Dreaming Death

by J. Kathleen Cheney

  “You shouldn’t do this, Kai,” a woman’s voice said then.

  Shironne had been so caught up in the whirlwind of her cousin’s emotions that she’d not even noticed Kai had a companion. She could hear the unfamiliar woman walking behind them now that she focused on it. She hoped the woman would temper Kai’s recklessness.

  “I didn’t ask your opinion, Tova,” Kai said rudely.

  So much for that hope, Shironne thought. Tova had to be standing in for the missing Elisabet, Kai’s shadow now.

  Kai dragged her through the halls far more quickly than the runner had only a few minutes before. He hurried her up the stairs and through doorways until Shironne felt a touch of wind, surface air. The breeze caressed her face, warm enough now that it was afternoon. She had flagstone under her feet, so they were behind the palace. She could sense Mikael thinking, puzzling at something.

  “He’s in that direction,” she said, pointing without any orientation at all. She had no idea where they’d stopped, which made her uncomfortable. If Kai abandoned her, she’d be lost.

  Kai called out to someone, requesting that they bring around a coach. He pulled Shironne along with him, clearly intending to keep her with him until he actually found Elisabet. Shironne stumbled, only to be caught by the worried Tova. A coach approached, the team harnessed in record time, or else the palace kept them standing by. Kai paced while Tova apparently inspected the coach, and then he lifted Shironne up into it like a rag doll. He climbed up and sat down next to her. Tova entered last, closing the door carefully behind her, exuding a hint of panic.

  “Who are you?” Tova asked her after a moment of silence in which the coach began to roll out of the courtyard.

  Shironne almost answered before Kai’s hand descended on her arm to prevent her.

  “Don’t ask, Tova. What are they doing?” he asked Shironne instead, ignoring his guard.

  “I don’t know. Mr. Lee is thinking hard, but I can’t tell what about.”

  That answer appeared to be acceptable. “How much has he figured out?”

  “I can’t know what he knows,” Shironne protested. That isn’t true, though, is it?

  “Yes, you can.” His voice reflected no doubt. “Anything that’s in his head, you know. The more you’re around him the faster the barrier will fail. Damn, I should have figured it out as soon as I recognized you.”

  Recognized her? They hit a bump in the road and Shironne grabbed at his arm for balance. “What do you mean?”

  Kai seemed to consider her question. She felt his anger subside. He permitted her to keep her grip on his sleeve. “You have no idea what’s happened to you, do you?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Tell me,” she begged, hoping that Kai, in his sullen bluntness, might.

  “You’re the little girl from the fair. I was there. Mikael didn’t do it intentionally, you know. Your blood, his blood, it runs in both Houses. But the barrier between you will fail, and he’ll drown you out.” He said that last with regret, as if pronouncing a death sentence.

  “I’m not afraid of Mikael,” she insisted.

  Kai made a scoffing sound.

  “Why do you dislike him so much?”

  She knew she’d been incredibly rude the moment she said it. Hurt feelings welled up in him, quickly controlled, things she suspected he never said aloud. Shironne pulled off one of her gloves and laid her hand next to his, not quite touching. His mind responded with wariness, as if she’d offered him poison. Then she felt a light touch as his calloused fingers brushed over the back of her hand.

  She felt his pain in the whirling birds in his head. His thoughts flew past, all afraid to be touched or heard, for fear someone else might think him ungrateful, or spiteful, or undutiful. He tried so hard to please everyone, and in the end, no one was satisfied.

  Shironne kept her hand under his, snatching at all the disappointments in his life. Nothing ever goes the way I plan. I shouldn’t be the king’s heir. The king should have chosen Sera. Sera, at least, is Dahar’s child. Everyone knows that, just as everyone thinks I’m not.

  And Dahar wants Mikael to marry Sera. That would make Mikael his son after all. He’ll have the son he’d always wanted instead of the one his wife forced on him. Everything comes so easily to Mikael. Everyone loves him, even Shironne, and he’ll destroy her someday. Elisabet likes him, taking Mikael’s part in arguments, protecting him. She told him her secrets, ones she’s never admitted aloud to me . . .

