking chair stopped. The Lady of Spiders leaned forward to peer at the web in the window, the silk of her gown rustling and swarming with glittering motion.

  “Ahhh,” she breathed. “And there you are.”

  The web formed three distinct concentric rings, each in a different pattern; the outermost was a rough and tangled weave of coarse, prickly threads. The Lady of Spiders reached out one hooked, slender finger and touched it.

  Zaira flinched as if she’d been struck. “What in the Nine Hells? I felt that!” Her eyes went wide and black like a frightened cat’s.

  “Now let’s unravel you,” the Lady of Spiders purred, “and see what you’re hiding.”

  Dread knotted my chest like Aelie’s web. We’d made a mistake, a terrible mistake; I’d sacrificed a friend again, and now something awful was going to happen. I started to surge from my chair, but Zaira yanked me back down.

  “I can do this,” she hissed.

  The Lady of Spiders cast an unreadable glance at Zaira. Then, with long sharp fingernails, she began to carefully separate the rough-spun outermost ring from the web.

  Zaira cried out in pain, as if those clawlike nails ripped her own insides.

  “No,” I blurted. “This is wrong. We shouldn’t do this, we can’t—”

  Aelie ran up her mistress’s arm to a dangling thread of her hair and settled back in her place of pride. The Lady of Spiders smiled sweetly and dropped the severed shred of web into her teacup.

  Zaira choked down a scream and swayed where she sat, her eyes squeezed shut. I held her up, glaring at the Lady of Spiders. “Stop this! We’ve changed our minds.”

  “I fear it’s far too late for that,” she said, her eyes dead shining black as she stirred her tea. With every circle of her spoon, shudders ran through Zaira’s thin frame.

  Shards of color flickered in the steam rising from the teacup, like broken glass. I caught the scent of smoke, and the crackling hiss of flames, as if her tea were somehow on fire. The Lady of Spiders lifted the cup to her lips, eyes half-closed, and savored the aroma.

  She took a sip, and Zaira stiffened in my arms.

  “Get out of my head, you pus-rotted sack of maggots,” she spat.

  “I’m just skimming the surface, child.” The Lady of Spiders licked flecks of tea from her lips. “So astringent.”

  “Zaira,” I began, my voice shaking, “if you don’t want—”

  Zaira whipped around to glare in my direction. Her mage mark stood out black as night against eyes hazed and unseeing.

  “When did you ever give a dead rat’s moldy bollocks about what I want?” she snarled. “You grew up pissing in a golden privy while I was eating garbage.”

  I froze, shocked as if she’d thrown ice water in my face. “I do care. You know I do.”

  “That’s just her mask.” The Lady of Spiders laughed, deep in her throat. “Let’s see what’s beneath it.”

  She set her cup down and reached for the web again. The second ring was entirely different, a confection of shining silken threads, the patterns intricate as artifice wirework. The Lady of Spiders tore it free with delicate pinches; Zaira twisted in agony at every snapped strand. The spiders on the walls converged on the window glass, crawling in closer around the web and plunging the room deeper into shadow. All I wanted was to drag Zaira out of there, unleash her power, and beg her to burn the whole house down until nothing was left but ashes.

  The Lady of Spiders held up the section of lacelike webbing, admiring it in the light. “Much more complex on the inside, aren’t we.” She laughed and dropped it in her tea. Zaira made no sound this time, but bit her lip until it bled.

  Now the hues that flickered in the steam were richer, warmer, like shades of summer sunlight and green fields. I thought I heard the faint sound of laughter; it sounded like Terika. The tea smelled of chocolate, cinnamon, and… dog? I wrink
led my nose.

  The Lady of Spiders took a sip. Zaira swayed, her eyes still remote as if she couldn’t see the room around us, and buried her face in her hands.

  “I can’t do it, Amalia,” she whispered.

  “You don’t have to. Let’s leave,” I said fervently, ready to spring to my feet.

  “She doesn’t know me,” Zaira groaned. “You saw what I did. I’m worse than a demon. I can’t ask Terika to marry that.”

  I hesitated. The Lady of Spiders was watching, her obsidian eyes amused. Her horrific pets swarmed the walls, trapping us in a dark cave of too many legs and eyes and a thousand kinds of secret poison. But the pain in Zaira’s voice was too real to ignore.

  I bent close to her ear. “Don’t underestimate Terika,” I whispered. “I thought you were smarter than that. Of course she knows you.”