  Kai held to Shironne’s hand in a strange sort of confessional, a sort of apology meant to be heard by Mikael as well. He’d never planned to cause trouble for Mikael, but he often had, his temper and jealousy getting the better of him.

  Overlying all was Kai’s fear that Elisabet would die, that he would never have another chance to convince her. He’d been in love with her since the first time he laid eyes on her, when he was only twelve and named the First of his yeargroup. But every time he thought she cared for him, in the next instant she would be cold and distant.

  “She won’t marry you,” Shironne whispered to him, not for Tova’s ears. The hand on hers tightened, anger flaring through the contact. “You’re the king’s heir and you can’t afford to be associated with her.”

  His mind turned that over, not mistaking her words. “Three years, little cousin, and still she won’t let me close to her. She doesn’t care for me.”

  “No, she does.” Shironne felt certain about that.

  “How would you know?” he asked, not allowing himself to believe.

  She thumbed through the pages of her memory, wondering where she’d found that knowledge. It was his, not hers—Mikael’s. She recalled Mikael talking to Elisabet in a common room, although she’d certainly not been there. “He knows, Kai.”

  Her cousin let go of her hand, taking away the myriad touches of his mind. Then she realized he’d kept from her what she’d originally asked.

  “What did you mean about me and Mr. Lee?” she asked.

  Kai repeated his earlier words. “You know what he knows.”

  “I heard the words the first time you said them. What do they mean?”

  “You’re bound to him. He knows what that means, but you’re a child.” He locked his emotions away, thinking fast about his plans, leaving her with only Tova’s worry to battle.

  Shironne took her hand from his arm and put her glove back on. She felt about until she located a hand strap. Exhausted, she leaned her head against the wall of the coach. She could ignore Tova for a time.

  She didn’t understand what Kai meant, although he appeared to think she should. The word bound meant something to him, something beyond ropes or chains. It had to do with her inability to completely shut Mikael out of her mind. The barrier between you will fail . . .

  She listened for Mikael. Shironne could almost hear him, fretting that Kai would hate having Tova as his guard if Elisabet died, that Kai could never forgive Tova for being the one who lived.

  • • •

  The sun began to set, the shadows stretching along the rooftop. They’d had a long, chilly afternoon. “Do you feel someone watching us?” Mikael asked, voicing the concern nibbling at his mind.

  “Yes,” Elisabet said. “But I can’t see them.”

  Mikael watched with sudden dismay as a coach turned into the alley north of the hotel and stopped near the stables. As he could see only the roof, he didn’t actually recognize the coach. He didn’t need to. He could tell Shironne was inside, even without seeing her.

  You shouldn’t have come here, he thought at Shironne. He sensed her regret and decided she hadn’t wanted to come. Mikael tapped Elisabet on the arm, and her eyes turned toward the stone pavement below.

  She shut her eyes and sighed. “I should have never left her in charge of him.”

  Tova must have given in to Kai’s demands, some
thing Elisabet would never have done. Tova stepped down from the coach and looked around. Kai didn’t wait for her permission. He jumped to the ground after her and then helped Shironne down.

  Mikael swore under his breath at Kai’s recklessness. He shoved his pistol in his sash. “I’ll go down and talk to him,” he told Elisabet.

  “Leave the access door open,” Elisabet ordered. Her eyes focused on the street below, her rifle trained on the pedestrians hurrying by.

  Mikael took the stairs at a run and strode through the red-draped lobby of the hotel, shouting a quick apology at the owner. He’d make amends later. He came down the front steps just as Kai and his companions emerged from the alleyway, about twenty feet away. Kai was hauling Shironne through the press of people on Cadij Street in Mikael’s direction. Tova followed a few steps behind, one hand to her pistol.

  He didn’t see the first blow fall, but people suddenly flooded off the sidewalk and into the path of oncoming vehicles. Screams erupted ahead of him. A rush of pedestrians trying to escape forced him back. Mikael struggled free of them just as a shot rang out, causing people far and near to scatter. A man in a brown tunic fell into the street—Elisabet’s work.

  No second shot came. Mikael finally shoved through, getting close enough to understand why. Kai stood motionless on the sidewalk. A well-dressed man stood next to him, one hand lifted almost casually to the side of Kai’s neck. Even from where he stood, Mikael could see the glint of metal in the fading light.

  Mikael studied the expression on Kai’s face. Kai knew he’d made a mistake and was trying to think his way out of this.

  Where is she? He couldn’t see Shironne at all. He could feel her fear, but his angle prevented him from seeing her, so he stepped closer. The man next to Kai turned and smiled at Mikael, a self-satisfied expression on his face. He looked Larossan, shorter than Kai by several inches, with light brown skin. His dark hair and dark eyes matched those of most of the other pedestrians, but Mikael recognized him. A frisson of Shironne’s remembered fear ran through him. Something beyond sight told him this was the man from his dreams—their killer priest.

  The man gazed serenely back at Mikael. He spoke, and Mikael watched as his lips moved, not comprehending the words, his admittedly limited grasp of Pedraisi failing him.

  “He says not to move,” Mikael heard Shironne call out. He craned his neck and spotted her several feet behind Kai’s captor, sprawled on the ground with Tova lying facedown halfway across her legs. A second man squatted near her, a knife in one hand and the other hand at her side, pressed against Shironne’s bruised cheek. Tova didn’t move, either unconscious or worse.

  Shironne’s face betrayed her fear. Mikael froze as it wrapped around him, tendrils of her terror snaking into his mind, making his stomach heave. He shut his eyes for a second, trying to calm his breathing and in turn to calm her.

  Tova was bleeding on her.

  Hot human blood soaked into her borrowed trousers, carrying with it all of Tova’s fading anguish and her fading life. It dragged at Shironne, and Mikael could feel it through her, the strength of blood far more powerful and personal than mere touch.

  Traffic on the street had halted completely, some people abandoning their carriages and coaches and taking refuge in the building entryways and behind stairs. Mikael could hear sobbing somewhere, and tortured breathing, which he suddenly determined came from the man lying in the street, the one Elisabet had shot.

  The priest spoke again.

  “He says you know what he wants. Don’t shoot again.” Shironne yelled. She was interpreting the priest’s words through her contact with her captor, Mikael realized.

  He took a step closer, no more than ten feet away then. Kai’s eyes met his, his face a mask of calm acceptance. The priest stared past Mikael toward the hotel, waiting for Elisabet.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Mikael counted the odds. The priest had two hostages. The object the man held to Kai’s neck wasn’t a knife. It looked more like a syringe. There was poison in the man’s hand, a poison strong enough to kill Iselin Lucas inside an hour.

  And Kai is expendable to them.

  Elisabet was their target, and once they had her, they didn’t need Kai. From the lack of concern the priest showed for his companion dying in the street, Mikael reckoned the other Pedraisi were expendable to him as well.

  He heard Elisabet coming down the steps behind him. He saw and felt Shironne’s cringe as the touch of the second man’s hand relayed his triumph at the sight of their quarry. Elisabet walked forward until she stood at Mikael’s side.

  “Get them out of here,” she whispered. She handed him her rifle, her eyes meeting the priest’s. Mikael wrapped his left hand around the rifle’s warm barrels, casting a quick glance at Elisabet. Her chin lifted. Only cold disdain showed on her face—no fear.

  Mikael turned his attention back to Kai just in time to read what Kai intended. “No!”

  It took only a slight movement to close the distance, Kai’s neck pressing into the syringe in the man’s hand. He gasped, then let his weight take him down to his knees, pulling the man off balance. The metal syringe hit the sidewalk and skittered away.

  Elisabet drew her pistol. The priest’s eyes turned in her direction, but he didn’t appear concerned as he slowly straightened. He drew a gun out of a pocket, pointed it at Kai, and spoke again.

  “Kai might live,” Shironne interpreted. “That’s true . . . or at least this man believes it.”