  “Shouldn’t have let her get close.” Zaira’s voice dropped so low I almost couldn’t hear her. “You, too. Curse you both. Too much to lose.”

  I squeezed her hand. “Like it or not, you’re not alone anymore. And you can’t get rid of us, so you may as well like it.”

  “So sweet,” the Lady of Spiders sighed. “Plenty to work with here if anyone ever wanted to destroy you, child.”

  I whirled on her, pointing a finger that trembled with wrath. “If you dare come after our friends, Witch Lord, you’ll learn that we can protect them. Look to what lies outside Ardence if you harbor any doubt.”

  The Lady of Spiders clicked her tongue reprovingly. “Threatening a person’s loved ones is crass. I don’t do it. But I’ve dealt with those who do.”

  Her gleaming black eyes flicked to me, piercing me with cold. Ruven. I wasn’t sure how I was so certain, but she meant Ruven. She’d sold him something that could hurt us, and she was warning me.

  I didn’t have time to try to parse out what she might have told him. The steam rising from the tea had changed; it flickered with the unearthly blue light of balefire, and smelled of burning meat.

  The Lady of Spiders let out a pleased sigh. “And now we see what else you’ve been hiding, here in your darkest corners.”

  She sipped a mouthful despite the terrible stench, savoring it as if nothing tasted quite so fine as scorched human flesh. My stomach turned over.

  Zaira went rigid; a hiss like a cornered cat’s slid between her teeth.

  A sound filled the cottage, like faint and distant screaming. A chill penetrated deep into my bones. I knew those screams. They kept me awake at night.

  “My, my,” the Lady of Spiders said, her eyes closed as she breathed in the steam. “You’ve killed a lot of people. Let’s see, so many! An old woman… Was she dear to you?”

  Zaira groaned, her eyes squeezed shut, her lids flickering as if they strained to open but couldn’t.

  “She was like a second mother to her, so leave it alone,” I snapped.

  “She should have been more careful with the first one. Now, who’s this? A boy who tried to kiss you—well, he should have asked, no loss there. An old drunk who startled you when you were sleeping, and my, quite an assortment of petty street ruffians! The Wolf Lord, of course. Spectacular. And… Most impressive! An entire army.” She eased her eyes open to black, gleaming slits. “But there’s more,” she breathed.

  The faint screams had faded. A new sound rose with the steam: a sweet voice, singing softly. A lullaby.

  Zaira went still as death. “No,” she whispered.

  The Lady of Spiders took a sip, almost reverently. “And down, and down, into the darkness.” Her voice had grown lulling, mesmerizing, flowing like an ancient black river that disappeared into a cavern. A rustling filled the room, as the spiders on the walls and ornamenting her gown seethed with restless agitation. “What have you buried in such a deep grave, Lady Zaira, beneath a headstone marked with Love? What terror is this, that sings so sweetly?”

  “No,” Zaira said again, the word sliding out between clenched teeth.

  “A mother’s lullaby,” the Lady of Spiders hissed, her eyes narrowed to gleaming slits. “How much she must have loved you, little one, to hold you close while you screamed and spat at her. All that fuss because you didn’t want to take the potion she got from the Temple of Mercy to cure your pox.”

  I could only stare at Zaira’s sweat-drenched, pain-creased face in horror. I knew what came next. “Don’t say it,” I demanded, my fist clenching on my knee. “She knows what happened. Don’t rub salt in it.”

  “Is that why you killed them?” The Lady of Spiders sounded genuinely surprised. “Just because you didn’t want to take your medicine?”

  Zaira dug her fingers into her own face. Alarmed, I pulled them back, but she was strong. The tendons stood out in her thin wrists like iron cables.

  “But they burned so beautifully,” the Lady of Spiders sighed. “That was well done, at least.”

  “Leave her alone,” I growled. My own cheeks were wet, and helpless fury clogged my chest. “She didn’t do that. Her fire got out of control. It wasn’t her fault.”

  “Mmm.” The Lady of Spiders pressed her lips together, like a merchant unconvinced of the quality of goods I was selling. “Now, why were all these memories buried so deep, child? Why did you lock each and every killing away like that, so you couldn’t call them up even if you tried?”

  Zaira stayed curled in a tight ball, face in her knees, and didn’t respond. Anger at this woman who had delighted in tormenting her flooded me in a hot rising tide, and I heaved myself to my feet.

  “She doesn’t remember because she didn’t kill them!” I balled my hands into fists at my sides. “It was her balefire, not her! When she loses control, the fire takes over. Don’t try to make her out to be some murderer when she wasn’t even effectively conscious when any of this happened!”

  “Is that what you think?” The Lady of Spiders’ lips curved in a humorless smile. “Has she let you believe that? You are a scholar, Lady Amalia Cornaro. You know perfectly well that balefire has no mind of its own.”

  “I’ve seen it,” I insisted. “When it takes control, Zaira is gone. It’s hungry and wicked and—”

  “You shouldn’t talk about your friend that way,” the Lady of Spiders chided, shaking her head. “She can hear you, you know.”

  I whirled and knelt by Zaira again. “Then listen to me, Zaira, not to her. It wasn’t you who killed them. It was the fire. It wasn’t you.”

  Zaira hauled in a ragged breath. She pulled her head back and opened red eyes swamped with unshed tears. They were no longer distant, but hard, present, and haunted.

  “It was me,” she rasped.

  “No,” I insisted. “I’ve seen the change that comes over you in the moment you lose control. You’re not yourself anymore. The flame takes over.”

  “I am the flame, curse you.” She tipped her head back, uncurling, and ground the heels of her hands into her eyes. “Everything she said is true. I lose control of my fire in the way a brat with a temper gets lost in her own tantrum, or a wastrel gets lost in drink. It’s still me.”

  “But you change completely,” I protested. “You would never—”

  “Shut up,” Zaira growled. “You’re making it worse, idiot.” She glared at me. “Of course I change. It comes over me like a madness. Like a hot blue wave. But it’s still me.”

  The Lady of Spiders smiled serenely and pointed one tapered fingernail at the final, central circle of Aelie’s web. “Indeed.”

  My breath caught in my throat. It was beautiful. The silk shimmered pure and bright, catching all the colors of the light, and it formed a heartbreakingly perfect geometric design that unfolded from the center like a flower. There was something almost holy about it; it reminded me of the spectacular stained glass rose window in the Temple of Beauty in Raverra.

  The Lady of Spiders lifted it reverently in her hands. “I hate to destroy this,” she murmured. “But it was never meant to catch flies. You are a rare creature, Lady Zaira.”

  This time, when sh
e dropped it into the tea, Zaira’s eyes narrowed, but not with pain. A great hissing cloud of steam rose up all at once. The spiders on the window scuttled away from the few wispy remains of the web in a panic, and light flooded back into the room; the patterns on the Lady of Spiders’ dress writhed faster than ever.

  “Ah, well. I suspected as much,” she sighed, tipping her cup over.

  It was empty. The tea had boiled away to nothing, leaving not even dregs.

  I stared at Zaira, struggling to think what I could say that might help ease the devastation graven into her face. And then something slid into place, like a loose cuff fastened at last.

  “That’s why you didn’t burn down the city,” I breathed.

  Zaira blinked red-rimmed eyes at me in confusion. “What madness are you spouting now?”

  I gripped her shoulder. “Don’t you see?” Excitement bubbled up in my chest, and I had to swallow it down so I wouldn’t smile at her, not now, not when she was hurting so much. “Jerith was right. If it’s a part of you, you can control it. You have controlled it. That’s why your fire didn’t spread throughout Raverra when you lost command of it as a child, even though no one was there to put a jess on you. You stopped it.” I shook her shoulder gently, while she stared at me with deep suspicion. “Yes, you lost control and lashed out, as a child does. And it had terrible consequences, because you could do much more than hit or bite. But you came back, Zaira. Whatever place of divine violence your mind goes to when you unleash your fire, whatever state of transcendent madness and fury, you came back on your own.”

  Zaira’s brows drew together, throwing eddies into the shadows that haunted her face. But before she could reply, a soft, urgent rap sounded at the door.

  “If you’re done, I have news.” Kathe’s voice was subdued, as if he knew what he might be interrupting.

  Zaira rose, perhaps too hastily, as she had to reach for the mantel to steady herself. “Go piss yourself. I need a moment here.”

  “When you’re done, then,” he said through the muffling wood, “we’d best hurry. I have a report from a crow. Your challenge last night was quite effective, Amalia. Ruven is already closer than we thought, and heading this way.”