  But Family were more susceptible to poisons. After Iselin’s death, Kai knew that. He’d done his best to remove himself from the calculations. Damn him.

  The priest spoke again.

  “He says he can still kill him,” Shironne called out.

  Kai’s balance failed and he toppled to his side, unheeded now by his captor. The priest’s eyes locked with Elisabet’s. She met his gaze squarely, and he spoke directly to her.

  Shironne didn’t repeat it this time, her face paling.

  Mikael could feel her fear, coursing through his head as if it were his own. His heart raced. The priest had threatened to kill Shironne, and she’d refused to relay the threat. The man crouching next to her slapped her, hard.

  “There’s no need,” Elisabet said coolly, and handed Mikael her pistol. Her eyes flicked in his direction. “Take care of Kai. Get them all back to the fortress, Mr. Lee. Step back. Choose the right time. This is my responsibility. No one else should pay.”

  Elisabet walked away from him, stepping into the street. A man ran out of the alleyway, and the one guarding Shironne abandoned her to join him. Each took one of Elisabet’s arms, walking her away toward a coach that stood among the halted traffic.

  Choose the right time. The sparring advice repeated in his head. This wasn’t the moment, not with Kai barely breathing on the sidewalk. First priority had to go to him, Mikael knew, not Elisabet. The Anvarrid always came before Family, and Kai was the king’s heir apparent and a member of the Royal House. It didn’t matter what Kai wanted, or what Kai believed about himself.

  Mikael crouched down and laid the rifle on the ground.

  The priest began backing away toward the coach, his eyes watching the pistol in Mikael’s hand. He cast a quick glance at the man dying in the street and turned his gun toward Shironne. Pinned under Tova’s weight, she couldn’t escape him.

  Mikael raised the pistol, but the priest pointed his gun directly at Shironne’s head. Mikael stopped moving then. “Stay away from her!”

  No matter how poor a shot, he can’t miss at that range.

  Mikael watched, helpless, as the priest grabbed the back of Shironne’s jacket, dragged her out from under Tova’s body, and held her like a shield in front of him. He edged toward a coach that had lumbered into motion, approaching from the other side of the street. The legs of Shironne’s brown trousers were stained almost black with Tova’
s blood.

  Shironne’s terror beat around him, and Mikael did his best to ignore it. He began closing the distance, one cautious step at a time. Don’t do anything stupid, he warned her.

  Mikael stepped over Kai’s prone form.

  His eye on Mikael, the priest looped the hand with the gun around Shironne’s shoulder so that the gun touched the side of her head. The coach trundled nearer, within thirty feet now. The priest used his teeth to yank the glove off his other hand.

  As soon as Mikael saw it, Shironne began struggling. Her fear redoubled around him, a numbing haze, making his teeth hurt and his stomach turn.

  The priest slid the gun into his jacket and hooked his fingers into Shironne’s jacket. He held his bare hand only inches from her face, glanced at Mikael, and smiled. He had a much better threat now.

  Mikael stopped. Shironne went limp in the priest’s grasp, terror on her slack features. The coach drew to a halt only feet away from them.

  The priest looked at Mikael, his dark face unreadable . . . and touched his hand to Shironne’s cheek.

  She screamed, a cry that seemed to sound in Mikael’s head more than his ears. A sense of violation flooded through Mikael’s senses, just as horrifying as it had been the day before when it had been his own. The priest dug through Shironne’s mind, amused and leisurely about it.

  Unable to move, pinned in place by her terror, Mikael felt Shironne pushing him away from her, trying to protect him from the priest’s touch, to block him out. She closed her thoughts down into a box with sharp crystal edges. Her fear still hazed his mind, but Mikael could no longer sense anything beyond that.

  The priest backed the final few feet toward the coach, dragging a now-silent Shironne with him, and Mikael followed helplessly. They would take her with them. They would hold her hostage, knowing he would be helpless to do anything while she remained in their control. They would take her away from him.

  One of the men in the coach lowered the step and the priest shifted his grip on Shironne to lift her up. Shironne’s fear abruptly turned to fury, flinging Mikael free from the haze of her panic.